Matthew 22

Matthew 22:1-14

Subdivision 3. (Matthew 22:1-14.)The marriage of the King’s Son. The parable of the marriage of the king’s son is a parable of the Kingdom of heaven. Its subject, therefore, is not the response of Israel to God as under the law, or even to Christ come unto His own, as in that of the husbandmen. Responsibility as to the vineyard is no more in question; but as to the offer of grace made to them in the gospel after the Cross, and when the Spirit of God was in marvellous grace testifying through the apostles that upon their repentance there would still be for them the blotting out of their sins and the coming of times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, whom, though rejected, God would again send to them.* Not till after the definite rejection of this offer by Israel, does the message of the gospel go out to the Gentiles, as in the parable, which goes on to the end of this also, when the man that has not on a wedding garment is cast out. In this, too, the rejection of grace is figured, though here in one who might seem to have accepted it.
(1) We find the same parable in the gospel of Luke (Luke 14:16-24), but in briefer form, and without the dispensational character which is so manifest and appropriate in Matthew. In Luke it is simply a man who makes a feast: here it is the marriage-feast of a king’s son. Marriage was in the Old Testament a familiar figure of covenant relationship between the people and their God; here with the Son of God - Messiah. The bride does not, however, come into the scene, but only those invited to the marriage, the joys and blessings of union being symbolized as a feast. The Jews are the already invited guests, but not till after atonement had been made in the sacrifice of the Cross could the message go forth, “I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my failings are killed, and all things are now ready: come unto the marriage.” Nothing is said of what the Cross is on the human side of it we have only the result in divine grace; and that is “tidings of joy which shall be unto all people.” (2) The messengers go out with this, but only to find how little it is this to those to whom it is sent. Only the general result as to Israel is given; and this is rejection whether it be manifest simply in making light of it and going off to other things, or in harsher treatment of the messengers, even to putting them to death. This brings sure retribution: “the king sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city.” Israel is thus for the time being set aside, - left without priest or altar or sacrifice, as it is this day. (3) But divine goodness will not be frustrated in this way; and through Israel’s fall salvation comes to the Gentiles. The invited guests were not worthy: the servants of the king are sent out therefore into the public thoroughfares to invite all without restriction of any kind - the universal call of the gospel now. “Bad and good” are welcome alike: salvation is needed by the best, sufficient for the worst. The response is still not universal as the call is; but the vacant seats are nevertheless filled: the wedding is furnished with guests. (4) But this, alas, is not yet the whole account. The Kingdom, as we have seen; in all these parabolic representations of it, in which the “mysteries” of it are told out, - the Kingdom while the King is absent and the administration in the hands of men - is in a mixed condition; the false found with the true; and needs in consequence that purging which when the King comes to take it into His own hands, it will surely receive. The gathering of the guests is on earth ideally, where of course, alone the confusion is, but even this is not stated, nor have we here any prophetic outline of final events. It is the awful fact alone that is put before us of what the end will reveal as to a class of which the man without a marriage garment is simply the representation. The coming of the King reveals them: a class which, with whatever profession; have not Christ, the precious gift of God’s grace, and who alone is title and fitness for the eternal joy. Whether the garment was a gift or not, and what it stands for, have been variously disputed. The circumstances of the case are sufficient proof that the multitude of invited could not be expected to have or to provide for themselves what would suit a royal feast. While the spiritual meaning can only be made clear by the language of the gospel as we find it elsewhere. The “robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10) with which God covers His people, and which, though it be put upon a prodigal, is the “best robe” in the Father’s house, is only susceptible of the most evangelic meaning. Christ is alone “made unto us righteousness” (1 Corinthians 1:30), and as with the first God-given covering for the nakedness of sinful man, death it is that in His wonderful way has furnished it. That He is God’s free gift to all who will receive Him, will strike dumb every one who appears at last before God without this. (5) Judgment follows. The refuser of Christ is really outside all the light of God by that very fact. He is but sent to his own place in the darkness outside the rejoicing in the house of God. There the awful sting of remorse must follow him: there is the weeping and gnashing of teeth." The last dread words here multiply this one man into a multitude indeed: “for many are called, but few chosen.”

