Matthew 22

Matthew 22

“THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW”

Chapter Twenty-Two Jesus told a third parable directed toward the religious leaders: the parable of the wedding feast (Matthew 22:1-14). The leaders responded as various factions tried to trip Jesus with questions. Pharisees and Herodians asked Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar (Matthew 22:15-22), Sadducees presented an argument against the resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23-33), and a lawyer asked what was the greatest commandment of the Law (Matthew 22:34-40). Jesus answered easily, and then silenced them with a question of His own regarding the Christ as David’ s son (Matthew 22:41-46).

POINTS TO PONDER

• Many are called, but few are chosen

• Paying taxes, the resurrection, and the greatest commandment

• How Christ is both David’ s son and David’ s Lord REVIEW

1. What are the main points of this chapter?

• The parable of the wedding feast - Matthew 22:1-14- Pharisees with Herodians: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?
• Matthew 22:15-22- Sadducees: What about the resurrection of the dead? - Matthew 22:23-33- Lawyer: What is the great commandment in the Law? - Matthew 22:34-40- Jesus: How can Christ be both David’ s son and David’ s Lord? - Matthew 22:41-46

2. What two groups are depicted in the parable of the wedding feast? (Matthew 22:3; Matthew 22:11)

• Those who refuse the invitation; those who accept, but improperly adorned

3. How did Pharisees and Herodians try to entangle Jesus in His talk? (Matthew 22:15-17)

• By asking whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar

4. What did Jesus reply that prompted them to marvel? (Matthew 22:21-22)

• “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’ s, and to God the things that are God’ s.”

5. How did Sadducees try to trip Jesus? (Matthew 22:23-28)

• With a hypothetical situation intended to show the resurrection is an impossibility

6. What two-fold answer did Jesus give the Sadducees? (Matthew 22:29-32)

• Marital relations don’ t exist after death; Exodus 3:6 proves the dead still exist

7. What were the two greatest commandments in the Law? (Matthew 22:37-38)

• Love God with all your heart, soul, mind; love your neighbor as yourself

8. How can Christ be both David’ s son and David’ s Lord? (Matthew 22:45)

• His son by virtue of physical ancestry, his Lord by virtue of His deity

Matthew 22:1-46 Verse 1Mat 22:1-46THE PARABLE OF THE OF THE KING’S SON; THE TRIBUTE TO CAESAR; IN HEAVEN; WHOSE WIFE SHALL SHE BE? THE GREAT ; HOW THEN DOES DAVID IN THE SPIRIT CALL HIM LORD? THE PARABLE OF THE KING’S SONAnd Jesus answered and spake again in parables unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain king, who made a marriage feast for his son (Matthew 22:1-2)This is the third of a series of three parables Jesus directly addressed to the Pharisees. There is a definite connection in all three, revealing a progressive intensity in the sins of the Pharisees, and setting forth stronger and stronger punishments to be incurred by them. For a comparison and analysis of all three parables, see under Matthew 22:14, below. This parable has the following analogies: The king represents God. The king’s son is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The marriage supper stands for the privileges of the true faith. The messengers are the evangelists of all ages who preach the truth. The mistreatment of the messengers refers to the hostility of the Pharisees against the apostles, first, and to other preachers later. The rejection of the invitation is the rejection of Christ’s message by the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders. The destruction of their city is the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus and Vespasian in 70 A.D. The sending of the messengers into the byways prefigures the call of the Gentiles. The man without a wedding garment represents all who despise the privilege of true faith, and, while professing it, prove themselves unworthy of it. The coming in of the king to see the guests is the arraignment of all men at the final judgment. The binding of the offender and casting him out show the punishment of the wicked in hell. The speechlessness of the offender shows that evil men at last shall concur in their own punishment, being able to make no defense of their own conduct.

Verse 3 And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the marriage feast: and they would not come.Israel had long known of that approaching appointment to receive and honor the King’s Son when he should appear in their midst. Their whole nation had been protected and nurtured through long history for the specific purpose of equipping them to recognize and hail their Messiah when he came. The first of those servants sent to announce that the great feast was at hand was John the Baptist. They rejected him. They also rejected the apostles, mistreating them and bluntly rejecting the invitation, offering no excuse, but simply refusing to come to the marriage feast.

Verse 4 Again he sent forth other servants saying, Tell them that are bidden, Behold I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage feast.These other servants and their invitation represent the evangelistic program of the church following the resurrection of Christ. Trench said: This second summons I take to represent the invitation to the Jewish people, as it was renewed to them at the second epoch of the kingdom, that is, after the resurrection and ascension.[1] Two things support Trench’s view: (1) God was willing to overlook the first blunt rejection of Christ (even his crucifixion), attributing it to ignorance (Acts 3:17). (2) Also, the Jews continued to have a priority in hearing the gospel for a long while after Pentecost, as indicated by Paul’s motto, “To the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). The marvelous solicitation and tenderness of the apostolic preaching, even after the resurrection, shows the forbearance and mercy of God as he yet pleaded with those evil men to acknowledge and receive their true King. That the messengers in this second invitation were the same as the first, in many cases, is no problem. In the most genuine sense, they were “born again” and thus were “other servants.” Besides, there were many more of them in the second appeal, including many who were not in the first group. ENDNOTE:[1] Richard C. Trench, Notes on the Parables (Westwood, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1953), p. 227.

Verse 5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his merchandise.That was the crowning insult, not merely rejecting it, but belittling it and making light of it. Matthew Henry saw in the two classes mentioned here examples of rural and urban mankind, thus including practically all people.[2] It has also been suggested that the two great classifications of all human activity, involving production and distribution, are also indicated. ENDNOTE:[2] Matthew Henry, Commentary (Westwood, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company), Vol. 5, p. 313.

Verse 6 And the rest laid hold on his servants, and treated them shamefully, and killed them. But the king was wroth; and he sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.The shameful treatment and murder of the servants were fulfilled by the imprisonment of the apostles by the Pharisees and Sadducees, and their stoning of Stephen. The first few chapters of Acts record a graphic narrative of events exactly in keeping with the words here. This passage also shows that the destruction of Jerusalem was a direct action of heavenly vengeance upon the Jewish nation for their rejection of Christ. People may temporize and avoid the fact if they will, but the wrath of God is the ultimate answer to all human perversity. Nor can the Gentiles afford any complacency. The type of historical visitation upon cities and nations that disobey God, like that which fell upon Jerusalem, has not disappeared but may still be seen. France rejected the Bible, tied it to the tail of an ass, dragged it through the city, and burned it on the city dump, elevating at the same time the low goddess of Reason; but since that time, the government of France has fallen 35 times! Hitler burned the Bibles at Nuremburg in 1933, but it was that same generation that saw God’s armies split open the ugly heart of Nazism and spill its filth upon the ground.

God still uses armies to punish wicked nations. The armies of destruction which visited wrath upon Nazi Germany were no better than the pagan legions of Titus (referred to in this parable as the armies of the king, who stands for God in the metaphor), but they were nonetheless instruments of the divine wrath. God grant that our own beloved America, now on a collision course with most of God’s teachings, receives an awareness of this truth before it is too late.

Verse 8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they that were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore to the partings of the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage feast.God’s purpose is never defeated by sinful men. There will be guests at the wedding feast, even if those first bidden despise it. We have already noted that Christ was praised with Hosannas in the temple (Matthew 21:16), even though the Pharisees would not honor him. Children took up the song they should have sung, and the temple rang with his praises anyway. The king did not cancel the royal wedding because certain invited guests insulted his gracious invitation.

The Jewish nation rejected Christ (although not all of them), but the city responsible for it was utterly destroyed, because it was no longer the King’s city but, in the words of the parable, “their city.” When people reject God’s will, even the sacred institutions they had formerly received from God become no longer his, but THEIRS. The true privileges will always go to those willing to receive them. The Gentiles would be called to the feast which the Jews, for the greater part, rejected.

Verse 10 And those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was filled with guests.The wedding was a success. So also will the true religion of God prevail at last. His will will be done. No man or group of men, no nation or group of nations, can prevent the accomplishment of the eternal design of God. The fact that the ultimate guests were “both bad and good” emphasizes the probationary nature of the church in this dispensation. Christ was always at pains to make that clear. The kingdom, under the figure of a drag net, also was represented as having “both bad and good,” or “fishes of every kind” (Matthew 13:47-48). Invariably, in all Christ’s teaching, it is also clear that mankind in the broadest sense is not worthy of salvation; that is, they cannot merit it. In the three parables in this series here delivered to the Pharisees, it is clear that in the case of the two sons, neither of them was what a son should have been; and in the case of the one before us, the total population, in the truest and highest sense, were not to be invited, the first because they were unworthy of it, and the others because they were not of sufficient excellence. In the light of this, how can any man feel that God, in any sense, “owes” him eternal life? Then there is the case of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). The owner of the vineyard could not have been impressed with either class, either those who worked all day and murmured at the end of it, or those who idled all day and put in only an hour’s work. Surely it must be glaringly plain that GRACE is what enables any to stand justified in the sight of God. So also in the parable of the prodigal, both sons were unworthy.

Verse 11 But when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment.This stands for the final inspection of all men in the judgment. To be sure, the King is constantly beholding the men of his kingdom, and continually observing the conduct of all his servants; but this coming in of the king on a formal and stated occasion to view the guests indicates a far more auspicious examination. It is the judgment of the great day when the King shall suddenly appear and review the credentials of those who have accepted his invitation. Judgment shall indeed begin at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17).

Verse 12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.That man’s apparel was an insult to the occasion, indicating that immoral and shameful conduct on the part of Christians is an insult to God that will at last be punished. We may not excuse him on grounds that he was poor, unable to obtain a wedding garment, or that he had no chance to supply one. Note that the man himself was speechless. It was totally his fault, and he could not think of any word to utter in defense of what he had done. We do not appeal to traditions handed down, nor to customs of monarch’s who always provided royal garments for their guests, nor to anything else except the speechlessness of that intruder who thus marred the happy festivities by entering without a wedding garment.

He could not defend himself or offer any excuse; rash is the person who will trump up one for him. What kind of person could fabricate a defense for that rude person’s insult of the king? In cases where men have sought to defend him, it appears that their cavil should be avoided and stored up for the time when those persons who make it will need it in their own defense; and yet it is certain that such persons will be as speechless as was he. This simply means that, at last, every condemned sinner will have to agree in his very heart that he deserves condemnation, and that it is no one’s fault but his own! Verse 13 Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.This does not bestow inquisitorial rights on God’s ministers in this dispensation. The exposure and punishment of that offender occurred at the arraignment before the king, not before. The servants in this verse therefore cannot be the apostles or ministers of the word, but the angels of God (13:47ff). The punishment refers to hell (Matthew 25:46).

Verse 14 For many are called, but few chosen.Sitting down at the marriage feast was not alone sufficient to insure the favor of the king. Membership in the church, and acceptance of its privileges, are not enough to assure eternal life. Every diligence to appear before God, not naked, but clad in the garments of righteousness, should be exerted by all who hope to enter eternal fellowship with God (Revelation 3:18). AN STUDY OF THE THREE (a) The Parable of Two Sons; (b) of the Wicked Husbandmen; and (c) the Marriage of the King’s Son There is a remarkable progression in this series of three parables. I. There is progression in the obligations violated. In (a), it is the respect and honor due a father; and in (b), it is the legal and binding requirements of a commercial contract; and in (c), it is the honor, loyalty, and submission due to a great and noble king on the part of his servants. II. There is a progressive aggravation of the guilt incurred. In (a), it is the rejection of a loving father’s request. In (b), it is murder to escape a legal debt. In (c), it is a hateful and insulting degradation of the king himself, in the person of his messengers, not to escape an obligation but to deliver an insult, against all reason, against the highest government of the land, and upon an occasion when the king, far from exacting a tax or requiring a benefit, was in the gracious attitude of bestowing honor and privilege upon them. Moreover, their guilt reached such a climax of wickedness that it appeared on the occasion of the royal wedding and in such a way as to dishonor the most important and sacred event possible, the marriage of the king’s son! III. There is a progression in the penalties exacted. In (a), the father disapproves. In (b), the wicked husbandmen are destroyed, their contract canceled, and the vineyard let out to others. In (c), the offenders are not only destroyed but their city is razed and burned, and great armies of the king move upon them for swift and total vengeance. IV. There is a progression in the duration of the offenses. In (a), the conduct of the sons, while serious enough, is a matter of only one day’s disobedience. In (b), the wicked husbandmen rejected their duty over an extended period of time. In (c), the hatred of the king had become a permanent part of the lives of the offenders. This is seen in the fact that they could not have rejected such an invitation except from reasons of prior hatred in their hearts.

Their mistreatment of the king’s messengers, shameful as it was, was only the symptom of a far more terrible offense within themselves, namely, their hatred and animosity against the king. As Drummond said concerning such a thing, “It was the occasional bubble rising to the surface, that betrayed the rotting carcass at the bottom of the lake."[3] ENDNOTE:[3] Henry Drummond, Sermon, The Greatest Thing in the World.

Verse 15 Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might ensnare him in his talk.Far from being humbled and reproved by those wonderful parables in which the Lord had held up, as in a mirror, the truth concerning themselves that they might see it and repent, the Pharisees were all the more ready to destroy him. Their first maneuver was to confront Christ with some questions from which, if they could, they would obtain words from the Master which they would twist or misquote, thus giving them some pretext for condemning him to death. They thought to do this through intermediaries while they remained in the background.

Verse 16 And they, send to him their disciples, with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, and carest not for any one: for thou regardest not the person of men.How could the Pharisees have said a thing like that? Did they in conscience know, as they said, that Jesus taught the way of God in truth? From the parable of the wicked husbandmen, it appears that they did. It will be recalled that they said, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him” (Matthew 21:38). The same fatal admission is here. Their disregard of what the people might think (who were necessarily privy to this admission) was quite astonishing.

It is as though they said, “We do not care who knows he is the Christ, we intend to destroy him anyway!” Such words spoken by his enemies were truth of very truth; but in their mouths even the truth underwent a metamorphosis, becoming vile, deceitful, hateful, and repulsive to Christ. How completely they misjudged him is seen in their thinking to deceive and ensnare him with such flattery.

Verse 17 Tell us, therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?The design of the question is plain from the Herodians having been made a part of the group asking this question. The Herodians ardently advocated Caesar’s cause and favored a complete submission of Israel to Caesar’s government. If the Christ made it unlawful to give tribute to Caesar, they would, of course, have haled him into court on a charge of sedition, punishable by death. On the other hand, if Jesus had made it right to pay the tribute, they would have advertised it in order to diminish his popularity with the people who groaned under Caesar’s yoke and longed to throw it off. They thought they had him impaled upon the horns of a dilemma.

Verse 18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why make ye trial of me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a denarius. And He saith unto them, Whose is the image and superscription?In view of their true character, the Lord’s designation of those men as “hypocrites” is mild enough. They were far more. They were cowardly, crooked murderers, intent on committing the crime of the ages. Christ fully understood their most secret thoughts; and, although the Pharisees were not actually present, his words were more addressed to them than to those visible emissaries who were carrying out their orders. Only God can know men’s thoughts; therefore, this passage is another which carries the necessary inference that Christ is God in the flesh. Specimens of the coin that came into view here may still be seen in the Museum of Money on West 50th Street, New York City. It had a value of about 17 cents and bore an engraving of Caesar with a superscription making him the ruler of the land. The very prevalence of those coins in Israel identified the land as Caesar’s. It showed his title and authority to be recognized there. At that point in the interview, the inquirers must have felt that they had Jesus going their way. They reacted accordingly and promptly answered his question regarding the coin.

Verse 21 They, say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.Nearly two thousand years have not diminished the wisdom and truth of that sensational answer. It fell like a blow on the questioners. It gave the truth about the tribute question, namely, that it should be paid, and that it could not be wrong to do so since it was paid with Caesar’s own money, a plain fact attested by his picture and title on the coins! Christ then went far beyond their question and commanded the tax be paid, but in such a manner that no breach in the popular esteem of Jesus would result. Then, vaulting over all earthly and secular considerations, Christ, as always, directed their attention to the higher ground of God’s authority rather than to Caesar’s, pointing out that man also is, in a sense, a coin, bearing the image and superscription of his maker, God, and commanding that men should not merely pay taxes to those entitled to receive them but also render to God his just dues also. Thus, while answering the evil question about the tribute, Christ continued to press the claims of the Father upon people for their true allegiance and obedience.

Verse 22 And when they heard it, they marveled, and left him, and went their way.The trap they had devised for Jesus was sprung upon them. Viewing the whole incident without its underlying connotations, the occasion had produced a remarkably bold admission by the Pharisees that they knew Jesus taught the way of God in truth, yet without producing the slightest thing that they could use against him. No wonder they marveled and withdrew from the scene.

Verse 23 On that day there came to him Sadducees, they that say that there is no resurrection: and they asked him …The Sadducees were the sophisticated materialists of their day, relatively few in number, but holding most of the important offices of the Jewish system. They despised spiritual things, especially anything bordering on the supernatural, and were thoroughly detested and hated by the Pharisees who made common cause with them only in opposition to Christ. They too had a question for Jesus.

Verse 24 Saying, Teacher, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed to his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first married and deceased, and having no seed, left his wife unto his brother; in like manner the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And after them all, the woman died. In the resurrection therefore whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.First, note the question on its merits, or ! As Matthew Henry said, “The seventh who ventured last to marry the widow (many a one would say) was a bold man!"[4] The possibility of such a thing happening must be set down as remote. Like all fancy arguments trumped up as an objection to God’s word, the whole proposition, on its face, is a lie, designed to support a lie, namely that there is no resurrection. Yet Christ allowed the question to stand, at least for the moment, because it COULD have happened. The Sadducees’ statement of Moses’ position on the Levirate marriage was correct, as witnessed by the case of Boaz and Ruth (from the Book of Ruth). Yet, in the reply that followed at once, Christ, as always, resolved the issue, not on the basis of what Moses said, but upon what God said, affirming, in effect, that it was not Moses but God whom they were quoting. ENDNOTE:[4] Matthew Henry, op. cit., Vol. 5, p. 321.

Verse 29 But Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.Certainly, the Scriptures teach the resurrection. Many passages, such as Daniel 12:2; Job 19:25-27; etc., plainly indicate the resurrection; and the Sadducees’ disbelief of it was due to their ignorance of the Scriptures. As for their objection that a resurrection would be impossible because of the absurdities it would create, Christ disposed of that by attributing it to their ignorance of the power of God. They were practical atheists and made light of such things as the resurrection. Christ went further and disposed of their vulgar ideas of what a resurrection must be in the enlightening teaching he gave a moment later.

Verse 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven.The Sadducees’ ideas were founded on ignorance and a common and vulgar view of all spiritual things, including the resurrection. Christ, in refutation of their false views, unveiled some of the glories of the future state. Men shall not marry. They will have no such need or desire. All earthly ties and relationships shall have been outgrown, their purpose ended, and no longer needed or desirable. Like the holy angels, men shall have an existence in God, apart from all limitations and necessities of the flesh. They shall hunger no more, nor thirst. Weeping and crying shall not exist. How strange that such thoughts had not occurred to the Sadducees! Mention of angels was a further comment on the ignorance of the Sadducees, for they did not believe in angels either. Thus, as usual, Christ answered far more than his questioners intended.

Verse 31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitudes heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.Note the contrast. The Sadducees had spoken of what “Moses said,” but Christ quoted from the same source and declared the message to have been spoken “by God”! The endorsement of the Bible as God’s word is plainly intended. Nor may it be supposed that the “by God” imputation is limited to the conversation of Moses. By the words here and elsewhere, Christ boldly declared the Old Testament to be the word of God, and it should be so received by Christ’s disciples forever. Christ went much further in his effort to correct the ignorance of the Sadducees, and dealt with their fundamental trouble, namely, a failure to believe the Old Testament as God’s word. Christ, then, in the presence of the multitude, made an argument for immortality of the soul, basing it absolutely upon what “God said” in Exodus 3:6. The argument is bold, plain, and easily understood. Since God used the present tense in that Old Testament passage, saying, “I AM” instead of “I WAS,” etc., it means that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still living. This is a most important case. Christ made an argument on such an important subject as the resurrection to turn upon a single word in the Old Testament, a single verb, and the very tense of the verb at that!

What bold confidence in the Scriptures! How strongly Jesus relied upon the Scriptures which the Sadducees despised through their ignorance of them. If the Son of God could afford to put such trust in a single word in the Holy Scriptures, his disciples need not hesitate to trust every word of it without doubt or reservation. No wonder the multitudes were “astonished” at his teaching. Christ demonstrated that he was no prudent scribe with his proof-texts, no fawning sycophant deferring to the opinions of superiors in the Jewish hierarchy, no mealy-mouth uttering platitudes; but he stood forth plainly in that interview as the Son of God, the Christ of glory, answering with certainty and authority the deepest questions of the human spirit, and doing so with a perfection and grace that confounded the opposition. The Sadducees, like the Pharisees before them, withdrew from the scene, vanquished and shamed in the presence of all.

Verse 34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together.Of course the Pharisees had already been routed too, but since they had maneuvered the Herodians into fronting for them, they decided to have a try at it in their own name. It is amazing that they should not have regarded Jesus’ triumph over the Sadducees (their perpetual enemies) with jubilation. Their old enemies had been put to silence by Christ, in the presence of a multitude, and that in reference to the very points of difference between them and on which they opposed the Sadducees, namely, the resurrection, and the existence of angels. How happy they should have been that their old enemies had had the intellectual rug pulled out from under them, and that at the hands of Jesus, whom they denominated as ignorant! The joy of such a victory over their foes by Jesus, however, was lost in their hatred of the Lord. The news of the Sadducees’ failure only spurred them to greater efforts. Better, in their view, that the truth should fail than that it should be championed and upheld by one whom they despised. Apparently all of the questions in this chapter followed each other in rather close sequence, as Satan doubled and redoubled his efforts of opposition and hatred.

Verse 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, trying him: Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?One of them means one of the Pharisees. The “first team” would now take up the challenge, and the Pharisees themselves would confront him with a question in a field wherein they imagined they had a vast superiority. Their strategy was to ensnare Christ in some technical fault regarding countless questions of the law. One of their best legal minds was put forward with a question regarding the “great commandment.” Of course it is obvious that they hoped Christ would name a commandment, ANY commandment. They would then accuse him of belittling the others! That they were themselves guilty of what they hoped to accuse in him was no problem. Their motives and intentions were totally devoid of any honesty or fairness. Like the Sadducees, the Pharisees were also ignorant of the Scriptures, in the sense that they lacked any true perception of them. Their pre-assumption in asking such a question was founded on the false opinion that there are relative ranks among God’s commandments, some being more and others less in importance. God said, “ALL thy commandments are righteousness” (Psalms 119:151). Yet, in a sense not intended by them, Christ singled out the “great commandment.”

