Matthew 9

Chapter 9. Christ’s Farewell to GalileeWhen Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. (Matthew 13:53)As we have already seen, the parables of the kingdom marked a stage in the rejection of the Lord Jesus and His withdrawal from the people that had refused these parables; we are now told that He departed from their midst. Not all at once did He leave Galilee and the scenes of the past three years of His active ministry; but this was the beginning of the end. Gradually He commenced to withdraw. His back was turned on the scenes of His former labors, and after a few lingering visits and last messages, at length He took His final farewell and spent the last six months of His life in Judea and the regions about, returning no more to Capernaum, Bethsaida, Korazin and the cities where most of His mighty works had been done. Nazareth

1. His Last Visit to Nazareth The first step in His retirement was one more visit to Nazareth, the city where He had been brought up (Matthew 13:54). We may remember how, on a former occasion, He had been rejected here, and they had even sought His life and carried Him to the brow of the precipice on which the city was built, to hurl Him to death. We have also seen how even His mother and His brothers had concluded that He was insane, and had sought to restrain Him. Once more He visits these old scenes of His childhood, but His message is not received; His personality is altogether too familiar for these proud Jews; they know too much about Him to accept Him as a Rabbi, much less as a Prophet sent from God. They said, “‘Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’ And they took offense at him” (Matthew 13:55-57). This was the spirit of pure prejudice. What difference does it make about a man’s family connections if he has a message from God and is himself a true man? It was the old spirit of prejudice that has so often kept people back from their best blessings. The effect of it was to send the Lord away and prevent Him from doing many mighty works because of their unbelief, and, as He left, He repeated the old proverb which has so often been true. “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor” (Matthew 13:57). Death of John
2. The Death of John the Baptist, His Forerunner A little while before this, John, languishing in prison because of his fearless courage in denouncing the sin of Herod and his paramour, had become discouraged and sent a message to Christ, pathetically asking whether He was indeed the Messiah that was to come, or whether they were to look for another. Now, at length, the tragedy reaches its climax (Matthew 14:1-12). That wicked woman had long been waiting for her opportunity to wreak her final vengeance on the brave man that had dared to challenge her crimes. At length the opportunity arrives. Seated in his banquet hall among his lords, and already half drunk with wine, Herod suddenly becomes infatuated with the bold and beautiful dancing of Salome, the fair daughter of his unlawful wife, and, in a fit of rashness, promises her with an oath to give her anything that she chooses to ask. Instructed by her cunning mother, who has been waiting for this hour, she immediately asks for the head of John the Baptist. The king was shocked and distressed, for he really was attached to John, but a false pride about the keeping of his oath left him no escape. So the executioner was dispatched, and in a few minutes the ghastly, bloody trophy was borne by those fair hands on a charger to her horrid mother, and the work of the great prophet was done. John’s disciples, as soon as they heard of it, buried the body, and then “went and told Jesus” (Matthew 14:12). The effect of it upon Christ was very distressing. He loved John and grieved for his sad fate, but He also saw in it the certain harbinger of His own approaching death, and so He immediately retired for a little season that He might rest and also comfort the sorrowing disciples. The story of John’s murder has many fine lessons in which our present space will not permit us to dwell at length, but we cannot refrain from noticing the length to which human unbelief and sin will dare to go. The vile woman and weak man had refused the message of God through John, convicting them of their sin, and perhaps they never thought that they would go farther. But now we find their rejection of God’s word leading them on to malignant hate and bloody crime. So sin pursues its terrible progression in every age, and, when we disobey God, we never know where the last step of our downward course is to land us. And what a lesson this is on worldliness. Mr. Spurgeon might well say that whenever he saw a dance he felt a little nervous about the throat, and remembered that the first Baptist preacher lost his head on account of one. Our business is not to start crusades against the ballroom, but rather to get men right with God; but when they are right with God they will not want these things. What a lesson also of the folly of recklessness. Herod’s hasty words caused him the violation of his conscience, the murder of his friend, and the eternal ruin of his soul. If we have sinned by speaking rashly, let us not add to our sin by completing the rash act as well as the reckless word. Far better break the foolish vow than keep it, if it is wrong. Feeding of the Five Thousand
