He is Elijah who was to Come

Transcript

Good evening all. This evening we're going to be considering what's going on with how Matthew's gospel presents the figure of John the Baptist. Now, I suppose it's typically assumed that Matthew's gospel is not, of all the gospels, most concerned with John, not least because Luke's

gospel simply spends more ink than Matthew does talking about John. We get a whole narrative about the nature of John's birth, we get a genealogy and all kinds of details in Luke's gospel that we don't get in Matthew. That being said, Matthew very clearly cares a great deal about John the Baptist. The figure of John the Baptist is doing a great deal of work when it comes to the fulfillment of a large number of prophecies that Matthew is seeing in the Old Testament. By that I don't simply mean that Matthew is finding

the fulfillment of specific passages in John's life, but rather that he's also seeing patterns that are really prominent across the scriptures. He's seeing those same patterns in the life of John the Baptist and he's demonstrating how those patterns connect to Christ via John the Baptist. Now, Matthew 11 poses a number of challenges for us to interpret. This is one of, or a collection of some of Jesus's more challenging sayings. I don't mean that in the sense that it's

uncomfortable to accept, but I mean more in the sense that it is challenging to understand what exactly he means. We have a lot of utterances in this chapter that it's not necessarily immediately apparent what it is that Jesus is saying and it's certainly not immediately apparent what those things that he's saying means about the nature of his own mission, about the nature of who John was, and about the nature of the people of Israel and the early Christian community at this time. But as we're hoping to look at today, a lot of elements in how Matthew presents John's helps to connect a lot of these details together. Now, Matthew's gospel places a great deal of emphasis in showing John to be the forerunner. Now, this isn't a concept that is picked up by the other gospels to the same degree. There's a number of similar connections made in the other gospels, but the focus on this forerunning idea is relatively unique. Now, as to what is being referred to, it's this idea that John the Baptist is the Elijah who was to come before the Messiah. That's what we're going to be calling the forerunner concept. Now, this idea has its roots in the prophecy of Malachi. Now, it's certainly not the only way to interpret these verses in Malachi. We can tell from reading a lot of Jewish material at the time that there was a whole lot of Jews that didn't think that this was the right way to read these passages, but that certainly doesn't mean that we can't agree with Matthew. Naturally, we should be trying to agree with Matthew. Now, this idea of the Elijah who is going to come

shows up at the conclusion of Malachi's prophecy. I'm just going to read the whole of Malachi chapter four. It's only a few verses. For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff. And the day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on that day which I am preparing, says the Lord of hosts. Remember the law of Moses, my servant, even the statutes and the ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. And here's the verse that's really in question. Behold, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their father, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. Now, I suppose the question we might immediately have

from this passage is it seems that what the Elijah who's coming is coming before is actually final judgment rather than the arrival of the Elijah. Now, there is such a confidence about that fact that many people actually interpret this passage to compel a perspective about events that are yet to come that either John the Baptist is going to show up before the kingdom age and perform this stuff, or Elijah is going to do it, or it's going to be another person in that kind of vein. Now, I'm not here to talk about that manner of prophecy interpretation today, but that's just, I suppose, an interesting little side note. But as far as Matthew's concerned, this passage, at the very least, has a fulfillment in the time of

the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and immediately beforehand. Now, this language, especially at the start of this chapter, the language of a furnace and the chaff being set ablaze should sound immediately familiar to us, especially when we're thinking about John, because it's exactly what John is saying about the nature of Jesus's arrival at the beginning of Matthew's gospel. John, of course, is the figure in Matthew's gospel who first proclaims the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. It is him who first tells the people to repent for the kingdom of heaven is hand. And he says concerning concerning Christ in verse 11 of Matthew chapter three, as for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who's coming after me is mightier than I, and I'm not fit to remove his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor, and he'll gather the wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. So John, John, at the very least at this stage, sees Christ as this arriving as this judgment figure, which I suppose we could see foreshadowed in those verses in Micah we looked at. And now that very clearly is an element of who Jesus is in Matthew's gospel. It's also the case that that full element of the messianic role hasn't completely concluded yet. We still await the final great and terrible day of the Lord, the final day of judgment. But that being said, Jesus in Matthew's gospel very clearly proclaims a judgment and very clearly brings about an end of the Jewish age of that time. And we see that really clearly when we

