64 Why Jesus Withdrew When the Pharisees Plotted Against Him (Matthew 12:15-21)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the 64th talk in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. We're going to study Matthew chapter 12, verses 15 through 21 today. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast. You can also find them by going to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 64. Thank you for listening today. While we are still in Matthew chapter 12, in this section, Matthew is focusing on how the Jewish people were responding to Jesus, and as we've seen, it's a largely negative response. In chapter 10, Jesus sent the 12 out to preach the gospel, and he warned them that they would face hostility and persecution. This was not going to be a victory tour. The people would reject them because they also rejected Jesus. Then in chapter 11, we saw that even John the Baptist was confused because Jesus was not acting like the Messiah he expected. Jesus pronounced woe on the Galilean cities because they failed to repent, even though they had more opportunity to hear him teach and see his miracles than anyone else. And then he ended Chapter 11 with an invitation to follow him. Last week we started Chapter 12 and we looked at two stories that involved the Sabbath. Both of them highlight the growing hostility of the Pharisees toward Jesus. We ended with 1214, which says, But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. All four Gospels confirm that Jesus' view of the Sabbath was one of the reasons the Pharisees rejected Jesus and sought to execute him. The Sabbath was one of their big problems with Jesus. 1214 leads right into our verses today, having said that the Pharisees went out and were conspiring against him. Matthew goes on in 1215 and 16. Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there, and many followed him, and he healed them all and ordered them not to make him known. There are two interesting little things in these verses. The fact that Jesus withdrew is one, and the fact that he ordered those he healed not to make him known is the other. Matthew explains to us why Jesus withdrew. We know that ultimately that's going to change. Ultimately, Jesus will walk right into harm's way. When the time is right, he tells his disciples he's going to Jerusalem to be executed and raised again, and then he heads there. But right now, Jesus is being strategic. The situation is dangerous, so he leaves. And in general, we see in the Gospels that Jesus had a habit of moving on. He withdrew when he heard that John the Baptist had been arrested. He withdrew after criticizing the Pharisees. He withdrew when the crowds following him got too large. And he withdrew when he saw that the crowd wanted to make him king by force. This withdrawing is related to the other feature in these verses. Jesus warns those he healed not to tell others about him. Now we saw this earlier in Matthew 9.29 when he healed the blind men, and we will see it again in Matthew 16.20 after Peter's confession that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. And Mark includes several more examples in his gospel of instances where Jesus warned people not to talk about him. So what's going on with that? Many of us have been in church situations where we are constantly being told that we need to be out there evangelizing. It seems strange to us that Jesus would want those he healed to stay quiet. I think these two ideas are related. Jesus is walking a very fine line. On the one hand, Jesus has a very public ministry where he's calling people to be his disciples. He's preaching, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. He's doing miracles that are very compelling to people. Sometimes he makes very strong statements about his authority and his ability to forgive sins, and large crowds are following him everywhere he goes. He refers to himself as the Son of Man, and he makes many claims about what the Son of Man will do. And of course, as we've talked about, the Son of Man is a messianic title. But he also makes many first person claims. For example, we saw this in Matthew chapter seven, twenty one through twenty three. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven, on that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. We also saw this in Matthew ten, thirty two and thirty three. Every one who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven. And then the one we just saw in chapter eleven, twenty nine through thirty, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Considering the miracles Jesus performs, the authority he shows in teaching, the claims he's making about himself and the large crowds following him, Jesus is doing the sort of things that could easily create a mass movement. He could easily turn the situation into his advantage and start a political revolution. But on the other hand, he deliberately tries to avoid creating a mass movement. He teaches, he heals, he confronts the religious leaders, but then he moves on. When the crowds get big, he moves on. When he does a miracle, he tells people not to talk about it. He even commands the demons not to talk about him. And he often speaks and teaches in a way that makes it hard for people to understand him. He speaks in parables, he speaks in hyperbole, such that when the disciples get him alone, they say, Hey, explain what you said. What did that mean? So we see this tension. Jesus acts and teaches with great authority. He says following God requires following himself, and then he does everything he can to discourage any popular grassroots uprising. In his gospel, John makes an interesting comment that I think is relevant to this. This is John chapter two, verses twenty three through twenty five. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people, and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Now there's a little bit of wordplay happening here in the Greek that doesn't come through in the English. The Greek word pistuo means to believe or to trust, and we find it several times in this passage. In this passage many believe, that's pestuo, in Jesus because of his miracles, but Jesus did not believe himself, that's pistuo, to them, or entrust himself to them. The crowds have this enthusiastic, excited response to his miracles, but Jesus doesn't put much weight on that. He doesn't rely on it. Now you may have experienced, or at least you can imagine, how easy it would be to let popularity or a popular response go to your head. It's very easy to get caught up with, hey, wow, I really am successful. I'm doing something really great here. Look at all the praise and applause I'm getting. John is saying Jesus didn't go that way. He knows how fickle people can be. He knows who he's dealing with, and he knows that he might be a passing fad for the crowds. They may love him today and they may hate him tomorrow. And in some ways that's what happened. The same crowds that shouted Hosanna as he made his way into Jerusalem a short week later shouted for his execution. Jesus knows that winning popularity with the crowds is not going to accomplish his goal. We see these times where the crowds want to make him king, but they don't understand what kind of a king he came to be. They don't understand about the cross. They don't understand there's a bigger issue than the tyranny of Rome. They don't understand that Jesus is going to leave and come back, and they don't understand true discipleship. Creating a grassroots political movement is not going to accomplish what Jesus came to do. Furthermore, he understands that in the end, his apostles will be the ones who carry his message to the world. He spends a great deal of his time training them and preparing them for that task of spreading the gospel after he leaves. He knows it's not time for him to be the head of a mass movement. He's got a bigger agenda and a bigger plan to implement. And all of that helps us understand what we see here in Matthew. Jesus will ultimately be king of the entire world, but for now, he's turning away from the crowds and warning people not to talk about him. That seems strange, but if we understand his goals, it makes sense. He doesn't want to create a mass movement or a political revolution. He wants to accomplish the goal of dying on the cross for his people and redeeming them from their sin. Now Matthew connects this with the passage from Isaiah. Let's read chapter twelve verses seventeen through twenty one. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory, and in his name the Gentiles will hope. Several times in this series we have talked about how Matthew uses the word fulfill, and we confront that issue again. This will be review for some of you who've been listening from the beginning, but it's an important issue in Matthew, so I don't want to assume you've heard it. Here we have one biblical author, Matthew, quoting from another biblical author, Isaiah. And it can be hard to figure out what either of them means. Our task is to figure out what Isaiah said, and then to also figure out what Matthew said about Isaiah in this context. Now, as we've talked about before, Matthew uses the word fulfill in a way that is often different than what we modern folks expect. We expect it to mean that there is an Old Testament passage that predicts some future event, and now that future event has happened. Here is this future event that was predicted. This event fulfills what was claimed in the Old Testament passage, predictive prophecy has come to pass. And that would be a typical usage of this word, but as we have seen particularly in Matthew, that's not the only usage. There is another usage, and this is the one Matthew has more typically used. The second meaning is that in the Old Testament we find themes, we find pictures, and then in the New Testament, we find a fuller expression of that theme or that picture. So we see a spiritual theme or a principle in the Old Testament, then later in history or in the New Testament, that spiritual principle is shown in greater depth, in its fullness and its completeness. We might say it's the epitome or it's an analogous reality. And the example I like to use is we could say just as Moses led the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, God through Jesus leads us out of captivity to sin. In this second sense, Jesus is the fulfillment of Moses. Jesus' activity, his life fills up the picture of that Old Testament passage in some way. So I'm not saying that Moses' actions were predicting Jesus. I'm making a comparison, an analogous reality. What Moses did in his day, Jesus did in his day even more so. He's the epitome of the principle or the moral truth that you see in the story of Moses. He's the fullest picture or the culmination of that principle. And quite often, as we've seen in Matthew, when he says Scripture was fulfilled, he means the second sense as the fullest picture or the or the culmination. So, as good Bible students, when we see Matthew saying something is fulfilled, we have to make a choice. Sometimes we've seen Matthew use the first