By J. Vernon McGee
Years ago, the public was subjected to the news of one of the most brutal crimes of the twentieth century: the mass murders that the news media labeled the Sharon Tate case. It is one of the most shocking and sensational crimes in this age of crime. A group of young people, some teenagers, some barely out of their teens, even girls, participated. It was a cold-blooded, wholesale slaying from what looks like a passionless and senseless orgy of blood. This, I think, was the final product of a society that boasted of its new freedom and its new morality and its abandonment of the Judeo-Christian ethic, as they called it. This was nothing new, of course, because the pattern had been duplicated many times before. This is what happens when depraved human nature is free to do its thing. The antediluvians, way back near the beginning of mankind, engaged in great wickedness, evil, corruption, viciousness, vileness, and violence. Paul lists a catalog of things that would characterize a coming generation. Among them is this:
Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. (2 Timothy 3:3)
It looks as though we've arrived, does it not? The most offensive and disgusting factor to me is that the leader of this group of young degenerates, Charles Manson, called himself Jesus Christ! This blasphemous assumption revealed that he was a religious leader operating a depraved and disgusting religion. And there are many like that abroad in our land today.
In another area of our culture, a writer and producer of films turned out a smashing hit. And a hard-boiled newspaper reporter in New York, after he had seen it, wrote, "It's vicious and vile, the most offensive picture I've ever seen." The producer of that picture said that one was tame compared to the next one he planned to produce, saying, "It will truly be vile and offensive, and it will also be blasphemous" - because he was going to portray Jesus Christ.
Two factors, I think, emerge right now in our contemporary culture. One is that the Lord Jesus Christ is still a controversial peson. Nearly two thousand years ago He asked His disciples the question, "Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" (Matthew 16:13). They answered that people thought He was John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Elijah, one of the prophets. But they all came short. The world outside didn't have the answer, and it doesn't have the answer today. Yet they're still talking about Him.
Our culture reveals a second factor: filth, depravity, corruption, degeneracy, and sex have become a religion again. And that's not new, because all the pagan religions of the past were based on sex. The female principle is in the deities of all pagan religions.
Religion has always been the greatest curse of mankind. If you doubt that, look at India today - it's got religion. So does Africa. And the very interesting thing is that the United States of America is filled with religion. But religion has been a curse to mankind, and it always deals with externalities - with rituals, liturgy, forms, rules, regulations, ceremonies, laws, ordinances, rites, orgies, and incantations.
After all, God gave just one religion, and that is the Mosaic system. Christianity is a Person, and you either have that Person or you don't have Him. And to have Christ is salvation - that is not a religion. However, God did give a religion, the Mosaic system, and He gave it to the nation Israel. This nation represented religion in the day that Christ came to this earth and when Jerusalem was the religious center of the world.
As indicated in the introduction, there are four major divisions of the human family, and each Gospel is slanted in the direction of one of these segments. The Gospel of Matthew is written primarily to the nation Israel, and therefore to the religious man. You need a background of the Old Testament to understand Matthew. I have written a book entitled Moving Through Matthew because there is a movement in the Gospel of Matthew. It is like a swinging door that swings back into the Old Testament, gathering up more Old Testament prophecies than any other Gospel, and then it swings into the New Testament farther than any other one since only in the Gospel of Matthew is the church mentioned.
It was written by an ex-taxgatherer to meet the need of his countrymen. As a taxgatherer, Matthew had a great need, although he was a rich man. When Matthew wrote about himself, he had very little to say:
And as Jesus passed forth from there, he saw a man, named
Matthew, sitting at the tax office; and he saith unto him,
Follow me. And he arose, and followed him. (Matthew 9:9)
But both Mark and Luke tell us that Matthew made our Lord a great feast in his house and invited in all his friends for dinner - apparently he was a wealthy man. Matthew tells us practically nothing about himself because he is presenting another.
