NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER TEN

Part V

Verse 32: If you stand before others and are willing to say you believe in me, then I will tell my Father in heaven that you belong to me.

Here we see our Lord referring back to what He just said in verses 19-20 about what to say when brought before tribunals to answer why you are preaching the Gospel of One called the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. If you are afraid of standing up and declaring without hesitation or fear that you believe in me as the Savior of mankind, then why should I tell my heavenly Father that you are one of mine?

It is important to see that Jesus put the positive response first in this verse, and the negative response last in the next verse. This means that He thinks of us first as redeemed, before having to think of us as rescued. I look at this as Jesus standing right beside me when I’m asked if I know Him, instead of Him watching me from afar.

The orthodox defender of the faith in the Early Church, Apollinaris, had this to say: “The prize is superior because it comes from God. It is not the same thing to acknowledged as human’s do and to acknowledge God’s way.… The believer must acknowledge God with both heart and mouth. ‘For one believes with one’s heart and is justified, and one confesses with his one’s lips and is saved¹.’”²

Verse 33: But if you stand before others and say you do not believe in me, then I will tell my Father in heaven that you do not belong to me.

So Jesus takes this warning one step further by pointing out that He personally would deny knowing them before His father if they proved to be unwilling to openly confess Him as their Lord and Savior. But our Lord was just about to take His warning one step further. Some scholars think that this was meant specifically for Peter since our Lord knew what was going to happen. But He was speaking to the whole group, not just one man. And besides, at that point I’m sure Peter never took this to heart as being a message to him personally.

This involves a seal of approval that can be confirmed or denied. One Psalmists declared, “I will discuss your rules with kings, and none will embarrass me.”³ We can learn a lesson from what happened with high priest Eli’s family when they disappointed God by the way they corrupted and abused their offices, Samuel had this message for Eli, “The Lord, the God of Israel, promised that your father’s family would serve Him forever. But now the Lord says, ‘That will never be! I will honor people who honor me, but dishonorable things will happen to those who refuse to respect me.‘”⁴

I cannot think of a more devastating rejection than when one called of God realizes they are no longer under the anointing of the Holy Spirit because they lost their reverence and respect for God. And that can not only happen by openly and flagrantly disobeying the Word of God, but it can be done in the way we worship Him and the manner in which we pray to Him Oh God help us when our worship services are all about the praise of the singers rather than praise to the Savior we sing about, and our prayers are to impress people instead of interceding with God.

Early Church preacher Chrysostom had this to say about denying God for who He is: “The Son of God does not speak soothing words here but rather speaks of the consequences of denial. Note carefully: It is not by some power within yourself that you make your admission but by the help of grace from above. But if you deny me, the Son, He is saying, then I will deny you in the presence of the Father. Someone may then object: ‘How then am I to be blamed if God, forsaking me, denies me?’ The answer is, Your being forsaken is the fault of you yourself, the forsaken person, not of God. ‘But why,’ you object, ‘should I need to confess faith with my mouth if I confess faith in my mind?’ No, we must confess with our mouths in order that we may be steadily trained to speak boldly. It is only through this more abundant love and determination that we will be raised on high.”⁵

In another Early Church commentary on Matthew, the writer makes this point: “Jesus does not say, ‘Every one who acknowledges me in his own heart’ but ‘before others.’⁶ If one does not acknowledge Him before others, it does one little good to say they believe in Christ in their heart. For it is impossible that one who denies with one’s lips can believe in one’s heart. For the root of confession is the heart’s faith. Confession is thus the fruit of faith. As long as a root is living, it must produce either branches or leaves, and if the plant does not produce these, we know beyond a doubt that its root is withered in the ground. In the same way, as long as the faith of the heart is healthy, it always sows the seeds of confession with the lips. But if there is no acknowledgment with the lips, you should know beyond a doubt that the faith of the heart has already withered away. For the apostle says, ‘For one believes with one’s heart and so is justified, and one confesses with one’s lips and so is saved.’⁷ And so confession by the lips is worth nothing without faith of the heart, and faith of the heart is worth nothing without confession by the lips.”⁸

Verse 34: Do not think that my coming will bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace. I came to bring conflict.