olivet prophecy and a lot of his language around that point is being very clear that the system of the religious leaders and perhaps even the political forces at large at that time were going to be utterly swept away in what was going to happen a few years later in the the Roman destruction of Judea. So that's what John being this Elijah means on one level. But Matthew's also interested in more elements of Elijah than just this one passage in

Micah. And we do find this at any little quotation or prophecy link that Matthew makes, there's always a great deal of additional material that he's appealing to without telling you. Matthew of course makes a real habit of saying, and this fulfilled such and such and such, which was written by the prophet such and such and such and such. He makes a real habit of hammering at home that so many events and details of Christ's life fulfill things that the prophet said. But that is never the sum total of the connections that Matthew is interested in, and it's never the sum total of the connections that Matthew is actually expecting his readers to notice. When he makes one connection, it seems that the intention is that the connection bleeds through. It's not that it is point to point, it's only the quote. It's not, oh, I care about that verse. I care about every or most concepts that are connected to that verse, and I want to bring all of them in. That's more like how Matthew is using these kinds of stretches. And we can tell that's happening with Elijah because we have a whole load of similarities between John the Baptist and other details in Christ's ministry, with events and details and descriptions that we see in the Elijah and Elisha cycle. Now, particularly surface level detail that comes up is just the description of what John looks like. In chapter three of Matthew, now this is verse four, it reads, now John himself had a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. But if we turn to second Kings, we have a almost exactly the same physical description of Elijah himself. We get that in second Kings chapter

Yes, chapter one of second Kings, this is verse seven and eight. He said to them, what kind of man was he who came up to meet you and spoke these words? They answered him, he was a hairy man with a leather girdle bound about his loins. And he said, it is Elijah the Tishbite. So if it's immediately apparent to the people of the day that men wearing leather girdles who are hairy are Elijah the Tishbite, it seems that Matthew's picking up on that kind of material. But before we look any more at

Elijah or Elisha, I first want us to take a look at the way in which John for runs Christ's ministry, because it isn't just the case that he prepares the way in an unconnected sense to what Jesus is doing. We see in Matthew's gospel that he prepares the way by doing the same things Jesus is going to do in a lot of ways. He prepares the way by doing and saying really similar things, which we don't have that same kind of connections made in the other gospels. Now, this is a bit of a list, so I hope you can bear with me for a few moments. But a couple of the connections are as follows. Of course, in chapter three of Matthew's gospel, John makes a point out of the fact that he and Jesus are both connected in the fact that they baptize, although they baptize in different ways. John with water and Christ with the Holy Spirit and fire, as I said at the start, it's John the Baptist who first proclaims that the kingdom of is at hand, and that's in chapter three, verse two. Jesus uses exactly the same formation of sentence in chapter four, verse 17, but he uses similar, if not exactly the same language all over Matthew's gospel. So, John the Baptist, when he's confronted by the Pharisees in chapter three, he calls them you brood of vipers. That's three, verse seven. Jesus says exactly the same thing of them in chapter 12, 34. In chapter three, verse 10, John says every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Jesus quotes him verbatim in chapter seven, verse 19. And now beyond this, we see a load of similarities in the pattern of their life. We see that both of them are regarded as prophets by the people. We know that John was regarded as a prophet because it's confirmed in chapter 11, verse 9, in the words of Christ that we read, but also that Herod is afraid to kill John the Baptist in chapter 14, because he knows that the people revere him as a prophet. And we know that Christ was revered as a prophet by the people because of details in chapter 21, namely verse 11, 26, and 46. And we know that just as Herod was reluctant to dispatch John

