Recapitulation in Matthew 2:13-23

Introduction

Concept of Recapitulation.

Read Text

God is giving another Exodus of His people who have suffered under another King who has again murdered their children in hopes of keeping Israel oppressed. Like the first Exodus under Moses the leadership of the 2nd Exodus is led by one who escaped the wicked King’s murderous designs.

There is thus re-capitulation going on here in Matthew’s Gospel. Just as Israel of old was persecuted but delivered by the child (Moses) who had escaped the Tyrant’s persecution so the God has granted another Deliverer to Israel by another deliverer who likewise has escaped the Tyrant’s persecution.

So, what Matthew is doing here is a retelling of Israel’s story. Jesus is the greater Israel who is repeating Israel’s drama. In Matthew’s Christology Christ is faithful-obedient Israel where Israel was unfaithful and disobedient. In Christ there is a final Exodus with a faithful deliverer.

Matthew is thus giving us Literary clues that all that God intended with Israel was now coming to pass in Christ.

There is continuity then with the OT except at this point the recapitulated covenant story is marked by the success of God’s suffering servant Messiah as opposed to the failure that OT Israel had been. This success of the suffering servant Messiah is what makes the covenant now a “new and better covenant.”

That this is the purpose of Matthew is seen in the genealogy with which he opens his book. Jesus, descendant of Abraham, descendant of David, is the culmination of true Israel. Indeed Jesus is the TRUE Israel and as the true Israel He recapitulates the story of Israel so that Matthew wants us to see Jesus as Israel.

This recapitulation motif is underscored by the fact that Jesus is taken down into Egypt. When finally Jesus returns from Egypt there is then a connection to Israel’s ancient History of coming out of Egypt.

Matthew is giving us a literary and redemptive history akin to the work of the Pointilist Artist at the end of the 19th century. Pointilism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. This is what Matthew is doing with his Gospel. He is painting His Gospel with small distinct dots of narrative in such a way that when one looks at his Gospel they see points of contact with Israel’s history so that the two together form one History. Matthew thus is not only a literary Pointilist but he is also one of those artists who gives you two works in one work.

You know the kind I’m speaking of. We’ve all seen those pictures that if you stare long enough at them you being to see another picture. Matthew is giving us two pointilist pictures. One is of OT history but the other is of Jesus participating in that History now fulfilled and culminating in Him.

In our text today we have that not only here with the parallel’s between Moses as divinely ordained deliverer who escapes the slaughter of the infants and the Lord Christ as divinely ordained deliverer who escapes the slaughter of the infants (2:16) but we have it also in the fact just as OT Israel was God’s son and came out of Egypt (2:15) so the Lord Jesus is God’s embodiment of Israel who is called out of Egypt.

This recapitulation continues in vs. 18 where Mt. quotes from Jer. 31:15. Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, sees Jerusalem being sacked by the Babylonian invasion and with that sacking he sees the judicially innocent children being slaughtered by the Heathens. The prophet Jeremiah imagines, with his poetic vision, that Rachel, the wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph (who would be associated with Israel through Ephraim and Manasseh) and Benjamin (Judah), is weeping for her descendants, her children. Rachel is thus, for Matthew, the OT epitome of Israel’s mothers who are now weeping for their children brutally massacred by another occupying force. For Matthew then, the Lord Christ is thus caught up with not only Israel’s Exodus but also in the great historical event of their Exile.

However, there is a note of promise here also for Jeremiah’s lamentation is in the middle of four chapters, Jeremiah 30-33, that are filled with comfort and consolation and joy. Jeremiah 30-33 gives us a prophetic vision of hope though as well as misery. Jeremiah will speak of a Messianic age to come when the new and better covenant will bring in everlasting peace and righteousness. Despite all the despair that Jeremiah records there is a promise of a time when sins will be forgiven, the Holy Spirit poured out, and eternal life present. That time that Jeremiah had spoken of has now come but what Matthew wants to do is that he wants his readers to see that the Lord Christ, as the new and better Israel, bringing a new and better covenant, shares in the brokenness of Israel’s redemptive History. He is the Deliverer saved from the Pagan King. He is part of the history of Israel’s Exile. Matthew is identifying Christ’s History with Israel’s redemptive history.

