Category: Devotional Grist

Matthew 11:25-30 is set in the context where it is recorded how Jesus has been rejected despite the impressive character of John The Baptist’s witness. Both the religious leaders and certain communities had rejected Jesus and that despite the miracles wrought by Jesus in those cities.

In the midst of this rejection Jesus offers up Thanksgiving.

I.) Jesus’ Gives Thanksgiving For The Father’s Giving & Hiding Of Revelation

This is a fulfillment of passages like Psalm 19:7

Hidden (ness) of Revelation — The Thanksgiving offered up for the Hidden(ness) of the revelation should be understood as a Thanksgiving that God’s revelatory word was in control of God. Christ is giving thanks here that it is the Father’s job to make Himself known and that that knowing can not be gained by the proud and arrogant.

When Jesus thanks the Father that the the truths of the Gospel are hidden from the “wise” and “prudent” we should understand that those people were “wise” and “prudent” in their own eyes. They were, as we might say today, the “Elites” or the “wizards of smart,” which is not to say that they weren’t wise in some measure but only that they were “to smart by half,” as the proverb goes.

One point to take here is that the Thanksgiving of Jesus is not a blanket warning against wisdom or intelligence but only wisdom and prudence that has a certain arrogant and snobbish quality about it, for even in the matter of wisdom God resists the proud by gives grace to the humble.

Revealed(ness) of Revelation — Jesus’ Thanksgiving for God’s revelation has a flavor of astonishment about it. Early Church Father Chrysostom put it this way,

“What wise men knew not was known to babes”

Once again the implicit recommendation in all this is not a warning against being wise or prudent but rather being wise in our own eyes. The “Babes” referred to in this passage were likely those that had not been rigorously schooled in Oral Law as the “wise and prudent” had.

If we were to put this in 21st century terms it would have been the ministers and Doctors of the Church whom Jesus was hidden from and the laymen to whom he is revealed … and such remains often the way things are.

In any case the passage in question clearly sets forth that understanding of God’s Word is not so much a matter of intellectual pursuit as it is a matter of God making himself known. Jesus Thanksgiving here reminds us again why we are Reformed.

It is God who opens the eyes of the blind and shuts the eyes of the seeing. Here is a statement regarding God’s sovereignty. What causes one man to embrace Christ and another man to reject Christ? Ultimately only God’s good pleasure.

It is only those whom God has set apart to see who will see. Here is a statement regarding election. Why does one man embrace Christ and another man reject Christ? Ultimately only because one has been set apart to salvation while the other has been passed by.

Those who are set apart to see will see. Here is a statement regarding irresistible grace. Why will one come of his own free will while the other won’t? Ultimately only because God loosens the dead will to become free to pursue him while the other one’s will is left where it desires to be.

All of this reminds us that we have no reason to boast. Our salvation is completely Christ dependent. What good do we have that we have not gained from another? None.

But let us press on here and ask the Text “what ‘things’ is it that have been hidden from the wise and revealed to babes.”

The context here tells us the “things” that are being spoken off are the words and miraculous works of Jesus (cmp. Mt. 11:20-24). What has been missed is that the Kingdom of God is present in the person and ministry of Jesus. This is what has been missed by the “wise and prudent” and embraced by babes.

II.)Jesus’ Thanksgiving For Being Known, Knower, & Revealer Of The Father

This next statement reveals the co-extensive nature of the work of Salvation between Father and the Son.

First we should understand that the mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son is for the benefit of the elect. It is because there is this intra-trinitarian knowing of the Father and Son that we can now know the Father. Note that the way we know the Father is by knowing the Son.

We are not far from the similar truth communicated in John 1:18, 14:9 here.

Second, understand that because of the nature of the Trinity it is the case that when we know the Son and the Son knows us we not only know the Father but we are known by the Father. There is the sense of a great communion of the Trinity that we are taken up into by our salvation. We become not only knowers of God but also those who are known by God.

The Father is that which is revealed, The Son is the Revelation and the Spirit is the one who does the revealing.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Matthew 22:21

The question that begs being asked here is, “what exactly belongs to God?”

Clearly the answer is everything, including the State.

The next question then becomes, “what exactly belongs to Caesar?”

Clearly the answer is only one thing and that is the authority to enforce God’s law, for His glory and the good of His church.

Romans 13 causes us to lean in this direction as it calls Caesar ‘God’s minister’ to do us good. As long as they ACT like God’s minister, by doing us good we are to obey them. When they begin to act like Satan’s minister, by doing us evil, then we must obey God rather then men.

Anything less then this view is impotent gnostic pietism. The Presbyterians of 1776 would not recognize the Presbyterians of today.

