From Priestly Servants to Kingly Sons – Part 2

A guest post by Robert Martinez

Read Part 1 here.

“Jesus did not bluntly and unambiguously declare His identity from the beginning of His ministry. Instead, He prodded and hinted at the truth of who He was in a series of oblique provocations.”

In contrast to David, Saul’s kingship degenerated progressively until it was taken from him. At every point of testing – garden, land, and world – Saul was found wanting and his demise turned on his failure to honour God’s demand for vengeance against the Amalekites. Personally, Saul became increasingly gripped by fear (1 Samuel 28), paranoia, unbelief, and uncertainty; exhausting all valid recourse to divine guidance, he, contra Mosaic law (Leviticus 19:31) resorts to a medium; after having ‘inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him…’ (1 Samuel 28:6) – for a second time.

Ironically, and pregnant with theological symbolism, Saul disguised himself, took off his royal clothes/robe (symbolic nakedness), and came to the woman ‘by night.’ Upon request, the witch summons Samuel from the dead, who appears in his prophetic robe (official clothing) and, for the second time, pronounces doom on Saul and his kingdom, completing the double witness required under the Law (compare the double witness of the ‘Father’ in approval of His ‘Son,’ Jesus, once at His baptism and again at the transfiguration). Saul’s reign was marked by increasing fear and disobedience to the word of the Lord. David’s rise to power, on the other hand, was characterised by patient waiting, faith in God’s promises, and courage.

In light of this Old Testament backdrop, I return to my wife’s Bible study concerning Jesus’ disciples in Matthew 16.

Matthew’s Gospel follows the fivefold covenant pattern that, in various forms, permeates all Scripture. Because this pattern provides the overall structure of the Pentateuch, Matthew’s use of it in the arrangement of his Gospel is extremely enlightening: 

This pattern (whose acronym is THEOS) was given overdue (and to differing degrees ‘preliminary’) attention by Meredith Kline, Ray Sutton, David Chilton and James B. Jordan, but it has been refined and developed in various ways by Mike Bull. The categories in the covenant pattern are historically sequential and transformative, providing a tour-of-duty (Mike Bull) that commences with God’s Self-disclosure and calling, moves through divine delegation, to ethical mandate, to sanctification/de-sanctification, to glorification/de-glorification and succession.

The centre or pivot-point in the covenant pattern is the Ethics section, which is always the moment of testing. Mike has identified Matthew 15-20 as the Ethics section of Matthew’s Gospel, and chapter 16 deals with the question of who constitutes the true priesthood. This is a crucial question because only the true priests of God will be granted kingly rule and authority.

Matthew 16 begins with established religious opponents, Pharisees and Sadducees, colluding to fulfill their satanic impulse of testing/tempting Jesus by requesting from Him ‘a sign from heaven’ (Matthew 16:1). Akin to Satan, who tested/tempted Jesus with the goal of de-railing the Son of God from priestly submission and obedience to His heavenly Father, by enticing Him to take matters into His own hands, the Pharisees and Sadducees come to test Jesus’ credentials, insisting that He prove Himself and authenticate His ministry. The deep irony, of course, is that by repeatedly trying to set a trap for Jesus, it is the Pharisees and Sadducees themselves who are being tested, exposed, and found wanting. They are revealed to be an ‘adulterous generation’ of ‘hypocrites’ who ‘cannot discern’ their perilous state (Matthew 16:3-4). In their grasp for power, the ruling elites had relinquished any claim to true kingly wisdom. They could ‘discern the face of the sky’ (Matthew 16:3) with respect to weather patterns, but they could not discern that the heavens were ominous and threatening. The sky was falling on them in judgment, but they could not see it.

The word (stugnazo) translated as threatening (16:3; NKJV) is elsewhere translated as lowering (ASV), overcast (NIV), darkening (LEB), gloomy (YLT). Interestingly, the word is used only here and in one other place, Mark 10:22, where the rich young man’s countenance fell (NIV), was sad (KJV), was gloomy (CEV), sorrowful (ESV), or grieving (NASB). Like Cain, whose countenance fell after having his offering rejected by God, the rich young man could not face Jesus’ penetrating assessment of his heart’s attachment to wealth. Neither could the ruling elites square with Jesus’ assessment of them and of their generation as a nest of snakes. Jesus’ posture towards the Pharisees and Sadducees is well captured by this dual sense of the word stugnazo: sorrow and judgment; sadness and anger. Jesus both laments (“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…”) and judges (“See! Your house is left to you desolate…”) an unrepentant Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37-39).