Verse 37 And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments, the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.Jesus’ answer is far more than a clever summary of all the commandments. It is the fundamental commandment underlying the whole economy of redemption. Above everything else, God desires and commands his human children to love him totally and completely.

That is why Christ came. That is the purpose God had in saving man, that the Father might be loved for his own blessed sake. Such a plea for love was lost upon people like the Pharisees. A bleeding child might have pleaded for the affection of a mad dog with the same results! In a technical sense, all the law and prophets do hang on the twin injunctions Christ named before the Pharisees. The first five words of the decalogue deal with man’s relation to God, and the second five have to do with man’s relationship to men. The fifth commandment might go in either group. A profoundly significant deduction required by Christ’s words on that occasion is that man’s heavenward duties are more important, ranking higher, than his man-ward duties. The first commandment is to love the Lord; the second is to love thy neighbor. This, of course, is utterly different from the prevailing concept that lays great stress on human obligations such as “Thou shalt not kill,” etc., but makes the other class of religious obligations secondary.

Verse 41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Till I put thine enemies under thy feet? If David then calleth him Lord, how is he his son?Christ in that question pinpointed the precise truth the Pharisees had missed concerning him, that he was (and is) God in man. “What think ye of Christ?” is the most important question ever asked. All depends on the answer. No man can be saved who fails this test.

To recognize and hail Christ as God come in the flesh, this is the beginning of eternal life. Without that perception, man must forever remain guilt-ridden, soul-blinded, and condemned forever. By propounding that question, it would seem that Christ, even at that late hour, was trying to relieve the sad condition of those evil men. He would even then have removed the scales from their eyes and directed their attention to the precise problem where their error lay, and which gave rise to the most important reason for their failure to recognize him. The reason the Pharisees did not recognize Christ (though some did) was that not all the Messianic prophecies were received by them. In the very nature of God’s revelation to humanity of the coming of that Holy One who is both God and man at once, there were necessarily SEEMING contradictions. Thus, Isaiah hailed the Coming One as “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” etc., while at the same time portraying him as a man or sorrows, acquainted with grief, with no form nor comes, a root out of dry ground, bruised, chastised, and suffering death. That was too much for the unspiritual Pharisee to understand. They did the natural, human thing: they believed the more agreeable prophecies and rejected the others. One outstanding example of such duality in the prophecies was singled out by Christ and made the subject of the question here. The Old Testament passage Christ stressed in this confrontation of the Pharisees is Psalms 110:1. Of course, they had access to that information and could have known that Christ was both David’s son and David’s Lord; but they could not explain it, thus being liable, as were the Sadducees, to a charge of ignorance. Their ignorance, however, was not so much their sin as was their pride and egotism that prevented their learning from him who alone is “the Truth”!

Verse 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.Thus in that profound question of Jesus, the Pharisees no longer had a case of knowing the answer, and through self-interest avoiding a reply. They WERE ignorant of the riddle Jesus propounded, but they would not accept the truth from him. But their day of grace was almost over. The plot was laid. Before the week expired they would kill him. Never again would they ask him any questions.

They confessed themselves unable to stand before his searching words. Intellectually, morally, and spiritually, they were vanquished by the Lord; and, like a wounded serpent that sinks its fangs again and again into its own flesh, those unfortunate men would kill their own head and Redeemer, involving themselves and their whole nation in irreparable ruin. What a commentary on religious bigotry is that! Some commentators attribute his characterization of the Pharisees to a kind of prejudice on Matthew’s part, but that is not true. As a former tax collector, he had indeed enjoyed a peculiarly advantageous position from which to learn the true character of the Pharisees, but it must not be thought that Matthew colored or perverted that picture in any way. On the contrary, his emphasis on their conduct was ; and, as God always chooses his instruments, Matthew was ideally suited to the task of presenting those enemies of Jesus in their true light. Reasons for the need to expose those men rise from the fact that, as the official representatives of Judaism, their failure to recognize and accept their Messiah would ever afterwards be used by Satan as an argument against the validity of Christ’s claim upon all mankind as the true Messiah. If there had been, therefore, the least vestige of anything honorable or upright in the Pharisees et al., there could have continued through history some suspicion that since “good men,” as they were supposed to be, rejected the Messiah, there must have been some reason for their doing it. Matthew successfully broke that crutch of infidelity. His analytical, yet fair and generous, treatment of those bigots in their hatred of Christ forever removes any suspicion or even the outside possibility of any doubt that their actions were otherwise motivated than through blind, fanatical, and selfish hatred of the truth. Their every argument, invented through despair, maliciously urged, and distorted to appear plausible; their every connivance with even their worst enemies to find some pretext against him; their reliance at last upon suborned and lying witnesses, perversion of Sacred Scriptures, malevolent torture of truth itself, and, withal, their prejudice against him, not desiring to accommodate with him but only striving for a means of his murder - all these things are so faithfully detailed in Matthew’s gospel that, two thousand years after the facts, any fair-minded person can easily understand WHY SUCH MEN rejected the Christ.

