PMW 2024-051 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

My brief survey of Matthew’s Gospel is important for setting up the broader literary context of the Olivet Discourse with its warning of Israel’s judgment in AD 70. Both Jesus’ regular teaching and frequent actions, as well as Matthew’s overall historical progression and literary presentation powerfully highlight God’s approaching wrath upon Israel. This understanding of Matthew is so clear as to be undeniable. In fact, Lowery — though a dispensationalist — can even speak of “the strong denunciation of Israel that pervades the gospel” and which employs a “strong polemic against Israel.”[1]

This presentation of Israel’s disturbing spiritual condition and foreboding historical expectation is so obvious, strong, frequent, and widespread that many liberal historians and theologians (wrongly) charge Matthew’s Gospel as a prime source of anti-Semitism in the world.

Jewish scholar Flusser comments on Matthew 8:11–12 regarding the “sons of the kingdom” being cast out: “This is a vulgar anti-Judaism of many members of the early Gentile church.”[2] Gaston warns that “there is a great deal in Christian theology which needs to be rethought after Auschwitz, and one good place to begin is with Matthew.” [3] Regarding the infamous statement in Matthew 27:25 (“His blood shall be on us and on our children”), Galambush laments: “It is hard to imagine a more anti-Jewish account than this ‘most Jewish’ gospel.”[4]

Openness Unhindered (by Rosaria Butterfield)

Dr. Butterfield goes to great lengths to clarify some of today’s key controversies. She also traces their history and defines the terms that have become second nature today-even going back to God’s original design for marriage and sexuality as found in the Bible. She cuts to the heart of the problems and points the way to the solution.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

In his renowned Hermeneia commentary on Matthew, Ulrich Luz states that

“in the Gospel of Matthew (and here Matthew’s entire narrative including its conclusion, is to be considered) it is at least implied by [Matt. 21:43] that the entire nation loses is election…. Thus Matthew is in fact one of the fathers of the ‘succession theory’ that later became dominant and according to which the church has taken Israel’s place as the chosen people…. Here the roots of Christian anti-Judaism lie in the biblical text itself. Verse 43 is a polemical statement disguised as a basic principle that formulates its result in a painful controversy over Israel. . . . Here, therefore, we cannot remove the anti-Jewish ‘original sin’ from the Bible and locate it in the history of the church.”[5]

Perilous Times: A Study in Eschatological Evil (by Ken Gentry)

Technical studies on Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, the great tribulation, Paul’s Man of Sin, and John’s Revelation.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

This is a naive reading of the New Testament’s polemical critique of Israel. Ancient rhetoric was far more vigorous than in our overly-sensitive modern world of political-correctness, diversity-equity-inclusion. Jesus himself employs insulting epithets, calling the scribes and Pharisees “hypocrites” (Matt. 23:13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29), a “son of hell” (23:15), “blind guides” (23:16, 24),” “blind men” (23:17, 19), “fools” (23:17), and “serpents … brood of vipers” who deserve hell (23:33). He accuses them of ostentatious religiosity (23:5–6), shutting people out of the kingdom of God (23:13), as well as charging them with robbery and self-indulgence (23:25). Indeed, they are nothing but “dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (23:27), and murderers of the prophets (23:31).

The Reformed Eschatology of Geerhardus Vos
Ed. by Ken Gentry and Bill Boney
This collection of several key eschatological studies by the renowned theologian Geehardus Vos will be published in late Summer or early Fall 2024. We have modernized Vos’ grammar and syntax and updated his publications according to modern style conventions (shorter sentences and paragraphs).

For information on the upcoming Geerhardus Vos work, see:
https://axeheadpress.com/pages/coming-soon-vos

But rather than being anti-Semitic diatribes, this language is stereotypical rhetoric that was widely-used by the Jews themselves in inter-party squabbles. Davies and Allison list many parallels between Jesus’ long denunciation in Matthew 23 and ancient Jewish practice.[6] Not only so, but this sort of strong invective was employed by the Old Testament prophets. Indeed, Isaiah 5:8–23 almost seems to be Jesus’ model.

As evangelical Christians we must recognize the redemptive-historical significance of Matthew’s strong message against Israel. This is exactly what Israel’s own Bible, our Old Testament, warns about when she rebels against God:

“But it shall come about, if you will not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you . . . . The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, a nation of fierce countenance who shall have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young…. And it shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout your land which the Lord your God has given you…. And it shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you shall be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. (Deut 28:15, 49–50, 52, 63)”

This is not anti-Semitism; it is biblical covenantalism.

Click on the following images for more information on these studies:

Notes

1. David K. Lowery, in Donald K. Campbell and Jeffrey L. Townsend, eds., A Case for Premillennialism: A New Consensus (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 166, 171.

2. David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magness, 1988), xxiii.

3. Lloyd Gaston, “The Messiah of Israel as Teacher of the Gentiles: The Setting of Matthew’s Theology,” Interpretation 29: (1975): 39.

4. Julie Galambush, The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament’s Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), 125. Evangellical theologian Christopher Wright deems Matthew “the most Jewish of the Gospels” (Knowing Jesus, 60).

5. Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21–28 (Hermeneia), trans. by James E. Crouch, ed. by Helmut Koester (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 44.

6. W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jr., The Gospel according to Saint Matthew (ICC) (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988), 3: 3:258–61. For example, the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by a hyper-orthodox Jewish sect (the Essenes) who withdrew from Jerusalem in despair over the corruption of the priesthood, cult, and temple. Their polemic against Israel is downright vicious.

Click on the following images for more information on these studies: