king of Israel. It presupposes a knowledge of Jewish customs and Palestinian localities (which are
explained in other Gospels).^913 It is the connecting link between the Old and the New Covenant. It
is, as has been well said,^914 "the ultimatum of Jehovah to his ancient people: Believe, or prepare to
perish! Recognize Jesus as the Messiah, or await Him as your Judge!" Hence he so often points
out the fulfilment of Messianic prophecy in the evangelical history with his peculiar formula: "that
it might be fulfilled," or "then was fulfilled."^915
In accordance with this plan, Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, showing him to
be the son and heir of David the king, and of Abraham the father, of the Jewish race, to whom the
promises were given. The wise men of the East come from a distance to adore the new-born king
of the Jews. The dark suspicion and jealousy of Herod is roused, and foreshadows the future
persecution of the Messiah. The flight to Egypt and the return from that land both of refuge and
bondage are a fulfilment of the typical history of Israel. John the Baptist completes the mission of
prophecy in preparing the way for Christ. After the Messianic inauguration and trial Jesus opens
his public ministry with the Sermon on the Mount, which is the counterpart of the Sinaitic legislation,
and contains the fundamental law of his kingdom. The key-note of this sermon and of the whole
Gospel is that Christ came to fulfil the law and the prophets, which implies both the harmony of
the two religions and the transcendent superiority of Christianity. His mission assumes an organized
institutional form in the kingdom of heaven which he came to establish in the world. Matthew uses
this term (ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν) no less than thirty-two times, while the other Evangelists and
Paul speak of the "kingdom of God" (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ). No other Evangelist has so fully
developed the idea that Christ and his kingdom are the fulfilment of all the hopes and aspirations
of Israel, and so vividly set forth the awful solemnity of the crisis at this turning point in its history.
But while Matthew wrote from the Jewish Christian point of view, he is far from being
Judaizing or contracted. He takes the widest range of prophecy. He is the most national and yet the
most universal, the most retrospective and yet the most prospective, of Evangelists. At the very
cradle of the infant Jesus he introduces the adoring Magi from the far East, as the forerunners of a
multitude of believing Gentiles who "shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven;" while "the sons of the kingdom shall
be cast forth into the outer darkness." The heathen centurion, and the heathen woman of Canaan
exhibit a faith the like of which Jesus did not find in Israel. The Messiah is rejected and persecuted
by his own people in Galilee and Judaea. He upbraids Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, wherein
his mighty works were done, because they repented not; He sheds tears over Jerusalem because
she would not come to Him; He pronounces his woe over the Jewish hierarchy, and utters the fearful
prophecies of the destruction of the theocracy. All this is most fully recorded by Matthew, and he
most appropriately and sublimely concludes with the command of the universal evangelization of
all nations, and the promise of the unbroken presence of Christ with his people to the end of the
world.^916(^913) Comp. Matt. 15:2 with Mark 7:3, 4. The translation of the exclamation on the cross, Matt. 27:46, is intended for Greek
Jews,
(^914) By Godet, Studies on the New Testament, p. 23.
(^915) ἵνα (or ὅπως)πληρωθῇ τὸ ῤηθέν, orτότε ἐπληρώθη τὸ ῤηθέν. This formula occurs twelve times in Matthew (1:22; 2:15,
17, 23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17, 13:35; 21:4; 26:56; 27:9, 35), six times in John, but nowhere in Luke nor in Mark; for Mark 15:28
(καὶ ἐπληρώθη ἡ γραφη κ. τ. λ.) in the text. rec. is spurious and probably inserted from Luke 22:37.
(^916) Comp. Matt. 2:1-12; 8:11, 12; 11:21; 12:41; 15:21-28; Matt. 23 and 24; 28:19, 20.
A.D. 1-100.