Trinity Fellowship

The Pharisees were so consumed with arcane debates over the law that they lost focus of what the law is meant to show. Generation after generation had missed the point that Moses so clearly explained to them in the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9); that God is one and that we ought to obey Him with every part of our being. Rather than helping them obey God's law from the heart, their customs had become a thick layer of dust which now covered Moses' tablets. Christ wants us to see that all law and all obedience must flow out of a love for God that consumes our hearts, our minds, and our strength. Love is defined by God, and not by man, and this means that love does not obliterate His law, but rather writes it on our hearts. The charge is simple - love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, that you may serve Him with all your might.

In today's text, the Sadducees attempt to show that levirate marriage makes the idea of resurrection absurd. Christ's opposition to their argument is both abrupt and insightful. The very provision of levirate marriage points to the resurrection itself. If God gave a law which provided hope that life could indeed continue for a dying, childless man, hope that his name would live on, does that not itself demonstrate that God is a God of resurrection, a God of the living and not of the dead? When God binds Himself to Moses, He says that He remains bound to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob even centuries after their deaths. He is a God who is faithful unto death, and faithful yet again after death. Even this great obstacle to our eternal joy can never have the last word. The Sadducees do not understand the faithfulness nor the power of God. Christian, your charge is to remember that the gospel of grace does not destroy nature, but restores and perfects it. In this age we continue to taste death and to lay loved ones in the ground like a seed (1 Cor. 15:36, 37), but we do so in the great hope that they and we will come back out of the grave, just as Jesus did, having finally become fully glorified men and women. May we know both the Scriptures and the power of God.

Matthew is committed to showing his readers the significance of Christ's final week in Jerusalem. Everything has come to a boiling point over who Jesus is. While the priests, elders, Pharisees and Herodians link arms in their opposition, Christ has set His face like flint on this city. Christ's claims to authority are total claims. He is not only Lord over Jerusalem; He is Lord over all. Christ is Lord over occupying nations, coinage, taxation, even over Caesar himself. Civil government is a gift from God, with legitimate yet limited authority. When the Herodians and the Pharisees are both content to accommodate the intrusion of idolatry and statism into the worship of God's people, Christ counters that image bearers, Caesar included, must render to God what is His due. When the early church confessed "Jesus is Lord", this was as much a political claim as it was a theological claim. It was a direct challenge to Caesar's claim of total authority. The charge for us is to recognize those areas where we have failed to give God ultimate authority in our lives. Are we giving God His due in all spheres?

It is a great joy for a father to host a feast in honour of his son. The Father sent Jesus Christ to save the world. The reunification of heaven and earth should be cause for the most joyous banquet, yet the people who were to receive their Messiah were too busy with their trivial day-to-day affairs, too caught up in themselves, and too impressed with their self-sufficiency to show up. Others became so indignant that their autonomy was being threatened that they killed the messengers who were inviting them. The city that murdered God's messengers is about to be burned to the ground, and their invitation given to outsiders who are glad to come. We are those outsiders – Gentiles, prostitutes, tax collectors, and outsiders who have been taken in by grace. And yet we too need to be reminded of the graciousness of the King, lest we become complacent ourselves. God calls us to come as we are, but we must not stay as we are, as we can see in the man without a wedding garment. If we truly want to belong, we must come to Christ in faith to receive the covering of righteousness that only He can provide.

The vineyard in today's parable is the kingdom of God; everywhere that God's rule and reign is acknowledged. Christ has shown us that He is the legitimate heir to this kingdom, and that all who oppose Him will be cast out and put to a miserable death. These wicked tenants will be replaced by those who see that both their work and the fruit of their work are given by grace, and who cheerfully return this abundance to the rightful Master. This is another way of talking about what David saw – a valuable cornerstone that was hidden in plain sight, only to be discovered by those builders who came later. Our charge this week is to remember that all of life is lived "coram Deo", before the face of God. He is the Master for whom we must diligently and joyfully labour. His Son is the cornerstone around which we orient all of life.