Matthew 15

Chapter 15. The King in Conflict with His EnemiesThe Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,the Spirit of counsel and of power,the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord— and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,or decide by what he hears with his ears;but with righteousness he will judge the needy,with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.(Isaiah 11:2-4)This prophetic picture of the Messiah finds a striking and marvelous illustration in the series of incidents that will form the subject of this chapter, revealing the Lord Jesus as the One “greater than Solomon” (Matthew 12:42) and as the “Wonderful Counselor,” as well as the “Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6). Hitherto we have seen the triumphs of the Lord Jesus in His miracles of power. We are now to see a series of miracles of wisdom not less wonderful than His victories of might. We have already noticed the account of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem and His public recognition as the Son of David, the King of Israel and the Lord of the temple. This occurred on the day corresponding to our Sunday, which was the day immediately following the Jewish Sabbath. On the following Monday He again visited Jerusalem from Bethany and spent the day in teaching and preaching in the temple. The incidents of the present chapter occurred on the next day, which would correspond to our Tuesday. Returning to the city from Bethany early in the morning of that day, He had resumed His teaching and preaching in the presence of the multitude. Then His enemies began a battle royal against Him with the evident purpose of ensnaring Him in some hasty word and affording a basis for accusing Him before the Roman governor. Their plans were adroitly laid, and the story of their attack and defeat is one of the most thrilling dramas of all literature, sacred or profane. The Pharisees

1. Questioning His Authority The conflict begins by the Sanhedrin sending an official deputation to Him to demand His authority for the audacious things that He was daring to do and say (Matthew 21:23). The Lord tactfully answered them by propounding another question to them and promising, as soon as they answered it, that He would tell them by what authority He was acting. “John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or from men?” (Matthew 21:25). He had a perfect right to ask this question because as the great national Council they had sent three years before to John a deputation to ask him, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” (John 1:22). It was only natural and right that the people should know the result of their inquiry. Immediately the deputation found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. If they answered “from heaven,” very naturally Christ would ask, “Then why didn’t you believe him?” (Matthew 21:25). But if they went so far as to deny John’s prophetic character, they would array the multitude against themselves, for all counted John a prophet. They were, therefore, driven to say, “We don’t know,” and of course the Lord replied, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things” (Matthew 21:27). There are times when we, like the Master, are justified in avoiding or evading the foolish questions of the enemies of the truth. “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself” (Proverbs 26:4). Servants of Christ should exercise the profound wisdom of their Master and claim it from Him for similar emergencies that will ever meet us in our life and work. “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6). The Lord followed the repulse of the Pharisees with three parables addressed immediately to the multitude, but really directed in part against them. The first was the parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32). In this parable He contrasted the false professions of the Pharisees as represented by the second son with the conduct of the tax collectors and the prostitutes as represented by the first, who said: “‘I will not,’… but later he changed his mind and went” (Matthew 21:29), and He applied the parable to the incident of the hour by adding, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him” (Matthew 21:31-32). Then He followed with a second parable still more severe and pointed, the Wicked Tenants (Matthew 21:33-44). In this He represented the faithfulness of the Jewish nation to their great trust, their rejection of the messengers God had sent through successive dispensations until at last He sent to them His own Son, only to be rejected and murdered by their wicked hands. Then comes the pointed question: “What will he do to those tenants?” (Matthew 21:40) and the multitude is ready with the answer: “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end… and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time” (Matthew 21:41). The Lord takes up the words of the multitude and echoes them back: “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed” (Matthew 21:43-44). There could be no doubt about the application of this message to the scowling rulers before Him. “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet” (Matthew 21:45-46). And so the first battle of the conflict ended and His enemies shrank away defeated and confounded. The Lord took advantage of the lull to continue His teachings in the presence of the multitude. He proceeded to deliver the third parable, the Marriage of the King’s Son, which was addressed rather to the people than to the Pharisees, and which was intended to guard His teachings from possible abuse in the direction of free grace and