Earlier in the Gospel, the Pharisees had asked Jesus about the legitimacy of healing on the Sabbath – so that they might accuse Him’ (Matthew 12:10). Later in the Gospel, having silenced the Sadducees, a lawyer of the Pharisees asks Jesus about the greatest commandment; we are told that he came to Jesus ‘testing Him’ (Matthew 22:35). For Matthew, the religious leadership of that terminal Old Covenant generation was but an extension of Satan himself and his ministry of testing, provocation, and accusation of the Son of God. Poignantly, we are told that ‘Jesus left them and departed’ (Matthew 16:4), and later, after His pronouncement of covenant curses (woes) upon the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ (Matthew 23:1-36), and His lament over the city of Jerusalem itself (Matthew 23:37-39), “Jesus went out and departed from the Temple…” (Matthew 24:1). 

The true glory of God (Jesus Christ) was not present in the Jewish leadership, and neither would it be found in the city of ‘peace,’ which would ‘fill up…the measure…of guilt of its fathers,’ persecuting and murdering ‘prophets, wise men, and scribes’ that would be sent to it (Matthew 23:31-34). Jesus had exorcised the land, but that generation’s persistent disbelief and hardening towards the Son of God would result not only in the departure of God’s glory but also in a state of complete demonic possession – ‘seven other spirits more wicked than himself’ – leaving the Temple and the city ripe for destruction – ‘so shall it be with this wicked generation’ (Matthew 12:45).

Jesus goes on to warn the disciples against the doctrinal leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:5-12). True doctrine can only proceed from a true understanding of who Jesus is, and this becomes the focus of the following verses (Matthew 16:13-20). Jesus did not bluntly and unambiguously declare His identity from the beginning of His ministry. Instead, He prodded and hinted at the truth of who He was in a series of oblique provocations. This was a deliberate strategy designed to get His interlocutors to think, to join the dots as they pondered His teaching and ministry in the light of previous Scriptural revelation and prophetic witness. Now, He and His disciples have come to the region of Caesarea Philippi, and, as with the feeding episodes (I deal with these in application at the end), geography and theology become inseparable. 

This is the only occasion in the Gospels where Jesus is said to go to Caesarea Philippi, located in Israel’s north adjacent to Mount Hermon and built in the environs of an impressive rock formation. Given by Emperor Augustus to Herod the Great in 20 BC, the city was renamed in 3 BC by Herod’s son, Phillip II, in honour of Caesar Augustus. Caesarea Philippi, then, bears the dual stamp of imperial Roman paganism and Herodian hypocrisy and lawlessness. The site was a powerful geographical symbol of the collusion of ‘iron and clay’ (Daniel 2:33) marked out for destruction – the red (Edomite) clay of Herodian Jerusalem and the smashing iron of the Roman Empire.

It is difficult to overlook the symbolic power of having both Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah and Jesus’ declaration of His ekklesia’s establishment and authority, on this particular site. One can imagine Jesus and His disciples standing on, and against, an imposing rock structure that was a locus of Roman authority and Jewish/Edomite apostasy. It is here, with feet firmly planted simultaneously in the land (Herodian Philippi) and in the world (Roman Caesarea), that Jesus declares His ‘church’ the successor of the world’s kingdoms, the community that will swallow up, via His Gospel, all the kingdoms that Satan had earlier offered Jesus in exchange for worship.

The abominable Roman-Herodian admixture of iron and clay would be the final precursor to Christ’s everlasting kingdom, as the prophet Daniel had declared to king Nebuchadnezzar following his ominous dream of the metallic statue:

Accused by the Pharisees of casting out devils by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, Jesus retorted: ‘…Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? … But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you’ (Matthew 12:25-28). Satan cannot produce unity, for the dominating force that drives him is pride, and pride is essentially divisive. Only the triune God, without pride and full of glory, with nothing to be added to complete Him, can condescend in humility to create a community and a world that is truly and everlastingly united. Satanic collusion between Herodian Jewry and Rome produced, ironically, the divided kingdom that Daniel had foretold; a kingdom that would disintegrate under the weight of its own malice, lies and hypocrisy, but also under the weight of the imminent judgement that Jesus proclaimed as the kingdom of heaven burst into first-century Palestine. ‘Pride’ necessarily divides Satan’s house, and his obsessive quest to destroy God’s people is always transfigured into a recipe for self-destruction. Satan cannot help it.

