Note: Our approach to introducing the student to each book within any section of the New Testament will be structured as follows:
1. We will first seek to be able to grasp the overall Central Message of the book as a whole. 2. We will then seek to be able to understand why the Lord has chosen to place the book where He has [by His providential oversight] in the New Testament canon. 3. Then, we will seek to understand the distinctive contribution the book makes to the overall message of the New Testament. [What would be ‘missing’ if the book were not in the canon of the New Testament?] 4. We will seek to develop a very basic outline of how the Central Message is developed throughout the book. 5. We will seek to cement into the student’s mind a number of General Impressions of the book that can provide simple guidance as the student studies the book in detail.
The Central Message of the Book
The overall central message of the Gospel of Matthew may be stated as follows: Lining up with the promised King demands following the Savior-King through paths of deepening rejection on to greater glory. Blair says the following about the theme of the Messiah-King in the Gospel of Matthew.
The First Gospel affirms that Jesus is the King, the Messiah, who has come and whose reign has begun. A number of Old Testament texts included in Matthew support the claim that Jesus is the fulfillment of Messianic expectations. Also, the Gospel ends with the affirmation that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ (28:18), which means that His reign continues.[1]
The Place of the book in the New Testament Canon
There are a number of reasons for the placement of the Gospel of Matthew at the very head of the New Testament Canon of Scripture.
The Gospel of Matthew provides the connecting link between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The importance of this lies in the fact that the four Gospels are intended to provide a revelation of Who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and therefore why He is so important in God’s eternal redemptive purposes. Since it is these same divine redemptive purposes that are in view in the Old Testament Scriptures, it is essential that the first book of the New Testament make the clear connection between Christ as He is fully revealed in the New Testament and Christ as He is revealed in seed form in the Old Testament.
In establishing the continuity of the revelation of God’s eternal redemptive purposes in Christ, the Holy Spirit quotes or refers to passages of Scripture from all four of the major sections of the Old Testament. In Matthew the Old Testament Scriptures are quoted more than fifty times.[2] This is more Old Testament references than in Mark and Luke combined.
This book makes strong claims for Jesus of Nazareth having the right to the royal throne of David. Certainly, the leading element of the genealogy at the beginning of the book[3] is the establishment of the royal pedigree of Jesus of Nazareth. The significance of this cannot be overestimated. It is as the enthroned Son of David that Christ offers the Kingdom of heaven to the nation of Israel. It is as the enthroned Son of David that Christ will ultimately return and set up His Millennial reign in Jerusalem.
But it is just here that many expositors fall short of seeing the revelation of Christ as the King in terms of the eternal redemptive purposes of God in Him. While the connection is distinctly made for the sake of establishing the Messianic office of Jesus of Nazareth to the Jews of Matthew’s day, this is certainly not the only, and perhaps not even the most important purpose of the revelation of His right to the throne. The real significance lies in the fact that the Old Testament Messiah of the Jews, the King Who would sit upon the throne of David forever, is also the God-ordained Redeemer, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.[4] Thus, if it cannot be shown that He is the Divinely appointed King, with the right to the Davidic throne, neither can it be believed that He is the God-ordained Redeemer. This, and only this, is the genuine significance of the focus upon Christ as the King of the Jews in the Gospel of Matthew.
It ought to be obvious to every serious-minded student of the Bible that in a very real sense it does not matter about Christ sitting upon the Davidic throne unless it is somehow related to the eternal redemptive purposes of God in Christ. Even when Christ literally sits upon the Davidic throne during the days of the Millennium, the significance will be that the Lamb of God has now ascended the throne of David.
It is for this reason that He can offer the kingdom of God to anyone who will receive Him as his Savior-King all throughout the present age. This offering of Himself as the Savior-King throughout the present age takes place in the context of the New Testament Church. It is a theme woven into this book, and never clearly mentioned in the other Gospels. One writer says the following regarding this matter.
This is the only Gospel in which the word church is found. In the Epistles the word is used sixty-eight times; in the Acts of the Apostles, twenty-three times; in the Book of Revelation, twenty times; in Matthew’s Gospel, three times.[5]
The ultimate point here is that Jesus, in a very real sense, was offering Himself as King to anyone who would abdicate the throne of his life to Him then. He continues to offer Himself in this same manner today. While probably not referring specifically to this reality, Blair was certainly at least hinting at it when he wrote the following.
Jesus’ warnings about how the apostles might be received by some people (10:16-25) indicated the difficulty of proclaiming to a people the reign of Jesus as Messiah when they had another kind of reign in mind.[6]
And, apart from this blessed reality, the Gospel of Matthew is relegated to the status of being seen as “essentially Jewish.” All of this is of the utmost importance in coming to a proper understanding of the book of Matthew.
In addition, the book of Matthew provides a wonderful foundation for the entire New Testament which follows it. Every book in the New Testament has very clear roots in the Gospel of Matthew.
The Distinctive Contribution of the Book
The distinctive contribution of the Gospel of Matthew lies in the fact that this book provides the clearest revelation in the Canon of Scripture of the reality and the meaning of the Divine Kingship of Jesus Christ. One writer says the following regarding the distinctive contribution of the Gospel of Matthew.
Now the point of Matthew’s Gospel is this: the author, being a Jew, had a message for the Jewish people, and it was that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed their King. Depicting Jesus as King, then, Matthew’s Gospel has as its theme “The Coming of the Kingdom.” Thus we soon discover that Matthew frequently uses words like “king,” “kingdom,” and “kingdom of heaven” (the latter more than thirty times). In chapter 13 there are eight parables, and the subject of them all is the kingdom of heaven. At the end of the Gospel, when our Lord is crucified, Pilate has written over the cross: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”[7] He is revealed as the promised Seed of David Who would sit upon the throne of David forever. Through the Gospel of Matthew God is seeking to establish in the hearts of His people that Christ is their true King. In aligning themselves with Him they are called to abdicate the throne of their own lives. And it is only in this manner that they are enabled to “reign in life.”[8]
An Outline of the Book
A. Introduction of the Savior-King 1:1-4:16
B. Galilean Ministry of the Savior-King 4:17-16:20
C. Ministry of the Savior-King in the Shadow of the Cross 16:21-ch. 25
D. Climax of the Earthly Ministry of the Savior-King ch. 26-ch. 28
[1] Joe Blair, Introducing the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 57. [2] W. Graham Scroggie, The Unfolding Drama of Redemption, Volume 2 (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1994, Reprint), 105. Scroggie goes on to say that there are a total of about 130 references to the Old Testament in Matthew in all. [3] Matthew 1:1-17 [4] Revelation 13:8 [5] Adam W. Miller, Introduction to the New Testament (Anderson, Indiana: Warner Press, 1984, reprint), 40. [6] Joe Blair, Introducing the New Testament (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994), 62. [7] Eric W. Hayden, Preaching Through the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1964), 179. [8] See Romans 5:17.