THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 10, Chapter 4 continued
The Early Church Father Chrysostom said this about the temptations of
Christ: "The devil begins with the temptation to indulge the belly. By this
same means he cast out the first man, and by this means many are still
cast down."
In our study of Matthew chapter 4, immediately Yeshua is led into 3 temptations.
As Chrysostom comments, it is not a coincidence that Yeshua and the first man
Adam (or better, first couple) were tempted with food by the Evil One. Food is a
powerful need in humans and therefore can be a powerful force in swaying
humans. And yet Chrysostom sees that there is more to food than only the
nutrition and calories that it necessarily provides.
For those who have studied the Torah with me (and I hope you all have because
you'll get so much more out of any study of the New Testament), you'll recall that
Adam and Eve were originally given, by God, what I call "a one-law Torah". And
what was the first and only law God gave to them while they were still being
allowed to inhabit the Garden of Eden? Do not eat of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. And, of course, they broke that law. The breaking of
that law is known in various Church doctrines as the Fall of Man, the Fall from
Grace, and a few other titles. So the first law ever given to mankind involved diet:
food. And the breaking of a law about food completely redirected the destiny of
all of humanity in innumerable and painful ways that would require a Redeemer
to fix it. Centuries later, at Mt. Sinai, God would give Israel a more extensive set
of laws regarding diet; laws that have come to be popularly known as Kosher
food laws.
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Nearly all of the Earliest Church Fathers whose commentaries on Matthew's
Gospel have survived, noticed this connection between Adam and Christ, and
some of them noticed this matter of food as the object of a temptation they both
faced. In Adam's case he had an abundance of food in the Garden. And still
when the Devil tempted him by making this one specific food off-limits, Adam
succumbed to it. While in Christ's case of the temptation in the wilderness He had
no food, this starving man was also tempted by the Devil by telling Him to turn
stones into food to satisfy His gnawing hunger (which, apparently, Yeshua could
have done as He did not dispute Satan on the matter except that He should not
do such a thing). Yeshua resisted the temptation and was victorious.
I find it instructional that the Early Church Fathers were so very aware of the
relationship between Adam and Yeshua's temptations, and that food was the
object of the first temptation for both of them. But then these same Church
Fathers seem to ignore or rationalize away that God goes on in the Torah to
carefully lay out what the diet for humans ought and ought not to be. That is,
what God ordains as permissible for eating versus what is forbidden. One could
argue that this God-commanded diet was only meant for Hebrews, or perhaps
that gentile Believers in Yeshua are also to be included along with the Hebrews. I
would respond that all mankind was meant to eat this way. However it is logical
and it is human nature that only those who trust in the God of Israel and believe
His Word would think to follow the food laws. All others would find such
instructions as irrelevant to them.
So, fellow Believers and followers of Jesus of Nazareth, what say you? I say
unequivocally that we are to eat biblically kosher. Is it sin not to follow those food
laws? Of course it is. The definition of sin is to disobey God's commandments.
Note I say biblically kosher food commandments because I don't accept the large
body of manmade Rabbinical Tradition about kosher eating that has taken but
one chapter in Leviticus concerning food and turned it into scores of pages of
arcane eating rules.
It is a curious truth that even in the secular world of medical science, it is said
that "we are what we eat". It has been understood for a long time that our diet
plays a significant role in our lives. Although Doctors, scientists, and nutritionists
are speaking only of our physical biological lives, God views diet as affecting
primarily our spiritual lives (and that didn't start at Mt. Sinai but rather in the
Garden of Eden). In the spiritual realm the Lord is the first to tell us that in His
eyes "we are what we eat". On the surface the matter of food is a rather simplistic
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one: God has set down what is food for humans and what is not. Edibility is not
the point of the food selection process, and for the most part neither are health
benefits. God, in His supremacy and perfection, has deemed and commanded
the proper human diet. As Believers in Him, then all that is left for us to decide is:
will we obey or not? Yes, the issue is obedience versus sin and nothing else.