because of the people, we know that it's exactly the same for the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees. They fear to seize Jesus because of the crowds, because they revere him as a prophet. We have two different political leaders, both with Roman associations, responsible for the deaths of these individuals. It's Herod the Tetrarch is responsible for the death of John, although he doesn't seem very happy about that. Although we do get the confirmation in Matthew's Gospel that it is something he wanted, we still have the detail that he was grieved when John's death happened. And we know that Pilate would be responsible for Christ's death, but he's also not exactly happy about that whole engagement either, as he washes his hands of the situation. We have exactly the same language in how it is that John is treated when he is seized and bound. That's in 14 verse 3. We have the same language in chapter 21, where it says that they sought to seize him. Jesus is of course bound, and it's the same word before the crucifixion. In both of the cases, these two officials that are responsible for deaths of these men, they are reluctant to execute them, but they are forced to or urged to by others or by some manner of public pressure. After their death, John is buried by his disciples, and Jesus is buried by a disciple. Is this what Matthew thinks preparing the way is? Is the point that John works as this sort of prefiguring figure? Is that what preparing the way means? Is that what forerunning is? Well, I think that the point is probably to establish a comparison with other biblical storylines with a similar pattern of two figures, where one figure prefigures the second, where you have one character who does a set of things, and then they pass on to another figure who does a similar set of things. Now, there's a fair few examples of this in the Old Testament, but given that we've already been given Elijah's name, and we know that Jesus comes after, I think cashing in on an Elijah-Elisha comparison makes immediate sense. But there's also a connection with Moses and Joshua. Now, connections in Matthew's Gospel to the story of the Exodus and to the character of Moses are really, really well-attested. There's a lot of really great material that's been written on that subject. I'm not going to be going into any real depth with those connections, but rather I'd like to look at sort of the way in which Moses and Joshua have this kind of similar connection. We see that Moses and Joshua have a number of connections, both in terms of the type of language they use, but also in lots of patterns of their life. They both send spies into the land. Moses does that in Numbers 13. Joshua does it in Joshua 2. Moses parts and crosses the Red Sea in Exodus 14, and Joshua parts and crosses the Jordan in Joshua 3. In Exodus 12 and 16, Israel begins the Passover, and then they begin to receive the manna under the stewardship of Moses. But under the stewardship of Joshua, and this is Joshua 5, Israel celebrates the Passover, and then the manna stops.

Both of them have the phrase, remove your sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy. That's Exodus 3.5 and Joshua 5.15. And then we have a similar pattern of intercession. Moses does it in Deuteronomy 9. Joshua does it in Joshua 7. There's even a comparison with Moses raising his hands with the staff of God. The battle goes well in Exodus 17. That's the battle against Amalek, where Moses has to keep his hands up. And we have an interestingly similar detail that when Joshua stretches out his hand with its sword, victory goes to Israel, and that comes up in Joshua 8. And then there's a real similarity in the farewell speech that they both give at the end of their lives. Now, Moses' farewell speech is the entire book of Deuteronomy, and Joshua's is just two chapters at the end of Joshua, so they're not exactly the same in terms of length. But you do see a number of connections in their content. They both talk about their old age. They promise future victories. They encourage an obedience to the law, and they outline the consequent blessings and the curses that would result from serving gods who are not the one true god. And they both instantiate covenants. Moses does that in Exodus 24, and the people say, all that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient. And Joshua instantiates a covenant in Joshua 24, verse 24, and the people say, we will serve the Lord our God, and we will obey his voice. Now, unlike Jesus and John the Baptist, where it's very clear that Jesus is greater, it is not traditionally taken to be the case that Moses is surpassed by Joshua. And that's certainly not the case with Jewish interpreters, but

it's not at all common among Christian interpreters either. But there is, vitally, a change of phase between the two. And that change of phase is, of course, entry into the land. There's a difference in how the community of the people, the nation, function when they are outside the land, when they are in the wilderness, when they enter into the land, to take possession of it. There is a change of phase, and Joshua succeeds in entering the land, and he completes Moses' project, even though Moses had died before being able to do those things. But when we look at the pair of Elijah and Elisha, it's a lot more common to take Elisha to have exceeded Elijah.

