St. Matthew

Chapter I

St. Matthew’s Gospel opens: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” A genealogy runs from Abraham to Joseph, husband of Mary, divided into three periods of fourteen generations each. Joseph was espoused to Mary, and before they came together she was found with child by the Holy Ghost, fulfilling the words, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel.” The child, when born, was called Jesus.

There are obvious difficulties here which cannot be evaded. Jesus is called Son of David and Son of Abraham — what we’d expect from a Jew who believed the Messiah must be of that line. But how is it proved? Joseph is shown to be of that race, yet declared not to be His father. Second, what has the arrangement of Jewish history into periods to do with the genealogy or the Conception? Third, even granting the miraculous Conception, how does it fulfil Isaiah’s words, which plainly speak of a child soon to be born, one too young to say “my father or my mother” before the two conspiring kings should be put down?

Supposing the first two chapters spurious does not remove these difficulties — we’d still have to explain how so inconsistent a story got assembled. Supposing St. Matthew an Ebionite doesn’t help either, since belief in the miraculous Conception was not characteristically Ebionite; the inconsistency remains. Nor does supposing two narratives spliced by a later compiler help — why would he keep the genealogy unaltered instead of dropping it or fitting it to the Conception story?

But suppose St. Matthew started from the belief, common to all the Evangelists, that Jesus was the eternal Son of God. Would His incarnation in a miraculous way seem strange to him — or might it seem the most natural way for such a Person to enter the world, explaining the law of other births rather than merely excepting Him from it? If so, would not all Jewish history seem to confirm it? Take the first name in the genealogy: did not Isaac’s birth teach Abraham, and through him the nation, that a child is God’s gift, that even with a human father the child is still to be attributed to God as its true author? Given that first example, must not the whole line of Jewish children have been seen as witnesses to a mysterious divine paternity over the nation and its members? Did not every page of the prophets suggest that human relations had a divine counterpart, grounded in a relation not yet manifested? If this were Matthew’s thought, is it strange that he traces the genealogy to Joseph rather than Mary? Would not the sudden break in the history at just that point be the clearest sign that its meaning was now disclosed, its ground brought to light? Then “Son of David, Son of Abraham” connects intelligibly with what follows: the Son of God is the heir of David’s throne that all previous kings had testified to, and in Him the covenant with Abraham — blessing to all families of the earth — is accomplished.

On this view we can easily see why Matthew pauses over the successive periods of Jewish history. He who came to gather up the people’s history, who was to be the centre of its ages, is about to be presented. No sharper way to signal that this is his subject, that the past is to be fulfilled in Him.

I use the word “fulfilled” anticipating what follows. A virgin at the time Isaiah spoke to Ahaz did conceive and bear a son — we’re told plainly that the prophetess did so, in the eighth chapter. Far from overlooking this, I think St. Matthew wants us to remember it, and its connection to what befell Ahaz and Israel. Ahaz showed utter faithlessness toward God’s covenant, and because of that the Lord promised a sign showing that the fulfilment of the promises to David’s house did not depend on his faithfulness or his house’s. The sign given to Ahaz — that his land would be preserved while Samaria and Syria were destroyed — was fulfilled without delay or double meaning. But the sign’s meaning could not be fulfilled unless a perfect King were actually given to David’s house, one who was the Son of God. The sign itself was accomplished exactly as it would naturally be understood — not by any departure from ordinary conception and birth, though the Prophet felt that he and his children were themselves signs and wonders from the Lord of Hosts. But when the sign’s full intention had to be fulfilled, it required that the sign itself be accomplished by an extraordinary, yet — as I have dared to say — the most natural, means by which so divine and so human a fact could occur.

Chapter II

So far, assuming only what we’ve already established — that St. Matthew was a Hebrew writing to Hebrews and held this faith — I’ve reached what seems a consistent reading of chapter one. If we’ve grasped this, especially his sense of “fulfilment,” the difficulties of chapter two are not, I think, very serious. On the ordinary view that this is primarily a human person’s history, or on the Ebionite hypothesis, or on the theory of spliced inconsistent narratives, these difficulties seem to me insurmountable.

The chapter opens with the Magi’s visit and adoration. This might be taken as one of the strange supernatural events attesting Jesus as a great prophet. But it breaks the narrative’s order so completely, forms such an isolated episode in His childhood, connects so little with His teaching or acts as prophet or founder, that I don’t wonder people eager to see Him chiefly in those roles want to discard it. If discarded, where did it come from? Not from an Ebionite — the child’s kingly character, so prominent here, was just what Ebionites were least inclined to stress, and far from delighting in His manifestation to Gentiles, their whole effort was to keep the New Covenant as limited as the Old. Unless the compilation process can actually be traced and the patchwork detected, cutting the knot this way is as gratuitous and uncritical as resorting to miracle — indeed it is a Deus ex Machina, modern indolence and superstition.