The people listening to Jesus may have had one of two reactions to what He said. Those who were expecting a warrior Messiah to come and liberate them from Roman rule and set up the kingdom of David once more, may have began to think, He’s the one! On the other hand, those who heard Jesus teach about loving God and their neighbor as themselves, it must have been a shock. Didn’t He say: “Blessed are the peacemakers?”

Early church scholar Chrysostom had an interesting way of interpreting this. He writes: “What sort of peace is it that Jesus asks them to pronounce upon entering each house? And what kind of peace is it of which the angels sing, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace’? And if Jesus came not to bring peace, why did all the prophets publish peace as good news? Because when the disease is removed, this brings peace more than anything else. This is peace: when the cancer is cut away. Only with such radical surgery is it possible for heaven to be reunited to earth. Only in this way does the physician preserve the healthy tissue of the body. The incurable part must be amputated. Only in this way does the military commander preserve the peace: by cutting off those in rebellion. Thus it was also in the case of the tower of Babel, that their evil peace was ended by their good discord. Peace therefore was accomplished.”⁹

To put this another way, sometimes it takes aggressive action with force to destroy a threat that may destroy peace, and once that threat is extinguished, then peace will continue to rule. If Jesus could have come and eradicated sin and its deadly effect the same way He quieted the storm on the Sea of Galilee, then He wouldn’t have had to die on the cross. But it took the violence of His beatings and the ferocity of the nails being driven into His hands to defeat sin once and for all. So it is that sometimes salvation will only come to a family when one Christian member is willing to undergo rejection and abuse in order for others to see how valuable salvation really is. Jesus now makes this very clear:

Verses 35-36: I have come to make this happen: A believing son will be turned against his father. A believing daughter will be turned against her mother. A believing daughter-in-law will be turned against her mother-in-law. Even you followers of mine will have members of your own families turn against you and become your enemies.

This certainly qualifies as one of the top ten most misunderstood scriptures in the New Testament. Here our Lord echoes the warning given in the Old Testament: “For a son insults his father, a daughter rises against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a person’s enemies are the members of his own household.”¹⁰ These statements by our Lord did not come as a surprise to His listeners. As the result of His coming Jesus refers to Jewish verbal teachings with prophecies about such dismal times to come: “Truth will be absent, the youth will blanch the faces of the elders, elders will rise in honor of the youth, the son will deride his father, the daughter will stand up against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”¹¹ This was not going to happen simply out of a spirit of rebellion, but in rebellion against the commandments that they rejected as the rule of life.

Even Jewish commentators were skeptical about the Jews’ readiness for what was to come. Said one of them: “With the death of the three last of the latter prophets, that is to say, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, the Holy Spirit prophecy ceased, but use was made of the voice from above. Once at the assembly of the wise men in Jericho they heard the voice proclaim, ‘There is one amongst you who is well worthy of the Holy Spirit, but alas the present generation is unworthy of it’.”¹² And another Jewish sage had this to say: “Hence that house in which there is strife will be destroyed, and the sages say that even a prayer-house in which there is strife will be demolished. The same is said about two chiefs of the court who live in one town and quarreled with each other until they finally died. Abba Saul said: Strife between courts is a destruction of the world. Abba Issi ben Johanan said in the name of Samuel the Little: This world resembles the eyeball of a man. The white is the ocean that surrounds the whole land; the black is the world; the circle in the black is Jerusalem, and the pupil in the circle is the Temple.”¹³

