Monday, 30 March       The Messiah Claims His Kingdom on Earth.       Matt. 22:15–46

After Jesus’ full-frontal assault on the religious leaders, it is no wonder that there was an immediate response to try to bring him down. Superficially it looks as though Jesus is addressing such matters as paying taxes to Caesar, marriage in heaven, and so on. 

But we need to be more careful readers than this. Ignoring any unhelpful headings that might be in your Bible version, it seems that Matthew has identified three deliberate attempts at entrapment, from three well-defined groups: the Herodians, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. These last two are reasonably well-known, while the first is perhaps less so.

The Herodians were a group of wealthy, secular Jews. They had abandoned all the religious forms of Judaism, using their wealth and social status to live in the most comfortable manner affordable within the Graeco-Roman culture. Think of today’s wealthy celebrities or high-end business set, whose children attend the best schools and who can pay for anything they need to bolster their comfortable, essentially-atheist lifestyle.

Their challenge was issued in vv16–22.  Predictably enough, it was about money. Jesus’ response went to the heart of their spiritual emptiness. They were happy enough to give to Caesar what they owed; but they had absolutely written God out of their lives. They did not concede that God (if he existed) was owed anything. Jesus’ answer left them no room to move. He declared that if they recognised Caesar by paying him taxes, then they ought to recognise God. Coins carried Caesar's image. They carried God’s image in their human selves despite their wilful rejection of God – and thus they owed him a duty as well. 

The Sadducees were also from the big end of town. They lived, along with the Herodians, in the expensive Western Hill area of old Jerusalem. Archaeologists have identified luxury dwellings in this locality in the expansive Roman villa style. They were of the priestly caste, and also the wealthy aristocratic class. They had made their peace with Roman rule, in exchange for the Romans allowing them to manage the office of the High Priesthood, and the daily administration of the Temple. All of this was quite a lucrative and politically-powerful affair. They rejected any idea of an after-life, of a bodily resurrection – a belief which had become quite mainstream among ordinary Jewish folk in the most recent couple of centuries.

Their challenge was issued in vv23–33. If you have studied logic, you will recognise their ‘marriage of seven brothers’ question as an example of reductio ad absurdum. That is, you make a statement or proposition look absurd by pushing it out to its most extreme logical conclusion. Children often do this with parents, almost as though they do it by second nature. It’s a powerful debating trick that I've used often, in adult debating competitions.

Again, as with the Herodians, Jesus does not deign to answer their direct question. He points out that their premise is wrong. His answer is not intended to tell us about marriage in heaven – it is intended to tell them that they need to go back to scripture and realise that God is the God of the living; and since he is called the God of Abraham and Isaac, there must be life after death. He makes them look foolish for not dealing properly with scripture, or logic, when they are supposed to be the experts.

The Pharisees were not priests, perhaps contrary to some popular belief. They were the expert teachers of the Law, the Torah. Think of them as being most like modern university professors. They were generally sincerely committed to the belief that ancient Israel had failed, and been carried into captivity and exile, because they had failed to keep God’s law properly. Logically, they reasoned, if we figure out how God wants us to keep his law, then Israel will be blessed of God. So they spent their time analysing what people needed to do to obey God’s law in the most minute details of life – to protect the nation. Modern orthodox Jews in Jerusalem follow precisely the same logic.

Their challenge was issued in vv34–40. Again, like the other two groups before them, they had carefully crafted a trick question, designed to trap Jesus. If he said the greatest commandment was to love God, they would ask how a person could do that if they didn’t love others. After all, six of the ten commandments were about treating others well. Only four were about loving God well. If he said the greatest commandment was to love others, they would ask why the first commandment was to love God. The trap was in their choice of words: the greatest commandment. God had given ten commandments to Moses. He had not categorised or ordered them. Who are we to go beyond what God had done?

So Jesus gave them a clever answer – in two parts. He gave the greatest commandment as being to love God, but then quickly added before they could respond, that there was another like it, i.e.  of the same order of importance. Neither of these was new. They were both contained in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. 

So much for intellectual explanations of this passage. What are we to make of it devotionally, for ourselves? The answer to this important question comes in the last few verses.

Jesus forced the Pharisees to concede on the basis of Psalm 110, that the Messiah was in fact God himself, not a mere human. Since they had been treating Jesus as if he were the Messiah by their questions, they were now forced to concede that either they were wrong in asking him these questions because he was not the Messiah, or that he was the Messiah and therefore also God. They had nowhere to go to save face. They didn’t like either option.

How often do we come to the Bible, trying to find fault with it? How often do we try to explain parts of it away because we don’t like what it says? Jesus is the divine Word. He is the expressed Word of God. He is integrally identified with scripture as its power and source – its personal embodiment. 

We can ask questions of scripture out of our humanistic arrogance, like the Herodians; we can ask out of our religious certainties and self-blinded ignorance, like the Sadducees; we can ask out of our literalism and legalism, like the Pharisees. All are wrong. There is only one proper way to ask questions of scripture. That is out of humility and reverence. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 

This is not to say that we may not ask questions well and thoughtfully. We do need to recognise genre and audience and so on. But what we must not do is to place our own preconceived meaning on scripture, and stretch or bend it or ignore it to suit our own preferences. God’s Word must determine our words, not the other way around.

Prayer:  Teach me O Lord to know your Word and rightly understand it. Help me to humble myself before it, not to imagine that in my 21stcentury cleverness I might know more than your Holy Spirit knew in the writing of it. Help me to be thoughtful and analytical, but to bow my intellect and mind before your Holy Spirit, always seeking the meaning and application that you would have me learn. Amen.