But what did St. Matthew need to believe for this to be consistent? That God promised Abraham’s seed would bless all nations. That God promised to raise up a Son of David to rule the Gentiles. That Gentile wisdom was itself God-given. That He was teacher and ruler of the Gentiles. Grant these — incredible postulates to a modern critic, but natural and inevitable to any instructed Hebrew — and the Magians’ story becomes perfectly reasonable. Instead of a fortuitous miraculous announcement like that given to Habakkuk about Daniel in the apocryphal Bel and the Dragon, we’re told these men learned of a King of the Jews’ birth through the ordinary occupation of every Eastern sage — study of the stars. Laborious diligence is honored. An unseen guide leads them, but the visible guide is a star they had been watching — one which, like all Persian astronomers, they’d take as a king or dynast, connected to an actual ruler. This points to the nature of the Gospel’s preparation not in one class of Gentile thinkers but in all: each led to the true King through the very subject he had most earnestly pursued. But the story assumes this Child was the true King, that divine glory was in Him and could manifest itself. We cannot avoid that assumption — only note that making it shows Matthew’s consistency, not his inconsistency.

The part concerning Herod and the priests fits everything we know of both. That an Edomite ruling by Antony’s choice and Augustus’s tolerance should tremble at a native prince is expected. That Herod would consult the Jewish authorities he was anxious to conciliate, assuming an anointed king was due to be born, matches the temper of the time. That the priests would name Bethlehem, David’s city, quoting Micah, was equally expected. Notably, the Evangelists dwell far less on the Bethlehem birth than the priests did, resting Christ’s claims on evidence quite distinct from mere connection to the royal village. The wise men’s gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh presuppose the idea of a divine King, and are otherwise consistent and Oriental.

Then: an angel warns Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt with the child and his mother, to escape Herod, and they remain there until Herod’s death — fulfilling the words, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” This quotation has puzzled everyone. Isn’t it a forced application of Hosea? Doesn’t Hosea plainly mean the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, referring to the past, not the future? I have no doubt he does — the whole context requires that reading. But does this mean St. Matthew is merely toying with words from a writer he believed to be God’s prophet, catching some chance phrase that came to mind? I think the case is quite otherwise. He looked for fulfilment not just of the particular words but of the idea toward which the words, their context, and the history all pointed. Why does God call Israel His son? That was the mystery needing clarification. Until clarified, the history of the people — God’s deliverances, His paternal care and chastisement — remained unfulfilled. If Matthew saw Jesus as Son of God, he believed this history was fulfilled in Him. His actual relation, as one who took Abraham’s seed, to God brought to light the relation of Abraham’s children to God that their history implied but had not yet manifested. But how was this to be shown to Israel — that this was their King, the one in whom God had regarded the people through all their murmurings as His own family? The Evangelists held that every act of Christ’s life was significant, that going to and returning from Egypt was no accident but part of divine order. So the people’s life was linked to their King’s life, and Hosea’s words about the one were interpreted through what befell the other. Such reasoning would be natural if Matthew had the purpose I’ve supposed; I don’t see how it’s natural on any other view.

Then comes the massacre of the infants at Bethlehem, needing no explanation in itself — entirely consistent with Herod’s character, given fear of a rival heir. The strangeness lies again in the supposed fulfilment: “In Ramah was a voice heard.” Apart from the principle I’ve adopted, Jeremiah’s words are as distorted here as Hosea’s were there. The mother of the Jewish race weeps over children about to be carried captive to Babylon; she is told to stop weeping, for they will return, the nation will live though many perish. Where do we find the fulfilment of the prophet’s sorrow and hope? Here, says the Evangelist, is the king and deliverer, the Joseph of the family, who is to become its head and preserve its life. The deaths and deliverance of His childhood connect Him to His land’s history — not only its past captivity but its future one. A few Jewish mothers wept over these deaths; many more would weep before that generation ended; Rachel would weep over the seeming extinction of her whole family — yet since the Head of it was saved, blessing and higher deliverance would come from the ruin. This reading assumes belief in the nation’s organic life, a vital connection running through all its history. But can anyone read the Old Testament without sensing this pervaded every legislator and prophet’s mind? And if the New Testament fulfills its promise to explain the Old, must it not take us to the heart of this mystery, showing the centre toward which all these lines converge?

Once more: Joseph, finding Archelaus reigning on his return from Egypt, feared to enter Judæa and settled instead in Nazareth of Galilee — fulfilling the prophets’ words, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” In the earlier cases we could locate the passage referred to, however puzzled by its application. Here we can’t even find the quotation. Matthew says “spoken by the prophets” — plural — so he doesn’t mean one specific text but a general meaning running through them all, which this phrase aptly captures. Given Nazareth’s actual low reputation as shown throughout the Gospels, given how decisively His dwelling in Galilee counted against His claim to kingship among the Jews, given all that “Nazarene” implied when later applied to His disciples, I think the simplest reading is the most accurate: Matthew has in mind all those prophetic passages suggesting the coming king and prophet would be, like the nation itself, despised and rejected, his true nature unrecognized. This fits with everything before and after, and explains, better than almost anything else, what Matthew meant by the fulfilment of prophecy.

