Post by M.R. Hagerty on Jul 23, 2023 23:44:52 GMT -7
Matthew 7:7-29
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 "Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 "Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”
12 "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” 13 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
15 "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 "So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 "So then, you will know them by their fruits.”
21 "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 "Many will say to Me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' 23 "And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'”
24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26 "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 "The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall." 28 When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; 29 for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.” (Matthew 7:7-29)
_____________________________________________________________
Commentary
Matthew 7:12
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. . . .”
This is not an invitation to ask without discernment. James makes it clear that we can ask in error for the wrong things and with the wrong motives. What Jesus is conveying is the general concept that God is not a miser who gingerly hands out provisions and then only if they really, really qualify.
Jesus wishes the generosity of the Father to be known. The beginning of the right heart is to seek the Father and this implies that we seek Him to adore Him, and to serve Him. That is an attitude that should not focus on getting but on giving, making our wills conform to His, not His to ours.
8 "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”
Again, this is the general case, not absolutely every case fully guaranteed. We will find it generally and routinely to be true that we receive what we ask for, we find what we are looking for, that doors are opened when knocked.
The key is in asking, seeking the things of God; knocking on the doors pertaining to the work of the Kingdom. This is the meaning because Jesus elsewhere says, “Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” To bring this point home, Jesus asks them to refer to common sense in their own experience, in order to see there the character of God’s love –
9 "Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 "Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?
No one listening could deny this, whether they did it well themselves or not. It is contrary to nature to give our children some evil thing when being asked for something good.
Surprisingly, people did think this negatively about God. They attributed their calamities and woes to a God who tested them, tried their mettle or punished them through mishaps. So they more often than not saw Him as someone who cared little for their wishes in comparison to His pre-eminent needs which were usually arduous and difficult.
Jesus is speaking from firsthand knowledge of having been with His Father. He knows the truth to be different.
11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, . .”
The goodness we attribute to our own selves is at the very least applicable also to a perfect God. The creature cannot be greater in something than the Creator. And in this we see God excelling mankind because He gives good gifts when they are not deserved and in spite of our disobedience.
Man has low tolerance for mistakes in others. We give a person a few mistakes and then we write them off in the forgiveness department. We harbor bitterness to the degree that we withhold love until they recognize our hurt. With God there is justice to be sure, but it is tempered by longsuffering – the very quality we are short on.
12 "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
As earlier, Jesus is relying on a principle we have right inside us for telling what will bless the other person. We don’t have to have detailed knowledge about the special wants and wishes of all our fellow men. We can look within and ask what would bless us and be close to the mark for anyone else. But, of course, this means that category of blessings we share in common: the desire for respect, consideration, compassion, acceptance and love. It is not a guide to things like DVD players, hot wheels, digital cameras, etc.
That this is the Law and the Prophets is an idiomatic way of saying this is the message of God. It is one of the main points in what He has to say to us. Love your fellow man as you love yourself. When we look at the Law of Moses, we see a predominance of ordinances on how to rightly behave toward our neighbor. God certainly wants our love (the vertical) but He quickly turns it toward the horizontal.
It can be said that He is as concerned about our love toward one another as He is about our love for Him. We must do both and we kid ourselves when we think we can do the one and not the other.
Matthew 7:13-15
13 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction.”
In an Internet forum, liberal Christians believed the complete opposite of what we have above - that the way of salvation was much wider than the narrow limits Christians often proclaim. For liberals it was a call to open the minds and boundaries of narrow thinking (which is what liberalism means) but it was at the sacrifice of the truth as proclaimed here by Jesus.
Man is always looking for the easiest way to get things accomplished and when something desirable is also hard you can bet man will find a way to ameliorate the difficulty by clever philosophizing. What is insidious is the fact that such people don’t see that they have turned 180 degrees in their opinions.
It’s not that God wished to make things hard just because it pleased Him. It is because man has fallen so far from that which righteousness actually is, that the true path now seems narrow and hard. It is in fact narrow because it can’t include man’s digressions and liberalizations. It’s hard because it now runs against the grain to which man has become so accustomed. It is also hard because man lost in the Fall that capacity to easily meet the needs of righteousness.
