We come this morning to a key passage in the Gospel of Matthew. In a sense, this passage is what so much of the Gospel has been leading to. It’s the passage that sets in motion all the events in the rest of the Gospel. Matthew began his Gospel by telling us that he was writing “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). As we have shown, Matthew presents Jesus as the Christ, the promised Messiah who is Savior, Lord, and King. Everything in Matthew’s narrative confirms that Jesus is the Christ. From His genealogy, His birth, His baptism, His temptation by the devil, His miracles, His teaching, His authority over disease, demons, and even death, and His fulfillment of prophecy—everything has pointed to Jesus as the Christ. But up to this point in Matthew’s narrative, no one has said it out loud.
It is a joy to come together again on the Lord’s Day, to open our Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew and hear God’s word for His church. Matthew is the gospel of the King and His kingdom. Matthew demonstrates that Jesus is the promised King and Messiah. Jesus Christ fulfills the prophesies of scripture. He has the authority of God the Father in His words and His works. He does what only God can do. He possesses the attributes of Almighty God.
In Matthew 14-17, we are in a section of Matthew where Jesus is training His disciples in kingdom ministry. Every narrative not only teaches us about who Jesus is and what He came to do, but also about who Jesus calls His disciples to be and what He calls them to do. We saw Jesus feed the 5000 through His disciples, teaching them the priority of kingdom ministry and God’s provision for it. We saw Jesus walk on water teaching them the power of faith over fear. Then, when the scribes and Pharisees confronted Jesus and His disciples about washings, Jesus taught them the purpose of kingdom ministry, God’s cleansing of the heart. Last time, we saw Jesus interact with a woman of Canaan and we saw the perseverance of faith in kingdom ministry.
Today, we learn another lesson: the passion of kingdom ministry.
Last time, we studied the confrontation between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 15.
1. The Confrontation (Matt. 15:1-9)
A. Pharisees confront Jesus about tradition (15:1-2)
They came from Jerusalem and charged Jesus with teaching His disciples to transgress the traditions of the elders—specifically regarding the ceremonial washing of hands before eating. They condemned those who did not follow their man-made traditions. Jesus hadn’t broken God’s Law; He hadn’t offended God; He had simply failed to play their traditional religious games. Traditions that are man-made carry no divine authority.
B. Jesus confronts Pharisees about God’s law (15:3-9)
Jesus then turned the spotlight on the Pharisees and charged them with transgressing God’s law in order to keep their traditions. Specifically, they broke the fifth commandment to honor their father and mother by keeping a tradition of vowing their possessions to God. They used their tradition as an excuse to disobey God. Jesus called them hypocrites (Matt. 15:7), said that their hearts were far from God (Matt. 15:8) and that they worshipped God in vain because they taught as doctrines the commandments of men (Matt. 15:9).
So we learned last time that religious traditions can easily become sinful transgressions when they cause us to set aside the clear commands of God’s word and become a substitute for a true relationship with God by faith.
Next, having dealt with the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Jesus then turns from the hostile, unbelieving Pharisees and speaks directly to the crowds, the common people.
Matthew’s theme is that Jesus is the Messiah-King. As He walked this earth, our Lord’s message was, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” The subject of Jesus’ teaching was the kingdom of God. And in all of His preaching, He clearly showed Himself to be the long-awaited Messiah-King who fulfilled the prophecies of scripture. He had sent His apostles out to proclaim that same message of the kingdom and confirmed the gospel with miracles, signs, and wonders. He had compassion on the people, healed their diseases, and freed many from demonic possession. And yet, He had to rebuke the very places where He had taught and worked (Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum), because they would not repent at His teaching (Matt. 11:20-24). The religious leaders of the day resisted His teaching, demanded signs from Him (Matt. 12:38), and sought to kill Him (Matt. 12:14). Even His own family (Matt. 12:46-50) and the people of His hometown resisted and rejected Him (Matt. 13:53-58). King Herod reacted to news about Jesus with misunderstanding and superstition (Matt. 14:1-2). The multitudes that He fed misunderstood His mission—forcing Him to separate Himself from them because they sought to make Him into their earthly provider (John 6:15). Even Jesus’ own disciples failed to recognize Him as He walked out to them on the sea—fearing that He was a ghost (Matt. 14:26).
Today, We come to another familiar story in our study of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus walking on the water. Which would be so utterly amazing to us, had we not heard the story many times over. This episode in the life of Jesus has left its impression on the mind of the world. Still today, we describe someone who is very gifted or successful as “able to walk on water.” But we mean the phrase only metaphorically. No one can literally walk on water. But Jesus did. And the point of the whole episode comes at the end when the disciples worship Jesus saying, “Truly You are the Son of God” (Matt. 14:33).
We said last time that this section of the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 14-17, focuses on Jesus training His disciples for kingdom ministry. Jesus does many miracles in this section, but these miracles have less to do with proving Himself to the crowds, and far more to do with Jesus teaching the twelve. We saw this last time as Jesus fed the five thousand. Jesus wants to do kingdom ministry through His disciples. So He pressed them to the end of themselves and their resources to reveal that kingdom ministry must be done according to His will and in His power.
Now, Jesus gives His disciples another hands-on ministry learning session. This lesson also will bring the twelve to the end of themselves.
Today, I felt it necessary to leave our normal verse-by-verse exposition of the Gospel of Matthew to focus our attention on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since I already preached from Matthew’s account of the resurrection last year, I thought it would deepen our understanding and strengthen our faith if we fixed our gaze on the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus as the prophet Isaiah described it 700 years before it happened. In Isaiah 53 we see the content and the confirmation of the resurrection of Christ.[1] God revealed to Isaiah the purpose of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If you were here Friday evening, you know that I focused on Isaiah 53:4-6 in answering the question, “Why Did Jesus Die?” But this morning, I want to give you a broader understanding of the whole passage in Isaiah 53. Isaiah was a prophet in the nation of Judah during the time that the northern Kingdom of Israel was exiled by the Assyrians. And he prophesied that the southern Kingdom of Judah would face a similar judgment by God at the hands of the Babylonians.
All scholars recognize that the sixty-six chapters of Isaiah divide into two major sections. In the first 39 chapters, Isaiah’s prophecy majors on God’s judgment on Israel and the coming judgment on Judah. There are hints of hope in those chapters, but the theme is judgment. Isaiah 39 ends with Isaiah giving a prophecy to King Hezekiah about the Babylonian captivity.
The second section begins in Isaiah 40. And the tone of this section is completely different. Isaiah 40:1 begins, “‘Comfort, yes, comfort My people!’ Says your God.” Isaiah is writing to comfort the future generation who will return from exile. The theme of these chapters is grace and salvation, encompassing not only the deliverance of Israel from Babylon, but also the deliverance of sinners from sin and the deliverance of the nations from the curse into the Kingdom of Christ.[2]
In the heart of this second section of Isaiah, are four “Servant Songs” (cf. 42:1-7; 49:1-6; 50:4-9). The final and climatic Servant Song is Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12. The New Testament directly quotes this text no less than seven times and alludes to it another forty times. It is no exaggeration to call this passage “The Mt. Everest of Old Testament prophecy.”[3] Nowhere in all the Old Testament does the gospel of Jesus Christ shine more clearly than here.
In this song, there are 5 stanzas of 3 verses each. By creative contrast and regular repetition, Isaiah weaves the twin themes of exaltation and humiliation into a beautiful tapestry of theological truth.[4] The first line of each stanza captures its theme and beautifully summarizes its content. Isaiah 52:13, “Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently”—here we see the exalted servant. Isaiah 53:1, “Who has believed our report?”—here we see the rejected servant. Isaiah 53:4, “Surely He has borne our griefs”—here we see the suffering servant. Isaiah 53:7, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted”—here we see the executed servant. Finally, Isaiah 53:10, “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him”—and here we see the resurrected servant.
We could spend weeks studying the details of this amazing prophecy. But today, I just want you to see the big picture in hopes of deepening your love for our risen Lord Jesus Christ.
