Mateus 21
Steven Cole · Citado em PreceptAustin
Mateus 21
Cole has an interesting introduction to this section on authority imagining himself as a reporter in Jerusalem interviewing a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. The chief priests (archiereus) and the elders (presbuteros) of the people came to Him while He was teaching (didasko in present tense - continually), and said, “By what authority (exousia) are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority (exousia) - Authority (exousia) is obviously their "sticking point" and in simple terms they are asking Jesus who gave Him the right and the might. They certainly could not argue with "the might" for they had just seen Him cleanse the Temple the day before and no one dared stop Him. So their focus would be on where He got the right to do these things and to teach the way He taught. And it would take both "right" (He was God and the Temple was God's) and the might (the Court of the Gentiles was about 10 football fields in size and filled with money changers, lambs, pigeons, etc - it would have taken "might" to cleanse such a large area). C H
Mateus 21
Cole adds that "It was not through their failure to recognize the Son that they killed him; that would have been pardonable. It was, as in the parable, precisely because they recognized Him for who he was!...We reject the claims of Christ not because we misunderstand them, but because we understand them only too well, in spite of all our protestations to the contrary. (See The Gospel According to Mark:) D. A. Carson: Elsewhere [Matthew] shows (Mt 23:37) their fundamental unwillingness to come to terms with Jesus’ identity and claims because they did not want to bow to his authority. True, their attitude was not, according to the synoptic record, “This is the Messiah; come, let us kill him”; yet, in the light of the Scriptures, their rejection of him was no less culpable than if it had been that. Therefore, though all the parable’s details may not be pressed, rejection of the son (Mt 23:39) by the leaders is the final straw that brings divine wrath on them. (See Matthew) They did not kill Him because they thought He was a counterfeit Messiah but because they knew He was the Messiah! Does this not blow your mind! What it demonstrates is the depth of depravity of the human heart that rejects every offer of grace from God because it does not want to submit to the authority of the "Owner" but wants the "Vineyard" for itself! Are not these evil vine-growers in so many ways a picture of all of us before we were saved by grace through faith, for we were all "formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds" (Col 1:21+), "we were enemies" before "we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son." (Ro 5:10+)! And yet in spite of this rejection "of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience" (Ro 2:4+), what does God do? "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Ro 5:8+) We can only sing out John Newton's great words "Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see!"