Text: Matthew 1:1; 28:16–20
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
The Beginning, End, & Beginning of Israel
This morning, we begin making our way through the Gospel according to Matthew with something of an introduction to the book. Let’s start by reading just the first sentence of the book, Matthew 1:1. This is the Word of the Living God:
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
-Matthew 1:1
Thus ends the reading of God’s Word; may he write it on our hearts by faith. Let’s pray.
Four Witnesses
Every time we take up one of the four witnesses to the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, one of the four gospel accounts of the New Testament, it’s as if we’re following a wilderness guide through the vast forest that is the life of Jesus. Remember, John told us that all the books of earth couldn’t contain everything there is to say about Jesus’ earthly ministry.
Growing up, I participated in Boy Scouts. This was way back in the old days, when Boy Scouts had to be boys. One of the things that we learned, to be honest something I never particularly excelled at, was orienteering. Orienteering is basically competitive navigation: Making your way through a wilderness course with a map and compass. As you go along, you’re basically trying to figure out three things:
Where’s my starting point? As in, where am I?
Where am trying to end up?
What route will I take to end up there?
I want you to see in this book that Matthew is doing something similar: He’s going to walk us along a curated, very carefully and intentionally organized path through the life of Jesus. To understand the book, then, we need to start by asking questions like:
When we step into Matthew 1:1, where are we standing? Where does Matthew begin the account and why?
He doesn’t start as Mark does, with no account of Jesus’ birth at all, simply a quotation from Isaiah and Malachi and then right into the story. He doesn’t begin as Luke does, the careful historian, with a paragraph explaining his reasons and methods for writing.
He doesn’t begin as John does, with his 18-verse theological masterpiece, introducing Jesus as the Logos, the divine Word of God incarnate. Matthew begins with a genealogy—why?
So where does Matthew begin and why? And then: Where is he aiming to take us by the end of the book? Mark ends his gospel with unanswered questions, just as abruptly as he begins. Luke ends, in a sense, with another beginning, picking up in Acts with an orderly account of the early church. John ends by telling us essentially that we shouldn’t even begin to think that what he’s written is everything you could say about the life of Jesus. Why does Matthew end—as we’ll see—with the great commission?
And then, maybe most importantly of all: What route will we follow between those two points—the starting line and the finish line—and why? Because it’s clear that he has arranged his gospel very, very carefully and intentionally.
It’s helpful to think through these things, this question of why each of the four witnesses of Jesus’ life and ministry begin in different places in the story, take us to different ending points in the journey, and select different waypoints to mark out the course.
We need to start by remembering that they do so under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, in order that we might see different facets of the glory of the gospel of Christ gleaming from each angle.
So the question is important: What facets of the glory of Christ’s coming would Matthew have us see in particular, and how would he unveil it in his book? Where is he taking us and by what route?
Jesus: The culmination of the entire Hebrew Bible.
You’ve probably heard something to this effect: Matthew is a gospel written for Jews. And while this is in some respects not inaccurate, it falls far short of the real glories of Matthew’s Gospel, which is not merely intended to portray the gospel to the Jewish people, but to display Jesus as the culmination of the entire story of the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament.
Matthew’s aim is to show us that Jesus is the culmination of the entire story of the Hebrew Bible. There are two emphases that come together to present Jesus in this way in the Gospel of Matthew, which I’d like to show you this morning.
Matthew would show us that the coming of Jesus is the coming of the true Israel.
Matthew would show us that the the coming of Jesus is the coming of Israel’s God.
Let’s take them each up in turn.
Jesus as Israel
First, there are at least four reasons we should understand Matthew to be presenting Jesus’ coming as the coming of true Israel. What I don’t mean by that is that Jesus somehow replaces Israel, but that Matthew labors to show us how, in his earthly ministry, Jesus replays the history of the nation—except where they fell, broke covenant, and gave in to lawless idolatry, he stood, kept covenant, and fulfilled the Law. So, four reasons to see it this way. First,
1. The genealogy of chapter one presents Jesus as the culmination of Israel.
As we will see next week, Lord willing, working through this genealogy in some detail, Matthew presents the Lord Jesus as the culmination of both Abraham’s and David’s line—which is to say, he is the culmination of the entire line of Israel.