McGarvey Commentary For Matthew Chapter Twenty-TwoParable of the Royal Wedding, Matthew 22:1-141. Jesus answered.—He answered, not a question or an argument from them, but their violent purpose declared by Matthew in the preceding verse (21:46). The parable points out, as did the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, the fate which their violence was preparing for them 3, 4. to call them that were bidden.—The guests had been invited before, but no exact time had been fixed for them to come. Now they are notified that it is time to come; that “all things are ready.” 5-7. the king was wroth.—It was an insult to the king to treat his invitation with contempt by going, one to his farm and another to his merchandise; but to seize the servants who had brought the kind invitation, and to mistreat and slay them, was an act of the most malignant hostility, justifying, according to the usages of kings, the most fearful retribution. 8-10. into the highways.—The first invitations had been extended only to those of suitable rank to be guests of the king; but now all persons found on the highways, “both bad and good,” are invited, and they, appreciating the honor conferred on them, accept the invitation, and the king triumphs in reference to the number, if not in reference to the rank of his guests. The conduct of those first invited brought ruin on themselves without defeating the purpose of the king. 11, 12. a wedding garment.—There is much difference of opinion among the commentators (see Lange in loco) as to whether kings and men of wealth were in the habit of furnishing the proper garment for their guests on such occasions; but whatever may be the truth on this point, this guest, when called on to say why he had not on the wedding garment, was “speechless,” which shows that he had no excuse. 13. there shall be weeping.—In this verse there is a transition from the symbol to the thing symbolized, beginning with the binding of the insolent guest, and ending with the weeping and gnashing of teeth in outer darkness which are to befall those represented by the guest. 14. many called… few chosen.—This is the subject illustrated by the preceding parable. The parties first called, who slighted the invitation and mistreated the king, are the Jews. The words, “He sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city,” would answer for a description of the destruction of Jerusalem. The persons called in from the highways are the Gentiles; and the fact that the wedding was supplied with guests from this source, after those first invited had been slain and their city burned, answers to the fact that after the destruction of Jerusalem the Church was filled up almost exclusively from the Gentiles, The entrance of the king to see his guests (11) clearly represents the final judgment; and the man without a wedding garment, those who will be found in the Church without a suitable character. All such, together with all who reject the gospel invitation, are among the many who are called but not chosen; while the few who are chosen are those who shall be found at their posts clothed in the garments of righteousness. These will be few, not absolutely but relatively; that is, few as compared with the number that should be chosen. Such is the leading train of thought in the parable, but incidentally it contains other valuable suggestions. The parties who slighted the invitation were moved, a part of them by indifference born of business cares (verse 5), and a part of them by malice (verse 6). The enemies of the gospel, and those indifferent to its claims, are both represented. Again, the man without the wedding garment was guilty of insolence as well as neglect, and so it is with him who holds a place in the Church without the character of a Christian. Question about Tribute to Cζsar, Matthew 22:15-22. (Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26)15. how they might entangle him.—The task of a detective who seeks to entangle a bad man in his talk for the sake of exposing him, is not an enviable one; but to lay such snares for a good man is truly diabolical. Yet this is what the Pharisees deliberately took counsel to do, and the wonder is that they could look each other in the face while taking counsel for such a purpose. 16. their disciples with the Herodians.—The leading Pharisees did not themselves go on this detestable mission, for fear that Jesus would suspect their design; but they sent their “disciples,” or pupils, young men acquiring an education like Paul under Gamaliel; and with them some Herodians. The Herodians were political partisans of Herod— men who defended his administration against the opposition of the chief part of his subjects, and whose services were engaged on thin occasion in order that they might report promptly to Herod or to Pontius Pilate any disloyal utterances which might be extorted from Jesus. 16, 17. Master, we know.—Though the plot does great discredit to the hearts of the Pharisees, it does none to their shrewdness and their knowledge of human nature; its malice is equaled by its cunning. They would try him in a way which they had never before attempted; they would compliment him until they induced him to speak words which they would almost put into his mouth. Their compliments would be based on characteristics which were in themselves most admirable, and would be spoken by persons who came in the guise of honest inquirers. They say, “Master we know that you are true, and that you teach the way of God in truth, neither do you care for any man; for you regard not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what think you? Is it lawful to give tribute to Cζsar, or not?” Thus, his unimpeachable veracity, his truthful exhibition of the “way of God,” his disregard of human opposition and of the distinctions of rank and power, traits of character which should have excited their admiration, they endeavored to employ as instruments for his destruction. Is it lawful.—That is, in accordance with the law of Moses. It was said in the law, “When thou comest into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will sec a king over me like as all the nations that are about me; thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose: one from among thine own brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not set a stranger over thee who is not thy brother.” (Deuteronomy 17:14-15.) This passage furnished at least plausible ground for refusing to pay tribute to any foreign potentate, and the idea was popular with the Jews. The Pharisees supposed that Jesus was in sympathy with the people on this subject, and that the kingdom which he intended to set up would be in opposition to Cζsar’s; consequently they expected him to say that the tribute was unlawful, and the Herodians were present to report the fact. On the other hand, if they should fail in pressing him to this answer, the alternative which they left him was to say that the tribute was lawful, and this would be calculated to impair his popularity. 18. Why tempt ye me.—Deeply as they had laid their plot, and cunningly as they had approached him, they knew, from the first word of his answer, that he saw through it— that he detected their design and their hypocrisy. 19-21. Render therefore.—After showing them that he detected their design, he proceeds to answer their question, first asking them to show him a piece of the tribute money, or the coin in which the tribute was paid. The image and superscription were indicative of the sovereignty under which the tribute was exacted, and the fact that this coin was the tribute money showed that this sovereignty was here established. As these were Cζsar’s, the answer logically followed, “Render to Cζsar the things which are Cζsar’s.” The answer is general, and in teaching that tribute must be rendered to those to whom tribute is due, it teaches that other obligations to civil rulers are to be discharged as well. While thus pronouncing unmistakably in favor of paying the tribute, he saves himself from popular prejudice by adding, “and unto God the things that are God’s,” asserting, in a manner which carried conviction with it, that the payment of enforced tribute was not inconsistent with maintaining complete allegiance to God. The answer was not inconsistent with the statute in Deuteronomy, for this had reference, not to enforced subjection by a foreign power, but to the voluntary choice of a king. 22. they marveled and left him.—They had several causes for astonishment: his instantaneous discovery of their plot, his skillful escape from their dilemma, his loyalty to Cζsar while proposing himself to establish a kingdom, and his insusceptibility to flattery. Amazed and baffled, they left him and went their way. Question about the Resurrection, Matthew 22:23-33. (Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-40)23. The same day.—Only on one previous occasion have we found the Sadducees engaged in active opposition to Jesus. (See 16:1.) Although, as a party, they were unbelievers, they had participated but little in the controversy with Jesus and his friends; but now that all Jerusalem and the multitudes who had come to the passover were in a fever of excitement over his pretensions, they too come forward and try him with their favorite argument against the resurrection of the dead. which say… no resurrection.—They denied not only a resurrection, but also the existence of angels and of spirits. (See Acts 23:8.) All of their errors sprang from the last: for if there are no spirits, then there are no such beings as angels, who are spirits, and there is no need of a resurrection of the body, seeing that there is no spirit awaiting such a resurrection. On the other hand, if spirits exist, then there may be such an order of spirits as are called angels, and there is a demand for the resurrection of the human body in order that the disembodied spirit may again dwell in it, and make use of its organs of communication and enjoyment. 24. Master, Moses said.—The saying is found in Deuteronomy 25:5. The custom of taking a deceased brother’s wife when he died childless, and raising up seed to the brother, was much older than the law which gave it divine sanction. It was observed in the family of Jacob long before the giving of the law. (See Genesis 38:6-11.) 25-28. whose wife shall she be.—The force of the question depended on the assumption that the marital relation would still exist in the resurrected state, and this assumption could be denied only by one competent to speak authoritatively of that state. On this account the Pharisees could not answer the objection satisfactorily. The case was strongly put; for not only were seven men supposed who would have equal claims on the same woman, but these seven men were brothers, between whom a wife in common, or a strife for possession of her, would appear more incongruous than if the seven were strangers to each other. 29, 30. Ye do err.—Jesus strikes their argument in its weak point— its assumption that marriage would exist after the resurrection. He declares on his own authority, that “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage,” but that they will be “as the angels,” among whom there is no marriage. He also traces their false assumption to its source in their ignorance of the Scriptures and of the power of God. Had they known the Scripture doctrine of the resurrection, they would have known that it did not involve the continuance of marriage; and had they known the power of God, they would have known that he could raise the saints without those carnal propensities on which marriage is based. 31, 32. as touching the resurrection.—Having refuted the objection of the Sadducees, Jesus next furnished a proof of the resurrection. The major premise of his argument is the proposition that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Here the term dead is used in the sense attached to it by the Sadducees. If he had been disputing with Pharisees, they could have answered, He is the God of the dead; for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were dead when he said “I am their God.” But to the Sadducees a dead man was non est— he had ceased to exist, he was nothing; and to say, in their sense of the term, that God is the God of the dead, is to say he is the God of nothing. It would be nonsense. But God did say, hundreds of years after the death of the three patriarchs, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6.) The conclusion follows, that these patriarchs were not dead in the Sadducean sense of the term; and as the conclusion applies only to their spirits, it proves that spirits continue to be alive after the bodies which they inhabited are dead. The thoughtful reader may have observed that the conclusion of this argument falls short, in its terms, of the demands of the subject. The subject is the resurrection of the dead, while the conclusion affects only the question whether the spirits of the dead are still alive. We can not escape the difficulty by supposing, as some have done, that the resurrection spoken of is that of the spirit, not that of the body; for there is no such thing as a resurrection of the spirit. The spirit does not die, and therefore it does not rise from the dead. It leaves the body as the latter dies, its departure is the immediate cause of death, and it departs in the full possession of life. Resurrection is always spoken of in the Scriptures with reference to the body.

