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Yesterday’s post began an exegesis of Matthew 25:31-46, the Gospel reading for Christ the King Sunday in Year A of the Lectionary; I covered verses 31 through 34.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 25:31-46
25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
25:32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
25:33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
25:35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
25:37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?
25:38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?
25:39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’
25:40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;
25:42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
25:43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
25:44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’
25:45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’
25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Picking up with verse 35 from the conclusion of our Lord’s Olivet Discourse, Jesus said that those entering the kingdom of heaven gave Him food when He was hungry, gave Him something to drink when He was thirsty and welcomed Him when He was a stranger.
He added that those same people gave him clothes when He was naked, cared for Him when He was sick and visited Him when He was in prison (verse 36).
Matthew Henry’s commentary explains what these acts of charity all have in common:
Now the good works here mentioned are such as we commonly call works of charity to the poor: not but that many will be found on the right hand who never were in a capacity to feed the hungry, or clothe the naked, but were themselves fed and clothed by the charity of others; but one instance of sincere obedience is put for all the rest, and it teaches us this in general, that faith working by love is all in all in Christianity; Show me thy faith by thy works; and nothing will abound to a good account hereafter, but the fruits of righteousness in a good conversation now. The good works here described imply three things, which must be found in all that are saved.
[1.] Self-denial, and contempt of the world; reckoning the things of the world no further good things, than as we are enabled to do good with them: and those who have not wherewithal to do good, must show the same disposition, by being contentedly and cheerfully poor. Those are fit for heaven that are mortified to the earth.
[2.] Love to our brethren; which is the second great commandment, the fulfilling of the law, and an excellent preparative for the world of everlasting love. We must give proof of this love by our readiness to do good, and to communicate; good wishes are but mockeries without good works, Jam 2 15, 16; 1 John 3 17. Those that have not to give, must show the same disposition some other way.
[3.] A believing regard to Jesus Christ. That which is here rewarded is the relieving of the poor for Christ’s sake, out of love to him, and with an eye to him. This puts an excellency upon the good work, when in it we serve the Lord Christ, which those may do that work for their own living, as well as those that help to keep others alive. See Eph 6 5-7. Those good works shall then be accepted which are done in the name of the Lord Jesus, Col 3 17.
Ultimately, those who show mercy to others in this life will receive mercy in the life to come:
I was hungry, that is, my disciples and followers were so, either by the persecutions of enemies for well-doing, or by the common dispensations of Providence; for in these things there is one event to the righteous and wicked: and you gave them meat. Note, First, Providence so variously orders and disposes of the circumstances of his people in this world, as that while some are in a condition to give relief, others need it. It is no new thing for those that are feasted with the dainties of heaven to be hungry and thirsty, and to want daily food; for those that are at home in God, to be strangers in a strange land; for those that have put on Christ, to want clothes to keep them warm; for those that have healthful souls, to have sickly bodies; and for those to be in prison, that Christ has made free. Secondly, Works of charity and beneficence, according as our ability is, are necessary to salvation; and there will be more stress laid upon them in the judgment of the great day, than is commonly imagined; these must be the proofs of our love, and of our professed subjection to the gospel of Christ, 2 Cor 9 13. But they that show no mercy, shall have judgment without mercy.
John MacArthur explains verse 35 in light of verse 34 and, as such, his analysis is slightly different to Henry’s:
… many people have sort of had difficulty with this passage, because they say, “Well, look, it says in verse 35 and 36 that they were – ‘You fed Me when I was hungry. You gave Me water when I was thirsty. You took Me in when I was a stranger. You clothed Me when I was partially clad. You visited Me when I was sick and you came to Me when I was prison.’ And doesn’t that teach salvation by works? Isn’t He saying you can come into the kingdom because of your philanthropy? You can come into the kingdom because of your basic human kindness? You can come into the kingdom because of all the social action that you were involved in? This seems rather problematic. Are people going to go into the kingdom because of their social orientation?” There’s far more to it than that, beloved, far more to it. And that’s all bound up in verse 34. People who get confused here somehow miss verse 34, because verse 34 makes it very clear the basis of their entrance into the kingdom. It’s extremely clear.
First of all, “Come” – here comes number one point – “ye blessed of My Father.” That emphasizes the source of their salvation. You are blessed of My Father. You are entering into the kingdom because My Father has determined to bless you. Here you have sovereign grace beautifully expressed. By the way, the phrase in the Authorized, “You blessed of My Father,” in the Greek literally says, “My Father’s blessed ones.” You are coming into My kingdom because God predetermined sovereignly to bless you. He redeemed you out of His sovereign love. So verse 34 expresses the innate reality of redemption and salvation and justification.
And then it says, “Come you who are the blessed who belong to My Father, inherit” – inherit, which implies something very important. You inherit something because you are born into a family. Right? It implies again that they belong to the family of God, to which you belong by faith. You inherit what is yours because by faith you have become a joint heir with Christ, if we can sort of borrow Paul’s thought in Romans 8. So you are the elect by sovereign grace, the chosen to be blessed by the Father. And you are those who inherit because you belong to the family by faith, you are sons of God. And so you see the source of salvation and you see the gift of salvation given to those who are the children of God.
Further it says, “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” And that again emphasizes the selectivity of salvation. When God prepared the kingdom it was for you that He prepared it. You were chosen; you were ordained to this; you are those whom the Father designed to love. So you have the source of salvation in the Father’s blessing, desire to bless, you have the reception of salvation in the faith that brings you into the inheritance, you have the selectivity of salvation in the fact that the kingdom was prepared for those people. Let me tell you something, whoever it was prepared for are going into it. God isn’t going to lose any and He knows who He prepared it for.
And then a further thought. It was prepared from the foundation of the world. Now that emphasizes the eternal covenant that God made with Himself to redeem a people selected before the foundation of the world. Who are these people going in? They’re not just people who got involved in social action. They’re not just people who did good deeds on the earth. These are those chosen from the foundation of the world by sovereign God to receive His grace and be blessed and who responded by faith and became His heirs in the family. And all of that soteriological richness is compacted in verse 34. And that can’t be missed, that can’t be missed. The good deeds mentioned in 35 and 36 are not the primary emphasis. The primary emphasis in identifying these people is in verse 34. The good deeds are the fruit of the redemption defined for us in such simple yet profound terms in verse 34. And the people who get confused by this passage get confused because they perhaps haven’t looked as closely as they ought to look at verse 34. And looking at verses 35 and 36 alone might provide some difficulty.
… So when He says, “Come in on this basis,” He is judging them according to their works but only insofar as their works are a manifestation of the redeeming act which God foreordained in their behalf.
… He is saying, “You come into My kingdom because you’re the chosen and it’s obvious that you’re the chosen because this is how you have lived.” And may I encourage you folks again in this passage as in so many other passages, the mark of salvation is always the same, it is manifest righteousness. And in this particular case, it is manifest righteousness revealed in one area and that is love – love – selfless love.
MacArthur says that the situations that Jesus mentioned were the prime areas of need in that era in that part of the world. Today’s are somewhat different in the West:
… in that culture, that’s what the need was. People could be hungry and have no food; they could be thirsty and need a drink. They could be strangers without a place to stay, ill clothed and needing proper clothing, sick and needing someone to come and attend to their sickness, in prison and needing someone to come and visit them there to find out why they were there and work to get them out. That’s what they needed in that day. Frankly, some of those needs still exist even in our day, but in our culture a lot of those needs are being met but people have a lot of other needs, a lot of other hurts, a lot of other problems, a lot of other anxieties. And He is saying you demonstrate to Me that you are people of the kingdom chosen by the Father because it is your objective to meet those needs. Well, that’s pretty straight stuff. In fact, He says you’ve done it to Me. The kingdom is for people who do that for Christ. That indicates there genuine salvation.
Jesus went on to say that the righteous will ask when it was that they saw Him hungry and gave Him food, saw Him thirsty and gave Him a drink (verse 37), saw Him as a stranger and welcomed Him, saw Him naked and gave Him clothing (verse 38), saw Him sick or in prison and visited Him (verse 39).
MacArthur continues with his point about verse 34:
Verse 37, now watch this, “Then shall the righteous answer Him saying” – stop there for a minute. Who answered Him? The good deeders, the good doers, the philanthropists, the social activists? Then answered Him – who? – the righteous. And that is not just forensic. That is it’s not just declared righteousness, it’s real righteousness. It’s imputed righteousness. And here again we are reminded that the reason these people do this is because they are made righteous in Christ. And this is the outflow of that miracle. It’s the righteous, it’s the blessed of the Father, it’s the inheritors of the kingdom, it’s the predetermined and foreordained who demonstrate their righteousness in good deeds. And they say, “Lord, when saw we Thee hungry and fed Thee or thirsty and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a stranger and took Thee in or naked and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee sick or in prison and came unto Thee?” They say, “Wait a minute, You haven’t even been here. When did we do that to You? When was that that we did that? When were we ever so generous to You?”
And the King — Jesus Christ — will answer them, saying that whatever they did to the least of the members of His human family, they did to Him (verse 40).
MacArthur says that relates to the Christian family:
Who are His brethren? Well, Hebrews 2:11 and 12 says He’s not ashamed to call us who believe His brethren. I believe He’s referring to the redeemed people. I believe He is simply saying this, “Whatever you do to meet the need of a fellow Christian, you do to Me.” Is that not right? Because, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,” 1 Corinthians 6:17. “Nevertheless I live, yet Christ lives in me,” Galatians 2:20. Paul celebrates that again and again, we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Christ is in His people. What is done to me as a Christian is done to Him. He is so intimately identified with me.
Back in Matthew 18 He says, “When you receive one such little child,” Matthew 18 – I think it’s 4 and 5 there – “When you receive one such little child in My name, you receive Me.” And He means there not a physical child but a spiritual child. When you receive another believer and you open your arms and you meet their need and you embrace them and you take them in and you strengthen them and you encourage or you help them or whatever, you accept them, you do it to Christ. Whatever you do to another believer, you do to Christ. That’s the bottom line. That’s the simple yet profound truth that the Lord is endeavoring to communicate. Whatever you do to a fellow believer, you do to Christ. It’s that simple. And that is a truth that is oft indicated in the texts of Scripture. “He that receiveth you,” Matthew 10:40 says, “receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me.” Boy that’s another dimension. When you open your arms to a fellow believer, you’re receiving Christ. And when you’re receiving Christ, you’re receiving the Father whom Christ represents. It’s a tremendous thought. What you do to another believer is what you do to Christ.
Then He will say to those at His left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’ (verse 41).
Henry explains:
It was a disgrace to be set on the left hand; but that is not the worst of it, he shall say to them, Depart from me, ye cursed. Every word has terror in it, like that of the trumpet at mount Sinai, waxing louder and louder, every accent more and more doleful, and exclusive of comfort.
[1.] To be so near to Christ was some satisfaction, though under his frowns; but that will not be allowed, Depart from me. In this world they were often called to come to Christ, to come for life and rest, but they turned a deaf ear to his calls; justly therefore are they bid to depart from Christ, that would not come to him. “Depart from me the Fountain of all good, from me the Saviour, and therefore from all hope of salvation; I will never have any thing more to say to you, or do with you.” Here they said to the Almighty, Depart from us; then he will choose their delusions, and say to them, Depart from me. Note, It is the hell of hell to depart from Christ.
[2.] If they must depart, and depart from Christ, might they not be dismissed with a blessing, with one kind and compassionate word at least? No, Depart, ye cursed, They that would not come to Christ, to inherit a blessing, must depart from him under the burthen of a curse, that curse of the law on every one that breaks it, Gal 3 10. As they loved cursing, so it shall come unto them. But observe, The righteous are called the blessed of my Father; for their blessedness is owing purely to the grace of God and his blessing, but the wicked are called only ye cursed, for their damnation is of themselves. Hath God sold them? No, they have sold themselves, have laid themselves under the curse, Isa 50 1.
[3.] If they must depart, and depart with a curse, may they not go into some place of ease and rest? Will it not be misery enough for them to bewail their loss? No, there is a punishment of sense as well as loss; they must depart into fire, into torment as grievous as that of fire is to the body, and much more. This fire is the wrath of the eternal God fastening upon the guilty souls and consciences of sinners that have made themselves fuel for it. Our God is a consuming fire, and sinners fall immediately into his hands, Heb 10 31; Rom 2 8, 9.
[4.] If into fire, may it not be some light or gentle fire? No, it is prepared fire; it is a torment ordained of old, Isa 30 33. The damnation of sinners is often spoken of as an act of the divine power; he is able to cast into hell. In the vessels of wrath he makes his power known; it is a destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. In it shall be seen what a provoked God can do to make a provoking creature miserable.
[5.] If into fire, prepared fire, O let it be but of short continuance, let them but pass through fire; no, the fire of God’s wrath will be an everlasting fire; a fire, that, fastening and preying upon immortal souls, can never go out for want of fuel; and, being kindled and kept burning by the wrath of an immortal God, can never go out for want of being blown and stirred up; and, the streams of mercy and grace being for ever excluded, there is nothing to extinguish it. If a drop of water be denied to cool the tongue, buckets of water will never be granted to quench this flame.
[6.] If they must be doomed to such a state of endless misery, yet may they not have some good company there? No, none but the devil and his angels, their sworn enemies, that helped to bring them to this misery, and will triumph over them in it. They served the devil while they lived, and therefore are justly sentenced to be where he is, as those that served Christ, are taken to be with him where he is. It is terrible to lie in a house haunted with devils; what will it be then to be companions with them for ever? Observe here, First, Christ intimates that there is one that is the prince of the devils, the ring-leader of the rebellion, and that the rest are his angels, his messengers, by whose agency he supports his kingdom. Christ and his angels will in that day triumph over the dragon and his, Rev 12 7, 8. Secondly, The fire is said to be prepared, not primarily for the wicked, as the kingdom is prepared for the righteous; but it was originally intended for the devil and his angels. If sinners make themselves associates with Satan by indulging their lusts, they may thank themselves if they become sharers in that misery which was prepared for him and his associates. Calvin notes upon this, that therefore the torment of the damned is said to be prepared for the devil and his angels, to cut off all hope of escaping it; the devil and his angels are already made prisoners in the pit, and can worms of the earth think to escape?
Jesus will give sinners the reasons why: when He hungered, they gave Him no food; when He was thirsty, they gave him no drink (verse 42).
When He was a stranger, they did not welcome Him; when He was naked, they clothed Him not; when He was sick and in prison, they did not visit (verse 43).
This is where the sins of omission come in.
MacArthur says simply:
In other words, you never demonstrated the love of God, which is the mark of the manifestation of His presence. You never revealed a changed life. You never showed love for the brethren. He’s not talking about the milk of human kindness, you never gave yourself away to meet the needs of other redeemed people.
Jesus, the King, will answer those at His left hand: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me’ (verse 45).
Henry analyses this verse and the preceding ones:
2.) The reason of this sentence assigned. God’s judgments are all just, and he will be justified in them. He is Judge himself, and therefore the heavens shall declare his righteousness.
Now, [1.] All that is charged upon them, on which the sentence is grounded, is, omission; as, before, the servant was condemned, not for wasting his talent, but for burying it; so here, he doth not say, “I was hungry and thirsty, for you took my meat and drink from me; I was a stranger, for you banished me; naked, for you stripped me; in prison, for you laid me there:” but, “When I was in these distresses, you were so selfish, so taken up with your own ease and pleasure, made so much of your labour, and were so loth to part with your money, that you did not minister as you might have done to my relief and succour. You were like those epicures that were at ease in Zion, and were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph,” Amos 6 4-6. Note, Omissions are the ruin of thousands.
[2.] It is the omission of works of charity to the poor. They are not sentenced for omitting their sacrifices and burnt-offerings (they abounded in these, Ps 50 8), but for omitting the weightier matter of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. The Ammonites and Moabites were excluded the sanctuary, because they met not Israel with bread and water, Deut 23 3, 4. Note, Uncharitableness to the poor is a damning sin. If we will not be brought to works of charity by the hope of reward, let us be influenced by fear of punishment; for they shall have judgment without mercy, that have showed no mercy. Observe, He doth not say, “I was sick, and you did not cure me; in prison, and you did not release me” (perhaps that was more than they could do); but, “You visited me not, which you might have done.” Note, Sinners will be condemned, at the great day, for the omission of that good which it was in the power of their hand to do. But if the doom of the uncharitable be so dreadful, how much more intolerable will the doom of the cruel be, the doom of persecutors! Now this reason of the sentence is:
First, Objected against by the prisoners (v. 44); Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst? Condemned sinners, though they have no plea that will bear them out, will yet in vain offer at excuses. Now. 1. The manner of their pleading bespeaks their present precipitation. They cut it short, as men in haste; when saw we thee hungry, or thirsty, or naked? They care not to repeat the charge, as conscious to themselves of their own guilt, and unable to bear the terrors of the judgment. Nor will they have time allowed them to insist upon such frivolous pleas; for it is all (as we say) but “trifling with the court.” 2. The matter of their plea bespeaks their former inconsideration of that which they might have known, but would not till now that it was too late. They that had slighted and persecuted poor Christians, would not own that they had slighted and persecuted Christ: no, they never intended any affront to him, nor expected that so great a matter would have been made of it. They imagined it was only a company of poor, weak, silly, and contemptible people, who made more ado than needed about religion, that they put those slights upon; but they who do so, will be made to know, either in the day of their conversion, as Paul, or of their condemnation, as these here, that it was Jesus whom they persecuted. And, if they say, Behold, we knew it not: doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? Prov 24 11, 12.
Secondly, Justified by the Judge, who will convince all the ungodly of the hard speeches spoken against him in those that are his, Jude 15. He goes by this rule (v. 45); Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. Note, What is done against the faithful disciples and followers of Christ, even the least of them, he takes as done against himself. He is reproached and persecuted in them, for they are reproached and persecuted for his sake, and in all their afflictions he is afflicted. He that touches them, touches him in a part no less tender than the apple of his eye.
MacArthur also discusses the sins of omission here and in the preceding parables of the Parable of the Ten Virgins and the Parable of the Talents:
People are saved because they’re chosen by God. They’re damned because of what they don’t do. They’re saved because they’re the blessed of the Father, chosen before the foundation of the world to inherit. They’re damned because of what they don’t do.
You remember the virgins? It didn’t say, “And five virgins went into the wedding and five were shut out for being vile, immoral, ugly, gross, evil, wretched sinners.” No, it wasn’t what they did that left them out, it was what they didn’t do. They didn’t get any oil. The point there was that they didn’t have oil. It was something they didn’t have, they didn’t do. Not something they did that damned them. There’s nothing you can do in terms of sin. No matter how gross that sin is that results in your damnation, it’s what you don’t do. It’s the failure to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s the same with the servant. The third one who got one talent, it wasn’t what he did, it was what he didn’t do. He just buried it and paid no attention to it that damned him and sent him to outer darkness.
The virgins weren’t vile they were just negligent. And the servant wasn’t immoral, he just did nothing. And people are damned to hell by what they don’t do. And what they don’t do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the absence of righteousness. It is the absence of the love of God that comes through faith in Christ. It is the absence of those kind of deeds that demonstrate righteousness and demonstrate God’s love. It is the absence of the sin of – it is the presence of the sin of unbelief, the absence of faith.
Jesus concluded by saying that the unrighteous will go away to eternal punishment, while the righteous enter into eternal life (verse 45).
Note the words ‘eternal punishment’ in that verse.
Henry says:
Execution is the life of the law, and Christ will take care that that be done according to the sentence.
1. The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment. Sentence will then be executed speedily, and no reprieve granted, nor any time allowed to move in arrest of judgment. The execution of the wicked is first mentioned; for first the tares are gathered and burned. Note, (1.) The punishment of the wicked in the future state will be an everlasting punishment, for that state is an unalterable state. It can neither be thought that sinners should change their own natures, nor that God should give his grace to change them, when in this world the day of grace was misspent, the Spirit of grace resisted, and the means of grace abused and baffled. (2.) The wicked shall be made to go away into that punishment; not that they will go voluntarily, no, they are driven from light into darkness; but it bespeaks an irresistible conviction of guilt, and a final despair of mercy.
2. The righteous shall go away into life eternal; that is, they shall inherit the kingdom, v. 34. Note, (1.) Heaven is life, it is all happiness. The life of the soul results from its union with God by the mediation of Jesus Christ, as that of the body from its union with the soul by the animal spirits. The heavenly life consists in the vision and fruition of God, in a perfect conformity to him, and an immediate uninterrupted communion with him. (2.) It is eternal life. There is no death to put a period to the life itself, nor old age to put a period to the comfort of it, or any sorrow to embitter it. Thus life and death, good and evil, the blessing and the curse, are set before us, that we may choose our way; and so shall our end be.
MacArthur concludes:
So our Lord brings His sermon to an end with a warning. Yes, He’s coming. When is He coming? We don’t know the exact moment. Men should be ready at all times because irreversible judgment will occur when He comes. On the one hand will be the sheep who have embraced the Savior and been made righteous and have received the love of God which they manifest. On the other hand are the goats, not made righteous, not possessors of the love of God, therefore unable to manifest it. They are set apart. The sheep come into the kingdom. The goats are destroyed from the earth to eternal punishment.
That’s the choice of every soul. That’s how eternity will be, just two places. And every person whoever lives on the face of the earth will be in one or the other. You will. And it may not be just the issue of what you do, your deeds will damn you. But they need not. It’s what you don’t do. It’s a refusal to come to Christ that ultimately pronounces the final curse. So the message of our Lord is, “I’m coming in glory to set up My kingdom. I want to bring into the kingdom those who believe in Me.” That’s the cry.
Let no one say that Jesus never talked about hell or eternal punishment. He did — and more than once. We should pay attention to what He said during His ministry. Ignoring His warnings, especially when encouraged to do so by theologians, is some of Satan’s finest work.
Christ the King Sunday marks the end of the Church year.
Next Sunday is the first in the season of Advent. In denominations where vestments are worn, these will be either purple or a deep blue. We will also begin a new Lectionary year, in this case, Year B.
Forbidden Bible Verses will appear tomorrow.
Christ the King — or Reign of Christ — Sunday is on November 26, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here.
The readings will be familiar to churchgoers and other students of the Bible. The first reading from Ezekiel 34 concerns God’s promise to the people of Israel that David will be their shepherd. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is the earthly son of David, so that promise extends eternally through Him. Psalm 95 extols God as Creator and acknowledges that ‘we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand’. The Epistle, taken from Ephesians 1 reminds us that Christ reigns in glory forever and ever.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 25:31-46
25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
25:32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
25:33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
25:35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
25:37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?
25:38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?
25:39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’
25:40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;
25:42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
25:43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
25:44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’
25:45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’
25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This reading, about our Lord’s Second Coming in glory and judgement, concludes His Olivet Discourse, which began in Matthew 24.
Unfortunately, Matthew 24 is excluded from the Lectionary, but you can read about it in the link below:
Matthew 24:1-36 – false Messiahs, war, natural disaster, end of the world, Second Coming
Jesus tells us to expect war and natural disasters, which must occur before the end of the world. However, He tells us not to be troubled by them. He also warns us against false Christs, by whom many will be deceived. Also see Mark 13.
Over the past two Sundays, we had parables about sins of omission in Matthew 25 — the Parable of the Ten Virgins and the Parable of the Talents — which prevent people from entering the kingdom of heaven.
Today’s Gospel reading is, Matthew Henry says:
… a description of the process of the last judgment in the great day. There are some passages in it that are parabolical; as the separating between the sheep and the goats, and the dialogues between the judge and the persons judged: but there is no thread of similitude carried through the discourse, and therefore it is rather to be called a draught or delineation of the final judgment, than a parable; it is, as it were, the explanation of the former parables.
Over the past few centuries, some theologians have written about hell. Some say it is only a temporary place and that everyone there will eventually go to heaven. Others say that hell does not exist at all.
Interestingly, Jesus spoke more about hell than the writers of the Epistles. If we cannot believe Jesus, who can we believe? These theologians? I doubt it.
Children and adults new to the faith might well ask why God created hell. God created hell for Satan and his angels but also for those who persist in sin.
God hates sin.
Detractors from the Bible often complain that ‘it’s so bloody’. Yes, it is. That is how much God hates sin. He demanded blood sacrifices from His chosen people in the Old Testament and the supreme, all-sufficient blood sacrifice took place when His Son, our Lord, died on the cross.
Hebrews 9 and 10 explains more — and these two passages should answer everyone’s questions about God’s hatred of sin:
Hebrews 9:16-23 – blood, sacrifice
The author establishes that death and blood sacrifice was always essential in the covenants God made with man. Although they continued, there was no need for further ritual sacrifices once Jesus died on the Cross. His death brought us directly into the presence of God through belief in Him. His death absolved us of our sins, something which the old sacrifices could not.
Hebrews 10:1-3 – Christ’s blood sacrifice one and sufficient, Jesus, God, sin, forgiveness
Jesus’s death on the Cross was the one, sufficient oblation — work/sacrifice — for our sins. No Old Testament — Old Covenant — blood sacrifice could compare to His, because only His death took away the debt of our sins. The Old Testament animal blood sacrifices were merely a represenation of the promise to come with regard to salvation.
At the Second Coming, for those who are alive then, and at our deaths, which is the more likely event, divine judgement takes place.
John MacArthur explains:
Judgment is inevitable for sin. There is no question about that.
In fact in Romans 1 we have a very familiar statement in verse 18 which sums it up, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Not some, but all. The wrath of God is revealed against all of it. In Romans 2:9 it says, “tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile.” No one escapes judgment on sin.
You say, what about Christians? Well, Christians have the marvelous privilege of having their judgment placed upon the substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. Their sin is judged. Your sin is judged even if you’re a believer. By God’s marvelous grace and your act of faith in Jesus Christ, you become one of those whose sin is judged in Christ. For those who wonder why Jesus died on a cross, that’s it. He died there bearing the sins of the world. He carried guilt and sin which was not His own but had to be paid for, and therefore when a person puts his faith in Christ by God’s design, his debt is thereby paid in that very act of Christ. On the other hand, for the world of people who do not receive Jesus Christ, who do not accept His lordship and His atonement for their sin, they themselves will bear the punishment for their own sin. So the world wide, people make a choice. They make a choice between receiving Christ as the one who paid the penalty or paying the penalty themselves. That is the simple decision that faces every soul.
And the warnings of Scripture come again and again and again and again to those who do not come to God, who do not come for forgiveness, who do not trust in the work of Christ. The warning is over and over given to them that they will die in their own sin, having to pay the penalty for it. God has warned not only in word but He has warned in very vivid judgment.
Henry points out that even the pagans of the ancient world believed in a penalty after death for a life poorly lived:
Even the heathen had some notion of these different states of good and bad in the other world. Cicero in his Tusculan Questions, lib. 1, brings in Socrates thus speaking, Duæ sunt viæ, duplicesque cursus è corpore exeuntium: nam qui se vitiis humanis contaminarunt, et libidinibus se tradiderunt, iis devium quoddam iter est, seclusum à consilio deorum; qui autem se integros castosque servarunt, quibusque fuerit minima cum corporibus contagio, suntque in corporibus humanis vitam imitati deorum, iis ad illos a quibus sunt profecti facile patet reditus—Two paths open before those who depart out of the body. Such as have contaminated themselves with human vices, and yielded to their lusts, occupy a path that conducts them far from the assembly and council of the gods; but the upright and chaste, such as have been least defiled by the flesh, and have imitated, while in the body, the gods, these find it easy to return to the sublime beings from whom they came.
About death, MacArthur says:
… the death of anyone is the final moment for them. That is the equivalent of the second coming. When a man or a woman dies, immediately the decision of their eternity is sealed and disposition is made. It is appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment. So judgment as seen here at the second coming of Christ will be just for those people who are still alive when He returns. Those who have already died have already faced the inevitability of irreversible judgment. Whenever a person dies, their eternity is fixed either in heaven or in hell. Those who are still alive, who have survived all the rest of the events of the tribulation at the coming of Christ must then be judged – some to be taken into the kingdom, some to be shut out. And that is the judgment that we see here, the final judgment. And all people at all times need to be ready should that hour come in their generation.
Jesus, referring to Himself as the Son of Man, said that when He comes in His glory, with all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory (verse 31).
Henry says that it will be like nothing mankind can imagine:
3. Christ’s appearing to judge the world will be splendid and glorious. Agrippa and Bernice came to the judgment-seat with great pomp (Acts 25 23); but that was (as the original word is) great fancy. Christ will come to the judgment-seat in real glory: the Sun of righteousness shall then shine in his meridian lustre, and the Prince of the kings of the earth shall show the riches of his glorious kingdom, and the honours of his excellent majesty; and all the world shall see what the saints only do now believe—that he is the brightness of his Father’s glory. He shall come not only in the glory of his Father, but in his own glory, as mediator: his first coming was under a black cloud of obscurity; his second will be in a bright cloud of glory. The assurance Christ gave his disciples of his future glory, might help to take off the offence of the cross, and his approaching disgrace and suffering.
4. When Christ comes in his glory to judge the world, he will bring all his holy angels with him. This glorious person will have a glorious retinue, his holy myriads, who will be not only his attendants, but ministers of his justice; they shall come with him both for state and service. They must come to call the court (1 Thess 4 16), to gather the elect (ch. 24 31), to bundle the tares (ch. 13 40), to be witnesses of the saints’ glory (Luke 12 8), and of sinners’ misery, Rev 14 10.
