Biblestudy: Matthew (Part One)

Matthew's Emphasis on Jesus' Kingship and Jewish Roots
#BS-MA01
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 15-Jul-81; 82 minutes

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We are going to begin what might turn out to be a very long Bible study. I do not mean long tonight; I mean long in terms of taking quite a long time to get through it. We are going to be beginning in The Book of Matthew.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the synoptic Gospels. Optic, you are probably familiar with this word which has to do with seeing. For example: the optic nerve, optical, optician and so forth. The prefix syn indicates together. Those of you are who are mechanics know about synchromesh transmissions or synthetic tires. Well, syn is a Greek prefix that means together.

So, what synoptic literally means, is "to see together" or—to make it a little bit more pliable and easier to understand—"able to be seen together." And so, with some additions and some deletions—or omissions—Matthew, Mark, and Luke give parallel accounts of the same events so that they are able to be seen together. If you put them all together then you get a full picture, or a much fuller picture, of what actually occurred.

Some of the accounts in these three books are virtually identical, almost word for word. For example, there is the one that appears in Matthew 14, Mark 6, and Luke 9 and that is the feeding of the 5000. If you compare all three of them—maybe have a harmony of the Gospel—you will find that they are almost word for word exactly the same. It is not always that way, but what it tends to indicate is that all three of these books had the same source. That is that there was one source to which they all turned for the basic outline of their particular telling of the story.

Now, who was this? Most of these people who spend a great deal of time looking into these things feel that the Book of Mark was the first one written. Apparently, there are enough indications of this that we could probably spend an entire Bible study just looking into this one thing.

Now I do want to give you a little bit of background material as we lead into the book of Matthew, to help you understand where maybe Matthew got his material.

Most of the scholars believe that Mark was the first one written, and it—according to them—can be divided into 105 sections. That is 105 different events or circumstances in which there was some teaching of or about Jesus Christ. Of these 105 sections, 93 also appear in the book of Matthew and 81 appear in the book of Luke. These 105 sections can be broken down in the book of Mark to 661 verses. Matthew on the other hand has 1,068 verses, and Luke has 1,149 verses. Now of the 661 verses in Mark, Matthew reproduces 606 of those verses and Luke reproduces 320 of them. Of the 55 verses that Matthew does not reproduce, Luke supplies all but 24. Between Matthew and Luke, there are 627 of Mark's verses that appear in those two.

What this indicates is that Mark was the one who was the source—at least for the basic material—of the other two books. There are other indications, like the style of language in the book of Mark, that seems to indicate that Mark was written—apparently—within five or six years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is also fairly plain to these people that Matthew and Luke follow the outline of events that appear in the book of Mark. Occasionally, one or the other will differ here and there. However, Matthew and Luke never differ together on something that Mark has already written about.

So again, it seems to indicate that Mark was the one that they were copying from. One might also get the idea that Mark is a summary of Matthew and Luke. But it does not look that way, it looks more like Matthew and Luke are embellishments of Mark rather than Mark being a summary. I personally feel that this is probably the way it is. The embellishments are included in Matthew and Luke because they are written to different audiences than the book of Mark. It appears that the Book of Mark was a summary of the life of Jesus Christ intended for use within the church—at the very beginning of the church—so there would be an outline of events that was intended primarily for church use. That did not mean that it would not have use outside the church, but its primary focus of attention seemed to be the church. Now with Matthew and Luke, we are going to see that they have different focuses of attention in their writing and therefore were intended for different audiences.

There is also another difference which is kind of interesting—I do not know how important it really is but it is interesting—and that is in Mark's style of writing, what he says tends to be vivid, pungent, it is very pointed and also very simple. According to these people who study into these things, the language in the book of Mark is of a very common sort of Greek. The kind that one would tend to hear right on the street. There was not much embellishment in terms of using more high pollutant language. Of the three synoptic gospels, Luke is the one who has the best grasp of the language. The way that Mark put things across is very vivid, bold, pungent, to the point, but it is not always as precise as the language of either Matthew or Luke.

Again, this seems to indicate that they were written for different audiences. Preciseness is important when you are writing for a more exacting group of people. For example, if you were going to write something for a child, you would write it differently than you would for a college graduate with a PhD.

I will just give you a couple of examples that show the difference in approach between Matthew, Luke, and Mark. Even though these men appeared to be following Mark, when they rewrote it with a different audience in mind, they use different words sometimes in order to be more precise about what was being said.

Turn to Matthew the 8th chapter and we will see three different accounts of the same event:

Matthew 8:16 When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick.

Mark 1:34 And He healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew Him.

Luke 4:40 Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them, and healed them.