Many people cite simply the fact that Elisha does double the miracles of Elijah, and they talk about the double portion of Elijah's spirit, even though that's not necessarily what that phrase means.

And we will get into that. Both Elijah and Elisha, they provide oil. Elijah does it in 1 Kings 17, 13 to 16. Elisha does it in 2 Kings 4, 1 through 7. They both stay with women. Elijah stays with the widow of Zarephath, and Elisha stays with the Shunammite woman. They both raise the dead of these women. They both part Jordan, and at their deaths, somebody exclaims, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel, and its horsemen. It's Elijah who proclaims that at Elijah's death, and it's the king of Israel who proclaims it at the death of Elisha. And also, we do get the sense that much like Joshua and Moses, Joshua completes Moses' project. We get that sense in Elijah and Elisha, because Elijah is commanded, You shall anoint Hazael king over Aram, and Jehu the son of Nimshi, you shall anoint king over Israel. Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meloah, you shall anoint as a prophet in your place. That's 1 Kings 19, 15 to 16. But it's Elijah who does those things. It's he who anoints Hazael in 2 Kings 8. It's he who appoints Jehu in 2 Kings 9, and he is recognized as having Elijah's spirit on him in 2 Kings 2, verse 15. Elijah throws his mantle onto Elisha, and that happens in 1 Kings 19. And then after Elijah ascends, that same mantle is picked up by Elisha, and Elisha crosses the with it. Now, I'm sure you can immediately detect a kind of synchronicity here where Jordan crossing really, really matters. And I think that this is because there is a real synchronicity between the ideas about the nature of Jesus' mission and what's going on at the time his ministry and the ideas going on about the Exodus. Now, obviously, the case of Moses and Joshua have a lot to do with the Exodus because they're in it. But Elijah and Elisha's story also has a lot to do with the Exodus, although it's kind of inverted. When we look at the two episodes that Moses and Elijah have on Horeb and Sinai respectively, same mountain, two names, they have a meeting with God. They see him in some real way. But these two stories are kind of right. So Moses goes and he receives a vision of God's power and majesty. And God tells him, these people have sinned, I'm getting rid of them, and I'm starting with you. But backwards in 1 Kings, it's Elijah who goes up the mountain, and he says, these people have sinned. And then he waits to see if God will cash the check. But God refuses to cash the check. And God says, well, first, God, rather than making a display of his might or his majesty, he makes the still small voice display. So it's totally backwards. It's like both of these figures need to be taught the opposite lesson, kind of. We know that Moses was enormously humble and, I suppose, a very sort of,

maybe a withdrawn character, naturally. But it does not seem that Elijah was like that, not in the slightest. It seems that they're kind of

way. Elijah has absolutely no qualms rocking up to Ahab's house and telling him what's what. But Moses requires a great deal of reassurance to carry and deliver the word of God. And now, another reason why these characters are so important to Matthew's gospel is because they show up in the Transfiguration. So clearly, they matter enormously to who Jesus is. And we will get into the significance of that in just a moment. As I mentioned before, Jesus's superiority over John is never at any point a matter of debate. Jesus, however, is not like Joshua or Elisha, who inherit a position from their predecessor. Jesus inherits his position by his sonship to God. And we can see this really clearly that Joshua is recognized as having the authority of his predecessor in Joshua 1, 16 to 18. That's where that happens. But Christ is recognized as being a uniquely authoritative teacher of his own right. That happens in Matthew 7, verse 29. And he's recognized as being given authority from God to do miracles in Matthew 9, 6 through 9. We get the detail that the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha. That's in 2 Kings 2, 15. But in the case of Christ, it's the Spirit of God that comes on him. Joshua was called a servant of his predecessor in Exodus 24, verse 13. Elisha was a servant of his predecessor. And that's demonstrated to be the case in 2 Kings 3, verse 5 and 11. Elisha also calls his predecessor father in 2 Kings 2. Jesus' predecessor says himself that he is not worthy to be Jesus' servant. That's what the, I am not worthy even to untie his sandal. That's what that means. And it's God who proclaims Jesus as his son. Joshua receives the land as an inheritance in Deuteronomy 31, 7. And Elisha receives Elijah's spirit as an inheritance. Now that's the meaning of the double portion, because who receives the double portion? It's the firstborn. Now, as far as we know, Elijah doesn't have a child. But it seems that the point is that there are many other prophets at this time, which there are. We know that. What Elijah is being asked by Elisha to give him is sort of,