5. He will then sit upon the throne of his glory. He is now set down with the Father upon his throne; and it is a throne of grace, to which we may come boldly; it is a throne of government, the throne of his father David; he is a priest upon that throne: but then he will sit upon the throne of glory, the throne of judgment. See Dan 7 9, 10. Solomon’s throne, though there was not its like in any kingdom, was but a dunghill to it. Christ, in the days of his flesh, was arraigned as a prisoner at the bar; but at his second coming, he will sit as a judge upon the bench.
MacArthur explains why Jesus referred to Himself as Son of Man:
Reason number one was that it confirmed His humiliation. It affirmed that it was an incarnation, that God had come all the way to being man. It was an affirmation of incarnation, of submissiveness, of the servant heart, the servant spirit, of coming not to be ministered unto but to minister and give His life. He became one of us. And Son of Man emphasized His condescension, His humiliation, His identification, His understanding, His sympathy with men. He became what we are. That was one reason He used it.
The second reason that I believe this was a good choice and common to our Lord’s use was that it tended to be less offensive then if He were to call Himself Son of God all the time. If He were to call Himself Son of God constantly, He would have created more hostility than He did, at least initially. Calling Himself Son of God continually in front of the Jewish leaders would have fomented problems beyond the problems He had. And of course, as you well know, after three years of ministry they finally took His life with great hostility. It’s very likely that had He continually called Himself Son of God, the whole plan could have been brought to a halt a lot earlier and things that God had intended to accomplish would not have been accomplished. And of course that kind of conjecture is only conjecture since He didn’t call Himself Son of God but may explain to us some reason why He didn’t.
Thirdly, if He had called Himself continually Son of God, not only would His rejectors have been more angry, but His friends might have been more pushy. Had He called Himself Son of God or had He even called Himself King, had He called Himself all the time Messiah, there would have been even a greater pressure put upon Him by the people to take over the kingdom, to take over and rule, to dominate, to overthrow the Romans. So I believe Son of Man was the lowest title, the lowest profile that Jesus could take. It is a denial of any significant title. It is simply saying, “I’m one of you. I’m a son of man.” That’s all. It is true He was also Son of God; it is true He was also King of Kings; but had He paraded those things outwardly, it would have changed the whole series of events. And so He communicates Himself as Son of Man to emphasize His humiliation and identification, to deflect hostility and to deflect those who would force Him to become a King, as obviously many wished to do and even tried to do in Galilee.
There’s another reason. I think He chose to use Son of Man because it provides such a profound contrast to the titles that He will have when He comes in His glory. And it helps us to understand the distinction between the first and second coming of Christ. It provides a marvelous contrast, which contrast is pointed up to us here in Matthew chapter 25. Notice verse 31, He calls Himself Son of Man; then in verse 34, “Then shall the King;” in … verse 40 … “And the King shall answer.” It isn’t long now in this particular message before He turns from Son of Man to King. But He starts out with Son of Man so that they might know who the King is. Right? If He just said, “When the King shall come,” somebody might say, “Well, it’s other than Him.” So He says, “When the Son of Man comes, then will the King say” – and He affirms that He is both Son of Man and King. Son of Man, humble, condescending, humiliated; King, glorious, sovereign, reigning, judging, establishing His kingdom. And so here He turns a corner. Beloved, this is very, very significant. He does not call Himself King up to this point. He tells a parable about a King’s son. He tells a parable about a King who is God the Father. But now He calls Himself King. It’s time to talk about His return. It’s time to talk about His reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It’s time to look beyond humiliation and beyond condescension and see the one who will come in blazing glory. So the emphasis is on the kingship.
And may I remind you, too, that He’s talking, as 24:3 tells us, privately to His disciples – privately to His disciples. He maintained the privacy of His message about Kingship. Even when Pilate later on said to Him, “Are You a king? Are You a king?” He was reluctant to respond and simply said, “You said it. You said it.” Now that is not to say that the people didn’t get the message, because when He was crucified they put a sign over Him that said what? “Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews.” They knew He claimed that. But He did not antagonize them and He did not strike a constant chord in the hearts of the political zealots by referring to Himself as king. He downplayed it and called Himself Son of Man. That is not to say He was not King but that He was judicious in calling Himself by that title.
All the nations will be gathered before Him and he will separate people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (verse 32).
He will put the sheep at His right hand and the goats at the left (verse 33).
MacArthur explains at length that Matthew wanted his Gospel to convey that Jesus is the Messiah, the King of Kings. The mention of sheep and goats is part of this:
Now let me just mention that this particular judgment of the sheep and goats, though it’s given a tremendous amount of space in Matthew, appears in no other gospel. Mark, Luke, and John don’t deal with it. It isn’t because it’s not significant, it is highly significant. And the repetition of a given passage in the gospels doesn’t necessarily comment on its importance. It does tell us, however, something about the purpose of the author. Mark’s purpose was not to present Christ as King. Luke’s purpose was not particularly to emphasize Christ’s Kingship either and neither was John’s. The gospel which is intended to present Christ as King is Matthew. And that is why the great emphasis of the second coming comes in the gospel of Matthew because Matthew is wanting to present to us the triumph of the regal King, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is why Matthew is the one chosen to give this passage.
Let me just remind you of Matthew’s emphasis. Matthew has focused primarily on Jesus as the King – King of Israel, King of glory, the one with the right to rule, the majestic one, the regal one. That has been his emphasis. And it falls into three basic categories. First of all, Matthew treats the King revealed – the King revealed. In other words, as the person of Christ unfolds in Matthew, He unfolds as a regal person. Whereas Mark treats Him as human; Mark emphasizes His humanity; and Luke talks about His servanthood; and John emphasizes His deity. Matthew’s emphasis is on His royal character, His Kingship.
MacArthur adds that sheep and goats have different temperaments, which is why shepherds separate them:
… the subjects of judgment, verse 32, all the peoples, all the ethnē, all the ethnic groups, everybody all around the world that’s still alive.
And now we want to look … at the process of judgment, how does this judgment occur? Well, notice verse 32 says all the nations are gathered, all the peoples are gathered, everybody from everywhere all over the earth that’s still alive is brought into Jerusalem and He separates one from another. He separates them into two groups, analogous to a shepherd dividing his sheep from his goats. Shepherds do that in that land. If you ever go there, even to this very day – I was there a few months ago and saw it again – you see mixed herds of sheep and goats all over the hillsides. Shepherds divide them. They divide them very often for feeding and they divide them very often for resting. They move them together and then separate them. And that is necessary because sheep and goats do not feed well together and they do not rest well together. And the reason being the sheep are basically docile, gentle, easily led and easily scared. The goats are unruly, rambunctious and almost fearless, and they create all kinds of problems for the sheep. And so a separation needs to be made.
And in the same way that a shepherd would sort his sheep from his goats, so the Lord Jesus Christ, in His coming, will separate believers from unbelievers.
At this point, anyone whose souls are at rest with God — the sheep — will receive a glorified body:
Believers, to be taken into His kingdom to join the glorified saints out of the Old Testament, tribulation, and the church who are going to be there in glorified form with new bodies fit for earth and heaven. He’s going to take those who are living, who are represented here as sheep into His kingdom as well. The goats are put out of His kingdom.
Henry says:
II. The appearing of all the children of men before him (v. 32); Before him shall be gathered all nations. Note, The judgment of the great day will be a general judgment. All must be summoned before Christ’s tribunal; all of every age of the world, from the beginning to the end of time; all of every place on earth, even from the remotest corners of the world, most obscure, and distant from each other; all nations, all those nations of men that are made of one blood, to dwell on all the face of the earth.
III. The distinction that will then be made between the precious and the vile; He shall separate them one from another, as the tares and wheat are separated at the harvest, the good fish and the bad at the shore, the corn and chaff in the floor. Wicked and godly here dwell together in the same kingdoms, cities, churches, families, and are not certainly distinguishable one from another; such are the infirmities of saints, such the hypocrisies of sinners, and one event to both: but in that day they will be separated, and parted for ever; Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, Mal 3 18. They cannot separate themselves one from another in this world (1 Cor 5 10), nor can any one else separate them (ch. 13 29); but the Lord knows them that are his, and he can separate them. This separation will be so exact, that the most inconsiderable saints shall not be lost in the crowd of sinners, nor the most plausible sinner hid in the crowd of saints (Ps 1 5), but every one shall go to his own place. This is compared to a shepherd’s dividing between the sheep and the goats; it is taken from Ezek 34 17, Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle. Note, 1. Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd; he now feeds his flock like a shepherd, and will shortly distinguish between those that are his, and those that are not, as Laban divided his sheep from Jacob’s, and set three days’ journey between them, Gen 30 35, 36. 2. The godly are like sheep—innocent, mild, patient, useful: the wicked are like goats, a baser kind of animal, unsavoury and unruly. The sheep and goats are here feeding all day in the same pasture, but will be coted at night in different folds. Being thus divided, he will set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left, v. 33. Christ puts honour upon the godly, as we show respect to those we set on our right hand; but the wicked shall rise to everlasting shame, Dan 12 2.
Henry tells us what this verse does not say:
It is not said that he shall put the rich on his right hand, and the poor on his left; the learned and noble on his right hand, and unlearned and despised on his left; but the godly on his right hand, and the wicked on his left. All other divisions and subdivisions will then be abolished; but the great distinction of men into saints and sinners, sanctified and unsanctified, will remain for ever, and men’s eternal state will be determined by it.
MacArthur discusses placement at the right hand:
Now notice verse 33 and see this analogy taken a step further. “He shall set the sheep on His right hand, the goats on His left.” Now this tells us something right away. The right hand is the hand of blessing. The right hand is the hand of honor. The right hand is the hand – are you ready? – of inheritance – of inheritance. That is the preferred hand. The sheep here are preferred in the analogy. As I said, they are submissive; they are gentle; they are docile. The goats are unruly and rough and rugged and so forth and they represent those who are the non‑blessed. To show you the importance of this, when Jacob, for example – there could be many illustrations of it in the Old Testament – but when Jacob set out to bless his grandsons – his son Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. And when Jacob set out to pronounce the blessing on those sons, he was very cautious on which son he placed his right hand because that very simple act of placing his right hand on that young man indicated that he was the heir, that he was the child of inheritance, that he was the line, if you will, of blessing. And so you remember that he crossed his hands in order to be sure that he got his right hand on Ephraim because the setting of the right hand symbolized blessing and inheritance. And that’s what you have here. The sheep, the docile, easily led, responsive, needing to be cared for sheep represent the saints. And they are put on the right hand, the place of blessing.
Then the King — Jesus Christ — will say to those at His right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (verse 34).
God and His Son know who the redeemed are. God’s words in Jeremiah 1:5 speak not only of the prophet but of all who are predestined for salvation:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
It is important to remember that, by the time of the Second Coming, many Jews will have accepted Jesus as Messiah.
MacArthur says:
… Revelation 7 says a hundred and forty-four thousand Jews will preach the gospel all over. During the tribulation, Revelation 11 says two witnesses will proclaim the message. And then it tells us there will be an angel who will preach the everlasting gospel all over the globe, so they’ll hear it from men and angels as well. During that period, people will respond to the gospel, an innumerable number of Gentiles will be saved, it says in Revelation 7. All Israel will be saved, it says in Romans 11.
So during that period there will be saved Jews and saved Gentiles. Those people will be persecuted by the Antichrist. Many of them will survive his persecution. So they will be alive at the end. There will also be the ungodly. The ungodly will be devastated by the judgments of God during that period. Some of them will survive. So at the end of the tribulation time you have saved and unsaved people, from all over the globe, who have survived the judgment of God and the holocaust of Antichrist. They have lived through the plagues. They have lived through the disasters, the diseases, the wars, the wrath of Christ and the wrath of Antichrist. They have lived through the judgment on the armies at Armageddon, and there are still multitudes, multitudes left. But all of those who are left, who haven’t faced God in death to be judged, will now face Him in His second coming. All the people. The word ethnē means peoples.
I will stop there and resume tomorrow.
The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity is November 19, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here, used for the Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity on November 15, 2020.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 25:14-30
25:14 “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them;
25:15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
25:16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.
25:17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.
25:18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
25:19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
25:20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’
25:21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
25:22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’
25:23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
25:24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed;
25:25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’
25:26 But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?
25:27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.
25:28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents.
25:29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
25:30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This parable, the Parable of the Talents, was problematic to me for many years. However, studying the Bible with the help of our two commentators has made sense of it for me.
By way of explanation, we are to make our employers happy, even if we do not like them. Serving our employers responsibly is serving Christ. Our employer is but one earthly master. St Paul made this clear to Titus in Titus 2:9-10, about which I wrote last Sunday for my Forbidden Bible Verses series.
Here are the verses:
9 Slaves[a] are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour.
My post discusses slavery as it was in the ancient world rather than later on. Slaves comprised many skills. They were experienced farmers, expert artisans, shrewd accountants and good businessmen. Many of them, when offered their freedom opted to stay with their master and his family. It was a much better deal than living in poverty.
These are the types of slaves involved in the Parable of the Talents.
The biblical objective of any employee is to make his boss look good and his company more prosperous. We serve Christ through serving our employers.
Another point to raise is that of the previous parable in Matthew 25, the Parable of the Ten Virgins, read last Sunday, the Twenty-third after Trinity.
That parable and this one are part of our Lord’s Olivet Discourse, which includes Matthew 24, wherein Jesus discusses the time up to His Second Coming in glory:
Matthew 24:1-36 – false Messiahs, war, natural disaster, end of the world, Second Coming
Jesus tells us to expect war and natural disasters, which must occur before the end of the world. However, He tells us not to be troubled by them. He also warns us against false Christs, by whom many will be deceived. Also see Mark 13.
In both the Parable of the Ten Virgins and the Parable of the Talents, Jesus is discussing the kingdom of God as it is in its visible, earthly state. He is discussing those who consider themselves as believers. However, as we saw with the Ten Virgins, five of them were foolish and unprepared for the bridegroom’s coming.
On the other hand, there are many believers who are so wrapped up with the prospect of the Second Coming that they put work aside, saying that they are focussing their energies on waiting for the Lord.
However, we are to wait on the Lord while we are waiting for the Lord.
John MacArthur explains:
If something like the Second Coming of Christ will happen but we don’t know when, then we are forced to be ready at all times, aren’t we? So the unknown character of his coming, the sudden, unexpected, surprising reality of it is that which causes all men to seek to be ready, for it could happen to their generation. And so the Lord has called for all men to be ready, and the call comes in his holding back the exact day and the exact hour so that we must be ready at all times.
… And so in chapter 25, having said five times that the coming is an unknown event in terms of its time, he calls for constant readiness, and he does it by using two parables: The parable of the virgins in verses 1-12, and the parable of the talents in verses 14-30. Both of them basically have the same intention, the same point. They make the same message clear, that is be ready, be ready. They are two very important parables. And verse 13 would you notice links them together … at the end of that parable, he says, “Watch therefore,” and the therefore ties it in with the parable of the virgins, “For you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man comes.” Then verse 14 begins, “For it is like a man traveling,” and it takes us right into the next parable, which also is summed up in verse 13. So verse 13 is sort of the bridge between the two …
Now the parable of the virgins and the parable of the talents differ in a sense. They are both parables about readiness. You remember the last one, there were ten virgins; five were ready when the Bridegroom came because they had oil in their lamps. Five were not because they didn’t. everyone was waiting but only five of the ten were ready to go into the wedding feast. The whole point of that parable was to talk about readiness, preparedness. And it emphasized waiting, waiting for the coming king, looking for the coming of the Lord, anticipating his return. The emphasis was on waiting. It was on that internal heart attitude that longs for the coming of the Lord. The parable of the talents is not an emphasis on waiting; it’s an emphasis on working, on working. While we are waiting and while we are looking and while we are watching, we are to be serving, and that’s what the parable of the talents emphasizes. And together they provide for us a masterful balance of living in anticipation of the Second Coming.
We do not live in anticipation of the Second Coming only like virgins or bridesmaids waiting for the ceremony to begin with nothing to do, all dressed up, nowhere to go, just waiting to start … We’re also working. We’re also serving. We’re also making most of our opportunity and stewardship and magnifying the very role that God has given us to serve him. And when one of those things is overemphasized or one of them is lost, the Christian experience is out of balance. People who are no longer looking for the Second Coming but spending all of their time working in the world have lost a perspective that is necessary for balance. And people who are always looking and looking and looking and waiting and waiting and not bothering to be working have also lost a very important balance.
On that point, St Paul had a problem with the Thessalonians, who were a most generous and charitable congregation. Some among them, however, were being supported by the church for their indolence. In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul reminds everyone to work:
11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul says that they must obey everything he has written:
14 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. 15 Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
MacArthur reminds us:
You remember in the Thessalonian church Paul had to write them in his second epistle to them and tell them, “Look, some of you people are so preoccupied with the Second Coming that you’re doing nothing. You’re not earning a living but you’re running around like busybodies. You better get back to work.” There is a balance.
MacArthur cautions:
Now just as a footnote, some of you might sort of feel the tug to compare this parable with Luke 19:11-27, which is the parable of the pounds. They are not the same; that one was given several days earlier by our Lord. It’s as different as it is similar; don’t confuse the two. It is a different parable all together. Now, as we look at this parable, the message we want to understand is wasted opportunity. We are in a period of time waiting for the Lord to come, but it is not a time for only waiting; it is a time for seizing opportunity, making the most of privilege, and that’s the message.
With all of that in mind, Matthew Henry’s commentary introduces the Parable of the Talents as follows, contrasting it with that of the Ten Virgins. Interestingly, he thinks it pertains mainly to the clergy, although, that said, the tenets are something we should all heed:
We have here the parable of the talents committed to three servants; this implies that we are in a state of work and business, as the former implies that we are in a state of expectancy. That showed the necessity of habitual preparation, this of actual diligence in our present work and service. In that we were stirred up to do well for our own souls; in this to lay out ourselves for the glory of God and the good of others.
In this parable, 1. The Master is Christ, who is the absolute Owner and Proprietor of all persons and things, and in a special manner of his church; into his hands all things are delivered. 2. The servants are Christians, his own servants, so they are called; born in his house, bought with his money, devoted to his praise, and employed in his work. It is probable that ministers are specially intended here, who are more immediately attending on him, and sent by him. St. Paul often calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ. See 2 Tim 2 24.
Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a man going on a journey who summoned his slaves and entrusted his property with them (verse 14).
Remember that a journey in the ancient world could take weeks, months or even years. Here Jesus implied that it was a long time — of opportunity.
To one slave the man gave five talents, to another two and, to a third, one talent; then he went away (verse 15).
Henry compares this to Christ leaving the Church, His Bride, to increase in His absence before He returns to redeem Her:
Note, [1.] When Christ went to heaven, he was as a man travelling into a far country; that is, he went with a purpose to be away a great while. [2.] When he went, he took care to furnish his church with all things necessary for it during his personal absence. For, and in consideration of, his departure, he committed to his church truths, laws, promises and powers; these were the parakatatheke—the great depositum (as it is called, 1 Tim 6 20; 2 Tim 1 14), the good thing that is committed to us; and he sent his Spirit to enable his servants to teach and profess those truths, to press and observe those laws, to improve and apply those promises, and to exercise and employ those powers, ordinary or extraordinary. Thus Christ, at his ascension, left his goods to his church.
Henry tells us what a talent was worth in late 18th century England — a fortune at the time:
He gave talents; a talent of silver is computed to be in our money three hundred and fifty-three pounds eleven shillings and ten pence halfpenny; so the learned Bishop Cumberland. Note, Christ’s gifts are rich and valuable, the purchases of his blood inestimable, and none of them mean.
MacArthur, preaching in 1984, also says that a talent was worth an astronomical sum:
Now you need to know that a talent basically, we use it in the English sense as I just used it, to speak of someone’s abilities, but actually it meant a weight. It meant a weight, like a scale. That’s why in Revelation 16 it talks about a hailstone weighing a talent; it was a certain weight.
Now the value of each talent would depend on whether it was gold, which would be very, very high, an astronomical amount, five talents of gold. Or whether it was silver, quite a bit less, or whether it was copper, quite a bit less than silver. It’s probably best to see this as silver because the word used for money in verse 18 is a word that is frequently used to refer to silver coinage.
… he gave to them as it were a bag of coins. One man got a bag full weighing five talents, one two talents, and one, one talent. And the idea was take this, invest it, and get a return for me on it. Show yourself a faithful steward, that was the idea. It isn’t important what the monetary value was. There’s really no way to calculate that. Since we don’t know what the metal commodity was, we don’t exactly know what the coins were. What is important is only to see what they did.
Then we come to the matter of the three servants receiving different weights of talents.
Henry says that even the smallest talent — gift — comes from God, and we can put even the least of our capabilities to His service:
When Divine Providence has made a difference in men’s ability, as to mind, body, estate, relation, and interest, divine grace dispenses spiritual gifts accordingly, but still the ability itself is from him. Observe, First, Every one had some one talent at least, and that is not a despicable stock for a poor servant to begin with. A soul of our own is the one talent we are every one of us entrusted with, and it will find us with work. Hoc nempe ab homine exigiture, ut prosit hominibus; si fieri potest, multis; si minus, paucis; si minus, proximis, si minus, sibi: nam cum se utilem cæteris efficit, commune agit negotium. Et si quis bene de se meretur, hoc ipso aliis prodest quod aliis profuturum parat—It is the duty of a man to render himself beneficial to those around him; to a great number if possible; but if this is denied him, to a few; to his intimate connections; or, at least, to himself. He that is useful to others, may be reckoned a common good. And whoever entitles himself to his own approbation, is serviceable to others, as forming himself to those habits which will result in their favour. Seneca de Otio Sapient. Secondly, All had not alike, for they had not all alike abilities and opportunities. God is a free Agent, dividing to every man severally as he will; some are cut out for service in one kind, others in another, as the members of the natural body.
MacArthur says:
Not all of us have received the same amount. This is something you must understand, people. Not everybody is the same. Everybody was created differently with differing mental capacities, differing verbal capacities, differing skills, talents, capabilities. And then you add to what we received in terms of creation from God, the fact that each of us has been exposed to different opportunities, different privileges, different teachers, different discipling processes. And the range is vast … All of us are different, and that’s by the design of God. It’s okay to be a one if you’re a one. It’s okay to be a two if you’re a two or a five if you’re a five. I mean that’s the way God designed it.
Of the man’s sudden departure, Henry says:
When the householder had thus settled his affairs, he straightway took his journey. Our Lord Jesus, when he had given commandments to his apostles, as one in haste to be gone, went to heaven.
The servant — slave — with five talents immediately traded with them and made five more talents (verse 16).
The one with two talents also used them in a productive way and made two more (verse 17).
MacArthur tells us what this means in the light of the Church:
It’s a picture of spiritual capacity and spiritual privilege and spiritual responsibility and spiritual opportunity. And in the story, you know the servant who really loves his master is going to say, “Boy, here’s my opinion to show him how much I love him. Here’s my opportunity to really invest my time and my energy and my thought and my work to bring him back a return on what he’s given me. Here’s my opportunity to show him that he was right in trusting me to sort of return his confidence in me. I want to live up to what he thinks.” This would appeal to the noblest motive in the heart of a loving servant. This would really be something he would want to fulfill for the sake of the master to whom he owed so very, very much. And that’s the whole point, the Lord gives people within the framework of his kingdom, in the framework of his church all different levels of capacities and opportunities. And the issue is what they do with those opportunities. Talents in our bag, the talent that we carry, the bag of coins that we carry would include teaching, how much teaching have we received, how much opportunity to hear, mixed with our God-given and God-created intellectual capacities, emotional capacities and gifts and skills. And how much opportunity for fellowship and how much opportunity for spiritual advantage and insight, and how much opportunity for blessing and how much have we received of all that the kingdom offers, that’s our bag, mixed with our God-given capabilities.
However, the slave with one talent dug a hole in the ground and buried it, hiding his master’s money (verse 18).
Henry reminds us again that what we receive comes from God, not our own doing but as a result of the blessings He has given us — even the smallest:
He hid his lord’s money; had it been his own, he might have done as he pleased; but, whatever abilities and advantages we have, they are not our own, we are but stewards of them, and must give account to our Lord, whose goods they are. It was an aggravation of his slothfulness, that his fellow-servants were busy and successful in trading, and their zeal should have provoked his. Are others active, and shall we be idle?
After a long time — much as the bridegroom in the Parable of the Ten Virgins came later than anticipated — the master of the house returned from his journey and settled accounts with his servants (verse 19).
Henry says:
Note, The stewards of the manifold grace of God must shortly give account of their stewardship. We must all be reckoned with—what good we have got to our own souls, and what good we have done to others by the advantages we have enjoyed. See Rom 14 10, 11.
MacArthur has more on the divine settling of accounts:
The issue is did we give back to God when given the opportunity of a maximum return, right? If you’re a five, he wants five back. If you’re a two, he wants two back. If you’re a three, he wants three. You could be a five and give back two. You could be a two and only give back one. The point is maximum return, maximum return.
So we’re given responsibility. I’ll tell you, people, you have a bag that God is holding you responsible for. It is a stewardship bag. It is a bag of privilege. It is a bag of opportunity. You are managing that part of God’s fortune. Listen, every time you sit under the teaching of the Word of God, every time you read the Word of God, every time you learn a great truth out of the Word of God, somebody just dropped something else in your bag, and that somebody was the Spirit of God. And now you are responsible for the living out and the working out of that opportunity of the privilege you’ve been given. And I fear that we have all wasted those, haven’t we? It is true faithfulness that the Lord calls for. We have been given tremendous responsibility.
The slave who had received five talents brought over those and five more, calling the increase to his master’s attention (verse 20).
The master received the increased return gratefully, rewarding that slave abundantly: ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master’ (verse 21).
Then the slave with two talents who had made two more brought his increase to his master (verse 22); his master rewarded him the same as the first, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master’ (verse 23).
Jesus did not go into detail as to how they increased their master’s investment, but it is worth keeping in mind that the ancient world was not a static place. Improvements, minor as they might be to us, were going on all the time. Much seafaring took place outside of winter. Seafaring meant trade, as did travel by camel or other beast of burden inland. The opportunities were there, even then.
Whatever the case, the two slaves did what their master expected them to do: increase his money, his estate.
MacArthur explains the literal and spiritual significance of these verses:
Verse 16: “Then he that had received the five talents immediately went and traded with the same and made five more talents.” Immediately is a key word. The fruit of inward salvation. Now this is a true servant because he’s immediately activated. His heart instantly responds to the privilege of serving his Lord. That is the fruit of inward salvation. It is an immediate response. And he went and traded, the word means to work literally, but technically as in this case it could be used to refer to engaging in business. He went out and did business. I don’t know what he did with the five talents. Maybe he bought a field and cultivated it and produced a crop that was worth twice as much as he paid. Maybe he went and bought seed with it and planted the crop. Maybe he bought a piece of land, turned around and sold it. Maybe he gave it to somebody who was entering into some kind of a trade situation and got a bigger return, which doubled his investment. I don’t know what he did; it doesn’t say. But it says at the end of verse 16, “He made,” and the word there kerdainō means to profit. He profited, he gained five more talents. He doubled his master’s money. That shows maximum commitment; that’s the point the Lord is making. He made the most of his spiritual privilege, the most of his spiritual opportunity.
And verse 17 says, “Likewise the one who had received two also gained two more.” He made the most of his two. Now everybody has the same opportunity. Some people hear the Gospel in a very limited way. Some people have exposure to a massive amount of it. Some have had very little privilege and opportunity, some very great. But in both cases, they gave a maximum return on the privilege God gave them, and that’s what God was after. The main point he’s making is very simple: Be faithful to maximize your opportunity. Be faithful to maximize your opportunity. Turn back to God what he gave you. Give him a full return on the opportunity and privilege.
Then the slave with one talent came forward, saying that his master was a harsh man, thinking that he would accuse the slave of reaping what he did not sow or gathering crops from seed that was not his (verse 24).
As such, the slave with one talent produced it, saying ‘I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours’ (verse 25).
However, the master was displeased and said (verse 26), ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?’
MacArthur explains the point here — whether one talent or five, we are all expected in some way to make an increase for the Lord:
You’re responsible to give God back a return on that tremendous spiritual opportunity he gave you, even if it was only a one and not a five. Even if your opportunity was limited, you’re responsible. Listen, some people have heard it and heard it and heard it and had privilege after privilege after privilege … They are fives in that sense. On the other hand, there may be people who just in a limited way heard the Gospel. They’re just as responsible for a return on that one as anybody is for the return on the five. That’s the point.
MacArthur discusses the master’s anger with the one-talent slave:
… he uses the illustration of the one so that the anger of the master is not because he lost so much but because of the wasted opportunity. That makes the point. The one who has the very least opportunity is equally responsible, equally responsible. What a powerful message this is! We have been given spiritual privilege while our Lord is away. He has given us differing levels of privilege, but he wants a maximum return on his privilege, on his opportunity granted to us. And we will either give him back equal to that privilege, equal to that opportunity, or we will not and it will be wasted. And even a person with limited opportunity who is a one with limited opportunity to respond to the truth and the Gospel with limited exposure to Bible teaching and spiritual life and spiritual friendship and sanctifying graces from other believers and so forth, even a person with one is still responsible to God for that one, and to be a steward of that limited privilege.
The master added that if the slave had such thoughts, he should have just invested the talent with a banker and reaped the capital plus interest (verse 27). Yes, you could do that even then. Banking in the ancient world worked roughly the same way it does now with lending being the principal way of making money. The banker uses deposit money to lend and makes money on the interest on the repayment. The interest gets passed along to customers with interest-bearing accounts.
In the case of the one-talent slave, even a small amount of interest would have been better than nothing.