How many of you caught the change? In the book of Mark, he wrote that Jesus healed many; but when Matthew wrote it, he said He healed all of them. There is a difference between many and all. Matthew was more precise about pointing out that He healed them all. When Luke wrote it, he wrote it the most precise of all he said every one. Do you see? Now, what it tends to indicate is in their embellishing of what Mark already wrote, they make it more specific.

Let's go to another one. Turn to Luke 6:19. Now again, this is three accounts of the same thing:

Luke 6:19 And the whole multitude sought to touch Him: for there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all.

Back in the book of Mark, Mark 3 and in verse 10. Mark's account of the same thing:

Mark 3:10 For He had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon Him for to touch Him, as many as had plagues.

Again, you can see he is blunt and approaches it in a much more general way saying that He healed many. Luke was very precise and said all of them.

Now back to Matthew:

Matthew 12:15 But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew Himself from thence: and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.

Let's look at one that is kind of interesting. Since you are in Matthew, turn to Matthew 20:20. This is the occasion where—not too long before Jesus was crucified—the two apostles came asking Jesus that He might set one of them on His right hand and the other on His left hand.

Matthew 20:20 Then came to Him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping Him, and desiring a certain thing from Him.

Now, when you look at Mark's account of the same thing, in Mark 10:35, you will see that he leaves the mother out and he ascribes it to the two apostles and the mother is nowhere to be seen:

Mark 10:35 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come unto Him, saying, Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire.

Now again, Matthew is more specific than Mark. Mark is just giving the essence of what occurred, and Matthew and Luke embellish upon it and make more precise the events that occurred that originally—apparently—had been written by Mark.

Mark was probably just a scribe, and it is very likely to have been dictated by Peter—which probably accounts for the language that is used. That is the language of the street, rather than the language of the scholar.

The sum of this portion of the introduction is that Mark gives a vivid, simple, and direct narrative. Matthew and Luke tend to show embellishments that make the story more specific, but also tend to show that they have been written much later; this is because their writings show a much stronger doctrinal influence. Matthew and Luke were interested in getting doctrine across, it was not just a matter of relating events. They made sure there was much more precise doctrinal teaching when they did their writing.

Here comes a major difference between Matthew, Luke, and Mark.

Remember I gave you some verse totals before. That there were 627 verses out of the 661 verses that appear in the book of Mark that are reproduced in Matthew and Luke. I told you before that Matthew had 1,068 verses and Luke has 1,149 verses. Now, what is it that accounts for the difference between the great number of additional verses that appear in Luke and Matthew? What do they use the extra verses for? We said that they embellished upon what Mark said, but how did they use the embellishment? That is what the important thing is.

Here is what they did. If you would make a very careful reading of the book of Mark, you will find that what Mark concentrates on is events. He gives the life of Jesus—or an outline of the life of Jesus—by telling the events that occurred.

Now Matthew and Luke not only give the events, but what else do they give? Matthew and Luke tell what Jesus said in the events, whereas Mark just tends to stick to the event itself. That does not mean that Mark said nothing about what Jesus said. It is just that Matthew and Luke tell a great deal more about what Jesus said. You can check this for yourself, all you have to do is look in a red-letter Bible and see how much Mark has in it that is in red by comparison to what Matthew has in it and what Luke has in it. You will see that there is a great difference—great preponderance difference—between Matthew and Luke than there is in Mark. This is the major difference as relates to the size of the books. Matthew and Luke not only give the events, but they tell what Jesus said.

Let's take this one step further. Whenever there is a comparison of the 500 extra verses in Luke and Matthew, which are not in Mark, it is found that 200 of these verses are almost identical. This seems to indicate they probably had a common source. In this case it could not have been Mark because he did not record a great deal about what Jesus said. So, who was the common source?

The Bible does not say who the common source is. Now I am looking at this humanly—of course God is the one who inspired it—but God makes use of our talents, and he will use those talents in a way that will even come through in the writings of the Bible.

There is one secular source, and I will give it to you for what it is worth. According to a man by the name of Papius, who was an early church historian—I do not think that he was a true church historian, he was probably a false church historian—who wrote about the true church, and he said that the one responsible for gathering the sayings of Jesus was Matthew.

This seems to make sense in that just as God used Solomon to gather Proverbs together. —I do not know whether you realize that, but Solomon was not the author of all the Proverbs. He gathered them together and God inspired Solomon to write the ones that he gathered that were true and they became a part of God's word.—Now in the New Testament, in the gospels, apparently the one who was responsible for gathering the sayings of Jesus, or the teachings of Jesus, was Matthew. Others then drew upon the notes that he kept—or the notes that he gathered from others who kept notes—as Jesus was speaking. There was then a compendium of the sayings of Jesus Christ put together by Matthew and many of these then appeared in the book of Matthew and then others including Luke, used Matthew's notes as their source material for the sayings of Jesus Christ.

