Matthew 22

Our Lord is going to the cross. He is dying for the true Israel of God, the elect Israel that is composed of Jews and Gentiles who have taken refuge in Him. All these will be a part of the coming kingdom of heaven. The old kingdom of Israel is ending. For many centuries there has been no true king in Israel. Yet it remained the hope of some that God would reestablish the old kingdom again. This was not to be. God is doing something different now with His Son. Jesus will be the King, but He is bringing in the kingdom of heaven. The old subjects of the old kingdom of Israel have rejected the true Son of David. The new kingdom is coming with a glorious wedding feast, where God's Son will be shown to be united to His bride. Israel was largely unwilling to come to that feast. They had demonstrated this over many years in their unwillingness to receive the Word of God. Even now, people all over the world are regularly deciding that they are too busy to meet the Lord of the kingdom of heaven and to hear His Word.

God is not pleased with those who murder His prophets. He is similarly displeased with those who would spurn His Son. Those who will not see the kingdom for the jewel that it is, those who would despise the Son of God and refuse to call upon His Name, are not worthy of the glorious kingdom. The sad fact is that we would all fall into such a despicable group without the Lord's grace. Even in the life of the most godly servants of King Jesus, there is ample proof that we have violated the Lord's great commandments, for we have not loved Him with all our hearts, and we have not love one another. By His grace He sends forth messengers of the Word far off into Gentile lands. Throughout the world, everyone is invited to believe in the Son of God and to hope in the resurrection. The Lord will fill His great wedding hall with guests.

We make a serious error if we think that God has dismissed His concern for righteousness concerning our participation in His kingdom. Our Lord has always demanded the fullest obedience from those who would desire to be with Him forever. The key to the system of grace that comes through Christ is this: Christ has become our clothing of righteousness before the Father. He is our wedding garment, for He has stained His own garments with the bloody mess of our sin, and He has granted to us the perfect spotless clothing of His righteousness. This is true grace. Many are called through the preaching of the Word, but only those who find their perfect righteousness in Christ will display the fact that they have truly been chosen by God.

This is the time for Israel to hear the Word of the true King, and to embrace Him. They should see His holiness, and admire His works of power. They should seek Him and find, laying their burden of sin upon Him for the fullest redemption. Instead the various groups arrayed against our Lord are trying to trap Him, to embarrass Him, and to cause Him harm. The Pharisees and the Herodians attempt to flatter Him, with hopes that He will then speak against Roman taxation. They are unsuccessful. He affirms the proper role of civil authorities, but asserts the higher duty that we have to submit to God, as the one in whose image every man has been created.

The Sadducees attempt to show the Lord of wisdom to be a fool. They deny the hope of the resurrection which has been so central a teaching throughout the entire Old Testament. They think themselves too smart to agree with a bodily life beyond the mortality of this world. They attempt to expose what they imagine to be insurmountable problems with such a physical realm. In playing their insulting game they provide us with an interesting bit of historical evidence: It is obvious from their attack of the Lord on this matter that the teaching of a coming resurrection was understand by many to be a central doctrine of our Lord's ministry. He refutes their unbelief concerning this doctrine based on two points. First, they do not understand the Scriptures, and second, they do not know God and His power. The Scriptures promise the coming resurrection of the dead. The fact of God's power displayed in the Lord's great healing miracles assures us that the One who created all things out of nothing is able to bring about the hope of the righteous in a great work of physical regeneration.

In His answer to the Sadducees, our Lord also demonstrates that He knows things about the present heaven that His adversaries have no experience with. He knows how angels relate to one another. In revealing to us that we will not enter into new marriages in heaven, he says that we will be like the angels in heaven in some way on this matter of relationships. Of course we have only a few hints in the Scriptures concerning relationships between and with angelic beings, but Jesus knows all about angels. We have no record that anyone asked Him the interesting question of how we will be like the angels in heaven. They were true busy trying to make the only one there with firsthand experience of heaven look like a fool. Abraham is still alive. So are Isaac and Jacob. They are in the present heaven, and the way that they exist even now is apparently great evidence concerning the resurrection of the dead. Jesus knows all about this.

Before them that day was the answer to our longing for eternal life. Here was David's Son and David's Lord. Here was the one who knew not only the obvious testimonies to a coming resurrection age, like Ezekiel's vision of dry bones coming back to life, but also the thousands of more subtle references to the Lord's eternal plan of physical life, like the simple identification of Yahweh as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Here was the one who not only knew how to speak about the Law of God in its two great headings, but who had Himself fulfilled these commandments entirely. Why could they not have asked Him the many questions that could have come to Him that day from a true heart of faith?

Yet this was His day and not theirs. When they thought that He was trapped, they were only following the script of His loving Father's design, a script that He had agreed to before the foundation of the world. This Jesus who died and rose again is the Lord of glory. He is currently at the right hand of the Father reigning in heaven. God will put all His enemies under His feet. He is certainly not a fool. He is the wisdom and power of God.