Notes on Matthew Ch.15-28

 Ch.15

3-9. He is breaking the tradition of the elders, to bring these lost sheep back to the pure Law of God.

The Pharisees were using their traditions to control the people, while at the same time making themselves look pious and holy: See Matthew 23. 

Jesus has come, not only to uphold the Law, but fulfill it - every jot and tittle - perfectly;

And in doing this, he will expose the true thoughts and intentions of everyone. 

Vs.4-9

In “pretending” to keep the Law, (through appearing righteous) Jesus is showing them that they have broken it at its most fundamental level.

The traditions of the elders: The Oral Torah: extra laws and traditions, said to be handed down from Moses along with the Ten Commandments; these were not written - but spoken. As a result, these can be changed and added to, by the teachers if the Law, whenever it suits them: But we know that the Word of God does not change - as surely as Gods does not change.

Psalm 91:10 

I seek you with all my heart;
    do not let me stray from your commands.

11 

I have hidden your word in my heart
    that I might not sin against you.

Read: Psalm 119:9-12

We could read the whole of this Psalm, and see the same thing: a desire…a hunger; for the Word…the Law; not written by men - but by God!

To make room for His Word, is to make room for HIM - to KNOW Him; and in Psalm 119:11, we see something very beautiful: The more we make room for the Lord and his Word in our hearts, the less room sin will have, to work in us. 

6-7. This would be comparable to the evil sons of Eli, who violated the offering of the Lord, entrusted to them by the people, to fill their own bellies. See 1Samuel 2:12-17

10-11. So it is not what we eat or drink that will ultimately bring condemnation upon us: It is the sinful condition of our hearts - revealed through what we say. Luke 6:45; James 3

This heart condition is something we have all inherited from Adam and Eve, and which the Lord, through his sacrifice on the cross, is about to deal with - once and for all. John 3:3-8,16-21

13-14. This is best described by John the Baptist in Luke Ch.3:

7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

15 As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

See Luke 3:3-17

And Jesus himself has given us another poignant demonstration of this in Matthew 21:18-19

18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.

A change of Covenant is coming! And those who are not looking for it, will not be able to see it, nor will welcome it, when it comes (Luke 4:16-30)

14. In John 9 , Jesus will rescue a literal blind man from falling into the pit that his  “blind guides” had led him to; and in doing so, he will expose these “blind guides” for exactly who they are. 

Read John 9:39-41

He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

24-28. Here is faith comparable to that of the woman in Matthew 9:20-22, who:

Knew who she was;

Already knew she wasn’t worthy;

Broke the Law, to reach him anyway.

This Canaanite woman does likewise, and her faith, operating through truth and humility, reaches into the heart of the Lord.

She is one of several gentiles who will do this: A fulfillment of Isaiah 65:1 and a precursor to Acts 10

29-31. See Isaiah 35:5-6; 42:6-7; 61:1-3

31. This is how we can be sure that we are truly doing the works of God (see Acts 3:6-13)

32-38. 2Kings 4:42-44 A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.

32-38. Again we see the three days pattern: Hosea 6:2; Luke 18:32-33

On the third day, Jesus, who is the Bread of Life (according to John 6) will feed those who have followed him thus far (the seven loaves also pointing toward Jesus’s perfect sacrifice and finished work on the Cross Hebrews 4:1-13);

Likewise, after 3 days in the tomb Jesus will rise again, and give eternal life to this disciples who have followed him to the end, and to all who will follow him in the future! 

A precursor to Salvation through the resurrection of Christ; (The seven baskets left over, also symbolizing the Lord’s perfect Salvation complete: Revelation 21-22)

See also, note on Matthew 14:16-20

Ch.16

4. See note on Matthew 12:38-39

He has told them once; he will not waste time and energy - nor fall into any trap they are attempting to lay - by telling them the same thing (that they do not want to hear) again.