Chapter III. IV

We come to a part of Matthew already considered. His account of the baptism is distinctive for including: “But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” I don’t know that this helps establish the Evangelist’s purpose, but it’s curious that the “Ebionite gospel” is the one asserting our Lord’s superiority to John. The phrase “fulfilling righteousness” has a specially Jewish ring, interpreting the other uses of “fulfilled” we’ve just noted.

The righteous man of the Old Testament was one whom the righteous God chose and set apart, who believed in God and to whom God’s righteousness was imputed. He fulfilled his righteousness by submitting to God’s calling through whatever voice it came, submitting to every ordinance as a signification of God’s mind and will. This is plainly implied here; and consistent with earlier passages, something more is implied too — that the law’s righteousness was now fulfilled in a person, and His baptism proved it. The Son submits to the servant so that He may be declared Son. This idea pervades the Gospel, surfacing unbidden at every turn.

The order of the temptations in Matthew differs, as everyone notes, from Luke’s: the offer of world-kingdoms follows the pinnacle-invitation in Matthew, precedes it in Luke. Others have made more of this than I want to, though I think there’s meaning in it — not imposed but springing naturally from the writer’s habit of mind. The characteristic Jewish temptation was to cast himself off the ground God had placed him on, out of His covenant into surrounding idolatries; the characteristic temptation of the Gentile, and of those belonging to the new dispensation, has been to seek universal dominion by paying homage to the Evil Spirit.

After the temptation, Christ’s preaching begins. Matthew says He went to “the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim,” fulfilling Isaiah’s words about that land. The connection to Isaiah’s larger prophecy is this: just as darkness in Judæa was deepest through Ahaz’s idolatries, just as the ten tribes were being destroyed, a great light appeared — a king raised up ruling in righteousness. Hezekiah did not see himself as merely Jerusalem’s king; the whole land was God’s, and he invited even those separated from Judah since Jeroboam’s time to the great passover. Even to the furthest borders, near the Gentiles, his gracious rule extended, and remote peoples felt themselves again under divine government. Isaiah’s language is not exaggerated — the difference between a sensual tyrant’s rule or anarchy and a king who feels raised up to show God’s rule is immense. Matthew has this whole passage in mind. The king is its central object; the words about Zabulon and Nephthalim express how his power reached the land’s furthest limits — these are the words fulfilled in Christ’s visit to Galilee of the Gentiles, as a sign that the whole prophecy was fulfilled in the true and perfect King. The fulfilment is literal. The poor inhabitants of that region, wretched under Herod and Rome as under the first captivity, actually felt the presence of a divine teacher, deliverer, King. But their experience is the sign and witness of the fulfilment to the whole nation, and through the nation to mankind. The universal is seen in the individual — the method of Scripture, of nature, of reason, the divine method throughout.

Chapters V. VI. VII

I won’t take up whether Luke’s sermon in chapter six is the same as the Sermon on the Mount. But I’ll point to the great pervading difference anyone who studies both attentively will see. The words “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil” have nothing corresponding in Luke six. Yet Matthew’s whole comparison of what was said in old time with what Christ now says begins with, and turns on, these words. I think the whole discourse must be read through them. Doing so, we’re struck by the contrast our Lord draws between the age before Him and the one He came to establish. He has said plainly He came to destroy nothing — even the least commandment remains precious. Why then does the contrast seem so great? The last verse of chapter five gives the ground: “Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” This is the fulfilment traced through the whole chapter. “Father” recurs at every turn, grounding every sentence. Compare any chapter of Leviticus, with its repeated “I am the Lord” — that was the ground of what was said of old, great and abiding words, the everlasting foundation of a Decree. There can be no other foundation for a decree. But our Lord uttered no decrees. He revealed God’s actual mind, and showed how it could become men’s mind, since it was His Father’s mind, and He came to them as a brother. Remove this idea from the Sermon on the Mount and you destroy not just its unity but the sanction and intelligibility of every separate saying. You cannot explain why one shouldn’t pray or give alms to be seen, why not take thought for the morrow, why one should ask expecting to receive — apart from “your Father seeth in secret,” “your Father knoweth ye have need,” “shall not your Father give good things to them that ask?” This is the only explanation our Lord gives.

I won’t go step by step through this discourse. This hint should suffice for anyone wishing to investigate further; I’m sure the reward will be rich, and such a reader will find many things I haven’t noticed that illustrate the Evangelist’s meaning even better than what I’ve set down.

Chapter VIII

I note that Matthew, in the story of the centurion’s servant, adds: “And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.” That Matthew would go out of his way to record this is inexplicable if he were, like every Ebionite, jealous of Gentile intrusion into the covenant — so such passages must be treated by that hypothesis as later interpolations. Why a later compiler should choose Matthew especially for this experiment isn’t clear. But if Matthew wrote as a Hebrew to Hebrews, nothing is more natural than dwelling on the evidence that other nations were to be blessed in them and their seed, or warning them, as prophets did, how near they stood to desolation and apostasy. This must have been the continual tone of St. James’s preaching in Jerusalem. The difference between his preaching and Paul’s — as we’ll see later — was decided, but it wasn’t that one was more tolerant of Jewish sin or believed less firmly in the prophecies about Gentiles. Nor is this the nature of the difference between Matthew and Luke. Their warnings about coming calamity on the Jewish nation differ curiously, but in kind, not degree. If anything, Matthew is more earnest and frequent in warning, since, treating of prophecy’s fulfilment, this was obviously his province.

