Through the Year in the Four Gospels-Devotional

As we begin a New Year, that is still full of promise, let us consider Jesus who is the Christ (Messiah)

Matthew the writer of the first Gospel presents Jesus to us as the long expected and awaited Saviour. His favourite formula which occurs eleven times in his Gospels is some variation of this. "Now this took place that what was written in the prophets might be fulfilled."

It is appropriate therefore that Matthew should begin his Gospel with the genealogy of Jesus, in which he traces the royal line and specifically emphasizes Abraham, the founding father of Israel, and David, the ancestor of the Messiah, who would be, "the son of David"

The theme of fulfillment is most clearly seen in Jesus' inauguration of the kingdom of God. All four evangelists write that he proclaimed the kingdom, but Matthew had his special emphasis.

In deference to the Jewish reluctance to pronounce the sacred name of God, Matthew uses instead "the kingdom of heaven" (about fifty times) He also grasps that the kingdom is both a present reality and a future expectation.

One of Jesus' remarkable sayings was recorded by Matthew, and also by Luke.

"Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, but did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it" Matt 13:16,17

In other worde the Old Testament prophets lived in the time of anticipation; the apostles were living in the time of fulfillment.Their eyes were actually seeing and their ears actually hearing, what their predecessors had longed to see and to hear. So Matthew does not portray Jesus as another prophet, one more seer in a long succession of the centuries, but rather as the fulfillment of prophecy. Matthew also sees Jesus as confronting Israel with a final summons to repent and as already begining to create a New Israel, his twelve apostles complementing the twelve tribes of Israel.

So we see that Matthew portrays a Jewish Jesus. Indeed he proclaims him as the long expected Messiah.The evidence for this Jewishness is indisputable. Jesus was steeped in the Old Testament. He saw Himself as the fulfillmentof all Old Testament prophecy.

More about Jesus soon, keep abreast of the Creationists Corner, Blog

Notes from Through the Bible through the Year by John Stott.

Yours aye Roy (editor)