Category: Devotional Grist

We have been taking a look at this genealogy in Matthew and we have been trying to probe why it is that Matthew begins His Gospel with this genealogy.

Some of the answers we’ve given thus far are that,

1.) Matthew wants us to know that while Jesus is the climax of the story Matthew is now continuing to tell at the same time there is a good deal of context that must be understood in order for the climax to make sense. The genealogy is a shorthand way of establishing the context.

2.) In giving the genealogy Matthew at the same time reminds us of the unitary nature of the Scriptures. The New Testament cannot be understood apart from the Old Testament and the Old Testament can not be understood apart from the New Testament.

3.) In giving the genealogy Matthews has, in an abbreviated form, laid out the problem to which Jesus is the answer. Those that knew their Old Testament history would remember, through the citing of this genealogy, that God had not yet fulfilled His promise to send a deliverer to rescue not only Israel but also the world. Jesus is that deliverer.

4.) In giving the genealogy Matthew thwarts any attempt to wrest Jesus by those who want their own “personal Jesus,” or their own “Jesus for a cause.” Matthew’s genealogy forces us to deal with a very particular Jesus that can’t be understood apart from his lineage.

The telling of God’s story that has Jesus as the culminating and completing point of this genealogy is the story from which Jesus acquires His identity and mission and it is the story to which He gives significance and authority. Without this Jesus this genealogy is just one more list. Without this genealogy Jesus is just one more baby with an interesting birth narrative.

Metaphors

If the genealogy is the setting of a royal table with all of its finery and precision then Jesus is the meal for which the royal table has been prepared.

If the genealogy is all the music that leads to grand finale then Jesus is the grand finale.

If the genealogy is all the planning, preparations and decoration that goes into a wedding then Jesus is the wedding ceremony itself.

As we continue to consider the relationship of the prologue to God’s story (the promises of the Old Testament) with the climax of God’s Story (the fulfillment that is the New Testament) we must be careful that we don’t de-contextualize or deflate God’s story into a bunch of abstractions (Here is the promise [OT] — there is the fulfillment [NT]). We must take the story in its concrete reality reminding ourselves that in this story we have real history with real people with a real God who is unfolding salvation history.

When we read Scripture as one whole then … when we read the genealogy in the light of Christ several benefits in our understanding of Scripture are realized,

1.) Whatever significance a particular event had, in terms of Israel’s own experience of God is affirmed and validated. Those historical events aren’t spiritualized away. When we understand and affirm the import of the redemptive event for God’s old covenant people it will give us a more profound understanding of the import of the Cross for us. The Old will shed light on the new.

2.) Now that we have the end of the story in Christ shining back on the earlier part of the story we are able to find even more significance in the earlier story. The new will shed light on the old.

The new is in the old concealed and the old is in the new revealed.

Example — The Exodus

New shedding light on the old — The Exodus teaches us what God calls deliverance. In the Exodus we see that God is characterized by care for His people who are oppressed and is motivated to action for justice on their behalf. This character of God and His redemption are so central in the Exodus story that they become definitive of the character of God and all that redemption and deliverance comes to mean.

Now w/ the coming of Christ what we learn of God and how He redeems and delivers His people does not go away. In deliverance and redemption God remains concerned for His people who are oppressed and God still desires justice. With the coming of Christ the redemption we expect in Christ must not be totally divorced from the kind of redemption that was defined in the Old Testament.

However when we read the Exodus event with the light of the fullness of the redemptive work of Christ shining upon it we see that the Exodus deliverance is not about political, social, or economic freedom before it is about the lifting of Spiritual oppression. Israel was in bondage in Exodus not primarily because they were suffering from economic disparity, or social inequity, or political tyranny. Israel’s bondage and oppression were what they were because they were in subjection to Egypt’s gods. The economic disparity, social inequity and political tyranny were the fruit of spiritual bondage. The Redemption that God conferred them rescued them economically, socially, and politically precisely because it delivered them from their spiritual chains.

Evidence God’s telling of Pharaoh “Let my people go THAT THEY MAY WORSHIP ME.” The explicit purpose of Israel’s Redemption and deliverance was that they would know YAHWEH in the grace of redemption and covenant relationship.

So, the Exodus, for all the comprehensiveness of what it achieved for Israel in terms of economic liberty, political freedom, and social release, points beyond those realities to a greater need for deliverance from spiritual bondage to covenant accord with God. Such a deliverance was accomplished by Jesus Christ (prefigured in the Passover Lamb) and can only be known by looking to Christ. This is so true that we can say apart from trusting in Christ of the Bible the pursuit of other freedoms amount to just so much windmill tilting.

Yet if at the same time we allow the old to shed light on the new we must insist that though redemption is first personal and individual it is not only personal and individual. God’s mighty act of the exodus was more than just a parable to illustrate personal and individual salvation. It is true that the redemption of the Cross breaks the bondage of my personal sin and releases me from the effects of sin but it is also true that Redemption, when it is widely unleashed, delivers God’s people from the cruelty, and oppression brought upon God’s people by those who are of the seed of the serpent and are alien to the covenant. Spiritual freedom when widely disbursed never fails to bring social, economic, and political freedom because spiritual freedom is the well out of which the water of social, economic, and political freedom flows. Forgiveness of sin delivers us from the Kingdom of darkness both in its spiritual dimension and in how that spiritual dimension manifests itself concretely in space and time.

The point here is that atonement and forgiveness of one’s individual sin is not the only word on what the Exodus redemption was about. It was also a deliverance from an external evil and the suffering and injustice it caused, by means of a shattering defeat of the evil power of the seed of the serpent that was holding Israel in bondage.

And here is the kicker …

If, then, God’s climatic work of redemption through the cross transcends, but also embodies and includes, the scope of all His redemptive activity as previously displayed in the Old testament our Gospel must anticipate the Exodus model of liberation once a tipping point of Spiritually delivered people trusting Christ is reached.

The light of the Old Testament upon the New teaches us the inadequacies of relegating the redemption God brings to some spiritual individual realm. The light of the Old Testament upon the New teaches us that the redemption God offers in Christ is a redemption that though it begins in individuals moves out from there to touch every area of life so that redeemed individuals being set free in themselves, by the power of the Holy Spirit, visit that freedom that Christ visited upon them to every area of life in which God has called them.

So then we can see that when we take OT history seriously in relation to its completion in Jesus Christ, a two-way process is at work, yielding a double benefit in our understanding of the whole Bible. On the one hand, we are able to see the full significance of the OT story in the light of where it leads — the climatic achievement of Christ; and on the other hand, we are able to appreciate the full dimensions of what God did through Christ in the light of His historical declarations and demonstrations of intent in the OT.

In the Exodus we have used just one example but the examples could be multiplied many times over.

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.”