Don't be searching for scientific rationale for whether you should or should not
follow the biblical food laws; lots of things we could eat are no doubt delicious
and physically healthy. Rather be considering your position before the Lord, and
whether you want to be seen by Him as faithful or not. God did not set the food
laws down as an option for us; Adam found that out the hard way, and we've all
been affected by that rebellious act ever since. Yeshua, in the most stressful and
painful of circumstances, chose to trust and obey His Father and so refused to
take the Devil's bait in order to satisfy His want of food. We've all benefited by
that faithful act of Our Savior ever since.
The second temptation of Christ involved Satan taking Him up to the highest
point of the Temple in Jerusalem, and inviting Him to jump off. Taunting Him
that IF He was truly God's Son, His Father would send angels to catch Him. The
Devil was trying to sow seeds of doubt into Yeshua by employing the "if" word.
But He swatted that one away by quoting God's commandment in Deuteronomy
6:16 that man should not put God on trial by doing such a foolish thing as
jumping off a high place and expecting God to catch us. The Early Church Father
Hilary of Poitiers, at about the turn of the 3rd to the 4th century, made this
fascinating observation in his commentary on Matthew. Hilary says: "He (the
Devil) set Him (Christ) on the pinnacle of the Temple, as if towering over the
laws and the prophets". In other words, Satan indeed was trying to put himself
above God's laws and commandments, which by definition means he was trying
to put God on trial. Let that gestate for a few seconds. When we think that we...
mere created beings.... can set aside our Creator's laws and commands by
manufacturing new doctrines and commands that please us better, we are
putting God on trial. We are putting ourselves towering above God, towering over
His laws and commands, thus behaving exactly as the Devil did in this second
temptation of Christ.
In the very next chapter of Matthew, which begins Yeshua's Sermon on the
Mount, Yeshua makes sure that His followers understand what I just told you.
CJB
Matthew 5:17-19
17
"Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete.
18
Yes indeed! I
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tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a
stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has
happened.
19
So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches
others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But
whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of
Heaven.
So even Christ did not put Himself above God's laws and commands such that
He could add to or subtract from them. Even though the vast bulk of the
institutional Church has for centuries not been faithful or truthful on this matter,
and instead has instituted new manmade doctrines that has told billions of
Christians that for them God's laws and commands are dead and gone because
Christ did away with them, Christ Himself said otherwise. In Matthew 4 when
Yeshua fights the Devil He specifically uses Scripture passages from the Torah
as His weapon. Now, why, if His purpose was to abolish the Torah would He use
it as an example for us to follow? Why would He soon follow up in His Sermon on
the Mount and specifically declare that not only didn't He come with the purpose
of abolishing the Torah and the Prophets, but also warning that whoever might
think to disobey these laws and commands of the Torah and teach others to do
so is going to find him or her self occupying the lowest possible rung on the
Heavenly Ladder in God's Kingdom society. It pains me to no end that the
Church has done such a damaging and unscriptural thing primarily with the
purpose of trying to achieve gentile superiority over the early Church's Jewish
leadership. It has led to nothing but disobedience and a weakening of Christian
faith. But now you know the truth, and you are seeing it for yourself in God's
Word. So how you respond to this scriptural knowledge will have much to do with
your personal eternal future and where you might be placed within God's
Kingdom structure.
The third temptation of Christ was that the Devil offered Yeshua rulership over
the entire planet in exchange for bowing down to him. Jesus's response to him
was "away with you Satan" or more popularly "get behind Me, Satan". Next we
read: "Then the Adversary let Him alone..." In an anonymous Christian
commentary on Matthew, written sometime in the 5th century; a work that has
been labeled by Theologians as The Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 5, its
unknown writer offers us this uplifting perspective about what happened with
Yeshua and how this applies to us.