So that all are clear, Jesus is also dis-authenticating the broad path. It is not merely a less beneficial path, or a less virtuous path. It is a path leading to destruction. It leads to destruction because it eliminates the urgency of man to do what he must do. It permits man to keep hiding from the thing he is trying to avoid – confrontation with his sin. That is why it is destructive.
In Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, we see a man with his head in his hands, staring out into the reality of a judgment just received. He is at last acquainted with the truth he has been avoiding all his life and he knows what awaits him. It is so opposite to his expectations as to be stupefying. “for the gate is small and few there are who enter in.”
15 "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
In God’s universal grace He respects human freedom. This includes the freedom to be false and to deceive oneself. It also includes the permission to let Satan take advantage of human freedom and human nature in combination. So while God sends prophets to speak the truth, there will be counterfeits. And not obvious ones but rather cleverly disguised charlatans. They come appearing as the sheep. What many do not realize, is that they are really being seen as victims, as prey. The wolf has one object in mind – to destroy and devour.
There are two forms of false prophets: those who are truly agents of the devil and those who have lent themselves to self-deception. The latter don’t see themselves as desiring to destroy. They see themselves as desiring to better inform, to instruct more wisely. But in distracting believers away from the truth, they are naïve to their use by Satan and the destructive influence they wield. So it amounts to the same result in both cases – destruction and devouring.
The very next question from the listener would be, “How are we to tell the difference?”
16 "You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes
By fruit is meant spiritual fruit that glorifies God. False teachers and prophets will have success. They will have crowds of followers, monetary prosperity and even impressive facilities and amenities. But when you pop the hood, when you probe in more detail, you will find people who are back-stabbers, thieves who fleece the flock, and all sorts of people who evidence their lack of love and Christ-likeness the minute things don’t go their way. Smiling faces quickly turn to anger.”Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes.”
However, the “knowing” part implies knowledge of what the genuine article is, so as to differentiate it. So this knowing is not in the unbeliever but in those who believe but may be prone to deception. Just as it takes a little bit of experience to recognize the species of plant or bush and the expectation about its fruit, so the Christian must have the basics of what is to be expected from the Christian life. Those who do not have this discernment are those in greatest jeopardy.
19 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
The lesson is about knowing their fruits. The point of talking about plants being cut down and thrown into the fire is to emphasize that this necessarily requires knowledge of the fruit expected, else one would invoke an action arbitrarily harsh without that knowledge. It is to say that if you are able to make so harsh and final a decision about a living thing, you must have the knowledge to do so. The same will be true of false prophets and workers of deception.
Jesus is also saying that bearing bad fruit will not be rewarded. He even hints here that bearing bad fruit will cause God to simply bypass you and use someone else. That may be preferable for the present, but it won’t be in the judgment before Christ.
This is not teaching that should we bear bad fruit we have transitioned to the fate of the wicked and the fires of Hell. It is an expression of continued action. If you persistently bear bad fruit you are evidencing that you have none of the saving life in you and there is only one destiny ahead.
This is a worrisome warning. But let’s understand this in the context provided. On in v.20 Jesus says, “so then, you will know . .” This is called the subjunctive in Greek and it connects things joined by purpose. Another way of saying it is “in order that.” So all the foregoing is purposed to help us know. It is both a condemnation of the truly wicked, and a warning to those of faith that if they bear bad fruit in a situation, they are emulated or resembling those whose destiny is the fire.
21 "Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
It seems incongruent that someone not desiring to do the will of the Father would cry out, “Lord, Lord.” But the heart is deceitfully wicked. Man can cry out for the Lord on his own terms. He can be double-minded in wanting the best of both worlds, his own will realized, and heaven in the bargain. So it will be a case that people unfit for the Kingdom will nonetheless cry out for it.
In some pictures along this line, it is a case of realizing too late, and then crying out to be saved from impending judgment. The parable of the Ten Virgins will later be seen as an example. Those who were careless for the things of preparation are now knocking at the door to be let in also.
The very nature of the Kingdom implies a King, a Lord over the Kingdom who sets the rules. It follows that one should ask the requirements of citizenry of the King if one desires to enter in.
