Expositions of Holy Scripture
ST. MATTHEW
Chaps. I to VIII
Part 1
By Alexander Maclaren, D. D., Litt. D.
(1826-1910)
Public Domain
CONTENTS
MATTHEW'S GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST (Matt. i. 1-16)
THE NATIVITY (Matt. i. 18-25)
THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME (Matt. i. 21)
THE FIRST-FRUITS OF THE GENTILES (Matt. ii. 1-12)
THE KING IN EXILE (Matt. ii. 13-23)
THE HERALD OF THE KING (Matt. iii. 1-12)
THE BAPTISM IN FIRE (Matt. iii. 11)
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS (Matt. iii. 13-17)
THE DOVE OF GOD (Matt. in. 16)
THE VICTORY OF THE KING (Matt. iv. 1-11)
THE SPRINGING OF THE GREAT LIGHT (Matt. iv. 12-16)
THE EARLY WELCOME AND THE FIRST MINISTERS OF THE KING (Matt. iv. 17-25)
THE NEW SINAI (Matt. v. 1-16)
THE FIRST BEATITUDE (Matt. v. 3)
THE SECOND BEATITUDE (Matt. v. 4)
THE THIRD BEATITUDE (Matt. v. 5)
THE FOURTH BEATITUDE (Matt. v. 6)
THE FIFTH BEATITUDE (Matt. v. 7)
THE SIXTH BEATITUDE (Matt. v. 8)
THE SEVENTH BEATITUDE (Matt. v. 9)
THE EIGHTH BEATITUDE (Matt. v. 10)
SALT WITHOUT SAVOUR (Matt. v. 13)
THE LAMP AND THE BUSHEL (Matt. v. 14-16)
THE NEW FORM OF THE OLD LAW (Matt. v. 17-26)
SWEAR NOT AT ALL' (Matt. v. 33-37)
NON-RESISTANCE (Matt. v. 38-42)
THE LAW OF LOVE (Matt. v. 43-48)
TRUMPETS AND STREET CORNERS (Matt. vi. 1-5)
SOLITARY PRAYER (Matt. vi. 6)
THE STRUCTURE OF THE LORD'S PRAYER (Matt. vi. 9)
OUR FATHER' (Matt. vi. 9)
HALLOWED BE THY NAME' (Matt. vi. 9)
THY KINGDOM COME' (Matt. vi. 10)
THY WILL BE DONE' (Matt. vi. 10)
THE CRY FOR BREAD (Matt. vi. 11)
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS' (Matt. vi. 12)
LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION' (Matt. vi. 13)
DELIVER US FROM EVIL' (Matt. vi. 13)
THINE IS THE KINGDOM' (Matt. vi. 13)
FASTING (Matt. vi. 16-18)
TWO KINDS OF TREASURE (Matt. vi. 10-20)
HEARTS AND TREASURES (Matt. vi. 21)
ANXIOUS CARE (Matt. vi. 24-25)
JUDGING, ASKING, AND GIVING (Matt. vii. 1-12)
OUR KNOCKING (Matt. vii. 7)
THE TWO PATHS (Matt. vii. 13-14)
THE TWO HOUSES (Matt. vii. 24-26)
THE CHRIST OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT (Matt. vii. 28-29)
THE TOUCH THAT CLEANSES (Matt. viii. 14)
THE FAITH WHICH CHRIST PRAISES (Matt. viii. 8-9)
SWIFT HEALING AND IMMEDIATE SERVICE (Matt. viii. 14-15)
THE HEALING CHRIST (Matt. viii. 17)
CHRIST REPRESSING RASH DISCIPLESHIP (Matt. viii. 19-20)
CHRIST STIMULATING SLUGGISH DISCIPLESHIP (Matt. viii. 21-22)
THE PEACE-BRINGER IN THE NATURAL WORLD (Matt. viii. 23-27)
THE PEACE-BRINGER IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD (Matt. viii. 28-34)
MATTHEW'S GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the sonof Abraham. 2. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacobbegat Judas and his brethren; 3. And Judas begat Phares and Zara ofThamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; 4. And Aram begatAminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; 5. AndSalmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obedbegat Jesse; 6. And Jesse begat David the king; and David the kingbegat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias; 7. And Solomonbegat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa; 8. And Asabegat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias; 9. AndOzias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias;10. And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begatJosias; 11. And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the timethey were carried away to Babylon: 12. And after they were brought toBabylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel; 13.And Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begatAzor; 14. And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begatEliud; 15. And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; andMatthan begat Jacob; 16. And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, ofwhom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.'--MATT. i. 1-16.