Hat Tip — Randall Gerard for so succinctly stating this.
I’ve only marginally modified how he originally put this.

“When morning came it was Leah.” Gen. 29:25

“Jacob who deceived his father who had ‘weak eyes,’ now discovers that his new wife has weak eyes. The deceiver has been deceived, and that by the same trick he had used on his father. Jacob had pretended to be his older brother Esau, and the deception worked because Isaac was blind and drank wine (Gen. 27:25). Now Leah has pretended to be her younger sister Rachel, and the deception worked because Jacob was blind in the dark night and drank wine.”

Sidney Greidanus
Preaching Christ From Genesis

Jacob’s whole life is characterized by deception. From his deception of Esau, to his deception of Isaac, to his deception by Laban and of Laban, to Rachel’s deception of Laban in reference to the household idols, to the deception by his sons regarding the death of Joseph, to the deception of his sons upon the Shechemites in the Dinah incident, all of Jacob’s life is characterized by deception. Even at the end of his life when Jacob blesses the sons of Joseph there is the air of deception as, at the last second, he crosses his arms and blesses Joseph’s sons in reverse of their age.

In the end we see that Jacob’s life is a testimony of God’s grace. From beginning to end it is only sinners that God saves.

When we read of the Garden description in Genesis and then compare it to some of the descriptions of the Tabernacle and Temple in the Old Testament we find some interesting parallels.

1.) The Lord God walks in Eden as he later does in the Tabernacle (3:8 cf. Lev. 26:12).

2.) Eden and the later sanctuaries are entered from the East (Ezek. 41:1) and guarded by Cherubim (Gen. 3:24, Ex. 25:18-22, 26:31, I Ki. 6:23-29).

As a slight rabbit trail, throughout Scripture a literary technique is often used equating man moving East with man moving away from God. Adam and Eve were drove out of Eden moving East. Cain dwelt in the land of Nod, East of Eden. In Genesis 11 the men who will build Babel in defiance of God, are noted as “moving East.” In the New Testament there is a opposite movement of man to God as the Wise Men (representative of the Gentile nations who will come to Christ) move from East to West to come to Christ.

3.) The pair of Hebrew verbs in God’s command to the man to ‘work it (the garden) and take care of it (2:15) are only used in combination elsewhere in the Pentateuch of the duties of the Levites in the Sanctuary (cf. Numbers 3:7-8, 8:26, 18:5-6).

In light of this the garden tended by Adam and Eve should be thought of as a Temple Sanctuary. As in all environments where God and Man dwell together, what made the Garden the Garden was the presence of God and the intimacy known between God and His people. This presence was muted, or perhaps better put, constrained after the fall as God’s presence had to be mediated by the priesthood. But with the death of Christ the great symbol that communicated that restricted presence of God — the curtain — was rent in twain and once again God’s people could walk with God and enjoy His presence through the mediatorial work of Christ as brought by the Spirit. With the work of Christ men who trust in Christ are once again put in the garden that they were removed from in the fall and forbidden from in the shadow covenant.

Now, naturally there is a “not yetness” to this present re-establishment of God’s garden Kingdom dwelling but we should be mindful that Scripture teaches that we have been translated from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom (garden) of God’s dear Son. Further Scripture teaches, in the book of Revelation, of the time when all the “not yetness” of the present now Kingdom garden is removed and when there will be no need for the sun for the Glory of God will be the light of God’s people.

** (1) (2) (3) are taken from Sidney Greidanus’ “Preaching Christ From Genesis.”

Genesis 3:6 — “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

I Corinthians 11:24 “And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

Taking and eating in the fall were the verbs of death. With the death of Christ taking and eating become the verbs of eternal life. The first taking and eating was the proclamation of man that he would chance the grasp at Creator status. The new covenant taking and eating re-positions men in their creaturely dependence. The first taking and eating was the stuff of eternal death and separation from God. The second taking and eating is the food of eternal life and the drink of peace with God. The first taking and eating was the destruction wrought by Adam upon he and all his tribe. The second taking and eating is salvation wrought by Christ upon all His tribe.

Note that the disobedience that destroyed Adam and his race is a disobedience that, while spiritual, had a corporeal instantiation in the fruit of the tree. Likewise the obedience that blesses the tribe of God is an obedience that comes to us, through the corporeal instantiation in the fruit that comes from the vine and the grain that comes from the field. Salvation and condemnation alike are primarily spiritual but never so spiritual that they are disconnected with corporeal realities that reflect spiritual realities.

So simple was the first act of taking and eating. So hard the undoing of that taking and eating. God would taste poverty, know what it was to be railed against, would become familiar with sorrow and acquainted with grief before “take and eat” would become verbs of salvation.