This recapitulation is also seen in vs. 23. When the Lord Christ is eventually led out of Egypt back to Israel his family settles in Nazareth. The scorn for Nazareth is seen later in John’s Gospel when one of the future disciples asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” upon hearing that Jesus came from that hamlet. Nazareth was to Israel what Burr Oak might be to Michigan or Longtown might be to South Carolina. Every state has there Nazareths. Remote nowhere hamlets occupied by those considered untermensh by the elite. Nazareth was a no account village in a no account region (Galilee).

But Matthew, under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration is going to use that origin of residence of Jesus to exercise another example of Historical recapitualation. Matthew tells us that the Lord Christ “being called a Nazarene,” is a fulfillment of the prophetic word. The problem comes though that you can exhaustively search the Prophets and will find nothing that explicitly says that the Messiah will come from Nazareth.

So … how do we handle that.

Well, we suspect that what Matthew is doing is that he is appealing to Isaiah 11.

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit

Here is the connection.

In the Hebrew the word for Branch in Isaiah 11:1 is neser (nay-tser) and to the hearing it sounds like “Nazareth.” The connection is that just as a branch (nay-tser) from a stump is a humble and lowly origin so the Lord Christ as Messiah coming from (nay-tser) Nazareth is one from a humble and lowly origin. The Lord Christ as the Messiah is Isaiah’s nay-ster (Branch) hailing from nay-ster (Nazareth).

Of course this is all typical of the way God often works. Throughout the OT he takes people from the backwaters of life … the people who are of lowly estate … the people the elite consider the poor white trash and he uses them to change the course of History. Jesus was a mere (nay-ster) Branch, from (nay-ster) Nazareth.

Here there is prophetic fulfillment and recapitulation. In terms of prophetic fulfillment Jesus not only shares Israel’s History but He is the one whom Israel’s History is pointed. In terms of prophetic fulfillment The Lord Christ is the lowly branch (the remnant / Isaiah 6) — the only thing left of the great Kingdom of Israel that God cut down with the captivity. The fact that Jesus hails from despised Nazareth is consistent with a lowly branch being all that was left of a great Kingdom.

However, like the context where the Jeremiah passage is taken that records Rachel’s weeping there is in the Isaiah 11 context where the branch language is taken a great amount of hopefulness. There in Isaiah 11 you also find the record of the Messiah becoming King that rules over a re-creation of peace,

10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. 11 In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush,[b] from Elam, from Babylonia,[c] from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean.

12 He will raise a banner for the nations
and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
from the four quarters of the earth.

In these verses (Mt. 2:13-23) then we find pointilist recapitulation. The Lord Christ shares in Israel’s history as the greater deliverer who escapes the blood-lust of a wicked King. The Lord Christ shares in Israel’s history as one who goes down into Egypt because of travail and comes out of Egypt to peace. The Lord Christ shares in Israel’s history as the weeping of Mothers in his time in Israel, during the time of Herod, parallels the weeping of Mother’s in the Babylonian slaughter. The Lord Christ recapitulates Israel’s history has being the foretold lowly nay-ster (branch) who comes from lowly nay-ster (Nazareth).

What Matthew is communicating is that the one has come who is the embodiment of all that Israel was intended to be. Messiah IS Israel.

Application

1.) Herod was a paranoid madman. He executed one of his favorite wives as well as at least three of his sons.

In view of such executions, the emperor Augustus reportedly quipped, “It is better to be Herod’s pig than son”

Those who begin by hating THE Child end by hurting children. Hating God and God’s Revelation leads to hurting people. If people will be ungodly they will act inhumane. Herod is the proof-text for this but not the only proof text. Adam and Eve hate God and His Revelation and so turn on each other. Cain hates God and His Revelation and so turns on Abel.

2.) Iraneus “Against Heresies” posits that the babies of Jerusalem killed were the first Christian martyrs.

3.) With the played out drama of Herod’s maniacal slaughter it is not beyond reason to suggest that as the Word is Incarnated in Christ so the anti-word is Incarnated in Herod. At the very least, I think we are to see here the long warfare that God spoke of in Genesis between the seed of the woman (the Lord Christ) and the seed of the Serpent. The Serpent, via Herod, lashes out to strike the seed of the woman but He misses due to God’s providence.

4.) The slaughter and Christmas

There is, in the combination of the Triumph of the Christ child’s escape with the slaughter of the innocent the reminder that hope should not be buried in the context of calamity. For those who live with tragedy and sorrow in lands that know something of persecution and slaughter there is, in Matthew’s Christmas account the understanding that midst untold sorrow and suffering God’s plans are not being snuffed out. Hope remains. It is a bitter-sweet consolation coated in God’s severe mercy but a consolation all the same.

