One
of my co-elders is currently preaching through Matthew. This particular week he
was starting Matthew 12; a passage where the Pharisees challenge Jesus' disciples for plucking grain on the Sabbath and Jesus turns the challenge back on the Pharisees. As he was preaching, I began to ponder the connections between Matthew 11 & 12 and I realized that Matthew is weaving together a
masterful account of the gospel. Some biblical theology will help piece this together. How so?
In the fall we incurred the judgment of God and thus suffered the loss of life and health. It's important to understand that all of the health issues we face are but smaller doses of death until we succumb to final death. In the first half of Matthew 11 we find John the Baptist in prison. He sends a message to Jesus to ask whether or not He was the Christ--the Messiah. Jesus' message back to John is to look at all that Jesus is doing in regard to miracles. In Jesus' miracles He is reversing the effects of the fall--blind people see, crippled people walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf people hear, the dead are raised to life and the poor have the good news preached to them. These are the WORKS of Christ that verify He is Messiah, Savior, Creator. It's important to see these miracles as the WORK of Jesus because that is how Mathew portrays these miracles in 11:20. It's equally important to see that the WORKS of Jesus are seen as acts of RE-CREATION. Salvation is not only rescue from hell and the wrath of God, but it's also a restoration of the natural world (including earth and our bodies) so that we can have a place in which to live with God eternally.
As Matthew 11 continues we see that Jesus denounces the cities where most of His mighty WORKS were done. These cities did not recognize that the Creator or RE-CREATOR was among them doing His creative WORKS that were first done in Genesis. He's undoing the curse and they missed it and did not repent.
The account of what Jesus is doing seems to shift gears in 11:25 but it's not really a shift at all. It's a continuation of what Matthew is trying to show us about Jesus. In this next portion of Scripture, Jesus calls people to receive His REST. It might not seem like there's a connection to what Jesus is saying and what Jesus has just done, but there is a
direct theological connection being made between His WORKS and a gift of REST
we can receive from Him. Again, connections are being made to Genesis were God CREATED then RESTED. He WORKED then RESTED. Hang on to these thoughts as we look deeper into these two chapters.
In Greek the word REST (Matthew 11:28) corresponds to SABBATH
in Hebrew. WORK and SABBATH/REST are connected themes in the Bible from the
start of Genesis. In Genesis SABBATH followed CREATION. In Matthew 11, Jesus is inviting people to receive SABBATH after He has shown that He is Savior, Creator, Re-Creator. In short, Jesus’ WORKS of RE-CREATION (His miracles) are
salvific and this brings us SABBATH or REST. We come to Him for REST/SABBATH
for both body and soul because we are unable to bring this about. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot bring ultimate SABBATH to ourselves. He must do it. Those that recognize Jesus is a restoring Creator find REST/SABBATH or salvation. Those that don't are denounced and remain under the judgment of God and remain under the death curse.
Matthew
12 then moves on to two accounts (12:1-8; 12:9-14) that deal with the SABBATH to show just who Jesus is. He is Lord of the Sabbath thus Lord of ultimate rest and salvation and Jesus shows how the Jewish people had gained a wrong understanding of why the Sabbath existed. In the
next part of Matthew 12, Jesus will then move on to heal on the Sabbath which is
Matthew’s way of continuing to show that Jesus is our
REST/RESTORATION/RE-CREATION/SABBATH or as we commonly say, "our SAVIOR."
So in summation Matthew 11 & 12 show us that Jesus' works verify that He is the Savior and that He alone brings about a reversal of the curse. His works save us. This is the rest that He gives when we repent and trust Him to save us. The Sabbath was given for our benefit. It was given ultimately to point the way to Jesus our eternal Sabbath. And because Christ restores and saves us, we can spend eternity with God in a new creation. Therefore, we must all believe the WORKS of Jesus and find SABBATH/REST in Him. It's just not possible for you to WORK your way back to God. Stop your efforts and trust in the WORKS of Jesus. REST in Him.
As a helpful reminder, it's a good habit to sometimes mentally erase chapter and verse divisions in our modern Bibles. These man-made divisions can sometimes be helpful, but sometimes they can cause you
to overlook connections being made. We might look at particular sections of the Bible and think they are separate teachings when they are not. As just demonstrated, Matthew 11 & 12 are all interconnected just as much as they are connected with the other chapters in Matthew. So, a helpful tip for everyone is to never
atomize a text. Don’t zoom in so much on a particular section of Scripture that you forget to zoom out and see
what’s around the text. There is a much fuller sense of Scripture than just the immediate text.
Matthew is masterfully weaving together a story that is GOSPEL. If you atomize the text, you might just miss out on the good news of Jesus Christ.