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The Greatest Commandment

January 12, 2025 Speaker: Jim Davis Series: Matthew

Passage: Matthew 22:34–46

We are back into Matthew. We have been walking through Matthew every January to Easter and we are jumping back in at Matthew chapter 22. I want to do something a bit different today than we have been doing in Matthew. I want to make sure we don’t lose the forest for the trees. We are jumping back in half way through chapter 22, but we are jumping into the middle of a very important story Matthew is telling. This is Tuesday of what we call Holy Week. That is, the week before Jesus’ crucifixion. A day I call Entrapment Tuesday. So, the passage we read about the greatest commandment is rooted in a larger story. If I were to just teach this passage this week, I think this passage, as would any, would be helpful for us, but if I were to do that, we’d miss out on WHY Matthew is putting this story HERE and as a result, we’d actually miss his main point. 

So, I want to zoom way back and look at everything that is happening on this day and what Matthew and, ultimately, Jesus wants us to see. When I say zoom out, I’m actually zooming out to chapters 21-24. All of that happens on the same day. And the main point of Tuesday in Matthew’s gospel is authority. Who has true spiritual authority in Israel? Is it the chief priests? Is it the Pharisees? Is it the Sadducees? Is it the elders? Is it the scribes? Or, is it Jesus? 

 

I call this day Entrapment Tuesday because the Pharisees and Sadducees are challenging Jesus by trying to trap him with some tricky questions hoping that he strikes out and that that will undermine any authority he has with the people. The way I want to walk through this is like scenes of a play. We have 1) Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem, 2) Four traps, and 3) What this says about authority

 

  1. Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem

 

Jesus’ arrival is really important. He has already made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but he’s staying outside of Jerusalem in Bethany about two miles away. He stayed there because it was the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. So on Tuesday morning, he was walking with the disciples from Bethany to Jerusalem and, as they approached Jerusalem, they were hungry and they came upon this fig tree and it looked fine from a distance. Its leaves were full, but as they got closer, they realized it had no fruit. So, Jesus cursed it and it immediately withered. 

 

Then they enter the city and that is when Jesus’ authority begins to be questioned. In verse 23 of chapter 22, we read, 23 zAnd when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him aas he was teaching, and said, b“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” - Matt 22:23

 

There it is. Authority is the issue at hand. All the religious leaders are together and they begin to question Jesus like he was a murderer. What they want to say is something like, “Hey, Jesus. Do you really think you’re the Messiah? That’s crazy.” But they can’t do that because Jesus has been schooling anyone who publicly challenges him. And that is why they have set these four traps.

 

  1. Four traps

 

Trap one. Whose Authority? They want to know by whose authority Jesus had carried out his actions the day before when he cleansed the Temple by turning over tables and running the people who were making money off the Temple out of there. But, instead of taking the bait, Jesus turns the tables on them by asking, “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” 

 

Remember that it was when John baptized Jesus that God declared Jesus to be the Messiah. This is a serious question because if they say it was from heaven, then Jesus would just ask them why they don’t believe what God said. But, if they say it was from man, they risk alienating all the people in the crowd at that moment who held John in high regard as a prophet. And all they can say is, “I don’t know.” And Jesus tells them, “Then neither will I tell you where my authority comes from.” 

 

This is when Jesus tells three parables that we looked at last year. A story about a son who dishonored his father, a story about a tenant who murdered his master, and a story about guests who were invited to the wedding feast of a king, but they chose not to come. All three of these stories are intended to say one thing to these religious leaders: You are the evil ones in these stories because you reject the authority of God and the grace He offers you. You are self-righteous and hypocritical. 

 

That brings us to Trap Two: Whose Allegiance? For this second trap, they try a new tactic. They send the Pharisees, who are known for their zeal for the law, and the Herodians, who are loyal to the Roman King Herod, to ask a question: “Is it lawful to pay taxes or not?” If Jesus answers ‘yes,’ he can’t possibly be the hero who would overthrow the Roman occupiers, as many misunderstood the Messiah to be. So, if Jesus answers ‘yes,’ the people would leave en masse. 

 

But, if Jesus answers ‘no,’ that people should not pay taxes to Caesar, he can be arrested on the spot by the Romans for starting a civil revolt. But, how does Jesus answer? We looked at this last March. He turned it back on them and asked, “Whose image is on that coin?” Caesar’s image is on that coin. “Give to God what is God’s and Caesar what is Caesar’s. Now there is a lot to be said about this, but Jesus is brilliantly evading their trap. 

