MATTHEW

In Matthew we have Christ as Messiah, son of Abraham and son of David, according to the promise - Jehovah Emmanuel - bringing in the testimony of the kingdom and its healing power, laying down the principles on which men could enter into it (that is, the character of the remnant); and then displaying the various power which characterized and verified His coming. Passing on, though with enduring patience - patience which endures till He comes again - to His rejection by the nation, and the setting up of the kingdom in a mysterious way in the absence of the King, He still continues for the present His ministrations till His hour was come, but reveals the substitution of the church, and the kingdom in glory, for its present setting up by His presence. He then goes up to Jerusalem, arraigns the nation as a whole and in its various classes, and then subjects Himself to the whole distress and power of evil and of Satan which reigned in Israel, and to the smiting of the Lord of Hosts in the cup which He had to drink. He is raised from the dead, meets His disciples on the old prophetic ground of the remnant in Galilee, and commands them to disciple all nations in the new name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but we have no ascension to heaven.

Some special things are, that in chapter 10 He gives a testimony exclusively to Israel, which embraces all the time from His presence there to His coming as Son of man, provided the Jews are in the land. In chapter 23, in speaking to His disciples, He recognizes as subsisting Moses' seat. In chapter 21 He presents Himself as King, riding on an ass, according to Zechariah; then, having, as above, recognized Moses' seat, He declares the utter judgment of that generation as guilty of the blood of all the righteous, puts His disciples in the place of persecuted testimony, the house being left empty till they own Him as coming in the name of Jehovah; passing over all time until the abomination of desolation is set up, and thereupon, after the great tribulation, He appears in glory, and gathers all Israel. We have also parenthetically the various forms of the judgment of those who profess His name in His absence, and then the judgment of the nations on His return.