Cursed be the Blind Guides

In Matthew 15:14, wherein Jesus charges the Pharisees with leading the

"blind...into the ditch," he seems to be invoking the curse of Deuteronomy 27:18 on his opponents (cf. Lev 19:14). “Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road.' And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”

Speaking, as he did, as the master Torah-expositor, to those who prided themselves as being teachers of the law, it seems certain that the connotations would have been unavoidably obvious to all involved.

Calvin on Matthew 5:17—22, an Abridgment

“We must keep in mind the object which Christ had in view. While he invites and exhorts the Jews to receive the Gospel, he still retains them in obedience to the Law…

“I am not come to destroy. God had, indeed, promised a new covenant at the coming of Christ; but had, at the same time, showed, that it would not be different from the first, but that, on the contrary, its design was, to give a perpetual sanction to the covenant, which he had made from the beginning, with his own people.

“I will write my law, (says he,) in their hearts,
and I will remember their iniquities no more,” (Jeremiah 31:33, 34).

 “By these words he is so far from departing from the former covenant, that, on the contrary, he declares, that it will be confirmed and ratified, when it shall be succeeded by the new. This is also the meaning of Christ’s words, when he says, that he came to fulfill the law: for he actually fulfilled it, by quickening, with his Spirit, the dead letter, and then exhibiting, in reality, what had hitherto appeared only in figure.

“With respect to doctrine, we must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law: for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must, therefore, be as unchangeable, as the justice of God, which it embraced, is constant and uniform…

“Let us therefore learn to maintain inviolable this sacred tie between the law and the Gospel, which many improperly attempt to break. For it contributes not a little to confirm the authority of the Gospel, when we learn, that it is nothing else than a fulfillment of the law; so that both, with one consent, declare God to be their Author.

“Whoever then shall break Christ here speaks expressly of the commandments of life, or the ten words, which all the children of God ought to take as the rule of their life. He therefore declares, that they are false and deceitful teachers, who do not restrain their disciples within obedience to the law, and that they are unworthy to occupy a place in the Church, who weaken, in the slightest degree, the authority of the law; and, on the other hand, that they are honest and faithful ministers of God, who recommend, both by word and by example, the keeping of the law…Those who shall pour contempt on the doctrine of the law, or on a single syllable of it, will be rejected as the lowest of men…

“The kingdom of heaven means the renovation of the Church, or the prosperous condition of the Church, such as was then beginning to appear by the preaching of the Gospel…The meaning of that phrase is, that God, restoring the world by the hand of his Son, has completely established his kingdom. Christ declares that, when his Church shall have been renewed, no teachers must be admitted to it, but those who are faithful expounders of the law, and who labor to maintain its doctrine entire…Again, we must observe the description he gives of good and holy teachers: that not only by words, but chiefly by the example of life, they exhort men to keep the law…

“The principal charge brought by Christ against their doctrine may be easily learned from what follows in the discourse, where he removes from the law their false and wicked interpretations, and restores it to its purity…

“It has been a prevailing opinion, that the beginning of righteousness was laid down in the ancient law, but that the perfection of it is pointed out in the Gospel. But nothing was farther from the design of Christ, than to alter or innovate any thing in the commandments of the law. There God has once fixed the rule of life which he will never retract. But as the law had been corrupted by false expositions, and turned to a profane meaning, Christ vindicates it against such corruptions, and points out its true meaning, from which the Jews had departed.

“That the doctrine of the law not only commences, but brings to perfection, a holy life, may be inferred from a single fact, that it requires a perfect love of God and of our neighbor, (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18.) He who possesses such a love wants nothing of the highest perfection. So far as respects the rules of a holy life, the law conducts men to the goal, or farthest point, of righteousness…

“That Christ, on the other hand, intended to make no correction in the precepts of the law, is very clear from other passages: for to those who desire to enter into life by their good works, he gives no other injunction, than to, keep the commandments of the law, (Matthew 19:17.) From no other source do the Apostles, as well as Christ himself, draw the rules for a devout and holy life. It is doing a grievous injury to God, the author of the Law, to imagine that the eyes, and hands, and feet alone, are trained by it to a hypocritical appearance of good works, and that it is only in the Gospel that we are taught to love God with the heart. Away, then, with that error, ‘The deficiencies of the law are here supplied by Christ.’

Inclusio: Encircling St. Matthew's Gospel

If one was going to take anything away from her high school English composition classes, it was the teacher’s tenacity concerning the unparalleled importance of a good, strong thesis statement and conclusion. The body of a writing assignment, we were always reminded, would drip from our pens if these two elements were carefully created. Further, we were encouraged to treat the first and last sentence of each paragraph in generally the same manner. This is not a modern phenomenon, however. Although the ancients did not stress certain minutia such as insisting the thesis be in the first paragraph, consist of only a single sentence, and the conclusion as an indicative restatement of the thesis, they did make a copious use of this composition convention.