5.) Already a fulfillment of

Luke 2:34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Applying God’s Law Touching Deceitful Wives & Accusatory Husbands

Dear Pastor,

Do you believe in stoning non-virgin brides? That’s a judicial OT law, and not a ceremonial one, so it would be roughly on par with the prohibition of homosexuality.

Tonya

Dear Tonya,

A few observations first,

1.) Is it the case that you think God mean or unjust for requiring the death of non-Virgin brides who deceived their husbands and their Fathers?

2.) If you do think God mean or unjust to require death isn’t it the case that you are sitting in judgment of God?

3.) Why do you think it is wrong to stone non-virgin brides but perfectly acceptable to not give the death penalty to abortion Doctors?

4.) Keep in mind that the Church does not wield the sword. It is the role of the Magistrate to execute God’s Law. As such in a pagan society, such as the one we live in, where God’s law requires capital punishment the response of the Church is to excommunicate any member involved in such capital crimes should they refuse to repent. The Church has no authority to bring the sword against those members or non-members who are guilty of capital crimes, but whom the State, in disobedience, refuses to submit to God’s Law by exercising the sword consistent with God’s revelation. Excommunication by the Church, in its capacity of handling the keys, is the equivalent in the Spiritual realm of inflicting the death penalty upon those who will not repent.

Now to answer your question directly,

1.) Yes, I do think non-Virgin brides who can be proven to have been non-Virgins, thus having deceived their Fathers and Husbands, should receive Capital punishment if such a thing is proven beyond any reasonable doubt. How can I disagree with God? (You do realize how difficult it would be to prove such a thing, right?)

2.) Remember though, there are consequences for the Husband also who brings false charges against the Wife. And those also should be implemented.

3.) And I also think that those who are proven to be guilty of sodomy should also receive the capital death penalty if such a thing is proven by the required two or three witnesses.

When Are We Going To Start Refusing to Obey Illegal Laws?

The death of Eric Garner at the hands of Staten Island Cops is a good example of somebody not knowing when it is right to disobey orders. The Cops were ordered by their superiors (who were ordered by their superiors) to do something about Garner and his selling of individual cigarettes. As that order ran downhill people at several levels missed the opportunity to tell their superior giving that ridiculous order that the superior could go “beggar themselves,” because they were not going to obey a illegitimate order to arrest a guy simply because he was horning in on the Mafia State’s piece of the action. The State, via that illegitimate and confiscatory Tax law, was running a protection racket and Eric Garner got in the way of their profits and so like all protection racket “businesses” the Cop thugs, following the orders of the Statist Mafia Dons, took Garner down.

One thing one learns when working for Corporate America is that “you don’t touch the money.” Eric Garner was touching the money of the State by selling individual cigarettes (Loosies) and so the Statist Government Mafia, “made an example of him.” Think about it … how many people do you suppose will be selling Loosies in light of what happened to Garner? Everyone knows now that in NYC you can kill your unborn babies, you can purchase your high brow hookers, you can libel in the News Studios that dot New York, all with relative safety, but don’t you dare get caught selling Loosies or it could be your life.

Every legislator in the State of New York who voted to put an confiscatory sin tax on cigarettes in the State of New York, by all that is just, ought also to be charged with involuntary Manslaughter in the death of Eric Garner. Why only see the Cops fingerprints on this? Why not hold accountable the Statist Politicians and bureaucrats who pass and enforce the kind of dumb-ass laws that eventually find Cops choking to death people for selling single cigarettes? Eric Garner was murdered by Statists. The Cops were merely the executioners employed to that end.

Somebody along the chain of command should have stood up and said to whatever link in the chain that was passing on the order, “This is a illegitimate order and I’m not enforcing it.”

Disobedience to Tyrants is obedience to God.

Seminary Course — Revival; Fact or Fantasy?

Main Texts

1.) Revival and Revivalism — Iain H. Murray
2.) Jonathan Edwards: On Revival — Jonathan Edwards

Assignment — Read text 1. Write a 15 page paper clearly mapping out the distinctions Murray makes between legitimate revival and illegitimate Revivalism.