Matthew 9:9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto Him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed Him.

Matthew was a tax gatherer, a tax collector. In the Bible terminology, he was a publican. Publicans were not very well liked or respected by the average Jew, because first of all they were tax collectors.

You know very well that if the IRS man sends you a letter and says that you are about to be audited, whether what you have put down on your tax form is true or not, you stand somewhat in respect. Maybe awe, a little bit of fear and trembling of what they might find upon examination of your records and whether or not you are going to be fined, get a refund or whatever. You then kind of live somewhat on the edge of the cliff until that thing is resolved. You know what kind of attitude that I am talking about. Well, that was one reason they disliked the publicans, but there was a second reason that was even more forceful to them and that is that all of the publicans—the tax collectors—were in the employ of the enemy.

Remember, the Jews were a subject people, and the tax collectors were actually in their employ and were looked upon as a traitor. Here you are a quisling, you have given yourself over to the enemy and you are actually working in his behalf and taking our money and giving it to Rome. It seems like an improbable choice of Jesus to pick someone out who immediately was going to be disrespected by everybody who knew what he was. But at any rate, He did take this man Matthew and put him in His service, and He made use of his skills.

Now being a tax collector would seem to indicate that Matthew was reasonably well educated. There is no doubt that he had accounting skills. There is no doubt that he could read and write. There is no doubt—I feel that understanding his background—that he would have been a man who very likely would have been reasonably well organized. Matthew was a man accustomed to keeping ledgers and accounting—keeping track of things. This will show in the book of Matthew. If he was the one who collected the sayings of Jesus, it is very likely he would have them fairly well systematized. In other words, he would have them in a reasonably good—maybe an outstanding—order in a way that would be easily understood and grasped. Now that is exactly what he did. We will see this more in just a little bit.

There is no doubt that Matthew was written with the Jews in mind. So, it is the gospel to the Jews. Matthew was a Jew; he had an excellent background in the history of Judaism and in the history of the Jewish people. He was very well acquainted with them, having been able to watch them from his tax collector status.

Matthew uses the phrase, "this was done to fulfill what was said by the prophet" or "this was done in order to fulfill what was written by the prophet" 16 different times. No other writer does that. I do not mean that no other writer does it at all, I mean no other writer comes anywhere near doing that as often as Matthew did. Matthew did this 16 times. He did it in regard to Jesus’ birth, he did it in regard to Jesus’ name, he did it in regard to Jesus’ birthplace, he did it in regard to the calling of Joseph out of Egypt, he did it in regard to them living in Nazareth.

Matthew was not written to a Gentile as Luke was. Luke did not include those things. Why? Because in all likelihood a Jew—being somewhat familiar with the Old Testament—would be interested in those things, whereas a Gentile would not be—at least at the beginning of their conversion. Later, of course, the Gentile would become interested in those things and then he could study the Old Testament. But at the beginning of a person's conversion, it would be the Jew who would be interested in whether or not Jesus was fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament. Therefore, this is an indication that Matthew was written with Jews in mind.

Secondly, Matthew makes more emphasis—more references to the law—than any other writer of the gospels. Would the Gentile be interested in the law? Of course not. But the Jew would be. And so, Matthew writing with the Jew in mind included many, many references to the law.

Another thing, Matthew denounces the Jews far more than anybody else. He is the one who includes John the Baptist's stinging rebuke, you know at the very beginning in Matthew three "O generation of vipers, [you snakes, he calls them, who has] warned you to flee from the wrath to come?". Matthew also includes Jesus’ stinging rebuke of the Jews that is recorded in Matthew the 23rd chapter. Now, would the Gentiles be interested in that? Not very much, but the Jews would be.

Another interesting thing, Matthew is the only one of the gospels in which the word church appears. It appears at least two times in Matthew 16 where Jesus said, "I will build my church" which seems to indicate a later date and that the church was already a viable institution. Also, in Matthew the 18th chapter—in telling people how to settle their differences—he said to "tell it to the church," which seems to indicate that the church was a dominant factor in people's lives by the time that the book of Matthew was written. So, it indicates then, that by the time Matthew wrote his book, the church had become organized and was a factor in people's daily lives.

Matthew is also the writer of the synoptic gospel who spends the most time on end time events. His account of the Olivet prophecy is much longer than either Mark's in Mark 13 or Luke's in Luke 23. Also, Matthew is the only one who includes the parables concerning end time events. In Matthew 25, the one about the Wise and the Foolish Virgins and also about the Sheep and the Goats. The other writers do not say those things at all, but Matthew does use embellishments there, all of them teachings of Jesus Christ.

