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A Literary Guide to the Life of Christ in the Gospel According to Matthew

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A Literary Guide to the Life of Christ in the Gospel According to Matthew ! ! A LITERARY GUIDE TO THE LIFE OF CHRIST IN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW Matthew’s Portrait of Jesus The order of the four Gospels consistently reflected in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament is the same order found in our modern Bibles—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Appropriately, Matthew opens the New Testament canon even as Chronicles closes the Hebrew canon. Chronicles begins with an extensive genealogy and closes with a commission from King Cyrus to rebuild the earthly Jerusalem and its temple. Matthew, similarly, begins with a genealogy and ends with a commission from another King to fill the earth with disciples of the heavenly Jerusalem. The royal status of Matthew’s King is set as an inclusio in his Gospel from the opening question of the magi (“Where is He who is born King of the Jews?” 2:2) to the closing answer placarded on the cross (“This is Jesus the King of the Jews,” 27:37).17 As the closing of one canonical division is compared to the opening of another, Matthew directs our reading from the outset into a rich typology that finds fulfillment in Jesus. His Gospel is designed to seamlessly join the testaments through a typological reading that guides and informs the outcome of Old Testament expectations.18 Matthew artfully and seamlessly coalesces two themes in his portrait of Jesus, depicting Him as both a New Moses and a New Israel.19 The two themes are like magnets attracting each other since Moses was often viewed as representative of Israel and could even be viewed as a federal head of the nation since he was the human mediator of the covenant at Sinai. The suggested blending of these two themes forms a rich, far-reaching typological reading of the first Gospel. 17 Royal images also inform other details at the beginning and end of Matthew’s Gospel: (1) the royal gifts of the magi anticipate the gift of a rich tomb, and (2) Herod’s efforts to eliminate Jesus as a rival to the throne are matched against Pilate’s attempts to impede the spread of the news of the resurrection. 18 Dale Allison insightfully comments in the conclusion of his landmark study The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 273. “One wonders not at all that Matthew opened his book by naming David and Abraham, that he immediately followed 1:1 with a genealogy full of old Jewish names, that he sprinkled formula quotations throughout, that he frequently employed Septuagintal idioms, and that he constructed a Moses typology: the evangelist was determined to put the new wine in old wineskins…the newness we encounter…is that of completion…there is repetition and the past lives on. Indeed, the old vindicates the new, through the resemblance of the two.” 19 These twin themes of Jesus the New Moses and Jesus the New Israel are given extensive development respectively in (1) Allison’s work just cited, and (2) an unpublished article by Peter J. Leithart, “Jesus as Israel: The Typological Structure of Matthew’s Gospel,” http://www.leithart.com/archives/002966.php. 15 ! ! Peter Leithart has assembled the strongest case for an overarching Israel typology. He notes that the sequence of events in Matthew 1-7 mimics the sequence of the Pentateuch, and while he agrees that in these early chapters, the typological thread of a Moses typology is the strongest, yet even here he argues that Jesus is as much Israel as Moses.20 Herod’s pharaonic-like threat to male infants compares Jesus to Moses, but the flight out of Israel to Egypt fulfilling Hos 11:1 mingles in the image of Israel the nation called out of Egypt. The “my son” in Hosea’s statement, “Out of Egypt have I called my son,” is clearly Israel not Moses. Furthermore, the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan parallels the baptism of both Moses and all Israel in the sea (I Cor 10:1-4), and finally, Jesus’ forty days of testing in the wilderness is laced with Deuteronomy quotes emphasizing a comparison with the nation’s forty-year sojourn in the wilderness.21 However, Jesus’ ascent up the mount where He sets forth a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees moves back in the direction of a stronger parallel with Moses on the mountain, as He gives a new Torah to a new Israel. What follows in the development of the overarching mountain structure of Matthew is a particularly strong reinforcement of a Moses typology while leaving room for an Israel typology as well. Consequently, it will be argued that the design of Matthew was to portray Jesus as Israel’s promised Messiah through a carefully developed portrait of Him as the New and Greater Moses. The exodus deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage displays the covenant faithfulness, loyal love, mighty power, and passionate desire of God to dwell with His people. Matthew shows how the greatest deliverance of the Old Testament foreshadowed a greater exodus in the New Testament accomplished by Jesus, the One greater than Moses. 