3. The Crisis and Climax of Christ’s Galilean Ministry In the next section of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter Matthew 14:14-21, our Lord’s ministry in Galilee reached its crisis and its climax, the highest point of His love and power and the deepest depth of human unbelief and rejection. After the death of John the Baptist, He retired for a time to the solitude of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee for the quiet that both He and His disciples needed. But the multitude would allow Him no rest. They thronged upon Him, and waited all day long in eager attention to His words of grace and His works of healing, love and power. At length, as the evening drew on, the Master felt the deepest compassion for the multitude, and He turned to His disciples and asked them about providing food for the people. But their little faith utterly broke down before such a prospect. Their limited means were only sufficient to purchase a mere morsel for such a crowd, and they had as yet no conception of the great miracle which He was waiting to perform. One among them, Andrew, in some degree was equal to the occasion and brought forward the little lad with his barley loaves and fishes as the only apparent solution of the difficulty, but even he gave up with the despairing cry, “how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:9). Then the Master summoned the disciples to the great miracle which he had been planning all the time. Making the multitude sit down upon the grass, He distributed the loaves and fishes to the disciples, and they to the multitude, until all did eat and were filled, and they found remaining at the close 12 baskets full of the fragments of the fishes. This tremendous miracle demonstrated His power over nature as nothing else had done before. Little wonder that the crowd was filled with admiration and astonishment, and, as John tells us, they insisted at once upon taking Him by force and making Him a King (John 6:14-15). This was what Matthew meant when he spoke of the Lord sending the multitudes away, while He at the same time sent His disciples across the sea in their little ship. Probably He knew that they would be just as likely as the crowd to join in the clamor that He should take upon Him the honors the multitude were thrusting upon Him. A nobler kingdom was coming to Him in a little while through His Father’s gift and His own glorious victory over sin and Satan and the grave. Therefore, He refused to accept the crown from the foolish and impulsive mob which was ready to worship Him today and crucify Him tomorrow. Refusing their proffered honors, He dismissed them to their homes and then withdrew to the solitude of the mountain to communion with His Father in prayer, while His little band of disciples were struggling with the waves and winds on their voyage to the other side. All this was strongly typical of the history of the age which was soon to follow. That miracle of the feeding of the five thousand was a striking type of the gospel dispensation and the feeding of the world’s famine with the bread of life through the faith of Christ’s disciples. His ascension of the mountain was a type of His ascension to the Father’s right hand, where today He is praying for the little flock as they battle with the winds and waves on the sea of life. His coming to them in the early morning watch is yet to be more closely fulfilled in His second advent; and, as of old, the moment He entered the ship they found themselves at the land whither they went, so again His coming is to bring all our ships ashore, to remedy all our wrongs, and to accomplish all the purposes that hitherto failed. John’s Account The Gospel of John should be read in connection with the Gospel of Matthew in its picture of this series of incidents. Matthew tells us of the scribes and Pharisees that came up from Jerusalem at this time and got into another argument with the Lord about questions of ceremony and tradition (Matthew 15:1-9). But John tells us of a still more important conversation that occurred in the synagogue at Capernaum the Sabbath after the feeding of the five thousand. We find the account of it remarkably discussed in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John (John 6:25-59). It is there in the Master’s discourse on the living Bread that He reaches the loftiest height of spiritual teaching that His discussions had attempted heretofore. There He unfolds to them, with the deepest spirituality, the great mystery of our spiritual life and our personal union with Him as our living Head. The effect of these teachings was to perplex and alienate almost all His remaining followers in Galilee. They could not understand such deep spiritual teachings. They perfectly comprehended the supply of earthly bread, but how He could be their living Bread and supply the very life of their souls was mysticism to them, and they turned away, saying, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” (John 6:60). And John adds that from that day many of His disciples left Him and walked no more with Him, so that even to His own disciples He turned with deep pathos and asked, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” (John 6:67). Peter answered for them, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). Turning Away of His Followers