THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 78, Chapter 23 Conclusion
As we inch closer and closer to Yeshua's death on the cross in Matthew's
Gospel, there's so much context and background and many subjects that we
encounter that are in need of explanation and fleshing out that at times we're
going to need to pause to confront them (although, I pray it will be an interesting
and spiritually profitable pause). So, let's go where angels fear to tread to open
today's lesson.
There is precious little teaching in the modern Church on the subject of Hell
(probably because there is also precious little teaching on the subject of sin),
even though finding considerable tradition-based reading material on the matter
isn't difficult. The reality is that particularly in the West the ideas of being told
we're wrong about much of anything, or that we are accountable and have real
consequences for our actions, are simply not liked. Much has been done by
governments as well as by the institutional Church to sort of dance around
personal accountability in order to appeal to a broader public; whether that
accountability is to a particular society or to God. As Ben Witherington III put it in
his commentary on Matthew chapter 23:
"We want no-fault relationships: no- fault divorce, no-fault auto accidents,
nolo contendere legal verdicts, and the like. No wonder we do not want to
talk about some people going to Hell forever."
Nolo contendere means a plea by which a defendant in a criminal prosecution
accepts a conviction as though they had pled guilty, but they do not admit their
guilt. In the American court system the defendant is hoping that they will have a
personal conversation with the Judge to explain their side of the story that of
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course has what, in the defendant's views, are mitigating circumstances that
dilutes their responsibility for their illegal behavior. Thus behaviors that are
knowingly wrong or against the law might become less illegal due to
circumstances; or maybe a sympathetic Judge will render a merciful and lesser
sentence or even suspend the sentence altogether.
When I was in the military there was a kind of nolo contendere argument that
was commonly used (and joked about) when we had to stand before our superior
to explain our actions that were most definitely against the orders we had been
given: "Guilty with an excuse, sir". The hope was the same: guilt but little or no
accountability, or perhaps less severe consequences for it
The questions that all those who seek God, and especially Believers, must ask
are: will we really be held accountable for our sins now that Jesus has come?
And if so, does that accountability include the possibility of Hell? Which leads to,
does Hell even exist? Is there really a place where our accountability to God can
involve a consequence for our actions that is beyond terrible and painful, and is
also without end? Two well known former mega-church pastors Rob Bell and
Carlton Pearson say "no" there isn't; they say a loving God like Jesus wouldn't do
such a thing. I have had this same notion confidently and directly expressed to
me on more than one occasion by Christians who have lost family members that
had never expressed belief in Christ, and by others that use the concept of Hell
as but another reason to avoid any relationship with Jesus.
I bring this up because, first, Hell is a vitally important subject that we need to
face. And second because of how we ended our previous lesson. In Matthew 23
verse 33, as Yeshua was condemning some of the Pharisee Synagogue
leadership, we read:
CJB
Matthew 23:33 "You snakes! Sons of snakes! How can you escape
being condemned to Gei-Hinnom?
It is close to a consensus among Christian scholars (and I share their view) that
this statement by Christ was a kind of rhetorical question that is more a
statement. That is, Yeshua is not asking them if there might be a way for them to
escape the divine judgment of Gei-Hinnom (Gehenna). Rather He is saying in a
rather mocking way that they have already been judged; their eternal damnation
is certain. They are not redeemable. While being "not redeemable" is itself a
huge subject with much disagreement and high emotion involved, I don't want to
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bog us down with that today except to say this: I am personally convinced by
what the Bible tells us that before we are born, God knows who shall and shall
not (by our own free-will choice) accept a redemptive trust in Him. So it's not as
though before we're born God creates some babies to enter into this world that
He has willed in advance to have no hope of redemption in their lives. Rather, it
is a foreknowledge of whom will accept the gift of salvation that is freely offered,
and therefore whom will not.