One Early Church writer offers what he calls the necessary strife that precedes peace. He writes: “The Lord himself proclaims peace, which is why the apostle Paul also admonishes peace and says, ‘For He is our peace.”¹⁴ This means, of course, the peace of those who believe and receive. But in what way does He not bring peace to the earth? When the daughter believed and the father remained an unbeliever, ‘what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?’¹⁵ For the proclamation of peace caused a division. With a believing son and an unbelieving father there is necessarily strife. The peace that was proclaimed itself caused a division: a good division! For it is in peace that we are saved.”¹⁶

What Jesus says here about families being torn apart has been taken by some scholars as a prophecy by our Lord pertaining to the coming siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple. At this moment in time, those listening to Jesus would not have understood such a dire prediction if it was meant for those who would be living 2,000 years later. He was speaking to Jews, not the church. But like any such virus, even after the Temple was destroyed and the Jews dispersed, persecution of Jesus’ followers continued, and is in full blossom this very day. But our Lord does not leave His listeners hanging, He adds more to show how loyalty and dedication to Him as the Messiah will be tested.

Jerome seems to have had a similar thought when he comments on this: “Jesus had said previously, ‘What I tell you in the dark, declare in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops.’¹⁷ He now explains what follows after this proclamation. The whole world is divided against itself for the sake of faith in Christ. Every house contains both unbelievers and believers. And a necessary conflict has been sent to break an evil peace. It is written in Genesis that God did a similar thing to the rebellious people who streamed out of the east and rushed to build a tower, by which they meant to reach the heights of heaven. God divided their languages.¹⁸ For this same reason David prays in the psalm, ‘O God, scatter the peoples who delight in war.’¹⁹”²⁰

Verse 37: Those who put their father or mother’s interests ahead of mine are not worthy of me. And those who prefer their son or daughter’s wants more than they do mine are not worthy of me.

Both Chrysostom the preacher and Augustine the theologian lived at the same time in church history, and here is what they had to say about applying Jesus’ words to their situation: Chrysostom says: “Jesus said this to bring fathers to greater gentleness and children to greater freedom, just at the point where love might be most tempted to hinder them. He bids parents not to attempt what is impossible by assuming that their love of their children can be rightly compared with their love toward God. He instructs the children not to attempt what is impossible by seeking to make their love of parents greater than their love of God. Then lest His hearers should become riled or count this saying as too demanding, see how He turns the argument even further in a more drastic direction. For after saying ‘who hates not father and mother,’ He even adds, ‘and his own life!’ So do not compare love of God merely with love of parents, brothers and sisters and wife. If you are serious, compare it with the love of your very life. For nothing is dearer to you than your life. Yet if you are also not ready to give up this love, in all things you must bear the opposite lot.”²¹

Then Augustine writes: “Let a father say, ‘Love me.’ Let a mother say, ‘Love me.’ To these words I will say, ‘Be silent.’ But isn’t what they are asking for fair? Shouldn’t I give back what I have received? The father says, ‘I fathered you.’ The mother says, ‘I bore you.’ The father says, ‘I educated you.’ The mother says, ‘I fed you.’ … Let us answer our father and mother when they justly say ‘love us.’ Let us answer, ‘I will love you in Christ, not instead of Christ. You will be with me in Him, but I will not be with you without Him.’ ‘But we don’t care for Christ,’ they say. ‘And I care for Christ more than I care for you. Should I obey the ones who raised me and lose the One who created me’?”²²

In both cases, these scholars seem to be placing a person’s love for their next of kin in competition with their love for God. But when we take what Jesus says before this and what He will say after this, we can better see that our Lord is actually saying that believers will be confronted with having to evaluate their submission to their parents with their service to God.

Let’s put it in this context. When a man or woman is called into the military, and in a time of war they are ordered to the front lines where they face death, will they decide not to go because they love their parents so much that they don’t want to leave them, out of fear that it may look like rejection or that they don’t love them for all they’ve done for them, or will they go willingly to the front lines out of duty and honor for their country, and in anticipation that what they are doing in defense of their country will in fact end up protecting their parents and brothers and sisters? I think we can see if this concept fits with what Jesus has said what He will say next.