Therefore, this whole incident marked the crisis, as we have already said, of His ministry in Galilee. He had reached its highest point, and from this time the multitude forsook Him as did the malignant leaders of the ecclesiastical party. They looked upon Him as a strained fanatic, impracticable and even unwilling to accept the earthly honors and powers they were willing to confer upon Him, that they might share with Him the temporal benefit which was the only advantage which they really understood or cared for. For deeper spiritual things they had no taste. Alas, they were typical of multitudes today in the Church of Jesus Christ! The crisis which happened in Galilee will happen yet again in the story of the ages. Even in the Church today we are bound to find traces of a turning away from deeper spiritual teaching on the part of the followers of Christ. They are willing to accept the temporal advantages of Christianity and its universal moral and social benefits. They are willing to believe in it as a remedy for the future and a means of escaping future punishment for sin; but as marking a life of deliverance from the power of sin and communion and fellowship with God, they do not understand it; they do not desire it. All this is but mysticism and impractical dreaming, and the picture of the seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation tells us that a time is coming when the great masses of Christendom will reject a deeply spiritual Christianity and turn away from the Lord, even as His Galilean followers. From this time, the Lord’s work in Galilee was practically closed. True, He lingered for a while on its borders, going and coming for a few weeks longer on His various detours, but He had practically withdrawn from the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. When we do see Him again among the Galileans it is in the country of Decapolis, on the farther shore, either among the Gentiles, or at their borders. Tyre and Sidon
4. His Journey to the Region of Tyre and Sidon Mark tells us that He went away with the view of getting quiet, and had first stopped for privacy in a house, but he adds, “yet he could not keep his presence secret” (Mark 7:24). Immediately a woman of the country, a Gentile and a heathen, appealed first to His disciples and then to Him for help for her afflicted daughter, who was possessed with an evil spirit (Matthew 15:21-28). The disciples appealed to the Master in vain to grant her request or stop her clamor by sending her away. She turned from them and renewed her pleading with the Master Himself, but His first answer seemed to shut the door in her very face, by telling her that the limitations of His commission as a Son of David and the Messiah of Israel forbade His extending His ministry to those who, like her, were outside the pale of Israel. He was perfectly truthful in this, and His answer was in strict accord with the Gospel of Matthew and the picture of the King which it presents. But she must have seen something in His glance that gave her hope and assurance, for she still pressed her suit, and, when argument failed, she clung to His feet with impassioned entreaty and cried, “Lord, help me!” (Matthew 15:25). Then came the severest repulse of all, adding, it almost seemed, insult to injury, as He shut her out with harsh reproof, and answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs” (Matthew 15:26). It was then that her desperation inspired the highest faith of which we have any record in the New Testament. Without a word of self-defense, she took the place to which He had assigned her, as not only a Gentile dog, but as something far worse, for which that word always stood in the Old Testament—one of the degraded ones who had sinned even against nature itself. “I am a dog.” she acknowledged. “I deserve all you say. I have no excuse, but I plead my very misery as my plea. I take the sinner’s place, and I simply claim the sinner’s portion. The very dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table, and a crumb is all I ask.” It was then that the Lord revealed the deep, intense love that had been waiting all through this trial of her faith to give it its great reward. “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted” (Matthew 15:28). Thus, the Master, rejected by His own people, had turned to the Gentiles and had. been met by a faith which had not hitherto been found even in Israel. A type it was of the coming days, when the gospel should be given to the Gentiles of every tribe and tongue and should bring forth such fruits of faith as she had given the first example of. But, the very glory of this victory of human faith and divine power only deepened the more the dark shadow of Israel’s unbelief. The Lord had now turned away from His own people and was beginning to find the door of faith closed to them and opening to the Gentile world. Feeding of the Four Thousand
5. His Last Visit to the Sea of Galilee Returning from this Gentile region (Matthew 15:29 to Matthew 16:12), the Lord made one more visit to the Galilean shores, remaining chiefly still on the eastern side, among the cities of Decapolis. Here a great multitude soon gathered around Him, and a second time He performed the miracle of multiplying the bread, feeding on this occasion 4,000, as a little before He had fed the 5,000.