unconditional salvation for the worst sinners (Matthew 22:1-14). The parable begins, as in the corresponding passage in Luke, with the story of the great feast representing the gospel, and the first invited guests indifferently excusing themselves from it; upon which the master sends out his servants into the highways to gather in the outcasts to the banquet. All this teaches the same lesson of the mercy of Christ for sinners of every class, and, especially, that offer of overflowing mercy to the neglected ones, which is to mark the close of the present dispensation and immediately precede the coming of the Lord. That special message of grace to the outcast at home and abroad is the feature of the Christian work of today. But now He adds another touch of this parable designed to correct the possible abuse of the gospel of free grace and to show that while all classes of sinners are welcome to His mercy, that mercy must not be abused as a cloak for sin, but they must accept His holiness as freely as His forgiveness. The incident of the man that came in “not wearing wedding clothes” (Matthew 22:11) has a touch of emphasis added to it by the peculiar Greek word used for the negative here (Matthew 22:11-12). There are two Greek words for “not” or “no,” the one having reference to the outward fact, the other having reference to the inward feeling of the person respecting this fact. It is the latter that is used here, and it means not merely that he was without a wedding garment, but that he was willfully without it. These garments were provided by the host and loaned for the occasion to the guests, who passed into a dressing room near the vestibule and were robed for the feast. It is a beautiful picture of the provision Christ has made for the sanctification as well as salvation of sinners. Let us not think that because His mercy is so free we can accept it and still appear before Him in the robes of our self-righteousness. We must accept His grace in its fullness. Sanctification is not an option, but an obligation. Dear friend, have you received the wedding garment as well as the invitation to the banquet? It was because of this willful neglect that the man was “speechless” when the master confronted him with the question, all the more terrible because it was so kindly expressed, “Friend… how did you get in here without wedding clothes?” (Matthew 22:12). How solemn the conclusion of the scene, “‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are invited, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:13-14). It will give added force and light to the concluding verse to read it: “For many are called but few are choice.” God grant that we may be among the choice ones. The Herodians
2. The Tribute Money But now the second stage of the conflict comes. The Pharisees have held a lobby and have been reinforced by a new company of auxiliaries. These are called Herodians, a political party, who, in opposition to the popular Jewish element, were adherents of the royal dynasty and Roman power and usually bitter enemies of the Pharisees. But now they united in a common hatred to the Lord and joined forces to overthrow Him. They brought to Him a subtle political question, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Matthew 22:17). It placed Him in a very difficult and embarrassing position. If He had said, “No,” He would at once have been open to arrest as a ringleader of sedition against the authorities and would have speedily been added to the number of those whose blood, we are told in the Gospels, about this time, Pilate “had mixed with their sacrifices” (Luke 13:1). Had He taken the other ground as a rabbi, that it was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, He would have offended the popular sentiment of the nation, who hated the Romans and their taxes, who looked upon it as almost disloyal to Jehovah to recognize any king but God, and who had a secret hope that Jesus Christ was about to deliver them from the Roman yoke and reestablish the old theocratic kingdom. The question was forged in the very pit of hell, it was deep as the serpent’s guile, but it was not too deep for His instinctive and unerring wisdom. Fathoming instantly their purpose, He simply called for a coin, and, holding it up, He asked whose image or superscription it bore. They, of course, answered “Caesar’s” (Matthew 22:21). The Jewish law did not permit them to put any graven image on any coin, or indeed, on anything, and yet they accepted these coins as money and constantly received and paid them in secular business. They were already committed to this by their daily life, and habitually acknowledged the Roman authority by accepting the Roman currency. It was the simplest and most natural thing in the world to add next: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21). This simple and profound answer, which has settled for 20 centuries the connection between secular and sacred duty and rendered it possible for us to be loyal citizens and yet holy saints, was so obvious and so wise that they really had nothing to say, and the evangelist adds with quiet force: “When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away” (Matthew 22:22). They were struck so quietly and softly that they scarcely knew what had hit them, and yet they were no less struck and paralyzed and driven from the field feeling themselves, as everybody else felt, that they were again baffled and utterly defeated. The Sadducees
