Matthew 21:1 ¶ And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 2 Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. 3 And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. 4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. 6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, 7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. 8 And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. 9 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. 10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? 11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.
Matthew quotes Zechariah as a fulfilled by this event in Christ’s
ministry;
Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King
cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an
ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
See how they strew branches in Jesus’ path, a token of the Feast
of Tabernacles in Leviticus 23:40 and garments in his path as in 2Kings 9:13.
Leviticus 23:40 And ye
shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm
trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall
rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.
2Kings 9:13 Then they
hasted, and took every man his garment, and put it under him on the top of the
stairs, and blew with trumpets, saying, Jehu is king.
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem causes quite a stir and a multitude
acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah to come. Several
declarations are made here. He is the Son of David who comes in the name of the
Lord. He is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth.
Matthew 21:12 ¶ And Jesus
went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the
temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them
that sold doves, 13 And said unto them,
It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made
it a den of thieves. 14 And the blind
and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. 15 And when the chief priests and scribes saw
the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and
saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, 16 And said unto him, Hearest thou what these
say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of
babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? 17 And he left them, and went out of the city
into Bethany; and he lodged there.
The event that starts this passage is said by John, or so it
appears, to have happened earlier than Matthew shows. It is not unusual for
memories of events in the past shared by different people to have some small
differences. In fact, eyewitness testimony that is a hundred percent identical
would be suspicious. Of course, there could have been two separate instances of
this happening as well.
Jesus, in purging the temple, quotes Old Testament passages.
Isaiah 56:7 Even them will
I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their
burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for
mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.
Jeremiah 7:11 Is this
house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?
Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD.
In response to the complaint of the chief priests and scribes
Jesus will allude to the following;
Psalm 8:2 Out of the mouth
of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies,
that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
Jesus is not acting as a politician, nor is He acting as a
revolutionary. He is asserting God’s intentions by what He has established,
which the religious leaders have ignored in creating their own edifice upon
which to justify their power.
He roots out corruption, helps the helpless, and reproves the
religious elite for their unbelief as the people call Him the Messiah.
Matthew 21:18 ¶ Now in the
morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. 19 And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he
came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let
no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree
withered away. 20 And when the disciples
saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!
21 Jesus answered and said unto them,
Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do
this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall
ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
Notice that the fig tree that Christ curses represents the fallen
state of Israel in their failure to live up to God’s laws but creating their
own rules to go by and claiming piety and righteousness by following their
man-made rules and not God’s. They bore no fruit acceptable to God. This is
made clear in a number of contexts.
Notice the comparison made in the Old Testament with Israel;
Hosea 9:10 I found Israel
like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig
tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves
unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved.
Jesus then uses a figure of speech that hyperliteralists and
skeptics stumble over that basically all things are possible with sincere
prayer. However, you might be considered foolish if you knelt before a mountain
and prayed that it fall into the sea after telling people to watch the power of
prayer. This hyperbole, much like the one about the eye of a needle,
underscores the power of sincere faith and prayer in our lives and God’s
response to it. It is not a call to rearrange geographical features.
Of all the fig trees Jesus must have seen He chose this one to
make His point. This fig true represented the entire nation of Israel in its
history and at this point in time when the Messiah came and was not believed by
the religious elite of God’s people.
While a Christian is not cursed by God for not producing fruit the
evidence we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us is the fruit we produce.
Galatians 5:22 But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness,
faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against
such there is no law. 24 And they that
are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in
the Spirit. 26 Let us not be desirous of
vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
We are promised that things asked according to His will He will
grant it;
1John 5:14 ¶ And this is
the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his
will, he heareth us: 15 And if we know
that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we
desired of him.
Matthew 21:23 ¶ And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority? 24 And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise will tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, or of men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him? 26 But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people; for all hold John as a prophet. 27 And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell. And he said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.
Here the very political religious elite are stumped by Christ as
they dare not answer His question. They fear the people but wanted to respond
to Jesus teaching in the temple. He was not part of the religious elite
accepted by the Jewish authorities. He knew their weakness and their
wickedness. Like Pilate, as revealed later, they are political creatures not so
much as concerned about truth as about their position.
Matthew 21:28 ¶ But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. 29 He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. 30 And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. 31 Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. 32 For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.
On one level this could clearly be a reference to Israel. The
obedient Jew may have resisted at first but eventually did what God wanted. I
think of Moses himself. The disobedient Israelite said I’ll obey and did not.
Exodus 3:11 ¶ And Moses
said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring
forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
But he did go, didn’t he?
Exodus 24:3 And Moses came
and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments: and all
the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD hath
said will we do.
And they didn’t obey.
But on a more important level, based on the context, it is also
clearly a reference to the outcasts of society who seem, at first, to be as far
from God as they can get and yet when they come to Christ they are accepted as
if they were always His. The argument Jesus is making here is that the chief
priest and the elders who are attacking Him pay lip service to God but disobey
Him by rejecting His Messiah while the outcasts will come into God’s kingdom
before they will because the elite are not receptive to God’s ministry of
reconciling mankind to Himself.
The religious elite here, at their best, are farther from God than
the prostitutes and tax collectors who receive their Saviour. God’s ministry of
reconciling mankind to Himself reaches its most important point when the
Messiah makes Himself known to the people of Israel and;
John 1:11 He came unto his
own, and his own received him not. 12
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name:
13 Which were born, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Matthew 21:33 ¶ Hear
another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and
hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let
it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: 34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he
sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.
35 And the husbandmen took his servants,
and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again, he sent other servants more than the
first: and they did unto them likewise. 37
But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence
my son. 38 But when the husbandmen saw
the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him,
and let us seize on his inheritance. 39
And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.
40 When the lord therefore of the
vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? 41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy
those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen,
which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. 42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in
the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the
head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom
of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof. 44 And whosoever shall fall on
this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him
to powder. 45 And when the chief priests
and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
46 But when they sought to lay hands on
him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.
Jesus uses another parable here to explain the things that have
happened and are about to happen with God’s ministry of reconciling mankind to Himself.
The Jews have abused and killed the prophets who came before Christ and will
kill Him, the Son of God coming in the name of the Father. The prophecy
contained here also shows that God’s plan will be opened up to all people who
will honor Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, will be the cornerstone of God’s
plan, rejected by His own people. The blessing that the Jews refuse to receive,
their Messiah, will be offered to others who will willingly serve Him. This was
very clear to the Pharisees and only because of their fear of the crowds did
they not seize Christ at that time.
Isaiah 5:7 For the vineyard
of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant
plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness,
but behold a cry.
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