 

Then, we have Trap Three: Whose wife in the resurrection? This was the last sermon I preached from Matthew in 2024. The Pharisees and the Herodians have been shut down completely and publicly. Now the Sadducees take their shot. Remember, the Sadducees don’t believe in a resurrection. They ask a trick question about marriage in heaven. Is there marriage or not? Either way Jesus answers, he would be acknowledging that there is a resurrection and they could have him tried for that. It’s not that Jesus is scared to say there is a resurrection, he just doesn’t want to fall for their trap. So he evades the question and says simply that they don’t understand the Scriptures or the power of God because He is a God of the living and not the dead. He then says, “There is no marriage in heaven.” So your question is baseless. Then the Sadducees go silent. 

 

Then, Trap Four: Which Commandment? The final person the Pharisees send in is an expert in the law. When all else fails, send the lawyer. He asks which of God’s commands is the greatest. Jesus says love. Love God and love your neighbor. No one can argue with him. 

 

Now the traps have been evaded and it’s Jesus’ turn to ask them a question. He asks them a question about David. Remember that they are mad because Jesus is claiming to be the Messiah. So Jesus asks who’s son is the Messiah. And they know that the Messiah is the son of David. This means that he comes from the line of David. Then, Jesus asks how David can say in Psalm 110 that the Messiah is David’s Lord? No one can answer this question. But, the implication is that if the Son of David is also David’s Lord, then not only is this Messiah greater than the greatest King Israel had ever known, he would be divine in nature. And this would give him an authority unlike any human to ever live

 

That brings us all the way to chapter 23 which is mostly Jesus giving scathing critiques to the religious leaders of that day by pronouncing seven woes of judgement on them calling them hypocrites and blind guides. Then, at the end of chapter 23, Jesus laments for Jerusalem, the city that kills prophets and stones those who are sent to it, foreshadowing his own crucifixion. 

 

Then, at the beginning of chapter 24, the last thing Matthew records Jesus saying in Jerusalem that day, he foretells the end of the Temple. That there will come a day when not one stone is left on top of another. So, what does all of this have to do with authority? 

 

  1. What this has to do with authority

 

From the fig tree to the Temple. Matthew assumes his readers understand the connection. The fig tree looked good on the outside, but it did not have fruit. What else in this passage looked good on the outside, but failed to accomplish the fruit it was designed for? The Temple system.

 

The fig tree represents what the Temple system had become under the authority of the religious leaders of that day. This is why Matthew connects this story with the cleansing of the Temple. Mark actually tells the story of the fig tree with the cleansing of the Temple in the middle of the story. Hosea, Jeremiah, and Micah all also liken Israel to a fig tree so this doesn’t come out of nowhere. The Temple system may look nice on the outside, but it is dead on the inside. Israel has misconstrued their relationship with God into one where they are saved by their works of the law instead of faith. That’s what they are missing. Again, they are creating a religion of works to make themselves feel better about their current spiritual state. But, it has just become a religion of damnable good works. It doesn’t matter how much good we do, we can never save ourselves and that is exactly what Israel had turned the Temple system into. No longer a temple of sacrifice and worship of God, but a temple of self-righteousness and worship of self. 

And all this has happened under the corrupt religious authority. Jesus is directly confronting the failed religious authority of that day with his divine authority. Matthew wants us to ask the question, who has the authority to condemn the Temple system created by God? No priest can do this. Who has the authority to curse the temple system? Not even a prophet can do this. Who has the authority to pronounce a curse on a fig tree and see it wither immediately? No king can do this. The only person who can do these things is God himself…and that is what Matthew wants us to see. He’s accepting the praise of men that should only go to God and he is doing the things that only God can do because Jesus is himself God incarnate. 

Up until this point in time, Jesus has been hiding who he really is. The term for this is veiled disclosure. He has been selective in how he discloses who he is because he knew that the moment they realize what Jesus is truly saying, the Jewish authorities would want him dead. Well, this is the moment. No more veiled disclosure, Jesus is fully displaying who he is. He is the king, the prophet, the priest prophesied and he is himself God. 