First, I want you to see…
1. The Exalted Servant (Isa. 52:13-15)
This opening stanza serves as the prologue to the song and a summation of the entire prophecy. Isaiah 52:13 begins the same way the first Servant Song does in Isaiah 42:1, “Behold, My Servant…” God, through the prophet, calls on us to look at His servant and be astonished. Who is this Servant of Yahweh? Sometimes in Isaiah, the servant of the Lord is the people of Israel. Isaiah 41:8 says “But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, The descendants of Abraham My friend” (cf. Isa. 49:3). Sometimes, the servant is Isaiah himself (Isa. 49:5). But in this Servant Song, the servant cannot be the people of Israel or the prophet because the Servant substitutes Himself for both the prophet and the people.
As I said on Friday evening, the New Testament is clear that the servant here is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 8:17; Acts 8:35; 1 Peter 2:24; Mark 10:45). He fulfills this prophecy perfectly.
God gives us the conclusion at the beginning, “Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high.” This is the end-result of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He will ultimately succeed in His mission. Christ is exalted because of His success. “My Servant shall deal prudently” could also be translated, “My servant will act wisely or prosper.” The Messiah will be triumphant. He shall be 1) exalted (raised, high), 2) extolled (lifted up), and 3) be very high.
“Exalted and extolled” or “high and lifted up” are used in combination 4 times in Isaiah and no place else in the Old Testament (cf. Isaiah 6:1; 33:10; 57:15). All three other instances they describe God. Listen to one of them, Isaiah 6:1, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.” This Servant of Yahweh is exalted and extolled just as Yahweh Himself. The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians, that after Jesus humbled Himself being obedient to death on the cross, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, … and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-10).
Jesus is exalted in His success—but His success is due to His suffering. Isaiah 52:14 says, “Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men.” People are astonished, appalled, shocked at His appearance. The center three stanzas of this Servant Song will tell us why this is so.
He is exalted in His success, because of His suffering, and for His service. Isaiah 52:15, “So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; For what had not been told them they shall see, And what they had not heard they shall consider.” The verb “sprinkle” is the Hebrew word, נָזָה (naza). This word most often appears in the book of Leviticus and describes the sprinkling of blood for atonement. Jesus, the Messiah, is our perfect High Priest (Hebrews 3:1). And the blood of the sacrifice that He will sprinkle the nations with is His own blood.
God’s Servant will astonish not just His own people, but many nations and their kings. The Messiah will sprinkle and redeem the nations. The Gentiles will see the Messiah for who He is, despite not previously having heard about Him. What God accomplished in Christ could never have been done by the nation of Israel or dreamed up by any man. It was God’s plan.
So, this song begins with the servant’s exaltation. Next we see…
2. The Rejected Servant (Isa. 53:1-3).
In the first stanza, God described the exaltation of His Servant. In the next three stanzas, Isaiah speaks as the redeemed people of God. You will see the pronouns “we”, “our”, and “us” repeatedly. This is the testimony of the redeemed as they look back on what God has done in Christ. They look back and lament and mourn over the fact they misjudged the Lord’s Servant and did not believe the message about Him. Isaiah 53:1 asks, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?” The nations did not believe because they did not know. Israel knew and yet she did not believe because she failed to recognize the “arm of the Lord” when it was revealed in the Suffering Servant. Instead, they rejected Him.
How did they misunderstand and reject God’s servant?
They misunderstood Him and rejected Him because he appeared to be insignificant and unattractive. Isaiah 53:2, “For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.” The Servant lacked the regal splendor necessary to attract the nations. Jesus, the Messiah never held any titles, nor did He hold public office. He did not look like an earthly King. He had no earthly majesty or official authority from man. Jesus arose out of humble circumstances and lowly conditions—from a poor nation, impoverished parents, born in a stable, a carpenter by trade. The people thought, “This is not what ‘the arm of the Lord’ should look like!”
Isaiah 53:3 shows how most responded to God’s Servant, “He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” Because Jesus was not who they expected Him to be, they did not believe His message and they rejected Him as Messiah. Instead of honoring Him for who He is, men hated Him. John explains in his Gospel how this prophecy was fulfilled even though Jesus had performed so many signs, and still the people did not believe Him (John 12:37). John 12:38 says, “that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?””
All that led to Him being …
3. The Suffering Servant (Isa. 53:4-6)
In these verses we find the Servant wounded, bruised, chastened, and whipped. Those who saw this happen or have heard about it since considered Him “stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4). Many in ancient Israel believed suffering was the judgment of God for your sins and therefore they wrongly assumed that when the Servant suffered, He was getting what He deserved.
But now, seeing the true picture, they know that the griefs and sorrows He carried were indeed deserved, but not by Him, but by us. Listen again to Isaiah 53;4-6,
4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
The language of substitution could not be clearer. It was not for His own sins that Jesus suffered—He had none. He is the sinless Son of God, the Holy and Righteous One. 1 Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.” God took the punishment and weight of your sins and mine and laid them upon his only Son at the cross. He suffered for sinners.
So far we have seen the exalted servant, the rejected servant, the suffering servant, and now…
4. The Executed Servant (Isa. 53:7-9)
All of the Servant’s suffering culminated and climaxed in His death. Here we see the submissive obedience of Christ in His suffering.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. 9 And they made His grave with the wicked–But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. (Isaiah 53:7-9)
There are so many prophecies in these three verses that we could spend hours detailing how Jesus fulfilled them in His suffering and death. Peter writes about it in 1 Peter 2:
21 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: 22 “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; 23 who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness–by whose stripes you were healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Pet. 2:21-25)
Jesus died for our transgressions. He was cut-off from the land of the living. It was not an accident. It was an execution. These verses clearly prophesy the death and burial of God’s Servant—a death that was not for Himself, but for others. This is the Executed Servant.
But, praise God! That is not the end of the story. Finally we see…
5. The Resurrected Servant (Isa. 53:10-12)
At least three times Isaiah tells us that the sacrifice that the servant made in dying results in a resurrection triumph. He does not use the word “resurrection,” but the reality is plain. Listen to Isaiah 53:10-12,
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. 11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
First, I want you to notice this. The death of the Servant was not merely a murder or a martyrdom. It was nothing less than a divine appointment! It was the Lord’s will to bruise Him. It was God who put Him to grief. God made His soul an offering for sin. The chief priests, the Pharisees, the Jews, Pilate, Herod, the Romans—they all played a part and are culpable for killing Jesus. But as we have seen, it is not just them that are guilty—so are we. We all sinned and Christ died because of our sin. But ultimately, it was the Father’s will. It was God who sacrificed His Son. It was His eternal plan and purpose that accomplished our salvation through the death of His Son.
But God’s plan was even bigger than what Christ accomplished at the cross. His death was not the end. The Servant’s life and sacrifice was not a waste, a loss, after all. In fact, He will see His seed (offspring), His days will be prolonged (lengthened) and the best of all: the pleasure (will, desire) of the Lord shall prosper (be accomplished) in His hand. Yes, He was bruised by God, but He is also blessed by God. Look at three results from His death and resurrection: 1) He sees the fruit of his death and is satisfied. He is not dead. He is living and satisfied. His work is complete, and He is glad. 2) He justifies many – all those who trust in Him. If you trust in Jesus, you are declared just and righteous before God. That is what “justify” means. A dead Christ does not justify. A living Christ justifies. Romans 4:25 says, “[He] was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.” 3) “He will bear their iniquities.” Yes, he bore these iniquities when he died. But He goes on making intercession and bears them forever in the sense that as long as He lives it is plain that His death was utterly sufficient to pay for all your sins.
He is satisfied. We are justified. And all our sins are carried away by Christ forever. We will never bear them again.
This song began with the Exalted Servant and it ends with the Risen Servant being exalted in His redeemed people. He divides the spoils of His victory over sin and death with all those whom He has redeemed. Hebrews 7:25 says, “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
Jesus is the exalted, rejected, suffering, dying, and risen Servant. What will you do with Jesus today? Will you turn to Him in repentance and faith, trusting in His death for the forgiveness of your sins and in His resurrection for your justification?
In our study of the Gospel of Matthew, we have seen that Matthew presents Jesus as the Messiah-King. But Jesus was not the Messiah or the King that many of the Jews expected or wanted. Many expected a King who would deliver them from their Roman overlords. Instead, they met a preacher who said to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you—who seemed more interested in correcting the Jewish leaders than Roman authorities. Many expected a Messiah who would vindicate their religious traditions. Instead, they met a teacher who challenged their legalism and condemned their hypocrisy. They expected a King who would reward the influential and powerful religious leaders. Instead, they met a man who chose fishermen and tax-collectors as disciples and welcomed sinners and ate with them.[1]
Yet, they also could not easily dismiss Jesus as an imposter. No one ever spoke like Jesus, and no one ever did the miraculous works that He did. He could not teach what He taught or do the miracles He did if God were not with Him (John 3:2). Still, the question remains. If Jesus is the Messiah-King, why does His life and ministry look so different from what people expected? If He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Sovereign King, why is He behaving as a gentle servant?