"He (Christ) put an end to the Devil's tempting when he said 'Get behind me
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Satan!". The devil could progress no further with his temptation. But we
can rightly understand and reasonably ascertain that he withdrew not as
though in obedience to the command. Rather it was the divinity of Christ or
the Holy Spirit in Christ who drove away the Devil. This gives us great
consolation, for the Devil cannot tempt God's people as long as he wishes.
He can tempt them only so long as Christ or the Holy Spirit who is in them
allows him to."
What a wonderful and important point of view for us to grasp. It is not the
mechanical quoting of Scripture passages that blocks the Devil, just as it is not
the mechanical doing of God's laws and commands that satisfies the Lord. When
we are saved, and Christ or the Holy Spirit (however we choose to phrase it)
dwells within us, and when as Believers we find occasion to rebuke the Devil's
temptations by speaking God's Word to him, it is the power of God within us that
the Devil flees from; not from our human ability to remember and quote it.
So now let's move on in Matthew chapter 4 to learn about what follows the
temptation of Christ. Open your Bibles to Matthew 4.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 4:11 - end
I'd like to remark here that the implication that after Satan withdrew and let Jesus
alone that angels ministered to Him, is sort of mysterious to me. How, exactly, did
angels minister to Him? Did they bring Him food? Did they comfort Him in some
way? Did they congratulate or praise Him? Why couldn't regular humans, instead
of angels, do most of this for Him? I don't think I have a solid enough answer to
this because there is simply no further information provided to us. Yet let's not
overlook the plain matter that apparently Yeshua, Himself also being
God, needed to be ministered to. It can be very complicated and challenging to
either separate or combine Yeshua's humanity with His divinity and speak of it
and think of it in some orderly and comprehensible way. Since God has no
needs, then in this case it can only be that Jesus, the human being, did.
We're not told how long it was between each of the 3 temptations or if they
occurred in rapid succession. After a person has not eaten in 40 days, a couple
of hearty meals doesn't bring a person back to good health. So perhaps a time of
regaining His physical strength had something to do with the ministration of the
angels. I suspect that it also had to do with His spirit and His emotions. I cannot
even imagine the stress He was under and the physical exhaustion that
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accompanied it; He knew the weight of the world, and the eternal fate of
humanity, rest upon His shoulders. The Devil tried to take advantage of this fact; I
think the angels came to give Jesus rest in a way that can only come from
Heaven.
Verse 12 shifts the subject. Here we learn that John the Baptist has been
arrested but we're not given any particulars about it. Later in chapter 14 Matthew
will address this in more detail as kind of a flash-back. Nonetheless John's arrest
occurred while Yeshua was in Judea and so it became a signal to Yeshua that
He needed to leave and go back home to the Galilee. Some commentators see
what Yeshua did as fleeing because He is so intimately connected to John that
He thinks He'll be the next to be arrested. And yet the Galilee isn't all that far
away and if Antipas really wanted to find Yeshua and arrest Him it wouldn't have
been terribly difficult. Others think that the arrest of John, and Jesus going back
to the Galilee, are not necessarily linked. It's just that Matthew is only telling us
two separate things: 1) John had been imprisoned, and 2) Jesus went back to the
Galilee to begin His ministry. I'm not at all sure which is the case. However the
next verse may give us some more information that gives us a clue about it.
Verse 13 says that He went back to His hometown of Nazareth, but then moved
to Capernaum. Was He doing this to evade the authorities? Perhaps. But
Matthew says in verse 14 that the reason for this move was in order to fulfill a
prophecy of Isaiah. In other words, some of the things Christ did, He did
purposely for little other reason than to fulfill ancient Messianic prophecies
concerning His coming and His mission as Israel's Messiah.