To begin a Gospel with a genealogy strikes us modern Westerns assingular, to say the least of it. To preface the Life of Jesus with anelaborate table of descents through forty-one generations, and then toshow that the forty-second had no real connection with the forty-first,strikes us as irrelevant. Clause after clause comes the monotonousbegat,' till the very last, when it fails, and we read instead: Jacobbegat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus.' So, then,whoever drew up this genealogy knew that Jesus was not Joseph's son.Why, then, was he at the pains to compile it, and why did the writer ofthe Gospel, if he was not the compiler, think it important enough toopen his narrative? The answer lies in two considerations: the rulingidea of the whole Gospel, that Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah,David's son and Israel's king; and the characteristic ancient idea thatthe full rights of sonship were given by adoption as completely as byactual descent. Joseph was of the house and lineage of David,' andJoseph took Mary's first-born as his own child, thereby giving Himinheritance of all his own status and claims. Incidentally we mayremark that this presentation of Jesus as Joseph's heir seems to favourthe probability that He was regarded as His reputed father's first-bornchild, and so disfavours the contention that the brethren' of Jesuswere Joseph's children by an earlier marriage. But, apart from that,the place of this table of descent at the beginning of the Gospel makesit clear that the prophecies of the Messiah as David's son were by theHebrew mind regarded as adequately fulfilled by Jesus being by adoptionthe son of Joseph, and that such fulfilment was regarded as importantby the evangelist, not only for strengthening his own faith, but forurging his Lord's claims on his fellow-countrymen, whom he had chieflyin view in writing. Such external fulfilment' goes but for little withus, who rest Jesus' claims to be our King on more inward and spiritualgrounds, but it stands on the same level as other similar fulfilmentsof prophecy which meet us in the Gospels; such as the royal entry intoJerusalem, riding upon an ass,' in which the outward, literalcorrespondence is but a finger-post, pointing to far deeper and truerrealisation of the prophetic ideal in Jesus.
What, then, did the evangelist desire to make prominent by thegenealogy? The first verse answers the question. We need not discusswhether the title, The book of the generations of Jesus Christ,'applies to the table of descent only, or to the whole chapter. Theformer seems the more probable conclusion, but the point to note isthat two facts are made prominent in the title; viz. that Jesus was atrue Jew, forasmuch as He also is a son of Abraham,' and was the trueking of Israel, being the Son of David,' of whom prophets had spokensuch great things. If we would take in the full significance ofMatthew's starting-point, we must set by the side of it those of theother three evangelists. Mark plunges at once, without preface orallusion to earlier days, into the stir and stress of Christ's work,slightly touching on the preliminaries of John's mission, the baptismand temptation, and hurrying on to the call of the fishermen, and thebusy scenes on the Sabbath in Capernaum. Luke has his genealogy as wellas Matthew, but, in accordance with his universalistic, humanist tone,he traces the descent from far behind Abraham, even to Adam, which wasthe son of God,' and he works in the reverse order to Matthew, goingupwards from Joseph instead of downwards to him. John soars high aboveall earthly birth, and begins away back in the Eternities before theworld was, for his theme is not so much the son of Joseph who was theson of David and the son of Abraham, or the son of Adam who was the sonof God, as the Eternal Word' who was with God,' and entered intohistory and time when He became flesh.' We must take all these pointsof view together if we would understand any of them, for they are notcontradictory, but complementary.