Setting: Matthew 12:14-16
Today’s passage is wedged between two narratives where Jesus is in conflict with the Pharisees. Opposition to our Savior’s message and ministry was mounting. Jesus had just healed a man on the Sabbath in their synagogue (Matt. 12:9-13). Before that, the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of breaking the Sabbath because they had walked through a grain field, rubbed heads of grain together in their hands, and ate. Taking them to the scriptures, Jesus challenged their legalistic Sabbath rules and declared that He Himself was the Lord of the Sabbath. He presented Himself as the one who had authority even over the Sabbath day. And now, He has proven His authority by the fact that He healed a man on the Sabbath in the very synagogue of the Pharisees. Jesus proclaimed Himself Lord of the Sabbath which equated Himself with God and the Pharisees knew it.
How did they react to this? Matthew 12:14, “Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.” Their opposition to Jesus takes a deadly turn as they set in motion plans to destroy Him—plans that would eventually lead to His crucifixion.
Someone who was seeking after worldly power would likely have used the advantage just won in the rebuke of the Pharisees to rally the support of the people and put an end to their power. But instead of taking up arms to protect Himself and establish His kingdom by force, Jesus quietly withdraws. Matthew 12:15 says, “But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there.” It’s what you might call a tactical retreat until the proper time.
But Jesus’ withdrawal was not an effort to run and hide in fear of persecution. We know that isn’t the case, because even in retreat He continues to heal the sick, “And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all” (Matt. 12:15). Jesus was modeling what He told His disciples to do when He sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God, “And whoever will not receive nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet” (Matt. 10:14). Or again, He instructed them, “When they persecute you in this city, flee to another” (Matt. 10:23).
Jesus didn’t stay to fight with those who opposed Him. No—He peacefully, calmly left the place where He was not welcomed. Jesus was not afraid to speak the truth to those who rejected Him. In Matthew 11, He told those in Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum who rejected His message, “Woe to you . . .” and warned them of God’s judgment (Matthew 11:21-24). Jesus will have even more woes to pronounce on the religious leaders in Jerusalem in Matthew 23. Still, Jesus did not pick up arms to battle those who opposed Him. He simply left.
But just like Jesus avoided violence with the Pharisees, He also tried to avoid celebrity and stardom with the people. Matthew 12:16 says about those He healed, “Yet He warned them not to make Him known.” He refused violence and He refused ostentation, as He quietly goes about His works of mercy.
There were probably several reasons for Jesus not wanting the people to make Him known. For one, acclaim as a healer would have distorted why Jesus was here. Jesus came to save souls, not just to dispense physical healing. Jesus healed as a natural expression of His compassion and as a supernatural attestation of His Messiahship. For another, if the people made Him known it could have inflamed overzealous enthusiasm. In John 6:15, the people were so enthused after Jesus fed the 5000 that they wanted to come and take Him by force and make Him king. But Jesus did not come in His first advent to be the conquering king, but the suffering servant that would take away our sins (Isaiah 53).[2]
Scriptural Fulfillment: Matthew 12:18-21
This setting is what prompts Matthew to take Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of the Messiah and put it on display here in verses Matthew 12:18–21. Matthew writes that the reason Jesus withdrew from violent conflict and popular stardom was, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet…” (Matt. 12:17). Think about this. The LORD prophesied about the nature and ministry of the Messiah some 700 years before Jesus was born. What does this indicate? It was the Father’s plan. God told the people of Israel what kind of a Messiah He would be. And here, Matthew gives proof that Jesus came and fulfilled the kind of ministry that God said He would—and did so in the very manner that the Scriptures promised. Matthew—who wrote His Gospel primarily to Jewish readers—was proving that even though the Jewish people rejected Jesus, He truly was the Messiah that the Scriptures promised He would be.
This passage tells us the character of our Savior’s ministry.[3]
It helps us understand why Jesus, for much of His earthly ministry, kept distant from the Jewish leaders who opposed Him. In Matthew’s Gospel, the first time we see Jesus go to Jerusalem is Matthew 21—Palm Sunday! And why did He go then? To submit Himself to death on the cross. Even though great multitudes of people followed Jesus, He didn’t come to overthrow those who opposed Him. Instead, He came to teach the truths about His Father’s kingdom to those who would hear Him, and then die on the cross so that sinners may become citizens of that kingdom. He came as God’s humble, gentle servant who gave Himself up to death to save sinners.
In Matthew 12:18-21, Matthew quotes from Isaiah 42:1-4. This, by the way, is the longest quote from a single Old Testament passage in all of the Gospel of Matthew. The Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to give it to us here in the heart of His Gospel to show who Jesus is and why He came to cause us to place our hope in Jesus Christ.[4]
First we see…
1. The Person of Christ – Chosen and Beloved (Matt. 12:18)
Matthew 12:18 says, “Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen, My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased!” The Lord God says through the prophet Isaiah, “Behold! My Servant…” He wants us to “Behold!”, to look carefully and consider the person of Christ. Each one of us—stop, look, listen. God Himself is describing His Messiah.
First, God says He is “My Servant”. That’s the prophetic name that God gave to the Messiah in the book of Isaiah—“My Servant”. The word “Servant” here is unusual. It is the Greek word “pais”. It can refer to a king’s closest and most trusted attendant or minister. It can also refer to a child or son. It is used in the Greek version of the Old Testament, in Genesis 24, to speak of Abraham’s chief servant. It is used to speak of a royal servants. And it is used in Job 4 to speak of God’s angelic servants. Jesus is God’s Son-Servant, the intimate, trusted, chief, royal servant.[5]
This particular quotation is from the first of what we call the four Servant Songs in Isaiah. Each of these songs reveals aspects of God’s Servant who would come to redeem His people. And each of these songs find their fulfillment in Jesus in the New Testament.
In the first song, He is the gentle servant who brings justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1-4). This song focuses on Jesus’ ministry. In the second song (Isaiah 49:1-6), He is the prepared servant who brings God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. This song focuses on Jesus’ incarnation. In the third song (Isaiah 50:4-9), He is the obedient servant who trusts God to help Him face His accusers. This song focuses on Jesus’ obedience in the face of opposition. In the final song (Isaiah 52:13—53:12), He is the suffering servant who dies for our sins and rises again triumphant over sin and death.[6]
Isaiah 53 is the most well-known of all the Servant Songs, because it focuses on the Servant’s suffering and death. We will look at this passage in our Good Friday service this week. Jesus is the fulfillment of all four Servant Songs in Isaiah. Jesus will say in Matthew 20:28, “. . . the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Now look back to Matthew 12:18. God says, “Behold! My Servant whom I have chosen…” Yes, Jesus came to serve us and to give His life as a ransom for many, but Jesus was primarily God’s servant. He came in obedience to God the Father. He said what the Father told Him to say. He did what the Father told Him to do. He perfectly fulfilled His Father’s will.
Jesus was the Chosen One. Some of you have watched the series “The Chosen” which portrays Jesus with His chosen disciples. But Jesus is truly “The Chosen” of God. Peter wrote that we come to Him “as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious . . .” (1 Peter 2:4). Even Jesus’ enemies recognized this about Him. At the cross, the rulers mocked Him and said, “He saved others, let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God” (Luke 23:35). Jesus alone is the one whom God has “chosen”. How important, then, that we “behold” Him!
God also calls Jesus, “My Beloved in whom My soul is well pleased” (Matt. 12:18). At His baptism, the Father declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17; cf. 2 Peter 1:17). Jesus was the object of divine choice, divine love, and divine pleasure. God the Father will repeat these words at Jesus’ transfiguration in Matthew 17:5, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” What we must see is that the Father does not love the Son because of His obedience in coming to suffer for sinners. No—God sent His Son into the world to suffer for sinners because the Son is His beloved (John 10:17). The Father has always loved the Son from eternity past (John 17:24). We might love someone because of what they have done for us, or the potential they have to do things for us. But the Father loves the Son with an inexhaustible, selfless, joyous, all-satisfying love! John 3:35 says, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.” Paul spoke of the Father’s delight in the Son when he called Jesus, “the Son of His love” (Col. 1:13) and “the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6).