An instance of prophetic fulfilment follows: at evening they brought many possessed and sick to Him, and He healed them, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” Since commentators habitually restrict these words to Christ’s death, readers are startled to find an Apostle applying them here. Surely Matthew understood the prophet at least as well as we do. Healing sickness and casting out devils seemed to him to involve bearing sicknesses and infirmities. Only one who suffered them could remove them. His power to relieve humanity’s woes could not be separated from His sharing in them. Christ’s brotherhood with man answered every prophetic expectation of their king. Without it there could be no fulfilment of God’s promises or man’s longing.

Chapter IX

I’ve already discussed the feast at Matthew’s house and the question of fasting. Distinctive here is: “Go ye, and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” This brief allusion opens a wide view of the old economy and the new. The Jewish worshipper tended to imagine his sacrifices bought God’s mercy. But the Law and Prophets continually teach that mercy was itself the ground of the sacrifices. So in showing mercy to the unrighteous, Christ wasn’t contradicting the Old Law but fulfilling it — carrying out God’s mind toward men, showing Him as the source of forgiveness, deliverance, righteousness. Notice how naturally this pervading conviction shows itself in all Matthew’s quotations — at every turn, our Lord brings out the mind of the God of Abraham as the mind of a Father.

Chapter X

I’ve noted that the instructions to the Apostles are given in far more detail by Matthew than by the others, and especially that Luke transfers much of what Matthew assigns to the twelve to the seventy instead. Given that Matthew shows the Old fulfilled in the New, while Luke teaches the Gentiles, we’d expect exactly this difference.

The apostolic office, for all its breadth, is the unfolding of the tribal institution. It represents the Jewish nation while making it what it was always meant to be — teacher and evangelizer of the world. The directions here belong first to the Apostles as teachers of Israel’s lost sheep, to whom their first mission was confined, though every warning looked ahead to when their office would be unlimited. The Evangelist’s characteristic trait appears again: “It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” Here is the ground of the Apostles’ faith and comfort — and I believe, the foundation of their office itself, which their acts as well as their words were continually to declare.

Chapter XI

Both Matthew and Luke record John’s disciples coming to Christ and the conversation after. One passage is peculiar to Matthew: “And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.” At the Transfiguration, Matthew alone tells us Christ said Elias had already come and suffered as men wished, and that the disciples understood He meant John the Baptist — Matthew alone directly identifies them. John’s Gospel, as I’ll consider later, seems to show the Baptist disclaiming the name Elias himself. It’s entirely in keeping with Matthew’s purpose to stress this: all the old economy’s announcements and ideas were to be fulfilled in the new. Christ’s advent had to substantiate Jewish history and prophecy’s indications. Elijah, who proclaimed the Lord God of Abraham against Jezebel and her idols, must have his counterpart before the Jewish age closed — a protester against the heart-idolatry of Pharisees and Sadducees, a witness that God was manifesting Himself, that the great Day of the Lord had come. The Evangelist, I think, never ceases to see our Lord as revealer of the mind of that God for whom Elijah testified, fully declaring His righteousness and judgments.

There’s one memorable passage near this chapter’s end belonging solely to Matthew — the one that taught Augustine the difference between Christ’s teaching and that of the best philosophers: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The words would be beautiful alone, but Augustine never separated them from the sentence just before, which occurs in Luke ten without them. His heavy burden was the sense of ignorance of God and separation from Him. Philosophers could awaken this sense but not satisfy it. Only one who could say He knew the Father and was willing to reveal Him could say, “Come unto me, I will give you rest” — and then call them to take His yoke, to work with Him in His Father’s Kingdom, to become sons as lowly and obedient as the Son was, casting off the heavy burden of pride and self-will. A soul crying for the living God could understand this. Those who entered into the psalmists’ and prophets’ cries could understand — and still can — how Christ answered and fulfilled them.

Chapter XII

This chapter gives another familiar instance. Jesus withdrew, healed the multitudes, and charged them not to make Him known — “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet”: “Behold my servant… He shall not strive, nor cry… A bruised reed shall he not break… And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.”

I ask anyone to meditate seriously on this application of Scripture, and ask what idea of fulfilment its maker must have held.

