Who Are My Brothers

 Matthew 12:38-50

Welcome! As we continue our journey into the Gospel of Matthew, I want to start by discussing a few things from what you could call a 40,000-foot-high level. Although all four gospels are fundamentally written chronologically, starting with Jesus’ early ministry (or even His birth) and ending with His death and resurrection, the Gospel of Matthew is generally considered to be the least chronological of the four gospels. I believe that Matthew is doing this for many reasons, hopefully some that we can get into more deeply in later messages in this series, but today I want to highlight just one of those reasons: to create a powerful narrative structure. Before I go further, let me mention that some of these ideas have been mentioned in previous messages by our other wonderful speakers. But I think this bears repeating, in part because of the particular passage we are going through today.

Now I believe that all Scripture is God-breathed, so that not only did God influenced the writers of Scripture, He directed them, passage by passage. He did this in such a way that the Bible communicates exactly what God wanted it to communicate, but at the same time, He allowed His writers to write using the phrases and idioms and so forth that they naturally used. Therefore, you see a difference in the “kind” of Greek that Mathew used versus that which Mark used, for example. And although the Bible is for all people everywhere on earth, God allowed the writers to write primarily to more direct and limited audiences. In this way, we see that Matthew was written primarily to Jews, because he does not bother to explain Jewish customs. In contrast, Mark writes to a broader audience and does explain these customs.

 

Matthew’s gospel is clearly divided into seven sections. Given that the Bible always associates seven with completeness, fullness, and fulfillment, I do not think this is an accident. Do I think Matthew had illusions of grandeur and thought so much of his writing abilities that he chose to do this? No, I believe the Holy Spirit guided Him, directed Him, to use this structure. It is possible that even Matthew did not realize this was happening until he nearly finished writing the gospel.

 

The sections can be reasonably be described as a prologue, five middle sections, and an epilogue. The prologue consists of Chapters 1 and 2 and covers the genealogy and the nativity of Jesus. The epilogue consists of Chapters 26 through 28 and covers Jesus’ anointing at Bethany, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, Jesus’ arrest, trials, and crucifixion, Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, and the Great Commission. Except for the genealogy, the content of the prologue and epilogue are narrative – that is, they include some things that Jesus says, but mostly they describe what Jesus and others did, where they went, and so on. 

 

The five middle sections are different. And again, I do not think that the number five is an accident. Five is also a symbol of completeness, especially characterized as the number of the books of the Torah, the “five books of Moses,” Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Is this structure really there, or am I reading something into the text? It is really there! Each section even finishes with the unique phrase “When Jesus had finished…”.

 

Each of the five middle sections starts with narrative and ends with an extended discourse, or teaching, of Jesus. Matthew is unique with regards to these discourses, although it is certainly true that smaller portions of these discourses are found in the other gospels, often split apart.  This may be because Jesus repeated His teachings in smaller forms as they went from town to town.

 

Now Matthew was a tax collector before He became a disciple of Christ. Recent research has discovered that tax collectors at that time and place used a unique shorthand for writing down detailed narrations of transactions involving taxes and debts. It is entirely possible that Matthew used this shorthand to write down almost verbatim what Jesus taught in these extended discourses. If this is the case, then the reason they do not appear in any other gospel like this is that nobody else had the ability to record (or recite from memory) the details of Jesus’ longer speeches. But Matthew could do it. This might mean that these extended discourses that Matthew record are almost exactly word for word what Jesus spoke. And yes, the Holy Spirit could have guided others to do the same, but we do not see this structure in the other gospels. (I should mention here that John also has an extended discourse of Jesus from the last supper, but the contents of this discourse are mostly unique to John.)   

 

So what are the five sections? The first, from Matthew 3 to 7, has a narrative section that includes Jesus’ baptism, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, His first times preaching, His calling the disciples, and His healing the sick. The second half of the section is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The second section, from Matthew 8 to 10, combines three sets of three miracles with two sets of two discipleship stories. The discourse for the second section is when Jesus commissions the twelve disciples to preach to the Jews, perform miracles, and tell of the coming Kingdom, all while traveling lightly, expecting to be shown hospitality and to be provided for.