Now the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is the only New Testament book that was written in Hebrew. How do we know this? Well, Papias, one of the early church fathers, and a bishop in Asia Minor who lived toward the end of the first century and into the second, turned to Christ under the preaching of Philip and Bartholomew. He was an associate of Polycarp, the martyr, and was contemporary with Justus of Jerusalem and Ignatius of Antioch. He is the one who tells us that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew:
Matthew wrote the Oracles (of the Lord) in the Hebrew tongue, and every one interpreted them as he was able.
Eusebius, historian of the third century, wrote:
Matthew having in the first instance delivered his Gospel to his countrymen in their own language, afterward, when he was about to leave them and extend his apostolic mission elsewhere, filled up, or completed, his written Gospel for the use of those whom he was leaving behind, as a compensation for his absence.
And it is interesting to see that Iranaeus and Origen confirmed this also. These were church fathers in whom we have great confidence. And then Jerome - who came along much later but lived in Pales-tine and is considered, I think, the most learned of the Latin fathers - made this statement:
Matthew the publican, called Levi, who composed a Gospel in the Hebrew tongue for the special use of those Jews who had believed in Christ, and no longer followed the shadow of the Law, after the revelation of the substance of the Gospel.4
These are indeed remarkable statements, and they underscore the fact that Hebrew is the only language the Jew would have accepted. You will recall that when Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, the mob was ready to stone him to death, but he was rescued. Then he stood on the stairs while the mob still milled about, ready to take him, and began to speak to them in the Hebrew tongue. This quieted them down just as the Lord had quieted the waves on the Sea of Galilee, and they listened to him. And, after all, that's the language of religion. You remember what the Lord Jesus said to the woman at the well, "Salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22). And Dr. Kurtz, the great German historian, has written, "Judaism prepared salvation for mankind, and heathenism prepared mankind for salvation." Also Dr. Gregory writes, "The world religion has been delivered to them." Isn't it amazing that though the other religions of the world are slanted to a particular group of people, the gospel given to a small group in that day is a message for all mankind? That's something that ought to cause the critic to think twice.
God had prepared these people over the long haul. Two thousand years before Christ came, there was a man living down in Ur of the Chaldees in idolatry, for the whole world had gone into idolatry. And God called this man Abram, and said in effect, "Leave this, and come to a land which I'll show you." And God made certain covenants with that man. He promised him a land, a nation, and that he would be a blessing to the nations of the world - because after the Flood and the Tower of Babel God had to bid good-bye to the human family. (See Genesis 12:1-3.) But He said to them, in essence, "I'll be back, because I'm going to prepare salvation for
the world." And so He prepared the descendants of Abraham, drew them aside from the stream of humanity, segregated them, put them in a place where He could school and train them, and then scattered them throughout the world for a purpose. There is purpose in what our God does.
Three dispersions are predicted in the Bible. It also predicts that the people would be regathered three times. Up to today, all three dispersions have taken place, but only two regatherings. I disagree with those who say that the present nation of Israel is the third regathering. You haven't read the Old Testament if you come to that conclusion, my beloved, because those prophecies concerning that third regathering have not been fulfilled.
The first dispersion took place at the time of Jacob and his family. Seventy people went down to Egypt with Jacob. When they came out, they numbered probably a million and a half. Jacob went down to Egypt at God's direction, and there in the brickyards God forged in the fires of slavery these people into a nation. Then He took them out into the wilderness and there He gave them the Mosaic system, a religion. He kept them in that wilderness forty years to train them and give them the experience of the forty years with the Law. Then, at the end of it, Moses wrote Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is not a repetition of the Law, but it is the interpretation of the Law with forty years' experience. And God gave to them for the ancient world a doctrinal statement that most theologians say is the greatest in the Old Testament: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4). Or let me translate it a little differently: "Jehovah our Elohim (Elohim is plural), our triune God, is one Jehovah." God was saying through the Hebrew people to a world of polytheists, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). And these people bore that witness.