No one, I think, will call it inappropriate. Heart and conscience recognize its wonderful fitness at once. One who refused to let His deeds of mercy be known, who had power to heal and power to reject the fame of healing, is exactly what Isaiah describes. This trait implies others — He must have been inwardly meek and lowly throughout, and that meekness was a main element of His power, not an obstacle to it. But analyze the Isaiah passage the way a modern prophetical interpreter would: what becomes of it? What has “showing judgment to the Gentiles” to do with healing the sick in Galilee? What has “sending forth judgment unto victory” to do with commanding silence? How do “Gentiles trust in his name” because Jews were told not to proclaim it? If this incident merely needed fitting to some specific prediction, a hundred texts would have matched better. Only if this Person fulfilled the whole prophetic portrait of gentle royalty, only if the Evangelist felt in that one act how the whole divine-human portrait was embodied in a living man, only if we say with him, “such a one as this, so human, so divine, can rule the nations, can be trusted by all nations” — only then do we grasp the intention of the words rather than dismiss them as frivolous.¹

Chapter XIII

Chapter 13 contains two parables already discussed, plus two or three peculiar to Matthew. Notably, though Mark and Luke also record “that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand,” only Matthew adds the quotation from Isaiah with “in them is fulfilled the prophecy.” Again at verse 34: “All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables… that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.” Both quotations require the same principle we’ve applied throughout. To suppose Isaiah wasn’t speaking of his own generation’s grossness would make his awful vision of the Lord of Hosts and his mission a mockery. And if the writer of Psalm 78 wasn’t himself about to utter and explain parables and hard sayings, what is the Psalm about? But Isaiah’s prophecy wasn’t fulfilled in his own time — hardness of heart hadn’t reached its climax, eyes hadn’t yet closed against the fullest light. The Psalmist dwelt on the parables of his nation’s history, the dark sayings his fathers told him, seeing those dealings in connection and thereby lifting part of the veil that covered them while they could only be seen separately, in progress. Only the perfect Image of God could fully set forth the parable of His relations with man, exhibiting His acts in perfect order and sequence.

These two quotations illustrate the particular aspect of the parable Matthew presents. Its general object is to show the inward order of God’s kingdom and government over the heart and will, with outward results illustrated from nature and human affairs. Matthew’s special calling seems to be showing divine power working alongside the powers that counteract it, and the approaching crisis that would separate them.

So the parable of the tares is Matthew’s. The leaven hidden in three measures of meal — which recent commentators, justified by Scripture’s uniform use of “leaven,” take as an evil principle mixed with the pure seed in Christian life and doctrine — is his too. So is the net cast into the sea gathering every kind. His comparisons especially concern the full working-out of the mystery of good and evil, indicated by the phrase “end of the age.”

I can hardly help seeing this same character, less obviously, in the two beautiful parables of the treasure hidden in the field and the merchant seeking pearls. The first surely describes the wonder of those who had spent their lives seeking outward signs, finding instead that the treasure they needed lay in the field of their own hearts — a field never cultivated, even needing to be bought as a strange possession. Does not the other describe just as vividly those old philosophers genuinely searching for goodly pearls, fragments of divine wisdom, who found all these fragments gathered into one living Person? — parables with infinite personal application, yet belonging remarkably to that age’s history, that confluence of Jewish and Gentile faith and unbelief marking its close.

Chapters XIV. XV. XVI

I know of nothing in these chapters not already discussed, or peculiar to Matthew, except Peter being called onto the water, and the memorable words: “Upon this rock will I build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Only the latter needs attention here — its importance is obvious.

Romanists rightly draw attention to the blessing given to Peter, since the rest depends on it. Consider what it is: “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Knowing Jesus as Son of the living God was knowing a truth only God could reveal, belonging not to the mind’s surface but its very ground. This matches our earlier findings. Discovering the Son of the living God is discovering Him on whom all things and persons rest. All His miracles and parables have been proving this — He fulfilled the meaning of the old Jewish kingdom, coming as the Prince and Head who had secretly directed all its movements and been implied in all its offices.

How well the next words accord with this: God has revealed to you the ground flesh and blood could not — the ground on which your life and all men’s lives stand. “And upon this rock will I build my Church.” Without the preceding blessing, we might doubt this rock’s meaning — Romanists say it means Peter himself, many Protestants say a dry formal confession. But these are just what flesh and blood could reveal. A man, head of a school of Apostles, or a logical formula declaring Jesus Son of God, belongs to the mind’s surface. But teaching a man that he can rest only on the pillars of the universe, on the Son of God Himself — this is God’s work. One who grasps this knows he stands not on shifting sand but eternal rock.

“Upon it will I build my Church.” The word Ecclesia hasn’t occurred before in the New Testament, and occurs only twice in the Gospels — both times in Matthew, which may seem strange given how especially Pauline the word is. But remember: though closely tied to the so-called Gentile dispensation, its force and application must be learned entirely from Jewish Scripture. Paul found the term in Greek cities, applied to an assembly called by a herald, but took it in its etymological sense — a body called out. This meaning is expounded through the whole Jewish national history, through the calling of the first father, the nation, every officer and man in it. How fitting, given all Matthew’s previous teaching, to say that a body called out beyond these old limits would be built up in the world, founded on a rock lying deep down. Against such a building the gates of Hell could not prevail — it could not sink into darkness and death, standing on One who would show death and hell had no power to hold Him.