But man loses this analogy when it comes to spiritual things, because it is always possible that God has no requirements, that He is generous enough to welcome everyone as citizens, hence worry about requirements is easily postponed or even exempted.
In contrast, the Kingdom of Heaven is about the King and no matter how magnanimous we want things to be, you can’t divorce the Kingdom from the King, and the NT discloses the kinds of things the King expects of His citizens.
Matthew 7:22-24
22 "Many will say to Me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, . . . 23 "And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from me you who practice lawlessness.'”
This is a difficult verse to embrace because we see people doing the works of God, yet are being told they were never known of God.
First, God does know them, else He is not omniscient. This is a knowing of them as children of faith. It is very close to the knowing of one’s wife, but more like the knowing of his family members. It is an intimate knowing, the kind that comes from fellowship with God.
But how then do such non-knowing persons do miracles in His name? It would be hard to infer Satan because he would not enable miracles in God’s name.
This is a case of God honoring His name where it is invoked but not justifying the person who uses it. We have the example of Balaam who did bless Israel, even though God knew his double-minded weakness for gain. King Saul was acting clearly against the will of the Lord, yet sat prophesying among the prophets (I Sam 10:10ff)
Judas was among those who cast out demons, and yet was himself the ”son of perdition”. The Church Father, Origen, said that in his time the name of Christ was so frequently used to cast out spiritis that sometimes it worked when used by wicked Christians.
The idea here is that when the judgment before Christ comes, we will stand with all our motives revealed for what they were. We may have helped someone become saved, but we never took the path ourselves. We may prefer ourselves a certain way, but God will see the truth. It is a warning that we are not to use circumstances as the guide to discerning our acceptance before God, but we are to pursue Him and what true righteousness entails. That is being sure as opposed to being lazy.
They work iniquity and lawlessness because they seek to use God as a tool or a magic spell, with the intent of aggrandizing themselves. They have fallen happenstance on a phenomenon – that God will on occasion honor His name – and they see themselves as its operators.
24 "Therefore everyone who hears . . . and acts . . may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
This is a key verse for those who emphasize works over faith. It is not just the hearing but it is the doing. That doing is involved cannot be denied because here it is clearly demarcated from hearing alone. Those against works being conditional understand this to be comparing hearing and acting, not believing and acting. Many understand that believing is next after hearing and it includes the necessary stuff to ensure that actions will follow faith.
Certainly one point is common to all: following through in action from what is believed builds a stronger inner faith that can withstand much more than hearing without action. Hearing without action suggests no faith to trust and believe. In such a case, tribulation would cause abandonment, a running away to any haven one can find.
The example of a foundation upon a rock is clear to the audience. Faith must be founded in things that are substantial, real and enduring, else it is not worth much - just an idea whose time may come and go. To be a foundation for life, its truths must be unmovable. But strangely, people believe in things, even Christianity, without discerning this aspect, without really knowing that the foundation is secure or why.
The result is disaster and homelessness in adversity.
Matthew 7:26-29
26 “. . like a foolish man”
His house is described as being built on sand because it so aptly pictures the unstable nature and shifting base that ignorant or frivolous faith is like. There are people who perennially travel from religion to religion, around the cornucopia of ideologies, aimlessly seeking comfort rather than truth. They can’t find truth because they haven’t taken the time to ask how it will be known from falsehood. So what is popular today is replaced by something else when the infatuation subsides. James describes this as being tossed to and fro by every wind, or adrift on the waves wherever they may lead.
28 When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; 29 for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
The people listening are now brought back into focus and we are told of their amazement at His teaching. We have to realize that as 21st century people, we take Christ’s teaching as familiar words we’ve all heard many times before.
But for the folks here listening, this kind of exposition about the will of God and His expectations about righteousness were new in their arrangement and depth. Such things were there in the OT, but had not been put together or explained in these terms so clearly.
What Jesus taught made sense. It was not esoteric or eclectic, reserved for the doctors and rabbis. It made sense because Jesus appealed in many cases to their own sense of logic and reason. They were finding that many of the truths of God were just like life and nature in reality. It was beginning to click that the reason they made sense was because there was one Author of both - the spiritual and the natural orders.