Jesus now asks His disciples to comment on the populace’s sentiment about His identity, and in asking He specifically refers to Himself as the Son of Man (compare the Danielic references to ‘Son of Man’ as the One who ascends to God’s throne and is given authority to judge). The disciples offer various suggestions which all relate to prophecy/prophetic figures – John the Baptist, Elijah…Jeremiah… one of the prophets. Jesus narrows the focus from the population at large to the disciples themselves – ‘But who do you (plural) say that I am?’ (Matthew 16:15), for Jesus cannot be just another prophet of Israel, since that would put Israel’s true and final King further into the future. It is then that Simon Peter steps forward and declares his own verdict, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Upon his confession, Jesus pronounces Peter ‘Blessed.’ Why? Because his realisation of Jesus’ identity has been the result of divine revelation. Jesus’ heavenly Father, who had earlier declared Jesus “…My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17) at His baptism, now reveals Jesus as the Messianic King. By way of royal genealogy, Matthew introduced Jesus as the awaited Messiah of Israel, Son of Abraham & Son of David (Matthew 1:1,17). Matthew will conclude his Gospel by having the true, resurrected King of the true Israel send out His army of disciples to conquer the nations via His Gospel of baptism and discipleship (Matthew 28:18-20). 

In the middle of the Gospel, at this crucial juncture, Jesus is revealed to Peter as the true Priest-King of Israel – ‘the Son of the living God’ – the Son who would command all kingly authority because He had demonstrated complete priestly submission to, and dependence on, His Heavenly Father. Covenantal blessing falls on Peter as he is declared ‘makarios.’ Jesus, the Son of Man is also the Son of God. 

Having had His identity, as Israel’s true King, unveiled (‘apocalypto’) by the Father to Peter, Jesus proceeds to reveal to Peter and the others the establishment and role of His eschatological community of disciples (ekklesia). The church, the summoned community of ‘called-out ones,’ becomes the body, on earth, of the head that commands her, Christ Jesus. The church is an authorised community, with authority to begin to unite (finally!) heaven and earth, but only because its head is given ‘all authority… in heaven and on earth’ (Matthew 28:18). After all, Jesus had already outlined the architecture of prayer for the new community that was emerging in His name – ‘Our Father in heaven… thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6:9-10). 

The church, loving not its life unto death, and empowered by the Spirit of Jesus, was destined to fulfil the mandate that Adam had aborted through his sinful inversion of priesthood and kingdom. Inverting Adam’s primordial inversion, Jesus would, after His resurrection, breathe the life of new creation on/into His disciples, and they would march out with all the legitimate authority of the King – ‘I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:18-19). 

Recall that in Luke 10, Jesus had sent out ‘seventy others… two by two’ to proclaim the nearness of the kingdom of God (Matthew 10:1,11). Just as Jesus chose twelve disciples to represent the new Israel, so He appointed seventy others to represent the nations (Genesis 10; Numbers 29, where seventy bulls were to be offered up by the priestly Israelites on behalf of the seventy nations of the world on the Feast of Tabernacles). Jesus sent them out ‘two by two’ as a double witness of the Law, and just as Jesus pronounces woes on contemporary cities, He declares ‘He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me’ (Luke 10:16), highlighting the unbroken chain of authority from the Father to Jesus to Jesus’ disciples. ‘Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name. And He said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy…’ (Matthew 10:17-19; cf. Mark 16:17-20). The correlation of the mission of the 70 with Jesus’ declaration about the fall of Satan from heaven suggests that Jesus is beginning to reclaim the nations. Even prior to Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension to His heavenly throne, His followers were already acting with divine authority through their allegiance to Israel’s true Priest-King. 