Now we come to the factors that really begin to separate Matthew away from the others. Not only was Matthew written to the Jews, but it emphasizes the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is not the main emphasis, but it is secondary to one other thing which we will get to next. In a very systematized way—in fact in five different great blocks of teaching—Matthew emphasizes the Kingdom of God. The first one is from Matthew five through Matthew seven, which is the Sermon on the Mount—which could be, you might say the equivalent of the law of the Kingdom of God.

All the way through there Matthew is emphasizing Jesus' teaching in regard to the attitudes that the people, who are going to be in the Kingdom of God, are going to possess and he emphasizes their righteousness. That our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and that we must obey the law not only in the letter, but also in the spirit. And so, the first block of teaching about the kingdom involves the law of the Kingdom of God.

In Matthew 10, he talks about the duties of the leaders of the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 13, there are seven parables, each one of them about the Kingdom of God where Jesus usually began it by saying, "the Kingdom of God is like unto..." Then in Matthew 18, he talks about the greatness and the forgiveness of the Kingdom of God. And finally in Matthew 24 and Matthew 25, he talks about the coming of the King of the Kingdom of God.

So, Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount; Matthew 10, the duties of the leaders; Matthew 13, the Parables; Matthew 18, the greatness and forgiveness of the Kingdom; and Matthew 24-25, the coming of the King.

Now I mentioned before that Matthew was a very well-organized person and the teaching in it is extremely systematized—I mean almost to an extreme. There was a reason why he did this. The reason is that they did not have any books like we have books and so the Bible just simply was not available to them on an ordinary everyday basis. Even those who did have them, had the Bible in those great big weighty difficult to handle scrolls. So, what Matthew did is he arranged the book of Matthew in combinations of threes and sevens. This is really interesting in that almost everything is either in a series of three or a series of seven. You are going to see how often this comes up.

Here are just a couple of examples:

One is in the first chapter; I will skip for the moment. We will get to it in just a bit, but also in the first chapter the Angel spoke to Joseph three different times. Wonder if you knew that? In Matthew 13, there are seven parables of the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 23, there are seven woes to the scribes and the Pharisees. There are the three denials of Peter that are grouped right together. There are many, many others. We will pick them out as we go through.

We still have not gotten to his dominant theme yet. Anybody want to guess what that dominant theme is? Remember it was written to the Jews, so with them as a background and Jesus in the foreground, what would he want to emphasize about Jesus? [Someone answers] King. Jesus is the King of the Kingdom. That is his dominant theme and so all of his material is arranged in such a way to present Jesus' authority.

We are going to see this from the very first verse. What do you think the first verse says in the book of Matthew? [Someone answers] He says that he is descended from David, the son of David. Right from the very first verse he begins to show that Jesus is the King of the Kingdom and that is his dominant theme from the beginning to the end.

He shows them the authority of Jesus Christ, beginning with His genealogy that He has the title of Jesus Christ as the son of David. And that phrase "Son of David" is used more by Matthew than any of the other writers. Whenever the wise men come, why are they coming? According to Matthew, they are looking for the king that has been born.

Whenever Jesus makes His triumphal entry into Jerusalem just before His crucifixion, it seems as though Matthew purposely dramatizes it as the entry of a king conquering his city. Then whenever we come to the crucifixion, it is Matthew that tells us the complete story in regard to the sign, the plaque, that was over the head of Jesus Christ. "Jesus, the King of the Jews."

In the Sermon on the Mount, he shows the authority of Jesus Christ several different times. I would guess it is probably three or seven times He says, "But I say unto you" seemingly abrogating everything that went before Him and showing that He had the authority to extend the power of the law—beyond the mere letter—to the spirit as well, showing that He was actually above the law. Now that is authority to a Jew of those days.

What does the last two or three verses in the book of Matthew say? "All power and authority in heaven and earth has been given onto me." He begins his gospel by stating that Jesus is king, the son of David, and he ends it by saying that all authority has been given unto me. So that is his dominant theme. He is going to prove to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus of Nazareth is the anointed one of God.

Matthew 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Now, we are not going to go through all "the begats". We will choose a couple of them out of there in just a bit. Genealogies were very important to the Jews. To give you an example, the high priest had to have—I mean before the high priesthood became a political office— the high priest had to have an unbroken pedigree all the way back to Aaron, there could not be one defect in it. If there was one blemish, he would not qualify to be high priest.