The purpose of Matthew's genealogy is further brought out by itssymmetrical arrangement into three groups of fourteen generationseach--an arrangement not arrived at without some free manipulating ofthe links. The sacred number is doubled in each case, which implieseminent completeness. Each of the three groups makes a whole in which atendency runs out to its goal, and becomes, as it were, thestarting-point for a new epoch. So the first group is pre-monarchical,and culminates in David the King. Israel's history is regarded as alltending towards that consummation. He is thought of as the first King,for Saul was a Benjamite, and had been deposed by divine authority. Thesecond group is monarchical, and it, too, has a drift, as it were,which is tragically marked by the way in which its last stage isdescribed: Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time thatthey were carried away to Babylon.' Josiah had four successors, all ofthem phantom kings;--Jehoahaz, who reigned for three months and wastaken captive to Egypt; his brother Jehoiakim, a puppet set up byEgypt, knocked down by Babylon; his son Jehoiachin, who reigned elevenyears and was carried captive to Babylon; and last, Zedekiah, Josiah'sson, under whom the ruin of the kingdom was completed. The genealogydoes not mention the names of these ill-starred brethren,' partlybecause it traces the line of descent through Jeconias' or Jehoiachin,partly because it despises them too much. A line that begins with Davidand ends with such a quartet! This was what the monarchy had run outto: David at the one end and Zedekiah at the other, a bright fountainpouring out a stream that darkened as it flowed through the ages, andcrept at last into a stagnant pond, foul and evil-smelling. Then comesthe third group, and it too has a drift. Unknown as the names in itare, it is the epoch of restoration, and its bright consummate flower'is Jesus who is called the Christ.' He will be a better David, willburnish again the tarnished lustre of the monarchy, will be all thatearlier kings were meant to be and failed of being, and will more thanbring the day which Abraham desired to see, and realise the ideal towhich prophets and righteous men' unconsciously were tending, when asyet there was no king in Israel.
A very significant feature of this genealogical table is the insertionin it, in four cases, of the names of the mothers. The four womenmentioned are Tamar a harlot, Rahab another, Ruth the Moabitess, andBathsheba; three of them tainted in regard to womanly purity, and thefourth, though morally sweet and noble, yet mingling alien blood in thestream. Why are pains taken to show these blots in the scutcheon'? Maywe not reasonably answer--in order to suggest Christ's relation to thestained and sinful, and to all who are strangers from the covenants ofpromise.' He is to be a King with pity and pardon for harlots, with aheart and arms open to welcome all those who were afar off among theGentiles. The shadowy forms of these four dead women beckon, as itwere, to all their sisters, be they stained however darkly or distanthowever remotely, and assure them of welcome into the kingdom of theking who, by Jewish custom, could claim to be their descendant.
The ruling idea of the genealogy is clearly though unostentatiouslyshown by the employment of the names Jesus Christ' and Christ,' whilethroughout the rest of this Gospel the name used habitually is Jesus.In verse 1 we have the full title proclaimed at the very beginning;then in verse 16, Jesus who is called Christ' repeats the proclamationat the end of the genealogy proper, while verse 17 again presents thethree names with which it began as towering like mountain peaks,Abraham, David, and--supreme above the other two, the dominant summitto which they led up, we have once more Christ.' Similarly thenarrative that follows is of the birth of Jesus Christ.' That name isnever used again in this Gospel, except in one case where the readingis doubtful; and as for the form Jesus who is called Christ,' by whichHe is designated in the genealogy itself, the only other instance of itis on the mocking lips of Pilate, while the uniform use of Jesus in thebody of this Gospel is broken only by Peter in his great confession,and in, at most, four other instances. Could the purpose to assert andestablish, at the very outset, His Messianic, regal dignity, as thenecessary pre-supposition to all that follows, be more clearly shown?We must begin our study of His life and works with the knowledge thatHe, of whom these things are about to be told, is the King of Israel.
THE NATIVITY
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Marywas espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found withchild of the Holy Ghost. 19. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man,and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put heraway privily. 20. But while he thought on these things, behold, theangel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thouson of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that whichis conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 21. And she shall bring fortha son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His peoplefrom their sins. 22. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilledwhich was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23. Behold, avirgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shallcall His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. 24.Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord hadbidden him, and took unto him his wife: 25. And knew her not till shehad brought forth her first-born son: and he called His nameJESUS.'--MATT. i. 18-25.