One may ask, then, if He has this foreknowledge why allow these who will
destine themselves for Hell and eternal damnation to ever enter this world in the
first place? Wouldn't it be better for the person never to be born, never to attain a
consciousness of their own existence, than to have to suffer eternal punishment?
The best answer I can give you is that even the determined and permanent
unrighteous can have a pretty good life on earth; they can have good fortune,
perhaps become fabulously wealthy, enjoy the best material and pleasurable
things this world has to offer, and die relatively peacefully after a full life span. We
also know from the Scriptures that God has always used some of the
permanently unrighteous and wicked for His purposes. Sometimes that purpose
is to test His chosen; sometimes it is to punish His chosen (as with the exiles of
Israel); sometimes it is to benefit His chosen in some improbable way. But the
truth is that most of the time, from the human and earthly perspective, it is hard to
find much rationale behind God allowing the wicked to live let alone thrive, and
therefore I lump all those instances together and see them as divine mystery that
I choose not to waste my time ruminating over.
It seems that these particular Pharisees Yeshua is chastising so severely in
Matthew 23 are among those determined to never trust in Him, and therefore
they have destined themselves for Gei-Hinnom. In other words, while the final
judgment is an End Times event that will happen at a later time, in an entirely
different venue (with Jesus as the Official Judge), the verdict that comes later is
already known. Christ's hope for expressing it now is that the listening crowds will
be shocked enough to seriously re-examine their own earthly lives and spiritual
beliefs, realize their sinful condition, repent in the Name of Yeshua, and be
Saved.
So, was Christ actually talking about Hell? Or was He merely using the Hebrew
word for Hell (Gei-Hinnom)? Or was it only a Jewish expression that was meant
to tell someone just how bad they were (as far this particular person was
concerned), but it had no spiritual or eternal overtones built into it? The best way
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we can examine this is to explore just how this concept of a place of the wicked
dead who would suffer, began. And although we find such a concept in many
ancient cultures, we'll only deal with it as concerns the Hebrews, the Bible, and
Christianity.
The Christian concept of Hell as we know it today developed over many
centuries, and it began well after the Bible (Old and New Testaments) were
created and closed up. Early in the Old Testament we read of something
called Sheol, which we can best be described as the grave or the place of the
dead. It is not a well fleshed out concept in the Bible. Yet, because we regularly
read in the Bible of terms about death like "so and so went to be with their
fathers", what we are actually reading about is remnants of pagan ancestor
worship that remained as part of early Hebrew thoughts about death and the
afterlife. Thus among some Hebrews there was a belief that departed souls took
on some kind of shadowy existence in an afterlife, residing in some kind of
underground world of disembodied souls. The Bible is very hazy, and has little to
say, about death and afterlife especially in the Old Testament. Death was terrible
and feared, and what happens afterward was a total mystery... which is what
made it all the more scary. The New Testament offers us more information that
actually brings hope, telling us that (at least in the present age) a righteous
person has nothing to fear from death. A Believer that dies goes immediately to
be with the Lord in Heaven.
We also learn of a place called Abraham's Bosom. This was a real place where,
prior to Yeshua's death and resurrection, the souls of the righteous dead were
held captive in a pleasant and safe place. It was essentially a waiting room. What
was the wait about? First, Abraham's Bosom is not the equivalent of the Catholic
Purgatory. Although the Catholic theological conception of Purgatory is at least
partly based upon Abraham's Bosom, the Catholic version is born out of its very
name. Purgatory comes from the Latin purage, which means "to purge". Thus
the doctrine is that those who die in a state of grace (as determined by the
Church) go to a sort of middle stopping point and waiting area called Purgatory in
order to be purged of their sins so as to be made ready for Heaven. The process
is of an undetermined length of time, and some may never succeed in being
made ready-enough for a variety of reasons, sometimes including actions (or
inactions) of their living family members.
So along with the concept of Abraham's Bosom came its opposite... the Place of
Torments (one recalls the story of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus).
