PMW 2024-048 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

I am working my through Matthew showing the rejection of the Jews from God’s kingdom and the inclusion of the Gentiles. This helps us to see why the Olivet Discourse is given so late in Jesus’ ministry. He has given Israel every opportunity to believe in him, but they have refused. In the process we are seeing the gradual inclusion of the Gentiles in the biblical narrative. We are now ready to consider a few parabolic warnings to Israel, especially her leaders.

Matthew 22

In Matthew 22:1–14 Jesus presents the parable of the king (God) who gives a wedding feast for his son (Jesus). Those originally invited (the Jews, Matt. 10:5; 15:24) refuse to come (they do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, Matt. 23:37; 27:25; cp. John 1:11; cp. Acts 13:46; 18:6; 19:19)). As a consequence, “the king was enraged and sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and set their city on fire” (22:7).

This speaks of the Romans burning Jerusalem in AD 70, of which Josephus writes: “one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it” (J.W. 6:5:1 §275). Of the Romans we read that: “they went in numbers into the lanes of the city with their swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook without and set fire to the houses whither the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in them” (J.W. 6:8:5 §404).

Not only so, but the parable presents another allusion to Gentile salvation — in the context of Jewish rejection. For when the Jews reject the invitation to the wedding feast for the king’s son, the king not only destroys their city, but he sends out his slaves with the command, “Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast” (Matt. 24:9). His invitation moves out to the Gentiles, just as in the previous parable (21:43).

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As Hagner explains: “The messianic banquet thus finds its eschatological fullness in the inclusion of such unlikely people as Gentiles (cf. Rom 11:25).” Gundry adds: “The insertion of oun [“therefore”] typifies Matthew’s diction … and makes the Jewish leaders’ unworthiness the reason for inviting all nations.” For these people “represent all nations (cf. 28:19–20).”

Matthew 23

In Matthew 23:13–33 Jesus utters seven woes upon the Pharisees who “have seated themselves in the chair of Moses” (v. 2), i.e., they have a leadership role over Israel through their interpretation of the Mosaic law. After issuing these woes against Israel’s interpretive authorities, in verses 32–36 he warns that first-century Israel will “fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers” by persecuting his followers “from city to city” so “that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on the earth.” (Note Paul’s similar statement at 1 Thess. 2:14–16.)

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At the end of this long denunciation, the Lord dogmatically states: “Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation” (Matt. 23:36). This is obviously pointing to AD 70, which occurs forty years after Jesus speaks.

Notes
1. Hagner, Matthew 14–28, 631. Blomberg concurs (Matthew, 328).

2. Gundry, Matthew, p. 438.

3. In the NASB text we have eight woes. But the woe uttered at v. 14 is textually precarious and is probably an interpolation from Mark 12:40. Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (3d. ed.: New York: United Bible Society, 1971), 60.