They had an influence. Have you ever wondered about the Greeks and their tremendous civilization? When Homer was writing about the gods upon Mount Olympus and the wars at Troy, David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, was singing praises to God. It is recognized today that they so influenced the Greeks that many intelligent Greeks repudiated the gods on Mount Olympus and became monotheistic. Both Socrates and Plato wrote that way.
Out yonder in the Far East there arose, after the Babylonian captivity, Zoroastrianism (modern Parsiism). Out of the ancient world they testified to the Oneness of God. Where did they get it? They got it from Israel. "Hear, O Israel: Jehovah, our triune God, is one Jehovah."
Then Israel went into Babylonian captivity because they turned to idolatry in spite of what God had said. For seventy years they were down yonder in the land of Babylon. Then, by the decree of Cyrus, king of Persia, Israel returned to their own land. During this period, Jesus was born. Our Lord said after His rejection, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matthew 23:38). "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down" (Matthew 24:2). "When?" His disciples asked. He said, "When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies" (Luke 21:20). And in AD 70, Titus the Roman came and surrounded that city. He breached the wall, and his hordes marched in. Never has there been a slaughter that compares to that. As a result, these people were scattered throughout the world, and they took the synagogue with them to every corner of the empire. That synagogue became the springboard by which Paul and the other apostles preached the gospel in the cities of the Roman Empire. Invariably they were thrown out of the synagogues, so they took the gospel to the Gentiles.
Pharaoh, in Egypt at the time of his greatest crisis, had as prime minister Joseph - and it's a good thing he did. Also, Daniel was prime minister to the rulers of two of the great world empires - Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus. Apparently he influenced them to such an extent that they came to a knowledge of God. Later, a Persian ruler had a Jewish consort by the name of Esther, and a prime minister by the name of Mordecai. Also, a Persian king had a secretary of state by the name of Nehemiah. This was during another critical period in the history of the world when the power passed from the East to the West.
In the day that Christ came, this God-given religion had deteriorated into a liturgy of laws and empty rituals where they would tithe even a little row of anise and cummin (plants used for food seasoning). The scribes and Pharisees, the religious rulers, had reduced God's laws to nothing in the world but form. Our Lord said to them that they concerned themselves with the letter of the Law and missed the spirit of it altogether.
Fundamentalism may be doing that also. It is one thing to say you believe the Bible is the Word of God, it's another thing to know it and let it speak to your heart. You see, fundamentalism can reduce it to a little form and ceremony. Some think if they carry a Bible, learn a certain vocabulary, and act very pious on Sunday, they have it made. But that's the thing for which our Lord condemned the Pharisees and scribes. The people in our Lord's day, for the most part, were ignorant of the Scriptures. They only knew what the scribes and Pharisees gave them - they had no Bible of their own. The orthodox Jew of that day (and they were the majority) would not accept anything that did not conform to the Law and the Prophets. It had to follow the letter of the Law.
Matthew wrote to show that Jesus was the Messiah and that He fulfilled the letter of the Law and the Prophets in His coming to this earth. He said that He was going to initiate a kingdom on earth, but it must conform to the intent of the Old Testament that there must be not just an outward form, but an inward change. And I do wish that the amillennialists under whom I studied in seminary would understand what our Lord really meant when He said, "The kingdom of God is within" (Luke 17:21 KJV). Of course it's within - you don't rub it on the outside like lotion or rubbing alcohol. It's something that has to begin in the heart. And Matthew makes it very clear that the kingdom is to be peopled with folk who've been changed from within. They must have a capacity for God, but Messiah must die to make that possible. That religious leader, Nicodemus, came to Jesus by night to talk about the kingdom. Our Lord said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). But He also told him that "the Son of man [must] be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14, 15). He must die to make the kingdom possible.
The Gospel of Matthew tells about the birth of Jesus. And it opens with these majestic words:
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. (Matthew 1:1)
That was never challenged. That's who He is. The Jew would say, "Sure. If He's the son of Abraham, if He's the son of David, I'll listen." Matthew wrote for the Jew.