can I inherit your job? Can I take on the mantle? Can I come after you? And evidently the answer is yes, he receives the mantle. In a completely literal sense, he receives the mantle. That's 2 Kings 2, 9 to 10. He receives Elijah's spirit as an inheritance. But Jesus is given all authority in heaven and on earth in Matthew's gospel. That's what the gospel concludes with. All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. And the whole role and nature and mission of Jesus' ministry is proclaimed in just the line, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, which of course happens at the transfiguration and at the baptism. Now, the reason why all of these connections to the Exodus matter so much and the reason why Elijah and Elisha matter so much is because Elijah and Elisha show us how the Exodus can be applied to the land of Israel itself. How is it that the people of Israel can be delivered from Israel without God giving up on Israel? How does that work? The answer is, I suppose, what we can call the remnant principle. And it happens all over the scriptures, happens all over the prophecy books. But in 1 Kings, it comes in the guarantee at the end of, towards the end of 1 Kings 19, which is, it shall come about, this is verse 17 of 1 Kings 19, it shall come about that the one who escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, the one who escapes from Jehu, Elisha shall put to death, yet I will have seven thousand in Israel, all the knees who have not bowed to Baal and every that has not kissed him. So there is a judgment, but there is reserved a faithful few, a faithful remnant. They are put to one side and kept while the rest is destroyed. And that is what Matthew is proposing as the solution to the rottenness at the core of Jewish society at the time of Christ. And when we, when we look specifically for mentions of the Jordan, and we pay attention to times where Christ crosses water in Matthew's gospel, we get a really interesting alternate way of looking at the structure. Now, I'm not going to say that the classic ways of breaking down Matthew's structure are bad by any means, they're great. The five dialogue structure that's, I suppose, the general way of looking at the structure very much still stands. This is by no means a hit piece on that. But rather when we pay attention to

the Jordan and the wilderness, we see something really interesting. The gospel begins with the genealogy, and then we open straight to John. It's John who is rebuking the religious leaders. It's John who is calling people out into the wilderness so that they can be made right with God. Then Jesus's ministry begins with a baptism in the Jordan and temptations the wilderness. Temptations in the wilderness, all of which he responds to by citing passages from the Exodus, from the temptations that the Israelites fell to in the wilderness wanderings. And then we get the sermon on the mount begins. And I

think it's reasonable to say that Jesus then begins a process of calling out a people to the wilderness. Now, we don't have enough time to get into great detail about that, but we can see it in the Lord's prayer. Give us this daily bread. I mean, that's that's manna. When we when we just think about lead us not into temptation, who was just led into temptation? It says it the chapter before Jesus was led into the wilderness by the spirit. So there's a connection that we're that we're sort of connecting to to Christ's experience going into the wilderness, which connects to the people of Israel's experience going into the wilderness. This is what it means to be a nomad, to be a spiritual Israelite, to be a person who is without a who is in a real sense, without a state without an identity, other than the Christian identity, it means separating yourself from the world and going into the wilderness. The Lord's Prayer is it.