So we see the person of Jesus Christ. He is God’s chosen and beloved servant. From that eternal, divine, love relationship flows everything that Jesus is and does.
Second we see …
2. The Spirit of Christ – Humble and Gentle (Matt. 12:18-20).
The quote from God in Isaiah 42 continues in Matthew 12:18, “I will put My Spirit upon Him, And He will declare justice to the Gentiles.” In Isaiah 11:1-2, we’re given this promise about the Lord Jesus Christ: “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD” (Isaiah 11:1-2). The Father made this clear to those who witnessed Jesus’ baptism. John the Baptist bore witness, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God” (John 1:32-34).
How did the Holy Spirit manifest Himself in Jesus’ ministry? First, in humility. The end of Matthew 12:18 quotes, “And He will declare justice to the Gentiles.” Jesus will proclaim righteousness to the peoples of the world. He will not be like other earthly kings—who rule in accordance with their own will for their own ends, and thus oppressed the people under them. Isaiah tells us when the Lord comes, “He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).
And what a humble and righteous ruler He will be! Again Isaiah 11 says,
His delight is in the fear of the LORD,
And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,
Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;
But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,
And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins,
And faithfulness the belt of His waist (Isaiah 11:3-5).
Notice in Matthew 12:18, how He would bring this about. We’re told that, when this promised one comes, He will declare justice with great patience and modesty.
Isaiah prophesied, “He will not quarrel nor cry out, Nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.” (Matt. 12:19). Remember, Matthew is quoting this Servant Song from Isaiah to show how Jesus fulfilled this prophecy in His response to the Pharisees who were plotting to kill Him. Jesus did not quarrel or cry out in arguing with His enemies. To do so would have drawn undue attention to Himself, something which we have already seen Jesus did not do. Yes, Jesus spoke out against evil. But He avoided conflict for as long as possible. He did not argue with others to justify Himself or in order to make others look bad. No—He spoke the truth of God with all the humility of one who serves God and others rather than Himself.
He will also bring righteousness for the nations with gentleness. MAtthew 12:20 says, “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench,Till He sends forth justice to victory.” And Jesus is the gentle servant who cares for the helpless and hopeless.
Reeds were used for a variety of purposes in Biblical times. They were cheap and plentiful, and so if you had a bad one or a bruised one, no worry, you just threw it out. You could always get another one. But Jesus doesn’t do that with us. Jesus cares for the helpless. Jesus cares for those the world can’t be bothered with or troubled over, those the world doesn’t pay any attention to. Jesus cares about all the hurting, all the failures, all the rejects, all the drop-outs, all the little people, all the weak links in the chain that everyone else sets side.
The “smoking flax” represents those whose hope is flickering, those who know they don’t have much to offer, those who don’t know if they can keep going, those who don’t know if they will make it another day. Those whose spiritual light was so small it was about to go out, Jesus would not quench. Far from it! Rather, He would blow upon them and cause them to burn even brighter in Himself.
A few weeks ago we looked at Jesus’ words in Matthew 11 where Jesus said: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matt. 11:28-29). Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. He is the lowly, gentle servant gives the righteousness of God by faith to those who are unrighteous through His death and resurrection.
We have seen the Person of Christ, the Spirit of Christ and finally we see…
3. The Victory of Christ – Justice and Hope (Matt. 12:20-21)
The last two lines in Matthew’s quote from Isaiah are: “Till He sends forth justice to victory; And in His name Gentiles will trust.” (Matt. 12:20-21). Jesus, God’s Chosen and Beloved Servant, the Spirit-empowered Servant who is humble and gentle, will also be victorious. This is the same picture that Zechariah 9 gives us in prophesying about our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
The battle bow shall be cut off.
He shall speak peace to the nations;
His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:9-10).
The mighty King who brings righteousness and salvation comes lowly and riding on a donkey. He comes to bring peace—peace with God through His sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
And what will be the result? “And in His name Gentiles will trust” (Matt. 12:21). That would have been the furthest thing from the mind of any Jewish person who was looking for a conquering Messiah. But that’s the plan of God through Christ.
This is the marvel of the plan of God! It required that the promised Messiah come to His people; but that His own people reject Him. The reason the Jews continually rejected Jesus is because He didn’t look like what they were expecting. But their expectation was wrong, for all they had ever seen was the legalistic dominating religion of the Pharisees and the worldly, corrupt religion of the Chief Priests.
But Jesus didn’t come like them. They came in arrogance, He came in humility. They came in power, He came in meekness. They came dominating people, He came serving people. They trampled on the weak, He picked them up. They offered threats, He offered hope. They brought a burden, He brought rest.
Jesus was the Messiah-King God had promised. The good news is that Jesus, having been rejected and crucified, was raised from the dead in power and glory, so that, now, bruised reeds from all nations may find salvation by trusting in Him! By His patience and endurance, He has opened the way for all peoples—Jews and Gentiles—to come to God.
What is the message for us? Trust in Jesus. Put your hope in Him. Righteousness is only found in Jesus. Justice is only accomplished in Jesus. Any attempt to find these things for which we hope in any other will ultimately disappoint and condemn you. The only hope we have is Jesus.
As you can tell from the title in the bulletin, today’s sermon is part 2, continuing the topic that we looked at last week, that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. As I said last time, the Sabbath day was a big deal to the Jews in Jesus’ day and especially to the legalistic Pharisees. In Matthew 12:1-8, a group of Pharisees started a conflict with Jesus over the Sabbath when Jesus and His disciples were passing through a grainfield on the Sabbath (Matt. 12:1). When the Pharisees saw the disciples plucking and eating some of the grain, they denounced them to Jesus saying, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” (Matt. 12:2).
According to the fourth commandment, the Sabbath was to be a day of rest (Exo. 20:8-11). And according to the legalistic interpretation of the Pharisees, the disciples were breaking the Sabbath by harvesting and preparing a meal on the Sabbath day. In answering their accusation by the scriptures, showing that God’s laws are made for our good. Quoting Hosea 6:6, Jesus said, “But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.” (Matt. 12:7). What’s important to God is not outward religious rituals but a heart that puts mercy toward people first. What’s important to Him is that the spirit of genuine grace and mercy—which is always a part of the true worship of the Lord Jesus Christ—takes precedence over mere outward rituals and religious observances.[1]
Then, Jesus turned their attention to the truly decisive issue—Jesus Himself, declaring, “For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (Matt. 12:8). Jesus said that He was the key to understanding the Sabbath day. Speaking about Himself, Jesus said, “Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.” (Matt. 12:6). Jesus is telling them directly that He is greater than God’s temple and greater than God’s Sabbath, and if there were any two things that the Pharisees held sacred, it was those two things. To them, only a person who actually believed he was God could have made such a statement.
That is exactly what Jesus was telling them. Jesus was saying that He is the One that the temple served. He is the One to Whom the Sabbath law pointed. The commanded “rest” of God had its ultimate fulfillment in Him. Remember how Jesus just gave His gracious invitation at the end of Matthew 11, saying, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” As Hebrews 4 says, those who believe on Jesus “do enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:3, 10). By believing in Jesus, we cease from the labor of trying to keep God’s law by our good works and lay down the heavy burden of the guilt of our sins. It is all about Jesus. All the work has been done by Him. Rest is found only in Him. He is Lord of the Sabbath.
Now, in Matthew 12:9-14, Matthew immediately follows up that first Sabbath story with a second one. In Matthew 12:1-8, the Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of sin by violating the Sabbath; in Matthew 12:9-14, they try to trap Jesus into breaking the Sabbath so they can accuse Him of sin. In the first story, Jesus gave scriptural examples and asserted that He is Lord of the Sabbath; in this story, Jesus proves it by demonstrating His divine power on the Sabbath. And while the first story must have left the Pharisees frustrated at Jesus’ implicit rebuke; this second story ends with the Pharisees plotting to destroy Jesus.