Capernaum is an English translation of the Hebrew K'far Nahum, which means
"the village of Nahum". The village was located on the Sea of Galilee (and it is
still there), so a goodly part of its economy depended on fishing. That Matthew
tells us that the village was near the border between the tribal territories allotted
to the tribes of Zevulun and Naphtali further indicates that Matthew resided in the
Holy Land and that he was quite studied in the Hebrew Bible because in no way
were those tribal territories meaningful any longer even to most Jews. Once the
Assyrians conquered the north of Israel towards the end of the 8th century B.C.,
and then 130 years later when the Babylonians conquered the south, the tribal
territory names (other than for Judah) were mostly erased and whatever
boundaries they had been given by Moses and Joshua disappeared. This all
happened centuries before Christ's era. So mention of the tribal territories of
Zevulun and Naphtali solidifies that Matthew's intended audience was Jews
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because the old tribal geography and those old tribal names would have had no
meaning outside of the Jewish population.
Next Matthew quotes the pertinent section of the prophecy that he says Jesus is
fulfilling by His moving to K'far Nahum, and it comes from Isaiah chapters 8 and
9. Most Believers have heard this passage in Matthew a number of times.
However remembering that this came from a Prophet that lived 7 centuries
earlier, and the circumstances of his day were entirely different than they were in
Christ's era, I want to take the time to put this prophecy in context because it
becomes all the more meaningful. So let's read all of Isaiah 8 and then the first 6
verses of Isaiah 9. Turn your Bibles there, now, and read along with me.
READ ISAIAH CHAPTER 8:1 - 9:6
The mention of Ashur at the beginning is speaking of the Assyrian Kingdom that
Isaiah says will conquer the 10 northern tribes of Israel and carry them off.
History shows that they were scattered all over Asia and Northern Africa. This
exile from their land is judgment upon all Israel by Yehoveh for their idolatry and
unfaithfulness. And at the same time, while the Lord has prepared and drawn in
gentile nations to be the earthly sword of God's judgment, He's going to shatter
them for being so hard on His people. So God sort of says to these gentile
nations: go ahead and laugh now, because you won't be laughing later.
The people of Israel, however, are oblivious to their own rebellion and idolatry
and the coming consequences, even though God has sent Prophets, including
Isaiah, to warn them. The 12 tribes are like a disabled ship bobbing around on a
churning sea having lost its rudder. Each man is doing what is right in his own
eyes. The 10 northern tribes, especially, have been blatantly bowing down to
other gods along with insincerely worshipping Yehoveh for some time; and the 2
tribes that form Judah are being slowly drawn into the same destructive behavior.
Finally the breaking point is reached; what Isaiah describes next is the Israelites
reaching out frantically in all directions for the solutions to their growing
frustrations, misfortunes and overwhelming problems. They try pressuring their
Prophets into contacting the dead for answers. They try sacrifice to other gods
hoping for their favor. They quit consulting God's Word for direction and look to
others or to themselves. There is only one word to describe the condition of Israel
at this time: confusion.
Starting in Isaiah 8:11 the Prophet says that God told him that even through
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these are Isaiah's own people, he is not to join them in this nonsense. Don't listen
to the conspiracy theories and don't buy in. Don't dread what the people dread,
don't fear what the leaders fear. In other words, don't listen to all the noise of a
disjointed society and become as anxiety driven as they are. What perfect
wisdom that is for us, God's Believers, in our day. What Israel was doing 2700
years ago sounds amazingly similar to what the entire world is doing today. And
it has led to a state of confusion and chaos that even the Church has not
escaped. Hear and do what God says to us, His worshippers. We have no choice
but to observe what is occurring all around us but we don't have to participate.
Even more, we are to seek the Lord God of Israel and not other gods for answers
and for wisdom. We are not to run after the gods of other religions, the gods of
science and technology, the gods of prosperity, the gods of government and
political ideology, nor the gods of self and self pleasure. The only remedy for the
ever shifting sands of confusion is to reverse course and return to the safety of
the Rock.