 

Why does this matter? If we don’t see Jesus’s authority as the great prophet we will not understand the way he uniquely speaks to us from God. Prophets in the Old Testament came to pronounce curses for covenant infidelity and blessings if the people repented. Jesus came to announce to the world that our sin merits eternal punishment, yet, he would take that punishment on himself on the cross. In doing so, he took the covenant curses and gave us the covenant blessings and ushered in the New Covenant. 

 

If we don’t see Jesus’ authority as the great priest, we will never see how he uniquely mediates between us and God. He understands our plight better than anyone who has ever lived. He understands our temptations. Not only that, but he understands them better than we do. In the words of CS Lewis, he knows temptation better than we do because while we give in to the temptation, he kept enduring. 

 

And if we don’t understand Jesus’ authority as king, we won’t desire to submit every area of our lives to his kingship. And the result of not seeing Jesus as prophet, priest, king, and God will be a Temple-like system of works based righteousness where we do what we think we need to do to earn God’s favor. We will create a comfortable spiritual system that will never disrupt our lives. We will be our own deliverer. We will be our own prophet. We will be our own king. And we will be our own God. 

 

We can try to vilify all the religious leaders of that day, but before we do, we should see all the ways we do the same thing. All the ways we resist the authority of Jesus in favor of some system of our own creation that makes us feel like we are our own savior. It may not be the Temple system, but it could be telling ourselves that we have a good heart. It may not be the Mosaic Law, but it could be that we do more good than bad in this life. It may not be a perverted form of Judaism, but it could be that Jesus becomes an example instead of a Savior. 

 

I’m sure many of you have heard about a Biblical scholar named Wes Huff going on the Joe Rogan show. It was the first Biblical scholar Joe has ever had on his podcast. And Joe was basically saying that Jesus was a good example to follow. This is what popular psychologist Jordan Peterson believes. And they were talking about this and Wes explained simply, but brilliantly that Jesus doesn’t give us the option to view him as a moral example. Salvation by morality is exactly what Jesus is condemning to these religious leaders. If you can save yourself through your morality, then you don’t need a savior. If you’re trying to do everything right, then you’re missing the point completely. The law is a mirror that shows us our sin. It shows us we are dirty, but it doesn’t cleanse us. You can’t clean yourself with a mirror. For us to view Jesus as a moral example is to fundamentally make the same mistake the religious leaders in Matthew are making and it misses what he says about himself completely. 

 

If you keep striving for morality, you will both fail and you will wear yourself out completely. Jesus has come not to be a moral example, but to accomplish what we can’t for us. And it is fascinating to me that in that podcast, Wes shared the gospel with more people than any single human being in the history of the world. 

 

So what does this have to do with authority? Everything. Are we going to be our own authority or is Jesus? Are we going to be our own saviors or is Jesus? Are we going to be our own god or is Jesus? That is the message in front of us in Matthew. That is the only message that will give us the peace, hope, comfort, and joy that we long for. A message that instead of saying work harder, says it is finished. But the problem is that our sin tells us to work harder. To let go of that narrative is so hard. It requires supernatural humility. Humility to step off the throne of our lives and to bow to Him who is rightly on that throne. 

 

When Jesus was tempted by Satan at the beginning of his ministry, Satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world. There are many who think at that moment, Satan showed him every kingdom that would ever exist on earth. And Satan said if you will just bow down to me, I will give you authority over all of these. But Jesus said no. And saying no would mean that he would go to the cross and take the wrath of God in our place. But in so doing, he would fulfill the greatest commandments. This would be the ultimate act of loving God and the ultimate act of loving his neighbor. He doesn’t want us to bow to lesser authorities, he wants us to bow to the true authority and he gave his life so we could. 

And when we do this, the stress in our minds becomes shalom and the chaos in our hearts becomes calm. We will still struggle with this even as Christians because we still have sin and this is why giving authority to Jesus over every area of our lives isn’t something we do once and we are done. It’s something we do every day for the rest of our lives. The Christian life is not about earning our way into the King’s favor. It’s having a King that gave us his favor before we even wanted it. And as we bow again and again to his Kingship, we get to enjoy that favor more and more for the rest of our lives and then fully and eternally in the life to come. 

More in Matthew

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Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial

February 2, 2025

The Lord’s Supper

January 19, 2025

Close to Jesus, But Far Away