NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Part XII

Verse 36: “Believe me when I say, all these things will happen to you people who are living now.”

This warning was the result of the corruption of character that involved taking what God desired His created beings to be and turning it into what mankind themselves desired to be, and it is deeply embedded in Jewish literature. In one document we read: “God commands me to proclaim to men. O men, in your image you have a form fashioned by God, why do you vainly stray and walk not in the straight way, always mindful of your immortal Maker?”¹

But the greatest judgment was reserved for those who caused death, especially as the result of jealousy, envy, pride, or hatred. Say the Rabbis: “Because of the crime of bloodshed the Temple was destroyed and the Shekinah glory departed from Israel, as it is written, So you will not pollute the land wherein you live; for spilled blood pollutes the land.”² This was the general consensus among Jews that God’s judgment was revealed most fiercely by allowing the destruction of His Temple. One Rabbi answered his own question on this subject: “Why was the first Sanctuary destroyed? Because of three [evil] things which prevailed there: idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed.”³ Now, it also appears that the generation living today has not learned from history anymore than the generation that lived in Jesus’ day. Turning from God by not recognizing Him as the Creator of all things and the Redeemer of those who are enslaved by sin will result in their own damnation and eternal alienation from the Most High God.

Chrysostom shares this in his sermon on this text: “Mark how well He has forewarned them. Even after He has pointed out their hypocrisy, they claim that they would not have shed the blood of the prophets. Jesus shamed them thoroughly, saying, ‘While you condemn them, you do things worse. These things will not be without punishment.’ He thus implants in them fear beyond words. He reminds them of hell. Then because that was to come, He brought home to them the terrors already beginning. ‘Truly I say to you, all this will come upon this generation.’ He added also unspeakable severity to the vengeance, saying that they would suffer more grievous things than all these. Yet in no way did this cause them to be corrected. But if anyone asks why they will suffer more grievously than all, we would say, Because they have first committed more grievous things than all, and by none of the things that have been done to correct them have they been brought to a sound mind.”⁴

Little did these people know of the coming carnage and horrible conditions that would prevail in Jerusalem during the siege of Roman general Titus just a few years down the road. Had they known, would they have repented and accepted Jesus as the Messiah? With the attitude they expressed here, there is little evidence they would have changed their minds. Rather, they would have sought to kill Him even sooner because this saying would be taken as a curse from a false prophet.

Verse 37: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets. You stoned to death those that God sent to you. Many, many times I wanted to help your people. I wanted to gather them together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you did not let me.”

Can you hear the compassion and disappointment in our Lord’s voice? Would their accepting Him have changed His going to the cross? I doubt it, no more than they would have saved a lamb from the altar whose blood was meant for the forgiveness of their sins and the promise of eternal life. This was the Messiah pleading for those who were chosen to receive Him, but they refused. While this particular verse is clearly intended for the Jews in Jesus’ day, it nevertheless contains the principle that will affect everyone who rejects the call to salvation.

Chrysostom shares this in his message on the rejection of Jesus. He says: “The emotive quality [of this plea] is like a woman who is much beloved and forever loved, yet who had despised the one who loved her. Now on the point of her punishment, just as the punishment is about to be inflicted, He pleads for her. The prophets also had similar words when they said, ‘Turn to me, and she did not return.’⁵ Then having called her, Jesus also tells about her bloodstained deeds, she who has been ‘killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to her! In this way, Jesus is also pleading His own case. But even with all this, you have turned me aside. Yet I have not withdrawn my great affection toward you. It was my desire often to draw you to myself, but you would not.”⁶

Someday, hopefully, the Jews will realize that no one did more to bring them salvation and insure God’s promise to Abraham than this prophet from Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth. No other prophet had as many prophesies about Him in Scripture as He did. No other prophet had as many Scriptural prophecies fulfilled in their lifetime as He did. No other prophet spoke as wisely and clearly of God’s plan for salvation as He did. No other prophet performed as many miracles as He did. No other prophet cried over them as He did. No other prophet claimed to be the Son of God as He did. No other prophet died on a cross to pay the price for their sins as He did. No other prophet rose from the grave to bring eternal life as He did. Yet they found no reason to believe in Him as the Messiah. So, incredibly, they still wait for another Messiah to come.

Then Chrysostom continues: “Jerusalem is defeating itself by its sins. Yet what affection remains. With what warmth is His affection expressed, as a mother for her brood. Everywhere in the prophets is this same image of the wings, both in the song of Moses⁷ and in the Psalms,⁸ indicating His great protection and care. ‘But you would not,’ He says, so ‘behold, your house is forsaken and desolate,’ stripped of the protection which comes from Me. It surely was this same One who had been protecting the city, and holding it together and preserving it, who had found it necessary to chasten His beloved. So now a punishment is appointed, one that brings exceeding dread and implies the entire overthrow of the city.”⁹

Verse 38: “Now your house will be left completely empty.”

Did God not have to go through this once before? Would He now be forced to go through it again? Didn’t He say through Jeremiah: “I have abandoned my house, I have rejected my heritage, I have given my heart’s beloved over to the hands of her foes?”¹⁰ Upon hearing what Jesus was predicting, I wonder if the following words did not come to some listener’s mind who truly believed that Jesus was the Messiah? “Remove not your dwelling from us, O God, lest they attack us, those who hated us without cause.”¹¹

For those of you who may not have access to the works of the Jewish historian Josephus’, here is a small portion that describes the massacre in Jerusalem:

So the Romans being now become masters of the wars, they both placed their ensigns upon the towers, and made joyful acclamations for the victory they had gained, as having found the end of this war much lighter than its beginning; for when they had gotten upon the last was, without any bloodshed, they could hardly believe what they found to be true; but seeing nobody to oppose them, they stood in doubt what such an unusual solitude could mean. But when they went in numbers into the lanes of the city, with their swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook, without mercy, and set fire to the houses to which the Jews were fled, and burnt every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the rest; and when they were come to the houses to plunder them, they found in them entire families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead corpses, that is of such as died by the famine; they then stood in a horror at this sight and went out without touching anything. But although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in that manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still alive, but they ran every one through whom they met with, and obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole city run down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of many of the houses was quenched with these men’s blood. And truly so it happened, that though the slayers left off as evening fell, yet did the fire greatly prevail in the night, and as all was burning, came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus [Elul] upon Jerusalem; a city that had been liable to so many miseries during the siege, that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from its first foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of the world. Nor did it on any other account so much deserve these sore misfortunes, as by producing such a generation of men as were the occasions of this its overthrow.¹²

To those Christians living today who believe that the world will soon start getting better and better until we all live in peace as a Godly world, have dismissed what Jesus said about the last days just before His return to gather His bride for the marriage supper of the Lamb. In fact, He said that when we begin to see the world fall apart into chaos and idolatry, then look up, for our redemption is at hand.¹³