meaning of predictive prophecy has come to pass, but most often we have seen him use the second meaning of here is the fullest expression of this idea. If I remember right, so far in Matthew we have seen only one time where Matthew meant predictive prophecy. All the other times he's meant this idea of the fullest, most complete expression. But every time we find Matthew saying something is fulfilled, we must ask ourselves, what does he mean? We can't assume that we know. Now, this particular passage Matthew quotes here is one of the servant songs of Isaiah. Briefly, let me set the stage for that passage and explain what it is he's quoting. First, where are we in history? After the time of David and Solomon, for about 200 years Israel existed as two separate kingdoms, and rarely do those kingdoms like each other. There are a few times when they cooperate, but it's more or less a family feud and sometimes outright war. And this divided kingdom is the period during which Isaiah ministers. Isaiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah, both before the fall of the northern kingdom and before the fall of the southern kingdom. He will live to see the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, which was in 722 during the reign of Hezekiah in the south. He writes about the fall of the southern kingdom and the fall of Jerusalem. He writes about the exile, and he writes about the return, but he does not live to see it. Now we're in the last section of the book of Isaiah, chapters 40 through 66, and that section is set against the Babylonian captivity. It's addressed to a group of people who will live about 120 to 140 years after Isaiah himself. In this section, Isaiah prophesies to the captives in Babylon, but as he writes, they are not yet captives. So Isaiah is a unique prophet in that he not only prophesied to his contemporaries, he also prophesied to a generation who would come after him. He is writing about a time when all of God's people will be scattered and dispersed into the exile, and the Davidic throne has disappeared into the sands of Babylon. With both kingdoms gone, that raises the question, now what? Does the exile mark the end of the history of God's people? Have they finally committed a sin that God will refuse to forgive and redeem? Have they finally gone so far that they have forfeited the divine promises made to Abraham? And that's the critical question Isaiah is addressing. Have we gone too far? Have we forfeited the promises of God? Have we finally broken the covenant so deeply and so badly and gone so far into rebellion that God has finished with us? He's wiped us off the map, he's let the temple be burned to the ground, we've been carted back to Babylon, which is the land Abraham came out of. Is it all over? Well, in chapter forty, Isaiah contrasts the glory of the Lord with the glory of the nations and their rulers and their gods. He reminds us that human beings and all their efforts and kingdoms are fleeting. Even the biggest and strongest empire is like frail grass that withers before God. As the creator and the master of all history, the word of God will stand forever, his promises stand forever, he controls history and he can blow away even the most impressive human kingdom with one puff of his breath. Chapter 41 builds on those ideas, only in this section he addresses the Gentiles and their idols or their gods. In chapter one, he argues that throughout all of history, from the first to the last, everything that has happened has happened according to God's divine will. God's promises can be trusted because he is in control of history. Then to clinch his argument, God proposes a test. It's not enough to just claim that the God of Israel is in control of history. All idols, all false gods can make that claim. How do we know that we can trust the claim of Yahweh? We know we can trust that God is in control of history if he predicts an event and then that prediction is fulfilled. This would demonstrate that he is in fact in control of history, and that is a test no idol can pass. So we read in Isaiah 41, verses 21 and 22, set forth your case, says the Lord, bring your proofs, says the king of Jacob, let them bring them and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome, or declare to us the things to come. So there God throws down the challenge. He says, Okay, you idols, make your case. Tell us what's going to happen. If you're the god you claim to be, then predict the future. Tell me how history will unfold. Okay, well you can't predict the future. How about something easier? Explain the flow of history. Explain to us the meaning of past events. Can you idol gods discern the patterns of history and predict where they will lead? Can you foretell the future by understanding the past? No. And then he says in Isaiah forty one twenty six through twenty nine, Who declared it from the beginning that we might know and beforehand that we might say, He is right. There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words. I was the first to say to Zion, Behold, here they are, and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news. But when I look there is no one. Among these there is no counselor who when I ask gives an answer. Behold, they are all a delusion, their works are nothing, their metal images are empty wind. So at the end of chapter 41, God declares the idol gods are false, they can't predict the future, they can't proclaim what's going to happen, they have no answer to the Lord's questions, their images are but wind and confusion, and