That Peter should hold this Kingdom’s keys, opening its gates to Gentiles as well as Jews, might seem wonderful, but history confirms it — at Pentecost, and with Cornelius, this honor was given him. Strictly, what he bound on earth was bound in heaven, what he loosed was loosed. I won’t fully take up these last words now, as they recur later. But I’ll say: first, I don’t shrink from attributing to Peter greater privilege and glory than claimed by those whose view of his position would mean the Kingdom’s gates were never truly opened by him or anyone; second, I’m ready to test Peter’s own view of his position, and his Master’s, against his own epistle.

Chapter XVI

This chapter has one passage peculiar to Matthew — the tribute-money demanded of Peter and how he was told to procure it. One might naturally think Matthew’s background as a publican prompted this story, but that conclusion would be rash: it’s often rightly noted that the didrachma wasn’t Roman tribute but Temple dues, and the force of the question to Peter — “Of whom do the kings of the earth take tribute?” — turns on this. They were children of Him who dwelt in the Temple, not strangers or bondsmen. On this reading, Matthew would naturally be the Evangelist most likely to record such a conversation — fitting his whole purpose, another illustration of how Christ fulfilled the old dispensation by substantiating the meaning of its forms and holy places. I’m not sure I see the special meaning some find in the miracle of the fish. I see in it Christ’s general claim over nature, asserted in many ways — understandable alongside the draught of fishes and similar acts — but it may carry meanings I can’t perceive. Those who value it merely as more startling than other miracles must ask themselves whether they’ll explain all miracles by this one, or this one by the others.

Chapter XVIII

I noted earlier that the conversation prompted by “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” is fuller and more varied in Matthew than the others. The little child is common to all; peculiar to Matthew are the warning about scandals, “In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven,” and “It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” The first topic clearly follows from the Apostles’ dispute — their desire for high places, treating offices as prizes rather than service, was in one form or other the root of all scandals in Christ’s kingdom. But where was the test of scandal’s existence, and its correction? The little child, humblest of creatures, was dear to the Father in heaven — not merely a fallen, corrupted thing. Its Angel, its pure original type, ever looked into His face. Bringing it to this state was His will; it was against His will that any such little one lose its high original glory. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost, to fulfil His Father’s will by bringing back the wandering sheep. How fearful, then, the scandals that injure such little ones! How needful to cut off the offending hand or eye!

From here the transition is easy to the great law: “If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone… thou hast gained thy brother.” This is the great law of the family, the means of checking its scandals. Christ, the elder Brother of the human race, came to establish this family principle as universal. Here Matthew uses Ecclesia a second time. Before, we learned the Church’s foundation; now, the principles of its cohesion and the powers threatening it. It holds together by a law of forgiveness and mutual sacrifice. Only when someone utterly resists and renounces this law, despite every warning, is his brother warranted in casting him off as the proud Jew treated heathens and publicans.

Then: “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven… if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing… it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” In our disputes over what powers this conveys to priests, we’ve overlooked the passage’s radical principle: that the Son of Man brought heaven and earth under one law, that earth was to have a real kingdom of heaven within it. Here is the true exposition of the Church’s power and reality — for which certain “keys” placed in mortal hands would be a poor substitute. Both clauses, taken together with the whole passage, illustrate the deep mystery of human creatures adopted as sons of God by being acknowledged as Christ’s brothers, thereby enabled to be perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect — the very mystery of the Sermon on the Mount, which seems to be Matthew’s special task to expound.

Nowhere is this more strikingly expounded than in this chapter’s closing parable, the king settling accounts with his servants: that God’s forgiveness is the ground of man’s forgiveness, and that God’s forgiveness, free and absolute as it is, only reaches a man’s heart when it subdues his unbrotherly nature and makes him forgiving — a truth we grasp very imperfectly, and set at naught constantly, in theory as much as in practice.

Chapters XIX. XX

Nothing new in chapter nineteen. But its close is inseparably tied to chapter twenty’s parable, peculiar to Matthew, whose importance for declaring the divine kingdom’s nature and rewards can’t be overstated. Peter, like the rich young ruler, faced the same temptation in another form. “What shall we have therefore” was his thought as much as the ruler’s. “Everything,” is the answer — gifts beyond imagining — but the greatest is this: to understand that your calling and work are themselves inconceivable blessings, and that the reward following them, the hire at day’s end, is something to be shared, not possessed. Regard it as something to “have,” excluding others for your own sake, and you’ll never grasp it — my Kingdom’s nature and meaning will stay hidden from you. Why? Because that kingdom rests on the will of a Father whose eye is good, who sends rain on the just and unjust alike. To be like Him, to enter His mind, is the good — this is what the chosen seek; those who imagine themselves chosen at their brothers’ expense are merely called. What a lesson for the elect nation! What a deeper, more awful lesson for the elect Church!

Chapters XXI. XXII

In chapter 21, Matthew’s account of the conversation about John’s authority includes the parable of the two sons: one refuses to work in the vineyard but repents and goes; the other agrees but doesn’t go. Asked which did the father’s will, they answer, “The first.” Jesus tells them the publicans and harlots enter God’s kingdom before them, for John came in righteousness and the publicans and harlots believed him, while the leaders, seeing this, still didn’t repent and believe.