MacArthur explains:
He says, “You could’ve put my money to the exchangers.” That’s a word for bankers or benchers, as they used to call them. In the Roman empire, they had a banking system. You took your money and gave it to the bankers and gave it to the bankers and they paid you interest. Then they took the money you gave to them, as we do today, and they loaned it out to someone else. The maximum loan rate at that time in the Roman Empire history tells us was approximately 12 percent. And so they were loaning money out at 12 percent. They were probably paying the one who put it in there about six percent or whatever. And so you could put your money in there and get at least six percent. And the word used at the end of the verse, he says in verse 27, “I should have received mine own with tokos,” that means simple interest, simple interest. And maybe it would have been only a talent plus 0.06, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been a full return like five on five and two on two. But at least you could have done something with it. He’s saying to him, “If you really thought that I was a God to be feared, then at least you would’ve done that.” It was easier to do that, by the way, than to dig a hole. You just go through the city gate one day where the bankers were and hand them the money and sign the paper and make the deal and that’s it; it took very little effort at all. If you really had feared me, you would have at least done that. But the excuse doesn’t hold water …
“You’re unmasked as a liar. You didn’t hide it in the ground because you were afraid of me, because if you were afraid of me you’d have done something even in your laziness to at least give me a little bit of return. You hid it in the ground because you were too wicked and too lazy to care. You wasted your privilege, totally, totally wasted your privilege.” Every time I think about this I think of Judas who was the classic illustration in all of history of wasted privilege.
I hope this makes the master’s anger more understandable.
On a related note, MacArthur says:
By the way, as a footnote, it’s interesting that Jesus here seems to see that this is a proper thing. It’s good to invest your money and get a return, and it’s even permissible to receive interest for it, just in case some of you have wondered about that.
The master instructed his other slaves to take the one talent and give it to the slave who now had ten talents (verse 28).
The master explained that to all those who have, more will be given in abundance, but those who have nothing will have even that taken away (verse 29).
It sounds harsh, but Henry discusses the spiritual and temporal significance here:
1. To be deprived of his talent (v. 28, 29); Take therefore the talent from him. The talents were first disposed of by the Master, as an absolute Owner, but this was now disposed of by him as a Judge; he takes it from the unfaithful servant, to punish him, and gives it to him that was eminently faithful, to reward him. And the meaning of this part of the parable we have in the reason of the sentence (v. 29), To every one that hath shall be given. This may be applied, (1.) To the blessings of this life—worldly wealth and possessions. These we are entrusted with, to be used for the glory of God, and the good of those about us. Now he that hath these things, and useth them for these ends, he shall have abundance; perhaps abundance of the things themselves, at least, abundance of comfort in them, and of better things; but from him that hath not, that is, that hath these things as if he had them not, had not power to eat of them, or to do good with (Avaro deest, tam quod habet, quam quod non habet—The miser may be considered as destitute of what he has, as well as of what he has not), they shall be taken away. Solomon explains this, Prov 11 24. There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty … Sometimes Providence strangely transfers estates from those that do no good with them to those that do; they are gathered for him that will pity the poor, Prov 28 8. See Prov 13 22; Job 27 16, 17; Eccl 2 26. (2.) We may apply it to the means of grace. They who are diligent in improving the opportunities they have, God will enlarge them, will set before them an open door (Rev 3 8); but they who know not the day of their visitation, shall have the things that belong to their peace hid from their eyes. For proof of this, go see what God did to Shiloh, Jer 7 12. (3.) We may apply it to the common gifts of the Spirit. He that hath these, and doeth good with them, shall have abundance; these gifts improve by exercise, and brighten by being used; the more we do, the more we may do, in religion; but those who stir not up the gift that is in them, who do not exert themselves according to their capacity, their gifts rust, and decay, and go out like a neglected fire. From his that hath not a living principle of grace in his soul, shall be taken away the common gifts which he hath, as the lamps of the foolish virgins went out for want of oil, v. 8.
MacArthur gives two examples of this from his own church and says this is why Grace Church began vetting their volunteers:
There are people in the church who are tares, right? But tares aren’t always the ones sitting around doing nothing. Sometimes tares are very involved. When I first came to Grace Church, there were a couple on the board who were not Christians. That’s not uncommon, believe it or not, because Satan is very clever. But the church has people doing “ministry” who are not redeemed people. From time to time, this becomes manifest, doesn’t it? We find that out. I remember one time finding a lady who was teaching my children in Sunday school who was not a Christian. We found that out because she was taking them to the bakery during the service on Sunday morning and we wondered why; that seemed like an inappropriate time to go there. But she had absolutely no interest in what was going on in the church. She had volunteered for the assignment. This was before we had a checking system and probably why we have one at this particular point. Nice lady, but missed the point. She thought she was serving God, but she couldn’t serve God because she didn’t know God. But in terms of the outward visible kingdom, she was doing her service.
… So there are people who “render service to the Lord.” But the day is going to come in judgment when any service they ever thought to render will be taken away from them and given to someone who is a true servant to render to him. You understand that? So in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and on throughout eternity, there will be no service offered other than that which is offered by true believers. And that with the sham believer now offers will not any longer be offered. And that’s what it means in verse 28 when it says, “Take it away from him. Take away his privilege. Take away his Gospel opportunity. Take away the privilege of using his privileges and give it to someone else.”
… the ones who have demonstrated fruit, the ones who have used their privileges and used their opportunities, they will receive more; he will have abundance. But from the one who has not shall be taken away even what he has. And the implication there is he doesn’t really have it, but what he appears to have will be taken away. It’s a marvelous statement. “But from him that has not shall be taken away what he has.” How can you have if you don’t have? It’s a conundrum. “From the one who has not will be taken away what he has.” If he has not, what is there to take away? Well, the idea here is he doesn’t really have it but he appears to have it, and what he appears to have will be taken away and given to someone else who can render true service.
Jesus ended the parable with the master’s final words regarding the slave with the one tenant: he was to be taken out and thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (verse 30).
How many times in Matthew this year have we read that? Several times. Jesus gave that warning more than once. Therefore, let it not be said that judgement does not await those who do not do the Lord’s will. The Lord knows who they are. He will judge them.
MacArthur concludes:
… God is sovereign; he’ll give the service to whomever he wills in glory. But one thing for sure, he’ll take it away from the phonies.
Verse 30: “And cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” If ever there was any question in anybody’s mind about whether that servant is a question, that ought to eliminate it, right? Because that is the definition of hell, that is the definition of hell. It’s just like Matthew chapter 22, verse 13 where you have the man who came into the wedding feast without a garment. That is he had no righteousness. “Bind him by hand and foot. Take him away. Cast him into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And we’ve read that over and over again in Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew describes hell as darkness because, “God is light,” says John, “and in him is no darkness at all.” Then the absence of God is utter darkness, and hell is a place where God is not and never will be. And it is a place of torment as illustrated by the statement weeping and grinding of teeth to show the unrelieved pain of being out of the presence of God.
So, people, let me just sum it up very simply. In the kingdom, in the church, in the assembly of the redeemed, there are going to be those who are prepared and serving the Lord. There are going to be those who are unprepared and who outwardly may be active but are not ready for his coming. And when the Lord comes, there will be a separation and a delineation based upon their service rendered to him. All excuses set aside. False service will be ended and that which they appear to be doing will be given to some others to do for throughout the kingdom and throughout eternity.
And what the parable is intending to say is stated in verse 13, “Just be sure you’re ready when that day comes.” And it may not be that you wait ‘til the Second Coming for that day; it may come the moment you die and that may be very near … But the moment that you face God this will become a reality, whether your service was true or whether it was false. It’s a fearful thing to realize but there are bridesmaids without any oil in their lamp. There are servants who think when the Lord comes it’s going to be okay, and it isn’t. It isn’t.
That reading gives us a lot to ponder in the days ahead.
Let us, therefore, make the most of the Lord’s grace and gifts to us while we can, with everything to His praise and glory.
The Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity is November 12, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here, used for the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity on November 8, 2020.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 25:1-13
25:1 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.
25:2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.
25:3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them;
25:4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.
25:5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept.
25:6 But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’
25:7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps.
25:8 The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’
25:9 But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’
25:10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut.
25:11 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’
25:12 But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’
25:13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This reading is part of our Lord’s Olivet Discourse which began in Matthew 24 and is not in the Lectionary. I wrote about it in 2010 in my Forbidden Bible Verses series:
Matthew 24:1-36 – false Messiahs, war, natural disaster, end of the world, Second Coming
Jesus tells us to expect war and natural disasters, which must occur before the end of the world. However, He tells us not to be troubled by them. He also warns us against false Christs, by whom many will be deceived. Also see Mark 13.
Throughout the Synoptic Gospels — Matthew, Mark and Luke — we find repeated warnings from Jesus about people being turned away from the kingdom of heaven at the last judgement, when He returns again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
The Olivet Discourse continues in Matthew 25, and Jesus denoted a continuation of His theme.
He began with the word ‘Then’ and went on to say that the kingdom of heaven will be ‘like this’, beginning a parable about ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom (verse 1).
John MacArthur discusses the word ‘then’:
Notice verse 1 starts with the word then. Then takes us to a time. What time? The time when the Lord comes that He has just been speaking of in the prior passage closing chapter 24. The time when He comes to reward the faithful servant and to punish the unfaithful servant. It’s at that time that the Kingdom of heaven – that is, the sphere of God’s rule – will be like this. So here is a parable to illustrate the time period of the second coming. That’s the intent of the opening of verse 1. It takes us to the time of the coming of the Lord and calls for readiness, preparedness, alertness on the part of all of us for that time will come unexpectedly and suddenly.
MacArthur takes us back to Matthew 24:
The Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24 and 25 is the Lord’s own sermon on His second coming, and this particular parable is a warning parable. There are several such warning parables in this section of the sermon. In the early part, He gave the signs of His coming, and now in the light of that, He warns the world to be ready for when it happens.
The disciples had said to Him, to begin the sermon, really, “When shall these things be?” In other words, they wanted to know the time of the second coming, the time of the establishing of the Kingdom, the time of setting up the Messiah’s rule on the earth. His answer came in chapter 24, verse 36, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven nor the Son, but my Father only.” He repeated it in verse 42, “Watch, therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doth come.” He repeated it in verse 44, “Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man comes.” He repeated it in verse 50 where He says, “In an hour that he is not aware of.”
Four times already, the Lord has said He is coming in an unknown moment. And now He gives a parable and concludes the parable by saying, “You know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of man comes.” The disciples said, “When will it be?” And He said, “No one will ever know.” It will be sudden and it will be unexpected. “You will know the general time because I’ll give you the signs,” which He did in chapter 24 verses 4 to 31. You will know the general marks of that time, which He called “birth pangs” leading to the birth of the Kingdom. But the exact moment and the exact hour, you will never know, for as the epistles tell us, the Lord will come as a thief in the night, unexpectedly and suddenly.
Matthew Henry’s commentary discusses the setting — a marriage — and the number ten in an ancient Jewish context:
It was a custom sometimes used among the Jews on that occasion, that the bridegroom came, attended with his friends, late in the night, to the house of the bride, where she expected him, attended with her bride-maids; who, upon notice given of the bridegrooms’ approach, were to go out with lamps in their hands, to light him into the house with ceremony and formality, in order to the celebrating of the nuptials with great mirth. And some think that on these occasions they had usually ten virgins; for the Jews never held a synagogue, circumcised, kept the passover, or contracted marriage, but ten persons at least were present. Boaz, when he married Ruth, had ten witnesses, Ruth 4 2.
MacArthur says the same about the number ten:
It took ten men to eat the paschal supper, according to Josephus. It took ten men to constitute a synagogue. It took ten men to give a wedding blessing. And apparently, ten bridesmaids was just the proper number. So she had what seems to be a rather customary number of people in many of the Jewish festivities and rituals, ten of them.
Older versions of the Bible use the word ‘virgin’ rather than ‘bridesmaid’:
1 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
MacArthur explains the status of these women:
So here are ten virgins who take their lamps and go forth, no doubt to the house of the bride, waiting to meet the bridegroom. They are her chosen ladies. They are the young girls who will attend to her. It calls them virgins, by the way, that is the way for virgin, parthenos, which means an unmarried girl who is a virgin. They were young in those days when they married and these were her friends who as yet were not married, chosen because they were sisters or cousins or very dear and close and intimate friends. And it was a special joy and a special thrill to belong to her special group in anticipation of this glorious evening.
By the way, there’s nothing intended in the fact that they were virgins regarding the morality of the people that they illustrate. In other words, the fact that you have virgins here is not to say something spiritual about the people they represent. It simply fits the wedding pattern. They were just ten bridesmaids, and the custom was that virgins were the bridesmaids. That is not to say that though they represent others – that is to say, rather, that though they represent others, the others they represent in the parable are not necessarily pure and spotless and undefiled. So we don’t want to draw any spiritual conclusions.
By the way, as a footnote, you want to avoid doing that as you work through the parables. Unless the Lord gives the meaning, you’re really on your own if you start giving meaning to other things. They are intended to convey very simple, direct truth which the Lord explains.
MacArthur takes us through the ancient Jewish customs concerning marriage:
… it’s essential for us to know that in a Jewish marriage, there were three elements. The first is engagement. Long before the scene here, there was an engagement. And the engagement was an official contract between the two fathers who were giving their daughter and their son to each other, as it were. So engagements weren’t really made with the couple, they were made with the fathers. A little while after that, there would be what was called the second phase of the wedding or the marriage, and that was a betrothal.
Now, the betrothal was the official ceremony. The couple would come together before friends and family, and they would make vows and covenants and binding promises. They had an actual marriage ceremony, and they made their commitments. They were then officially married. And any breaking of a betrothal period was a divorce. There had to be an actual divorce, that was that binding. And if the husband happened to die during that period, the wife was considered a widow, even though the marriage had not been physically consummated nor had they come to live together.
The point was this. The fathers made an initial engagement for the children to be married, the children then made their vows to each other which were binding, and then there was up to a year for the young man to get things ready to take the bride to be his own. He had to provide a place for her, perhaps to build an addition on his father’s house, or a house of his own, or to purchase land and cultivate a field, and show that he could care for her. And so he had a year to prepare his home for her, to prepare his life for her.
At the end of the time that he needed he would go to take her, and she would become his own and live with him. There was no ceremony to that. That was just the official wedding. And that’s the third phase and that’s what we see here.
By the way, it was a very good principle. It was a very good way to set up a marriage. Parents, who very often have a little longer range view than their children, were involved. Secondly, the betrothal was a wonderful thing because when the vows were made, they were absolutely binding because certainly a man didn’t want to spend a year getting ready for a girl to come and be his wife and have her say at the end, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I found somebody else.” So once the betrothal was made, it was absolutely binding, and all of his preparation would indeed lead to fulfillment.
But you can imagine – can’t you? – the anticipation in the heart of a bride and a bridegroom having to go through the process of finally getting to the culmination, of finally coming to the place where the marriage was going to be consummated. Great anticipation. And the scene here is phase three, the actual gamos, in the Greek word, which is the wedding festivity, the wedding feast, the wedding celebration itself, where he comes to her house.
And she’s waiting there with all of her bridesmaids, and he arrives with all of the men that are with him and they – he collects his bride and her maids and they all go with torches, parading through the night sky and through the village in a celebration of singing and talking and joy that is just unequalled in their social life. It’s finally come to that. Everything is ready. He has prepared a home for her. He is now going to get her and take her to that place. And when they arrive at his home that night – and they always started those weddings at night so that they could have a processional through the village and everyone in the village could enjoy the joy and the festivity – then the wedding party would go into the house and celebrate as long as seven days.
At the end of that period of celebration, the friend of the bridegroom, who was like the best man, would take the hand of the bride, place it in the hand of the bridegroom and everyone would leave – hopefully. Enough is enough. And so it would be a marvelous evening, a marvelous beginning to a glorious celebration for which this bride and bridegroom had waited a long, long time. And that’s the wedding. And everything is ready. And we join in on the beauty and the wonder of the festivities.
MacArthur describes the lamps:
A second thing we need to know to understand this parable is the bridesmaids. Notice verse 1. “Ten virgins,” it says, “took their lamps,” actually, the Greek word means torch. It is not the word lamp, for example, used in Matthew 5:15, you remember, where our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount said a man does not take his lamp and hide it under a bushel. That’s a lamp. This is the word torch, a different word. It is used, for example, in John 18:3 to speak of the torches that the Romans carried when they came into the Garden of Gethsemane to take Jesus prisoner.
There was a long wooden pole. On the top of the wooden pole would be some kind of a wire mesh apparatus attached, filled with cloth. That cloth would be soaked in oil and then lit to give a flaming torch. They would carry on their person somewhere a little flask of oil so that they could keep that lit for as long as was necessary.
Now we come to the spiritual meaning that Jesus wanted to impress upon the disciples.
Henry tells us:
This tells us what it shall be like, when the mystery of God shall be finished, and that kingdom delivered up to the Father. The administration of Christ’s government, towards the ready and the unready in the great day, may be illustrated by this similitude; or the kingdom is put for the subjects of the kingdom. The professors of Christianity shall then be likened to these ten virgins, and shall be thus distinguished …
1. The Bridegroom is our Lord Jesus Christ; he is so represented in the 45th Psalm, 1, and often in the New Testament. It bespeaks his singular and superlative love to, and his faithful and inviolable covenant with, his spouse the church. Believers are now betrothed to Christ (Hos 2 19); but the solemnizing of the marriage is reserved for the great day, when the bride, the Lamb’s wife, will have made herself completely ready, Rev 19 7, 9.
2. The virgins are the professors of religion, members of the church; but here represented as her companions (Ps 45 14), as elsewhere her children (Isa 54 1), her ornaments, Isa 49 18. They that follow the Lamb, are said to be virgins (Rev 14 4); this denotes their beauty and purity; they are to be presented as chaste virgins to Christ, 2 Cor 11 2. The bridegroom is a king; so these virgins are maids of honour, virgins without number (Cant 6 8), yet here said to be ten.
3. The office of these virgins is to meet the bridegroom, which is as much their happiness as their duty. They come to wait upon the bridegroom when he appears, and in the mean time to wait for him. See here the nature of Christianity. As Christians, we profess ourselves to be, (1.) Attendants upon Christ, to do him honour, as the glorious Bridegroom, to be to him for a name and a praise, especially then when he shall come to be glorified in his saints. We must follow him as honorary servants do their masters, John 12 26. Hold up the name, and hold forth the praise of the exalted Jesus; this is our business. (2.) Expectants of Christ, and of his second coming. As Christians, we profess, not only to believe and look for, but to love and long for, the appearing of Christ, and to act in our whole conversation with a regard to it. The second coming of Christ is the centre in which all the lines of our religion meet, and to which the whole of the divine life hath a constant reference and tendency.
4. Their chief concern is to have lights in their hands, when they attend the bridegroom, thus to do him honour and do him service. Note, Christians are children of light. The gospel is light, and they who receive it must not only be enlightened by it themselves, but must shine as lights, must hold it forth, Phil 2 15, 16.
MacArthur covers the same ground as Henry, then points out that they are indistinguishable one from another:
They’re gathered as bridesmaids, as it were, ready to be received into this glorious marriage celebration. They profess to love Christ’s appearing. They profess to hear the gospel and believe. They profess to be disciples to wait for the Son, to desire the Kingdom.
And frankly, when you just see the ten of them, they’re not very easy to distinguish. They all have on their wedding garments. They’re all chosen bridesmaids. They all attend to the bride. They all have their torches.
Then Jesus said that five of the bridesmaids were foolish and five were wise (verse 2).
MacArthur says:
And they are at first indistinguishable, but they are not alike. And this is the message of the parable. Verse 2, five of them were wise and five were foolish. The searcher of the heart knows. It may not have been clear initially, but the searcher of hearts knows. And there is a characterization in verse 2, as He looks into the heart of these ten and five were phronimos, having to do with the brain, thoughtful, sensible, prudent, wise. And five were mōros, from which we get our word moron, stupid.
So they are very different. Not outwardly distinguishable, but inwardly very different – very different, as different as you can be – wise and stupid …
And He could look down on this assembled group, if you will, of bridesmaids, all of you saying we wait for His coming, we have our garments on, we have our torches in hand. But He knows whether you’re wise or whether you’re stupid. We may not. He knows.
When the foolish bridesmaids took their lamps — torches — they took no oil with them (verse 3), however, the wise bridesmaids did take flasks of oil (verse 4).
Henry explains the spiritual meaning of those verses:
[2.] The evidence of this character was in the very thing which they were to attend to; by that they are judged of.
First, It was the folly of the foolish virgins, that they took their lamps, and took no oil with them, v. 3. They had just the oil enough to make their lamps burn for the present, to make a show with, as if they intended to meet the bridegroom; but no cruse or bottle of oil with them for a recruit if the bridegroom tarried; thus hypocrites,
1. They have no principle within. They have a lamp of profession in their hands, but have not in their hearts that stock of sound knowledge, rooted dispositions, and settled resolutions, which is necessary to carry them through the services and trials of the present state. They act under the influence of external inducements, but are void of spiritual life; like a tradesman, that sets up without a stock, or the seed on the stony ground, that wanted root.
2. They have no prospect of, nor make provision for, what is to come. They took lamps for a present show, but not oil for after use. This incogitancy is the ruin of many professors; all their care is to recommend themselves to their neighbours, whom they now converse with, not to approve themselves to Christ, whom they must hereafter appear before; as if any thing will serve, provide it will but serve for the present. Tell them of things not seen as yet, and you are like Lot to his sons-in-law, as one that mocked. They do not provide for hereafter, as the ant does, nor lay up for the time to come, 1 Tim 6 19.
Secondly, It was the wisdom of the wise virgins, that they took oil in their vessels with their lamps, v. 4. They had a good principle within, which would maintain and keep up their profession. 1. The heart is the vessel, which it is our wisdom to get furnished; for, out of a good treasure there, good things must be brought; but if that root be rottenness, the blossom will be dust. 2. Grace is the oil which we must have in this vessel; in the tabernacle there was constant provision made of oil for the light, Exod 35 14. Our light must shine before men in good works, but this cannot be, or not long, unless there be a fixed active principle in the heart, of faith in Christ, and love to God and our brethren, from which we must act in every thing we do in religion, with an eye to what is before us. They that took oil in their vessels, did it upon supposition that perhaps the bridegroom might tarry. Note, In looking forward it is good to prepare for the worst, to lay in for a long siege. But remember that this oil which keeps the lamps burning, is derived to the candlestick from Jesus Christ, the great and good Olive, by the golden pipes of the ordinances, as it is represented in that vision (Zech 4 2, 3, 12), which is explained John 1 16, Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
MacArthur presents us with further scriptural references:
The wise, they carried the flask with the oil. The fools had no oil at all. They made no proper preparation. It was all outside. It was all external. But they hadn’t cared for the most necessary thing, and that is the oil so they could light the torch. They all made profession, but only five had the genuine oil of preparedness.
Now, what is that oil? It is the necessary reality of saving grace that distinguishes people. There may be a crowd of people all of whom outwardly, ostensibly, apparently honor Jesus Christ, but there will be different hearts, some prepared and some unprepared. The oil is like the garment of Matthew 22:11. You remember that the wedding feast there? The king calls a wedding for his son, and he sees the guests, and he finds a man without a wedding garment. He is also unprepared. He tries to crash the Kingdom, as it were, without a prepared heart.
And so the oil is the necessary grace without which no man shall see the Lord. It is true salvation. It is imputed righteousness. It is genuine holiness granted by faith in Jesus Christ. It is a transformed inward life. But some of them were like those of whom Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:5 and says they had a form of godliness but without power. The foolish virgins were outwardly attached. They were committed intellectually. They were committed socially. They were even committed religiously. But they had no light and they had no life.
They had no ability to be conformed to the law of God. Their faith in terms of James 2 was dead faith. It was faith that had no product, that could do nothing. And the purpose of the parable is to warn us not to be caught in such unpreparedness when the Lord comes.
My readers who have been following Year A’s readings from Matthew will recall previous parables wherein Jesus warned time and time again that some people will be separated and end up weeping and gnashing their teeth in torment.
MacArthur summarises our Lord’s warnings for us:
Now I hasten to say to you that this is a ringing repeated theme of our Lord’s ministry. He over and over again speaks to this issue. He says, for example, that in the Kingdom there will grow together wheat and tares, right? And they will look so much alike that we don’t dare start pulling them out lest we pull up the wheat, but wait until the coming of the Lord when He will make the distinction. And He talks about soil that looks good and the seed is planted, and the plant comes up and flourishes, but it has no deepness of earth, or it is strangled out by the roots of weeds and found to be dead and non-fruit-bearing.
But at first, we can’t tell the difference. This is a repeated message of our Lord, and it points up the fact – and I think this needs to be emphasized in every church across this world, that the church is filled with people who are unredeemed and unprepared for the coming of the Lord. It’s filled with them. I am interested that in this particular parable of ten virgins, the Lord didn’t say one of them didn’t have any oil, He said five of them didn’t. And although I don’t want to take something and make it a mathematical conclusion out of that, what that says to me is that He sees a large number of people like this.
It isn’t to say that half of everybody in the church is unredeemed, but it surely is to say that it’s a common issue, it’s not isolated. And I believe the church is filled with these kinds of people who are unredeemed people, who are unprepared, and whether they meet the Lord at His second coming should He come in their lifetime or whether they meet Him in death, and they will one or the other, they will be at that moment unprepared though they have been religious and though they have been involved with Christian people and though they have nice feelings toward Christ and though they may be self-deceived into thinking that all is well.
This is not a popular message, by the way. I wrote an article on this, and publishers refused to publish it in a magazine. They said it would upset people. And so we let people go to hell in self-deception. Our Lord warns over and over and over and over about this.
Jesus said that the bridegroom was delayed and, consequently, all the bridesmaids became drowsy and slept (verse 5).
MacArthur takes the verse as written:
Sleeping is not condemned. The wise were asleep like the foolish …
… And so you sort of settle back into the fact that you have to eat and sleep and work. It doesn’t mean that we’re not waiting … It means that while we wait, we go on.
However, Henry points out the sin of sleep — spiritual laxity — in this verse, pertaining to the wise as well as the foolish bridesmaids:
(2.) Their common fault, during the bridegroom’s delay; They all slumbered and slept, v. 5. Observe here,
[1.] The bridegroom tarried, that is, he did not come out so soon as they expected. What we look for as certain, we are apt to think is very near; many in the apostles’ times imagined that the day of the Lord was at hand, but it is not so. Christ, as to us, seems to tarry, and yet really does not, Hab 2 3. There is good reason for the Bridegroom’s tarrying; there are many intermediate counsels and purposes to be accomplished, the elect must all be called in, God’s patience must be manifested, and the saints’ patience tried, the harvest of the earth must be ripened, and so must the harvest of heaven too. But though Christ tarry past our time, he will not tarry past the due time.
[2.] While he tarried, those that waited for him, grew careless, and forgot what they were attending; They all slumbered and slept; as if they had given over looking for him; for when the Son of man cometh, he will not find faith, Luke 18 8. Those that inferred the suddenness of it from its certainty, when that answered not their expectation, were apt from the delay to infer its uncertainty. The wise virgins slumbered, and the foolish slept; so some distinguish it; however, they were both faulty. The wise virgins kept their lamps burning, but did not keep themselves awake. Note, Too many good Christians, when they have been long in profession, grow remiss in their preparations for Christ’s second coming; they intermit their care, abate their zeal, their graces are not lively, nor their works found perfect before God; and though all love be not lost, yet the first love is left. If it was hard to the disciples to watch with Christ an hour, much more to watch with him an age. I sleep, saith the spouse, but my heart wakes, Observe, First, They slumbered, and then they slept. Note, One degree of carelessness and remissness makes way for another. Those that allow themselves in slumbering, will scarcely keep themselves from sleeping; therefore dread the beginning of spiritual decays; Venienti occurrite morbo—Attend to the first symptoms of disease. The ancients generally understood the virgins’ slumbering and sleeping of their dying; they all died, wise and foolish (Ps 49 10), before judgment-day. So Ferus, Antequam veniat sponsus omnibus obdormiscendum est, hoc est, moriendum—Before the Bridegroom come, all must sleep, that is, die. So Calvin. But I think it is rather to be taken as we have opened it.
Then at midnight, there was a shout that the bridegroom had arrived and that the bridesmaids were to go and meet him (verse 6).
MacArthur looks at the hour of midnight in the Bible:
That’s a funny time to start a wedding – at midnight. But for the point that our Lord wants to make, He is simply saying it’s at an unexpected time. And now we understand more why they were asleep, right? Sleep is wonderful and sleep is where you’re supposed to be at midnight. But the tarrying was so long that now at midnight, when no one expects the wedding to start, is exactly when he comes.
And it’s kind of fascinating in a way, I guess, that in Exodus 12:29, it tells us that the deliverance of Israel from Egypt began at midnight, also in an unexpected time. Maybe that’s why the rabbis used to say that the Messiah would come when He came at midnight. It’s a late hour. An unexpected time reminds us – doesn’t it? – of the epistles where it says He will come as a thief in the – what? – in the night. The world somehow is lulled into complacency, and He comes in an unexpected moment, even after all the signs. I mean the bridesmaids knew the wedding was near. They could read the signs.
All the bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps (verse 7).
The foolish asked for oil from the wise because their lamps were going out (verse 8), but the wise bridesmaids told the foolish ones that there would not be enough to share and that they should go to the oil sellers and buy some (verse 9).
Henry points out:
They were denied a share in their companions’ oil. It is a sad presage of a repulse with God, when they were thus repulsed by good people. The wise answered, Not so; that peremptory denial is not in the original, but supplied by the translators: these wise virgins would rather give a reason without a positive refusal, than (as many do) give a positive refusal without a reason. They were well inclined to help their neighbours in distress; but, We must not, we cannot, we dare not, do it, lest there be not enough for us and you; charity begins at home; but go, and buy for yourselves.