How, then, does the Savior’s proof that spirits continue to live apart from the body, include proof of a resurrection? It seems quite certain that the argument appeared conclusive to the Sadducees; for Jesus assumed that it was so, and they tacitly admitted the fact, while the bystanders who knew the views of the party “were astonished at his doctrine.” (Verse 33.) In other words, the Sadducees admitted that if the existence of human spirits apart from the body were proved, the necessity for a resurrection would follow. The argument, then, was conclusive at least to them; but was It no more than an ad hominem argument? We think not; for human spirits, having been originally created for the exercise of their powers through the organs of a body, must, unless their original nature be changed, which is an inadmissible supposition because unsupported by evidence, be dependent for their highest enjoyment on the possession of a body. This being so, the continued existence of spirits after the death of the body creates a demand for the resurrection of the body, and the Sadducees were philosophical enough to see this. 33. they were astonished.—The astonishment of the multitude arose from two circumstances: first, that Jesus was at all able to answer the boasted objection of the Sadducees; and second, that he found the answer in the writings of Moses, where it was supposed then, and has been supposed since, that the doctrine of a future life is not taught. Question about the Great Commandment, Matthew 22:34-40. (Mark 12:28-34.)34. when the Pharisees had heard.—The rivalry which existed between the Pharisees and the Sadducees caused each to rejoice at the discomfiture of the other. When the Pharisees, therefore, heard that Jesus had “put the Sadducees to silence,” they were not only “gathered together,” but they came with a better spirit and purpose than before. This will appear as we proceed. 35. a lawyer.—Lawyers among the Jews were not attorneys as with us, but simply men well versed in the law of Moses. He was a suitable person to propound the question which follows, for he was qualified to judge of the answer. tempting him.—The purpose of the lawyer, as the nature of his question implies, was not to incite Jesus to evil, but to test his knowledge of the law. The Pharisees had given up the contest in regard to his miracles, and now they hoped to defeat him in a trial of his knowledge. 36. the great commandment.—The one preeminently great. Here is exhibited the same conception with which the rich young man had inquired, “What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16.) The Pharisees themselves had fallen into the mistake of supposing that there was preeminent merit in fasting and paying tithes. (See 23:23; Luke 18:12.) 37, 38. first and great commandment.—The commandment cited was not, as the lawyer might have expected, taken from the decalogue, but from a comparatively obscure place in the Pentateuch. (See Deuteronomy 6:5.) It is called the first and great, as the sequel shows (verse 40), not because, apart from all others it is great, but because in observing it all others are observed. 39. second is like.—The second was also selected from an obscure passage (Leviticus 19:18), and was as little expected as the first. The best explanation of its meaning is that given by Jesus when another lawyer, conversing on the same subject, inquired, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus showed him by the parable of the good Samaritan that every man, even an enemy, is our neighbor, and that to love him as the commandment requires is to entertain toward him such feeling as will cause us to relieve him when in distress. (See Luke 10:25-37.) The love enjoined is a benevolent goodwill toward all persons. 40. On these two… hang all.—There is a tacit comparison of these two commandments to a hook in the wall on which are hung all the books of the law and the prophets. As the hook supports all, so to keep these two commandments is to do all that is required by the Scriptures. He who loves God as required will keep all of God’s commandments, and he who loves his neighbor will fulfill every obligation to his neighbor. The lawyer went away with the idea not that one specific commandment of God is more important than another, but that the great thing is to have a heart for doing all that God commands. Question about the Lordship of the Christ, Matthew 22:41-46. (Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44)42. What think ye of Christ?—It should be, of the Christ. Waiving, for the time, his own claim to be the Christ, he inquires of them, “What think ye of the Christ?” And to give a specific aim to his question he adds, “Whose son is he?” It is not, then, a general question about their opinion concerning the Christ, nor is it at all a question concerning their opinion of Jesus; but he inquires whose son the true Christ must be. Their answer was his own answer — he was to be the son of David. 43-45. How then.—The argument is this: If David in the spirit— that is, by inspiration— called the Christ his Lord, as he does in the passage quoted (Psalms 110:1), how could the Christ be at the same time the son of David. The two are inconsistent if the Christ is not divine as well as human. 46. no man was able to answer.—They were not able to answer because they believed not in the divinity of the Christ. They supposed that he would be only a man: they were Unitarians. By propounding the question, Jesus gained two important points: he showed that the promised Christ was to be divine, and he showed that his own claim to be the Son of God was in perfect harmony with his claim to be the Christ. If he is the Christ, then he is David’s Lord. neither durst any man.—Ever since his arrival in the city his opponents of every party had plied him with questions, taxing their ingenuity “to entangle him in his talk;” but all their questions had been answered successfully, and some of them had been turned to his own advantage. Finally, he had propounded to them one question which they could not answer, and which carried with it an unanswerable argument for his own divinity. They were so completely discomfited that they feared to ask him any more questions. Argument of Section 3The disputations of the preceding section contain two distinct arguments in favor of Jesus— one based on the conduct of his enemies, and the other on his own words. In all of these disputations except the last two, the wickedness of his enemies is made to appear. In their answer concerning the source of John’s mission, their hypocrisy appears (Matthew 21:23-27); in the parable of the two sons it appears again in unfavorable contrast with the open wickedness and subsequent repentance of the publicans and harlots (Matthew 22:28-32); in that of the wicked husbandmen, their wanton cruelty, demanding their final destruction, is made prominent (Matthew 22:33-46); in that of the royal wedding, the indifference of some and the malice of others (Matthew 22:1-14); and, finally, the wickedness of the Pharisees and the ignorance of the Sadducees are exhibited in their attempts to “entangle him in his talk. Now, if the enemies of Jesus had been the candid and the honest-hearted of his generation, it would have puzzled his friends to reconcile this circumstance with the character which is ascribed to him, and with the evidence which he is said to have placed before them. But seeing that it was the dishonest and the hypocritical who were his enemies, their characters furnish an argument in his favor. The other argument of the section is more direct. In answer to the demand for his authority, the latter was proved to be divine; in the two parables, that of the husbandmen and that of the royal wedding, his prophetic powers are displayed by his very clear prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the predominance of the Gentiles in the kingdom of God; while his transcendent wisdom is displayed in his answers to the questions concerning tribute, the resurrection, and the great commandment. The reader should observe that in this part of Matthew’s narrative, including all from the public entry of Jesus into the city until his arrest, Jesus is presented, not as a miracle-worker and a fulfiller of prophecy, but as himself a prophet. His miracles of power were chiefly, though not exclusively, wrought in Galilee and Perea, while his miracles of knowledge were wrought chiefly in the intellectual center of the nation. Even here, however, as John’s narrative abundantly shows, had occurred some of the most signal miracles of the former class. (See.)

Questions by E.M. Zerr For Matthew 221. With what method did Jesus again speak? 2. What was the subject spoken upon? 3. For what did he send forth his servants ? 4. Whom do these invited guests represent ? 5. How did they treat the call? 6. What did the king then do? 7. How was this call first treated? 8. Tell how the servants were finally treated ? 9. At this what did the king send forth? 10. What did they do? 11. Tell what city is represented. 12. Was the wedding then called off ? 13. Who were bidden next? . 14. Why were the bad invited as well as the good ? 15. Who inspected the guests? 16. How did he find one of them? 17. Repeat the question asked him? 18. What was the answer? 19. Explain this. 20. State the orders against this guest. 21. What indicates his punishment was conscious? 22. Which are more, the called or the chosen ? 23. On what did Pharisees then hold consultation ? 24. Whom did they send to Jesus? 25. What flattery did they first attempt? 26. Were their statements actually true? 27. State the question they then asked him. 28. Who was Caesar? 29. What was meant by tribute? 30. State what Jesus perceived in them. 31. What did he call them? 32. And what did he accuse them of doing to him ? 33. For what did he then call? 34. State his question to them. 35. And their admission. 36. To what is Caesar entitled? 37. What are the things that are God’ s ? 38. Was Jesus entangled? 39. How were they affected by his answer? 40. State the doctrine of the Saddueees. 41. What supposed puzzle did they propose to Jesus? 42. Tell what was erroneous in the puzzle. 43. Are we to be angels after the resurrection? 44. Was the resurrection taught in the Old Testament ? 45. Whose God is He ? 46. Of what class is he the God ? 47. Were not Abraham, Isaac and Jacob dead? 48. Can one be dead and alive at the same time? 49. How did this teaching affect the multitude? 50. What did the Pharisees hear ? 51. Was the report true? 52. Whom did they put forward to tempt Jesus ? 53. By what question did he make the attempt? 54. In the answer, which of the 10 commandments implied 55. How many implied by the “second” ? 56. What hangs on these two ? 57. Who now did the questioning? 58. Did they correctly answer his first question? 59. And did they attempt to answer the second? 60. What is the answer to it?