These words are characteristic of the Evangelist: a Father’s will; submission or resistance to it; repentance acknowledging it good and the child’s will evil — this is the subject of Christ’s revelations as Matthew presents them. Other aspects of the gospel aren’t lost, but are seen in reference to this one. Thus it fulfils the Law and Prophets, even while casting out those who boasted most of them. This point is especially apt here since chapter 21 records largely the same discourses and parables found in the other Evangelists.

The parable opening chapter 22, the King’s marriage feast for His Son, closes with the same moral as chapter 20: “For many are called, but few chosen.” It remarkably develops the earlier parable’s idea, though occasion, audience, and setting differ. The Father’s great reward to men is that they come and rejoice with Him in His Son’s marriage. His bridal with humanity expresses and fulfils the Creator’s mind and will — this reconciles Him to His creature. To give thanks for this is to become like Him, entering the Lord’s joy. Those first invited refuse because their hearts are set on their own possessions and pleasures; the most wretched and helpless, who have nothing of their own, are called instead; and some of these still insist on appearing in their own rags rather than accept the wedding garment. This explains the nature and root of man’s evil — Jewish pride, distrust, and exclusiveness were its great examples then, but it belongs equally to Gentiles, and would show itself in them once given the same privileges. I don’t doubt this parable belongs among the discourses spoken after the entry to Jerusalem, bearing directly on the sins of its rulers. But this specific character doesn’t prevent it from having a universal character rooted in the subject itself, and an individual character from the Evangelist’s own distinct purpose.

Chapter XXIII

The specific, universal, and individual all appear in the tremendous chapter that follows. Those who read Christ’s words as announcing a gentler, more tolerant dispensation are scandalized by the denunciations here. How, they ask, can these be reconciled with the Sermon on the Mount’s tone and spirit? They are in the most literal, most inward harmony with it. “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” was that discourse’s maxim. Now, with the same authority, we’re told what the Scribes’ and Pharisees’ righteousness actually is. If Jesus didn’t speak as king and lawgiver, this discourse’s tone is strange and new. But those who heard Him say “Blessed are the poor in spirit” felt He spoke as King and Lawgiver, one who knew and could reveal God’s very mind. If so, He implicitly declared there what He explicitly declares here: that any religion not grounded in God’s eternal Mind, in truth and righteousness — however seemly it looks, however godly its phrases — is atheistical and must be swept away, unable to enter the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom rests on a revelation of God’s eternal Will and Order; all who confess that Will and Order are invited to share its blessedness; all who set up themselves on any pretext must be aliens from it. Pharisaic religion was the enthronement and deification of self — the world’s evil, scattered through many forms, concentrated in them; it stood face to face with Christ, who came to offer Himself as Sacrifice; it denied not the Son of Man but the Holy Spirit dwelling in Him. Our Lord here, in awful language, describes its signs and announces its downfall. The age these Pharisees represented would gather into itself the crimes of all past ages; against it the long-delayed final sentence would go forth.

We see how these woes belong to their assigned time, matching the parables before and the prophecy after. We also see how everlasting is the truth brought out in condemning a particular nation’s rulers: a selfish religion wearing the names and forms of self-sacrifice must be the sure sign of any people’s misery and ruin — all its other evils rooted and consummated there. But nowhere more than here, tracing history and showing its perpetual application, does Matthew perform his distinct function. Christ’s denunciations fulfil all former prophets’ denunciations; their execution would fulfil all past judgments. The establishment of His kingdom would fulfil all those reformations and restorations that had once cheered ancient seers under the crushing weight of the people’s sins, amid the prospect of captivity and desolation.

Chapters XXIV. XXV

I have commented very largely upon the next chapter. I ask only that you read it again alongside the one just considered, and with the 25th.

That chapter begins, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.” I take the “then” literally, fixed by the prophecy about the Temple: then, when the tribulation of the last days comes, when Jerusalem is surrounded by armies, when the abomination of desolation stands in the holy place—then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins. This gives new light on words in the prophecy that have caused much perplexity. The bridegroom’s coming here is identical with the Son of Man’s coming there. The King has made a marriage for His Son and comes to claim His bride. If the passing of the Old Dispensation meant this—if the shaking not only of earth but of heaven, not of merely human polities but of one that rightly claimed divine origin, proved that the Son of Man had come to assert His fellowship with humanity—then we can see why the day and hour should be unknown, why He should come as a thief in the night, even though the outward signs of judgment were startling and their effects visible through all later ages.