MacArthur explains those verses:
Verse 7 says, “Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their torches.” Perhaps they readied all of the cloth, and the ones with the oil poured the oil on, ready to go, and lit the torch and it flamed in the night sky. Those who had no oil, they knew it now. Oh, maybe they thought they could just go down the street just before he got there. Maybe they didn’t think it would be midnight when he came and everything would be closed. Or they hadn’t even bothered to think about that, maybe they thought they could just sort of borrow that, nothing is said about that, we don’t know, they were just unprepared.
They certainly didn’t do what 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, Let a man examine himself. Examine yourself to see whether you be in the faith. They were deceived. And now when everything is revealed, they’re naked. They have no oil. They possess not the necessary internal grace of holiness. They can’t light the torch. And verse 8, “The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us of your oil for our lamps are going out,’” the Greek says. They no doubt lit the dry brittle cloth and it smoldered for a little while and then went out. It won’t burn. “Ours are going out, give us some of yours.”
But do you know something? If the call to go to be at the judgment seat of God came to you whether in death or the second coming of Jesus Christ, and it came to you when you were not ready and you were not prepared, all the saints in heaven and all the people on earth could stand weeping in your behalf but could never save you. Never. You see, salvation is non-transferable. That’s the point. It is not to interject into this that the wise were selfish, that’s not the point. The parable is not intending to teach selfishness. It is intending to teach the non-transferable nature of salvation.
The saved can’t save the lost. Give us your oil is a request that no one can answer. Every person must have his own salvation. Every person must make his own life right before God. You can’t grab my arm and be dragged into the Kingdom. You can’t share my oil. So, the wise answer in verse 9 and say, “No, lest there be not enough for us and you. Go rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves.” The idea here is simply to teach that you’ve got to procure your own. The buying does not assume that you have to pay a price for salvation, that it’s not a free gift.
You do pay a price in a sense, you pay the price of giving up your whole self, right? Like the man who sold everything he had to buy the treasure hidden in the field and the other man who sold everything he had to buy the pearl of great price. Or Isaiah’s chapter 55, verse 1, invitation, come and buy without money and without price. The idea here is simply to say you’ve got to go procure your own. No one could give it to you.
Oil was plenty and oil was available. But not at midnight and not right now. You had equal opportunity, but you slept away the day of grace and you slept away the time of opportunity. The sellers of oil you know, the Scriptures, the apostles, the prophets, teachers. And the implication here is that no one is allowed into the festival without a lit torch. It was sort of like the symbol that you were a part of the wedding party. And there was no way in without it. And they didn’t have it.
People, I tell you, this is the most fearful teaching the Bible gives. And Jesus gave it over and over and over again, that there are in the church myriads of people who are unprepared to face God. And they are deceived about that. And in the moment when they face the reality of their unpreparedness, it will be in that moment that it’s too late.
In Luke 6:46, the Lord said, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not the things which I say? Whosoever comes to Me and hears my Word and does them, I will show you to whom he is like, he is like a man who built a house and dug deep and laid the foundation on a rock. And when a flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon the house and could not shake it for it was founded upon a rock. But he that hears and does not is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the earth against which the stream did beat vehemently and immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great.” It’s the same thing.
While the foolish bridesmaids went out to buy more oil, the bridegroom came; the five wise bridesmaids accompanied him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut (verse 10).
Later, the foolish bridesmaids returned and said, ‘Lord, lord, open to us’ (verse 11), but the bridegroom replied, ‘Truly I tell you’ — implying emphasis — ‘I do not know you’ (verse 12).
MacArthur describes the terror of judgement and cites more warnings from the Bible:
… it says in verse 10, “While they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut.” No teachers now. The teachers are silent. No place to buy the oil now and the door is shut. What a thought. There are those moments of sheer terror immediately after the awareness that you have met holy God and are unprepared. The feeling that must have been in the hearts of the people in Noah’s time as the water started to go over their heads and they beat on the door of the ark to no avail. And their mockery had ended and was replaced by the sheer terror of their foolishness.
The door’s open now. It’ll be shut then. Some will not be ready … They’ll see the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then they’ll go to sleep when they should be preparing. And it is so even today. The lesson is the same for us. Every one of us meets God at the moment of death if we’re not alive in that time of His great coming.
And it is in that moment when we will be awakened to the unpreparedness, and the shock of all shock is those who will stand there, as Matthew 7 says, and say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name cast out demons and in thy name done many wonderful works? Then will I profess unto them, ‘Depart from me, I never knew you. Depart from me,’ He says, ‘you workers of iniquity.’” Frightening – it’s frightening. But I believe the church is filled with those kinds of people.
Listen to the warning as it comes again in the thirteenth chapter of Luke, the same thing only this time in another setting altogether. Jesus has just said, “Strive to enter in at the narrow gate.” And then He says, “When once the master of the house is risen up” – Luke 13:25 – “and has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us,’ and He shall answer and say to you, ‘I know you not from where you are.’ And then you shall begin to say, ‘We’ve eaten and drunk in your presence and thou hast taught in our streets,’ but He shall say, ‘I tell you I know you not from where you are. Depart from me all you workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
Well, notice verse 11 in the parable. They’re gone. The marriage begins. And it says, “Afterward came also the other virgins saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us.’” They want in. No oil. They want in, though. I mean we’re your friends. We’re part of the wedding party, we belong in the fellowship. We were involved, see. And so He answered in verse 12 and said, “Truly I say to you, ‘I know you not.’” It’s incomprehensible.
Jesus ended the parable by saying that we are to keep awake because we know not the day nor the hour of His return (verse 13).
MacArthur tells us:
There’s no second chance. You see, the only sure way to be ready on the unexpected day is to be ready every day – every day.
And that brings us finally to the warning, which makes a lot of sense after the parable. “Watch, therefore.” Literally, keep on the alert. Be ready. Based upon this, be ready “for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of man comes.” You don’t know that exact moment. That’s true in terms of the second coming …
This is the fifth time He has said it in this sermon. You don’t know, you don’t know, you don’t know. So be ready all the time. You see, to be a little late is to be late forever.
In Luke 21 and verse 34, we hear it again. “Take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be sort of overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness.” In other words, you’re sort of encased in the things of this world, the cares of this life. “So that day come upon you unawares.” In other words, you live for this world and you’re caught in the moment of confronting God. And it comes, verse 35, like a trap on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. “So watch ye therefore and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of man.” Don’t be caught unawares. Don’t be caught unprepared. That’s the message of the parable.
On that note, I will be eagerly anticipating the Sunday sermon at my church. Will the congregation hear an unpopular sermon with all of our Lord’s warnings or will we receive platitudes that are off topic? I won’t hold my breath waiting for the former.
Part 1 of my exegesis on Matthew 23:1-12, the Gospel reading for the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity can be found here, along with the other readings for this day.
Today’s post concludes with our Lord’s instructions regarding false teachers, verses 8 to 12.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 23:1-12
23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,
23:2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat;
23:3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.
23:4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.
23:5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.
23:6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues,
23:7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.
23:8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.
23:9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father–the one in heaven.
23:10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.
23:11 The greatest among you will be your servant.
23:12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
I left off yesterday with John MacArthur’s explanation of how horrible the scribes and Pharisees made spiritual growth for the Jewish people of their time. They piled endless manmade burdens upon them. As if that were not bad enough, the people thought that these men were actually holy when, in reality, they were cruel hypocrites, demanding the people do what they thought they were exempt from.
MacArthur contrasts this with Christ and His Gospel message and, later on, Paul the Apostle:
They lacked sympathy. There was no sense of kindness. There was no sense of graciousness. Quite in contrast to the Lord who came and said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Quite in contrast, say, to the apostle Paul who, in writing to the Thessalonians, says, “When we came to you, we were gentle among you as a nursing mother nurses her baby, cherishes her child.” Cherish means to warm with body heat, and Paul says in the intimacy of that marvelous imagery of a nursing baby, that’s how we were with you.
That’s how tender we were. That’s how caring we were with you. That marvelous tenderness that marks the true shepherd, that marked the Savior and those who followed Him. Very different from the unsympathetic legalism and bondage of the false spiritual leader who abuses people, who uses people, who piles and crushes them under rules and regulations which they pretend to fulfill but don’t. They were without sympathy.
Jesus told the people and His disciples that none of them were to be called ‘rabbi’, for they had one teacher and all of them were students (verse 8).
The King James Version of this verse is clearer:
8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.
Matthew Henry’s commentary says, mentioning the example of the great Anglican churchman, the Revd George Herbert (1593-1633):
1. Christ’s ministers must not affect the name of Rabbi or Master, by way of distinction from other people; it is not agreeable to the simplicity of the gospel, for them to covet or accept the honour which they have that are in kings’ palaces. 2. They must not assume the authority and dominion implied in those names; they must not be magisterial, nor domineer over their brethren, or over God’s heritage, as if they had dominion over the faith of Christians: what they received of the Lord, all must receive from them; but in other things they must not make their opinions and wills a rule and standard to all other people, to be admitted with an implicit obedience …
… Note, [1.] Christ is our Master, our Teacher, our Guide. Mr. George Herbert, when he named the name of Christ, usually added, My Master. [2.] Christ only is our Master, ministers are but ushers in the school. Christ only is the Master, the great Prophet, whom we must hear, and be ruled and overruled by; whose word must be an oracle and a law to us; Verily I say unto you, must be enough to us. And if he only be our Master, then for his ministers to set up for dictators, and to pretend to a supremacy and an infallibility, is a daring usurpation of that honour of Christ which he will not give to another.
… Ministers are brethren not only to one another, but to the people; and therefore it ill becomes them to be masters, when there are none for them to master it over but their brethren; yea, and we are all younger brethren, otherwise the eldest might claim an excellency of dignity and power, Gen 49 3. But, to preclude that, Christ himself is the first-born among many brethren, Rom 8 29. Ye are brethren, as ye are all disciples of the same Master. School-fellows are brethren, and, as such, should help one another in getting their lesson; but it will by no means be allowed that one of the scholars step into the master’s seat, and give law to the school. If we are all brethren, we must not be many masters. Jam 3 1.
Jesus then said that the people and His disciples were not to call spiritual leaders ‘Father’, for they had but one Father, the one in heaven (verse 9).
Henry explains the verse, including Paul’s later use of the word:
The fathers of our flesh must be called fathers, and as such we must give them reverence; but God only must be allowed as the Father of our spirits, Heb 12 9. Our religion must not be derived from, or made to depend upon, any man. We are born again to the spiritual and divine life, not of corruptible seed, but by the word of God; not of the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God. Now the will of man, not being the rise of our religion, must not be the rule of it. We must not jurare in verba magistri—swear to the dictates of any creature, not the wisest or best, nor pin our faith on any man’s sleeve, because we know not whither he will carry it. St. Paul calls himself a Father to those whose conversion he had been an instrument of (1 Cor 4 15; Phil 10); but he pretends to no dominion over them, and uses that title to denote, not authority, but affection: therefore he calls them not his obliged, but his beloved, sons, 1 Cor 4 14 …
… Christ having taught us to say, Our Father, who art in heaven; let us call no man Father upon earth; no man, because man is a worm, and the son of man is a worm, hewn out of the same rock with us; especially not upon earth, for man upon earth is a sinful worm; there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not, and therefore no one is fit to be called Father.
Jesus added another stipulation: that no spiritual leader was to be called an instructor, because there is only one Instructor, the Messiah (verse 10) — Himself.
His words were a sharp criticism of the Sanhedrin, who craved their titles and delighted in hearing them.
MacArthur tells us:
So when they went through the market, and Jesus is saying this, and they’re there listening to this, they loved to be called by men, “Rabbi, Rabbi.” Now, that doesn’t mean a lot in our culture because rabbi is not a word that we’re accustomed to. What it means is teacher, teacher. But more than that, because teacher isn’t even the right word in our culture because a teacher is so broad, there are so many things in a culture like ours that’s not religious, but to say teacher in a Jewish culture is to say supreme one, superior one, your excellency, most knowledgeable one, great one.
The Latin equivalent, this is painful, is doctor, docere. This is – yes, Doctor So-and-so. They loved those titles that pushed them up, see, that elevated them above everybody else …
Doctor So-and-so, as if that means you’re some great, great one. They wanted to be called that. They demanded to be called that. And another thing they demanded to be called is down in verse 10, master – master. Interesting word. It’s hard to just be very dogmatic in nailing down the meaning of kathēgētēs. The best thing you could do to identify it is leader. They loved to be called leader, see.
They wanted to be called doctor – knowledge; leader – authority. And another word they loved to be called is in verse 9, father. They wanted to be called rabbi or teacher or doctor because that spoke of the fact that they were the source of knowledge. They wanted to be called master because that indicated that they were the source of direction and guiding. By the way some equivalate – give equivalent meaning to the word professor and the word master or leader, kathēgētēs. But the third one was father, and they loved that because that spoke of the fact that they were the source of spiritual life. They were the father of spiritual life. They gave spiritual life.
So they wanted to be called teacher, source of knowledge. They wanted to be called master, as it were, or leader, source of all direction. They wanted to be called father, source of spiritual life.
However, MacArthur points out churches that use these titles:
Now, the word father is interesting. That’s found its way into religion hasn’t it? Primarily in the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Episcopal Church. If you were in the Church of England today and you’re a bishop, your proper title is Right Reverend Father in God.
Can you imagine introducing me to someone and saying this is our pastor, Right Reverend Father in God John MacArthur? Mercy. I mean if – listen, if – it’d be one thing if I was the teacher, but I’m not. It’d be one thing if I was the leader, but I’m not. It’d be one thing if I was your spiritual father, but I’m not. I’m not any of those things – not any of those things. By the way, the word abbot in the Roman Catholic church comes from Abba Father. The word pope even comes from a form of the word father … just a little linguistic insight.
As an Anglican, I checked ‘Right Reverend Father in God’, of which I had not heard. MacArthur is correct.
The term appears in describing bishops who lived in the 18th century: Thomas Wilson, Lord Bishop of Sodor and Man and Edward, Lord Bishop of Elphin.
A modified title designating a bishop, Reverend Father in God, appears in the Anglican Ordination Rite.
In 2015, however, a female Anglican bishop requested that the title be omitted in favour of ‘Bishop’. On October 26 that year, the BBC reported:
The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Rev Rachel Treweek, will be introduced as one of 26 Lords Spiritual by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Bishop of London Richard Chartres.
As a diocesan bishop, she is the first woman with enough Church seniority to be appointed to the House of Lords.
She will take the parliamentary oath before taking a place on the benches.
Bishop Treweek sent back the first version of the writ of summons because it termed her a “right reverend father in God”. Instead, it will describe her as “bishop”.
MacArthur continues:
So don’t stick on person up above another person as if that person is the source of truth. And the leveler comes in verse 8 at the end of the verse. “You are all” – what? – “brothers.” Nobody’s a great one. Nobody’s a superior. He just puts us all on the same level, we’re all brothers. You have one teacher and that’s Christ. He is the didaskalos. He taught us the truth which we pass on. Boy, we really lose sight of this in the church …
… It’s better to have no titles and no degrees and no anything than to play an ego-centered game which endeavors to push you up and keep other people in their place.
So the reverend, doctor, bishop, professor, abbot, pope, father, so forth, so on is artificial. We’re all brothers. And if we ever teach truth, it’s because the master teacher taught us. And in verse 9, “Don’t call anybody father.” “Don’t call anybody father upon this earth.” There’s not a soul on this earth that gave you spiritual life, right? Nobody. Nobody here gave you spiritual life. The Sanhedrin members like to be called father as if they were the source of spiritual life. And men in the ministry of some churches today want to be called father, as if they are the source of spiritual life. They are not.
Verse 9 says “One is your Father” – and He is where? – “He is in heaven.” The source of spiritual life is the heavenly Father, not some human person. To call a man father or a higher-ranked priest holy father is unacceptable, a violation of Scripture. It just isn’t right because none of us is the teacher and none of us is the leader and none of us is the Father.
That brings us to the last word leader, verse 10. “Neither be ye called master or leader for One is your leader” – again, Christ. Christ is the teacher. Christ is the guide. And Christ is the source of life. So don’t be called master. We have so many problems. We just love that. We want to get a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree and a doctor’s degree and then we want to keep going up just putting these barriers between ourselves and the common folks.
I can understand it happening in the world, but it shouldn’t happen among those who are all brothers in Christ. None of us is any great one. None of us is the depository of all truth. None of us the leader among leaders who has all insights. None of us is the spiritual life source of anybody. So he says to the people, “You stay away from these false leaders. Now, you disciples, you be true leaders and you avoid the things that they got into and don’t be like them.”
In defence of churches with a hierarchy, it would seem that the Roman Catholic system found its way into the Anglican Church to maintain doctrinal order. If only our bishops and archbishops today were as envisaged centuries ago. The Church Society explains what is contained in the relevant Thirty-nine Articles of Religion pertaining to the Anglican Church:
As we saw in a previous blogpost, there is some significant biblical warrant for episcopacy — the government of the church by bishops (in Greek, episcopoi). The Church of England inherited episcopacy from the early and medieval church. Both Celtic and later Roman forms of Christianity in England had bishops (just as Eastern Orthodoxy does), though they often conceived of their roles in different ways (with the more settled, Roman pattern of a bishop overseeing a territory called a diocese winning the day as time went by). The Protestant Reformers did not seek to abolish the office of bishop, but to capture the power of appointments and reform the office according to the word of God, so that it would be a more useful instrument for the evangelisation and edification of the people. They did not seek to establish government by local committees of presbyters (Presbyterianism), or transfer significant episcopal powers to more ‘democratic’ parish gatherings (Congregationalism); and they certainly did not intend to create new mini-Popes in every parish who could tyrannise their congregations without legal accountability (a sort of hyper-congregationalism with monarchical Presbyters).
The Anglican Formularies
Episcopacy, with a balance of powers and proper accountability, is written in to the Anglican formularies. In the context of our foundational Thirty-nine Articles, and the Prayer Book in which they are found, it is clear that the Church of England does not consider a parish congregation to be ‘the highest tribunal to which an aggrieved party may appeal’, as the Congregationalist theologian Thomas Hooker (1586–1647) claimed in his argument over church polity with the Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford. Thus, the Articles talk about the biblically-circumscribed jurisdiction of the monarch over the church (Article 37); and about archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons (Articles 32 and 36).
The Prayer Book provides for the consecration of bishops and archbishops, charging them to preach, drive away erroneous doctrine, and administer discipline across their dioceses, in accordance with the canon law rules of the Church. Articles 33 and 34 speak about the Church and excommunication (which is reserved to bishops, not local gatherings), and about particular national churches having authority to ordain, change, and abolish rites and ceremonies (which has never been a power given to each individual parish meeting within Anglican polity). So understood in their own context, the Articles cannot (as some have claimed) be singling out the local parish assembly in Article 19 as self-contained and supreme, apart from the wider Church, unless they are contradicting themselves rather blatantly.
Article 19 says that ‘The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered.’ It doesn’t say the local congregation is all that matters. Rather, it defines the whole visible catholic [universal] church as a certain group of those who have faith, called out and distinguished from the world by the preaching of the word and the orderly, disciplined administration of the sacraments (which includes the idea of excommunication or barring people from those sacraments, as the Articles and Prayer Book make clear). In its historical context, it establishes that a church does not need to be under the authority of the Bishop of Rome to be a true church, rejecting that institutional definition in favour of one which prioritises confession over connection, practice over Pope, laity over leadership.
The Reformation of Episcopacy
The proposals in the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum (contemporary with the Thirty-nine Articles and drafted by Thomas Cranmer, Peter Martyr Vermigli and others) explain the system of church government and discipline which the Reformers intended to put in place alongside the formularies. It said,
‘Bishops, because they hold the chief place among the other ministers of the church, must therefore govern and pastor the lower orders of the clergy, as well as the whole people of God, with sound doctrine, sober authority and wise counsel, not indeed in order to lord it over their faith, but that they might prove themselves to be true servants of the servants of God. And they shall know that the government / authority and ecclesiastical jurisdiction has been specially entrusted to them for no other reason than that by their ministry and hard work / dedication as many people as possible may be made rich in / joined to Christ…’
It also speaks about the obedience to be shown to such bishops, ‘to foster harmony’ and ‘for the sake of Christian discipline’. Indeed, Cranmer’s committee outlined the tasks of a bishop as: passing on sound doctrine; conferring holy orders and instituting ministers to benefices as well as removing those who are unworthy; settling complaints and quarrels between ministers and their churches; correcting vices by ecclesiastical censures and excommunicating persistent offenders; visiting the whole diocese regularly; holding synods; and confirming people. (Reformatio, 20:10–12)
As well as in the Ordinal, (ordination services), such a view of bishops is set out in Canon Law even today. Canon C18 says of a bishop that “it appertains to his office to teach and to uphold sound and wholesome doctrine, and to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange opinions; and, himself an example of righteous and godly living, it is his duty to set forward and maintain quietness, love, and peace among all men.” This is very much in line with what the Pastoral Epistles and 1 Peter 5 say about the qualifications for elders.
The Wellbeing of the Church
Bishops are not an essential part of our definition of the church, but in the Church of England they have always been regarded as a useful biblical means for safeguarding our spiritual health and good order. They must not ordain rites and ceremonies that are ‘contrary to God’s Word written’ (Article 20). We must have lawfully called and consecrated preachers and ministers (Article 23, Article 36), who do not need to be celibate singles but may be married (Article 32), and who speak in a language understood by the people (Article 24). Sacraments ‘duly administered’ also means properly using the sacraments for the purpose they were instituted (Article 25, Article 28), including baptising infants which is ‘most agreeable with the institution of Christ’ (Article 27), and giving communion in both kinds (Article 30). It also means the ministers who administer the sacraments must be subject to discipline and removal if they fall short (Article 26), and must also discipline others (Article 33), while not offending the common order of the church in their attitude towards traditions which are in themselves not repugnant to the Bible (Article 34).
Bishops have always been a part of my church life, first as a Catholic and now as an Anglican. It would be difficult to govern a denomination without them, even though some of them, in my opinion, do not have a totally biblical mindset.
But I digress.
Jesus then came to the end of His discourse on false teachers.
First, He said that the greatest among His audience and His disciples would be their servant (verse 11).
That was certainly contrary to what the scribes and the Pharisees thought, which was why He said it. Furthermore, He set the example to the Apostles when He washed their feet the following day at the Last Supper. I believe that Anglican bishops, by and large, follow this example. However, I agree that the unbiblical title of ‘Right Reverend Father in God’ should go by the wayside.
Henry tells us:
Take it as a promise; “He shall be accounted greatest, and stand highest in the favour of God, that is most submissive and serviceable;” or as a precept; “He that is advanced to any place of dignity, trust, and honour, in the church, let him be your servant“ (some copies read esto for estai), “let him not think that his patent of honour is a writ of ease; no; he that is greatest is not a lord, but a minister.” St. Paul, who knew his privilege as well as duty, though free from all, yet made himself servant unto all (1 Cor 9 19); and our Master frequently pressed it upon his disciples to be humble and self-denying, mild and condescending, and to abound in all offices of Christian love, though mean, and to the meanest; and of this he hath set us an example.
MacArthur says similarly:
Greatness consists in humble outpouring of life for others. It’s the servant leader. If you want to be great, then serve, that’s all. Jesus was just Jesus in terms of His earthly name. And He served and He washed feet and He gave His life. And He said “The Son of man has not come to be ministered unto but” – to what? – “to minister” or serve, give His life. That’s the point.
Jesus then concluded by saying that all who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted (verse 12), as He Himself was humbled on the Cross then exalted once He ascended back to Heaven to sit on the right hand of God the Father.
Henry cites examples from the Bible in analysing this verse:
Here is a good reason for all this, v. 12. Consider,
First, The punishment intended for the proud; Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased. If God give them repentance, they will be abased in their own eyes, and will abhor themselves for it; if they repent not, sooner or later they will be abased before the world. Nebuchadnezzar, in the height of his pride, was turned to be a fellow-commoner with the beasts; Herod, to be a feast for the worms; and Babylon, that sat as a queen, to be the scorn of nations. God made the proud and aspiring priests contemptible and base (Mal 2 9), and the lying prophet to be the tail, Isa 9 15. But if proud men have not marks of humiliation set upon them in this world, there is a day coming, when they shall rise to everlasting shame and contempt (Dan 12 2); so plentifully will he reward the proud doer! Ps 31 23.
Secondly, The preferment intended for the humble; He that shall humble himself shall be exalted. Humility is that ornament which is in the sight of God of great price. In this world the humble have the honour of being accepted with the holy God, and respected by all wise and good men; of being qualified for, and often called out to, the most honourable services; for honour is like the shadow, which flees from those that pursue it, and grasp at it, but follows those that flee from it. However, in the other world, they that have humbled themselves in contrition for their sin, in compliance with their God, and in condescension to their brethren, shall be exalted to inherit the throne of glory; shall be not only owned, but crowned, before angels and men.
MacArthur sums our Lord’s lesson up as follows, including with a citation from the Revd Andrew Bonar (1810-1892), a minister in the Free Church of Scotland:
Andrew Bonar was a dear man of God years back. He once said he could always tell when a Christian was growing, and the way he could tell when a Christian was growing is the Christian would always talk more and more of Christ and less and less of himself. And he said it was like the Christian seeing himself get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until like the morning star, he gave way to the rising sun. False spiritual leaders, no authority, no integrity, no sympathy, no spirituality, no humility.
So what is a true spiritual leader? What is a true spiritual leader? Divine authority, where does that come from? Word of God. Integrity, his life matches his message. Sympathy, he’s filled with grace and mercy and pity and care. Spirituality, it’s the heart he’s concerned about, not the outside, not the show. Humility, instead of lacking humility he manifests the heart of a servant who seeks to be humble and let God lift him up.
At this point in the Lectionary, this is the last reading we have until Matthew 25, which is coming up soon.
After Jesus finished His discourse on false teachers, He then condemned the Sanhedrin, pronouncing coming judgement upon them. I wrote about the rest of the chapter in 2016.
It seems that everything our Lord had said on that Wednesday, two days before His death, led up to the following condemnations, all preceded by the word ‘Woe’, signifying judgement:
Matthew 23:13-15 – Jesus, seven woes, scribes and Pharisees, judgement, condemnation
Jesus pronounces the first of the seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees, whom He terms ‘hypocrites’. In other translations of the Bible, there are eight woes to counteract the eight Beatitudes, as per Matthew Henry (cited in the post).
Matthew 23:16-19 – Jesus, seven woes, scribes and Pharisees, judgement, condemnation, Corban
Jesus pronounces the second of the seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees.
Matthew 23:20-22 – Jesus, seven woes, scribes and Pharisees, judgement, condemnation, oaths, promises, the holy Name, kingdom of heaven
These three verses conclude Matthew 23:16-19 …
Matthew 23:23-24 – tithing, scribes, Pharisees, Jesus, judgement
In Jesus’s fourth woe to the scribes and Pharisees, He passed judgement on them for placing more value on how much mint, dill and cumin to tithe than on justice, mercy — and faithfulness to God.
Matthew 23:25-26 – hypocrites, scribes, Pharisees, cup and plate, purity, Jesus
Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for their outward cleanliness and filthy inwardness, using an analogy of a cup and plate: clean on the outside, dirty on the inside. He was referring to their extortion racket in the temple. You can read more about that in the third woe (here and here). The lesson is to have a pure heart — interior — so that the exterior will also be pure.
Matthew 23:27-28 – Jesus, scribes and Pharisees, whitewashed sepulchres
Jesus compares the scribes and Pharisees to whitewashed sepulchres — tombs. They appear pure and clean on the outside, but are full of sin within. This is the sixth of the seventh woes — judgements — He pronounced upon them.
Matthew 23:29-33 – Jesus, scribes and Pharisees, serpents, brood of vipers, hell
Jesus pronounced the seventh and final woe — judgement, condemnation — on the scribes and Pharisees who continued the egregious legacy of sin from their forefathers: killing prophets and, now, the Messiah, whom the prophets foretold.
Little did the Sanhedrin know that their world would come to an end with the destruction of the temple at the hands of the Romans in AD 70. It has never been rebuilt. That said, Paul tells us that the Jews will embrace Christianity before the world ends (Romans 11:25-28).
Forbidden Bible Verses will appear tomorrow.
The Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity is November 5, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here, which were used for the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity in 2020.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 23:1-12
23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,
23:2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat;
23:3 therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.
23:4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.
23:5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.
23:6 They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues,
23:7 and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.
23:8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.
23:9 And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father–the one in heaven.
23:10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.
23:11 The greatest among you will be your servant.
23:12 All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
We are still in Wednesday of what we commemorate today as Holy, or Passion, Week.
Jesus died on the cross two days later.
Wednesday was a long day for Him at the temple. The last several weeks of Sunday readings in Year A of the Lectionary recount the debates He had with the Jewish hierarchy, the Sanhedrin, on that day.
Last week’s reading was about the greatest commandment, a question one of the lawyers among the scribes posed, followed by our Lord’s asking the Pharisees how He was the Son of David, by which He stated He was also the Son of God.
John MacArthur sums up our Lord’s Wednesday thus far:
A Wednesday that began in the morning with the Lord coming into the city from Bethany where He had spent the night near or with Lazarus and Mary and Martha.