 

The third section is found in Matthew 11 to 13, and this includes our passage today. I will come back to this. The fourth section is in Matthew 14 to 18. It includes more miracles, confrontations with the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, and the transfiguration. In this section’s discourse, Jesus reveals that increasing opposition to Him will result in His crucifixion in Jerusalem, and that His disciples therefore need to prepare for His absence and understand that they will shepherd other disciples. The fifth section is in Matthew 19 to 25. Here the opposition against Jesus intensifies dramatically; He comes to Jerusalem, overturns the tables of the money changers, and speaks in parables. This section’s discourse speaks prophetically of the end times.  

 

One more thing to mention is that, like many passages and longer sections of Scripture, we find a chiastic structure here. This structure is amazing. I’m including a link to my favorite detailed version of this structure in the transcript: http://www.newhumanityinstitute.org/pdfs/matthew-chiasm.pdf.

 

Let me first remind you of what the chiastic structure entails, and then in the briefest outline, illustrate the chiasm of Matthew. Again, there is a reason I am doing this today; it relates to our passage. And yes, we will eventually get to our passage!

 

A chiasm is a structure in which the first and last elements are parallel, and second and next-to-last elements are parallel, and so on. In the middle is either a single element or a pair, and often it is the most powerful or important part of the entire structure. To describe this somewhat colorfully, let A and A prime be the first and last elements, B and B prime the second and next-to-last elements and so on. Then the chiastic structure (in this example with 4 pairs of elements) is as follows: A B C D Boom! D prime C prime B prime A prime.

 

So what is my understanding of the chiasm of Matthew?

Isn’t this amazing? I wish I had time to go deeper into these parallels. Each time I revisit this, I am filled with a sense of awe at how God orchestrated history, how God directed the writing of Scripture, and just at how for God everything is in its place, orderly. God is in control, and He loves structure and He loves hiding in plain view. Those who seek Him will find Him!

 

So what is the third section in the five-section structure? What is the “Boom!” in the chiasm? The third section, starting at Matthew 11, has been covered over the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, John talked about John the Baptist, who despite previously calling Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, was now in prison for political reasons (not religious persecution), and who now had doubts and questions about what was going on and indeed whether Jesus was really the prophesied one, the Messiah. Jesus told John’s representatives to report what they had seen – the miracles, and the proclamation of the good news of the gospel, to encourage him. But then the passage takes a dark turn. Jesus goes on speaking to the crowd and speaks of those who ridiculed John and who now ridicule Jesus. He speaks woes on those towns where he did most of his miracles, because, despite this, they did not repent. Jesus again calls people to come to Him, for He will give them rest.

 

Last week Jonathan went through a large section of Matthew 12, where the Pharisees condemned Jesus’ disciples for picking grain to eat from the fields on the Sabbath. Jesus spoke of David doing the same thing and of the priests who replace the consecrated bread on the Sabbath and then declared that He is Lord of the Sabbath and promptly healed someone on the Sabbath. This made the Pharisees’ hatred for Jesus grow even more, so much so that they now plotted how to kill Him. Jesus continued to heal people, and the Pharisees responded by saying that Jesus only did this with the help of the prince of demons. Jesus strongly rejected and repudiated this thinking. He went on to say that blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

 

Jonathan mentioned that people freak out over this passage and wonder what this means and whether they might accidentally do it. Let me give my take on it. I believe Jesus’ words on this was directly in response to the Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus as Lord and Savior and Messiah despite seeing all the evidence. I believe He said these things to the crowd as part of that same conversation. And so I believe blasphemy against the Spirit, the unforgivable sin, is to choose to reject Jesus when you have been presented Him to you, when the Holy Spirit Himself confirms in your heart that yes, Jesus is Lord and Savior and you need to repent and confess and give your life to Him, and you choose to reject Him. I don’t believe that a person doesn’t have multiple chances to turn to Christ, but I do believe that those chances are only here in this life, and that you never know when you had your last chance. I also believe that, rejecting Him, when clearly being presented Him by both a human speaker and the Spirit Himself to your soul, can harden you to further attempts to listen to His call. So it is not just that you might die before you have another opportunity, it is that future opportunities will fall, so to speak, on deaf ears. This is what I personally believe Jesus means when He is talking about blasphemy against the Spirit.