6-11. The disciples - true to form - are worrying about things in the natural (remember Matthew 6:19-34) As usual, they have missed the true meaning behind Jesus’s statement concerning leaven - which goes far beyond the body, and what we put into it: Jesus is using leaven to describe the condition of the soul. 

In Exodus 12:14-20, directly following the Passover, we are introduced to the feast of unleavened bread: An extremely solemn festival, pointing to our sanctification through the Blood of Jesus; whereby all leaven must be removed from God’s people and their homes: Symbolic of how the Lord has DELIVERED them from the bondage of sin (Egypt) and SEPARATED them as a holy people for him! Anyone found with leaven on their person or in their homes during this time, would be cut of from Israel! This tells us how serious this festival, its meaning - and what it is pointing to - is! The fact that Jesus is describing the teachers of the Jewish law as “leaven” - the very substance that the Jews were instructed to remove themselves from, gives us a clear and horrifying picture of the  state of their hearts - and the current state of Israel, whom they claimed to be shepherds of! Just as with the feast of unleavened bread, Jesus now instructs his OWN disciples: “Leave them” - separate yourselves from this “leaven”. This is huge; marking the beginning of something radical and new: A New Covenant! See also Matthew 21:18-19

9. An exhortation to REMEMBER 

13-19. {In a place called Caesarea Philippi…the epicenter of emperor worship…the very heart of paganism itself, surrounded by shrines and symbols to gods of fertility, above the noise of idolatry (see Exodus 32) Simon Peter confesses his Faith - in Jesus Christ and Him alone. This is why Jesus goes on to say: 

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 

19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

These keys will be given to those - and ONLY to those - who in the midst of a rebellious and idolatrous world, that is pulling in every direction except that of Christ and his Cross, standing in the face of “the gates of Hedes”will maintain their testimony, boldly as Simon Peter did, continuing to declare unashamedly, that Jesus is the Messiah - the Son of the Living God! 

16. Abraham believed the Promise of God: 

Peter recognized that Promise, in Yeshua.

17. The Mystery of Election

See:

John 6:37-40, 44-45, 63-65, 67-69; 10:14-16, 26-29; 17

21. ✝️Jesus the suffering sacrifice: see Matthew 17:12

Following Peter’s prophetic confession, and the other disciples’ agreement of it - evidence that they do not follow Jesus, of their own reasoning or volition - they are now ready for truth of a higher and much deeper level.

“he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Peter’s immediate reaction however, is far from spiritual: 

“Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”

If Peter had momentarily lost sight of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so evidently working through him - Jesus swiftly brings him back on track, by rebuking - not Peter - but the one speaking through his flesh: Satan.

Even after we are born again and baptized, the struggle between spirit and flesh is ongoing...so how much more so, for these disciples, who are not yet born again, on the resurrection side of the cross?

“For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

What is the answer? How do we overcome the flesh that is bound to this world? 

By dying to this world, so we can be born again to the next : Galatians 2:19-21; Romans 6:3-11; Colossians 3:1-4; John 3:3-8; 1Peter 1:23-25

24-27. Now Jesus begins to build upon this shocking foundation stone he has just laid: One that looks, not like life, but death!

And why this reference to a cross?, the disciples could possibly be thinking. Crucifixion was a common part of living under Roman rule - reserved for the most serious offenses, and being the cruelest and most dreaded form of punishment. This reference to a cross would have likely shaken his disciples - as it was meant to do - and given them reason to at least begin, to think differently: Not of saving their own lives, but...of losing them?

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

This is comparable to Jesus’s earlier words of Matthew 6:19-34 - 

But now they seem so much more personal...with much more of an urgency! And, most profoundly, Jesus is talking - not about the body - but about the soul!

(Link to Matthew 1:21)

And Jesus continues to build with what he says next, in vs.27: For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

For what purpose will he come, except to judge: this is extremely sobering.

And then we get to vs.28: Suddenly hope...which will lead us directly into the next chapter 

28. What is Jesus talking about here? We will find out immediately, in the next chapter.