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
-Matthew 1:1
Jesus is the son of David—who restores the Kingdom of God. He is the great heir of the eternal throne of Israel. He is therefore the culmination of God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:16, “…your house and your kingdom will continue before me for all time. Your throne shall be established forever.
Matthew will take great pains to expand on this theme, that Jesus is the better David, who establishes and expands the Kingdom of God on earth forever. But Matthew would also have us see that Jesus is the not only the son of David, but of Abraham. Remember God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 22,
“I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
-Genesis 22: 17–18
Now, Paul makes it clear in Galatians 3:16 that this promise is not primally about a handful of ethnic descendants from Abraham, but rather about a singular Seed, or Offspring, in whom all of these promises would find their ultimate culmination.
That Seed is the Lord Jesus, the Son of Abraham. He will save sons as numerous as the stars and sands. Jesus’ coming is the coming of true Israel. Number two,
2. Matthew begins his gospel with a clear reference to the first book in the Hebrew Bible, and ends his gospel with a clear reference to the last book in the Hebrew Bible.
He begins his account by connecting the story of Jesus to Genesis, and ends by connecting his story to Chronicles—the beginning and end of the Hebrew Bible. In Matthew 1:1, we read,
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
-Matthew 1:1
It has been argued that the better translation of this sentence would actually be,
“The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
-Matthew 1:1
Matthew intentionally calls his readers back to the first chapters of the book of Genesis with this introduction. The Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament in use in Jesus’ day, uses the exact same phrase to introduce the genealogy of the creation itself in Genesis 2:4
“The book of the genesis of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”
-Genesis 2:4
And then, in Genesis 5:1, we see the exact same phrase again, this time to introduce the very first genealogy of men in the Scriptures,
“The book of the genesis of Adam.”
-Genesis 5:1a
So Matthew begins by calling his readers back to the book of Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible. And lo and behold, all the way on the other side of this book, in the very last paragraph, we find a clear allusion to the last book of the Hebrew Bible.
Now, I know that the way the Old Testament is commonly arranged now, the last book in your version is Malachi. But actually, the traditional Hebrew arrangement ended with Chronicles—what we have as two books, 1 and 2 Chronicles, which was originally a single book.
In 2 Chronicles 36, literally the final words of the traditional Hebrew arrangement of the Bible, we read this:
“Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up.’”
-2 Chronicles 36:22–23
This passage marks the end of the Babylonian captivity under Cyrus, King of Persia, whom God raised up for his purposes. His declaration, simply, is that the exile has ended and the return to dwell with God in the land may begin, so go. Now Matthew’s Gospel ends with these words from Jesus:
“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
-Matthew 28:16–20
Both of these proclamations follow the exact same format:
First, Cyrus and Jesus both give a declaration of universal, global authority. Second, they identify the source of that authority. Finally, they give a commission to go up and do the work.
So what’s the point? Matthew launches his gospel with a clear reference to the beginning of the first book in the Hebrew Bible—even using the very word “Genesis”—and ends his gospel with a clear reference to the end of the last book in the Hebrew Bible. So he frames his whole account of the coming and life of Christ as containing the story of Israel. Peter Leithart agrees:
“Matthew’s account of the story of Jesus moves from the Alpha to the Omega of the Old Testament, from A to Z, from creation to restoration. The story of Jesus is a repetition, a recapitulation, of the story of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament.”
-Peter Leithart (Jesus as Israel: Volume One, 46)
And that’s not all. Matthew doesn’t just begin his gospel at the beginning of the Hebrew Bible and conclude it with the conclusion to the Hebrew Bible—everything between those two points also follows the story of God’s people in the Old Testament Scriptures. Number three,
3. The entirety of Matthew’s Gospel serves as a recapitulation, or reliving, of the story of Israel in the story of Jesus.