And along the way, they had passed the cursed fig tree, and He taught His disciples a lesson, then coming to the temple, which He had cleansed the day before He began to teach, and as He was teaching the massive multitudes collected for the Passover, He was stopped by the religious leaders and they began this dialogue, which has gone on now for several chapters. They wanted to know by what authority He did and said the things He did and said, and He didn’t give them that authority at first but rather gave them three parables, which condemned them and told them they would be shut out of the Kingdom of God and replaced by others.
They then counter those parables of condemnation with three questions meant to discredit Him, each of which He answered in such a way as to discredit them. And then He finally asked them a question about the Messiah, which proved beyond shadow of a doubt that the Messiah was both man and God, and at this point they stopped asking anything at all. And so the dialogue, as such, has ended.
Today’s reading is His final public address:
… beginning then in verse 1 of chapter 23, the Lord gives His last sermon to the people of Israel. This is it. His ministry to them is over. This is the last public speech, and it is a denunciation of these false religious leaders and a warning for the people to stay away from them. It is a very severe, a very serious presentation but a very necessary one. They are false shepherds, they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, they damn people, and they must be avoided, and our Lord pulls no punches in making that abundantly clear.
Jesus spoke to the crowds and to the disciples (verse 1).
This is not to say that they were not present when He was answering the Sanhedrin’s questions, however, these 12 verses were dedicated to the people and His followers about the Sanhedrin.
Matthew Henry’s commentary says:
We find not Christ, in all his preaching, so severe upon any sort of people as upon these scribes and Pharisees; for the truth is, nothing is more directly opposite to the spirit of the gospel than the temper and practice of that generation of men, who were made up of pride, worldliness, and tyranny, under a cloak and pretence of religion; yet these were the idols and darlings of the people, who thought, if but two men went to heaven, one would be a Pharisee. Now Christ directs his discourse here to the multitude, and to his disciples (v. 1) to rectify their mistakes concerning these scribes and Pharisees, by painting them out in their true colours, and so to take off the prejudice which some of the multitude had conceived against Christ and his doctrine, because it was opposed by those men of their church, that called themselves the people’s guides. Note, It is good to know the true characters of men, that we may not be imposed upon by great and mighty names, titles, and pretensions to power … And not only the mixed multitude, but even the disciples, need these cautions; for good men are apt to have their eyes dazzled with worldly pomp.
Jesus said that the scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’s seat (verse 2).
MacArthur explains what Moses’s seat was:
Now, in the synagogues there was a special seat. It was called Moses’ seat. It was the chair of Moses, and in that chair, which may not have been a real chair but stood for a place of authority, was the leading teacher, the leading Pharisee, the leading scribe. If you had the seat of Moses in your synagogue, you were the chief teacher, you represented the authority.
In fact, the word “seat” is the word kathedra, from which we get “cathedral,” but maybe more significantly than that, the Latins took that Greek word kathedra and made a phrase out of it, ex cathedra – out of the place of authority – and they said in the Roman Catholic system that when the pope speaks, he speaks ex cathedra. It is then binding on the conscience, it is binding on the life because it’s out of the throne of authority or out of the seat of authority.
And so kathedra has to do with the seat, Moses has to do with the law, and so they spoke as the law authority. They were the authority. Like our modern universities have a chair of philosophy or a chair of history or a chair of biology or a chair of whatever, so the synagogue had a chair of Moses, a seat of Moses, a place of authority. A person occupying that seat would have great weight and great authority. However, there is nothing in this verse to indicate that they had a right to sit there, that they had a right to pontificate about what the people should do, that they had a right to represent God in that place or the law of Moses.
There’s nothing to say they had earned it, that it had been given them by God, that they were qualified to take it. All it says is they sat in it, they took it. In fact, they did everything they could to try to keep Jesus from taking it from them, and when He did go into their synagogue and teach, they were infuriated, just as they were when Paul did that. And that’s why John 16 says the day is going to come – when Jesus talks to His disciples, He says the day is going to come when men think they do God service by killing you, and they’re going to throw you out of their synagogues because a truth teacher who has real authority is always a threat to someone who’s a usurper.
And these usurpers had gone in and occupied the chair of authority when in fact they did not delineate the divine authority but gave their own tradition and their own ritual and their own routines that they themselves through the centuries had invented and did all they could to keep others out.
Henry tells us that this seat of authority began with Moses:
The pulpit of wood, such as was made for Ezra, that ready scribe in the law of God (Neh 8 4), is here called Moses’s seat, because Moses had those in every city (so the expression is, Acts 15 21), who in those pulpits preached him; this was their office, and it was just and honourable; it was requisite that there should be some at whose mouth the people might enquire the law, Mal 2 7.
MacArthur gives us the history of the Pharisees from the Old Testament, which started out well but became corrupted through manmade law and traditions:
… there were no more than six thousand, but highly influential. Now, they were the ones committed to the law. You remember back in 586 [BC] when Judah was taken into captivity into Babylon. They were there for seventy years. They came back from Babylon, they started to reestablish life in the land, and you remember that Nehemiah and Ezra brought the Scriptures to the people again, and the Scriptures were discovered, and in Nehemiah 8, there was a standing and a reading of the Scripture, you recall that?
And this was after all these years of not having that, and the people all stood up and heard the reading and they swore to obey the Scripture and they swore to be committed to God’s authority and God’s Word. And the law was put back in the center of their life. The law was put back in clear focus for them. And it became that which they were committed to.
Now, at that time, a group of people then became committed to studying and teaching the Scriptures. Out of this group grew this Pharisaic mentality where the Scripture was everything – the Scripture was everything – and over the years from the time of Nehemiah’s reading of the Scripture, Nehemiah chapter 8, right down to the time of our Lord, these people had studied the law and interpreted the law to the point where there were in excess of fifty volumes of their commentary on the law. And they had added all kinds of things, ceremonies, rituals, regulations, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, myriads of them, and they had enjoined them on people. And for them, life was all about the law.
Now, not all Pharisees were scribes, but within the group of Pharisees were a group of scribes who were among the Pharisees the experts in the law. All the Pharisees were committed to law keeping, but the scribes were the experts. They were the ones who cared for the law, they were the ones who dispensed the law. The old Jewish saying was that God gave the law to Moses, Moses gave the law to Joshua, Joshua gave the law to the elders, the elders gave the law to the prophets, and the prophets gave the law to the men of the synagogues, and the men of the synagogues were the scribes who were a part of the Pharisaic whose job it was to interpret and bind the law to the hearts of the people and that was their task.
So they were the spiritual leaders. They had the law, they said.
Jesus told the people and His disciples to obey whatever these men taught and follow it, but to avoid doing what they do because they did not practice what they preached (verse 3).
Jesus meant that they should follow God’s word as taught but not the actions of the teachers, which were hypocritical.
Henry explains that Jesus was careful not to dishonour Moses, which the Sanhedrin wanted to hear most of all so that they could condemn Him formally:
Now Christ would have the people to make use of the helps they gave them for the understanding of the scripture, and do accordingly. As long as their comments did illustrate the text and not pervert it; did make plain, and not make void, the commandment of God; so far they must be observed and obeyed, but with caution and a judgment of discretion. Note, We must not think the worse of good truths for their being preached by bad ministers; nor of good laws for their being executed by bad magistrates. Though it is most desirable to have our food brought by angels, yet, if God send it to us by ravens, if it be good and wholesome, we must take it, and thank God for it. Our Lord Jesus promiseth this, to prevent the cavil which some would be apt to make at this following discourse; as if, by condemning the scribes and Pharisees, he designed to bring the law of Moses into contempt, and to draw people off from it; whereas he came not to destroy, but to fulfil. Note, It is wisdom to obviate the exceptions which may be taken at just reproofs, especially when there is occasion to distinguish between officers and their offices, that the ministry be not blamed when the ministers are.
MacArthur says that the Old Testament prophets also had dispiriting experiences with false prophets of their day:
Look to Jeremiah 14 for a moment. And Jeremiah faced the same kind of situation. Jeremiah was a true prophet. He was really a lonely prophet. He was crying out one message when all the other prophets were crying out a lie. He was telling the truth, and all these other prophets were lying. They were all saying, “Oh, it’ll all be well. Everything is fine.” And Jeremiah was saying, “It isn’t,” and the people would go to the teachers that said what they wanted to hear.
They’re identified in Jeremiah 14:14, “The Lord said to me, ‘The prophets prophesy lies in my name.’” That is a fearful thing, to use the name of God to propagate lies. “‘I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke unto them. They prophesy unto you a false vision and divination and a thing of nothing and the deceit of their heart.’ Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name and I sent them not.” He goes on to describe what He’s going to do. He sent them not.
In chapter 23, several times the same thing is indicated again. Verse 21, “I have not sent these prophets yet they ran, I have not spoken to them yet they prophesied.” Verse 32, “I am against those who prophesy false dreams,” says the Lord, “and do tell them and cause my people to err by their lies and their instability, yet I sent them not, nor commanded them.” And you find in chapter 27, verse 15, “I have not sent them.” And it goes on like that chapter 28, chapter 29.
Isaiah, another of the great Old Testament prophets faced the same kind of thing. I believe it’s chapter 30, verse 10. It says, “Say to the seers, see not, to the prophets, prophesy not unto us right things. Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits. Get out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.” Don’t tell us the truth. We don’t want to hear what God wants us to know. That’s an amazing thing. One of the reasons people go into untrue religions, go into false religions is because they don’t want to hear the truth. They don’t want to hear what God really has to say. And so there’s always an audience for false prophets …
And then there’s that incredible passage in the thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, which indicts the false shepherds of Israel. Just listen to this: “And the Word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say to them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, Woe or curse you shepherds of Israel that do feed yourselves. Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? …
“You eat the fat and you clothe yourself with the wool.” In other words, you’re feeding on your own sheep. Instead of reaching out to meet their needs, you’re devouring them, taking everything they’ve got. “You kill those who are fed, you feed not the flock. The diseased have you not strengthened, neither have you healed the sick, neither have you bound up what was broken, neither have you brought again that which was driven away, neither have you sought what was lost, but with force and cruelty you’ve ruled over them.”
Boy, that is such a definition of false religious leadership. Just brutalize people. Get everything out of them you can to build your own empire. “And when they were scattered because there’s no shepherd, they became food to all the beasts of the field. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, on every high hill, my flock was scattered on the face of the earth, and no one sought after them; therefore, you shepherds hear the Word of the Lord. As I live, says the Lord God, surely because my flock became a prey and my flock became food to every beast of the field because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherd search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves and fed not my flock. Oh, shepherds hear the word of the Lord. I am against the shepherds.”
Jesus then expanded on the hypocrisy and pride of the Sanhedrin.
He said that the scribes and the Pharisees tied up heavy legal (religious) burdens on others and were unwilling to move them (verse 4).
Henry tells us of their religious cruelty and contrasts it with the light burden of Christianity:
They bind heavy burthens, and grievous to be borne; not only insisting upon the minute circumstances of the law, which is called a yoke (Acts 15 10), and pressing the observation of them with more strictness and severity than God himself did (whereas the maxim of the lawyers, is Apices juris son sunt jura—Mere points of law are not law), but by adding to his words, and imposing their own inventions and traditions, under the highest penalties. They loved to show their authority and to exercise their domineering faculty, lording it over God’s heritage, and saying to men’s souls, Bow down, that we may go over; witness their many additions to the law of the fourth commandment, by which they made the sabbath a burthen on men’s shoulders, which was designed to be the joy of their hearts. Thus with force and cruelty did those shepherds rule the flock, as of old, Ezek 34 4.
But see their hypocrisy; They themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. (1.) They would not exercise themselves in those things which they imposed upon others; they pressed upon the people a strictness in religion which they themselves would not be bound by; but secretly transgressed their own traditions, which they publicly enforced. They indulged their pride in giving law to others; but consulted their ease in their own practice … (2.) They would not ease the people in these things, nor put a finger to lighten their burthen, when they saw it pinched them. They could find out loose constructions to put upon God’s law, and could dispense with that, but would not bate an ace of their own impositions, nor dispense with a failure in the least punctilio of them. They allowed no chancery to relieve the extremity of their common law. How contrary to this was the practice of Christ’s apostles, who would allow to others that use of Christian liberty which, for the peace and edification of the church, they would deny themselves in! They would lay no other burthen than necessary things, and those easy, Acts 15 28. How carefully doth Paul spare those to whom he writes! 1 Cor 7 28; 9 12.
MacArthur says this is why Paul condemned the hypocrisy and cruelty of the false teachers of his day:
That’s why Paul, writing to Timothy, characterizing false spiritual leaders, says, “They speak lies in hypocrisy. They can’t live what they tell, and their conscience is seared with a hot iron” – very, very vivid phrase. It’s like scar tissue. I was thrown out of a car and on my back I have a whole large area of scar tissue that has – it’s not sensitive to feeling at all. You could stick a pin in my back – I prefer that you not experiment because if you miss the area, I will feel it, but you could stick a pin in my back and I wouldn’t feel it because of that scar tissue that is there because of the friction burns as I slid along the highway.
And here, he’s saying these false prophets have lived this hypocrisy so long that their conscience is like scar tissue. It’s formed a callousness so that they are no longer even sensitive to the hypocritical nature of their existence. They are just liars who have lied so long, hypocrites who have lived hypocritically so long that they are desensitized to it. The truth is inside is wretchedness and rottenness that they can’t restrain.
MacArthur also gives us a vivid example of a beast of burden in the Middle East to make this verse come alive:
No sympathy at all. No love, no care. The picture is of a guy loading up his burro, his donkey, and if you’ve been in the Middle East, I mean it is incredible what they put on those donkeys. It’s a good thing they’re dumb. They can pile that stuff high up to the top and hang down over the sides and strap it all in so that you can’t find the animal. That thing is carrying stuff – we saw boxes piled 10, 15 feet high, some of those slat kind of crates. I saw a donkey with chickens hanging all over it in little crates. It’s the Arab pick-up truck.
And they would just pile it on and pile it on and pile it on and pile it on, and a guy walking alongside with nothing, carrying nothing. And not even – and some of those donkeys are listing 10 degrees to the left, 14 degrees to the right, and no movement to straighten up that burden at all. That’s the picture here, and it would have been a vivid picture to these people.
And that’s what the Pharisees do, says the Lord. They pile on regulations and rules and rituals and traditions. It’s an impossible load so that you’re totally obscured and, frankly, it’d be better to be asleep or dead than to be alive and try to carry it all. And not only that, the guilt of not making it and the whole of life, the biggest burden of all for them was the works righteousness system that your – said God’s counting up your bad and He’s counting up your good, and if your good gets better than your bad when you die, you’re going to get to heaven, and if your bad beats your good, you’re going to hell.
And there was no way to get rid of the bad pile, see? The bad pile just stayed there all the time, just stayed there and you just kept trying to get ahead of it with the good stuff. What a burden, what an interminable burden. They just piled it on, piled it on, piled it on, heavy burdens. The heaviest, as I said, is works righteousness, the idea that you had to keep piling up your good deeds. So religion for them was depressing. Religion to them was a horrifying, impossible life of demands and demands and demands, and there wasn’t any hope, and they never came along with the finger of grace to remove the burden, they never bothered to give the gospel that says there is no bad pile.
MacArthur gives us an interesting observation of the word Pharisee:
By the way, the word Pharisee may come from a word that means separated. Generally, they thought of themselves as better than everybody else. Someone to be revered and looked up to and honored. They were in it for the whole objective of being seen by men. And Jesus says in Matthew 6, “They have their reward.” What is it? They’re seen by men, period. God will not reward them at all. In fact, He’ll punish them. Then Jude 19 says, they not only separate themselves, but then this dramatic word, they are sensual. They are psuchikoi, the soul – it has to do with the soul. It has to do with the physical part of life …
… And the word is used of the life that’s in a tree or the life that’s in an animal. It’s just that everything is for the human dimension. Everything is for the physical world. Nothing belongs to the pneuma, the spirit which knows God.
… void of pneuma, void of any spiritual sense. In fact, it says in the same verse, 19, they separate themselves, they are sensual, they have not the Spirit. They don’t possess the Spirit. Devoid of the Spirit. Oh, they have breath, but not the Spirit of God.
Returning to our text Jesus said that such men do their deeds purposely to be seen by others, making their phylacteries broad and their fringes long (verse 5).
Orthodox Jews wear phylacteries at prayer as well as fringed prayer shawls. Some wear the prayer shawls underneath their suit jackets during the day.
However, the Pharisees made a big song and dance out of both in order to be fawned over by the people, who thought them very holy indeed.
Phylacteries are leather boxes containing small scrolls of Scripture. They come with leather straps that, when tied the right way, have a certain number of loops ‘spelling’ the word Almighty.
Henry gives us the basic explanation of both items and makes clear that it is how they are used that counts:
(1.) They made broad their phylacteries. Those were little scrolls of paper or parchment, wherein were written, with great niceness, these four paragraphs of the law, Exod 13 2-11; 13 11-16; Deut 6 4-9; 11 13-21. These were sewn up in leather, and worn upon their foreheads and left arms. It was a tradition of the elders, which had reference to Exod 13 9, and Prov 7 3, where the expressions seem to be figurative, intimating no more than that we should bear the things of God in our minds as carefully as if we had them bound between our eyes. Now the Pharisees made broad these phylacteries, that they might be thought more holy, and strict, and zealous for the law, than others. It is a gracious ambition to covet to be really more holy than others, but it is a proud ambition to covet to appear so. It is good to excel in real piety, but not to exceed in outward shows; for overdoing is justly suspected of design, Prov 27 14. It is the guise of hypocrisy to make more ado than needs in external service, more than is needful either to prove, or to improve, the good affections and dispositions of the soul.
(2.) They enlarged the borders of their garments. God appointed the Jews to make borders or fringes upon their garments (Num 15 38), to distinguish them from other nations, and to be a memorandum to them of their being a peculiar people; but the Pharisees were not content to have these borders like other people’s, which might serve God’s design in appointing them; but they must be larger than ordinary, to answer their design of making themselves to be taken notice of; as if they were more religious than others. But those who thus enlarge their phylacteries, and the borders of their garments, while their hearts are straitened, and destitute of the love of God and their neighbour, though they may now deceive others, will in the end deceive themselves.
MacArthur gives us the history of phylacteries:
By the way, there is no record of phylacteries until 400 B.C., which puts it in the intertestamental period. We found some relics of them in the Qumran community down by the Dead Sea. So this is not something that the Jews always did. This didn’t come until later when a system of external religion was developed. You say, “Well, what are phylacteries?” The word basically means, quote, “a means of protection.” It has to do with a means of protection.
Another way to simply understand it is a charm or, if you like, an amulet. The idea was that the Egyptians and the pagans around Israel wore charms to ward off evil spirits. The Egyptians were really into this. And as the Jews drifted away from God and more toward pagan expressions of religion, they wanted charms also. They wanted things that would ward off evil spirits and ward off demons and be means of protection. And so they developed these phylacteries as charms, as little magical boxes to ward off demons, which shows how far their religion had deteriorated.
They made them square and covered them with black leather from a clean animal, ceremonially clean animal. And then they connected to them with twelve stitches each, one stitch for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, leather straps by which they could tie one on their forehead and another on their hand. They did they left hand because they said it was closer to the heart. Now, in the box they put four sections of the Mosaic law, Exodus 13:1 to 10, Exodus 13:11 to 16, Deuteronomy 6:4 to 9, and Deuteronomy 11:13 to 21.
In one of the boxes, they put all of those on one piece of parchment. In another box, they put each one separately on a different piece of parchment. They rolled up all these little pieces of paper and stuck them in these little boxes and strapped them on their head and strapped them on their arm. This shows you the extent to which this whole magical approach had gone. And they said that the phylacteries were more sacred than the gold plate on the forehead of the high priest which had the name of God on it, because inside the little box was God’s name 23 times. So they were 23 times as sacred.
By the way, they taught that God Himself wore them all the time. And if you follow Phariseeism, you will find that they thought God was nothing more than a glorified rabbi who studied the law three hours a day to keep up on it.
Now, another interesting thing, on the little box there is a shin. Shin is the S-H sound letter in the Hebrew language, and they put that on the little box. When they tied the straps of the box on the head in the back, they made a knot in the form of a daleth, which is the D sound letter in Hebrew. And then when they strapped the one on their hand, they had seven times around the arm and three times around the hand. And I watched one do this in a synagogue in Cairo one time. I watched the whole process through the fingers and all around, and the whole objective is that when you’re done, you create there a yod, which is another Hebrew letter.
So you’ve got shin, daleth, yod, which are the letters that form the term Shaddai, which is the name Almighty. And so they were creating a magical charm with God’s name to thwart off any demons. Very pagan. Magic is what they believed in. A boy of 13 today still who’s raised in an orthodox family gets his set of phylacteries when he’s 13 years old. And every time he goes to prayer in the times of prayer designated in the day, particularly in the morning, he puts that on when he prays. In those days men only, and still wear them. They wore them at the time of prayer but – mark this – the Pharisees wore them all the time.
I am not sure that Orthodox Jews today see phylacteries as protection. Many years ago I read various rabbis’ explanations. All said that phylacteries are a visible reminder to the wearer of God and His law. Man sometimes needs physical reminders.
Returning to Matthew, Jesus said that the scribes and the Pharisees love to have the top seats at banquets and in the synagogues (verse 6).
Henry explains this pride which our Lord condemned:
In all public appearances, as at feasts, and in the synagogues, they expected, and had, to their hearts’ delight, the uppermost rooms, and the chief seats. They took place of all others, and precedency was adjudged to them, as persons of the greatest note and merit; and it is easy to imagine what a complacency they took in it; they loved to have the preeminence, 3 John 9. It is not possessing the uppermost rooms, nor sitting in the chief seats, that is condemned (somebody must sit uppermost), but loving them; for men to value such a little piece of ceremony as sitting highest, going first, taking the wall, or the better hand, and to value themselves upon it, to seek it, and to feel resentment if they have it not; what is that but making an idol of ourselves, and then falling down and worshipping it—the worst kind of idolatry! It is bad any where, but especially in the synagogues. There to seek honour to ourselves, where we appear in order to give glory to God, and to humble ourselves before him, is indeed to mock God instead of serving him. David would willingly lie at the threshold in God’s house; so far was he from coveting the chief seat there, Ps 84 10. It savours much of pride and hypocrisy, when people do not care for going to church, unless they can look fine and make a figure there.
Jesus said these men also loved being greeted with respect in the marketplaces and having people address them as Rabbi (verse 7).
Henry tells us:
They loved greetings in the markets, loved to have people put off their hats to them, and show them respect when they met them in the streets. O how it pleased them, and fed their vain humour, digito monstrari et dicier, Hic est—to be pointed out, and to have it said, This be he, to have way made for them in the crowd of market people; “Stand off, here is a Pharisee coming!” and to be complimented with the high and pompous title of Rabbi, Rabbi! This was meat and drink and dainties to them; and they took as great a satisfaction in it as Nebuchadnezzar did in his palace, when he said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built? The greetings would not have done them half so much good, if they had not been in the markets, where every body might see how much they were respected, and how high they stood in the opinion of the people. It was but a little before Christ’s time, that the Jewish teachers, the masters of Israel, had assumed the title of Rabbi, Rab, or Rabban, which signifies great or much; and was construed as Doctor, or My lord. And they laid such a stress upon it, that they gave it for a maxim that “he who salutes his teacher, and does not call him Rabbi, provokes the divine Majesty to depart from Israel;” so much religion did they place in that which was but a piece of good manners! For him that is taught in the word to give respect to him that teaches is commendable enough in him that gives it; but for him that teaches to love it, and demand it, and affect it, to be puffed up with it, and to be displeased if it be omitted, is sinful and abominable; and, instead of teaching, he has need to learn the first lesson in the school of Christ, which is humility.
I will stop there and pick up our Lord’s lessons in humility tomorrow.
May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.
Yesterday’s post explored verses 34 through 40 of the Gospel reading for the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity (Year A) for 2023 (emphases mine):
Matthew 22:34-46
22:34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,
22:35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
22:36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
22:37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
22:38 This is the greatest and first commandment.
22:39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
22:41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question:
22:42 “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”
22:43 He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
22:44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”‘?
22:45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”
22:46 No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
Yesterday’s post ended with the distinction of ‘believing’ in God — I use the term advisedly — and loving God.
John MacArthur’s sermon on verses 34 through 40 points out:
Now let me say something that you might misunderstand, but listen carefully. God wants more than our believing. Do you understand that? He wants more than our believing. James 2:19 says the devils — what? Believe and tremble.
And why, then, aren’t they redeemed? Because though they believe God, they do not love God. And that is the distinguishing mark of the redeemed. They love God. And God demands that we love Him with a perfect love, with a love that is as wide as all of our capabilities and capacities. And no one is ever right with God, no matter what kind of religious activity they’re engaged in. No one is ever right with God no matter how much church they attend or how many good things they do or how many sacrifices they offer or how many rules they try to keep.
No one is ever right with God until his heart and soul and mind and strength manifests love for God. That’s why we’ve said this so many times through the years, that a person does not become a Christian just because they may believe, a person becomes a Christian when they demonstrate a consuming love for God. Paul had that in Romans 7, even though he sinned, he said, “The things that I do that are sin I don’t want to do, but I find that in me is my flesh and it does these things, but that’s not what I choose to do,” and the essence of what he is saying is I love God and I love what’s right and I love what honors God, and even though I don’t always do it, I love it. And even though sometimes I sin, I hate it.
Ever since the Church began in earnest, it had its detractors, especially against God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
MacArthur gives us a whole list of people through those early years through to the present. I will cite what he said about the early years, as they tie in to the second set of verses of this Gospel passage:
What do you think of Christ? Whose Son is He? When it comes to opinions about Jesus Christ, the world has never lacked for any variety of suggestions. In fact, about 100 A.D., the Jews wrote this of Jesus, quote: “Jesus practiced magic and led Israel astray,” end quote.
A few hundred years later, there came into power in the Roman Empire a man named Julian the Apostate who ruled from 361 to 363. And Julian was known as the ancient adversary of Christianity, and he wrote this: “Jesus has now been celebrated about 300 years, having done nothing in His lifetime worthy of fame, unless anyone thinks that a very great work to heal lame and blind people and exercise demoniacs in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany,” end quote.
There have been people who took a very negative view of Jesus. The leaders of His own day said He did what He did by the power of hell, the devil himself. But for the most part, humanity has been somewhat condescending to Jesus, somewhat generous, somewhat patronizing, somewhat complimentary. Some of the great philosophers of the world have looked at Jesus as the best of men. Rousseau, for example, wrote, “When Plato describes his imaginary righteous man loaded with all the punishments of guilt yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ,” end quote.
I have written before, citing someone whose name I have forgotten, that our God is too small. Well, our Christ is also too small.
This ties in with the sort of unbelief that labels itself a ‘belief’ in God and includes a denial of the deity of Jesus Christ:
… it has always been that Christianity has found its most violent detractors and its most aggressive attackers coming at the deity of Jesus Christ. That is the most attacked point of our doctrine. The major emphasis of those who would deny the reality of Christianity is to attack the deity of Jesus Christ, emphasize that He is a man and nothing more.
Addressing that crucial question, Jesus turned the table on His detractors after having heard quite enough of their own enquiries, none of which was well-intentioned (verse 41).
He asked the Pharisees what they thought of the Messiah, specifically, whose son He was; they answered, ‘The son of David’ (verse 42).
Matthew Henry reminds us that Jesus addressed His foes as a group rather than separately:
… to shame them the more, he took them all together, when they were in confederacy and consulting against him, and yet puzzled them. Note, God delights to baffle his enemies when they most strengthen themselves; he gives them all the advantages they can wish for, and yet conquers them. Associate yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces, Isa 3 9, 10.
Jesus asked them a simple question:
… which they could easily answer; it was a question in their own catechism; “What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? Whose Son do you expect the Messiah to be, who was promised to the fathers?” This they could easily answer, The Son of David. It was the common periphrasis of the Messiah; they called him the Son of David. So the scribes, who expounded the scripture, had taught them, from Ps 89 35, 36, I will not lie unto David; his seed shall endure for ever (Isa 9 7), upon the throne of David. And Isa 11 1, A rod out of the stem of Jesse. The covenant of royalty made with David was a figure of the covenant of redemption made with Christ, who as David, was made King with an oath, and was first humbled and then advanced. If Christ was the Son of David, he was really and truly Man. Israel said, We have ten parts in David; and Judah said, He is our bone and our flesh …
Henry, whilst writing for a late 17th to early 18th century British audience, asks us the same question as MacArthur:
What think ye of Christ? They had put questions to him, one after another, out of the law; but he comes and puts a question to them upon the promise. Many are so full of the law, that they forget Christ, as if their duties would save them without his merit and grace. It concerns each of us seriously to ask ourselves, What think we of Christ? Some think not of him at all, he is not in all, not in any, of their thoughts; some think meanly, and some think hardly, of him; but to them that believe he is precious; and how precious then are the thoughts of him!
The background to the Jews Messianic expectations of our Lord’s era were complicated. They expected a temporal Messiah, another King David, one who would deliver them triumphantly from Roman rule.
MacArthur explains:
These misrepresentations and misconceptions are not new. In fact, they even existed in the time of Jesus Christ. And they are essentially behind the scenes in this text. The Jews believed in a non-deity Messiah. They believed their Messiah would be a human political military leader. And this text comes as a corrective to that very serious error.
Now, you remember that this is Wednesday in Matthew 22 of the Passion Week, Christ will be crucified on Friday to rise on Sunday, and He is in a long, drawn-out conversation with the religious leaders in the temple. He has come to the temple which He cleansed the day before. He preaches and teaches the Kingdom. He is stopped in chapter 21, verse 23, by the authorities who say to Him, “By what authority do You do this and who gave You that authority?” He doesn’t answer their question, but He does give them three pronouncements of judgment in the form of parables saying to them, “You are shut out of the Kingdom of God and others are going to be put in there in your place.”