Look with me at what this story tells us. First …
1. The Pharisees desire to accuse Jesus (Matt. 12:9-10)
The Gospel of Luke tells us that this event happened on another Sabbath day (Luke 6:6), but Matthew puts these two Sabbath stories back to back because the second is a powerful illustration of the truth we heard in the first, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
Matthew 12:9 says, “Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue.” Notice it was “their” synagogue—the Pharisees who had just confronted Jesus in the grainfield. This synagogue, which should have been a place of mercy and truth, instead was a place of criticism and hatred. Their synagogue, instead of being a place of worship was a place of wickedness. How sad! When a place of worship becomes a critical, legalistic, display of enmity to the merciful and forgiving heart of God.
Notice the critical and hateful attitude of the Pharisees in Matthew 12:10, “And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”–that they might accuse Him.” This scene is just wrong on so many levels. First, when you go to synagogue, you should be wanting to be instructed in God’s word, but the Pharisees are there trying to trap Jesus instead. And second, they don’t really care about the man with the withered hand. They are just looking for a reason to accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath.[2]
The man’s hand was “withered” (ξηράν; xēran), a word used elsewhere to describe something that is dried out, and therefore dead and unfruitful (Luke 23:31). It was crippled and deformed in some way—perhaps by birth, an accident, or an illness. Luke tells us that it was his “right hand” (Luke 6:6)—a very important and needful hand.
Rather than being concerned about this poor man’s condition, the Pharisees were concerned about nit-picking the Sabbath law. They wanted to use this man as an opportunity to trap Jesus and accuse Him of breaking the Sabbath. And think of their question: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” If Jesus had simply said “yes”, then He would have positioned Himself to be against rabbinical law in the eyes of the people. But if He simply said “no”, then he would have appeared unmerciful and uncaring. And all of this simply underscores the deep-seated cruelty of the Pharisees with respect to this poor, crippled man. Their concern was not for him. They weren’t interested in showing mercy to him at all. Their only concern was how they could use this poor man’s disability to trap Jesus and gain the advantage over Him.
But notice what their question implies they knew about Jesus. They knew that Jesus was a man of compassion and mercy—that He would care about this man. They assumed Jesus would want to heal the man. They also knew that Jesus had the power to heal. They believed Jesus’ healing power was real! And they knew that Jesus could heal at will. If Jesus wants to heal, He will. So when they seek to accuse Jesus by asking Him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” They believe Jesus has the power to heal, that He can heal on demand, and that this is just the kind of situation where Jesus will show compassion to a hurting person. They knew Jesus’ loving character and His divine power. What a wonderful testimony they gave about our Lord, in spite of themselves!
They also knew that Jesus’ attitude toward the Sabbath was not the same as theirs. They already knew that Jesus did and allowed things on the Sabbath that went against their traditions. So, they are not asking the question because they want to learn what Jesus believes—they already know that! They are asking to accuse Him, to build their case against Him. In reality, what ends up happening is that they build a case against themselves. They condemn themselves before God. They see the power of God clearly at work in Jesus, doing what only God can do, bringing healing and wholeness to broken people. They see the loving character of Jesus, having compassion and mercy on people. And they call the goodness of Jesus evil. Later in Matthew 12, this attitude will lead them to blaspheme by accusing Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan.
How does Jesus respond to this accusing question?
2. Jesus delivers an answer to the Pharisees (Matt. 12:11-12).
Jesus answers their question with a question of His own. Matthew 12:11 says, “Then He said to them, ‘What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out?’” Jesus proposes a situation in which a man has one sheep. Perhaps it is his only sheep—a very valuable piece of property. And it fell into a pit. It cannot get out by itself. Even if the owner wouldn’t be motivated by mercy on the animal, he’d certainly be motivated by the desire to protect his property. And so, such a man wouldn’t even think twice. He’d get a rope, lower himself down, lay hold of the sheep, and lift it out of the pit on the Sabbath. Then he, and the sheep, would have a true day of rest! Greg Allen comments that Jesus answered the question like a farmer—not like a theologian. “Sometimes a farmer can make better sense of the fine points of practical theology than a theologian.”[3]
Jesus knew that every one of those Pharisees who were trying to trap Him would have done the same. Mercy, to say nothing of common sense, would demand it. They knew the answer to Jesus’ first question, and it rebuked their hypocrisy. And so, Jesus followed it up with another question—one that argues from the lessor to the greater: “Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep?” (Matt. 12:12). Jesus used this logic several times in combatting the hard-hearted legalism of the Pharisees. Luke 13 tells us,
Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.” The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him (Luke 13:10-17).
And again in Luke 14 we have a similar story to the one we see here in Matthew 12. Luke writes,
Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely. And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go. Then He answered them, saying, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” And they could not answer Him regarding these things (Luke 14:1-6).
Jesus dealt with this kind of hypocrisy over and over again. They would care for their animals, but they did not care for this injured man. Jesus says that men are more valuable than animals. Then Jesus gives the principle, “Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matt. 12:12). There was no breaking of the Sabbath in acting in mercy toward the poor man. It was, in fact, in perfect keeping with the intention of the Sabbath day. As opposed to the detailed laws and codes of the Pharisees as to what was lawful or not, Jesus had one simple rule: it is always lawful to do good. In fact, the Bible says it is wrong not to do good. James 4:17 says, “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” We do not honor God by withholding good but by doing good. It is always lawful to do good.
The Sabbath was not meant to be a burdensome thing. It was meant to be a blessing—for the good of people and for the creatures that serve them. God Himself, through the prophet Isaiah, spoke authoritatively about His true intention for His Sabbath, writing,
If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the LORD honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the LORD has spoken (Isaiah 58:13-14).
And so, showing mercy and doing good works were absolutely in keeping with the observance of the Sabbath. God places mercy over ceremony. He places people over programs. He places the doing of good over the protection of ritual.[4]
That leads us to see how …
3. Jesus demonstrates His authority over the Sabbath (Matt. 12:13).
Jesus asserted that He was the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8). Now He proves it publicly. In the other Gospels, Jesus actually called the man forward (Mark 3:3) and made him stand before all (Luke 6:9). And we see in Matthew 12:13, “Then He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other.”
Jesus chose to do good on the Sabbath. He healed the man on the Sabbath in front of everyone. And in so doing, Jesus demonstrated His authority. Jesus really was the Lord of the Sabbath! And He proved His point: it is always lawful to do good (Matt. 12:12).
When Jesus healed the man’s hand, it not only showed His own authority but also undercut the authority of the Pharisees. It not only demonstrated His kindness, but it exposed their cruelty. It not only showed His goodness but rebuked their wickedness.
And so, finally, we see . . .
4. The Pharisees conspire to destroy Jesus (Matt. 12:14).
Matthew 12:14 says, “Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.” The hostility of the Pharisees towards Jesus has been building up over the last few chapters, and now it finally comes to a head. The Pharisees are ready to kill Jesus because of His actions and His teachings. Luke’s account of this story tells us that they were “filled with rage” (Luke 6:11). Imagine that! Jesus healed this man before their very eyes, and yet, these Pharisees were furious at Jesus for doing a miracle of God!
Mark 3:6 tells us the extent of the plot. He writes that after this healing, “… the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him.” The Herodians were a political group that stood behind the reign of King Herod Agrippa. They were more secular than the Pharisees and were more friendly toward Rome. The Pharisees and the Herodians usually hated each other. But they joined together in their hatred for Jesus.
How blind they were! Jesus had performed a great miracle, but to preserve their legalistic control and hypocritical religion, they responded by seeking to kill Jesus. The Lord came into their synagogue and did what was good and they left the synagogue to do evil.
Religion always runs the danger of legalism. Legalism is what happens when you separate the law of God from the love of God. As a church, we must always reject legalism and choose grace. You can’t have both. One is the enemy of the other. Love is not the enemy of the law, it is the fulfillment of the law (Matt. 22:37-40). Love acts in grace and mercy.
Let’s remember to be people of grace—not legalism. How? Love God; love your family; love your neighbor; “contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality” (Romans 12:13 NASB); “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18); “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32); and “above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14). God is a God of grace. Let us be people of grace.
Listen—God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16). Jesus came from the Father full of grace and truth (John 1:14), and the Pharisees hated him for it. You see, legalism is the enemy of grace. Legalism wants to dictate and control. God is not like that. God gives His commandments for your good. God’s good law condemns us as sinners because we all break His good commandments. But God has provided forgiveness for your sins through His Son, Jesus Christ. God offers you freedom and grace. And He offers you the grace to live a life of loving God and loving your neighbor through the power of the Holy Spirit. He offers you rest for your soul because Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
The end of Matthew 11 contains one of the most beautiful and gracious invitations from Jesus in the whole Bible. Probably most of you are familiar with Matthew 11:28-30 and Jesus’ offer of rest for your soul. There Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28). We will examine that great invitation in detail next time. But before we can understand the offer of rest, we must understand the setting of the offer.