3. Questions About the Resurrection They soon returned, however, with a third onslaught. This time they had a new auxiliary, namely, a company of Sadducees. These also were a Jewish sect of limited number but great influence. They were the educated and skeptical element, the “higher critics” of the day. They disbelieved in the supernatural and especially in the resurrection; they were materialists and would have been found today among the agnostics. They also, it is held by some, discredited a large portion of the Old Testament Scriptures. They had their question ready for the Master and it seemed also unanswerable. It was a rather coarse story about a woman who had been married in succession to seven different brothers as they had successively died and she had married the next according to the Levitical law. At last she herself died, and now the absorbing question arises in their earnest and inquiring minds: “What are they all to do in the resurrection? What a perplexing time they will have, and which of them is to be her true husband then?” It was a taxing question, and for a moment there must have been many in the crowd that caught the ludicrousness of the idea. Nothing but infinite wisdom could have turned aside the force of the blow. But again the Lord was equal to it. The “one greater than Solomon” (Matthew 12:42) was there. With quiet dignity He turns upon them with their own words: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). And then He proceeds to explain the true doctrine of the resurrection and to show them that it is not a resumption of the coarser material forms of our earthly life, but a higher existence in which we shall have passed beyond the laws of reproduction and shall dwell in a loftier fellowship with one another, even as the angels now, and all mere human relations shall pass into divine relationships. Then He follows this by a striking quotation from the Old Testament Scriptures, and especially from that portion which they believe without question, the Pentateuch, where God said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Matthew 22:32). Then the Lord added, “He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). They had passed out of human sight and human touch, but not from the fellowship of God. They were with Him and He spoke of them as living men, although they had long since been moldering in their graves. The force of this argument was unanswerable and the multitude instantly caught it. “When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together” (Matthew 22:33-34). The Greek word here is “muzzled.” He had muzzled the Sadducees; it was a case of lockjaw, and soon after, of paralysis too. The Lawyer
4. The Lawyer’s Question They next put forth one of their own number, a doctor of the law, with a subtle question respecting the interpretation of the law of Moses, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36). Now, we are told that in the Rabbinical writings there were no less then 613 commandments recognized. Of these, 248 were affirmative statutes, corresponding to the number of members in the human body, and 365 were negative, corresponding to the number of days in the year. Some of these were called “light” and others “heavy,” somewhat like the distinction that the Roman Catholics make between “moral” and “venial” sins. This Pharisee wanted to know which were the lighter and which were the heavier commandments. By a great flash of celestial light, the Lord illuminates the subject in a single sentence and tells him that the one supreme commandment of the law is not the question of tithes or fringes, but simply love to God, and the second is but another form of it, namely, love to man. So truly there is but one great principle in the divine law, and that is love. Like the law of gravitation, which has simplified all men’s former notions of the universe and swings the planets in their orbits and the constellations in their courses and holds in cohesion all the elements of matter without an effort, so love to God keeps us right with Him and one another without the bondage of a thousand petty exactions and constraints. It was so simple, so beautiful, so conclusive that the young lawyer surrendered, and, as another Gospel tells us, acknowledged that this was “more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:33). The Son of David
5. The Lord’s Own Question Christ now turns upon His baffled foes and presses upon them the question before the multitude: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” “The son of David,” they replied. He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord: ‘“Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ “If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” (Matthew 22:42-45) This question, which touched the very heart of Christ’s own claim as at once the Son of God and the Son of David, overwhelmed them; they could not answer it without acknowledging all His claims, and yet their silence was even a more effectual answer. So complete was their humiliation that it is added by the evangelist: “No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions” (Matthew 22:46). As we have said above, it was not only a case of lockjaw, but of complete paralysis. The Woman Taken in Adultery There is another incident not mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew which seems to belong in this series and at this point. It is the story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53 to John 8:11), and which the best authorities tell us really belongs to a later portion of John’s Gospel, during this last week of the Master’s life. There is no place in which it could be so fittingly introduced as here, forming perhaps a climax to this series of assaults and victories. They dragged her into the presence of the Lord not so much to deal with her as to get some advantage