They’re incensed by the fact that He teaches contrary to them. They’re incensed by the fact that He has power that they don’t have. They’re incensed by the fact that He has popularity with the people that they can’t seem to attain. They want to get rid of Him. When He cleansed the temple, that only increased their hatred, and now when He pronounces judgment upon them, their hatred is increased all the more. And so they come back at Him with a series of questions meant to discredit Him. They ask Him three questions, none of the questions discredit Him, they all discredit the ones who asked them. And the people are even more fascinated with what He says.
And so, they have heard the three parables on this Wednesday. They have asked the three questions. And the conversation with the religious leaders is about to end. But there’s one more question, and it doesn’t come from them to Him, it comes from Him to them. And the purpose of this question is to make very clear the identity of the Christ, the Messiah. You see, they were living under the false assumption that the Messiah would be just a human military leader. Oh, He had to have all the right credentials, but He was human in the view of these religious leaders and their followers.
And so the Lord confronts them and the crowd gathered there at the Passover season with a pronouncement here that the Messiah in fact is far more than just a human, He is God. And that’s the essence of this passage. Now, it all begins with an incisive question in verses 41 and 42 – an incisive question. “While the Pharisees were gathered together,” you can stop there for a moment. That sets the scene. Go back to verse 34. “When the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.”
The Pharisees had asked Him a question with the Herodians. He answered that. The Sadducees, who were their enemies, came, asked Him a question, He answered that. He shut the mouths of the Sadducees, so the Pharisees regrouped and they were discussing that. They came up with another question. They sent a law expert to ask that question in verses 34 to 40. And you remember how that went. He asked what the greatest commandment was. The Lord told him to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. That has taken place. And the Pharisees are still gathered together.
All their questions have been answered. They have really nothing more to say. They have no more weapons left. Their arsenal is depleted. They have been set upon by the genius of His answers. They have no recourse. So He turns to them. They’re still gathered together. They’re still huddled there in the midst of the temple courtyard and no doubt surrounded by all the people with Jesus in the center as the focus of attention. And for the last time, personally, He confronts them. And you have to believe that His confrontation is a twofold thing, that on the one hand it is a proclamation of who He is that indicts their ignorance. It is a pronouncement that ultimately reflects upon their judgment.
Then Jesus quoted a familiar Messianic Psalm, Psalm 110; He asked the Pharisees — the notional fountains of all theological knowledge — how it was that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, calls the Messiah ‘Lord’, saying (verse 43), ‘”The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’”’ (verse 44).
Henry tells us:
He starts a difficulty upon their answer, which they could not easily solve, v. 43-45. Many can so readily affirm the truth, that they think they have knowledge enough to be proud of, who, when they are called to confirm the truth, and to vindicate and defend it, show they have ignorance enough to be ashamed of. The objection Christ raised was, If Christ be David’s son, how then doth David, in spirit, call him Lord? He did not hereby design to ensnare them, as they did him, but to instruct them in a truth they were loth to believe—that the expected Messiah is God.
… David was one of those holy men that spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, especially in calling Christ Lord; for it was then, as it is still (1 Cor 12 3) that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now, to prove that David, in spirit, called Christ Lord, he quotes Ps 110 1, which psalm the scribes themselves understood of Christ; of him, it is certain, the prophet there speaks, of him and of no other man; and it is a prophetical summary of the doctrine of Christ, it describes him executing the offices of a Prophet, Priest, and King, both in his humiliation and also in his exaltation.
Henry explains why Jesus cited the whole verse:
Christ quotes the whole verse, which shows the Redeemer in his exaltation; (1.) Sitting at the right hand of God. His sitting denotes both rest and rule; his sitting at God’s right hand denotes superlative honour and sovereign power. See in what great words this is expressed (Heb 8 1); He is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty. See Phil 2 9; Eph 1 20. He did not take this honour to himself, but was entitled to it by covenant with his Father, and invested in it by commission from him, and here is that commission. (2.) Subduing his enemies. There he shall sit, till they be all made either his friends or his footstool. The carnal mind, wherever it is, is enmity to Christ; and that is subdued in the conversion of the willing people that are called to his foot (as the expression is, Isa 41 2), and in the confusion of his impenitent adversaries, who shall be brought under his foot, as the kings of Canaan were under the feet of Joshua.
MacArthur says that Jesus was going all the way back to the Jewish hierarchy’s original question that day:
In other words, He says to them you thought Messiah would be but a man, I’m telling you Messiah is also God, and your failure to understand that is an indictment, is the cause of your judgment. You asked me by what authority I did these things back when this day began, now I’m telling you the authority. The authority is that I’m more than man – I’m God. This, verse 41 to 46, is the answer to the question in chapter 21, verse 23. By what authority? It is at the end of the conversation that He gives the answer. This is the authority.
MacArthur thinks that, in giving this citation from Psalm 110, Jesus hoped to bring the less hostile Pharisees to salvation:
I believe … that there’s an invitation here because not all the Pharisees were as rigid in their rejection as some. There must have been some tender-hearted ones. There must have been some sensitive ones because the law expert, or the scribe, that had just asked Him the question back in verse 35, when he heard the answer, Jesus said to him, you remember as recorded in Mark 12:34, “You are not far from the Kingdom.”
So it must have been that here was at least one – and there must have been more – who were close to salvation and for whom the further information about the deity of Jesus Christ could be saving truth, could bring them to the knowledge of Christ. And so I think it comes not only as an indictment, saying, in effect, how could you be so foolish not to know your own Scriptures, how could you be so foolish to have missed all of this, but it comes also as an invitation to those whose hearts are still open.
MacArthur then gives a long list of citations from the Old Testament saying that the Messiah would be a son of David. In the Gospel accounts, people following Jesus sometimes referred to him by that title. Furthermore, Matthew 1 lists our Lord’s geneaology from the beginning:
When Jesus went into the temple on the next day, Tuesday, and cleansed it, you remember the little boys all shouted “Son of David,” “Son of David.” So the Jews had it straight that the Messiah would come in the lineage of David, that He would come in the line of David. Now, this is very important, and that is why Matthew goes to great lengths to present Jesus Christ’s genealogy in chapter 1. He starts out the whole gospel by saying, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David,” and then he traces the entire genealogy from Abraham through David, down to Joseph, to Christ.
MacArthur also tells us that the Jewish hierarchy would have made sure they fully investigated our Lord’s genealogy, too:
Messiah came in the Davidic family. Luke in chapter 3 follows the same thing. Luke traces it through Mary, Matthew through Joseph, and it comes together to indicate that this is indeed a Son of David, both his father and mother were in the Davidic family.
And I want to just give you a little footnote, folks. If Jesus had not been, you can be sure that would have been a major issue in the New Testament with these leaders. You know well that they could have disqualified Jesus instantaneously from being Messiah if they could have proven that He did not have a Davidic genealogy, right? They could have eliminated Him very fast. And you know well that they must have checked. And in the temple they kept records on the genealogy of everyone. In fact, the records were kept so well that everyone knew their genealogy.
And it’s only been since the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. that the Jewish people today no longer know their genealogy because the records have been lost and they, being scattered, were unable to keep track of them. But those days were different and they knew – in fact, you couldn’t hold any civic responsibility in the nation unless your genealogy was known. The priests who married would never marry someone whose genealogy they did not know. So genealogy was very, very important.
And if they could have disqualified Jesus on a non-Davidic line, they would have done it. The fact that they didn’t and never brought it up indicates that in fact He was from the line of David, therefore was qualified humanly to be the King of Israel. And if they had had a monarchy in those days, He would have been the king.
Then Jesus posed the crucial question (verse 45): ‘If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’
Of the difference in what Christians believe contrasted with what the Jewish elites of our Lord’s era believed, Henry says:
It is not so easy for those who believe not the Godhead of the Messiah, to clear this from an absurdity, if Christ be David’s son. It is incongruous for the father to speak of his son, the predecessor of his successor, as his Lord. If David call him Lord, that is laid down (v. 45) as the magis notum—the more evident truth; for whatever is said of Christ’s humanity and humiliation must be construed and understood in consistency with the truth of his divine nature and dominion. We must hold this fast, that he is David’s Lord, and by that explain his being David’s son. The seeming differences of scripture, as here, may not only be accommodated, but contribute to the beauty and harmony of the whole.
We see that the Pharisees’ Messiah is too small. MacArthur says:
… their answer, as right as it was, was inadequate. It was true but it was partial. It was correct but it fell short of the full answer. And, you see, they’re saying to Him who do you think you are, letting people call you Son of David? That great Messianic title is too great a title for you. And He is saying no, it’s too a small a title for me … if you’re just looking for a son of David, you’ve got a lot of folks to choose from.
Where do we find the answer? Davidic descent is only one mark, there’s got to be another one. Where are we going to find it? Well, the first place we ought to look is where? Scripture – Scripture. And that’s exactly where the Lord goes. So the incisive question, they think it has a simple answer, but they have an inadequate answer. That leads to the third point that I want you to see, the infinite reality – an infinite reality. The Lord responds to their inadequate answer by presenting them something that is infinite, it’s incomprehensible, and it’s true and it’s marvelous.
Verse 43, He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him” – that is, the Messiah – “Lord?” How then does David in the Spirit call the Messiah Lord? If He is the Son of David, how is it that David calls Him Lord? The word “Lord” kurios, common word in the Greek, used many, many times in the New Testament for deity, it’s the title of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every time He’s called Lord, it’s kurios. You go back to the Old Testament, and the word that you’ll find back there for Lord is Adonai – Adonai. That, too, used all throughout the Old Testament as a title for God. A title for God …
… He quotes directly from Psalm 110:1, “The Lord said unto my Lord.” David wrote that Psalm. And David wrote, “The Lord” – Yahweh – “said unto my Lord” – Adonai – and we’ve got two Lords, folks. Lord number one talking to Lord number two. “The Lord said unto my Lord, ‘Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.’”
God is called Yahweh, God is called Elohim, God is called Adonai in the Old Testament. And here, that God, that Yahweh God says to David’s Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”
Now, Jesus used Psalm 110:1 for a lot of reasons but mostly because they all believed that Psalm 110 was a Messianic Psalm. They just didn’t understand the implications of that first verse. The Jews believe that. They acknowledge it as a Messianic Psalm. In fact, Psalm 110 is the most often-quoted Psalm in the New Testament. It is the most frequently-quoted Psalm in the New Testament. It is quoted by Peter, quoted by Paul, quoted by the writer of Hebrews. It is quoted in Matthew, Mark, in Luke. Now listen carefully. In all three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this Psalm is attributed to David by Jesus.
MacArthur gets to the nub of why Jesus quoted Psalm 110 — and its importance for Christians. You won’t want to miss this, especially when encountering agnostics or atheists:
I want you to listen very carefully, this is very, very important and this verse has been attacked. Anybody who wants to knock out the deity of Christ, has got to deal with this verse. And it’s really suffered the arrows of the critics. But listen carefully. When the Lord says David calls the Messiah Lord in this Psalm, the Lord is therefore interpreting this Psalm for us, and He’s telling us three things.
Number one, He’s saying the Psalm is Messianic because David is talking about Messiah. That’s the whole point of the conversation. “What think ye of the anointed one? Whose son is He?” They said, “David’s.” Then why does David call Him Lord? Jesus is saying Psalm 110 is speaking of Messiah because when David says the Lord said to my Lord, his phrase my Lord is Messianic. So Jesus is affirming the Messianic character of Psalm 110. Secondly, He is affirming Davidic authorship. He is saying David said it. You don’t see David’s name in Psalm 110, Jesus tells you David wrote it.
And that is the tradition of the Jews. Before Jesus’ time, they assigned it to David. That’s why it has that little indication at the heading that it was written by David, it is a Psalm of David. But Jesus affirms it.
Thirdly – and most important of all – Jesus affirms the deity of Messiah. When Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1, He says one, it is Messianic; two, it is written by David; and three, it affirms the deity of Messiah. That’s its intent.
Boy, this is important. Now listen carefully. I did a little reading this week in some of the critical analysis of this particular text, and I was fascinated to find out that many critics deny the Messianic character of Psalm 110. They say it’s not Messianic. In fact, they deny the prophetic character of it. In fact, they deny prophecy. And the reason they do that is because they don’t believe the Bible’s supernatural and it can predict the future. So they just make it a historical document, they deny its Messianic purpose.
Secondly, I was amazed to find out that critics deny Davidic authorship. They say language was not that developed. David couldn’t have written in his time. In his time, language was too underdeveloped to give the expressions that are given in Psalm 110, plus the priest/king situation would have been unfamiliar to David, which is a whole lot of baloney, to put it mildly.
And the third thing they deny is the deity of Jesus Christ. Now, if you’re going to deny the deity of Jesus Christ, you would do well to deny the Davidic authorship of this Psalm and to deny also its Messianic character. And then you can deny the deity of Jesus Christ. The only problem is you’ve just said Jesus is a liar because Jesus affirms the Messianic character of the Psalm, He affirms the Davidic authorship, and He affirms that it presents the deity of the Messiah. And so what you’re saying, in effect, is Jesus is a liar. So don’t come back to Him with any patronizing nonsense about the fact that He’s the highest level of human virtue because if He’s the highest level of human virtue, He wouldn’t be lying about who He was and who the Messiah was and is.
But it amazes me that they always turn the heat on those passages that speak of the deity of Christ. And frankly, I would rather trust Jesus Christ’s interpretation of Psalm 110 than any God-rejecting critic I can think of, whom I have no reason to trust at all. In spite of what the critics might say, Jesus said David wrote it. Jesus said David wrote it under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. Jesus said David wrote it under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration to speak about the Messiah. And He said he wrote it under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration to speak about the Messiah to tell us the Messiah’s God. That’s why it’s there.
Interestingly, none of the Pharisees — those supposedly grand theologians — was able to answer our Lord’s question about Psalm 110, nor from that day onwards did anyone ask Him any further questions (verse 46).
Henry says:
Either it was their ignorance that they did not know, or their impiety that they would not own, the Messiah to be God; which truth was the only key to unlock this difficulty.
Henry says that Christ’s deity was not fully revealed to mankind until the Resurrection, which we celebrate on Easter Sunday. That said, David knew who He was centuries before and so did his earthly mother, Mary, when He was in her womb:
This he did not now himself explain, but reserved it till the proof of it was completed by his resurrection; but we have it fully explained by him in his glory (Rev 22 16); I am the root and the offspring of David. Christ, as God, was David’s Root; Christ, as Man, was David’s Offspring. If we hold not fast this truth, that Jesus Christ is over all God blessed for ever, we run ourselves into inextricable difficulties. And well might David, his remote ancestor, call him Lord, when Mary, his immediate mother, after she had conceived him, called him, Lord and God, her Saviour, Luke 1 46, 47.
MacArthur speaks of this ‘brain trust’, the Jewish hierarchy:
Frankly, it’s a riddle they can’t answer. “And no man was able to answer Him a word.” They couldn’t answer it. They couldn’t answer it. These were the religious leaders, folks. This is the brain trust of Judaism. And they couldn’t answer Him because they would not acknowledge what was clear out of that passage and that was that He had to be God as well as man. How can He be Son of David and David’s Lord at the same time? He would have to be God and man.
You say, “Well, boy, how could they know that?” Scripture. Psalm 110, their favorite Messianic Psalm, or one of their favorites, it was all right there.
As Henry did, so MacArthur also cites Revelation 22:16:
All the healings, all the miracles, all the raising of the dead, all the incredible words that He spoke, the teaching that He gave, supernatural knowledge, all of that was to demonstrate that He was Son of God. They could see He was Son of David, genealogy proved that. They could also see that He was Son of God, His manifest miraculous, supernatural nature proved that.
And instead of them standing there dumbfounded, somebody should have said, “Messiah is then man and God, right? And we see in you the Davidic line and the deity.” But they didn’t say anything. You see, it is the great heart of Christianity that Jesus Christ is the God-man – the God-man – the God-man. And I don’t care what all these other isms and cults say and all these liberals. That is to deny the very heart of the Christian faith and to make out yourself as a fool when the Scripture is so abundantly clear.
If there were nothing else in the Bible but Revelation 22:16, it would be enough. “I, Jesus,” here’s His own testimony, “have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the churches.” Listen to this, “I am the root and the offspring of David.” Now, how can you be the source of David and the offspring of David? Same thing. He is David’s Son, He is David’s Lord, the God-man. Yes, He’s human.
Luke 2:52 says He grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God and man. Every bit human, every bit the Son of David. He knew pain. He knew thirst. He knew hunger. He knew weariness. He knew sleep. He knew pleasure. He knew even the experience of death. He made a whip, He drove men out of the temple. He was no phantom. He could be spit on. His beard could be plucked. He could be crowned with a crown of thorns. He could be nailed to a cross, a spear driven into His side. Yes, He was human. He is called in the Bible Son of man, the man Christ Jesus, man of sorrows.
He possessed flesh and blood. He could be touched. He could be embraced. His feet could be kissed and washed. He had a soul and spirit, that human part of us. He says, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful” in Matthew 26. In John 13:21, “He was troubled in His spirit.” He was in every point tempted like as we are. He was Son of David, Son of David, He was a man. He was as we are.
But He was also God, and He shared with God the attributes of omnipotence. He is the Creator. He is the commander of the elements, as we see in His life. He is the controller of all the creatures. He is the provider of food. He is the healer. He is the raiser of the dead. He is the forgiver of sin. He’s the judge. He has the attribute of omnipresence. In Matthew 18:20, He said that He was able to be everywhere at all times if He so desired to be. He is omniscient. He knew things that people were thinking. He knew them before they ever said them or never said them. He showed that He never changed.
He demonstrated in His life that He, like God, is holy and true and wise and sovereign and loving and eternal and glorious. And when people worshiped Him, it was all right. And He asked to be prayed to, and He asked to be believed on for salvation. And He carried the same names as God carries, rock, stone, Savior, Redeemer, Holy One, Lord of hosts, King, first and last, Light, Lawgiver, and on it goes.
And whenever the writers of the New Testament present Christ, they present Him as Son of David, Son of God. And that’s why Paul in opening the Gospel of Romans chapter 1 says that this is a message concerning God’s Son Jesus Christ our Lord, made of the seed of David according to the flesh but declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. He is David’s Son in the flesh. He is God’s Son declared through the resurrection. And Paul, writing again to Timothy, says in 2 Timothy 2:8, “Remember Jesus Christ, born of the seed of David, risen from the dead according to my gospel.”
The gospel says He’s born of the seed of David, that’s His humanness. He’s risen from the dead, that’s His deity. And the God-man is the only way to perceive Jesus Christ accurately, the two natures of Christ indivisibly fused in the God-man. That is the theme of so many elements of Scripture. Read Philippians 2 again where He humbles Himself, thought it not something to hold onto to be equal with God, but abandoned that to become a man, humble Himself, obedient to death. And God highly exalted Him, giving Him a name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Yes, He is Son of David. Yes, He is David’s Lord.
And what did they say when they saw Him in John 1? Yes, He was a man. He came into the world as a man. He was one of us and yet we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. They saw God as much as they saw man. And this is the only way to perceive Christ – the only way.
MacArthur shares his thoughts on the Jewish leaders’ unbelief:
… the conclusion can only be that He’s God, David’s Son, David’s Lord. And if they had had open hearts, they could have seen. And if they had asked the right question, if the Messiah is Son of David, Son of God, are you that Messiah? They should have put two and two together. But their obstinate unbelief left them with what I call as a final point, an inappropriate response …
… the leaders, they just shut their mouths. All their best-planned wisdom, all their genius, they asked questions, they got answers – profound. I mean just taking the questions they asked and the question Jesus asked here, you could give that to a person and it would be enough to tell them who Christ was without equivocation. They rejected all that. They would not be intimidated. They would not be embarrassed. They would not be humiliated by this uneducated young Nazarene. They refused. They were helpless in front of Him. He dumbfounded them. But they never got the message. They refused to believe.
MacArthur concludes that, then and now, religion is the problem rather than secularism:
Listen, as I’ve been saying in this part of Matthew, secularism, it isn’t secularism that is so much denying Christ as it is religion. Secularism is sort of indifferent. It is self-righteous religion that is so damning to people. And people get caught in these religions that deny the deity of Christ and they’re so damning. And they don’t want to hear the truth. How many times have we been brought into a discussion with somebody on the deity of Jesus Christ? It’s constantly there. And with all the evidence, like this inappropriate response, they say nothing, stop the questions. What is your response? What is your response?
Our versions of God — and our versions of Christ — are infinitely too small. Our churches have become Pharisaical. Let us study Scripture and discover the eternal truth.
The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity is October 29, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here, used for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity on October 25, 2020.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 22:34-46
22:34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together,
22:35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
22:36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
22:37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
22:38 This is the greatest and first commandment.
22:39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
22:41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question:
22:42 “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”
22:43 He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
22:44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”‘?
22:45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”
22:46 No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
We are in Wednesday of Holy, or Passion, Week. Traditionalists refer to this particular day as Spy Wednesday, because in St Luke’s version of last week’s reading, Matthew 22:15-22, he calls the Jewish hierarchy and the Herodians ‘spies’.
Last week’s reading had to do with paying the census or poll tax. Our Lord’s answer silenced the Pharisees and the Herodians.
The question to follow that day came from the Sadducees about remarriage and heaven. Only St Luke’s version of this account is in the Lectionary, but I wrote about Matthew’s in 2016 as part of my Forbidden Bible Verses series:
Matthew 22:23-33 – Jesus, Sadducees, resurrection, afterlife, widowhood, children, remarriage, Holy Week
During the middle of Jesus’s last Passover week — what we remember as Holy Week — He gave the Sadducees answers about the living God, the afterlife and the marital state therein.
We know how the Sadducees got their name from Matthew Henry (emphases mine):
These heretics were called Sadducees from one Sadoc, a disciple of Antigonus Sochæus, who flourished about two hundred and eighty-four years before our Saviour’s birth. They lie under heavy censures among the writers of their own nation, as men of base and debauched conversations, which their principles led them to. As the Pharisees and Essenes seemed to follow Plato and Pythagoras, so the Sadducees were much of the genius of the Epicureans …
Key verses:
29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. (Matthew 22:29-33)
The two parallel accounts of this exchange are Mark 12:18-27, about which I wrote in 2013 and Luke 20:27-38, which is included in the three-year Lectionary.
On that point, it is important to know that there will be no human activities such as marriage or meals in heaven because we will have glorified bodies, as Matthew Henry’s commentary explains:
In heaven there will be no decay of the individuals, and therefore no eating and drinking; no decay of the species, and therefore no marrying; where there shall be no more deaths (Rev 21 4), there need be no more births … as in hell, where there is no joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride shall be heard no more at all, so in heaven, where there is all joy, and no care or pain or trouble, there will be no marrying. The joys of that state are pure and spiritual, and arise from the marriage of all of them to the Lamb, not of any of them to one another.
Our Lord silenced the Sadducees, who denied the supernatural, and, with that, the Pharisees regrouped (verse 34).
One of them, a lawyer, asked a question to test Jesus (verse 35).
John MacArthur explains why the various groups of the Jewish elite were asking all these questions:
Now, what they’re trying to do, if they can’t discredit Him politically, they’re going to try to discredit Him as a teacher before the people of Israel, and at least that’s a step in His elimination. And so they talk about the resurrection, and they make up an absolutely bizarre situation, and they assume that if He says there is a resurrection, He’s going to be stuck with this bizarre situation, and the people are going to see what an utterly inept and inadequate teacher He is.
And they’re trying to discredit Him, if not politically, they’re trying to discredit Him theologically – theologically. But again His answer confounds and astonishes and amazes them, and that test failed. And that brings us to the third. One more time they come to test Him. In fact, it says that that was their purpose, in verse 35, asking Him a question, testing Him, and their desire is that He would fail the test.
They tried to test Him politically, they tried to test Him theologically with a major doctrinal issue, and now they’re really probing in the spiritual dimension again, and they have one more shot that they want to give to try to discredit Him with the people. This is their last attempt. In fact, Mark 12, verse 34, paralleling this passage, says, “When this was over, no man dared ask Him any more questions.” This is it.
Verse 34 has the past participle ‘silenced’. MacArthur explains it in the Greek:
The verb to put to silence is literally gagged. He gagged them. It wasn’t that they wanted to be silent. They had no choice, He gagged them.
It is a verb used, for example, in Mark 1:25, of silencing a demon. It is used also in Mark chapter 4, verse 39, of silencing a storm, when the Lord did that. It is used in 1 Corinthians 9, I think it’s verse 9, of muzzling an ox. In other words, it’s an unwilling gagging. They had more to say, they just had nothing to say, in a sense. They couldn’t say it. There was nothing that they could speak. He silenced them. He brought their argument to an utter end where they were absolutely without another sound, they were without another thought, without another idea, without another retort.
All of these groups, some of them enemies, such as the Pharisees and the Herodians and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, had one collective plan in mind:
So on the on hand, there must have been a certain amount of gloating over the Sadducees’ ineptness, but that was far outweighed by the fact that they would rather have seen Jesus discredited than the Sadducees discredited because Jesus posed a far greater threat to them than the Sadducees ever did, and seeing their foes unsuccessful in destroying a greater enemy, namely Jesus, must have left them dissatisfied.
MacArthur explains the fulfilment of prophecy here:
And so it says in verse 34 they gathered together, and in this gathering together, I think we sense a real fulfillment of prophecy here.
In Psalm 2, which is a Messianic prophecy, in which the psalmist looks ahead to the Messiah, it says in verse 2, “The kings of the earth set themselves,” and then this, “and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed.” And that seems to be drawn right into this particular verse when it says they were gathered together. It’s the same idea that was predicted, that the rulers would come together and take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, the Messiah.
In fact, in Acts chapter 4, that verse out of Psalm 2 is referred to. It says, “The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.” That’s Acts 4:26. So Psalm 2 looked to the cross and said they would gather together against Him, Acts 4:26 looked back to that time that they would gather against Him. We’re in that time right here. This is that which is seen in Psalm 2:2, which is alluded to in Acts 4:26. And what’s interesting about that is that this plotting fits into the plan of God as He foresaw it in Scripture.
Students of the New Testament might wonder why Matthew used the word ‘lawyer’ in verse 35 rather than ‘scribe’.
Henry says:
The lawyers were students in, and teachers of, the law of Moses, as the scribes were; but some think that in this they differed, that they dealt more in practical questions than the scribes; they studied and professed casuistical divinity.
MacArthur has more:
A scribe was one who copied the law, who was an authority on the law, who knew the law, who interpreted the law, who taught the law, and so forth. And normally Matthew uses the word “scribe.” It’s unlike Matthew to use the word “lawyer.” In fact, some commentators think it shouldn’t be there because it’s so uncommon to Matthew …
But I believe the reason it’s here is because it’s a word that may suggest that this guy was a cut above the average scribe. He was a law expert. And all scribes were, to some extent, lawyers, half attorney, half theologian because their understanding of law was that it was biblical law and traditional law, not just secular law, so they were sort of theologian attorneys and advocates and teachers. And so this may have been one who stood out from the many scribes as a real expert. And he is sent to ask the question on behalf of the rest of the Pharisees.
Both our commentators mention St Mark’s version of this story and our Lord’s remark to the lawyer, who must have been very good indeed.
Henry says:
This lawyer asked him a question, tempting him; not with any design to ensnare him, as appears by St. Mark’s relation of the story, where we find that this was he to whom Christ said, Thou are not far from the kingdom of God, Mark 12 34, but only to see what he would say, and to draw on discourse with him, to satisfy his own and his friends’ curiosity.
MacArthur says:
… they’re filled with venom and they’re filled with hatred, and all they want to do is see Jesus eliminated, but it seems to me that he’s not quite committed to that. He’s a little more objective than the rest of them, and we know that because if we compare the Mark passage where Mark describes the same scene, the lawyer starts out thinking that Jesus answered those other questions very well, so he’s attracted to the wisdom of Jesus.
When Jesus answers this question, the lawyer responds by saying, “You have said the truth. That’s exactly right.” And Jesus in turn said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom.” So while he is acting as an emissary for the Pharisees, on his own terms, he seems to have more integrity than they do. And while they are without any objectivity at all, seeking only to eliminate Jesus, he at least has enough to come with a somewhat open mind to hear an answer that he may receive.
So he’s not quite as venomous as the rest, and maybe that’s why he was willing to go. He could sort of kill two birds with one stone. He could play out his role as a Pharisee, and he could also get a direct contact and a direct answer for himself that might help him in his own thinking. But we don’t want to forget that it says in verse 35 he asked Him a question to test Him, so he’s not totally honest. It’s not a heart sincere question. He’s not really pleading for his own case. He’s somewhat objective, but not totally. He puts Him to the test.
The lawyer asks, addressing Jesus with respect (verse 36), ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ In some Bible versions, the lawyer addresses Jesus as ‘Master’.
MacArthur gives us a historical analysis of the background to the lawyer’s question:
Now, it’s essential that we understand what this question is all about and what the approach is all about. Let me see if I can give you the background.
The number one hero in Judaism, historically, do you know who it is? Moses. Without question, Moses is the number one hero of Judaism – still is. Moses, who spoke to God face-to-face as a man speaks to his friend. That sets him apart from everybody else. Moses, whom when God searched the world for a man to whom He could give His law, was chosen the recipient of the Decalogue, the divine law of God. Moses, the priority writer, who penned the first five books of the Old Testament. Moses was their great hero.