Then we arrive at Isaiah 8 verse 23. Time passes..... God's people wait for their
deliverance.... they wait....more time than the people of Israel thought would pass
drifts by at glacial speed. Naturally they hoped that what Isaiah told them was
going to happen might play out in months, maybe a few years. But no..... 700
years goes by to the point that the people now living in the lands of Zevulun and
Naphtali (in Yeshua's time known best as the upper Galilee) are barely aware
whose tribal lands they stand upon. In fact, it's not the tribal members of Zevulun
and Naphtali who live there anymore, because during Yeshua's day those tribes
had still not returned to their land but rather they remained in exile. Those other
people consist of not just a few gentiles, and they don't know the land's history.
As we have arrived at the biblical passage that forms verses 15 and 16 in
Matthew chapter 4 and we compare it to Isaiah 8 and 9, we note first of all that
Matthew paraphrases Isaiah's prophecy for his own purpose and applies it to
Capernaum and the surrounding areas, and to Yeshua as the Messiah (another
use of remez or perhaps drash in Bible interpretation). Those areas that the
Isaiah prophecy describes are in Christ's era the several Jewish lake front
villages ("lake" is a term that is used to this day in Israel when speaking about
what gentiles call the Sea of Galilee). The passage also describes areas on the
east side of the Jordan River (because in 700 B.C. Israel still held substantial
tribal territories there, but that was no longer the case in Yeshua's time). And
then finally we hear of the Galilee of the Gentiles because so many gentiles
occupied areas around the west side of the Sea of Galilee, and even more so on
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the east side. The reality is that Rome was in charge of that entire region.
All of these areas around the Galilee that Isaiah describes are home to the
people he says have been walking "in great darkness"; but now these same
people have seen a "great light". In Hebrew the word "darkness" as used in
Isaiah's prophecy is choshek. This is not a word that speaks of the darkness of
nighttime or of a darkened room. Rather choshek is used to describe obscurity,
oppression, and deception. So the great darkness is a
great spiritual darkness.... evil ... shared by Israelites and gentiles alike. And the
great light that Isaiah prophesies about is in its original Hebrew owr. It is a type
of light that is not the kind that comes from the sun, or from a torch or a light bulb.
Rather owr means enlightenment..... truth.... revelation; the qualities of good that
are the foundation of God's (and Messiah's) nature. These are the same words
used to describe various aspects of Israel's experience in Egypt. Matthew takes
the term "great light" in Isaiah's prophecy to mean the Messiah (and I have no
doubt that is exactly what Isaiah was prophesying). When we hear about those
living in the region as living in the shadow of death, I think the ultimate meaning
is the shadow of eternal death..... a spiritual death is being contemplated much
more than a physical death that all humans will experience. Also because thus
far in Isaiah's prophecy the terms concerning the dark condition of the people
and then the arrival of the great light are spiritual terms.
In verse 17 we have Yeshua using the same words that John the Baptist used as
he called people to his baptism: turn from your sins to God, and the Kingdom of
Heaven is near. He used the same words as John because that is exactly what
His purpose was for His coming. Those same words are not on the lips of the
Prophets that prepare the way for Yeshua's return at the End of Days, nor are
they what Yeshua will speak when He comes back in power and glory. This is
because upon His first appearance He came as His Father's agent to redeem.
The next time He comes (His return), He comes as His Father's agent to carry
out God's wrath and vengeance. First coming: salvation. Second coming:
judgment. Therefore the message is that God's Kingdom on earth has just been
inaugurated, and the only means to gain membership is to sincerely repent.
Why? Because the Kingdom of Heaven (or of God) is not a place; it is not like an
enormous Shangra La. Rather it represents God's rule that itself is expressed in
the lives of human beings. If you are a Believer, the Kingdom of God is already
within you. And while that Kingdom is, for now, fully spiritual in nature, in time it
will transform and become the spiritual AND physical condition of the new
heavens and new earth.