 

And so what I see in these two chapters, what I see in this third part of Matthew’s gospel so far, what I see in H of our chiastic outline, is that Israel is fully divided. Some are coming to Christ, being healed, putting their faith in Him, and others, especially the religious leaders, are hardening their hearts to Him and even plotting how to kill Him. If you look back over the history of the Israelites in the Old Testaments, divisions like this have never ended well. And what I see is God (through Jesus) condemning men for their scoffing and unbelief. You simply cannot truly love God and reject Jesus.

 

Listen again to Jesus’ final words to them from last week’s passage:

 

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” – Matthew 12:34-37

 

What as it like to publicly endure Jesus’ condemnation like that? From an honor-shame perspective, this was absolutely shocking. It broke all of the rules! The “court of public opinion” was a physical thing at this time. The rules were that speaking was a form of honor-shame competition. The person who won over the crowd, whether through clever arguments, or perhaps humor, was the winner. The winner increased his honor status; the honor status of the loser decreased. It was all very serious, but at the same time, it was also fun in a way. It was more like the sport of jousting than like a serious battle.

 

But Jesus stopped playing. He stopped caring about his honor status – at least that is how it appeared to them. He was not speaking like a man in an honor competition – he was speaking like a God who had had enough.  

 

What happened next? Let’s (at last) look at today’s passage:

 

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” – Matthew 12:38

 

So at first I read this and my response is “Where have you been?” Jesus is healing people left and right! But the Greek word translated as “sign” is different from that used to describe healings. The Pharisees ask this again in Chapter 16, but there it is written a bit more explicitly: they want a sign from heaven. Although “from heaven” is not used here, I think this is also implied here. Maybe they want something like the sun to stand still, or to go dark, or the moon to turn to blood. By the way, one of those had already happened in the Old Testament, one was soon to happen (when Jesus died), and one is yet to happen – it is one of the signs of the end of the age. There are of course many other examples of signs in the Old Testament – I think of all the miracles that God did through Moses – did they convince the Egyptians to change? No. And I think of Elijah calling down the flames by the power of God. Did that make them all believe? No. Signs, truly miraculous signs, perhaps surprisingly do not, by and large, seem to be effective at making people believe.

 

Why are they asking this question? Why are they asking it now? I believe precisely because of they way Jesus has just spoken to them, like a God rather than like a man. And so their response makes sense – they are saying, “Big words, Jesus – you sound like God or at least a prophet speaking God’s words. If you are such, prove it. Show us a sign.”  

 

Did they ask this because they actually had become fearful, or because they were genuinely curious but simply didn’t have enough faith to believe? No. They had hardened their hearts. They were blocking out the call of the Holy Spirit – who I believe was still calling them to repentance. Their hearts were so hardened that they were ignoring all of the other evidence – Jesus was healing people! He spoke like no one else! He was fulfilling prophecy! No, they were ignoring all this, refusing to consider it. They wanted Jesus to “take the bait”, agree to show them a sign, and – they were certain of this – fail.  

 

He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. – Matthew 12:39-40

 

Jesus was in fact telling them about the most amazing sign of all. Jesus was predicting His own death, burial for 3 days, and resurrection! (By the way, some people get caught up on the “three-days-and-three-nights” as somehow implying that Jesus didn’t stay dead long enough, or maybe we don’t have our days right when Jesus died. I don’t think this is the case at all – there are other cases Biblically and extra-Biblically where we see that this day-and-night phrase is just an idiom that means 24 hour days, but does not mean the entire 24-hour day. The reason this was done was because day was a much vaguer term than our day. It is true that we can also use day in a vague sense, but we tend to only do it when talking about the Bible, for example, when talking about the Day of the Lord. We also use say “day” to talk about a portion of a day; like if we say we spent the day in Greenville, it doesn’t mean we got there at midnight and stayed until the next midnight. It just means we didn’t spend multiple days there. It is the same with this phrase.)