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Abraham's Bosom contained righteous souls waiting in a pleasant and never-
needful place for Messiah to come and pay the price for their sins, while the
Place of Torments contained wicked souls waiting in a dry, ever-needful
unpleasant place for their final judgment.
Centuries later the idea of what happens to the righteous dead was still mostly
unchanged, but a newer term for the condition or destiny of the unrighteous dead
became Gei-Hinnom. Gei-Hinnom simply means the Valley of Hinnom. It is
essentially a long canyon that runs alongside one edge of the city of Jerusalem,
and part of it came to be used as a dump site for the constantly over-crowded
Jerusalem and its nearby suburbs. Everything that was waste was thrown there.
While we tend to think of a garbage dump more in terms of paper and plastics
and cloth and unused food, that is not what it was like in the 1st century. The
waste thrown into Gei-Hinnom came from the hundreds of animals sacrificed
daily at the Temple along with the waste parts of animals used for food by the
general population. Body parts were known to be disposed of there (amputations
both accidental and on-purpose occurred in Bible times just as they do now).
Debris of wood items, filthy rags (they had no toilet paper in those days), and
other things more disgusting than I want to talk about also were deposited there.
So to deal with the ever increasing volume of trash, the obvious solution was to
burn it. Therefore fires were kept burning 24/7 to reduce the garbage to ashes.
However the nauseating odors created were so bad that sulfur was also thrown
onto the burning garbage as the only known means at that time to mask those
otherwise unbearable odors.
Thus the worst thing that could be imagined for a dead person would be to have
their body thrown into the Jerusalem municipal trash dump and be burned up.
Not that this necessarily happened (I've not read of any evidence of it
happening). It also gained a symbolic meaning of the souls of the wicked dead
being punished by being utterly destroyed by fire. I've taught you in the past that
in the Bible fire is used for 2 things: the first is to purge something in order to
bring out purity, or second to totally and utterly destroy it. Gei-Hinnom was
symbolic of the second of these 2 uses of fire. We really don't find much biblical
advancement of the concept of Gei-Hinnom as a place of annihilation as a
horrible punishment for the unrighteous dead. However, emergent gentile
Christianity took it from there.
The first advancement was that of Greek speakers who mixed together the Greek
religious concept of Hades with Hebrew Gei-Hinnom. Hades had long been part
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of Greek mythology but it played no role in the Hebrew faith. Thus we will find
that because of the Greek language used to record the Gospel accounts, when in
Matthew 16:18 we hear of Jesus saying "thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it", there
is absolutely no conceivable way that Yeshua ever would have used the word
"Hell" or would He have said "Hades". He would only have thought of She'ol or
perhaps Gei-Hinnom. Yet, the early Greek/Roman gentile Church latched onto
this Greek/gentile insertion of the word "Hades" to depict Christ's words as
indicating something that more or less validated the Greek mythology of their
underworld for the dead. By the 5
th
century the doctrine of Hades being a place
for wicked souls that suffered in some not well-defined way had become well
established throughout the Church. Medieval concepts of Hades, however,
progressed to provide more horrifying details: pits full of dark flames, terrible cries
of anguish, gagging stench, and lakes of boiling hot water filled with serpent-like
monsters.
Eventually in the 14
th
century an Italian poet named Dante wrote the "Divine
Comedy". In it the concept of Hades advanced yet again with the idea that one
had various levels of punishment inflicted upon them in proportion to their sins.
Therefore gluttonous people lay in heaps of putrefied garbage. Murderers flail
around in boiling rivers of blood, filled with horrifying creatures. Part of Dante's
work included what is known as Dante's Inferno; it is about an imagined journey
through Hell in order for a soul to be purified sufficiently to finally go to Heaven.
Naturally, Catholic Purgatory played a pivotal role in his story.