Matthew's account of the Nativity sets Joseph in the foreground. Hispain and hesitation, his consideration for Mary, the divinecommunication to him, and his obedience to it, embarrassing as hisposition must have been, take up larger space than the miracle of thebirth itself. Probably in all this we have an unconscious disclosure ofthe source of the evangelist's information. At all events, he speaks asif from Joseph's point of view. Luke, on the other hand, has most tosay about Mary's maidenly wonder and meek submission, her swifthurrying to find help from a woman's sympathy, as soon as the Angel ofthe Annunciation had spoken, and the hymn of exultation whichElisabeth's salutation heartened her to pour forth. Surely thatnarrative could have come from none but her meek and faithful lips? Thetwo accounts beautifully supplement each other, and give two vividpictures of these two devout souls, each sharply tried in a differentfashion, each richly blessed by variously moulded obedience. Josephtook up his burden, and Mary hers, because God had spoken and theybelieved.
The shock to Joseph of the sudden discovery, crashing in on him afterhe was bound to Mary, and in what would else have been the sweetinterval of love and longing before they came together,' is delicatelyand unconsciously brought out in verse 18. She was found'--how theremembrance of the sudden disclosure, blinding and startling as alightning flash, lives in that word! And how the agony of perplexity asto the right thing to do in such a cruel dilemma is hinted at in thetwo clauses that pull in opposite directions! As a just man' and herhusband,' Joseph owed it to righteousness and to himself not to ignorehis betrothed's condition; but as her lover and her husband, how couldhe put her, who was still so dear to him, to public shame, some ofwhich would cloud his own name? To put her away' was the only coursepossible, though it racked his soul, and to do it privily' was the lastgift that his wounded love could give her. No wonder that these things'kept him brooding sadly on them, nor that his day's troubled thinkingscoloured his sleeping hours! The divine guidance, which is ever givento waiting minds, was given to him by the way of a dream, which is oneof the Old Testament media of divine communications, and occurs withstriking frequency in this and the following chapter, there being threerecorded as sent to Joseph and one to the Magi. It is observable,however, that to Joseph it is always the'or an angel of the Lord' whoappears in the dream, whereas the dream only is mentioned in the caseof the Magi. The difference of expression may imply a difference in themanner of communication. But in any case, we need not wonder thatdivine communications were abundant at such an hour, nor shall we bestartled, if we believe in the great miracle of the Word's becomingflesh, that a flight of subsidiary miracles, like a bevy of attendantangels, clustered round it.
The most stupendous fact in history is announced by the angel chieflyas the reason for Joseph's going on with his marriage. Surely thatstrange inversion of the apparent importance of the two things speaksfor the historical reliableness of the narrative. The purpose in handis mainly to remove his hesitation and point his course, and he is totake Mary as his wife, for that which is conceived in her is of theHoly Ghost.' Could the superstitious veneration of a later age', whichis supposed to have originated the story of a supernatural birth, havespoken so? As addressed to Joseph, tortured with doubts of Mary andhesitations as to his duty, the sequence of the two things isbeautifully appropriate, otherwise it is monstrous. The great mystery,which lies at the foundation of Christianity, is declared in the fewestand simplest words. That He who is to show God to men, and to save themfrom their sins, must be born of a woman, is plainly necessary. Becausethe children are partakers of flesh and blood,' He also must take partof the same.' That He must be free from the taint in nature, whichpasses down to all who are born of the will of the flesh or of man,' isno less obviously requisite. Both requirements are met in thesupernatural birth of Jesus, and unless both have been met, He is not,and cannot be, the world's saviour. Nor is that supernatural birth lessneedful to explain His manifestly sinless character than it is toqualify Him for His unique office. The world acknowledges that in Himit finds a man without blemish and without spot. How comes He to befree from the flaws which, like black streaks in Parian marble, spoilthe noblest characters? Surely if, after millions of links in thechain, which have all been of mingled metal, there comes one of puregold, it cannot have had the same origin as the others. It is part ofthe chain, the Word was made flesh'; but it has been cast and mouldedin another forge, for it is that which is conceived in her is of theHoly Ghost.'