Matthew has made it clear that Jesus was the long-awaited King and Messiah. Through his genealogy and birth narratives, Matthew showed that Jesus is the promised King and that the prophecies of scripture are fulfilled in Him. And as Jesus grew into adulthood, and when the time was right, God sent John the Baptist to announce Him to the Jewish people. John proclaimed the message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). Everyone in Jerusalem, and the surrounding areas of Judea, and in the regions all around the Jordan River, came and heard John’s message. And when Jesus Himself came to be publicly baptized by John in the Jordan, even God the Father Himself confirmed His identity. He opened up the heavens, sent the Holy Spirit to descend upon Him in the sight of all, and announced, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 4:16-17).
What’s more, Jesus began to show Himself to them unmistakably as their King. He Himself took up the message of the gospel, preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). He taught the principles of His Kingdom in the Sermon on The Mount (Matthew 5-7). It was a very public event, and we’re told that “the people were astonished at His teaching” (Matthew 7:28). And then, as if that wasn’t enough, He then publicly authenticated His message by performing one miracle after another demonstrating His power and authority.
Matthew indicates that people were aware enough of Jesus’ words and works to respond rightly to His call. We’re told such things as, “the multitudes . . . marveled and glorified God who had given such power to men” (Matt. 9:8), that “the report of this went out into all that land” (Matt. 9:26), that “they spread the news about Him in all that country” (Matt. 9:31), and that they said, “It was never seen like this in Israel!” (Matt. 9:33).
Jesus then gave power to His twelve disciples to “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead,” and “cast out demons” (Matt. 10:8) and sent them throughout the land to the lost sheep of the house of Israel to proclaim, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 10:6-7).
Matthew makes it abundantly clear in his Gospel that Jesus had been presented as the promised King of the Jews; and God the Father in Heaven had sufficiently authenticated Him to the Jewish people. Clearly, the promised kingdom was at hand, and the King had come. There was no excuse for not knowing this. The called-for response was to repent and believe on Him.
And yet, the Jewish rulers, the religious leaders, and many people did not receive Him. They would not repent. They would not believe. Instead, they accused God’s prophet, John the Baptist, of having a demon and Jesus of being a glutton and a drunk who cavorted with tax-collectors and sinners (Matt. 11:18-19). This prompted Jesus to denounce the cities in which He had done most of His miracles for their unrepentance and unbelief. Listen to it again from Matthew 11:20-24,
20Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.” (Matt. 11:20-24).
So, when we come to Matthew 11:25-30, we must remember that the Lord Jesus spoke these words in the hearing of the proud, self-righteous Jewish people of His day. He had lived among them and performed many miracles in their midst, and yet, in spite of all that they saw, He found it necessary to rebuke them because they did not repent and believe in Him.
Matthew 11:25 begins, “At that time Jesus answered and said…” What question was He answering? I believe that Jesus was answering a question that arose, not so much from their mouths, as from the hearts and thoughts of those who heard Him. You can imagine the Jews who heard Jesus rebuke them thinking, “But how can it be that we would be judged more severely than the wicked cities of Tyre and Sidon and, of all places, Sodom? We are God’s chosen people! We have Moses! We have God’s law! We are righteous before God! How could it be that WE would be judged more severely than those wicked pagans?”
In response to their stubborn, unrepentant hearts, Jesus answered with a prayer to His Father: “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.” (Matt. 11:25-26). It was a prayer that Jesus said out loud so that others could hear and learn from it. Much like what Jesus did in John 11 before He called Lazarus from the tomb, He lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me” (John 11:41-42). Jesus prayed these prayers, in part, so that men would understand divine truth of a profound nature as He communed with the Father.
What do we learn from Jesus’ words to the Father?[i]
1. God is Lord of heaven and earth.
Notice three things about how Jesus begins His prayer. First, He begins with praise, saying, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” The word translated “thank” or “praise” in some translations, means to “agree with,” “confess,” or “say the same thing.” Jesus is in full agreement with what His Father has done, and in that sense, He is thanking the Father for doing it. Second, Jesus addresses God as Father. This indicates the special relationship He has with God. God is uniquely the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. Jesus has this unique relationship with the Father because He is God in human flesh. So, it is no wonder that we find God the Son giving praise from a basis of unanimity to God the Father. Third, Jesus addresses God as “Lord of heaven and earth.” This reminds that God is sovereign over all things. There is nothing in heaven or earth that lies outside His gracious power. He is in control of the whole universe. God is the creator of heaven and earth and He is worthy of praise.
For what does Jesus thank the Father?
2. God has hidden these things from the wise and learned.
I take the “these things” to be the truths revealed in the powerful words and works of Jesus that lead a person to repentance and to salvation. They are all the things that Matthew has been presenting in the previous chapters concerning the kingdom of God. Some could hear Jesus’ words and see His works, and be impressed by them, but not be led to repentance by them. Others could hear and see, have their minds and hearts opened up to the truth of Christ, and believe unto repentance and salvation. To some, the saving potential of these things are “hidden“; and to others, the saving potential of these things is “revealed“.
Jesus says to the Father, “You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent” (Matt. 11:25). We may wonder why Jesus is glad that the things of the kingdom were hidden from the wise and the intelligent. Does that mean the kingdom is only for the foolish and the unintelligent? The terms wise and prudent here are used in the same way that Paul uses them in 1 Corinthians 1, where he writes,
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” … 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.
The wise and prudent are those who think they can do it their own way. They do not think they need a Savior because they think they are already righteous. They think know it all and can do it all on their own. It is a reference to the foolish pride of man which schemes, plots, and develops his own religion so that he does not have to repent from sin to trust in God and His mercy and grace alone. This was exactly what the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time had done. They modified God’s Law to the point that they actually thought they were keeping it, and therefore were pleasing God and were deserving of His kingdom.
God has always resisted the proud and gave grace to the humble (Psalms 138:6; Isaiah 2:11, 12; Matthew 23:12; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). The people who think themselves wise and refuses to repent and believe will find the truth about Jesus Christ and salvation hidden from them. Those who remained arrogant and wise in their own estimation were not granted access into the kingdom. God would not allow them to get it. God reserved the precious truth of the kingdom for the humble, and the frail, and helpless, for the “babes”.
3. God has revealed these things to little children.
What does Jesus mean when He says that God has revealed these things to “babes” or “little children”? Jesus is speaking here of the childlike qualities of humility and trust. God has hidden these things from the people who think they know it all, but he has revealed them to those who humbly trust God and His word rather than their own wisdom or strength. It is similar to what Jesus said in Matthew 18: “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3-4).
Why did God choose to reveal these things to the humble and trusting rather than the proud and self-reliant? Jesus finishes off His prayer in Matthew 11:26 by saying, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.” In other words, it is God’s choice. He is Lord of heaven and earth, and He gets to choose to whom He will reveal spiritual truth. And He reveals it to those who are humble and trusting.
We may struggle with the idea of God’s choice being strictly on the basis of His own good will. But in the end, we must also be humbled by it, and take notice of the fact that our Lord Jesus didn’t struggle with it at all. He set the example for us when He thanked and praised the Father for it.
Whenever we encounter this doctrine in the Scriptures, I’m always fearful that someone may misinterpret it. They may come away thinking that there’s no way to know for sure that they are among those that God has chosen to reveal kingdom truth to in a saving way. They may come away with fears and doubts and uncertainties. That’s why I am so grateful for what the Lord said next.
In Matthew 11:27, Jesus – it seemed to me – ceases to pray and then makes a set of affirmations before all that heard Him. And these affirmations show us that the Father sovereignly reveals kingdom truth in the person of His Son Jesus Christ.
4. God reveals Himself in Jesus Christ.
Here, God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility meet in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus makes four affirmations in this verse.
A. All things are delivered to Jesus by the Father
Jesus says, “All things have been delivered to Me by My Father . . .” (Matt. 11:27). What a remarkable affirmation that is! Jesus is saying that God the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, has put all things under Jesus’ power and authority. Basically, Jesus is saying, “God has given Me charge of the whole universe.” And so, all those things that God is pleased to reveal come through Jesus.