In John’s final vision, the destined ‘male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre… was caught up to God and to His throne… Then a war broke out in heaven… But the dragon was not strong enough, and no longer was any place found in heaven for him and his angels. And the great dragon was hurled down – that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth… (Revelation 12:5-9). Jesus has, through His life and ministry, death and resurrection, and ascension to heaven, bound the ‘strong man’ (Satan) and plundered his ‘house’ so that he may no longer accuse the brethren or deceive the nations – ‘Then I saw an angel coming down form heaven with the key to the Abyss, holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years… so that he could not deceive the nations…’ (Revelation 20:1-3).

Jesus had earlier ended His sermon on the mount (Matthew 5-7), by declaring that whoever hears and does His sayings, is like a wise man who built his house on the rock; but all those who ‘hear’ but do not ‘do’ are like the foolish man who built his house on the sand (Matthew 7:24-26). Matthew is depicting Jesus as the very embodiment of wisdom; the language of ‘wisdom’ and ‘folly,’ the fact that Jesus gives wise sayings, and the fact that wisdom is the glory of a king (like Solomon) and that the wisdom literature is the genre pertaining to kings – all indicate that Jesus is the True and Wise King who builds His House (Ekklesia) on the Rock. The house that Jesus builds will face persecution and hardship (‘rain,’ ‘floods,’ ‘winds’), but it will not fall because it is built on the wisdom that He Himself is, on the One who is greater and wiser than Solomon (Matthew 12:42). 

Possessing the ‘keys of Hades and of Death’ (Revelation 1:18) through the power of an indestructible, endless life (Hebrews 7:16) that conquers death, Jesus now becomes the telic ‘gatekeeper’ between life and death. His ekklesia now, too, becomes indestructible both historically and forever. Jesus and His Church have the last word on ‘death,’ for death is destined to be swallowed-up in life (2 Corinthians 5:4). The disciples and the emerging Church can be sure of Jesus’ promise because the One who makes the promise is Himself, ‘…the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death’ (Revelation 1:17-18).  Through the church that Jesus gives birth to and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the rift/divorce between heaven and earth, and between Jew and Gentile, is progressively and increasingly healed (Ephesians 1:10). 

After Jesus ‘commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ’ (Matthew 16:20), we are told that ‘From that time Jesus began…’ to speak to His disciples about His impending suffering and death at the hands of the Jerusalem ruling elites (Matthew 16:21). During Jesus’ earthly ministry, He often had to command silence as to His identity precisely because many saw in Jesus, not Emmanuel, but one who was useful, who could be co-opted and deployed in service of a prior, human, earthly agenda – a kingdom of man, marked by revolt, insurrection and upheaval – “Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone (John 6:15). God, in Jesus, was certainly launching a revolution that would affect individuals, society and, eventually, the world. But it was not their kind of revolution! In fact, it was a covenantal fulfilment of climactic proportions that had to begin with men’s hearts, as John the Baptist had already indicated to Israel – “…Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!…bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Matthew 3:2, 8). Jesus Himself took up and reiterated John’s message, ‘From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matthew 4:17).    

Following John’s imprisonment, Jesus had alerted the multitudes that the Baptist’s prophetic ministry was bringing the era of the Law and the Prophets to its appointed terminus – “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John” (Matthew 11:13). Furthermore, Jesus told them that “…from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). In the first century various political resistance movements were operating, some with overlapping interests. A common denominator was the resistance of Roman power and the political exaltation of Judea—that is, a restoration to an autonomous “Davidic” kingdom for the Jews. One group who sought to produce an earthly kingdom of heaven by force was the Sicarii – armed bandits, dagger-men, who fiercely opposed Rome and all Jews friendly to Rome. Paul, himself, was at one point confused with “…the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a rebellion and led the 4000 assassins (sicarioi) out into the wilderness” (Acts 21:38), and assumed to be involved in revolt and political insurrection. Barrabas, the man released in favour of Jesus at the trial with Pilate, is described as one who, together with fellow rebels, “…had committed murder in the rebellion” (Mark 15:17). The two thieves crucified with Jesus were almost certainly part of resistance movements in Judea, as they are, like Barrabas (John 18:40), described by the term ‘lestai’ (violent robbers).

The construction ‘from that time Jesus began’ (apo tote erxato ho Iesous) occurs only twice in Matthew’s Gospel, here at Matthew 16:21 and in Matthew 4:17. Both occasions mark significant transition points, both in Matthew’s architectonics and in Jesus’ ministry. In Matthew 4, it launches Jesus’ Galilean ministry after His testing by Satan in the wilderness and the Baptist’s imprisonment.