As we follow Jesus’ story through Matthew’s Gospel, we will find again and again that he replays and relives and intensifies the stories, not only of individual characters in Israel’s history—Moses, David, Solomon, Elisha, Jeremiah, and others—but that he relives and intensifies the whole history of Israel in the course of his ministry.
There are five basic movements to the main narrative of the book, each of them basically containing a section of action followed by a section of teaching. This is unique to Matthew in terms of organization, and it is clearly no accident. So the question is why? Why this organization?
It becomes clear as you compare these sections of Matthew to the Hebrew Bible. When you do that, you find that as Matthew’s account of Jesus progresses through the book, he shows how Jesus relived the history of Israel in his ministry. We’ll see this at length at different points in the book, but let me just show you this in the first seven chapters of Matthew briefly.
Genesis begins with the genesis of the heavens and earth, and of Adam. Matthew begins with the genesis of Jesus Christ.
Genesis continues with the story of Abraham. Matthew continues by telling us that Jesus is the son of Abraham.
Genesis moves into the story of Joseph, who has a series of dreams from God that lead him to exile for a time in Egypt. We then move to Exodus, where Joseph’s family has sojourned and become a mighty nation, but who is persecuted by the King, who is killing the male children of this family in fear of their line. Moses, however, is rescued and flees.
Matthew tells us about Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, who has a series of dreams that lead him to take his family for a time to Egypt, where they are protected from the King, who is killing the male children in fear of their line. Jesus is rescued and flees.
In Exodus 3–4, Moses is brought back to the land, and in Matthew 2:19–23, Jesus returns to the land. When Moses comes back, in Exodus 5–12, he and Aaron pronounce judgment. In Matthew 3:1–12, John the Baptist pronounces judgment.
In Exodus 13–16, God then brings his people through the waters of the Red Sea (which Paul calls a baptism in 1 Corinthians 10) and into the wilderness, where they are tempted in Exodus 17–19, after which Moses appoints rulers for the people. He then goes up the mountain of Sinai to receive and subsequently deliver the Law in Exodus 19–20.
Matthew’s account continues in chapter three with Jesus passing through the waters of his baptism, going into the wilderness to be tempted in chapter four, calling his disciples, and then going up a mountain to give his Law, the Sermon on the Mount.
Through the rest of the book, we’ll see Jesus follow this same pattern with Joshua and the conquest of Canaan, with Solomon and his wise teaching in parables, with Jeremiah and the post-exilic prophets in his prophetic rebuke of apostate Israel, and much more.
Now, most of what I’ve said so far, especially if you are not used to biblical typology, may sound like a stretch to you. Maybe you’re thinking, “Ok, that sounds nice, but it would be really nice if you had like, I don’t know, a verse where Matthew tells us that he sees Jesus’ ministry as the culmination of true Israel or whatever it is you’re saying.”
You’re in luck! Look no further than Matthew 2:15 for a handy little prooftext of what I’m talking about. Fourth,
4. Matthew’s use of Hosea 11:1 shows that Jesus is to be understood as the true Israel.
In Matthew 2, the wicked ruler Herod has discovered through the wise men that a child has been born in fulfillment of prophecy to be king of the Jews. And so he seeks to destroy the boy, murdering all male children two and under in the region he was to be born.
But Jesus’ father, Joseph, was warned in a dream and so fled to Egypt to hide until Herod was gone. In Matthew 2:15, Matthew tells us that this was to fulfill what had been written by the prophet Hosea, from Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son.
The significance is clear if you understand what Hosea’s prophecy in its context. Listen to what he says; and this Hosea recording the words of God,
“When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.”-Hosea 11:1
Hosea is describing the Exodus of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. And who does Matthew turn and apply this prophecy to? Jesus.
The meaning is plain, that Jesus’ flight to Egypt through his father Joseph’s dreaming for preservation there and subsequent calling back to the Land is a replaying of the history of Israel, whom God sent to Egypt through the dreaming of Joseph, where they grew into a mighty nation and ultimately came out at God’s call to the Land.
Theologian R.T. France agrees, writing, “Matthew’s quotation [of Hosea]… depends for its validity on the recognition of Jesus as the true Israel.”