In Psalm 2, speaks of the Father entrusting all things to the Son,
“I will declare the decree:
The LORD has said to Me,
‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession’” (Psalm 2:7-9).
After Jesus death and resurrection, before He ascended to the Father, our Lord told His disciples, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18). So, just as the Father is “Lord of heaven and earth“, He has entrusted that lordship to His Son. He affirms that He is the final authority in all things, including the salvation of men.
B. No one knows the Son except the Father.
A second affirmation He makes is, “. . . and no one knows the Son except the Father.” Here, Jesus speaks of His deity. Only God the Father truly knows Jesus the Son. Jesus is the infinite, majestic, eternal Son of God. He was with God in the beginning, and He was God. All things were made through him; without Him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1-3).
But no one looking at Jesus 2000 years ago could have known that. He looked just like an ordinary man. Even John the Baptist, who was sent to prepare the way for Jesus, did not recognize Him on his own. God had to reveal it to him. At Jesus baptism, we’re told that the heavens opened up, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. And then, we’re told that the voice of the Father spoke down from heaven upon the earth; and He said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
Later in the Gospel of Matthew, Peter will make the confession about Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). Do you remember what Jesus said in response? “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17). Jesus is the Son of God, and He is not known apart from the Father’s gracious act of disclosing Him to the world.
C. No one knows the Father except the Son.
But a third affirmation shows us that there is such a relationship of loving mutuality between the Father and the Son that, just as the Son cannot be known without the Father, neither can the Father be known without the Son. Jesus says, “Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son . . .” This highlights Jesus as the Mediator between His Father and us.
John, in His Gospel, tells us that “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18). There is no relationship with the Father apart from the Son. And as Jesus once said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father . . .” (John 14:9).
What a wonder of God’s grace it is, then, that the Father sent His Son to became a Man and walk among men; so that now, men can know the Father through the Son!
D. The Son reveals the Father to people.
And this leads us to a final affirmation; “. . . and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” This highlights our Savior’s role as the mediator between God and men. There is such a mutuality between the Father and the Son, in fact, that the Bible can tell us, “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus who gave Himself a ransom for all . . .” (1 Tim. 2:5-6a).
Only Jesus can reveal the Father. And to whom does Jesus choose to reveal God? To those who are humble and trusting, to the little children rather than the wise and the learned.
And isn’t it good news that at this point, knowing the sovereignty of God in hiding and revealing salvation in His Son Jesus Christ, that Jesus then goes on to say, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
That’s a genuine invitation. He who has all authority given to Him by the Father, and who is Himself known of the Father, and who Himself reveals the Father to whomever He chooses, and who possesses the exclusive role of Mediator between God and Man, says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden . . .”
The invitation is open to all who will humble themselves before God and come trusting in His Son. And if you take Jesus up on His offer, and sincerely come, He will give you rest for your soul, forgiveness of sins, a relationship with the Father, and eternal life.
When we began our study of Matthew’s gospel, I told you that Matthew’s purpose was clear. Matthew wrote to show Jesus is the promised Messiah-King. Matthew has shown this in Jesus’ royal lineage, His virgin birth, His fulfillment of scripture, His forerunner, His coronation at His baptism, His victory over the devil, His kingdom preaching, His authoritative teaching, His unparalleled miracles, and His power over sickness, evil spirits, nature, sin, and death.
One preacher put it this way: “Matthew has been jumping up and down, waving his arms, and shooting off flare guns declaring that Jesus is the King.”[1] The response to Jesus was mostly positive so far, although there have been incidents of opposition and rejection already. Still, multitudes were following Jesus as disciples. From these, Jesus had chosen twelve and sent them out with His authority to declare the kingdom of God.
But in Matthew 11, something had just happened that, I believe, left the people who saw it in a bit of shock. John the Baptist, the mighty prophet, had expressed disappointment and doubt about Jesus. God had made it clear to John at Jesus’ baptism that He was the Messiah, the Christ. But Jesus was not proving to be the kind of Messiah John expected Him to be. John had been expecting Jesus to bring judgment on Israel’s enemies and rule on the throne of King David. Instead, Jesus was going about teaching and healing people and John was wasting away in prison for standing against immoral rulers. Was Jesus the Messiah that John had been proclaiming Him to be, or was John mistaken and should he look for someone else?
Jesus assured John that He was the Messiah because He was doing the work of the Messiah in fulfillment of scripture. He told John’s disciples to go and tell him what they see and hear: “The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” (Matt. 11:5-6).
If John had some doubts about Jesus, Jesus had no doubts about John! The crowd must have overheard the question John’s disciples put to Jesus and our Lord’s response. As John’s disciples depart to report back to John what Jesus said and did, Jesus uses this occasion to address the crowd concerning John the Baptist. And what I want you to understand in this passage is that as Jesus speaks about John, He is revealing Himself as the king and the nature of His kingdom. Matthew records Jesus’ tribute to John the Baptist because it shows the majesty of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
So first, we see that Jesus testified of John as[2] …
1. The herald of the King (Matt. 11:7-10)
Matthew 11:7 says, “As they departed, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?””
Jesus asks the listening crowd a series of questions about their expectations of John the Baptist and what they went out into the wilderness to see. Back in Matthew 3, we were told that “John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea …” (Matt. 3:1) and “… Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him” (Matt. 3:5). John didn’t travel from city to city preaching his message. He preached in the wilderness. Yet, the people made a great effort to go out to him.
So, Jesus asks “Why”? When went out all that way to the wilderness to hear John, what were they expecting to see? “A reed shaken by the wind?” A swaying reed pictures someone who is timid or fearful or swayed by pressure. If that’s what they went out to see, that’s certainly not what they got because John was no wimpy little reed that got blown around. He wasn’t simply preaching what people wanted him to say. He wasn’t an ear-tickling, people-pleasing preacher. John was a man of godly conviction and courage. He said things like this:
“Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 3:7-10).
J. Vernon McGee commented that John was no ‘reed shaking in the wind’! He was a mighty wind, shaking the reeds! There was no preacher like John! He did not bend to the crowds or try to gain the favor of the elites. He called people to repent and bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance. He rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees for their religious hypocrisy and called on them to repent as well. He even spoke against King Herod’s immorality. In fact, Matthew 14 tells us that is why he was in prison.
Next, in Matthew 11:8, Jesus asks, “But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments?” and He answers, “Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.” Matthew tells us that “John himself was in clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4). John lived the rugged life of a prophet who had a word from God burning within him. He dressed as a prophet from God would dress (Zech. 13:4), and there was no pretense about him. He didn’t dine at a fancy table and didn’t live in a fancy house. He lived as an out-of-this-world kind of man with a not-from-this-world kind of message, and the only thing that mattered to him was to proclaim it! Anyone who went out to hear a nice, pretty-faced pulpiteer in a shiny, sequined chapel—some sissy sermonizer in a silk suit—certainly didn’t find that with John. John did not compromise with wealth or power. He was no prosperity preacher telling people how to get rich like him. John the Baptist willingly sacrificed and denied himself in order to set himself apart, both physically and symbolically, from the corrupt religious and political system of his day.
And so, in Matthew 11:9, Jesus goes on to ask, “But what did you go out to see? A prophet?” Which, of course, was the right answer. But there was more. Jesus says, “A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet.” John was a prophet in every sense of the word. He was more than a prophet because he not only spoke a message from God, as all true prophets did; he not only prophesied the coming of the Messiah, as many other prophets did; but he was himself the fulfillment of prophecy. He was a “prophesied prophet!” His role as a prophet was unique because God promised his ministry in the Scriptures nearly five hundred years before it began!
In Matthew 11:10, Jesus quoted from the last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, and said, “For this is he of whom it was written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You!’” To get the full impact of this quote from Malachi, we need to go back and look at the context of Malachi 3. Translated from the Hebrew, Malachi 3:1 reads, “”Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the LORD of hosts.”
I want you to notice some things here that inform the New Testament use of the passage.[3] First, Jesus changed the pronoun from “Me” to “You.” The speaker in Malachi is the Lord, Yahweh, God Himself. God is sending the messenger before Himself because according to Malachi 3:5, He will come in judgment. The great event was the coming of Yahweh, and the announcement of it would be through His messenger. By changing the pronoun in His use of the verse, Jesus makes the prophecy about Himself. He affirms that if John the Baptist was the messenger preparing the way for the Lord Yahweh, then He, Jesus, is the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel who was coming into the world.