But that is not all, if the high priest married a woman, she also had to have an unbroken genealogy of at least five generations into the line of Aaron. It was not good enough that she just be a Levite, she had to be a Levite of the family of Aaron, and it had to be at least five generations long. But he had to have an unblemished genealogy all the way back to Aaron.

If that is how important genealogy was to the Jews in order for a man to be high priest. Do you not think that the man's genealogy for king had to be equally as pure? This is why Matthew began his account in the way that he did.

Luke did not begin the same way. Jesus' genealogy does not appear until the third chapter, which again indicates that it was not as important to the audience that Luke was writing to as it was to the audience that Matthew was writing to.

Now, Jesus' genealogy was impressive! To a Jew you could not have asked for a better genealogy. Matthew started out with the two biggest names to a Jew: David and Abraham and Jesus was the son of both. There was no getting around the fact that Jesus, if he was going to be a king, had a legal right to it, right from the word "go". There was no argument on those grounds at all.

One little interesting sidelight: In the days of Jesus, the Sanhedrin were in charge of keeping these genealogies. Apparently, at one time it had been in the hands of the Levitical priesthood, but by the time of Jesus changes had come about so that the Sanhedrin were keeping it. Well, unfortunately the Sanhedrin did not have all the power that they would like to have had. They were under the domination of the Romans and specifically they were under the domination of Herod Agrippa.

Herod was king at the time that Jesus was born. Herod was half Jew and half Edomite, so his pedigree was besmirched, and he legally could not be a king as far as the Jews were concerned. Their king had to come from the line of David. Now this offended Herod, so do you know what he did? He destroyed all the genealogy tables. Once he destroyed them, he said "there, my genealogy is just as good as everybody else's." That actually happened. So nobody had a pedigree any better than old Mr. Agrippa did.

Notice that this genealogy is broken into three sections of 14 names each. It is very obvious to anyone with half a mind, that Matthew did this on purpose. He did not include every name of every king that could have been included. He specifically arranged it, leaving some out, so it would come out perfectly as the systematized teaching that he wanted to get across: three groups of 14 names each.

The first group begins with Abraham and ends with David. This was the period of Israel's growth into a nation from their various beginnings with Abraham until they reached the peak of their power under David.

The second group begins with Solomon and ends with the exile into Babylon with the killing of Zachariah, as he is called in the Old Testament. Here Israel went from the top to the bottom. Beginning with Solomon and the gradual disintegration and degeneration of their power and glory under him until they went all the way down the bottom and finally were taken into captivity. So, at the end of the second group, they have come into slavery and shame.

Then the third group begins with them in exile and ends with Jesus Christ. And so, it begins with them in physical slavery and it ends with the potential for spiritual freedom under Jesus Christ.

There are four names that I want you to pay special attention to: Rahab the harlot, Ruth the Moabite, Tamar, and Bathsheba. When the Jews listed their pedigree, they never put women in them. But Matthew did. Matthew was a Jew and Jesus Christ was a Jew. He purposely left out men's names and inserted women's names. He could have easily put men's names in there and still come up with the same three sets of 14.

Now if you were thinking carnally—as an ordinary human being would—that if you were going to put a woman in your genealogy, and break that kind of tradition that the Jews had, you would look around and you would find the best women you possibly could find. Matthew did not do that. It almost looks like he looked around to find the worst ones he could find. For example: Rehab the harlot. Some people like to soften that and say that she was just an innkeeper. I do not believe that, I think the Bible is telling the truth in that she kept the house, and it was not the nice kind. Yet here she is an ancestor and some of her blood was flowing through God when He was a man.

Then there was Ruth. Ruth was a pretty nice gal, but she was a Gentile, a Moabite. There was even a curse in the book of Deuteronomy about Moabites not being allowed in the temple. So the second woman that Matthew picks out is a Gentile. And so, when the Son of God was born, He had Gentile blood flowing through Him too. So did David, the greatest king Israel had. Then there was Tamar. Her history is kind of interesting. She committed incest with her father-in-law, Judah. Yet this gal who committed incest, had her blood flowing through the Savior. And then finally there was Bathsheba, the adulteress who committed adultery with David. I will tell you there are not four more unlikely candidates that you could possibly pick. Yet God purposely inspired Matthew to leave men's names out and include women. Even women that you might consider to be of low reputation.

Now, why? Is there some teaching here? I think there is. I think what he was getting across to us, right at the very beginning, is that these artificial barriers that we erect and build prejudice upon are going to be smashed. Specifically, these artificial barriers between male and female.

Some people have the idea that a man is better than a woman. That is poppycock. A man is not better than a woman, he has God given authority that is greater than a woman's, but greater does not mean better. God makes it very plain and clear that a woman has the same potential as a man to be a son of God in the Kingdom of God. Therefore, any prejudice that is based upon supposed male superiority is artificial and not of God.