The Lord's Prayer gives us a picture of our own position as waiting to reenter the land. After this first this first block of teaching, we have some healings and Christ crosses the sea to the gatherings and he calms the seas. And then we have another block of healings and then we hit chapter 10. And what Jesus does here is he commands the disciples. He sends them out to serve the people. He sends them to heal and and so on. And he teaches them what they are to say and what they are to do and so on. But they're at this time only sent to the Jews. Then we get to chapter 11, which is John's question. And there is a real shift here in Matthew 11, where we get the Jesus takes his first real swing at at the people in

Chapter 11 in this these these woes, the woe to you, Bethsaida, woe to you, Chorazin. This is the first time that Jesus is really saying anything all that condemnatory. And I think when we think about the fact that John has a question about whether or not Jesus is the Messiah, because it seems to be that's what he's asking, are you the expected one or should we look for someone else? It's like John's asking, where's the winnowing fork and the fire? This isn't this isn't what I thought it would be like, right? You know, John, it seems that John was expecting the judgment day to arrive. And now he finds himself arrested and in prison, imprisoned by the very immoral authorities that he thought that Christ would have dealt with already. And I think I think we can probably relate to that in a lot of ways. I mean, how much more how much more so is he experiencing undue hardship than the ways that we are? And he of course has that sort of crisis of confidence, but Christ affirms who he is. And it's clear that Christ has come to heal it, which doesn't seem to be quite what what John was expecting exactly.

But from this point, there's a real focus on Jesus being rejected. The Pharisees begin to conspire against him in chapter 12, verse 14. And it's once this conspiracy has begun, once Jesus has said in chapter 11, that the people didn't understand John and they don't understand him, which is that whole odd

little turn of phrase about the we pipe for you and you did not dance that type of thing. The people couldn't understand John because he was too gloomy and they don't understand Christ because he's fraternizing with people. John was too much like a classical prophet for them to like and Jesus is too far away from one for them to get. But from this point, we then get John's death. When he rebukes Herod, uh, for for marrying his brother's wife, then we have another crossing of the sea, where he crosses to Gennesaret and we have the walking on the water. And then the teaching becomes more radical. We get healings and confrontations with leaders. And then immediately before the transfiguration, Christ instantiates the church off of the back of the who do you say that I am? And then we have the transfiguration where Moses and Elijah show up. And Peter asks the question, shall we make three tabernacles? And I think I think that the point there

is really that there already is one. And now this is I'm sorry that this is just going to have to be tenuous for the time being, but perhaps on another occasion I could demonstrate this more thoroughly. But there's a load of similarities with the language about the the way up the mountain and so on with where Moses sees the heavenly tabernacle in in Exodus. There's loads of connections. If you want to take a look at that yourself, you can. It's a great time. But we've got this instantiation of the church, this picture of the future glory of the Messiah. And then we have healing and teaching about forgiveness. It seems that the teaching here is really about what is it that Christ's community that have now separated themselves from the world? How do they function? How do they work? And it's at this point that Christ crosses the Jordan. And it's a detail that we probably wouldn't even notice because it's so snuck in there. I mean, to confess this this last semester at university, I've I've been studying a module on Matthew's gospel. I think I read the gospel front to back maybe six or seven times. And it's only the seventh time I read it. I noticed this. It's at the start of Chapter 19. When Jesus had finished these words, he departed from Galilee and came into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And this this is where we see another radical shift in how Jesus talks and what it is he says. We saw right from the start, the beginning was about separating out. How do I separate myself? How do I live the right way? How do I how do I know what God wants? How do I separate myself from the world? That was that was the Sermon on the Mount. We have this period of healings. And then the disciples are sent to do the same. Then we have teachings and healings and a focus on Jesus now being a controversial figure. He's now being rejected by his own people. And then we have this establishment about what this community is and what they do. And now that all of these things have been ironed out and there is there there has been something that has been formed. There is an identity now. The remnant have a name kind of in some real way. Then we cross Jordan and we enter a period of the ministry where Christ starts dispossessing. And we have all sorts of occasions. So on the journey down, we then have teachings and conversations that are chiefly concerned with who enters the kingdom and how they enter it. Chapter 20 is a load of conversations and parables about rank within the kingdom. And then we hit chapter 21, where we are met with some of the more controversial and aggressive words that Christ is going to say in the gospel. We have the fig tree. We have the turning of the table. We have dispossession and rejection of the leaders. Jesus's authority is challenged. And Jesus responds with the parable of the two sons and the vine dressers. We have the parable of the marriage feast. We are now getting this picture that the kingdom is going to be given the least. It's going to be given to the least and the lowest in society. Tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of the heavens before you is now something that Christ is saying to the leaders. Jesus demonstrates the inadequacy of the leaders in the conversations about the tribute to Caesar. He disproves or he shows how useless the Sadducees are by teaching them about the resurrection. And he shows how useless the Pharisees are by perplexing them about Psalm 110. And then he rebukes the leaders extremely thoroughly in chapter 23. In 2336, we have the final culminating statement. He says, truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. And from this point, we see Jesus begin to use language about the destruction of the land and the current system. He begins to use some words that are a lot more clearly talking about AD 70. And from this point, we then see the use of apocalyptic language and parables that are concerned with Jesus' absence. The fact that Jesus is going to disappear, that he's going to die and he's going to return, but not yet. That begins to really come to the fore in this later stretch of the Gospel. So what is the point with Matthew's presentation of John the Baptist? Well, the point of Matthew's of John the Baptist is that John the Baptist is the hinge point to whether or not a person is of this world or not of this world. The hinge point between whether or not a person is pertaining to Christ or not is whether or not they have received the message of John and taken it seriously. Repent and be baptized are not light words, nor should they ever be taken lightly. Repent for the kingdom of the heavens is at hand are not words that ought ever be taken lightly. It's not a coincidence that when the scribes and the Pharisees ask Christ on whose authority do you say these things in chapter 21, that Jesus asks them where was the baptism of John from? He's not being clever. It's actually an answer to their question. The point isn't just ha-ha tricked you. The point is that until you can understand where John is from, we can't even have this conversation. We see that throughout 21. Jesus makes a real point out of it. 21 emphasizes that