Next, the genealogy is given to explain why Joseph could not be the father. Actually, the value of the genealogy is not to show how Jesus could be born of a virgin, but how He could not be born any other way - because Matthew makes it very clear that Jechoniah is in that genealogy (see Matthew 1:11, 12). Those who knew the Old Testament were aware that there had been a curse pronounced upon that line, and no one in that line could sit upon the throne of David (see Jeremiah 22:24-30). How can Joseph have a son to sit upon the throne of David? He can't. However, he can be the husband of Mary, who is also in the line of David through another route - David's son, Nathan. And, by being her husband, Joseph can give to Jesus the royal and legal rights to the throne of David. Israel needed to know that, and Matthew wrote this for that reason.
Matthew cites four Old Testament prophecies that make fulfillment look impossible. If you had lived in that day, you would have said, "How can Messiah be born in Bethlehem? Why are the mothers weeping in Ramah? Why does God call Him out of Egypt? And how can He call Him out of Egypt if He is born in Bethlehem? And, of all things, He's to be brought up in Nazareth to be called a Nazarene! How can it be?" Matthew gives all these prophecies with their fulfillment. He reminds them that Micah predicted He would be born in Bethlehem and records details of that event (see Matthew 2:1-6). He said that there was weeping in Ramah as Jeremiah had said there would be (see Matthew 2:17, 18). (Apparently old Herod drew a circle and said, "We'll kill every baby in the circle." Ramah was included, and there must have been a lot of babies there.) Also, Matthew records how God called Jesus out of Egypt as Hosea had predicted (see Matthew 2:15) and how He happened to be called a Nazarene as Isaiah had said He would be called (see Matthew 2:22, 23).
Daniel gave that marvelous prophecy of the Seventy Weeks, which gives the time that Messiah would be cut off (see Daniel 9:24-26). All Israel should have been sitting on the curbstone in Jerusalem waiting to receive Him as the Triumphal Entry came by.
The Old Testament had even predicted the star. Old Balaam said, "There shall come a Star out of Jacob" (Numbers 24:17). And the wise men came out of the East where Balaam had been, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. (Matthew 2:2)
It was Isaiah who made it very clear that Gentiles were going to be present: "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse" (Isaiah 11:10). Oh, how accurate Isaiah is! Why didn't he say a root of David? He goes back to Jesse, David's father, because by this time there were no longer kings in David's line, but it was back in the peasant class as Jesse was. Isaiah also wrote:
And the nations [Gentiles] shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. (Isaiah 60:3) The wise men were Gentiles, and they sought Him out when Jesus was born.
John the Baptist, Matthew says, came according to prophecy:
For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet, Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. (Matthew 3:3)
And out yonder in the wilderness there went out this message: "Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2). And when our Lord began His ministry, He picked up that message (see Matthew 4:17).
Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount as does no other Gospel writer. Why? He gives it for a people under Law. May I say to you that it's given for people who have a religion. Have you ever noticed that the liberal always goes to it? I've talked to any number of men and women who have said that the Sermon on the Mount was their religion. But I haven't found anybody yet who's keeping it. You'd better change your religion, friend, unless you keep it. Our need is not religion; we need a Savior. And the Sermon on the Mount is religion, it is the ethic that Christ gave. Do not despise the Sermon on the Mount, just realize that you don't keep it and be honest about it. Our Lord also gave the dynamic Matthew records later. Matthew is not attempting to give you a chronological life of Christ. Rather, he clusters together a group of miracles our Lord performed to show you that the One who gave the ethic on top of the mountain had the power to execute it down below. He is the One Matthew is presenting.
Matthew shows that the Sermon on the Mount deals with the outside of man. Why? Because the people have already been dealt with on the inside. Man has to be changed from within. After three years of ministry, our Lord took these men who had been with Him for three years up to Caesarea Philippi where He questioned them: "Who do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" (Matthew 16:13). They answered in effect, "There are all kinds of reports going around." (And they've been going around ever since.) Then He asked, "But who say ye that I am?" (Matthew 16:15, italics mine). (And that's the question He asks you today.) Simon Peter said what any Jew in that day must have said when he came to know Him: "Thou art the Christ [Messiah], the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). The Lord Jesus answered,
Blessed are thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, who is in heaven. (Matthew 16:17)
And at that time He mentions the church for the first time. That is His immediate program now.