Just as a parenthetical insert, the Book of Hebrews begins by discussing the priority of the angels and of Moses in the Jewish mind:
Rabbi Jose ben Chalafta, in the second century said this: “God calls Moses faithful in all His house, and thereby ranks him higher than the ministering angels themselves.” And many of the Jews believe that Moses was in a category above the angelic hosts. He was it. He was the greatest one. In fact, in chapter 23, verse 2, it says the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat because that was the seat of ultimate authority. That was the seat of absolute power. Moses had given the law of God. He was their greatest hero.
MacArthur says that the Jews believed that Jesus was exalting Himself above Moses. The author of Hebrews goes at great length to describe why He is above Moses. However, at this juncture, we are dealing with our Lord and the Jewish hierarchy. Hebrews would be written decades afterwards:
Now, the Jews believed – and this is the important point – that the teaching of Jesus attacked Moses’ teaching. They believed that. That is why in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:17, Jesus said, “I want you to know this: I have not come to destroy” – what? – “the law and the prophets but to fulfill them, and not one jot or one tittle shall in any case be removed from this law.” In other words, Jesus is very sensitive to the fact that He would be accused of attacking Moses, of setting Himself up as a new authority and diminishing the role of Moses, was sensitive enough to that to say, “I have not come to obviate the law of Moses, I have not come to remove one jot or one tittle,” not one little marking from it.
But they believe that Jesus is a diminisher of Moses. They believe that Jesus comes to postulate something beyond Moses, something above Moses, something greater than Moses, and they want Him to say that. They want Jesus to affirm that He has a word that supersedes Moses so that they can accuse Him of being a heretic and an apostate, who has apostatized; that is, departed from the faith delivered through the greatest of all, the greatest authority, Moses himself. If they can just get Jesus to say that He supersedes Mosaic authority, He will become a blasphemer, He will discredit Himself, He will become unpopular with the people who revere Moses as the greatest of all. So they want to put Jesus in a situation to attack Mosaic law by superseding it, and they believe that He will do that because they saw His teaching as something beyond.
That wasn’t true, by the way. He reiterated to them that God’s law had not been altered. They had merely changed things with their traditions. But their goal is to make Him look like an apostate. So we see the approach of the Pharisees. Discredit Him with the people by setting Him against Moses and pushing Him to a point where he articulates some law that’s above Moses and therefore the people will turn against Him. That’s the approach.
From the approach of the Pharisees, we come to the question of the lawyer in verse 36. And here is the question that is set to bring Jesus His own demise. “Master” – and again that flattery that they always seem to attach. “Master” – the word means teacher – “which is the great commandment in the law?” And it would be very fair with the Greek text here to make this word great a comparative in this usage, “which is the greatest commandment in the law?” …
Now, the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch, so they really held Moses as the authority. The Pharisees accepted the Pentateuch and everything else, but Moses was still supreme, so the issue is Moses. If Jesus will just speak some unorthodox law. And so they ask, “Give us the number one commandment.”
Jesus replied, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ (verse 37), saying that loving God was the greatest and first commandment (verse 38).
Jesus then said that the next greatest commandment is similar to the first, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (verse 39), emphasising that on those two commandments hang all the law and the prophets (veres 40).
Those two verses, by the way, are in the Traditional Language form of the liturgy for the Anglican service of Communion. The priest reads them early on in the service in the section about the Ten Commandments.
Henry says:
Christ’s answer to this question; it is well for us that such a question was asked him, that we might have his answer. It is no disparagement to great men to answer plain questions. Now Christ recommends to us those as the great commandments, not which are so exclusive of others, but which are therefore great because inclusive of others.
Henry gives us an insight into the weight that the Jews of the day put on the more detailed aspects of Mosaic law, yet Jesus points to the love of God as being first and foremost:
… not the judicial laws, those could not be the greatest now that the people of the Jews, to whom they pertained, were so little; not the ceremonial laws, those could not be the greatest, now that they were waxen old, and were ready to vanish away; nor any particular moral precept; but the love of God and our neighbour, which are the spring and foundation of all the rest, which (these being supposed) will follow of course.
MacArthur explains in detail how the Jews regarded Mosaic law, applying what was known as letterism to its importance but also making hundreds of these laws a burden for themselves:
Now, they had a lot of discussion about this kind of stuff among themselves. I don’t know if you remember your history of Jewish law, but they claim there are 613 separate laws because there were 613 separate letters in the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments. I don’t know what connection that has, but that’s the way they did things, some of the strange rabbinic letterism, as it used to be called. But they had one law for every letter in the Decalogue, Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments, and they divided that into two parts.
They said there are 248 affirmative laws, one for every part of the human body – I don’t understand why they did that, either – and there are 365 negative laws, one for every day of the … year … So they said one for every day of the year, one for every member of the human body adds up to 613, and then they divided the 613 laws into the light laws and the heavy laws. And the light laws were semi-optional and the heavy ones were binding. I mean you can’t keep 613, you’ve got to have a break somewhere, so they lightened up on some and got heavy on some others.
And in verse 4 of chapter 23, we’re reminded that they bind heavy burdens grievous to be born on men’s shoulders. So they were into the heavy and the light, and there was a lot of debate about what was light and what was heavy, what was really important, what wasn’t so important, and so forth and so forth, so forth.
Addressing our Lord’s answer, note that He replied to the lawyer using Moses’s own words.
MacArthur explains:
He quoted Moses, Deuteronomy 6:5. He quoted Moses. I mean He did exactly the opposite of what they wanted Him to do. They wanted Him to supersede Moses – He quoted Moses. Not only did He quote Moses but He quoted the most familiar thing that Moses ever wrote, the Shema. Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” That was the most familiar Scripture to all of those Jews.
You ever gone to a Jewish house and seen a Mezuzah on the door, a little box that they put on the – by the front door? Look when you go to a Jewish household. You’ll see a little box, usually has the Star of David on it. Inside that is Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5. You ever seen an orthodox Jew strapping to his forehead the phylactery, the little box strapping to his arm, the little box? Inside the box on his arm and the box on his head is Deuteronomy 6:4 and 5. Every orthodox Jew, every Jew at the time of Jesus who was faithful to his religion twice a day had to stop and recite this statement: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might,” out of Deuteronomy 6:5.
I mean He hit them right at the very core of their own religion. He is saying, “I’m no apostate. I’m no heretic. I’m not coming up with something you didn’t know about.” He affirms solidarity with Moses. He speaks to them of a verse that is most familiar to all of them. By the way, verse 37, the Authorized has the word “Jesus” there, but most of the Greek texts say “He” said unto them. It refers to Jesus, that’s just a note for your understanding.
But He quotes something with which they were all familiar. I’m not here to tell you anything different than what Moses told you.
We may ask why love of God and love of our neighbour come first and foremost. We hear the word ‘love’ all the time to the point where it has become as hackneyed as ‘peace’.
MacArthur gives us a biblical and theological explanation which is full and complete. He tells us why loving God includes all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. Recall that to the Jews of the era and in the Bible, the word ‘heart’ refers to the mind, whereas ‘gut’ — not mentioned here — refers to emotion and desire:
The word in Deuteronomy 6:5, thou shalt love, ahebv in Hebrew, the verb, refers primarily to the love of will, the love of the mind, the love of action, rather than the love of feeling, the love of emotion. It is that highest kind of love. Not – not the love that you just feel but the love of dedication, the love of commitment, the love that says this is right and this is noble, no matter what I feel. And that’s the word, agapaō.
Agapaō is the love of intelligence, it’s the love of purpose, it’s the love of will, as opposed to phileō, which is the love of emotion or affection and eros, which is the love of the physical animal senses. This is the highest kind of love, the love of purpose, the love of will, the noblest, purist, highest, self-sacrificing love of that which is right and that which is worthy.
And so he says to them what they already knew, that the number one thing is to love God with your whole being, your heart, your soul, and your mind. And they’re all called to participate. And Mark, in Mark’s recording of the passage indicates that the Lord also said strength, your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength.
Now, I think the point here is that He that He just collects all the parts of – of being. He just covers all the words, and there’s definitely some overlap in those words. Those words are used different ways at different times in Scripture. And He’s simply calling together all that a person is with your whole being, is what He’s saying, you’re to love God. And I don’t think the intent is to sort out every individual sense of every word, but I think there is something to be learned by just looking a little more closely at the words.
The word “heart” basically in the Hebrew understanding is the core of a person’s identity. You remember Proverbs 4:23, “Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are” – what? – “the issues of life.” Everything comes out of the heart. I see the heart in the Hebrew understanding as the intellect, which produces the thoughts, produces the words, produces the actions. It’s as a man thinks in his heart that he is. And so it’s the intellectual part that’s most often stressed, although, as I say, the word is sometimes used of other aspects of human nature.
And then the word “soul.” It seems to me that that, when it’s isolated, can refer best to emotion. For example, in Matthew 26, verse 38, it says, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful.” And maybe the emphasis could be on the emotional part. And “mind,” let me talk about that for a moment because “mind” here replaces “might” in Deuteronomy 6, and I don’t think the Lord is out of line, I don’t think He’s misquoting. I think “mind” is another way to say “might.” “Might” is a very broad word but it seems as though might has to do with intention and will.
It has to do with moving ahead with energy, and I see that with mind. I see mind in the same sense, mind having to do with purpose or with intention or with will. For example, we say “he had a mind to do this” or “he had a mind to do that.” And then, as I said, Mark adds the word “strength,” which is all of our physical capacities.
And so you can see here that in an overlapping sense, there are four channels for love to be perfectly balanced. It’s an intelligent love, it’s a feeling love, it’s a willing love, and it’s a serving love. It carries itself right out to how we act in our physical strength. So our intellectual part, our emotional part, our volitional part, our physical part all comes together to love God, to love God with the total being, all that we are.
This next part explains something I had wondered about for years:
And would you notice that these things are not pushed together? It doesn’t say love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and mind. It doesn’t say that. It’s not that they’re pushed together, it’s that they’re spread apart. It says literally that you are to love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind. It’s as if He wants to push them to as wide a possible level as He can. To really love God, that’s the great commandment.
You see, God is not looking for people who go through religious ritual. God is not just looking for people who, on the outside, can go through the motions. God wants people who with the whole being love Him.
MacArthur reminds us of God’s great love for us:
He gave us everything He was and is and will be. He gave us Himself in death for our sin. And He who gave us His wholehearted love does not want our half-hearted love in return. And as He loved us enough to give His Son, we’re to love Him enough to give ourselves.
As He said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down His life for His friends.” We’re to lay down our life for Him. As He demonstrated that here in His love, not that we love God but He loved us and gave us His Son, as He showed that love can sometimes happen even where there’s not initial reciprocation …
A lot of people say they believe in God but at the same time reject His Son.
MacArthur addresses this erroneous notion of belief:
Now let me say something that you might misunderstand, but listen carefully. God wants more than our believing. Do you understand that? He wants more than our believing. James 2:19 says the devils — what? Believe and tremble.
And why, then, aren’t they redeemed? Because though they believe God, they do not love God. And that is the distinguishing mark of the redeemed. They love God. And God demands that we love Him with a perfect love, with a love that is as wide as all of our capabilities and capacities. And no one is ever right with God, no matter what kind of religious activity they’re engaged in. No one is ever right with God no matter how much church they attend or how many good things they do or how many sacrifices they offer or how many rules they try to keep.
No one is ever right with God until his heart and soul and mind and strength manifests love for God. That’s why we’ve said this so many times through the years, that a person does not become a Christian just because they may believe, a person becomes a Christian when they demonstrate a consuming love for God. Paul had that in Romans 7, even though he sinned, he said, “The things that I do that are sin I don’t want to do, but I find that in me is my flesh and it does these things, but that’s not what I choose to do,” and the essence of what he is saying is I love God and I love what’s right and I love what honors God, and even though I don’t always do it, I love it. And even though sometimes I sin, I hate it.
MacArthur brings us back to the Jews who were confronting Jesus. Also, love of God implies obedience — inner as well as outer — something these men clearly lacked:
It wasn’t so with the Jews. This is an indictment of them. Boy, when He said this to them they were unmasked. What God wants out of you is your heart of love. You have never given that to God, He’s saying to these leaders. And in chapter 23, I mean He spells it out in no uncertain terms. Look at verse 13, chapter 23, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” verse 14, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” verse 15, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” verse 23, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” verse 25, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” 27, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” 29, “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.”
And what is a hypocrite? It’s somebody who has something on the outside and nothing on the inside. They didn’t love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. They were going through the religious motions for what they could gain out of it, self-satisfaction, pride, ego, an appearance of righteousness. You say, “Well, maybe this was new to them.” No, it wasn’t new to them. When He said thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, that wasn’t new to them. That’s right out of Moses, and that way of describing the redeemed was the Mosaic say of describing them.
In Exodus 20, where you have the giving of the Ten Commandments. I don’t know if you remember this, what it says in verse 6, that God is a God who shows mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Yes, He wanted them to keep His commandments. That’s the outside. The inside was what? Love me and keep my commandments. And again that is repeated in Deuteronomy in the seventh chapter, that same basic injunction when God gives His commands again. In verse 9, He says, “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy with them who love Him and keep His commandments.”
It isn’t anything new. It was repeated again in Nehemiah’s time, chapter 1, verse 5, “The Lord God of heaven, the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps covenant and mercy for them who love Him and observe His commandments.” There was never a time in the Old Testament or a place where God taught externalism. Never a time when He said I just want you to crank these rules out and I’ll accept you. It was always, at first you love me and as a result of that love, there is a desire and a commitment to obedience.
So when Jesus says, gathered in the upper room with His disciples, “If you love me, keep my” – what? – “commandments.” That isn’t anything new. That’s what God’s been saying all along. There’s nothing new about it. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. You see, we are people who love God if we’re redeemed. First John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He” – what? – “first loved us.” Turn it around, He first loved us; therefore, we what? We love Him. We are those who love God.
In fact, we’re defined that way in one of the most beautiful definitions Christians could ever have in Ephesians 6:24. The last verse in Ephesians says, “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.” Grace to those who love the Lord honestly, who really love Him, and the opposite of that, 1 Corinthians 16:22, it says there, “Cursed are those who love not the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The message of the Bible is consistent. One clergyman told me a few months ago, ‘It’s a mess’. No, it isn’t. God, Moses, the prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, the Apostles, especially Paul at length, all said the same thing.
I hope that this clarifies an essential theological point about the love of God and obedience to Him.
Tomorrow’s post, which continues this passage, will address another essential theological point about Christ’s being throughout the ages into eternity.
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity is October 22, 2023.
Readings for Year A can be found here, also used for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity on October 18, 2020.
The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 22:15-22
22:15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.
22:16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.
22:17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”
22:18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?
22:19 Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius.
22:20 Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?”
22:21 They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
22:22 When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
In Year A, the Gospel readings have been largely from Matthew’s Gospel. Over the past month, the Lectionary has suggested us to three parables, all of which Jesus directed at the Jewish hierarchy — that of the Two Sons, the Vineyard (Wicked Tenants) and the Wedding Feast.
Jesus delivered these parables just days before His death on the cross. The Jewish hierarchy became more hateful of Him as time progressed and they were determined to have Him killed.
Immediately following His delivery of the Parable of the Wedding Feast, the Jewish religious elite regrouped. They could find nothing wrong in what He said and they knew He was condemning them for their unbelief.
So, the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus via His words (verse 15).
As Matthew Henry’s commentary points out:
See how unwearied the enemies of Christ and his kingdom are in their opposition!
Their dogged determination for His death was quite something, to put it mildly. Yet, for those who are unfamiliar with the Old Testament, the Jews also killed their prophets. In our Lord’s time, Herod had John the Baptist beheaded. In just a few days’ time, His own moment would come.
Henry alludes to this:
1. They took counsel. It was foretold concerning him, that the rulers would take counsel against him (Ps 2 2); and so persecuted they the prophets. Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah. See Jer 18 18; 20 10. Note, The more there is of contrivance and consultation about sin, the worse it is. There is a particular woe to them that devise iniquity, Mic 2 1. The more there is of the wicked wit in the contrivance of a sin, the more there is of the wicked will in the commission of it.
2. That which they aimed at was to entangle him in his talk. They saw him free and bold in speaking his mind, and hoped by that, if they could bring him to some nice and tender point, to get an advantage against him. It has been the old practice of Satan’s agents and emissaries, to make a man an offender for a word, a word misplaced, or mistaken, or misunderstood; a word, though innocently designed, yet perverted by strained inuendos: thus they lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate (Isa 29 21), and represent the greatest teachers as the greatest troublers of Israel: thus the wicked plotteth against the just, Ps 37 12, 13.
Not enough clergy explain the leaders’ spiritual blindness and the resultant hate that run through the Gospel accounts. Our own vicar fears it would lead to anti-Semitism. Yet, the same Gospel accounts show us that those who followed Jesus came from the population of the Jewish people, not their leaders. Zacchaeus and Joseph of Arimathea were exceptions, but it was the hierarchy who pushed the people to demand His death. Sadly, the people who did not believe in Jesus were so wrapped up in their earthly messianic thoughts of being free from Roman rule that they unknowingly went along with the evil plot.
I did not really understand the full import of their hate until I began writing here in 2009 — and I had been a regular churchgoer. It wasn’t explained at home or in school, either. Yet, the hierarchy’s spiritual blindness is the principal element in the opposition to Jesus, just as they had opposed the prophets centuries before. It’s very important that people understand this.
The Pharisees decided to send their own disciples and Herodians to entrap Jesus, beginning with hypocritical flattery, falsely calling him ‘Teacher’, the highest Jewish accolade and stating the truth about His personal perfection, although they meant it not (verse 16).
MacArthur says:
… the Talmud says, “The one who teaches the law shall gain a seat in the academy on high.” I mean that was to be revered above all others, a teacher of the law. Great respect.
And then they say, “We know that You are alēthēs.”
“You are truthful; You have integrity; You really are a man of great integrity; if You believe it, You say it,” that’s the implication. That’s an honor, “You really believe what You believe; You really live what You believe; You’re a truthful person. Not only are You a truthful person, and You teach the way of God in truth, You have truthful information to give. You have truthful content. You have a truthful message. You’re a man of great integrity, and You’re a man who speaks truly the way of God.”
Henry explains the sinful flattery, on the same base level as the Judas kiss:
2. The preface, with which they were plausibly to introduce the question; it was highly complimentary to our Saviour (v. 16); Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth. Note, It is a common thing for the most spiteful projects to be covered with the most specious pretences. Had they come to Christ with the most serious enquiry, and the most sincere intention, they could not have expressed themselves better. Here is hatred covered with deceit, and a wicked heart with burning lips (Prov 26 23); as Judas, who kissed, and betrayed, as Joab, who kissed, and killed.
Now, (1.) What they said of Christ was right, and whether they knew it or no, blessed be God, we know it.
[1.] That Jesus Christ was a faithful Teacher; Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth. For himself, he is true, the Amen, the faithful Witness; he is the Truth itself. As for his doctrine, the matter of his teaching was the way of God, the way that God requires us to walk in, the way of duty, that leads to happiness; that is the way of God. The manner of it was in truth; he showed people the right way, the way in which they should go. He was a skilful Teacher, and knew the way of God; and a faithful Teacher, that would be sure to let us know it. See Prov 8 6-9. This is the character of a good teacher, to preach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and not to suppress, pervert, or stretch, any truth, for favour or affection, hatred or good will, either out of a desire to please, or a fear to offend, any man.
[2.] That he was a bold Reprover. In preaching, he cared not for any; he valued no man’s frowns or smiles, he did not court, he did not dread, either the great or the many, for he regarded not the person of man. In his evangelical judgment, he did not know faces; that Lion of the tribe of Judah, turned not away for any (Prov 30 30), turned not a step from the truth, nor from his work, for fear of the most formidable. He reproved with equity (Isa 11 4), and never with partiality.
(2.) Though what they said was true for the matter of it, yet there was nothing but flattery and treachery in the intention of it. They called him Master, when they were contriving to treat him as the worst of malefactors; they pretended respect for him, when they intended mischief against him; and they affronted his wisdom as Man, much more his omniscience as God, of which he had so often given undeniable proofs, when they imagined that they could impose upon him with these pretences, and that he could not see through them. It is the grossest atheism, that is the greatest folly in the world, to think to put a cheat upon Christ, who searches the heart, Rev 2 23. Those that mock God do but deceive themselves. Gal 6 7.
MacArthur tells us why the Pharisees could not reappear before Jesus with more questions:
Now, why do you think the Pharisees sent their disciples? Why didn’t they go themselves? I’ll tell you why. Because they long ago had been revealed to be fake. I mean there was no way they could go up to Jesus and pretend to really believe in Him. There was no way they could go up to Jesus and pretend to ask an honest question. Right?
I mean He would have recognized them. He knew who they were; He’d seen their faces. It would have been just another appearance of the people who’d already been identified as false religionists, as hypocrites. And so, they don’t dare go themselves. They find a group that Jesus doesn’t know of their followers. They brief them thoroughly and send them in their place to masquerade as very honest questioners. They’re going to fool Jesus. They’re going to sucker Jesus into their trap. They’re going to bait Him with those that He doesn’t know. He won’t know that they’re Pharisees’ disciples. He won’t recognize them as the ones that He’s already given the parables to. And so, they pick some other ones because it’s a sneaky approach they have in mind.
The Pharisees add Herodians to the group, strangely enough.
However, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, as MacArthur is about to explain:
This is really fascinating. By the way, Luke doesn’t mention the Pharisees or the Herodians; he just calls all of them spies. He says, “They sent their spies.”
That is why Wednesday of Holy — Passion — Week is called Spy Wednesday. But I digress.
MacArthur explains how the Romans took over and why the Herodians were a political force:
I’m not going to give you a whole big history on the Herodians because we don’t have much information, honestly. Basically, what we can gain is gain from the name of the group. They were identified with Herod. They were the ones belonging to Herod, like Christians belonged to Christ, Herodians belonged to Herod. They were not religious by that identification; they were political …
The Herods had ruled that land. And in A.D. 6, just a few years after the birth of Christ, Archelaus, who was the son of Herod the Great, was deposed. Herod had split up His empire. One of the sons was in the north in Galilee and Perea, another son in the south in Samaria and Judea. And so, it was sort of split between them. But in A.D. 6, Archelaus, who was the son ruling in the south, was deposed, and in his place the Romans put a governor. And that’s how we identify Pilate – as the Roman governor occupying the seat of rule in the southern part of that country of Palestine.
Now, Herod Antipas still ruled in the north, and he was the one responsible for beheading John the Baptist. But they were not Jews; they were Edomites. They were political rulers. They were kings of a dynasty. The Romans left them, at least in part, in power in the north because it served their purposes. In the south it didn’t, and they occupied the leadership with a governor.
Now, perhaps the Herodians, therefore, would be those Jews who identified with the political viewpoint and the political power of the Herods. And it may well be that they wanted a Herod in the south, that they would have much preferred a Herod ruling in Judea than a Roman. They were pro Herod. We don’t know why; we don’t know particularly what they had to gain by that, but that is how they are identified. They were of the political party of Herod.
Now, note this, the Pharisees were vocally anti-Rome. They despised the Roman oppression; they hated the Roman tyranny. Many of them belonged to a group which later became known as the Zealots, and they were insurrectionists. They went around doing acts of terrorism. They would start little fires here, and fights here, and things like that to bang away at the Romans. Some of them flamed into rather large insurrections. And later, as I said, they became known as Zealots. It may well be that Simon the Zealot, one of the disciples of the Lord, belonged to that particular nationalistic, almost terroristic group of people.
Bu the Pharisees leaned that way. They were very anti-Rome. Rome coming into their land was a great intrusion. Rome, with all of its paganism invaded the theocracy, and it offended them greatly. So, the Pharisees were anti-Rome, and many of them no doubt were Zealots.
The Herodians – and here’s what’s interesting – were pro-Rome. The Herodians pro-Rome. They were pro-Rome in the sense that Rome had allowed Herod Antipas to stay in as ruler. And if there was to be another Herod moved into the southern part, it would have to be because the Romans appointed him. So, they sought the favor of Rome. They played to Rome because they knew their only hope of getting their Herod in power, or getting one Herod to rule the whole land would be by Roman intervention and Roman appointment. And by the way, the Herods themselves seemed to have played to Rome as well.
So, here are the anti-Roman Pharisees and the pro-Roman Herodians getting together against Jesus Christ …
They recruited the Herodians because when Jesus said His anti-Roman things, they needed to have some pro-Roman witnesses who then having access to the governor and his people could run in there and say, and be accepted in saying, because they were known as pro-Roman, “This man is an insurrectionist. This man is leading an anti-Roman rebellion,” and so forth and so on.
Now, if the Pharisees ran in and said that, they’d sort of look at them funny and wonder what they were plotting, because they knew they wouldn’t come to warn Rome about an insurrection. So, they had to have the Herodians …
… the Herodians didn’t like Jesus either. In fact, Herod Antipas cut off the head of His forerunner, John the Baptist, because John the Baptist confronted Herod about His vile, wicked, wretched, life. And they didn’t like Jesus who was the heir, in a sense, to the prophetic office of John any better than they would have liked John. And if you follow closely the last part of the Lord’s ministry, you find that He judiciously avoided the territory of Herod because of hostility toward Him there.
So, they agree that they’re against Jesus, even though they can’t agree maybe on religion or politics, and that sort of sets the stage.
The disciples of the Pharisees along with the Herodians asked Jesus whether it was lawful to pay tax to the emperor (verse 17).
To them, this was a loaded question for religious and political reasons.
MacArthur addresses the flattery and the question:
The aim? Trap Him in a statement. The approach? Flatter Him; get his ego so built up that He’s stuck with having to say exactly what he believes. That leads, thirdly, to the attack. Watch this in verse 17, fascinating, “Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not?” You see, that’s a very simple question. Sure, they thought about that one a long time. Simple, but very delicate. “What do You think? What is Your opinion? Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?” And Mark adds, in his parallel account, “Shall we pay it or shall we not?”
As students of the Gospel accounts know, the Romans levied all sorts of taxes and the much-despised tax collectors took even more so that they could live in material comfort.
This particular tax, MacArthur says, had to do with the census:
Now, look at the word “tribute,” because that’s the key. It is the word kēnsos borrowed from the Latin census from which we get the census, or the counting of every individual. “Should we pay the census?” Now, it refers to a specific tax. The Romans counted all the people, and the Syriac Peshitta calls this head money. In other words, they attached an individual tax to everybody. Each year, every individual had to pay this census tax, like a poll tax. It was a personal tax on an individual …
… this census tax, or a head tax. Each individual played a set – paid a set amount once a year. And the amount was one denarius. One denarius. A denarius was one day’s wage. One day’s wage – one day’s wage for a Roman soldier, a fair wage for any worker. That’s what was required.
This did not sit well with the Jews for religious reasons which is why it seemed the perfect entrapment question from our Lord’s enemies:
This Roman taxation system they felt was an abuse, because they saw themselves as a people of God. They saw themselves as a theocracy ruled by God. And when Rome – pagan Rome moves in, imposes itself on them, starts taxing, they have the feeling that they’re giving what belongs to God to Rome.
Now, the upshot of this was that in A.D. 6, the same year Archelaus was deposed and a Roman governor was put in, a rebellion began. And that rebellion was led by a man named Judas of Galilee. And Judas collected an insurrectionistly mind – an insurrectionist-minded group and brought about this fervor and furor and so forth in 6 A.D. His theme was, “God is our only God; God is our Lord, and God is our Ruler, and we will not pay this tax to Rome.”
And by the way, it was a census for taxation purposes that spawned their revolution led by Judas of Galilee. It was the very census situation that angered him. Well, if you read Acts 5:37, you read a speech by Gamaliel, and Gamaliel talks about what happened to Judas. What happened to Judas? His followers were scattered, and he was dead. But, he had fomented an attitude that remained. Though his revolution had ended in failure, the attitude of not liking the census and not having to pay that tax to Rome stuck with the people.
And it may have been that they felt that that head tax was the most offensive of all because it may have been that they could see the property tax and the income tax and the business tax as going to Rome, since they rendered services, but as individuals, they belonged to God, not Rome. And so, the most galling of all this taxes may well have been this particular census tax. And no doubt it was a real issue with the people. And that’s why they use it as the point of question here.
The sentiment, therefore, remained. And Josephus, who writes about the revolution of Judas of Galilee, who lived through the destruction of the temple – the great Jewish historian Josephus says that in 66 A.D., it was this same attitude toward this taxation problem that started the revolution of 66 A.D. that ended in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
So, this is a big issue, folks. They didn’t just pull this one out of the hat. If Jesus says, “Pay the tax,” He’s going to have the whole bunch of Jewish people, the whole nation of people angry at Him. He’s going to be seen as anti-Jewish. And so, they don’t believe He’ll say that. They also believe that He does speak for God. In spite of the fact they don’t like Him, they think that He really believes He speaks for God …
Yet, incredibly:
There were many Zealots, no doubt, in the crowd who eagerly wanted a revolution, but would rather have Jesus dead and postpone the revolution.
Jesus, aware of their malice, asked them why they put Him to the test, calling them hypocrites (verse 18).
MacArthur says:
He knew it because He was God, and He was omniscient. Marvelous. They’re flattering tongues were tipped with deadly poison, and He knew it. It was a Judas kiss they were offering Him.
And so, He says, “Why are you tempting Me? Why are you putting Me to a test you think I will fail? Why do you want me to fail, you phonies? Your flattery was fake; it was hypocritical.” That’s such an ugly sin – hypocrisy, flattery – one so condemned in the Old Testament again and again. Read the Proverbs sometimes. Look up all the places in Proverbs where it talks about flattery and a lying tongue. So, Jesus’ accusation was very serious. And again, He turns the tables on them and unmasks them.