over Him and force Him to some public statement which would either embarrass Him with the people or put Him in opposition to the law. The law required that such as she should be stoned, but His teaching was so mild and merciful that perhaps He would ignore the law and set her free. They wanted a decision. This is not the place to enter into an exposition of that marvelous story in detail, but we know how, without meeting their demand, He again turned the tables on them by asking that the man that was without guilt among them for the same kind of sin should cast the first stone at her; and the extraordinary fact is added that everyone, convicted by his own conscience, sneaked away in silence and left the Master and the woman alone. We may be pretty sure they did not show themselves again for a while for the confession which they had tacitly made would have ruined their reputations and perhaps driven them out of the synagogue. Then the Master, without condoning the woman’s sin, forgave her and added the solemn words that she never could forget: “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). Woes Upon the Pharisees
6. The King Judging His Convicted Enemies Now follows a little section on the day of judgment. The Lord Jesus turns upon His defeated foes and pronounces upon them the fearful words summed up in this entire chapter. Just as there had been eight beatitudes, so we have here eight woes. The first charges them with being false leaders, shutting up the doors of the kingdom of heaven and neither entering themselves nor allowing the helpless sheep whom they are guiding to enter in (Matthew 23:13). The second charges them with cloaking their own unrighteousness with mere religious forms and professions, devouring widows’ nouses and for a pretense making long prayers (Matthew 23:14, margin). The third accuses them of proselytizing zeal which is not zeal for God but simply human ambition seeking followers and making them worse than themselves (Matthew 23:15). The fourth refers to their duplicity and deceitfulness in the interpretation of the Scriptures on Jesuitical principles, splitting hairs and making fine distinctions, saying, “If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath” (Matthew 23:16). The fifth refers to their ceremonialism and tells them that their religion consists in mere questions of tithes and ceremonies while they have omitted “the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23). The sixth exposes them as mere formalists who seek to make clean the outside of the cup and the platter while the insides of their hearts “are full of greed and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:25). The seventh draws the fearful picture of “whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” (Matthew 23:27). And the last reminds them that while with sentimental hypocrisy they “build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous” (Matthew 23:29) and say, “If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets” (Matthew 23:30), at the same time they are doing the very works of their fathers and murdering the messengers of God even as they. Therefore He adds, Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. (Matthew 23:34-35) Terrible indeed must have been the holy indignation and the burning force with which the holy lips of Jesus poured forth these withering words upon these self-convicted and guilty men, rising at last to the very climax of invective indignation: “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Matthew 23:33). And that was Jesus. Oh, do not dream in your carelessness and sin that that gentle and forgiving One was incapable of the most awful severity and the most consuming judgment. Above all other wrath the sinner may well fear “the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16). But the torrent has spent its force, the heart of Jesus cannot long brook even this merited outburst of judgment and condemnation. Suddenly pausing in the midst of His fiery rebukes it would seem as if a gush of tears must have poured from His eyes and with broken voice and unearthly tenderness He cries again: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37). And that was Jesus, too. Blessed be His name, that is the Jesus that we are still permitted to approach. Oh, do not wait until He shall have put on the robes of judgment and risen up to pronounce the sinner’s doom. Still He is speaking to us with the same tenderness and reminding us in the same terms how often He has sought us and how often we have rejected Him. Is there anyone reading these lines to whom He is speaking now? Hasten beneath the shelter of His wing from the coming storm, and do not wait until He shall have nothing left for you but His compassion and His tears. It is said that once a distinguished judge after pronouncing sentence upon a man before him and sending him forth to end his days in a penal colony, put off his judge’s cap and looking the man in the face said, “Why have you forced me to do this? You were the friend of my childhood; I have loved you as I have loved few men; why have you made it necessary that I should speak these awful words that doom you to a misery worse than death?” And he could only weep, and yet his tears did not avail to avert that stroke of judgment. And so, even Jesus, in these tender, passionate words, did not take back the sentence that He had passed. In condemning them His heart was breaking with tenderness and sorrow, but none the less did He pause and close this solemn chapter by adding, “Look, your house [Mine no longer, you can have it now] is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matthew 23:38-39).