Second, there is the barrier of prejudice between Israelite and Gentile. The Israelite had built it up in his mind that because he was chosen, that meant better. But God made it very plain that when His Son came, He had some Gentile blood in Him as well. And then there is the idea, or the difference, between the slave and the free man, and that somehow one is superior to the other. There is no superiority there at all. Paul makes it very plain in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ "there is no bond or free, there is no male or female, there is no Jew and Gentile, for we are all one in Christ."

Right at the beginning of Matthew very subtly, he begins to introduce this theme into what becomes Christianity—what becomes His family. Those barriers still should exist, because of man's carnal mind, out in the world. But they should not exist within the church. The sum of it is, that God begins right away to introduce the universality of His plan, that it is going to encompass male and female, Gentile and Israelite, bond and free and that He is going to open it up to everybody.

Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, you son of David, [here is the first time the Angel appeared.] fear not to take unto you Mary your wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost [or Holy Spirit] and she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call His name Jesus: for he shall save His people from their sins. Now, all this was done, that it might be fulfilled [Here comes one of those times] which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: and knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called His name Jesus.

We are not held by the same culture and traditions that the Jews were, so some of these things seem a little bit difficult sometimes for us to understand. It is very obvious from reading this, that Joseph and Mary were not married. and yet she is called his wife very plainly. They were espoused in verse 18, it says his wife in verse 20, and yet they had not come together.

The Jewish method in regard to marriage, or engagement in marriage, was considerably different than what we practice today. They had what they would call an engagement that could come at any time in a young person's life, it might even occur shortly after the birth of one or the other. The children could actually be engaged at very young ages, 3, 4, 5, 6 years of age. These engagements were of course, then arranged by the parents, sometimes with, sometimes without the aid of a matchmaker.

The people who did this either had business considerations in mind, political considerations in mind, or they simply believed that they knew better than their children. That marriage was such a serious business that it could not possibly be left to the decision of somebody whose heart was afflicted with love. It depended on the family, but there is no doubt many political arrangements were made and also business arrangements. This could take place at almost any time in a child's life. However, they did have one qualifying, or modifying thing, which is that as the girl grew up, she did have the right to refuse to marry, even under those kinds of situations. I do not know whether the parents always listened, but at least according to Jewish tradition, she did have the right to refuse to marry.

The second step was what we would call a betrothal, and this was absolutely binding, unlike the engagement. They did not live together, they did not come together, and it usually lasted for about one year. The only way it could be broken was by a legal divorce, it was that binding. They were legally considered husband and wife. This is the stage that Joseph and Mary were in. They were betrothed, considered husband and wife, though not living together, and not having come together. And then the final stage was the marriage proper. So that is why some of the wording is the way that it is.

Joseph was told to name him Jesus. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua. Joshua is the word savior but with jah in front of it. Jah literally means God. So Joshua means: "God is savior." It could also mean if turned around: "the savior who is also God." There are some individuals who might win a great battle and be called the savior of the people, but in this case, God made sure that the prefix was put in front so that Jesus' name was "the savior who is also God." Thus, a takeoff on this is the word, Emmanuel. According to Isaiah, when he prophesies that His name would be called Emmanuel, means "God with us."

Now, it says that she was a virgin. There are theological arguments about this, because in Isaiah 7:14, which Matthew quotes here, Isaiah used a word that could be translated either virgin or young woman. Its usage would then be translated by, or interpreted by, the context in which it appeared. Now, the context in which it appears in the book of Isaiah leaves it in doubt as to whether the woman would actually be literally a virgin.

What Matthew does is he shows the proper interpretation, at least in terms of prophecy and in terms of Jesus Christ, because the Greek word that is used here is Parthenos. Parthenos can only be translated virgin, meaning an unmarried woman who has never come together with a man. He is clarifying God's intent in Isaiah 7:14 in that Jesus literally would be born of a virgin.

One more thing that I do want to pick up here. In verse 20, it says that he was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Now we in the Worldwide Church of God, and I believe the Jehovah Witnesses, use this as a proof text to show at least partly that there is no trinity.