Following 40 days of fasting, Jesus shows Himself to be completely submissive to His Heavenly Father by overcoming the devil’s temptations in three successive domains.

The devil’s first attack on Jesus was a priestly temptation in the garden domain. The temptation to turn stones into bread concerns priestly overreach. Though physically in a desert setting, this first temptation takes us back to the Garden of Eden where there is forbidden food on offer, if only Jesus will take control of the situation and use His power; food that is to be received as gift from God following obedience and not to be seized prematurely. As with Eve in the garden, the tempter seeks to dissuade the Son of God from submitting to the word of God; hence, Jesus’ response to Satan – ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ (Matthew 4:4). As Jesus later taught the disciples to pray, dependence on God extends to one’s very daily food – ‘… Give us this day our daily bread’ (Matthew 6:11). In the wilderness, then, Jesus knew that it was His Father who would end His fast, not Jesus Himself. 

Thesecond temptation was kingly in nature and concerns the land. It is a temptation to kingly overreach. Taken to the temple’s pinnacle in the holy city, Satan tempts (pushes?) Jesus to throw Himself down and thus compel God’s protective intervention. After all, if Jesus is Israel’s true King, then such a miraculous display in His very temple would command the admiration (worship?) of all onlookers. But Jesus knows that this is primarily God’s temple, the locus of holiness and worship. Kingly wisdom demands that one fear God above all, and putting God to the test through such a presumptive act would put Jesus on a par with Saul, Israel’s first and failed king. Once again, Satan’s objective with Jesus is as it was with Eve – to get Him to act independently of His Father, to take matters into His own hands. In a sense, to demand a sign from His Father, something Jerusalem’s ruling elites would repeatedly demand from Jesus. 

Satan’s last attempt to provoke Jesus’ disobedience moves on to the world stage, and is an invitation to prophetic overreach, as it asks the Son of God to look beyond the temple/Jerusalem/Israel and to fix His gaze on the splendour of the nations. Placed on ‘an exceedingly high mountain,’ Jesus is offered ‘all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.’ Satan, as it were, comes clean and lays all his cards on the table. He offers Jesus an exchange – everything he has jurisdiction over (the kingdoms of the world) for the one thing he craves most (worship). Jesus banishes Satan from His presence, knowing that God will not share His glory with another.

Unlike Saul, Israel’s first king who had sinned in all three domains, Jesus is submissive and obedient to His Father in the garden, the land, and the world.

Having been tested and found faithful and true, following the Baptist’s preparatory ministry, Jesus takes centre stage fulfilling Isaianic prophecy about the ‘great light’ that ‘dawns’ on the land (Matthew 4:14-16). The testing in the desert has prepared Him for ministry, and at this stage it is a ministry of proclamation (keryssein) of the heavenly kingdom’s nearness (engiken). Jesus’ preaching and teaching ministry is a time of ‘forming’ and shaping, much like when God formed creation in the beginning. This ‘forming’ and shaping phase of Jesus’ ministry has taken place largely through the spoken word – ‘From that time Jesus began to preach and to say…’ (Matthew 4:17) – and the message was a continuation of the Baptist’s message – ‘…Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

In Matthew 16:21, after Peter’s crescendo moment and Jesus’ revelation of the ‘church’ and its mission, Matthew transitions the reader into the phase of Jesus’ ministry concerned with ‘filling’ and showing. For the second and final time, then, ‘From that time Jesus began to show …’ and this time the focus narrows down to ‘His disciples.’ Following the unveiling to Peter and the other disciples of Jesus’ identity as the ‘Anointed One,’ the true Son of the living God, Jesus begins to ‘show’ (deiknyein) them what lies in the near horizon. In His wilderness temptation, Satan had ‘shown’ (deiknysin) Jesus all the world’s kingdoms. Ironically, revelation of Jesus as Israel’s true King (Son) leads not to an immediate display of worldly glory, exaltation and a crushing of enemies, but rather to humiliation, suffering and impending death for the ‘Christ’ (16:21). A further irony is that this suffering ‘must’ take place in Jerusalem, the city of ‘peace.’ Vengeance will come, but it must be delayed for now; for one generation, in fact.

TO BE CONTINUED