Within the world of literature found in the scriptures and other extant ancient documents is a figure of speech that the Latin students called the inclusio, while the Greeks called same the figure the cyclus. Essentially, like our thesis-conclusion convention, this figure is applied near the beginning and the end of a sentence, a chapter, a unit, or even an entire book. As the Greek name implies, it creates an encircling around the body of work. It is often the case that the author encircles the body of his work with a strong or evocative statement, which he intends to guide the reader’s interpretation of each element between these two outer poles. In lesser to greater degrees, these words or fuller statements at each end of the work will color everything in between. When we can spot these features, we can be sure that we are near to discovering the author’s deepest purposes in his writing.

St. Matthew’s gospel contains several examples of this literary device, the inclusio. For example, the Evangelist begins his work, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ...son of Abraham” (1:1). To any reader conscious of the Old Testament, these introductory words, especially “genealogy” and the mention of Abraham, would have evoked the covenant promises to Abraham, which involved his “seed” bringing Yahweh’s covenant blessings to “all nations” (e.g., Gen. 12:1—3). And then St. Matthew ends with Jesus’ commission to his disciples to take those blessings of his glorious gospel to “all nations” (28:19). This is a textbook inclusio.

Then there is also 1:23, Jesus’ Isaianic title, “Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).” This is met with Jesus’ promised presence to all of his disciples, “And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (28:20). On this divine note, it is worth mentioning that Jesus was “worshipped” at the opening (by the magi, 2:2, 11) and close (by disciples, 28:9, 17) of St. Matthew.

Jesus begins (4:13—16) and ends (ch. 28) his public ministry in “Galilee of the gentiles.” It is there, in Galilee, that he has his first (4:18—22) and final (28:7—10, 16) gathering of his disciples. Additionally, “the angel of the Lord” announced both Jesus’ incarnation (1:18—21) and resurrection (28:1—7).

Perhaps most importantly to St. Matthew are some of the political implications of the Messiah. In the moments of his greatest humiliation and weakness, Jesus brought (and brings) terror and trouble to the worldly powers that stand against him. In his infancy, Jesus “troubled” the supreme Jewish civil authority, Herod (ch. 2); in his trial, while beaten, bloodied, and bound, Jesus struck fear in the Emperor’s extended-self in Pilate (ch. 27). Things are hardly different today. This is likely connected to the fact that people well beyond the Jewish society recognized Jesus for who he was, the “King of the Jews,” the anointed One, the Messiah, who would rule over all. Representing the eastern world, the magi understood this (2:2); representing the western world, Pilate, too, understood the same, even if not wittingly (27:37).

These threads, these themes must color our understanding of the body of St. Matthew’s gospel. If they don’t, we risk misreading the rest of it.  

In Yeshua, YHWH Saves

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:[1] for (γαρ; grounds clause) he [himself][2] shall save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21 KJV).

Here are some gleanings from my message prep for the Second Sunday in Epiphany (which is also Sanctity of Human Life Sunday).

Matt. 1:21 is the fulfillment of the promise of Is. 49:1d, “From the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” So, naturally, it has weighed in on my studies.

I’ve always found this verse to be one of the strongest indirect proofs for Jesus’ deity, similar to Matt. 11:27, St. Matthew’s so-called logion. And there is a transparent word play intended in Jesus’ name in Matt. 1:21 (see fn. 1).

The command to name the Messiah Jesus (Arm. Yesuah or Joshua) is premised or grounded on the fact that “he himself will save his people from their sins” (1:21b). I’ve always struggled to put Jesus’ deity from indirect texts into a sound and valid syllogism. For instance, consider the synthesis of the following verses.

St. John 1:9 calls Jesus “the true Light.” Likewise, in 1 Jn. 1:5 we learn that “God is light.” It seems that these two could be brought into a meaningful deductive relation.

1. Jesus is the true Light;

2. God is Light;

3. Therefore, Jesus is God.

The apparent problem with this is that it creates a formal fallacy, the undistributed middle. No manner of arrangement has proven to be free of either logical or theological fallacies, as far as I can tell. It is clearer when we use other subjects.

1. My Jeep is blue;

2. The sky is blue;

3. Therefore, my jeep is the sky.

Despite these past blunders in trying to create a cogent argument from indirect biblical data, a discussion with Beaner this morning revealed that Matt. 1:21 provides just such a possibility.