Matthew 22:1

22:1 Mark reports the parable of the wicked husbandmen which we have just studied in the preceding chapter. He also tells us (chapter 12:12) that after the parable the chief priests and Pharisees left the hearing of Jesus, hence the present parable was spoken to the multitudes in general.

Matthew 22:2-3

:2-3 This parable was to show the attitude of the Jews toward the kingdom of heaven as it contrasted with that of the Gentiles. The Lord chose a very familiar subject for the illustration, that of a marriage and the feast that was given to the guests. Call them that were bidden. Invitations were sent out some time before the date of the wedding, and as that time approached the invited guests were notified that the date of the wedding had arrived and for them to be present. The Jews were told in the Old Testament that the kingdom of heaven was going to be set up but no definite date was stated to them. They would not come. The Jews were not very responsive to the invitation offered to them to partake of the good things provided by Jesus.

Matthew 22:4

22:4. Perhaps the invited guests did not take these servants seriously, or they thought there was no need to hurry as the time was not so near. So the king sent out more servants who told the guests that even the animals intended for the wedding feast were killed and prepared for the occasion and that they should come on. Many of these details have no direct bearing on the application but needed to be told to make the story complete. The point is that the Jews were pleaded with to accept the kingdom of Christ but they did not show the interest they should.

Matthew 22:5

22:5 Some were more interested in their worldly possessions than in the things that pertained to their spiritual welfare.

Matthew 22:6

22:6 Others were more active in their opposition to the work of the King and persecuted the servants. They went so far as to put to death the most prominent ones which included John the Baptist, the apostles and even the son (Jesus).

Matthew 22:7

22:7 This verse was literally fulfilled by the wars between the Jews and the Romans. That conflict ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. I shall quote from Myers Ancient History, page 499, which shows the fulfillment of this prediction: “The accession of Flavius Ves-pasian marks the beginning of a period, embracing three reigns, known as the Flavian Age (A. D. 69-96). yes-pasian’s reign was signalized both by important military achievements and by stupendous public works undertaken at Rome. After one of the most harassing sieges recorded in history, Jerusalem was taken by Titus, son of Vespasian.

The temple was destroyed, and more than a million Jews that were crowded in the city are believed to have perished. The miserable remnants of the nation were scattered everywhere over the world. Josephus the historian accompanied the conqueror to Rome. In imitation of Nebuchadnezzar, Titus robbed the temple of its sacred utensils and bore them away as trophies. Upon the triumphal arch at Rome that bears his name may be seen at the present day the sculptured representation of the seven-branched golden candlestick, which was one memorial of the war.”

Matthew 22:8

22:8 They which were bidden means the Jews who were first called to the honors of the kingdom of heaven. Were not worthy or deserving on account of the way they treated the notice that it was time to come to the wedding feast.

Matthew 22:9

22:9 When the Jews had been given the first opportunity of accepting the Gospel and they rejected it, the servants of Christ turned to the Gentiles. This is clearly taught in Acts 3:26; Acts 13:46; Acts 28:27-28.

Matthew 22:10

2:10 Highways means the world in general whereas the first invitation was restricted to the Jews. (chapter 10:5, 6.) Bad and good. Even in the world there is a difference between men both socially and morally. But no man is so bad but the Gospel can purify and redeem him, and no one is so good that he does not need its saving qualities in order to be worthy of attending the wedding feast.

Matthew 22:11

2:11 The date setting of the parable has been changed and the time is at the end of the world when Jesus will come to claim his bride. (See Revelation 19:7.) In the Bible an espousal or engagement for marriage is spoken of in the same sense as the actual marriage in many respects (Genesis 19:14; Matthew 1:20). The reason is that when two persons have pledged themselves to become husband and wife they are as bound morally as if they had entered into the relationship. In other words, an “engagement ring” would be as much of a bond morally as the “wedding ring,” so that if while the first only has been offered and accepted, either party should be intimate or even familiar with a third, it would be considered as an act of unfaithfulness. That is why Paul wrote what he did about the “espousal” of the Corinthians to Christ, in the second epistle, chapter 11:1, 2. Hence the portions of the parable we have considered thus far pertain to the courtship and engagement only, but this verse transfers the story to the time of the actual marriage. Had not on a wedding garment. For the sake of unity in appearance all the guests were expected to have on a uniform especially appropriate for the occasion.

Matthew 22:12

2:12 And he was speechless. It was customary for a man arranging a wedding to provide garments for the occasion so that all would be in orderly appearance. It would therefore not be on account of poverty or lack of opportunity to procure the garment that this man was not wearing one, hence he was speechless because he had no excuse. The garment to be worn by the guests at the marriage of the Lamb is “the righteousness of saints” (Revelation 19:8). This robe has been provided by the Lord and offered to the espoused bride without money and without price (Isaiah 55:1; Romans 13:14), hence there will be no excuse for any professed Christian to appear at the day of judgment not properly adorned.

Matthew 22:13

2:13 The figurative or illustrative part of the parable is now dropped and the direct application is made. Those who are found wanting at the day of judgment will be cast into the place of punishment spoken of in Matthew 25:46.

Matthew 22:14

2:14. See the comments at Matthew 20:16 for the explanation of this.

Matthew 22:15

2:15 Took counsel means the Pharisees consulted together to decide upon some plan to entangle Jesus in his talk. The word is from which occurs in no other place in the New Testament. Thayer defines it, “to ensnare, entrap,” and he explains the definition to mean, “of the attempt to elicit [draw out] from one some remark which can be turned into an accusation against him.”

Matthew 22:16

2:16 Herodians is from the Greek word . Thayer and Robinson define it the same, but the latter gives more information in his historical comments and I shall quote his definition and the comments as follows: “Herodians, partisans [those who take sides] of Herod Antipas, and therefore supporters of the Roman dominions in Palestine; which the Pharisees were not. It was consequently a political rather than a religious party; though it would seem to have embraced many Sadducees.” This information explains why the Pharisees sent the Herodians to Jesus. They had no particular love for those people, but as they (the Herodians) were in sympathy with the political interests of the Romans of whom Caesar was king, they would try harder to get Jesus to say something that would get him into trouble with the government. They made their approach with a series of compliments that were pure flattery as verse 18 shows.

Matthew 22:17

2:17 In their ignorance of the nature of the kingdom of heaven they thought that Jesus would be opposed to all other governments. Were that the case he naturally would oppose giving them financial support. Had he answered them to that effect it would have been ground for accusing him of disloyalty to the “powers that be.”

Matthew 22:18

2:18 Jesus called these men hypocrites because they pretended they wanted information, when they knew that was not the case as verse 15 plainly indicates.

Matthew 22:19

2:19 Jesus met the situation in a manner that was doubtless unexpected. Instead of answering their question with a direct yes or no, he asked for a piece of the very kind of money that was being used in paying for the government’s finances.

