Matthew 20

Division 5. (Matthew 20:29-34; Matthew 21:1-46; Matthew 22:1-46; Matthew 23:1-39.)The Governmental Presentation and the End as to Israel. Clear as it already was that Christ would not be received by His own, there yet had to be His formal presentation to Jerusalem as its King, so that they might openly and manifestly accept or reject Him. Moreover, this could not be too early, before not only His works of power had been done among them, but also He Himself had been fully before their eyes, and His teaching was sufficiently known to those who cared even to listen to it. For these were in fact the credentials of His power, as from God. The people as a whole would have responded to what had been the devil’s suggestion, and have welcomed one who had cast himself down unhurt from the pinnacle of the temple before their eyes. But that could have been no settlement of anything in any way acceptable to God. The people who did, in fact, believe when they saw the miracles that He did, He could not trust.

God is not Power only, nor Power and Wisdom, but Righteousness and Holiness and Love as well. All was fully now displayed, and they were called to make their momentous decision. Now therefore He openly accepts the title of the Son of David given Him by the acclamation of the multitudes who accompany Him to the city, and who had perhaps been first wrought upon by the miracle at Jericho, which was expressly an acceptance of that title. The blind men to whom He had given sight were with Him as His witnesses, as once before two blind men (Matthew 9:27) had been; but then forbidden to let any know it. Here all is in public, and they follow Him without prohibition. His claim of the asses afterwards, expressly as fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy, is still more outspoken and the children crying in the temple are commended by Him in the fullest way. But the acclamations die out in the air of the rebellious city, whose pollution of the temple proclaimed its rottenness at heart; and His judgment of the fig-tree is that of the people themselves, of whom the “fig-tree planted in a vineyard” is elsewhere distinctly used by Him as the figure (Luke 13:6-7). This is the prelude only to that open opposition which follows on the part of all the various sects and classes among them, who set aside their strife with one another to unite in vainly seeking to ensnare Whom they cannot confute. And this ends with the “woe” upon the leaders, and His lament over the city.

Matthew 20:17-28

Section 7. (Matthew 20:17-28.)The perfection of the kingdom. The seventh section; in close connection with the last, gives us a gleam of the glory of the Kingdom which displays its moral perfection; in contrast with all the kingdoms of men. The spirit of the disciples also is shown out in contrast with the spirit of their Lord, and their painful misconception of all that constitutes true glory. But it is upon the Lord Himself that the eye rests here, who is the Light and Glory, as of the heavenly City so of the earth in the blessing that it soon shall know. And with this, suitably, this fourth division of the Gospel closes.

1. We have first the Lord going up to Jerusalem, with the perfect consciousness of all that is before Him there. He takes the twelve apart in order to make known to them again what He would have them realize as to Him - no unforeseen thing, but that for which He had come, and to which He had devoted Himself. He knew every bitter ingredient in that cup which He was going to drink: the betrayal, the condemnation by the heads of the people - His own their delivering Him to the Gentiles, the mockery, the scourging, the crucifixion. Of all this He speaks to them, adding the blessed comfort of His resurrection also, on the third day. Mark tells us of the fear that had already fallen upon them in the way; Luke, that nevertheless they understood none of these things, but that this saying was hidden from them.