This is what the parable of the virgins suggests. The kingdom of heaven would resemble ten virgins, five wise and five foolish. Most commentators take the virgins as churches, and the oil, as elsewhere, as the Spirit or spiritual life. There is much agreement that certain churches would have the outward preparations for Christ’s coming—scriptures and ordinances as lamps for their feet—and that some sudden convulsion, startling them into believing His coming was near, would set them all trimming their lamps, discovering the need to actually use them; but the foolish would then find themselves unable to use them, would seek second-hand help, and would finally be forced to see that unless they went and bought for themselves—unless they had direct personal apprehension of Him—they could not meet Him. I depart nothing from ordinary commentary in this. I only want it tied more clearly to the idea of the bridegroom. So understood, certain churches would be truly waiting for the divine King who declared Himself the root of humanity, the ground of their personal and social life, the only bond of their unity—and would find Him, in the fullest sense, not merely as King but as Lord of Man. The others, expecting some mere outward display of Him, like the adulterous Jewish generation, would find they had grasped only a shadow, would lose what they once had, and would become apostate: “Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” The five wise would become part of the new, living Jerusalem; the others would sink back into corrupt Judaism or heathenism. This is the parable’s specific force, matching the chronology our Lord gives it. But within that specific application lies a force that renews itself for every age of the Church, and especially for its last age. St. Matthew, the Evangelist who shows the fulfilment of the Old Dispensation in man’s filial relation to God and conjugal relation to the divine King, was especially fitted to record this parable.

The disciples hearing it might well ask: did all the virgins have equal advantages? Could the foolish have been as prepared as the wise? If it was spiritual treasure they lacked, are these not emphatically divine gifts—withheld from those who lacked oil and had to borrow? The answer lies in the parable of the Talents, which is not really separated from that of the virgins, though our translators mark a break with the words “For the kingdom of heaven is like unto”—words that seem awkward and out of place here. The absent bridegroom did not leave those he would later claim without the inner gifts needed to receive him on his return. The treasures might look unequal because the tasks and temptations of those entrusted with them were unequal, but all were adequate, all could be improved—they were gifts meant to be traded with, not fixed and final. The difference between servants arises first from neglecting to trade with them, and ultimately from distrust of the owner—believing him a hard master reaping where he did not sow, rather than a gracious one who wants his servants to share his work and his joy. The principle here, as in the last parable, is deep and universal. The Apostles needed this parable for their own time just as they needed the last—to know what was coming and how to act; and it was a lesson for the world only because it was first a lesson for them. There are two aspects to this teaching, one drawn out by Luke, one by Matthew. What concerns us here is the evenness and righteousness of God’s dealings: the same joy is meant for all who do not distrust their divine employer, but work for Him and with Him in His spirit.

Then follows the memorable passage beginning, “When the Son of man shall come in His glory.” I have few remarks to make on it, for I do not wish to propose new interpretations here or elsewhere. I only want us to consider more earnestly what we mean by our ordinary interpretations, so that they become less shadowy and more real, bearing on our lives, rather than a loose collection of notions inconsistent with Scripture and with themselves. Everyone has a kind of dream of a great judgment where the Son of Man sits on His throne of glory. Let him keep that dream, undisturbed by any speculation, even by Scripture’s own words—but let him work to make it more than a dream. Let him not let so awful a truth dissolve into phrases about “a great assize,” into vague impressions borrowed from English courtrooms or from paintings. Such images, if they help bring to mind an actual Judge of the living and dead, to whom hearts are open, should not be discarded—they bear some real relation to the truth, something symbolic of it. But it matters gravely, as a question of honesty of mind, that we work out what that relation is—how the symbol connects to the thing symbolized. Let us admit plainly that we have let the symbol stand for the reality; that we have talked of judgment and tried to frighten ourselves and others with it, without truly believing in it; that it hangs about us as a terrible phantom we wish to be rid of, inspiring nothing like the comfort and joy it gave to psalmists, prophets, and apostles. Having made that confession, let us turn to this passage as our best guide to a right, practical understanding. If the Son of Man Himself best knows what it means to sit on His throne of glory and gather all nations before Him, let us hear His own teaching: when He says, “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, ye did it to me,” He proclaims the very truth of human existence—the truth with which it is eternal life to be aligned, and eternal death to be at odds. He is actually one with every man; His incarnation and death proclaim this. He judged the old world by that law. However little we understand His method now, if we take Scripture as history’s interpreter, this law and no other decided the fate of every nation and race. And to the degree we’re assured this held in every preparatory judgment and in the final judgment of the old world, we shall see it as the law affirmed in the great visitation upon Jerusalem, the law that has governed every nation and every person since, the law judging us now, and the law that will judge us on the last day. If we hold this truth and try to live by it, that final judgment will be no idle fiction, no pageant to trifle with, but a living, eternal reality—one we could not abandon without losing all our hope for ourselves and our race, and all our faith in God.

Chapters XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII

I have dwelt at great length on the first two of these chapters. In the last, it is significant that St. Matthew speaks only of the Resurrection, not the Ascension. The one fulfills all the meaning of the Old Dispensation; the other grounds and begins the New. But the Resurrection would not fulfill the past unless it brought forth the Son of David and Son of Abraham saying, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth”; unless the promise, “in thee and in thy seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” were translated into “teach all the nations”; unless the name of the I Am, the ground of the national polity, were expanded into the Name of “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” the foundation of the universal Family.