Finally in the late 15
th
century, an Italian artist named Botticelli painted what is
best known as Dante's Inferno. It was his immensely creative vision of what he
thought Dante was describing. The painting of fire and tormented souls and
multiple levels of punishment and purification through which a soul tried to
move... with Hell shaped like a funnel... has become the foundation for not just
Catholicism but almost all other branches of Christianity. As the years went on,
the thoughts of Hell became less complicated and more was stressed fire and the
agony of being constantly burned. These thoughts formed most of the Church
doctrines about Hell, and generally speaking remains so to this day. So, we have
to be rather careful when we speak of Hell, or think of Hell, because without
doubt the Bible speaks of a Place of Torments and a Lake of Fire and so on;
however the mental picture we mostly like to draw is based primarily on a
combination of manmade Greek mythology, the works of an Italian poet, and a
depiction of that work by a later Italian artist.
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Am I telling you that Hell doesn't exist? By no means am I saying that. I'm saying
that I have serious doubts that the model that Dante and Botticelli concocted was
right. What we can know biblically as truth is that after death the righteous dead
go to be with God in Heaven. We also know that the wicked dead go somewhere
else and it is very unpleasant to say the least. We know that at a later time there
will be a great judgment in which all who have ever lived... including the righteous
and the unrighteous... will stand before Yeshua, and be held accountable for their
lives (our lives), and be judged. One judgment to everlasting joy, the other to
terrible torment. There will be no middle ground nor a waiting room. There will be
fire and/or destruction involved for the wicked; whether this essentially ends their
torment as their souls are finally fully destroyed, or they go on existing in some
painful state, into infinity, is not at all clear to me. But I do know that it is
something no sane person would want.
Much of God's Word (including Christ's statements) lets us know that we
definitely don't want to land on the wrong side of judgment. The thing is, there's
one and only one way to land on the right side... the safe and secure side... of a
judgment that can not be avoided: that way is to sincerely trust in the God of
Israel and His Son, the Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth. This will not be a no-fault
verdict rendered by Christ. There will be no nolo contendere accepted. There
will be no various levels of judgment with a menu of subsequent punishments.
There will not be a journey that once we die we must take to prove ourselves, or
divest ourselves of our un-repented sins, so that eventually we have a chance to
reach Heaven. Our death is the moment our eternal fates are sealed. Our journey
is instantaneous. There are no do-overs after we die. But knowing that some of
you who are listening or watching haven't yet made up your minds about
devoting your lives to the Lord Yeshua, I say this to you: realize that if you don't
choose, God will choose for you and what I've described will happen to you. It
doesn't have to be that way no matter what bad and wrong things you may have
done in your lives. Jesus died on the cross to save you from that fate, if you will
accept that great gift of freedom. Your sins of the past... and your present... can
be forgiven.
Let's move on and read the final section of Matthew chapter 23.
RE-READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 23:34 - end
There is a notable change beginning at verse 34. We begin to enter the realm of
prophecy and this will expand as we move to chapter 24. Yeshua's words will
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attest to and give some information about the End Times. The reality is that the
stage of Christ's ministry that was all about teaching and miracle healings is
nearly closed. So it is His death, resurrection and the aftermath that will dominate
what comes next, but not before He explains about things of the future that are
certain to come. Things that His disciples didn't always understand were actually
distant as opposed to imminent.
Verse 34 says that Jesus will personally be the one to send prophets, wise-men,
and scribes from here on. The thought of exactly what they're to do is not
completed thus I think it must have been somewhat self-evident. Very likely this
is not meant to speak of 3 separate and commonly identifiable groups as much
as it is to say that every kind of messenger specially sent by God (in this case,
God's Son) is included even if they might not have any of those specific job titles.
They represent what God has always done in the history of Israel, and in the past
all too often these messengers were met with hostility and even death. Yeshua is
saying that history will repeat even though the Pharisees just finished claiming in
verse 30 that despite their ancestors murdering some of God's Prophets, they
themselves would never have done so (as the religious leadership) if they had
been present. Yeshua is rebutting that false sentiment.