            1. Yeshua is Savior of Israel (Matt. 1:21)

            2. The only Savior of Israel is YHWH (Is. 43:11; 45:15, 21, etc.)

            3. Therefore, Yeshua is YHWH.

As far as I can see, this argument is both sound and valid; it is free from logical fallacies. Additionally, it is perfectly consistent with the NT authors’ regular attribution of kurios to Jesus, which are in their OT contexts attributed to YHWH.

---

[1] NAS text note: Jesus is the Gk form of the Hb name “Joshua,” which = “The Lord saves” or “Yahweh saves.”

[2] NAS text note: Lit. He Himself.  

Jesus', the New-True Adam's, Wilderness Probation

As the heading suggests, I’m cautious of the title “the temptation” for its restrictive connotations. The ‘the’, in ‘the temptation’, seems to indicate that the whole of Jesus’ cosmic level struggle against Satan, sin, and the wicked world system in its defiant rebellion toward God is summed up in the forty days and nights in the wilderness. We know, however, that this is not the case. There are, perhaps, even greater problems if we are to place the accent on the ‘temptation’ of ‘the temptation’, as it averts attention away from the event’s divine purpose in God’s redemptive program and poises our focus on merely a single perspective and design for the event, namely Satan’s. In so viewing it, from the vantage of Satan’s schematic purposes, we are bound to be deprived of much of the critical theological content and the particularly messianic nature of the trial.

Probation is, I believe, the best designation for this inaugural event in Jesus’ Messiahship, for it better represents the Father’s design, the Son’s dealings, and the Holy Spirit’s “driving” (Mk 1:12). And it is these that form the intention or purpose underlying the entire experience. Moreover, probation resonates with the allusive OT paradigms the gospel writers were both assuming and including: Adam’s probation in the Garden (per Lk, and maybe in Mk as “he was with the wild beasts...[harmoniously perhaps?]” 1:13; cf. Is 11:6—9; 32:14—20; 65:25; Hos 2:18), and Israel’s first exodus in all three of accounts, which is obvious from Jesus’ citations from Deut 6 and 8. Thus, the weight and results from the failings of both Adam and Israel, as ‘sons of God’ who were created to accomplish all God’s will on earth, were coming to bear on the only Son of God, the second Adam, the true Israel. His obedient submission to the Father throughout this probative period would thus test and prove what kind of Messiah he would be, therefore, determining the entire course of redemption. The meaning of the wilderness experience of Jesus was the means of demonstrating and defining the Father’s purposes for the Son’s Messiahship, being conferred upon Jesus at the baptism through the Holy Spirit’s anointing and the Father’s declarative pronouncement (“My Son...well pleased”). The Son, upon successfully passing this probative period through submission and suffering (Deut 8:2), would enter into the Father’s messianic mission as Victor in the full power of the Spirit.

The broader context of the passage in all three gospels is, in general, identical: (1) the baptism/Father’s pronouncement; (2) the 40 days in the wilderness; and (3) Jesus’ victorious return onto the public scene, “in the power of the Holy Spirit,” to begin his messianic mission. This consistency is coupled with language in every account that clearly connects the baptism to the probation. The authors, then, intend the two to be treated as a unit; the latter can only be understood in light of the former.

The voice of the Father at the baptism not only declared Jesus’ Sonship, but also defined it. The words: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” brings together to critical strands of messianic expectation from the OT. “This is my beloved Son...” is surely drawn from Ps 2:7, which describes Yahweh’s coming Anointed One, the hope and fulfillment of the everlasting Davidic covenant. It is more than mere coincidence that the very next verse of this Psalm (v. 8) speaks of the Father’s promise to the Son, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” Thus, it should not surprise us that Satan’s final assault (per Mt) came in a similar form to the very same promise. It is not as though Satan’s offering Jesus the same thing (Mt 4:8—9) as the Father, “the nations...their glory,” was tempting in itself. Consider the weight of this dilemma—seemingly same promise, one from the Father of Light, the other from the father of lies. It appears the there would be little, if any, struggle in the rational mind when faced with such a choice. But Matthew treats this as the climax of the battle; the very point on which redemption swings. But how can this be?