The second thing to observe is that, in Malachi, the “Messenger of the covenant”—the one that the messenger, John, announced, Jesus the Lord—will come to “His temple.” Here too we have a subtle indication of the deity of Christ. All through the Old Testament the temple is called “the house of Yahweh” (the house of the LORD). Malachi prophesied that “the Messenger of the covenant” would come to “His temple”—He is the Yahweh, the LORD God.
John was a prophesied prophet, who proclaimed a message unlike any other message, in an outstandingly unique way. He was a man set apart by God to point to another Man, and declare that Man to be the Lord who “… will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” and who is “… the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). John lived like a man gripped by his own message.
So Jesus upholds John as the herald of the king. Second, we see that Jesus testified about …
2. The greatness of the Kingdom (Matt. 11:11-15)
Notice how Jesus begins and ends this section. “Assuredly, I say to you . . .” (Matt. 11:11), and He ends with the words, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Matt. 11:15). These, then, are words of great importance which can only be heard and understood by God’s grace. (Matthew 13:10-17). We should give careful attention to them and humbly seek before God to understand them.
In Matthew 11:11 Jesus says, “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist…” Jesus says that out of all people who had been born, none were greater than John. He stood out head and shoulders above the rest of humanity. John was the last and greatest of all the prophets of the Old Testament era. Matthew 11:13 says, “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.” All other prophets before John prophesied about Jesus long before He came. They spoke of the glories of the kingdom from afar. But God gave John the great privilege of being the ‘prophesied prophet’ who pointed bodily prepared the way before Him who is greater.
John said of Jesus, “After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before Me” (John 1:30). He said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). No other prophet was so great a prophet as John! And his greatness was in the privilege he had of pointing immediately to the only one who was greater: the Lord Jesus Christ! He was the herald of the King!
But all that Jesus tells us about John’s greatness was simply to make an even more remarkable point. Jesus says, “. . . among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matt. 11:11). John was a great prophet, but being a disciple of John was not to be the goal. Entering the kingdom is the goal. Men didn’t just need to go out and listen to John, they needed to enter the kingdom, to believe in the One Who is the King and Messiah.
The “kingdom of heaven” is God’s kingdom which John proclaimed when he announced, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3:2). It is the rule of God over men and women through His King Jesus Christ; the kingdom which commenced when the Son of God came into this world as a Man to die for men, and that will finally be consummated at His return to this earth to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords with those He has redeemed. It’s a kingdom that we enter into by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and that we experience today through fellowship with Him and obedience to His commands. It’s the kingdom we will one day enjoy fully in heavenly glory. And Jesus is letting us know that, as great a man as John the Baptist was in the program of God, he was just the herald of a kingdom to come. The man or woman who is “least” in the kingdom of heaven is greater than even John!
John was great because he could point unambiguously to Jesus as the Messiah. But now that the kingdom has been inaugurated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the least in the kingdom has a greater witness than John. The most humble New Covenant Christian has greater knowledge and greater opportunity than even John the Baptist had. What a privilege is ours today! What a wonderful blessing it is to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven through Jesus Christ! What an honor it is to be a witness of Christ!
In Matthew 11:12, Jesus says, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” What does Jesus mean by that?
There are two main ways to interpret this verse. And it depends on how you look at the Greek verb that is here translated “suffers violence” (biazeõ). It’s a rare word in the New Testament, used only here and in the parallel passage in Luke 16:16. The form of the verb can either be understood to be in the passive voice or the middle voice. The New King James Version translates it “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence” which is the passive voice—that is, it’s describing something that is being done to the kingdom of heaven from outside.
If this is the correct way to interpret these words, then this might mean that the kingdom of heaven is being violently attacked in an effort to keep it from spreading—and, of course, that is true. Jesus speaks these words in Matthew 11 in the context of opposition and rejection. John is suffering in prison for preaching the gospel. The Lord Jesus said that whenever the “seed” of the gospel is sown in someone’s heart, the devil often comes and “snatches away what was sown” (Matthew 13:19), using the same word for “take it by force”. Jesus once rebuked the scribes and Pharisees, saying, “For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Matt. 23:13). Understood this way, when Jesus says, that “the violent take” this kingdom “by force“, it could be a way of expressing how it suffers attack from its enemies or from those who would seize ahold of it for their own evil ends. As the kingdom is preached, the attacks on it by violent men increase. This explains why John is in prison and wondering about Jesus.
A second way of interpreting this verse, though, interprets that verb in ‘the middle voice’, meaning an action that the subject of the verb performs on itself. This is the interpretation taken by the New International Version (1984) which reads, “the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” It would be very much like what Jesus said, in a different context, in Luke 16:16; “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.” There, in the place of the kingdom “suffering violence” or “forcefully advancing”, the kingdom of God is preached. That would make this a call for people who hear the gospel preached to be aggressive in seizing ahold of the kingdom. The prophets and the law had preached until John; and during that time, the time of urgency had not arrived. But now, the “end of the ages” has arrived; and the kingdom must be eagerly sought and eagerly seized upon. A man or woman of God must be earnest, zealous, and eager. He or she must deny themselves, set all worldly pursuits into second place, and aggressively “seize the kingdom”.
Either way, doesn’t change the point of the whole passage which is to be among those who enter the kingdom. The kingdom has been offered to the Jewish people and their King is presenting Himself to them. And yet, many are not entering the kingdom. Jesus said, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John” (Matt. 11:13). But now, the kingdom has arrived. There was no longer need for prophecy about His coming. Now there was a need for a decision. Now the kingdom was here, and they must choose whether or not they would enter. The Jews were enamored with John and were certain he was a prophet, but were they doing what John said?
In Acts 19:4, Paul preached to the disciples of John the Baptist saying, “John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.”
Jesus is saying that if they understood who John is, then it would be obvious who He is. That is why Jesus says about John what He does next, “And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come” (Matt. 11:14).
Jesus was not saying that John was “Elijah reincarnated” although that’s what some thought. Elijah, you might remember, was a prophet who was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot (2 Kings 2:11). John was Elijah-like in many ways.[4] John dressed like Elijah (Matt. 3:4; 2 Kings 1:8). Both John and Elijah spent time living in remote places, eating food that was different from typical folks. Both John and Elijah were, in a sense, “inferior” to their successors. John made it clear that Jesus was far greater than he (Matt. 3:11). Elisha had a two-fold portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:7-14). Elijah was more a man of violence; Elisha was more a man of peace. Elijah had his doubts and had the false perception that “he alone was left” (1 Kings 19:10, 14). Elijah hoped to bring about a national revival, but it didn’t work. It was through others, whom he was to designate, that God would bring about significant changes in the nation (1 Kings 19:11-18). John truly came “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17) as Gabriel had announced to his father Zachariah.
Probably because John was so much like Elijah, people came to him and asked, “Are you Elijah?“; but John answered, “I am not” (John 1:21). Yet, though John was not literally “Elijah”, Jesus says that John was the fulfillment of the last great prophecy of the Old Testament. In Malachi 4:5-6, it says,
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6).
The promise was kept, and “Elijah” came in the person of John. The “end of the ages” had come upon them. But the people to whom this promised “Elijah” came rejected the kingdom offer that was being made. Jesus will later say in Matthew 17:12, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished” (Matthew 17:11-12). Matthew then comments, “Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist” (Matt. 17:13).
The point is, if that promise was kept—if John is the fulfillment of the coming of Elijah—then who does that make Jesus? He is the Lord Yahweh who promised to come. The question is, Are you willing to accept it? Are you willing to accept that Jesus is King? Are you willing to accept that He is the only Savior? Are you willing to accept that His truth is truth? Will you repent and believe in Him? Will you take up your cross and follow Him? Will you confess Him before men? Are you willing to accept Jesus as Lord? That is the decision we are each faced with. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
That is the truth about John the Baptist. He was a great man, you could follow no better. But if you haven’t trusted in the One John pointed to, then he is nothing more than the prophet you have yet to obey.
Don’t just recognize who John is, do what He said. In John 3:36 he said, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Will you accept it?
