Matthew

By Peter Little

The gospels all clearly make Jesus of Nazareth the centerpiece of the biblical story. Jesus is the hero.

Matthew’s gospel introduces us to the hero of his story with these words: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Right out of the gate, Matthew places the hero of his story in relationship to the heroes of the Old Testament narrative. That’s because Matthew, and indeed each of the four gospel writers, wants to make it clear that Jesus of Nazareth cannot be understood apart from how he fits into the Old Testament narrative. Matthew shows us how Jesus relates to David, to Abraham and to Moses.

JESUS IS THE NEW KING. First of all, Matthew shows us how Jesus, as a descendant of King David, is clearly the new King; and he has been anointed by the Spirit of God himself to inaugurate the new kingdom – God’s kingdom – God’s reign on earth. Right at the center of Matthew’s account, in chapter 13, Jesus teaches almost exclusively about the nature of this kingdom which King Jesus has inaugurated. Is this the “central” theme for Matthew?

JESUS FULFILS ISRAEL’S VOCATION. Secondly, Matthew shows us how Jesus, as a descendant of Abraham, clearly fulfils the vocation to which God called Abraham. God had called Abraham in Genesis 12 and blessed him so that through Abraham and his descendants God might bless all the nations. But Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, continually failed to fulfil its calling to be a light and a blessing to the nations. That is, until Jesus, a descendant of Abraham, fulfilled the calling where the Israelites had failed. Jesus fulfilled the prophetic hopes of Israel. Jesus did what Israel could not. Matthew wants us to see this clearly, so he says 11 times in his gospel, “This was to fulfil what was spoken through the prophets.”

JESUS IS THE NEW MOSES. Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly for Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is also presented as the new Moses. Just as Moses led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, so also Jesus leads any who will follow him out of slavery to sin, death and the devil. Jesus is much more than the new Moses for sure, but he is at least that.

Matthew presents Jesus as the new Moses by neatly arranging his gospel into five blocks of teaching. Just as Moses is credited with the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – so Jesus gives us five new books of instruction. You can see these five blocks of teaching because each one ends with the phrase, “When Jesus had finished saying these things.” For example, the first block of teaching is Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, which concludes in 7:28, “when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching.”

All this to say, Matthew’s palette for painting a portrait of Jesus uses Davidic colors, Abrahamic colors and Mosaic colors. Matthew clearly wants us to see Jesus of Nazareth in the context of God’s grand story from the beginning.

FOLLOWING JESUS. Now the point of this history lesson is to equip us to live faithfully as disciples in our present context. Matthew’s gospel is ultimately a discipleship manual for today. Matthew is seeking to answer the question, What does it look like to be a disciple of Jesus today?

The short answer to that question is to do what Jesus tells us to do. This is why in Matthew 7:24, Jesus says:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock.”

To be a disciple of Jesus today means at least for us to do what he says – to be the salt of the earth that preserves and flavors culture, to reconcile with our brothers and sisters who have something against us, to not undress a woman in our minds and thus commit adultery with her, to love our enemies, to not store up treasures on earth for ourselves.

That Jesus means for us to do what he says, not just listen to him, is clear by the way the fifth and final block of Jesus’ teachings concludes in Matthew 25. Jesus concludes his fifth block of teaching by speaking about how, upon his return in glory, he will separate people like a shepherd separates sheep from goats – the sheep to the right and the goats to the left.

Jesus says to the sheep-people on his right, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” To the goat-people on his left Jesus says some very harsh words, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” The only difference between the sheep-people and the goat-people is what they did and did not do.

Jesus means for us to do what he says; Matthew’s gospel makes that very clear. As you read through Matthew’s gospel, take note of how Matthew connects Jesus to the Old Testament and how Matthew’s Jesus calls us to follow him by hearing and doing what he says.