This question draws us back again to the Father’s voice at the baptism, namely to the second clause: “...with whom I am well pleased.” This allusion points back to Is 42:1ff, a passage that Matthew cites directly in 12:18—21, as does Luke, twice (1:79; 2:32; with allusions in Acts 3:26; 4:27). The opening pericope of this chapter (Is 42:1—9) begins a section of Isaiah known as the suffering Servant songs. Here Yahweh’s Servant is identified with a role of suffering, meekness, and humiliation, one that finally ends in the disgraceful death in Ch. 53, an end administered by none other than the Servant’s “well pleased” Father. This depiction of the hoped for anointed Messiah, although an accepted vein within 1st century messianism, seems to stand in stark contrast, if not out right contradiction, to the exalted, victorious anointed Davidic King of Ps 2! These two streams of messianic hope—humiliation-Servant/exaltation-King—converging in the same figure were formerly inconceivable in Jewish eschatology. However, it is precisely this paradox that informs a right understanding of the wilderness phase of Jesus’ Messiahship and answers the question above regarding Matthew’s final temptation. Concerning the question, the weightiness of Satan’s offer of the glory of the nations was to seemingly grant Jesus his rightful exaltation as the Messiah, thus attaining, at least in part, the end goal of his messianic work while altogether avoiding the demanded humiliation, suffering, and death that were part and parcel of the Father’s plan for his Son/Messiah. Thus, the questions facing Jesus at every point in the wilderness probation were, what kind and, whose Messiah would he be?

This, I believe, explains best the perspective and burden of Jesus in the crisis. The perspective of the Father, as this would be, for his Son, a time of testing, trial, that is, probation. Even Satan’s perspective is best illuminated from this angle. Satan’s primary objective was not to bring uncertainty directly upon Jesus’ Sonship or even his sinlessness; but, at first subtle then in sudden desperation, an attempt to derail or, better, abort the Father’s plan to establish his Messianic King, his kingdom, and consequently destroy the very works of the Devil himself (I Jn 3:8). Satan’s awareness of the ultimate doom he would face as a result of Jesus’ success, which began principally at the end of the wilderness probation, is also revealed in his citation of Ps 91:11—12. While Satan rightly observes the promise of special providence for the trusting One of Ps 91, he must too have been fully aware of the promise of v. 13 as well, “...the serpent you will trample underfoot!” (cf. Lk 10:19; Mk 16:18; Gen 3:15).

Unlike Adam, who failed in a state of perfection; Jesus, cloaked in humiliation, came out unscathed from his struggle on a sin torn battlefield! More than that, Adam’s success would have kept him from suffering loss; Jesus’ success first recovered Adam’s loss, and then gained the Messiah’s mantle. Hence, in the desert wilderness Jesus proved what was in his heart—humble, absolute trust in the Father’s promises—the kind of submissive obedience God requires of all people, yet never given by a person before, was offered up by Jesus in the harshest of conditions, thus gaining his Messiahship and our much needed righteousness! Our True Joshua, leading us in to conquer the Promise Land (II Cor 2:14)!

Behold This Fowl! Our First Ever Rose-breasted Grosbeak

“Behold the fowls of the air,” commanded Jesus (Matt. 6:26).  John Stott remarked, “Jesus was an acute observer of nature” (The Birds our Teachers: Biblical Lessons from a Lifelong Bird-Watcher, p. 14).  These things being so, today we were blessed to both obey and imitate Jesus!  For the first time in nearly twenty years of birding, we had the distinct pleasure to acutely observing the first Rose-breasted Grosbeak that we remember ever seeing. 

While walking across the deck late this morning, I caught a flash of black and white near the suet feeder hanging above a sitting bench in the southeastern corner of the yard.  I nearly dismissed it at being our regular Mockingbird; thankfully, though, I took a second glance.  I hollered to Fanny to grab the glasses, hopefully suggesting it might be a Grosbeak.  Sure enough!

I could hardly make the positive identification before Fanny’s head gradually appeared in the lower rim of my binocular picture.  Typically, she had already begun her stealthy stalk toward the unsuspecting bird.  Perhaps more than any other situation, Fanny’s one-eighth of Cherokee blood is evidenced when there is a beautiful bird in the yard and her Kodak Z990 is in hand.  She slowly moves across the lawn seemingly without even bending a clover stem (it is almost creepy to watch!).  It can also be frustrating, as Israel and I are satisfied after a shot or two.  However, neither we nor the dogs are allowed to come out of the house, until Fanny is convinced that the bird has left the area and is never, ever, ever returning...lest she misses one last opportunity for a shot! Ugh.

Today was worth the wait.  She was able to pull off these and many other remarkable pictures. 

Then this evening, he returned again.  He relaxingly feasted on some more suet, while we were working the garden beds a mere twenty foot from the feeder.  He spent about ten minutes with us and was off again.  This jewel doesn’t normally summer in our region, so we are probably just a brief stop on the spring migration trip.  What a joy!

Because our fowl friend is still in molting, I would suggest clicking the link above and seeing the bird in full plumage in order to fully appreciate the brilliant handiwork of our incomprehensible Creator God!