Jesus asked them to show Him the coin used for the tax; they brought him a denarius (verse 19).
Henry contrasts currency then and currency in his own era in Britain (the late 17th and early 18th centuries):
They presently brought him a penny, a Roman penny in silver, in value about sevenpence half-penny of our money, the most common piece then in use: it was stamped with the emperor’s image and superscription, which was the warrant of the public faith for the value of the pieces so stamped; a method agreed on by most nations, for the more easy circulation of money with satisfaction. The coining of money has always been looked upon as a branch of the prerogative, a flower of the crown, a royalty belonging to the sovereign powers; and the admitting of that as the good and lawful money of a country is an implicit submission to those powers, and an owning of them in money matters. How happy is our constitution, and how happy we, who live in a nation where, though the image and superscription be the sovereign’s, the property is the subject’s, under the protection of the laws, and what we have we can call our own!
MacArthur discusses why the Jews found the denarius so offensive:
… every time a Jew reached in his little pouch and pulled out a denarius, it offended him. And it offended him for two reasons. Reason number one, it was a reminder of Roman oppression and the fact that they were under Gentile authority. Reason number two was it was an image, and they knew well that the Old Testament had said that they were to have no graven imagery. Right? And they were offended by that. If you go to Israel today, you will find there are places where you cannot take a photograph …
Those coins were stamped with Caesar’s image, whether from the rein of Augustus or the reign of Tiberius, we wouldn’t know. They stamped coins from both those Caesar’s. But a denarius from the time of Tiberius, for example, had on one side the image of Tiberius’ face. On the other side, it had him sitting up on his throne in high priestly robes – high priestly robes. And it had a crown on his head. And it identified – there was an inscription in the coins of Tiberius that identified him as the highest priest. The highest priest. So, the coinage was more than secular; it was religious. And the emperors not only believed they were high priests, they actually believed they were – what? – they were gods. And in fact, Christians were killed in the Roman persecution of the Church because they failed to worship the emperor. Emperor worship was a part of the Roman Empire.
So, every time a Jew had in his hand one of those denarii with the image of Tiberius on it, it was the recognition that he held in his hand a little idol. A little idol of a god who was a false god. And you can imagine with what hatred they identified coinage.
Now, the Roman emperor was always called the high priest. The Roman senators were seen sort of as priests because religion was all mixed up with their secular society. So, the Jew would say to himself, “Paying taxes, having to take my Hebrew money and convert it into that thing and give it to Rome is an offense to me. That is not right. I will not give to some false god what belongs to God – the true God.”
… They were offended by the thought of rendering that which they believe was for God to anyone other than God, particularly some pagan priest and self-styled deity.
Jesus asked them whose head was on the coin and whose title (verse 20).
They answered, ‘The emperor’s’ (verse 21).
Henry explains the subtlety of our Lord’s enquiries, both of which pointed to a religious answer:
Christ asked them, Whose image is this? They owned it to be Cæsar’s, and thereby convicted those of falsehood who said, We were never in bondage to any; and confirmed what afterward they said, We have no king but Cæsar. It is a rule in the Jewish Talmud, that “he is the king of the country whose coin is current in the country.” Some think that the superscription upon this coin was a memorandum of the conquest of Judea by the Romans, anno post captam Judæam—the year after that event; and that they admitted that too.
Jesus said to give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are of God (verse 21).
I believe the word ‘give’ should be replaced by ‘render’, as it is in traditional translations.
Henry explains the difference between ‘give’ and ‘render’:
… he inferred the lawfulness of paying tribute to Cæsar (v. 21); Render therefore to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s; not, “Give it him” (as they expressed it, v. 17), but, “Render it; Return,” or “Restore it; if Cæsar fill the purses, let Cæsar command them. It is too late now to dispute paying tribute to Cæsar; for you are become a province of the empire, and, when once a relation is admitted, the duty of it must be performed. Render to all their due, and particularly tribute to whom tribute is due.“
MacArthur also points out the preferred use of ‘render’ rather than ‘give’:
First of all, notice the word “render,” would you please. It is the word apodidōmi, to pay back, to give back. It speaks of a debt; it speaks of an obligation; it speaks of a responsibility. It is not something you have a choice about. “Give back,” He says. “Give it back. He made it; he minted it; it belongs to his economy. Give it back to him.” It refers to the payment of a debt, the payment of an obligation, a rightful duty, something that doesn’t even belong to you to give it back.
Now, when they posed the question back in verse 17, they didn’t use that word, they used a different word. They said, “Is it lawful to give as a gift? Is it lawful to give as a gift?” You see, their perspective was that they owned all that and that they could do what they wanted with it. And if they didn’t want to give it, they wouldn’t give it. It was a gift if they did give it.
And when He’s answering their question, He says, “Give it back. You’re not giving him a gift. You’re giving him what belongs to him. It is a debt, and it must be paid. You know what the Lord says here? Pay your taxes. That’s right, pay your taxes. The payment of a tax is a debt. It’s a debt set by a government. Even a pagan, idolatrous government; even a blasphemous government; even a government about to be the executioner of the Son of God; even a government which will hammer nails into His hands, ram a spear into His side, and watch Him die, even that kind of government that executes the Christ, pay your taxes. It is not a gift; it is not a choice; it is a debt for the benefits received, the benefits enjoyed. Caesar has his rights. And for the provision of physical, social, economic benefits, protection, et cetera, he’s d[ue] a debt; pay it.
So, Jesus affirms that the State can demand what belongs to it within its sphere.
Henry says:
[3.] His disciples were instructed, and standing rules left to the church.
First, That the Christian religion is no enemy to civil government, but a friend to it. Christ’s kingdom doth not clash or interfere with the kingdoms of the earth, in any thing that pertains to their jurisdiction. By Christ kings reign.
Secondly, It is the duty of subjects to render to magistrates that which, according to the laws of their country, is their due. The higher powers, being entrusted with the public welfare, the protection of the subject, and the conservation of the peace, are entitled, in consideration thereof, to a just proportion of the public wealth, and the revenue of the nation. For this cause pay we tribute, because they attend continually to this very thing (Rom 13 6); and it is doubtless a greater sin to cheat the government than to cheat a private person. Though it is the constitution that determines what is Cæsar’s, yet, when that is determined, Christ bids us render it to him; my coat is my coat, by the law of man; but he is a thief, by the law of God, that takes it from me.
Now to the divine half of our Lord’s answer:
Thirdly, When we render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, we must remember withal to render to God the things that are God’s. If our purses be Cæsar’s, our consciences are God’s; he hath said, My son, give me thy heart: he must have the innermost and uppermost place there; we must render to God that which is his due, out of our time and out of our estates; from them he must have his share as well as Cæsar his; and if Cæsar’s commands interfere with God’s we must obey God rather than men.
One example would be worshipping our rulers rather than God.
MacArthur gives us one from Russia in 1984, the year he delivered this sermon:
… if you or I were living today in a society that became totalitarian, where the head of that society or some element of that headship in that society declared that it was God, and not only was it to be pay taxes, but it was to be worship, that’s where we would draw the line.
And do you want to know something? In a sense, that’s where Georgi Vins from Russia told me they draw the line … “The Russian Church is persecuted, and it is persecuted singly and only because of its religious conviction.” He says, “We obey every law of the totalitarian state of Russia as Christians. But when they rule in the area of our religious conscience, we do not obey, because now Caesar is claiming what belongs to God. And if” – he said to me – “if we are to be persecuted, and if we are to be imprisoned, and if we are to lose our lives, it will be because of our faith in God, not because of our violating some government order.” Do you see the distinction?
Romans 13 has Paul’s defence of earthly government:
Look at Romans 13 for a moment, very important passage. Romans 13, “Let very soul be subject unto the higher powers.” He’s referring here to the institution of government. “For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” Government’s ordained by God. Government is an institution of God just like marriage and the family is, just like the Church is. Just like Israel was a special institution of God. “Whosoever therefore resists the power” – that is the government – “resists the ordinance of God.” I don’t know how people can avoid that. If you don’t pay your taxes and resist the government, you’re resisting God who ordained the government for the preservation of society. And if you do that, “you resist and receive” – it says – “to themselves judgment.” It’s a sin not to pay your taxes. It’s a sin to resist.
“For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. With thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same.” Just do what’s right. Just do what’s right. Government – even some government that’s poor government is better than none. And it’s there for the protection of the good, the punishment of the evil. Do what’s right and you’ll be all right.
“For those who represent the government” – verse 4 says – “are ministers of God to thee for good. But if you do that which is evil, then you have reason to be afraid, for he bears not the sword in vain.” God has given government the right of punishment. “He’s a ministry of God to avenge and execute wrath on him that doeth evil.” A policeman, soldiers, those in authority stand in the place of God, as it were, for the preservation of society. So, you do resist the government, you do resist God. And God has given to the government the right to deal with those who resist. So, you must needs be subject.
Now verse 6, here’s the practical implication of what he’s just said, “So, for this” – or because of all this – “pay your taxes, for they are God’s ministers, attending continually on this very thing” … “So, render therefore to all their dues” – don’t be selective and pick the ones you want; you pay them all – “tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” Pretty straightforward.
I have more here:
Romans 13:1-7 – God, civil authorities, obedience, taxes
Paul tells us how to conduct ourselves in civil society: obey God’s authority on earth via civil authorities, pay taxes, pay what is due to people.
These are among some of the most important verses in the New Testament, yet, the three-year Lectionary compilers chose to omit them from readings for public worship!
Paul wrote similarly to Timothy:
In 1 Timothy 2, he says that we should pray for the kings and pray for all that are in authority – 1 Timothy 2:2 – that we may lead a quiet, peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. You should live in the world in a godly and an honest and a peaceable way, and you should render to those who are in authority exactly what that authority calls for.
Peter also advocated submission to government, even though his converts were subject to persecution:
Look at 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 13. And Peter agrees, of course, with Paul because they are both under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit. “Submit yourselves to ever ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.” You do it for the Lord’s sake. For the Lord’s sake, “whether the king as supreme, or governors, or them that are sent by them for the punishment of evildoers” – soldiers, and policemen, and people in authority; do it – “and for the praise of them that do well. For it’s the will of God” – why? – “that you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” In other words, that you might shut the mouths of critics who say Christians are not good citizens – “that you might not use your liberty” – he says – “as a means of being malicious. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God and honor the king.” God wants Christians to be models of virtue, models of integrity in the world.
That said, MacArthur tells us that Peter also had to oppose the rules of his day, although those had to do with the temple rather than the Romans:
… where this really becomes a problem would be if all of a sudden the president of the United States announced that he was god, and all the Senate and all the Congress were high priests, and everything we gave to them would be given to a religious system, and not only did we have to give it to them, but we have to worship them, and that’s where we say – what? – “No. No.”
And they say, “If you don’t, we’ll kill you.”
We say, “We’ll die.” We’ll die.
It’s just what Peter came to. The Sanhedrin said, “Don’t preach.”
He said, “Whoops, you just overstepped your bounds. You judge whether I ought to obey God or man.” And when it comes to that nexus, you obey God. You obey God.
And so, Caesar has limits. And when Caesar oversteps those limits and starts demanding worship, then you’ve got a problem. And if you or I were living today in a society that became totalitarian, where the head of that society or some element of that headship in that society declared that it was God, and not only was it to be pay taxes, but it was to be worship, that’s where we would draw the line.
Coming to the end of our reading, Matthew tells us that when the men asking the question about the census tribute heard our Lord’s answer, they were amazed; they left Him and walked away (verse 22).
Some might think, as I once did, that their amazement caused them to believe.
However, Henry puts the focus on ‘went away’:
One would think they should have marvelled and followed him, marvelled and submitted to him; no, they marvelled and left him. Note, There are many in whose eyes Christ is marvellous, and yet not precious. They admire his wisdom, but will not be guided by it, his power, but will not submit to it. They went their way, as persons ashamed, and made an inglorious retreat. The stratagem being defeated, they quitted the field. Note, There is nothing got by contending with Christ.
MacArthur says that the same thing happens today:
Why do people do that? There are people here this morning – you’ve lived this event with those people today. And you just leave … I mean this is as much a revelation of the deity of Jesus Christ and the incredible genius of God as it is anything about taxation, isn’t it?
MacArthur’s closing prayer concludes with this:
O Lord, we can’t help but think, too, the sad fact about these people standing in front of Jesus … They weren’t giving God what You were due. They just weren’t giving it. They were all concerned about what to give Caesar and were actually planning to kill the Son of God.
Lord, help us to not only be concerned about what we give to Caesar, but to be concerned about what we give to You. We owe things to the government; we need to give them back. And we owe things to You; we need to give them back, too. As the image of Caesar was stamped on the coin to be given to Caesar, so the image of God is stamped on a life to be given back to God.
We pray that each of us might give ourselves to You, full submission and obedience, in the Savior’s name, Amen.
May all reading this have a blessed Sunday.
This post concludes my exegesis on Matthew 22:1-14, the Gospel reading for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (Year A).
Part 1, which covers the first seven verses — and has a link to the full set of readings — can be found here.
The Gospel reading is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 22:1-14
22:1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying:
22:2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.
22:3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.
22:4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’
22:5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business,
22:6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.
22:7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.
22:8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy.
22:9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’
22:10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
22:11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe,
22:12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.
22:13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
22:14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
The king told his slaves that the wedding was ready but that those he had invited were not worthy (verse 8).
Matthew Henry’s commentary explains the spiritual and historical meaning of the verse. The Church intended for God’s chosen people would pass to the Gentiles:
The wedding is ready, the covenant of grace ready to be sealed, a church ready to be founded; but they which were bidden, that is, the Jews, to whom pertained the covenant and the promises, by which they were of old invited to the feast of fat things, they were not worthy, they were utterly unworthy, and, by their contempt of Christ, had forfeited all the privileges they were invited to. Note, It is not owing to God, that sinners perish, but to themselves. Thus, when Israel of old was within sight of Canaan, the land of promise was ready, the milk and honey ready, but their unbelief and murmuring, and contempt of that pleasant land, shut them out, and their carcases were left to perish in the wilderness; and these things happened to them for ensamples [examples]. See 1 Cor 10 11; Heb 3 16-iv 1.
MacArthur says:
… they weren’t worthy because they wouldn’t accept the invitation. Did you get that? That’s all he says. Worthiness is not dependent on moral virtue. They would have been worthy if they’d just accepted the invitation. You understand? It’s a very important point.
The king instructed his slaves to go into the main streets and invite everyone they could find to the banquet (verse 9).
These strangers represent the Gentiles.
Henry says:
The inhabitants of the city (v. 7) had refused; Go into the high-ways then; into the way of the Gentiles, which at first they were to decline, ch. 10 5. Thus by the fall of the Jews salvation is come to the Gentiles, Rom 11 11, 12; Eph 3 8. Note, Christ will have a kingdom in the world, though many reject the grace, and resist the power, of that kingdom. Though Israel be not gathered, he will be glorious. The offer of Christ and salvation to the Gentiles was, (1.) Unlooked for and unexpected; such a surprise as it would be to wayfaring men upon the road to be met with an invitation to a wedding feast. The Jews had notice of the gospel, long before, and expected the Messiah and his kingdom; but to the Gentiles it was all new, what they had never heard of before (Acts 17 19, 20), and, consequently, what they could not conceive of as belonging to them. See Isa 65 1, 2. (2.) It was universal and undistinguishing; Go, and bid as many as you find. The highways are public places, and there Wisdom cries, Prov 1 20. “Ask them that go by the way, ask any body (Job 21 29), high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, young and old, Jew and Gentile; tell them all, that they shall be welcome to gospel-privileges upon gospel-terms; whoever will, let him come, without exception.”
The slaves went into the streets and gathered all they had found — both good and bad — so that the wedding hall was full of guests (verse 10).
MacArthur explains the three parts of this parable:
The third facet of the parable, in verses 9 and 10, we’ll call “New Guests Invited.” We’ve seen the invitation rejected, the rejecters punished, and now the new guests are invited. “Go therefore into the highways, and as many as you shall find, bid to the wedding feast.” I mean everything is ready, and there’s nobody to come. So, something new has happened. It’s been taken away from the nation that rejected, and now it’s going to be given to a new people. And who is this new people? He says, “Go into the highways” – the Greek word literally means the crossroads, or the forks in the road. “Go everywhere. Just go to the crossroads, where people are milling, to the byways and the highways and get everybody.”
This is a mandate for Christians to evangelise, as per our Lord’s Great Commission at the end of Matthew (Matthew 28:16-20):
The Great Commission
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Returning to verses 9 and 10, MacArthur says:
So, the point is go everywhere and get everybody that’ll come. “Go into all the world and” – what? – “preach the Gospel and make disciples.” … That’s what Paul says in the book of Romans when he says, “The fall of Israel is the rising of many.” Through their fall, we have come to salvation. We have replaced them in this particular time. And God yet has something for Israel. They’re going to come back into His favor. They’re going to come back into His redemptive plan. They’re going to yet come back … But in the meantime, He has stretched out His arms, and He has sent His message into everywhere to everyone. “As many as you can find, invite them all to come.” Isn’t that the heart of the Gospel message? That’s where we are now, isn’t it? Their fall became our rising. God will not be frustrated, beloved. The festival’s going to have some guests. The celebration’s going to go on. And if it isn’t going to be one group, it’s going to be another one.
It is important to know that the Jews will come to Christ one day, as St Paul explains:
Romans 11:25-28 – God’s purpose, judgement, Israel, mystery of salvation
Paul writes that God will lift His the judgement against Israel’s unbelief. Gentiles should not necessarily feel proud or secure. Churches will fall into apostasy. The Church was intended for the Jews first, not Gentiles, who were grafted in only because of the Jews’ unbelief.
This is also a warning against anti-Semitism.
MacArthur discusses the invitation to both good and bad people:
This is bad and good in terms of morality – human morality. I mean let’s face it; in life there are certain people that are bad, and certain people that are good. There are criminals and non-criminals. We’re not talking about religious things; we’re not talking about spiritual things. We’re not talking about Christians and non-Christians. It’s just general in life that there are humanly good people and humanly bad people. But when it comes to calling people into the kingdom, there’s no discriminating, is there? God isn’t going around looking for the moral people. I mean God is calling everybody, bad and good. And the thing that makes them worthy is not their inherent goodness or badness, but their willingness to accept – what? – the invitation. “And the wedding feast was furnished with guests.”
When he wrote the Corinthians, he said, “Well, you can’t bring into the kingdom” – it says in chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians – “fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminates, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, people who engage in wild orgies, extortioners.” They can’t come he says. “And such were” – what? – “some of you.” They can’t come in if they’re still like that, but they can come if they’re willing to come on God’s terms. He calls the good and the bad, the moral and the immoral, the criminal and the non-criminal.
Henry tells us:
Now the guests that were gathered were, [1.] A multitude, all, as many as they found; so many, that the guest-chamber was filled. The sealed ones of the Jews were numbered, but those of other nations were without number, a very great multitude, Rev 7 9. See Isa 60 4, 8. [2.] A mixed multitude, both bad and good; some that before their conversion were sober and well-inclined, as the devout Greeks (Acts 17 4) and Cornelius; others that had run to an excess of riot, as the Corinthians (1 Cor 6 11); Such were some of you; or, some that after their conversion proved bad, that turned not to the Lord with all their heart, but feignedly; others that were upright and sincere, and proved of the right class. Ministers, in casting the net of the gospel, enclose both good fish and bad; but the Lord knows them that are his.
When the king entered the wedding hall to see the guests, he saw one man who was not wearing a wedding robe (verse 11).
The king asked him, addressing him as ‘friend’ — ‘fellow’ in some translations — how he was able to enter without a wedding robe; the man was speechless (verse 12).
It sounds a bit unfair, but MacArthur explains:
I mean this is pretty tacky. It’s a seedy character. You go to a wedding at the king’s place, you got to do what’s right.
You say, “Well, now wait a minute. When you just go out on the highways and byways, and start sweeping in people off the street, you can’t expect a whole lot.”
But the point that’s interesting to make here is that there was only one guy who wasn’t properly garmented. Now we don’t know whether they get – when – had time to go home and get a garment, or whether the king provided garments. There’s a big debate.
Sometimes people say, “Well, they had time, and they went home and got their Sunday best and wore it.” And others say, “No, the king gave them a garment.” The parable doesn’t say anything, so you’re better off not saying anything. Jesus intended to say what He said, not what you think He didn’t say.
And so, the best thing – the best thing is just to assume that everybody had access to the proper garments. Whether they went home and got it, or whether it was provided for them, or whatever, they had access to it. And one guy comes in there and he’s not properly attired. And there was a proper way to be attired.
Henry points out that the Lord knows those who are His:
(1.) The king came in to see the guests, to bid those welcome who came prepared, and to turn those out who came otherwise. Note, The God of heaven takes particular notice of those who profess religion, and have a place and name in the visible church. Our Lord Jesus walks among the golden candlesticks [churches in Revelation] and therefore knows their works. See Rev 2 1, 2; Cant 7 12. Let this be a warning to us against hypocrisy, that disguises will shortly be stripped off, and every man will appear in his own colours; and an encouragement to us in our sincerity, that God is a witness to it.
Observe, This hypocrite was never discovered to be without a wedding garment, till the king himself came in to see the guests. Note, It is God’s prerogative to know who are sound at heart in their profession, and who are not. We may be deceived in men, either one way or other; but He cannot. The day of judgment will be the great discovering day, when all the guests will be presented to the King: then he will separate between the precious and the vile (ch. 25 32), the secrets of all hearts will then be made manifest, and we shall infallibly discern between the righteous and the wicked, which now it is not easy to do. It concerns all the guests, to prepare for the scrutiny, and to consider how they will pass the piercing eye of the heart-searching God.
Interesting. That’s what our vicar said this morning.
Henry continues:
(2.) As soon as he came in, he presently espied the hypocrite; He saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment; though but one, he soon had his eye upon him; there is no hope of being hid in a crowd from the arrests of divine justice; he had not on a wedding garment; he was not dressed as became a nuptial solemnity; he had not his best clothes on. Note, Many come to the wedding feast without a wedding garment. If the gospel be the wedding feast, then the wedding garment is a frame of heart, and a course of life agreeable to the gospel and our profession of it, worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called (Eph 4 1), as becomes the gospel of Christ, Phil 1 27. The righteousness of saints, their real holiness and sanctification, and Christ, made Righteousness to them, is the clean linen, Rev 19 8. This man was not naked, or in rags; some raiment he had, but not a wedding garment. Those, and those only, who put on the Lord Jesus, that have a Christian temper of mind, and are adorned with Christian graces, who live by faith in Christ, and to whom he is all in all, have the wedding garment.
Henry says that the king’s use of ‘friend’ was sarcastic:
2. His trial (v. 12); and here we may observe,
(1.) How he was arraigned (v. 12); Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding garment? A startling question to one that was priding himself in the place he securely possessed at the feast. Friend! That was a cutting word; a seeming friend, a pretended friend, a friend in profession, under manifold ties and obligations to be a friend. Note, There are many in the church who are false friends to Jesus Christ, who say that they love him while their hearts are not with him. How camest thou in hither? He does not chide the servants for letting him in (the wedding garment is an inward thing, ministers must go according to that which falls within their cognizance); but he checks his presumption in crowding in, when he knew that his heart was not upright; “How durst thou claim a share in gospel benefits, when thou hadst no regard to gospel rules? What has thou to do to declare my statutes?” Ps 50 16, 17. Such are spots in the feast, dishonour the bridegroom, affront the company, and disgrace themselves; and therefore, How camest thou in hither? Note, The day is coming, when hypocrites will be called to an account for all their presumptuous intrusion into gospel ordinances, and usurpation of gospel privileges. Who hath required this at your hand? Isa 1 12. Despised sabbaths and abused sacraments must be reckoned for, and judgment taken out upon an action of waste against all those who received the grace of God in vain. “How camest thou to the Lord’s table, at such a time, unhumbled and unsanctified? What brought thee to sit before God’s prophets, as his people do, when thy heart went after thy covetousness? How camest thou in? Not by the door, but some other way, as a thief and a robber. It was a tortuous entry, a possession without colour of a title.” Note, It is good for those that have a place in the church, often to put it to themselves, “How came I in hither? Have I a wedding-garment?” If we would thus judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
MacArthur notes that the man was speechless. He did not give an excuse:
“And he was” – what? – “speechless.” You think if he had an excuse, he would have given one? Sure. He would have said, “Hey, you know, my wife took the deal to the cleaners. It isn’t coming back till Tuesday. I mean what am I going to do?” Right? Or, “You know, in other words as coming down here, had that deal under my arm, and a guy went by me in a cart, and the thing fell, and the guy – I mean it’s a sad thing, but I’m…” Or he could have said, “This is all I have,” played the pious deal. He was speechless. Why? He had no – what? – no excuse. He had no excuse, which means that everybody could have had a garment, including him. He just didn’t do it.
I mean he came in there saying, “I’m just going to be myself, see? I mean I’m not going to do anything different than I normally do. I’m just going to come to the party just like I am.” Very proud. Very insulting. Very thoughtless.
The king told his attendants to bind the man hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping — wailing — and gnashing of teeth (verse 13).
Sounds a lot like judgement and hell, doesn’t it?
Henry says:
Our Saviour here insensibly slides out of this parable into that which it intimates—the damnation of hypocrites in the other world. Hell is utter darkness, it is darkness out of heaven, the land of light; or it is extreme darkness, darkness to the last degree, without the least ray or spark of light, or hope of it, like that of Egypt; darkness which might be felt; the blackness of darkness, as darkness itself, Job 10 22. Note, Hypocrites go by the light of the gospel itself down to utter darkness; and hell will be hell indeed to such, a condemnation more intolerable; there shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth. This our Saviour often uses as part of the description of hell-torments, which are hereby represented, not so much by the misery itself, as by the resentment sinners will have of it; there shall be weeping, an expression of great sorrow and anguish; not a gush of tears, which gives present ease, but constant weeping, which is constant torment; and the gnashing of teeth is an expression of the greatest rage and indignation; they will be like a wild bull in a net, full of the fury of the Lord, Isa 51 20; 8 21, 22. Let us therefore hear and fear.
MacArthur has more:
“So, the king said to the servants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot, take him away.”
You say, “Why did they do that?”
Because if they didn’t do that, he’d come back again. So, they tie him up so he can’t come back in again. “Put him in outer darkness.” Apparently the light had been turned on in the middle of the festival. It was evening by now. “Put him out. Put him out. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” You’ll have great regret. Oh, you’ll have great regret to miss the celebration. Oh, he’ll be so sad, weeping, [groaning sound], gnashing his teeth. “Put him out.”
You say, “Well, what is this saying?”
It’s saying that there are going to be people who try to crash the kingdom, and they come in, and they hang around, and they join the church, and they get involved, and they’re a part. I mean they’ve been out there on the highways and byways, and the preachers go out, and they call them to come, and they come in, and they – they – and they come in, and they don’t have the proper garment. But they want to stay. And in order to keep them out, you’ve got to tie them up, put them out.
You say, “Who are these people?”
Oh, they’re sort of like the people in Matthew 7 who say, “Lord, Lord, have we not cast out demons? Have we not done many wonderful works in your name? Lord, Lord, we’ve preached.”
He says, “Out. I never knew you. Who are you?”
These are kingdom crashers. These are tares among the wheat. They’re not properly garmented.
You say, “What’s the garment?”
That’s easy. Go back to Matthew 5:20 for a moment, and I’ll show you the garment. In Matthew 5:20 it says, “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
What is it that is necessary for entrance into the kingdom of heaven? What is it? Righteousness. And a righteousness different than the Pharisees, which was a self-righteousness – a God-given righteousness. It’s just what Hebrews 12:14 says, “Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” You don’t go into God’s presence without manifest righteousness, without manifest holiness.
Job 29:14, the text says, “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me.” The Jews would understand this – who were listening to Him, because they would remember one of the most beautiful texts of the entire Old Testament. It would be very familiar to them. It is Isaiah 61:10 and it says this, “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with a robe of righteousness.” So, they knew that. Righteousness was the robe.
And the king looked at this man; he saw no righteousness. That is no right living, no right thinking, no right speaking. He saw no holiness, no godliness. He said, “You don’t belong in here. You can’t crash the kingdom on your own terms. That which proves you belong is manifest righteousness.”
Beloved, this is a repeated truth in the Gospel of Matthew over and over and over and over. That which marks a true believer is manifest righteousness, not that he hangs around other believers, not that he identifies externally with the ongoing activity of the kingdom.
Jesus ended His parable by saying that many are called but few are chosen (verse 14).
Therefore, let no one say that all will be saved. They will not.
Henry says:
… if you set aside all the profane, and all the hypocritical, you will find that they are few, very few, that are chosen; many called to the wedding feast, but few chosen to the wedding garment, that is, to salvation, by sanctification of the Spirit. This is the strait gate, and narrow way, which few find.
MacArthur concludes with this:
The heart of Christ still reaches out in a loving invitation to a world of men and women that He wants in the celebration. He’s not inviting you to suffer here in this parable. He’s not inviting you to pain. He’s not inviting you to deprivation. He’s not inviting you to a monastic existence. He’s not inviting you to self-immolation. He’s not inviting you to some kind of arduous work. He’s inviting you to a celebration of all celebrations, the glorious and eternal royal feast that is all that the best of life could ever, ever be imagined to bring, and it’s all in Christ. Won’t you come?
May all reading this have a blessed week ahead.
Forbidden Bible Verses will appear tomorrow.
Churchmouse Campanologist 