 

Jonah, flawed prophet that he was, even Jonah, was a Christ figure. I am convinced that the entire Old Testament points to Christ. Jonah was running away from God and took a ship going in the opposite direction of where God told him to go and preach. God had told him to preach repentance to a non-Jewish people who were actually terrible enemies of the Jewish people! You all know the story – God sent a storm; the people became afraid and all prayed to their false gods – and it came out that Jonah was the cause. He jumped from the ship, and a giant fish swallowed him up. Everyone thought he had died. But for 3 days he stayed in that fish, and at the end, the fish vomited him up onto dry land, where Jonah finally gave God’s message. The people repented, and God spared them. Jonah, however, was not happy about this – in fact, he was so unhappy he said he wanted to die. Jesus went on:

 

The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. – Matthew 12:41 

 

This is so profound! It’s not just the fact that Jesus is saying that He is greater than Jonah. It is also that the people who became people of faith were Ninevites, not Jews! You have to think about how this sounded to a Jewish audience. Jesus was of course prophesying not only the fact that he would rise after being buried in the earth; He was telling them that God’s messenger, Jesus, was not only for the Jews, but for all peoples and tribes and nations! And what He said has come to pass. People throughout the world who have become believers in Jesus look at this passage and wonder, how could you reject Him? Jesus goes on:

 

The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here. – Matthew 12:42

 

Who was the Queen of the South? What did she do? She undertook a dangerous, tremendous journey, because she had heard of Solomon’s wisdom and wanted to come learn from him herself. It is rare that royalty put themselves at risk – they send envoys, they send others. But she came herself. And let me point it out again – she was not Jewish! The world is now filled with people of various peoples, tribes, and nations who have risked it all – and in many cases lost their lives – because they heard something about Jesus. No matter what happened to them, they would say that it was worth it – because Jesus is the pearl of great price. He is more precious than anything on this earth, even life itself. And with the Queen of the South, they will rise up and look at the generation of Pharisees and teachers of the Law in this passage and say – we don’t understand. You didn’t have to do anything! Jesus was right there! You only needed to humble yourself and repent! He gave you so many signs! You were there in person with Him! And you had the Law! You had the Old Testament Scriptures! Everything pointed to Him! We had nothing like this! We were lost, idolatrous, wicked, self-consumed and yet we came to Him! How could we not? Look at who He is! How could you reject Him?

 

I should point out Solomon, too, was deeply flawed. Yet, as David’s son, he was also a picture of Christ. Jesus is repeatedly called the Son of David in Matthew. This goes back to a promise God made that David’s son would be the one who built a temple for God. This prophesy had a partial fulfillment in Solomon, who built a physical building where the Spirit of God did reside for a time. But the building was destroyed. It did not last forever. But Jesus has built a different kind of Temple. We are the Temple of the Spirit of the Living God. Jesus has built this – He has built us; as it is because of Him we have faith and believe. It is because of Him that our hearts are renewed, that the Spirit lives in us. And it is because of Him, that we are part of a Temple that will never be destroyed. This Temple that Jesus has made through His death for our sins and through His resurrection, is an eternal Temple, as we have eternal life in Him.

 

“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” – Matthew 12:43-45

 

I think when reading Matthew it is always important to ask the question, “How does this relate to the previous passage?” Matthew often lacks connecting phrases, so it is tempting to think these are just random sayings stuck together, kind of like the Book of Proverbs. But I believe this is a mistake. I believe things are almost always connected.

 

I believe this is important here. People often tend to focus on all but the last sentence of this passage. But I would argue that the entire point of the passage is the last sentence! The first part, about the spirits, is really more of a parable than it is anything else. It is dangerous to build theology out of parables. Parables, by definition come “alongside” a truth, to point out that truth. And that is exactly what Jesus is doing here. He is not warning people about the dangers of casting out spirits. So what is He saying?

 

I believe rather than focusing on the spirits, we need to focus on the man. The evil spirit left his man, and while he was gone, the man cleaned things up. This is a description of the life of a Pharisee. It is important to remember that, in many ways, Pharisees really were moral people. Yes, they were plotting to kill Jesus, and undoubtedly they did many other evil things when people and other obstacles came their way, but they weren’t sexually immoral, they weren’t swearing, and so on. From outward appearances, not only did they keep the 10 commandments, they kept all 613 mitvot (good deeds). They even tithed their spices, for crying out loud. When someone became a Pharisee, they cleaned up their house.