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This is why the concept that we find playing out in Matthew that the Kingdom of
Heaven is present, it is coming, and it is also future can be so confusing and the
subject of several varying Church doctrines that usually focus on but one,
perhaps two, of those three aspects of it. Although I'll have more to say about it
as our lessons in Matthew continue, for now just know that it was John the
Baptist who inaugurated the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, it is Yeshua and later
with the help of His disciples (then and now) who are expanding the Kingdom by
means of spreading the Good News, and then finally the Kingdom reaches it's
completed form when the old heavens and old earth pass away to make room for
the new heavens and new earth. I'll say this another way: the Kingdom of
Heaven does not belong only to a moment in history, but rather it consists of its
establishment by means of a series of events over a period of time. That time
period is not precisely specified, however the so-called End Times prophets
(such as Daniel and Ezekiel) together with the Book of Revelation give to us the
major milestone events and some semblance of their order.
Before I move on to the next verse I also want to say how fortunate we are and
continue to be. We still live in an extended era that began around 30 A.D.
whereby repentance and sincere trust in God and His Son deliver us from the
coming wrath of God. We still live in an extended era when we, as God's
worshippers, can tell others.... some who we know and love, some who we don't
know at all..... about Yeshua and the Kingdom of Heaven, and they still have the
opportunity to repent and be delivered from the coming wrath of God. The time is
coming when this option and opportunity ends with no exceptions.
Verse18 speaks of when Yeshua began His ministry in earnest, and He did so by
choosing some disciples. We are told that he walked along Lake Kinneret; or as
the Greek manuscripts have it "the Sea of Tiberias". English versions call it "the
Sea of Galilee". Kinneret is based on the Hebrew word kinnar, which means
harp; the lake was harp shaped in Jesus's day. Calling it the Sea of Tiberias is
because Tiberias was the name of a large city located near the lake's
southwestern shore. And the Sea of Galilee was called that for the obvious
reason that the large lake was located in the Galilee. Yeshua spotted a couple of
brothers, fishermen who were fishing at the time, and offered to make them
fishers of men. One was called Andrew, the other in English is Simon Peter. In
Hebrew Simon Peter is Shimon Kefa. Kefa is actually an Aramaic word that
means rock. In Greek the word rock is petros. Petros became Peter in English.
Sometimes we'll see his name as Cephas.
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We're told that these 2 brothers didn't hesitate. They left their net and followed
Yeshua. As the 4 Gospels tend to do, they agree on substance but not always on
detail. The Gospel of John has Yeshua gaining His first 2 disciples slightly
differently than how Matthew frames it.
CJB
John. 1:35-42
35
The next day, Yochanan was again standing with two of
his talmidim.
36
On seeing Yeshua walking by, he said, "Look! God's
lamb!"
37
His two talmidim heard him speaking, and they followed
Yeshua.
38
Yeshua turned and saw them following him, and he asked them,
"What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi!" (which means
"Teacher!") "Where are you staying?"
39
He said to them, "Come and see."
So they went and saw where he was staying, and remained with him the
rest of the day- it was about four o'clock in the afternoon.
40
One of the two
who had heard Yochanan and had followed Yeshua was Andrew the
brother of Shim'on Kefa.
41
The first thing he did was to find his brother
Shim'on and tell him, "We've found the Mashiach!" (The word means "one
who has been anointed.")
42
He took him to Yeshua. Looking at him, Yeshua
said, "You are Shim'on Bar-Yochanan; you will be known as Kefa." (The
name means "rock.")
So John's Gospel has it that Yeshua was walking near John the Baptist and 2 of
John's disciples. John says "Look, God's Lamb" and quickly John's 2 disciples go
after Jesus. They caught up to Him and ask Him where He was staying (it was
Capernaum at this time). One of the two was Andrew, who took Christ to his
brother Shimon Bar-Yochanan where Yeshua said he'd be called Kefa (the
rock) from here on. So what we find is that Andrew was first a disciple of John the
Baptist; but he left him to become one of Christ's original 12. We don't know what
happened to the other disciple of John who had tagged along. And according to
John, it was Yeshua who gave Simon his nickname of Kefa..... Peter.... the rock.
Next week we'll continue with Yeshua calling His first disciples and then move
into chapter 5.
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