Matthew 22:20

2:20 Image and superscription means the human likeness on a coin, and the words that are stamped on it in connection with the image. The coins of all nations are made with the likeness either of their rulers or other important persons in the government. The key to the difficulty which confronted these hypocrites is in the words of Christ after they handed him the coin, whose …is this?

Matthew 22:21

2:21 In their answer they committed themselves beyond recall, for they directly said the whole thing belonged to Caesar, the very article that he was asking people to give to him as tribute. No one would say it is not “lawful” to give to a man what belongs to him. They had said this money belonged to Caesar, hence it would be lawful to give it back to him. And by the same token it would be right to give to God what belongs to him, namely, their religious devotion.

Matthew 22:22

2:22 Robinson defines the original for marveled, “to wonder, to be astonished, to be amazed.” Hence we are not to get the Idea these hypocrites had any great respect for Jesus, but they were so defeated in their attempt to entrap him that they were capable only of silent astonishment. That is why they left him and went their way with nothing more to say.

Matthew 22:23

2:23 See at Matthew 16:12 for more complete details on the doctrine of the Sadducees. The same day was the day the Herodians failed in their attempt to entrap Jesus, and the Sad-ducees thought they would try it. It is a proper argument to confront a man with an actual inconsistency that comes from his teaching, for whenever a man is inconsistent he is bound to be wrong, but the Sadducees either- misunderstood or wilfully misrepresented the Lord’s position concerning the resurrection. He did not teach that men would resume their earth life after they came from the grave. Neither did he teach that the resurrected righteous (and they are the only ones being considered here) could engage in such a manner of life even if they desired.

Matthew 22:24

2:24 They correctly repeated the law of Moses on this subject which is recorded in Deuteronomy 25:5, which also was a ruling of Judah in Genesis 38:8-9 in the Patriarchal Dispensation.

Matthew 22:25-28

5-28 The Sadducees described a case (whether supposed or actual does not matter) in which they thought the position of Jesus would find great difficulty. It is evident that if a woman should meet seven men alive, each of whom had legally been her husband, she would be embarrassed to say the least as also would the men. But their supposed problem was based on the theory that human beings were to recognize each other after the resurrection in the same way they did when they lived on the earth. There are some Sadducees now with reference to this matter of future recognition. Such a theory is fathered by the wish which is based on a fleshly desire, and which has to deny the teaching of 1 Corinthians 15:42-54; Philippians 3:21; 1 John 3:2. V

Matthew 22:29

2:29. Err, not knowing the scriptures. At the time Jesus was speaking the New Testament had not been written, hence he had reference to the Old Testament. That book does not say much about the future state, yet had the Sadducees been as familiar with it as they pretended to be they would have understood that in the next world the marriage relation will not be continued because it will not be needed. The beginning paragraphs of Genesis reveal the command given to the first man and woman to multiply and replenish the earth. After the earth ceases to be there will be no need for the marriage relation. Nor the power of God.

The Sadducees supposed they could disprove the truth of a resurrection by describing a situation that would make it impossible without causing great domestic trouble. They should have understood that nothing is “too hard for the Lord” (Genesis 18:14).

Matthew 22:30

2:30 Note It does not say the saved of earth will become angels, but they will be as angels, and that only as regards the marriage relation for they are without sex. It is true that whenever the Bible makes any reference to the gender of angels it is always the masculine. That is due to a rule of language that when reference is made to intelligent creatures by a pronoun, if the gender is not specifically known the masculine is always used.

Matthew 22:31

2:31. Jesus was going to make a reference to the Scriptures (which he said they did not know) to prove that another life is taught in them. The Sadducees professed to believe that writing, so they should be impressed with what will be shown to them.

Matthew 22:32

2:32 The passage referred to is in Exodus 3:6. The argument Jesus made was based on two great truths. God is not the God of the dead as the Sadducees would admit; yet Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been in their graves for centuries. The conclusion is, then, that although the bodies of these patriarchs were dead, something else about their beings was still living. And if their spirits can live outside of their fleshly bodies, there should be no difficulty in believing that they could be reunited with those bodies and thus be resurrected.

Matthew 22:33

2:33 No wonder the multitudes were astonished at the doctrine (teaching) of Jesus, for it put the Sadducees to silence.

Matthew 22:34

2:34 The Pharisees were gathered together for the purpose of consultation as in verse 15. Their object was to plot some way of entrapping Jesus in his talk.

Matthew 22:35

2:35 Thayer defines the original for lawyer as follows: “One learned in the law, .in the New Testament an interpreter and teacher of the Mosaic law.” Because of his profession this man could pretend to be interested in the law, and hence his approach to Jesus would have an outward appearance of being an honest one. However, the inspired writer says his purpose in asking the question was to tempt Jesus.

Matthew 22:36

2:36 The question would seem to be prompted by a good motive since it pertained to the law. But it was unfair because the Lord never put any more of His authority behind one commandment than another. (See James 2:10-11.) Had Jesus specified one command as being greater than another, the lawyer would have accused him of showing discrimination between things that were equal as to their divine origin.

Matthew 22:37

2:37 Jesus stated to him the commandment that requires wholehearted love for God, against which even this lawyer could not have any objection.

Matthew 22:38

2:38 The Lord did not say that even this was the greatest, only that it was great. And it was great because it was the first one, which was proper since it pertained to God, and everyone would agree that God comes before all other beings.

Matthew 22:39

2:39 If the lawyer thought he had caught something by the word great on which to make an ado, he was soon deprived of that motive because Jesus said the next one was like it. He then stated the commandment to love one’s neighbor as one’s self.

Matthew 22:40

2:40 The first four commandments pertain especially to man’s attitude toward God, and the other six have to do with man to man. (See Exodus 20:1-17.) If a man loves God with all his heart he will observe the four commandments that pertain to Him; and if he loves his neighbor as himself, he will observe all of the six that pertain to that neighbor. That is why Jesus said that the whole law and prophets hang on these two. That word is from which Thayer defines, “To be suspended, to hang,” and he explains it as follows: “The meaning is, all the law and the Prophets (i. e.. the teaching of the Old Testament on morality) is summed up in these two precepts.”

Matthew 22:41

2:41 The Pharisees had been trying to entrap Jesus with questions they thought could not be truly answered. That is, could not without contradicting something in his teaching, but they failed as we have seen. Now the Lord turned and put a question to them that was fair, and yet which would be impossible to explain without exposing some of their opposition to him.

Matthew 22:42

2:42 The Pharisees did not profess to dislike Jesus (they dared not because of public opinion, chapter 21:46), but pretended to regard him only as a good man and not divine. When they answered the question of Jesus by saying he was the son of David they only recognized his blood relation to the great ancestor, not that he was anyone higher than a human being.

Matthew 22:43

2:43 If Christ was no more to David than an earthly descendant why did he call him Lord. This question was based on a statement in Psalms 110:1 which the Pharisees would have to accept unless they denied the Scriptures which they would not do.

Matthew 22:44

2:44 The first Lord is God and the second is Christ. The pronoun my in the first instance refers to David and the second to God. Using names instead of pronouns, the verse means that God invited Christ to sit on His right hand until He had made Christ’s enemies his (Christ’s) footstool. The point at issue is that in this statement David acknowledged Christ to be his Lord.

Matthew 22:45

2:45 The argument of Jesus was, how could David recognize Christ as his Lord if he was only his son as the Pharisees claimed.

Matthew 22:46

2:46 The verse says that no man could answer the question. The reason is that they either did not know or were unwilling to acknowledge the divine-human character of Christ’s being. This put an end to the tempting questions of the multitude, for they were completely defeated in their hypocritical attacks on the great Teacher.