CHAPTER FOUR

HEAVEN AND EARTH IN THE CONTEXT OF MATTHEAN STUDIES AND THEOLOGY

In the previous chapter we observed how heaven language and the theme of heaven and earth correspond closely with the weightiest or “hottest” passages throughout the First . In a similar vein, this chapter serves to show how the theme of heaven and earth interacts with several key theological emphases that scholars have observed in Matthew. The point is to establish rmly the importance of the major thesis of this work: that heaven and earth is a key theological theme in Matthew. The second part of this work will provide full analysis of heaven and heaven and earth in Matthew and thus full argumentation of this point. For the present, this concluding chapter to Part One seeks to found the rest of the project on a solid basis of relevance by showing how this theme relates to other key theological themes in Matthew. Of course, it is impossible to offer a comprehensive review of even one of the many crucial and debated issues in Matthean scholarship, the study of which has been famously called “a new storm centre in contemporary scholarship.”1 In the twenty years since this statement, scholarly output on the First Gospel has only increased. Nor can I claim that the heaven and earth idea touches on every theme or emphasis in Matthew, but it does on most of them. In this chapter I will briey survey the state of the question on a number of current topics which arise in the study of Matthew and then demonstrate how a recognition of Matthew’s emphasis on the heaven and earth theme informs our understanding of each of these matters. A survey of a large number of commentaries and other works on Matthew reveals many topics that are identied repeatedly as particular emphases in Matthew. Each scholar presents a slightly different list of “distinctive characteristics,” “prominent themes,” or “central theological emphases” in the First Gospel. The variations in the lists

1 Graham Stanton, “Introduction: Matthew’s Gospel A New Storm Centre,” in The Interpretation of Matthew (ed. G. Stanton; London: SPCK, 1983), 1. 78 chapter four are due primarily to the fact that the themes inevitably overlap with each other at many points and are thus categorized differently by different scholars. For example, one cannot talk about the theme of OT Fulllment without also speaking of Christology—how fullls messianic expectations—and the Kingdom—the consummation of OT expectations with Christ as its king. Similarly, the matters of Discipleship, Righteousness, and Law all overlap and interact with each other, as do Matthew’s Jewish Setting and issues of Ecclesiology and OT Fulllment. Here I have identied seven key topics in Matthean studies which can be reviewed in light of the heaven and earth theme: (1) Matthew’s Sitz im Leben; (2) Christology; (3) Kingdom; (4) The Fatherhood of God; (5) Fulllment of the Old Testament/Old Covenant; (6) The New People of God and Ecclesiology; (7) Eschatology and Apocalyptic.2

Matthew’s SITZ IM LEBEN

Certainly the hottest topic of discussion in Matthean studies, as well as the most complicated, is the inquiry into Matthew’s setting and community in light of early Jewish-Christian relations. John Riches, writing in 1996, observes a shift in focus within Matthean studies between the 60s–70s and the 90s. The concern of scholars in the earlier period was using redaction criticism to “to chart as fully as possible the evangelist’s own theological stance” on particular theological questions such as salvation history, the OT, the Law, Christology, and ecclesiology. In contrast, scholarship in the 90s focused much more on the social setting of the Matthean community and how the rst readers might have received the .3 Accordingly, a third of Riches’ guide to Matthew is dedicated to Matthew’s community and the reception of the Gospel within it.

2 The only other major category typically discussed in Matthew but not dealt with here is Soteriology, often discussed under the headings of Righteousness and Discipleship, though certainly the theme of heaven and earth could be tangentially related to these as well. 3 John Riches, Matthew ( Guides; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1996), 7–8. The other, accompanying shift Riches observes is the change in methodological approaches: redaction criticism is no longer the favored son, but one of a plethora of critical methodologies employed by scholars. On this shift, see also Graham Stanton, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 23–84; David R. Bauer and Mark Allan Powell, “Introduction,” in Treasures New and Old, 1–25.