because they haven't received John's message, because they haven't repented, because they can't see John for what he is and respond accordingly, they're doomed to do what their fathers did. That's the whole point of the stretch from 21 to 23. Rejecting John is putting you on the path to being like your fathers, the fathers who murdered the prophets, the fathers who murdered Zechariah between the altar and the temple. That's what Christ says of them explicitly in chapter 23. He makes the point that they're going to do it again. They're going to do it again. And that's why Christ's people have to get out. They have to, from this hinge point of repentance that's offered in John, this access point by which we can drag ourselves out of the world and become part of this community that we see form and come together and become more defined throughout Matthew's gospel, that we are able to really take seriously what Christ says at the end of the gospel. And now that Christ has crossed the Jordan, both in a literal sense in chapter 19 and in a metaphorical sense in his death and resurrection, we are now in a position to understand what he means by all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. The Christian community is not one that can easily survive when there are firm connections to the world. It's not going to work doing this both ways. And Matthew's gospel provides a picture of exactly why. Across its length, we get such a clear picture of the necessity of separation and being part of this community and this community being really and truly separate in how it thinks, how it acts, how it speaks, how it heals in a real sense. And so the challenge in John's ministry and the challenge in Christ's ministry, at least as Matthew presents it, is whether or not we live up to that exilic picture. Are we able to survive in this wilderness or not? It's going to be about whether or not we can manage to do this with or without grumbling. Do we provoke one another to see the worst of our situation? Or do we provoke confidence in the promises that God has made? Do we collectively bring about a confidence? Do we actually strengthen and encourage one another? If we don't, then it's not going to work. Without the community, without a strong collective identity, an identity that is actually stronger than worldly identities, we're not going to be able to separate from it. The point of the church, the point of people meeting together to do these things is the fact that an identity that is stronger than something as carnal or this worldly as

race or sexuality or where you live or what your job is, none of these things are anything. But if we are in a community that is actually pursuing the teaching of Christ, trying to actualize this, trying to actually spread, trying to actually do what we are commanded at the conclusion of the gospel, to take the warning and the teaching of John the Baptist seriously, then we are in a position to look forward to the Jay of Judgment rather than dreading it. And that's really quite a prospect.