But wait a moment, He had something else to give them that was new. After Simon Peter gave that magnificent answer, it is recorded:
From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. (Matthew 16:21)
But Simon Peter wasn't ready for that one! And a lot of people today who have religion are not ready for it, either. Although Peter believed the Old Testament, he was not ready for this.
Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall not be unto thee. (Matthew 16:22)
How wrong was Peter's reaction? It is so wrong that our Lord said, "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Matthew 16:23). That type of talk is satanic. And then, according to Dr. Luke, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. And Matthew, for the benefit of these people, repeats five times that on the way to Jerusalem He said that He was going there to suffer and die. Again and again He gave this forewarning to them. You see, at the very beginning of His ministry, He did not tell His disciples about His death. Now you see why - they weren't ready. They had a religion; they did not think they needed a Savior to die for them.
When our Lord came to Jerusalem for that last time, He denounced the religious rulers as no one has ever been denounced. Listen to Him: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" (Matthew 23:23). The word "hypocrite" was the word used over in Athens for an actor. It's somebody playing a part. Krinomai means to answer. Hupo means to answer back. An actor is one to whom somebody gives a line and a cue and he answers back. A hypocrite was an actor, somebody playing a part. And our Lord said to them, "You're just acting religion." A lot of people play church. It's fun. They love it. You can do many things in a church and not be saved; you can be just acting. Listen to Him:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith. (Matthew 23:23)
They argued about little things. I hear questions like this: "Dr. McGee, do you think a Christian could smoke a cigarette?" My reaction is this: Why don't you grow up? What about faith and mercy and judgment in your life? You don't smoke, but what about your life? Is Christ real to you today or are you merely playing a part? Listen to Him:
Ye blind guides, who strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. (Matthew 23:24)
That's a good one! If I had been there, I would have laughed at that comparison.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. (Matthew 23:25)
That sums it all up: What's outside is religion; what is inside - that's Christianity. When you get the inside clean, the outside will take care of itself.
Then, dropping back a couple of chapters, let me lift out something else that I consider important.
Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner; this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes? (Matthew 21:42)
They have rejected Him, but He will become the head of the corner. He will yet rule on this earth. He is still the Savior of the world.
Now you and I are going to have to deal with Jesus Christ some day. Every person will. Saved or lost, we will stand before Him.
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you [the nation Israel], and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits of it. (Matthew 21:43)
And I think that He is getting ready to take it away from us also.
And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. (Matthew 21:44)
There is the Great White Throne, on which sits the One who must judge you if you reject Him.
And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spoke of them. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they regarded him as a prophet. (Matthew 21:45, 46)
Then our Lord gave a commission, "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations" (Matthew 28:19). And I think that when those disciples heard Him say these words that day on the Mount of Olives, they remembered Isaiah's prediction of Him: "I will also give thee for a light to the nations, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth" (Isaiah 49:6).
Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. Amen. (Matthew 28:19, 20)
That gospel that they were to carry to the ends of the earth is a gospel that can reach inside and transform individuals who will trust Jesus Christ.
Our contemporary culture has rejected Him in more ways than one. Have you noticed that the most popular songs have to do with "I love me"? We're moving now into an era where no longer will there be love songs about the girl or the boy, but "I love myself." This generation really has become interested in itself. "I've got to do my thing. I've got to have my freedom. My opinion is important, you must hear from me." God says that we need to take our rightful place as sinners. We have a great need. We're not really as wonderful as we think we are. We can rub it on the outside, but it's vanishing cream - it won't help. We need a Savior.
Matthew wrote to a religious people. They had religion, but they didn't have Christ.