Matthew 22:15-46

Subdivision 4. (Matthew 22:15-46.)Testing and tested. Thus the Lord has made, and made good for Himself, the highest claim. He has searched out the hearts of His accusers, and summoned their consciences before Him, not in vain; though they have not yielded to their convictions. On the contrary we are now to find their whole strength massed against Him to try and remedy their desperate condition, and give Him, if possible, even yet an overthrow. For this Pharisees and Herodians combine together, and Sadducees seek to retrieve the lost battle of the Pharisees. But all is vain; and the leaders and factions among the people appear before Him only to receive severally specific judgment from Him, until He turns upon them at last with one decisive question which completely silences them all, and that with regard to the very claim which He is making. From that time they have but the one answer, in deeds, not words.

1. The Pharisees, who are all through the leaders, lead now in the attack. But they confess their fear in the subtlety with which they make it, sending their disciples instead of openly appearing themselves, and with them their adversaries the Herodians, with whom it would not be expected they could have collusion. Between them they would catch Him as between the opposite blades of shears; not with an argument either, but only a matter for His decision, as to which they can depend upon His entire and unfearing truthfulness, teaching the way of God in truth, and regarding not the person of men. “Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou? is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” A dangerous question, however it were decided: whether to refuse it, under the iron heel of Rome as they were, or to yield it in the face of a people constantly fretting against the sign of their humiliation. Was He too, if indeed their King, to bring them no deliverance? Would it not be the collapse of all His claims to leave a question of this sort even for a moment doubtful? In reply, He assures them that their object was fully known to Him. They were hypocrites, only tempting Him; and yet for all that, they should have their answer; indeed should help to find it for themselves: let them show Him the tribute money. So they brought Him the Roman coin; and there was the image of Caesar upon its face. “Whose is this?” He asks; and they say, “Caesar’s.” “Render, then,” He replies, “what is Caesar’s to Caesar; and to God the things that are God’s.” It is a mistake to consider this as simply settling the rights and distinguishing the jurisdictions of the civil and spiritual powers. It was the dominion of the Gentile over the people of God that was felt by the Pharisees, - a yoke under which they never would have come, had they rendered, as the Lord bids them, to God His own. It was the refusal of this which had put them into Caesar’s hands, and now to seek escape was only to refuse the chastisement of their sins, and dills was rebellion against God Himself. The Gentile yoke had come as their father Jacob had long since prophesied. Issachar had become “like a strong ass, couching between the hurdles; and he saw rest that it was good, and the land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear and become servant to tribute” (Genesis 49:14-15 Notes). Israel had accepted fellowship with the Gentile, and Caesar’s coin was only the sign of this. Gentile in heart and way, God had reckoned her where she belonged; but then she could not maintain an independence, which for her could only be another name for dependence on God. Let them give Caesar his own; but let them give God His own also. When they really do this, there will be no question at all to settle as to Caesar. Not by self-assertion, but by repentance only can deliverance come for them. While the principle, of course, remains the same for the Christian, the case of the Christian is far different. He is not a citizen of earth, but a pilgrim and a stranger. He is to “render to all their due; tribute to whom tribute is due” (Romans 13:1-7). For him, “the powers that be are ordained of God,” and to “resist the power” would be to “resist the ordinance of God”: while this, of course, defines the limit also. If there be collision between the higher and the lower power, the apostles, rule, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29) is the only real fulfilment of duty both to God and man. To render to man what belongs to God is evil every way. Thus the first attack upon the Lord turns only to the confusion of His adversaries: “when they heard it, they marvelled and left Him, and went their way.”