Assignment — Read text 2. Write a 15 page paper demonstrating that you understand how Edwards distinguished between real revival and pseudo revival. What were the sign of genuine revival that Edwards gives.

Supplementary Texts

1.) A Survey of 20th-Century Revival Movements in North America — Richard Riss

Assignment — Riss writes as a non-Christian giving kind of a sociological view of Revival. Riss is also a Marxist historian. Write a 7 page paper giving the reasons for Revival as Riss views those reasons. Even though Riss writes as a Sociologist and Marxist historian for Revival are there any insights on Revival that Riss includes that you find valuable. Include those observations in your paper.

2.) The Methodist-Revolution — Bernard Semmel

Assignment — Write a 7 page paper detailing how the Methodist Revival was institutionalized in Wesley’s England. Explain how Wesley’s revival rescued England from the fate of the French Revolution. Spend time in your paper examining how the Revival was channeled into a denomination.

3.) Cambuslang Revival — Arthur Fawcett

Assignment — Write a 7 page paper detailing how the Cambuslang Revival differed from the Wesley Revival as described in “The Methodist Revolution.”

4.) The Invitation System — Iain H. Murray

Assignment — Write a 5 page paper examining the weakness of the Invitation system.

5.) Revival — Martyn Lloyd Jones

Assignment — 1.5 page chapter summary of each chapter of Lloyd-Jones book.

6.) Rut, Rot or Revival: The Problem of Change and Breaking Out of the Status Quo – A. W. Tozer

Assignment — 5 page paper explaining Tozer’s view of Revival.

7.) Why Revival Tarries — Leonard Ravenhill

Assignment — Ravenhill writes as a Charismatic – Pentecostal. Write a 7 page paper that compares and contrasts Ravehill’s insights with what you found in the Cambuslang Revival.

8.) The Anxious Bench — John Williamson Nevin

Assignment — 7 page paper demonstrating that you understand Nevin’s opposition to Revival techniques

9.) George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth-Century Revival (2 Volumes) — Arnold Dallimore

Assignment — 15 page paper examining the impact of George Whitfield and Revival during his lifetime. In the last 3 pages explain why you think or do not think that Revival is consistent with Reformed theology.

Seminary Course; Biblical Theology

Main Texts

1.) http://www.bsmi.org/download/vos/BiblicalTheology.pdf

2.) When the Time had fully Come — Herman Ridderbos
3.) Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments — Geerhardus Vos

Assignments — Read the main texts.

1.) 7 page paper answering the question “What is Biblical Theology.”
2.) 7 page paper explaining what the “Now, Not Yet” hermeneutic is and how the future is in the present
3.) 10 page paper highlighting some of the main themes of Vos’s work

Supplemental Texts

1.) Pauline Eschatology — Geerhardus Vos
2.) Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos –Geerhardus Vos
3.) The Eschatology of the Old Testament — Geerhardus Vos
4.) The Coming of the Kingdom — Herman Ridderbos
5.) Paul: An Outline of His Theology — Herman Ridderbos
6.) A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New — G. K. Beale
7.) We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry — G. K. Beale
8.) The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative — Christopher H. Wright
9.) God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology — James M. Hamilton Jr
10.) The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament — Edmund Clowney
11.) A Theology of the New Testament — George Eldon Ladd

High School students must read the main texts and supplementary texts 2, 6, 8, and 10.

College Students must choose reading one of two following supplementary sets. Seminary Students must read all 11 supplementary books.

Set 1 — 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11,
Set 2 — 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10

Assignments

1.) None of these books are written by a Postmillennialist. Write a 15 page paper giving an overview, based on the principles of interpretation you’ve learned in this reading, on what a Postmillennial Biblical Theology of Dominion would look like.

2.) 5 page paper probing what the student sees as potential weaknesses in Biblical theology.

3.) Provide 1.5 page Chapter summaries for each book demonstrating that you’ve understood the material you’ve read

4.) Write a 7 page paper setting forth what you see as the macro story line of Scripture. Support your conclusions from Scripture and your reading. (for example, Hamilton sees the macro story line as “Salvation through Judgment.” Wright see’s the macro story line as Missions. Others have argued that the macro story line is Covenant, or Redemption, or God’s Glory, etc.)

5.) 4 page paper distinguishing Systematic Theology from Biblical theology. Spend 1 page explaining whether you think that Systematic theology or Biblical theology should be prioritized and why.