 

But man can only keep his house clean temporarily, because the world, his flesh, and the devil all tempt him to sin and all succeed in bringing him down. Jesus came to them, and He invited them to put their trust in Him, to believe in Him. If they had done this, they would have discovered that an altogether different kind of spirit set up in their home, the Holy Spirit, and such a person would never be troubled by demons taking up residence in their hearts again. (I am speaking symbolically, using the word picture of the parable.) I believe this was Jesus’ message. House cleaning, even really thorough house cleaning, won’t save you! It’s only a temporary stopgap. And in reality, everyone has closets and bathrooms and other places that are in fact, terribly dirty. 

 

Jesus is saying something more – He is saying that those who did the house cleaning are worse off than those who never did it! Is He saying that people should not practice morality? Absolutely not! But what He is saying reminds me of the parable in Luke 18 where Jesus says to people come to the Temple to pray, a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee has cleaned up his house (at least he thinks so), and so he prays “Thank You God, that I’m good – I don’t have any problems, unlike that tax collector over there!” Until this man realizes that he is not even a little good, His heart will remain horribly far from God. Meanwhile, the tax collector who has never cleaned up his house prays a prayer of honesty and need, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” God loves the latter prayer and never fails to answer it.

 

I want to say one more thing about these passages before we turn to our final few verses. Jesus seems pretty harsh here, right? I mean, this is painful to read. Is this only a condemnation of the Pharisees, or is it something more? I fully believe it is something more. Jesus is speaking in a public place, where crowds are gathered. Only some of the people here are Pharisees, More – probably the majority – are regular Jewish folks who like a good show (and boy, are they getting one! This is one to tell the grandkids!). But everything Jesus says is also for them. They are not Pharisees – they might not even like the Pharisees. Everything Jesus is saying is getting them to think, perhaps for the first time, what it really means to follow God. They are also realizing that Jesus is no Pharisee – in fact, He is like nobody they have ever seen. When Jesus condemns the Pharisees for not realizing that someone truly greater than Solomon or Jonah is there talking to them, they tend to agree. Until this internet age, we had more or less lost the idea of a public commons where a few people talk while many more listen. We now have this again in through social media. It’s difficult to make an impact in social media, but no more difficult I believe than it was to do it in a commons area back at the time of the disciples. Remember that anything you post publicly is read by many more people than the person or people you think you are responding to. You may find yourself in a position like Jesus, where by repudiating something someone is saying, you are not really even doing it for them – because you know they won’t listen – but you may be doing it for the others who are listening. I am not saying that everyone should try to do ministry via social media – but I am saying that if you are, keep this in mind – your most important audience is probably not the people you are responding to.

 

Let’s turn to the final portion of today’s passage:

 

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, His mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to Him. Someone told Him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to You.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” – Matthew 12:46-50

 

Here I believe we are entering a discourse, the third discourse – although you could argue it starts a few verses earlier or later. It doesn’t really matter. My point is that we are entering what I called “Boom!” – arguably the center of the gospel of Matthew, the center both thematically and in terms of importance. I am not going to steal the thunder of our next week’s presenter, and so I will say nothing about Matthew 13. But we will discuss these final verses.

 

I have seen multiple commentaries discussing whether Jesus was rude in not coming to his family, or whether Jesus’ family was rude in interrupting what Jesus was doing. I don’t really care. I don’t think this is the point of the passage at all. What is the point?

 

This is so encouraging! The point of turning to Christ is not so that we can clean up our houses! Yes, we will need to do that, and He will empower us through the Holy Spirit to make steady progress in that area. But that is not the point. The point of turning to Christ is to be with Him. In relationship with Him. Through the pandemic the world is reportedly experiencing an even bigger epidemic of loneliness. I am not saying that with a relationship with Jesus you will never be lonely, but I am saying that if you have put your faith in Christ, you will never be truly alone again. Even if your family has died, or has rejected you, or is so awful that you don’t want anything to do with them, you have a new family, and the most important part of that family is Jesus Himself. To do His will means that you walk by faith, not by sight. That you make Him the Lord of your life, that you seek His will above your own. And Jesus says, welcome to My family! They say blood is thicker than water. By Jesus’ blood you are now an adopted son or daughter of the King of Kings. And He will protect you and love you and be with you forever.

And it also means that you have been adopted into a very large family, the family of all believers everywhere. You now have countless brothers and sisters who are redeemed and empowered by the same Spirit as they are. Not only will you be with Him forever, you will also be with them forever. And without getting ahead of the story, I believe that this is part of the “Boom!” of the center of Matthew.