Rather, says Christ, these religious leaders are going to do exactly what their
fathers did. They're going to kill some who God sends, others they will flog (beat
up) in their Synagogues, and still others they will run out of town and doggedly
follow them trying to ruin their witness whenever they may go. This group of
people that Yeshua will send are intended as righteous replacements for the
corrupt men that stand before Him; men that are leading the Jewish people away
from God's truth, from their only means of redemption, and potentially towards
eternal separation from Him.
Some commentators focus on the words "your Synagogues" as meaning Jewish
Synagogues versus gentile Churches. Others say "your Synagogues" means the
non-believing Jewish Synagogues versus the believing ones. I think that Jesus is
generalizing and not talking in precise particulars. These Pharisees are
representative of the leadership of the Synagogue system. So in that sense, all
Synagogues (at least the ones in the Holy Land, or maybe just in Judea)
are their Synagogues. It is a statement making them responsible and
accountable for what happens in all Synagogues in general.
Verse 35 is a bit of a challenge in a couple of areas. Yeshua says that these
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Pharisees are responsible for all the blood shed on earth, even that of Abel and
of a fellow named Zechariah son of Barachiah. I think that the word "earth"
probably ought to be "land". The Hebrew word eretz means land or earth. While
that word isn't used here because we're reading English that was translated from
Greek and not Hebrew, even so Yeshua was thinking in Hebrew or Aramaic
terms and Jewish thought: not Greek. Making the Pharisees responsible for
deaths in pagan gentile nations on the entire planet doesn't fit. Rather this must
be talking about all the unjustifiable deaths in the Holy Land (eretz Israel). But
why are they even responsible for that?
Even more, how can the Pharisees be held divinely responsible for anyone's
death that took place thousands of years earlier: as with the death of Abel at the
hand of Adam's son Cain? Or closer to home, why are they held responsible for
the death of Zechariah, something that took place at the Temple? The first order
of business is to identify this particular Zechariah. Very probably, whomever it
was, was from the distant past in the same way Abel was in the distant past.
2Chronicles chapter 24 speaks about Zechariah son of Jehoiada who was killed
in the Temple area. In times closer to Christ's day Josephus mentions a
Zechariah son of Barach that was killed in the Temple. But there's no record of
Zechariah son of Barachiah that has ever been found. I won't speculate.
Whoever it was Jesus knew of, no doubt so did those He was talking to.
Another issue is that Jesus was talking to Pharisees, so they would have had
nothing to do with the Temple, and had no authority there at all. Pharisees were,
compared to the Levite Priests, laymen. So what they had to do with a killing near
the Temple altar is a head scratcher. Therefore Christ likely is talking in some
symbolic sense. God holds a person accountable for their own sins and not the
sins of others. So I think the answer to this puzzle might be in what Yeshua said
just a few verses earlier. I'm going to quote from the NAB not because the CJB is
wrong, but because I think the NAB more clearly says in a dynamic way Christ's
intent.
NAB
Matthew 23:32 now fill up what your ancestors measured out!
What did the ancestors of these religious leaders measure out? Their wrath.
They measured out their wrath upon the innocent. And this group standing before
Yeshua is going to fill that cup of wrath of their ancestors to overflowing as they
will in time viciously go after those who follow Jesus as Messiah. Just as a note:
Paul was a hired hunter for the Jewish religious establishment that, about 30
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years after Christ, was sent to Damascus (among other places) to seek out and
arrest all the followers of Yeshua that he could find. The persecution by the
Jewish religious establishment was so dangerous that Jesus's brother, James,
who led the Believers in Jerusalem, had to hold their meetings in an underground
grotto on the Hill of Zion (that today is the Greek section of Jerusalem) and that
grotto has been found.