2. There follows now an attack on the part of the Sadducees, the unbelievers in resurrection, who had their question (more honest, as it would seem, than that of the Pharisees), though displaying, as the Lord tells them, ignorance both of the Scriptures and the power of God. But the Pharisees on their part had done much to give occasion to such difficulties with regard to the future life as their opponents here suggest; perhaps, in spite even of the Lord’s words here, we are not at the present time altogether beyond them. Their question is as to the relationship in the resurrection of a woman who, according to the law in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 25:5-6), had married seven brethren. “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife shall she be of the seven: for they all had her?” The Lord answers their question first, and then rebukes the unbelief which had inspired it. The question He answers with a simple affirmation, in which He contradicts another article of their unbelieving creed, - that there were no angels (Acts 23:8). It was sufficient to meet a mere argument from their ignorance with His own perfect knowledge. Angels there were, and in the resurrection the saints would be like these, neither marrying nor giving in marriage. They knew not the power of God, and could conceive of nothing else than a mere reproduction of earthly conditions. Their perplexity was but the fruit of their own carnal imaginations. But as for the truth of resurrection; it underlay the very simplest assurance of God’s covenant-relationship with men. The “dead” were for the Sadducees extinct, and the denial of any enduring personality was the natural root of the denial of resurrection. It is here, therefore, that the Lord meets them; for, if death be not extinction, but the spirit survives it, not only is all argument for extinction taken away, but this survival by itself implies that death is but a temporary interference with what creation shows to be God’s thought of man, and may be perfected but cannot be abandoned. If man still continue to exist in death, then it is natural and reasonable that, whether for judgment or reward, the body should rise again. Sadduceeism was thorough in its denial; and for the Sadducee “I am the God of Abraham,” said to Moses at the bush, could be but mockery. Abraham was a shadow that had passed without even hope of recall. The God of a nonentity - what of comfort or blessing was in that? Could there be even such? It was by that title, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," and as that “I am,” who had looked upon and had respect unto His people, that God had sent forth Moses from “the bush” to be their deliverer. Sadduceeism never could have been the gospel of that deliverance, nor the inspiration of it. A living God in covenant with men meant life, not death; and if death were, then a life supreme above it. Thus resurrection was the necessary filling out of such a declaration: the hand that God held out to man was not to clasp the listless fingers of a corpse.
3. So the Pharisees hear that He has put the Sadducees to silence, and they are gathered together; not, alas, to own His divine wisdom, but to “tempt” Him yet again. Still there has been an effect produced, as Mark tells us, upon the questioner, and some better thing is hidden under the test question he proposes. Matthew takes no note of this because he is occupied with the position of the nation as a whole with regard to the Lord, and the state of the individual does not indicate this. The question is, “which is the great commandment of the law?” The answer shows what is the heart of it, the life-pulse beating through it all. Alas, that this should be a question. The apostle answers it afterward in a similar manner to the Lord here, - “love is the fulfilling” - or, the fullness - “of the law” (Romans 13:10). God claims heart and soul and mind; but then; on that very account, man as the image of God must come in under it. Thus the second commandment is like unto the first: that commandment which they were so manifestly breaking. Nay, here was the Image of God indeed; and in Him they had seen and hated both Himself and His Father (John 15:24). But He adds no word of reproach; only enlarges upon the central place which these two commandments had, not in the law only, but also in the prophets: wherever, therefore, the mind of God was expressed. All, in fact, depended upon them there: they were the moral unity manifested in all.
4. And now the Lord appeals to them as they are gathered there before Him as to that which was now for them the question of questions: what do they think of Christ? “whose son is He?” To that they readily reply, “The son of David.” This was the truth, and they knew He would not deny it: it was in fact a question which any child among them could have answered. He did not deny it: it was truth, but was it the whole truth? “How then,” He asks, “does David in Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying, ‘The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand until I put thine enemies beneath thy feet’? If David, then; call Him Lord, how is He his Son?” The argument was complete and crushing, and so they felt it.* “No one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day did any one dare to ask Him further.” \