To The Jews

Do we agree that our canonical Matthew was written to Greek speaking Jews?

  • Review Matthew’s assertion that Jesus is indeed the Jewish Messiah, as anticipated in their Scriptures.
  • When was a Gospel like Matthew first needed?

In Matthew, Jesus is presented as the Jewish Messiah (or Christ, in Greek). Indeed, from the very first verse the claim is made that he is the Christ, a descendant of David by Joseph, his adoptive father.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. … and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. (Matt. 1:1–16 ESV)

Throughout the Gospel, OT Scriptures are cited to build this case. Given that stacks of books have been written on Matthew’s use of the OT and on the nature of his fulfillment claims, I won’t aspire to elaborate on such here. However, Blomberg’s contribution to the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament is a good place to start. He begins his chapter on Matthew by stating that:

The Hebrew Scriptures … permeate Matthew’s Gospel. Approximately fifty-five references prove close enough in wording for commentators to typically label them ‘quotations,’ compared to about sixty-five for the other three canonical Gospels put together.1

Matthew’s Gospel also highlights those individuals who affirmed that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God, often in the context of an OT passage:

  • An angel: Jesus would “save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:20–21; cf. Psa. 130:8).
  • Wise men: “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matt. 2:1–6; reference is subsequently made to the prophesy in Micah 5:2, concerning Bethlehem).
  • John the Baptist: “he who is coming after me is mightier than I … He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand” (Matt. 3:11–12; Jesus is later identified as the mightier one; allusions are made here to the anticipation of Isa. 4:4; 44:3; Joel 2:28; Mal. 3:2–3).
  • Voice from heaven: “This is my beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17).
  • Demons: “What have you to do with us, O Son of Go?” (Matt. 9:28–29; cf. Isa. 42:6–7; 61:1–2).
  • Canaanite woman: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David” (Matt. 15:22).
  • Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:15).
  • Voice from a cloud at transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son” (Matt. 17:5).
  • Two blind men: “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” (Matt. 20:31; cf. Isa. 42:6–7).
  • Crowd at Triumphal Entry: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matt. 21:9; cf. Psa. 118:25–26; Zech. 9:9).
  • The mocking sign nailed to the cross: “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Matt. 27:37).
  • Centurion at the cross: “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matt. 27:54).

Here are a couple scholarly quotes which also emphasize that Matthew was written for the benefit of the Jews:

Matthew is the Jewish Gospel, dealing with the King and the Kingdom. In Greek, the term “kingdom of heaven” occurs thirty-three times, and the term “kingdom of God,” four times. Jesus is called “Son of David” nine times (three times in Mark, three times in Luke, and never in John). Matthew quotes from or alludes to the Old Testament about sixty-five times, sometimes using the Hebrew Old Testament and sometimes the Greek Septuagint.2

One major consensus is that Matthew writes a Jewish gospel. … Matthew especially had the Jewish Christian church and the Jewish people in mind. With the preponderance of OT fulfillment quotations … the rabbinic style of the reasoning in several passages … the centrality of Jesus’ fulfilling the law … and the way Jesus relates to the Jewish people throughout, it seems clear that Jewish issues are uppermost.3

Since our canonical Matthew was written in Greek, this suggests that the intended Jewish audience went beyond just the Jews of Judea and Galilee. Hence, several questions naturally arise. When was the gospel first taken to Jews outside of Judea and Galilee? When were there Jewish believers outside of Judea and Galilee? When was a Gospel like Matthew first needed?

  1. Craig L. Blomberg, “Matthew,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 1. ↩︎
  2. Henry Clarence Thiessen, Introduction to the New Testament, 3rd ed., Book, Whole (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1943), 138. ↩︎
  3. Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 31. ↩︎