So, here is what I believe to be the answer as to why Yeshua says that these
Pharisees will bear the guilt for deaths that happened long before their time. It
has to do with a core principle of the Torah that is measure-for-measure. Lex
Talionis. Proportional justice with proportional punishment. These Pharisee
leaders are shortly going to have their hostility towards Yeshua grow so hot...
their hatred going well beyond any doctrinal differences... that they are going not
only to help, but to insist, that the Romans crucify Yeshua. Therefore the
measure of judgment due to these Pharisees puts the murder of Jesus upon their
heads. And the murder of Jesus is so atonement can be made even for the
countless murderers over the hundreds of years that not only have to do with the
Hebrews of the Holy Land (the murder of Zechariah for instance), but it is
extended to all humans that have ever inhabited the planet, anywhere (Abel was
the given example). I can think of no greater measure of God's wrath due to
anyone except for that. Therefore as it stands in the context of the times of
Yeshua, it is the religious leaders of the Hebrews... throughout the ages... that
are the catalyst for God to do the things He is doing and going to do with Israel...
it has little to nothing to do with what pagan gentiles do. The pagans behave
pagan-ly because they're pagans. But God's people know better. They have the
Torah; they have God's Word. Above all, their religious leaders ought to know
better and thus will be held as most accountable.
In verse 36 Yeshua seems to say that God's wrath will not only fall on these
Jewish religious leaders, but also on all the Jews of this generation. Is Yeshua
making all Jews responsible? Or is He saying all Jews of Yeshua's own
generation (meaning currently living Jews) will suffer the collateral damage? I
think it's the latter. This generation has seen or heard of Yeshua's miracles and
His wisdom. They have heard John the Baptist make proclamations about who
Jesus is and about the Holy Spirit descending upon Yeshua. They will soon see
mind boggling things as Yeshua goes to the cross, is resurrected, and then
appears alive to many. And yet, the vast majority of Jews will refuse to believe.
Thus, they are made accountable because of their complicity and their
faithlessness to God.
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In verse 37 Jesus utters some of the most agonizing and heart-rending words
we've yet encountered. He says:
CJB
Matthew 23:37 "Yerushalayim! Yerushalayim! You kill the prophets! You
stone those who are sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your
children, just as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you
refused!
Here again, we must understand as much of what He doesn't say as what He
does. He does not say "Israel, Israel"; so that's not what He's talking about.
Jesus is in Jerusalem; hostile territory for Him. Jerusalem is the seat of Jewish
religious government, and Jewish religious law. Jerusalem is where the most
powerful and the elite among Jews live. Jerusalem (when the Holy Land isn't
occupied by a foreign power) is the seat of Israel's national government. But
Jerusalem is NOT representative of all the people of Israel anymore than
Washington, D.C. is representative of all the people of the USA. What Jerusalem
IS representative of is the leadership. So Yeshua is ONLY speaking about
Jerusalem and what He holds them accountable for.
He says the leadership is responsible for killing the Prophets (meaning the Old
Testament Prophets) and all those that God sent to them with messages of truth
and of warning. But what does He mean by "How often I wanted to gather your
children"? He is speaking about all the tribes of Israel, especially those we call
the 10 Lost Tribes. Jerusalem historically and theologically wasn't only the capital
of the Jews; they were and are the capital for the 12 Tribes. It is prophesied by
Ezekiel and other Prophets that in the last days God will gather His scattered
people, Israel, from the 4 corners of the earth and bring them back to their own
land, with Jerusalem as their eternal capital. Even though the fulfillment of that
event is happening right now, in our day, for all the world to see, sadly nothing is
more prevalent within the historical Church of the past 1800 years than the
teaching that God is done with Israel. Folks, Christ was NOT talking about
gentiles that He wanted to gather like a hen does her chicks. Israel remains at
the center of God's will, at the center of redemption history, and all that will
happen until the end of history. Jerusalem's children is talking about all Israel and
God's undying love for His people.