No doubt, all this went together. They were dazed and stupefied with the apprehension of a great sorrow which they had no courage to face nor take in. Matthew simply speaks of the Lord’s making it known to them, putting this in sharpest contrast with the appeal of the sons of Zebedee with their mother which follows next, and which shows so perfectly in which direction they were looking at that time, - how quickly they had rallied from the unwelcome announcement of the Cross, to comfort themselves with that which, true as it was, they were soon to show they little apprehended. The glory itself they would find morally conditioned by that Cross of which it was the outcome, and from which they turned away. 2. After the will of the Master, therefore, - a will in which self-seeking had no place, - we come to the lust of the disciple, to see how the most precious truths can be distorted by the mirror that reflects them, were it a James and a John, the nearest intimates of the Lord on earth, who furnish the mirror. How jealous should we be of ourselves, lest we should pervert what we imagine we but receive, and turn our blessing into loss and shame! Nature is leading here, as is evident; the mother of Zebedee’s sons is a witness to us of how our natural relationships need to be watched and not suffered to intrude into the things of God. We see in the Lord’s case how He refuses all control of this kind, as we see in the Popish doctrine how readily, if allowed, it will come in. “Say that these my two sons may sit, the one on Thy right hand, the other on Thy left hand, in Thy kingdom.” But the way of the Cross from which they have turned is the way of glory: “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of The moment it presents itself to them as a personal gain, they are ready. The Lord answers, “Ye shall indeed drink of My cup; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, except to those for whom it is prepared of My Father.” He is the perfect Servant all the way through; just because - “Serving in the joy of love.” In exaltation and in lowest humiliation; the Father’s will rules for Him - is all to Him. We have the wonderful example, in One perfect in wisdom and in goodness, of how service is the characteristic sign of love. In Him in whom all is absolute freedom, there is never a thought of anything but the Father’s will. To us, what a commendation of it! What a bond of perfection for the universe will it be in all eternity, the Son of God in manhood, Himself “subject to Him who put all things under Him”! 3. But the indignation of the ten at the two brethren shows their kinship with them morally. And now the Lord lets them see their common error, and the true glory of that Kingdom which they had been thinking of as if it were but like a kingdom of the nations. What! did they imagine that in His Kingdom there would be the gratification of ambition, of the desire for lordship? or that the places of rule with Him could be such as this would imply? No: for service was the road to rule, and this could only be because rule itself would be but more ample service. Whosoever would be great among them would be their minister, and the chief among them by that very fact be but bound to serve them.

Must it not be plain that the Son of man; the King, “came not to be ministered unto but to minister”? Glory might change the character of this service - not the spirit nor the fact of it. The Cross might be lowest humiliation for Him, but it was His glory too. Could they cease to remember it? Could the love shown there be measured by aught else? Could it change or be exhausted?

Would He be upon the Throne to be ministered unto or to minister? What must the places of rule be in the Kingdom of which He would be the King!

Matthew 20:29-21

Subdivision 1. (Matthew 20:29-34; Matthew 21:1-22.)The King. The presentation of the King occupies the first subdivision here, which ends with the judgment of the fig-tree. All is quickly over, for the decision of the people has been really made before, and here they but re-affirm it. Babes and sucklings may welcome Him, but the people are far from being of the spirit of such, and therefore far from the Kingdom. The cry “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” will have, as the Lord declares, to be taken up again and in earnest at a future time.