then in contrast, the passage. Matthew quotes, this is Isaiah forty two verses one through four Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift his voice, or make it heard in the street, a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench, he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his law. That's the passage Matthew quotes. Here God says, Look, the idol gods, they're false, the gods of other nations are nothing but wind and confusion, but behold my servant. By contrast to the idol gods, Isaiah writes these words about Jesus Christ about seven hundred years before Jesus arrives. The God of Israel can pass the test that he proposed in chapter 41. He directs the course of history, he tells us a servant is coming who will bring justice to the nations 700 years before that servant comes. Now, I believe the servant in Isaiah 42 is the Messiah, and the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth. Not everyone agrees with that conclusion. I'm not really going to get into the debate over that issue. Briefly, the debate is whether he means my servant, the nation of Israel, or my servant, the Messiah. And one of the questions frequently asked about these songs is how do we know that Isaiah is talking about Jesus, the Messiah, and not just talking about the nation of Israel. Israel is called God's servant in other passages of Scripture, and this passage could poetically be referring to Israel and not any servant in the particular. Now we could get lost in that debate. We could spend quite a bit of time on it. I'm just going to give you the briefest kind of summary of how I reach my conclusion that this passage is referring to Jesus. Let's start by comparing this to one of the passages that describes Israel as the servant of the Lord. This is Isaiah forty one, eight through ten. But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham, my friend, you whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called from its remotest parts, and said to you, You are my servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you. Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Okay, we see the similarities. Here Israel is called my servant. Israel is also called one whom I have chosen. In chapter 41, the servant is clearly identified as the people of Israel and the descendants of Abraham. They are spoken to in the second person plural, and the point being emphasized is what God has done for them. God chose them, God called them, God brought them together as a people, he is with them, and he will strengthen them. By contrast, when we look at Isaiah 42, one, behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. Now in chapter 42, there's no reference to this servant being a people or a nation. He is referred to in the third person singular, and the point being emphasized is what he's going to do for the nations. His role is active, not passive. He ministers to the people, he suffers willingly for them, he brings about universal justice, and he establishes an everlasting covenant. None of those things do you see the nation of Israel doing. When we add in what Matthew does with this passage, I think we have it on good authority that Isaiah was describing the Messiah and Jesus is the Messiah. Now again, we could spend hours and hours on that debate. I've just given you a scratch of the surface. That's the barest summary. If you want to investigate it further, there is lots written on this topic, and I invite you to pursue it. I just wanted to give you briefly my conclusion is that this is the Messiah being described, and that Messiah is Jesus. You may have also noticed that Matthew's version is slightly different than what I just read in Isaiah. Let me read that again. This is Isaiah 42, one through four. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law. So what I just read you from Isaiah is an English translation of the original Hebrew. In Matthew, I read you an English translation of the original Greek, in which Matthew quotes a Greek translation of the original Hebrew. Without getting into all those technical translation issues, let me just say that Matthew is not quoting exactly. He seems to be paraphrasing and summarizing to make his point. And I don't want to get into that whole debate. Again, you can find that in the commentaries. I have a series of podcasts on the servant songs, so I'm not going to go into this Isaiah passage in detail. If you're interested, I'll put a link in the lecture notes to the servant songs podcasts if you want to go deeper. So I'm just going to summarize what I think is going on in Isaiah, and then we'll go look at what Matthew is doing with it. In Isaiah, the larger context deals with the question raised by the exile. Has God abandoned his people? Did they finally break the covenant so completely that God is going to abandon them forever in exile? God reminds them that his word stands forever, his promises stand forever, he controls history and can blow away even the most impressive human kingdom with one puff of his breath. To prove it, he challenges the idols to a test, asking them to predict the future. Of course they can't. By contrast, God tells us about a servant who is coming, but he tells us approximately 700 years before that servant comes. Isaiah tells us this servant is given by God Himself as one who will bring universal justice to the nations. God fully equips the servant with his spirit. The servant responds not by seeking his own justice, but by seeking justice for his people. In the process, he suffers, but his suffering and oppression does not hinder his success. Instead, God uses it to bring about perfect justice, a universal, everlasting justice that can be found in no one else. And I think Isaiah is predicting the Messiah. Now, what's Matthew doing with the passage? Isaiah says that God has chosen the servant, God is well pleased with his servant, God has put his spirit upon the servant, and the servant will proclaim justice to the nations. Ultimately, he will bring justice to all the nations, and the nations put their hope in his name. Given the context of Matthew 12, 15 and 16 about Jesus withdrawing when the Pharisees seek to kill him and asking people not to talk about his miracles to avoid stirring up a mass movement, I think the language that interests Matthew is what he quotes in 19 and 20. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets, a bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory. If someone's going to establish a universal, everlasting justice, we would expect that he would have to do that by force. We would expect that person to be some kind of conquering hero. We would expect that he has come to fight. We would expect him to rally an army and beat back the forces of evil. Because evil's not going to give up without a fight. If our hero is going to conquer evil and bring justice, we expect some kind of revolution or battle. But Isaiah says the servant will not quarrel or cry aloud, and no one will hear his voice in the streets. Well, if you want to gather support for a cause, you go out into the street, into the marketplace, and you make your case. You call out and chant like workers on a picket line. You raise a ruckus like protesters in front of a government building to get your cause heard. When you don't have newspapers or the internet, the town crier would cry out in the streets to get the message out. Well, how are you going to rally an army? You cry out in the streets. But you won't hear the voice of the servant crying out in the streets, and that corresponds with what we see in Jesus. Jesus walked away from fights with the Pharisees. When the crowds want to seize him and make him king by force, he slips away. He doesn't yell or proclaim his cause in the streets. Instead, he warns others not to talk about him. He avoids raising a big public reckus. For Jesus, the road to victory was not one where he would gather a groundswell of support, rally the masses, and overthrow Rome. That's not how he's going to bring about justice. He is the champion who will bring about justice, but he's not going to accomplish it in the way we expect. I think this language about the broken reed and the smoldering wick refers to a lowly and broken people. A bruised reed is crushed but hasn't yet broken into pieces. A smoldering wick is one that is burned all the way down to the end but has not yet gone out. If you have a reed that is almost broken or a candle that's about to go out, it doesn't take much to finish the job. Just a tap or a puff of wind will finish it off. I think both these images point to the fact that he will lift the spiritually poor and needy. His people are not too far gone, even in the exile, even in slavery to sin and death. The servant is so gentle in his crusade that he won't break even bruised reeds or snuff out an already smoldering wick. I think the picture is his activity is so quiet and unassuming that he would not crush or destroy anyone, he will not incite violence, he will not amass an army, rather he will offer himself instead. He will liberate others by offering himself as the sacrifice. Reading Isaiah, we learn the servant will bring about justice in a surprisingly quiet way, and now when we see Jesus withdrawing and silencing those he healed, refusing to spark a revolution, we see him bringing justice in a surprisingly quiet way. Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. He doesn't break the reed by adding to the burden, he takes the burden on his own back. This is the servant. He never seeks justice for himself, rather he remains silent in the face of abuse. He sought out the bruised reeds, the dimly burning wicks, or the poor in spirit and those who mourn, and he brought them true freedom and justice, freedom from slavery to sin. And so I think we have our second instance in Matthew where he's quoting Isaiah as predictive prophecy. Isaiah says, Behold my servant, that servant is the Messiah, and this is how the Messiah will act. And Matthew says, Look, this is how Jesus acted. Jesus is that Messiah. One day he will come in judgment. One day he will rescue his people from sin and bring judgment to those who reject him. But right now he's coming quietly. You won't hear his voice in the streets because he's got a bigger plan to accomplish. He didn't come to rally an army and overthrow Rome. He came to die on the cross for his people. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but how we figure it out. If you haven't visited my website lately, wednesdayintheword.com, I encourage you to stop by. Rather than being covered with ads, my website contains a wealth of Bible study materials designed to help you improve your skills and understanding of scripture. It's all free, no ads, no donations. If you want to thank me, please join the mailing list, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen to the podcast, but most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and maybe where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can find his music and his CDs on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.