Verse 38 seems straightforward enough. Yeshua is speaking about the
destruction of the Temple. The Temple is Jerusalem's "house". On the other
hand, Ezra and 2 Baruch regularly make no distinction between the city of
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Jerusalem and the Temple itself. Once again we can draw on a readily
understandable analogy. Neither most Americans nor the world makes any
serious distinction between the city of Washington, D.C. versus the White House
and Congress that are the buildings and places of government (even though
technically we all know the difference). So I suspect that when Yeshua said "your
house" He was thinking in the same light as Jerusalem and the Temple sort of
being conflated as one thing and being nearly interchangeable terms.
Since the term "house" is technically more representative of the Temple,
something we must always take into account in the New Testament is that the
Ark of the Covenant with its Mercy Seat, above which God would come down
once per year and hover over it in order to allow the High Priest to atone with
blood before Him for Israel's sins, the Ark was never present in the Holy of Holies
in the entire era of the second Temple. It went missing from the time Babylon
conquered Judah and to this day has never been found. To be clear: at the time
of Jesus the Ark of the Covenant was not there. And, by the way, this was
common knowledge and not some hidden secret of the priests. So this means
that since Ezra and Nehemiah had rebuilt the Temple (called the second Temple)
the High Priest's annual visit into the Holy Holies was to an empty chamber
where he would sprinkle blood onto the floor and not onto the Golden Ark. So
had the Temple ceased to be God's House in any meaningful way, long before
Yeshua's day? Had it already become little more than a ceremonial monument
such that Yeshua could now call it "your house" (referring to the religious leaders
of Jerusalem)? My friends, I don't think God lost any sleep worrying about the
coming destruction in 70 A.D. of a Temple that had become little more than a den
of thieves, run by rich, corrupt aristocrats that didn't even belong to the proper
God-ordained line of Aaron in order to be qualified as priests.
This 23
rd
chapter of Matthew concludes with:
CJB
Matthew 23:39 For I tell you, from now on, you will not see me again
until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of ADONAI.'"
Yeshua's words are mostly a quote from Psalm 118... part of the Hallel. All the
more appropriate because He is in Jerusalem for Passover and the Hallel was
chanted during this feast (and all the others as well). Let's read just a few verses
around where this statement of Jesus is constructed.
CJB
Psalm 118:19-29
19
Open the gates of righteousness for me; I will enter
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them and thank Yah.
20
This is the gate of ADONAI; the righteous can enter it.
21
I am thanking you because you answered me; you became my salvation.
22
The very rock that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone!
23
This has come from ADONAI, and in our eyes it is amazing.
24
This is the day ADONAI has made, a day for us to rejoice and be glad.
25
Please, ADONAI! Save us! Please, ADONAI! Rescue us!
26
Blessed is he who comes in the name of ADONAI. We bless you from the
house of ADONAI.
27
ADONAI is God, and he gives us light. Join in the pilgrim festival with
branches all the way to the horns of the altar.
28
You are my God, and I thank you. You are my God; I exalt you.
29
Give thanks to ADONAI; for he is good, for his grace continues forever.
Yeshua is placing Himself as the center and focus of this prophetic Psalm, which
is about both personal and national salvation. Notice how the Psalm itself speaks
of the Pilgrim festival for which Christ is in Jerusalem. It speaks of palm branches
laid down, all the way to the horn of the Temple altar, for "He who comes in the
name of Adonai". We read in Matthew chapter 21 how Jewish pilgrims carpeted
the road with palm branches for Yeshua and His mount to walk upon, in His entry
into Jerusalem. But the most important point Christ is making is that He has just
laid down the condition for national salvation for Israel. National Israel must
acknowledge Him before Israel as a nation and as a people group will be
delivered. Still, each individual Israelite can have personal salvation in their
Messiah Yeshua, just as each individual gentile can.
We'll move to Matthew chapter 24 next time.
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