1. The royal proclamation begins at Jericho, the city of the curse; which does not and cannot, however, prevail over the blessing. Jericho, which even in Joshua’s day had witnessed the salvation of Rabat, from its own doom, now witnesses the grace of the Son of David. Two blind men, sitting by the wayside, cry out to Him as this, only to find the rebuke of the multitude, as by and by a remnant of Israel will awake up to their darkness and their need of Him, only to meet the opposition of a growingly apostate mass. But they cry the more, until He who can never turn away from the voice of need answers and heals them. The light dawns upon those sightless eyes, and the Person of their Saviour becomes revealed to them; then they follow Him. The two men in this case, where in the other synoptics is but one, are, as we have seen; characteristic of Matthew, as the two blind men before (Matthew 9:1-38) and the two demoniacs (Matthew 8:1-34), in both which cases Mark and Luke speak but of one. There is surely, therefore, design in this difference, which in Matthew, no doubt, speaks of witness-bearing to the Lord, now in the character which at this time He is taking. And this witness He does not, as in the former case, forbid; as the healing also is now in public. Publicity He designs, as His time is at last come for “showing Himself to the world;” and these, delivered from the “land of darkness and of the shadow of death” are suited witnesses.
2. Accordingly now upon His approach to Jerusalem, at Beth-phage, the “house of unripe figs,” - and the typical significance of the fig comes shortly into prominence, - He sends two of His disciples to claim for His service the ass and colt, upon the latter of which He rides into the city. The animal was characteristic of the Prince of peace, in contrast with the war-horse upon which we see Him in Revelation (Revelation 19:11). The young animal also, before unridden, shows the new and free spirit of obedience which alone could bring Him into His place among His people - thus to be “willing in the day of His power” (Psalms 110:3). As to the other ass accompanying, it is impossible not to think of the past in connection with it, as the patristic commentators did. Is it more suitable to regard it merely as necessary to quiet the foal for its service to its Creator? Those who can think so we must leave to such sober interpretation. It was a time when the very stones were ready to cry out, and all, we may be sure, has its significance for us. The “foal of a beast of burden” seems even as if it were intended to remind us, not surely of the unbelieving synagogue, nor yet of the law itself, which imposed, but did not bear, burdens, but rather of those who as belonging to the legal dispensation could be so pictured, even though the true people of God by faith. Thus only, as inheritors of that faith, could the after-generation; destined to freer service, be counted as their offspring. But with these the elder generations could be seen; as linked with them in the triumph of the Christ now come. Thus all is surely consistent, though even for that time it was but a gleam of light which, as far as Israel nationally was concerned, went out in darkness. And the prophecy of Zechariah is carefully abridged on this account. “He is just and having salvation” is omitted, because in fact salvation could not then come. The crowds might exhibit a temporary enthusiasm, and genuine disciples add their truer homage to the King, - the city meets it with a question merely, however “moved;” and the “Hosannas to the Son of David” weaken sadly into the how different reply, “This is Jesus the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.” The King of glory is for them already discrowned.
3. But He, not dependent on the voices of the multitude, goes on into the temple which was in fact the place of His throne, but now desecrated by the abominations of priestly avarice, for which the people, three years before the destruction of the city, themselves suppressed the traffic that defiled it.* There it was before His eyes, with its loud-voiced iniquity, just as He had met it at the beginning of His ministry, and then purged out the defilement as He afresh purges it now. Quick work for Him to establish His authority there in the very presence of His fiercest enemies, in the heart of Jerusalem, in His Father’s house itself, which, as He tells them, they had changed from the “house of prayer” for which it should have been known; into a robber’s den. And there, in the now empty place, “the blind and the lame” (characteristic and concurrent types of those that needed the touch of the true King) “came to Him in the temple and He healed them.” Thus He is owned of God and of man alike, - though of man, alas, unchanged and hostile still. There are no “willing people;” and for them it cannot be the “day of His power.” He may prove His title, but cannot take His throne.
   This is for Him, then, no triumph: only the children’s voices make music for Him now, with whom the hosannas that have died out in the streets are taken up again. What is hidden from wise and prudent is revealed to babes; and the rebuke which they look for from Him as to it, they find themselves. No: they had never read that “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings He perfected praise.” How much of our Bibles, it may be, we have never read, though our eyes may have often enough been upon what they have never seen there! Had they been spiritually little ones, would they not have seen this? Even our involuntary ignorance may tell - must tell - thus against us! They were not little ones, and therefore for that generation of Israel the Kingdom could not come. The Lord withdraws from the city to spend the night at Bethany among those whose hearts had answered to the grace that was seeking men.
4. In the morning He returns early to the city, and is ahungered. A fig-tree is before Him by the wayside, and He comes to it to satisfy His hunger, but finds no fruit. Mark tells us that it was not the season yet for figs; but the leaves upon this tree promised for it fruit, as Israel stood alone among the nations in the profession of allegiance to the One True God. Fruit therefore could be expected from her, if nowhere else; and He with hunger of soul unsatisfied had been seeking it. His own parable of the fig-tree had been long before spoken (Luke 13:6-9) with evident application to the people also; and now the judgment is to be pronounced. “Let no fruit be henceforth on thee for ever,” is answered by the rapid withering away of the fruitless tree. The disciples are in amazement when they see the fig-tree withered; but the Lord uses the miracle to assure them of the power which was ready to manifest itself for them in response to faith. Not only should they do what was done to the fig-tree, but if they had faith and doubted not, even a mountain standing in their way should be removed and cast into the sea, and whatsoever they asked in prayer, believing, would be done. We may well see in this a veiled assurance of how Israel, now nothing but an obstacle in the path of faith would disappear politically in the sea of the nations. But the promise here is of course, of very various application, and it would be entirely wrong in any way to limit it, save as the Lord Himself does; who distinctly makes His last assurance as full as possible. To faith nothing shall be denied; but it is not limitation to insist that faith must be faith.