If the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead, then according to this verse, he would qualify as being the father of Jesus Christ and not the other person of the godhead, that is God, the one we know of as the Father. If the Holy Spirit is the Father, then would not Jesus call the Holy Spirit His father? But He never did. The omission of that gives a very strong implication that the Holy Spirit is not a being, but that the Holy Spirit is an it, the power of God. It is the means through which God accomplishes His will. It is an essence that emanates from Him by which He accomplishes His works. He thinks, He speaks, and His power emanating out from Him proceeds then to do what He spoke. So when He spoke the words, the God that we know of as Jesus was reduced down into a sperm and that sperm then was put into the body of Mary to impregnate that egg by means of the Holy Spirit. That is just one scripture which shows that Jesus never called the Holy Spirit His father and thus—and He only ever called who we call God His father—the Holy Spirit must not be a being but rather an it or an essence.

Matthew 1:25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called His name Jesus.

The Catholic Church insists that Mary never had another child after Jesus. Now this phrase in the Greek knocks that into a cocked hat. First, it is first born. If she only had one child, the Greeks had a phrase that would have said her only child. Why then did not Matthew say that? Instead, he said first born, which indicates that she had a second born, third born, fourth born or whatever.

The Bible indicates that she had at least seven children in all. It names four of Jesus' brothers and in reference to the girls, it uses the words "are they not all here?" If there were only one, they would have used "is not she here?" If there were two, they would have said, "are they not both here?" But since it said all, that indicates at least three half-sisters that Jesus had. This phrase in the Greek literally means that son of hers the first born one. That is so plain, that son of hers, meaning Jesus, that son of hers, that particular one, the firstborn one. There is just no doubt about it, she had other children and Jesus was the firstborn.

Matthew 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him.

Jesus’ birthplace was in Bethlehem which means house of bread. Now Bethlehem has a very long history. It is first called in the Bible by the name of Ephrath. It has two different names. Sometimes it is called Bethlehem and sometimes it is called Ephrath. So, if you are ever reading and you come across the name Ephrath, it means Bethlehem.

Now the word Ephrath means fruitful, and the word Bethlehem means house of bread. There is actually kind of a tie in between the two names, and I really do not know where the word Ephrath came from, but it is older than the word Bethlehem. Perhaps some other tribe of people originally named it and whenever the Hebrew people came along, they renamed it to Bethlehem. It has a very ancient history and is most intimately associated at the beginning of the Bible with Jacob. Jacob settled there for a while, Rachel died there, and Jacob erected a tomb—a monument—to her there. Later on, it was the home of Ruth and of course Boaz.

But above all, in the Bible, Bethlehem is associated with David. It was the place where he was born, it was where his home was as long as he was at home with Jesse, and so Bethlehem through the Bible is called the city of David. So, whenever Joseph and Mary went to be registered, they had to go to their home city, which was the city of David, the city of Bethlehem.

Bethlehem is located about six miles south of Jerusalem and it sits on a high ridge of mountains. It is actually about 2500 feet up. That is higher than Greenville or Charlotte is. We are only about 300 feet up here in Colombia. Bethlehem is a good 2100 feet higher. It sits in a saddle between two mountain peaks, two peaks here and then a little saddle. If you can just imagine what a saddle for a horse looks like and right down at the base of the saddle and filling out toward the mountains is where Bethlehem was.

You probably have in your mind of Jesus being born in a stable. And if you have the common American view, you think of a stable in terms of being in a barn or maybe in a building attached to the house or maybe a short distance away from the house. The Catholics insist that Jesus was not born in that kind of a stable, and they may be right, because the hillsides in Bethlehem are pockmarked with caves, and they feel that Jesus was born in a stable inside a cave. That is, it was near a home that was using the cave as a stable. I will give you that for what it is worth. I do not think it amounts to a hill of beans, but it certainly is a possibility. Again, it is one of those things that the Bible simply does not say. It says he was born in a manger, but it does not say whether it was in a stable, an attached building or a detached building. But I think that there is a possibility that he was born in a cave that was being used as a stable.

Matthew 2:2 begins talking about these Magi. In verse one, they are called wise men. The word there in the Greek is Magi. Now the Magi have an interesting background. They first appear in history as a tribe, an actual family grown great, who were of the Medes. You have likely heard of the Medes and the Persians. Well, the Medes occupied the northern part of what is today Iran and part of what is today Iraq on the southern edge of the Caspian Sea. They were conquered by the Persians who lived at the south end of what is today Iran, and they became thus the Medo-Persian empire. The Persians tended to dominate most of the time and one time this tribe called the Magi, which was part of the Medes, tried to overthrow the Persians and regain power for the Medes.

But they failed and in their failure they were scattered and put down by the Persians. However, through the centuries they gradually came together again and became a priestly tribe. They turned their attention to philosophy, to natural science, to magic, to sorcery, to astrology, to things of that nature including religion. And over a period of hundreds of years actually became a priestly tribe. Now, of those remnants of the Medo-Persian Empire, that remained after Alexander conquered them, the Magi were without a doubt the best educated by far. They tended to dominate life in the educational and religious spheres of that time off in the east.