There you have it. Matthew would have us see by the end of his book that the coming of Jesus is the coming of the true Israel in the flesh—except instead of covenant-breaking, law-breaking Israel, as covenant-keeping, law-fulfilling Israel.
Jesus as Israel’s God
But Matthew would have us see that Christ is so much more than the true Israel of God; he is also the true God of Israel. The coming of Jesus is also the coming of Israel’s God. I’ll give you just two reasons we should understand this to be the message of Matthew’s book, because we will see this at length as we make our way through this book in the coming weeks:
1. The genealogy of chapter 1 presents Jesus as the one who begets Israel; the one from whom the genealogy of Israel comes.
Remember that identical turn of phrase from Matthew 1:1, Genesis 2:14, and Genesis 5:1?
“The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.”
-Matthew 1:1“The book of the genesis of the heavens and the earth when they were created…”
-Genesis 2:4“The book of the genesis of Adam.”
-Genesis 5:1a
I said that those two occurrences in Genesis, as with Matthew, introduce a genealogy; that’s not exactly right. It would be more accurate to say that both of the uses of this phrase, “the book of the genesis of _____” in Genesis introduce a list of descendants from the thing or person at the beginning of the phrase.
So in Genesis 2:4, we are told of the heavens and the earth, which came from God, and then produced a whole host of things through the rest of the chapter—plants, mist, a garden, and ultimately, from the dust of the earth itself, man. And in Genesis 5:1, we see the book of the genesis of Adam, from whom follows all of his descendants, mankind.
Using the exact same phrase, Jesus is introduced at the beginning of the genealogy that follows—why? Because he is not only the human descendant of Abraham and David and even the nation of Israel, but also the one who begets Abraham and David and Israel.
Jesus is no mere man; he is the God-Man, the one by whom and for whom all things were created. He is not only the perfect embodiment of law-fulfilling Israel, but also the God of Israel. We see this as well, number two, as…
2. Jesus locates himself in the story of Israel—not only as the nation of Israel—but also as the God of Israel.
We see this many times in Matthew, but maybe nowhere quite as clearly as in Matthew 21, where Jesus tells The Parable of the Tenants. The parable goes like this:
There was a master of a property who planted a vineyard on his land. He went to great expense to put in a fence and build a tower on it and a winepress for processing the fruit and yielding a great return.
He leased the land to some tenants, and then went off to another country. When the time came for him to collect from the increase of the land, the time for fruit, he sent servants to the tenants. They beat one servant, killed one, stoned another, and gave the master no fruit.
So he sent another servant—even more this time! But they reacted the same way, reviling and killing his servants and giving him no fruit.
So finally, the master sends his son, saying, “They will respect my son.” But rather than respecting the son, they plotted, thinking that if they killed the heir, they could seize the vineyard and all of his inheritance for themselves, so they threw him from the vineyard and killed him.
Now, this parable is certainly about Israel and the prophets, right? The servants, the prophets, are sent to Israel, the tenants, who beat and reject and kill them. The Father is the master who sends them, and Christ is therefore the very Son of God.
It is clear that Jesus doesn’t consider himself to be merely another in a line of rejected and murdered prophets, but God’s own Son, of the same essence as the Father himself. In Jesus’ coming to Israel, what is taking place is nothing less than the very arrival of Israel’s God.
And what do they do, those wicked tenants? They reject the Son as well, taking him outside the walls of the Jerusalem vineyard and crucifying him.
And here’s where the story of Matthew turns on a dime—because right at the moment it seems as if their rejection will have the last word, the Son returns again—from the very grave they put him in.
This, then, is the primal message of Matthew: Though lawless, covenant-breaking, defiled, idolatrous, fruitless, God-crucifying Israel has rejected God and his servants over and over again, the holy, righteous love of God will not be thwarted.
His promises will not return void. His Son will not remain in the grave. Sin, death, and rejection will not have the last word in Israel’s story, because the Son is risen, and he is giving the Kingdom to a people producing its fruits.
The good news of the gospel of Matthew is just what the angel told Joseph of his wife Mary: “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”