1. Matthew carefully selects and arranges his material to depict Jesus as the New Deliverer of God’s people who will lead them through this greater exodus into His kingdom. Matthew celebrates the kingship of Jesus who comes to set captives free from every form of spiritual oppression and bondage. 2. Extending from the revelation of Jesus as greater than Moses is his identity as God’s prophet, priest and king. There are indicators ranging from clear statements to textual inferences suggesting that Moses is the nascent expression of all three of these. 20 The reader is referred to Leithart’s insightful study that notes the typological flow of Matthew demonstrating how Jesus recapitulates Israel’s whole history, and along the way re-enacts the roles of major characters in that history, including Joshua, David, Elisha and Jeremiah. 21 R. T. France shows that the typology of Jesus as Israel informs the temptation narrative (Matt 4:1-11) with the contrast between God’s son Israel and God’s Son Jesus, and the cited quotes from Deuteronomy that come from contexts clearly reminding of the nation’s failures in the wilderness. Jesus and the Old Testament (London: Tyndale Press, 1971), 50-53. 16 ! ! The complex nature of Moses’ identity is seen in the structure of Exodus 2. A Moses is born into a Levitical priestly family in Egypt (2:1-2) B Moses is recognized as Hebrew by Pharaoh’s daughter in Egypt (2:6) C Question of Moses’ identity: ruler or judge? (2:14) B’ Moses is recognized as Egyptian by Jethro’s daughters in Midian (2:19) A’ Moses marries into a Midianite priestly family (2:19-22)22 AA’ introduce the first two 40-year cycles in the life of Moses, and each cycle begins with connecting him with a priestly family. BB’ suggest that Moses’ identity has many elements to it. C foreshadows the controversy and struggle that Moses will have being accepted for who he is throughout the wilderness journey with his people. So this opening narrative of the life of Moses and the literary structure of Exodus 2 introduces the complex nature of Moses’ identity. Interestingly, this section closes in Exodus 2:22 with Moses identifying himself as a foreigner, which raises the question: in which arena does Moses consider himself a foreigner—the land of Egypt, the Hebrew community in Egypt, or the priestly nomadic tribe in Midian? The text seems to be intentionally ambiguous, suggesting that to pin Moses down to a specific time, place, and role would be to misconstrue his fundamental identity. Moses intercedes for Israel as a priest in Exodus 32-34, and later identifies himself as a prophet in Deuteronomy 18:15. Moreover, his role as Israel’s lawgiver and judge gives him clear resemblance to a king. Of the three anointed offices of the Old Testament (prophet, priest, and king), Moses as a royal figure would be the one most debated. However, there are hints that he was to be viewed as a royal figure, beginning with his very name. While the name “Moses” is indicated in Exod 2:10 to come from the Hebrew verb “to draw out,” giving the picture of one drawn out of water, ironically his name also seems to overlap in its assonance with the Egyptian root -mose meaning “born of,” which was compounded with the names of Egyptian gods to create the names of kings. The element -mose is found in such royal names as Tut-mosis, Ra-meses and Ah-mose meaning respectively “born of Toth,” “born of Ra” and “born of Anu.” The name “Moses” could therefore serve a double meaning moving from Hebrew to Egyptian, one “drawn from water” to Israel and one possessing royal status to the Egyptians.23 Added to these royal images is another important note. God defines the relationship of Moses both to Aaron and Pharaoh as like that of God Himself. The Lord declares as He describes the relationship to Aaron, “you shall be to him as God” (Exod 4:16), and then 22 Danny Mathews, Royal Motifs in the Pentateuchal Portrayal of Moses (London: T & T Clark, 2012), 98. 23 Mathews, Royal Motifs, 50-51. 17 ! ! He expands that same language to Pharaoh announcing, “See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh” (Exod 7:1). Moses is given God-like status and authority both with his brother Aaron, the high priest who also served as Moses’ prophet, and with Pharaoh, the highest of the kings of the earth in his day.
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