I am telling you all of this because of a point I want to make. How many Magi were there? The Bible does not say. There could have been 150 of them, but that seems ridiculous to have a whole caravan of Magi coming out of Medo-Persia. Where were the Magi concentrated? I told you earlier that they were concentrated in what is today northern Iran.

Where was Israel—the ten tribes—sent to in there exile? They were sent to what is today Northern Iran. Whenever the Syrians conquered them and took them back to their land, their land at that time was what is today northern Iraq and northern Iran on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. Now, if you read the Old Testament, you cannot escape the fact that the Israelites were attracted to foreign religions.

It is then no great leap for me to think of the Israelites becoming interested in the religion of the Magi. The soothsaying, the sorcery, the astrology, the mystery, the education, the science, the medicine, the philosophy. If these people can jump to the conclusion that maybe there were three Magi, is it too much to think that there might have been 12 of them? Is it too much to think that there might have been one for each one of the tribes of Israel? This idea that there were three Magi is historically not very old, it only arose within about the last 1000 years. But the ancient sources say there were 12. The writings that come from the early parts of the 1st and 2nd century AD say that there were 12 Magi.

Now using that, it does not seem to me to be stretching a point to think that there were 12. There was one Magi for each of the tribes of Israel, but they were pagan as anything even though they were Israelites. However, they were not Gentiles that God was calling, but people who probably by this time thought that they were Gentiles. For any of you that were at Jekyll Island for the Feast of Tabernacles back in about 1965, Dr. Dorothy gave a whole sermon on what I am talking about here. He had books up there at the lectern—and he was quoting out of them—that showed that these writers said that there were 12—which I think is a strong possibility. Dr. Dorothy was a lot more dogmatic than I was. By the time he was done speaking, there was no doubt that these were Israelites. But that was his manner of speaking.

The sum is that this is not just a fanciful child's tale that Matthew is talking about here. He is trying to make a point that these things were not done in a corner. These were events that were witnessed by important people from all over that portion of the world.

Matthew 2:3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

All of Jerusalem, the whole city was kind of buzzing about what was going on, but Herod more than anybody. I will tell you that Herod was something. When he was a young man, he ingratiated himself with the Romans. He was a very talented individual no doubt about it. Very talented, very aggressive, very assertive. Came from a powerful family and in 47 BC, he got himself appointed governor of Judea. By 40 BC, he got himself appointed king of Judea and that included all of Palestine, all the way up including Galilee. He was also known as a great builder.

If you do any reading, you are going to find that he is responsible not only for the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem—which took 46 years I believe to rebuild—but also he built Caesarea which was a tremendous monument that he built to the Caesars of Rome. Apparently just a gorgeous place, by all accounts. You can look on the maps. If you look in the New Testament you will find that Caesarea played a big part—at least to Paul and Peter and those were passing back and forth through there. At any rate, Herod was the builder of that.

He is also known as being a very generous man. In times that were hard, he would do what Reagan and his group are trying to do now. He would remit the taxes so that the people would have a little bit more money to spend on food. It is even recorded that in real hard times he actually gave away his own money so that the people could live. He donated it to the public and did not ask for it back again. He just donated it so that they could buy grain and so forth in order to live.

But Herod had one very serious character flaw. He was paranoid about anybody taking his position as king and if he got the slightest whisper that somebody wanted to be king… Off with their heads.

He had his own wife assassinated. He had his mother-in-law assassinated. He had three of his sons assassinated. He had untold numbers of political cohorts assassinated. By the time he was 70 years old and about ready to die—historians record that he died of syphilis, that he just blew up, became very bloated, had open sores all over and was ulcerated from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head with open running sores, pus oozing out of them—he knew that nobody was going to mourn his passing. So, he had it written that at the time that he died, he wanted some of the highest, most influential citizens in Jerusalem to be gathered together on trumped up charges and murdered. He wanted somebody to cry when he died. He knew that they would not cry at his death, but they would be shedding tears anyway over the death of somebody else who died at the same time he did.

Well, you can understand his paranoia upon hearing that a contender for his throne was born. With this paranoia, you can begin to understand why he ordered the killing of those children in Bethlehem. And so, he asked of the chief priest, where this would take place and they told him from the prophecies, it would be in Bethlehem of Judea.

Matthew 2:7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared[this becomes very important in about verse 16].

And then, in verse 8, he sent them on to Bethlehem and they got there, and it says in verses 9, 10, and 11 that by the time they got to the baby Jesus, they were in a house. They were no longer in the manger and Jesus was already a young child.

JWR/aws/sgs