The story of a prophet's life and death

“Blessed Is He…”

(Matthew 23:29-39, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 1, 2008)

Matthew 23:29-39 ²⁹ "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, ³⁰ saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' ³¹ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. ³³ You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? ³⁴ Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, ³⁵ so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. ³⁶ Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. ³⁷ "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! ³⁸ See, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹ For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"

Introduction – From gentle warning to final woe

The story of the Old Testament prophets is progressive. Though it would be incorrect to call the words of Moses to Israel a gentle warning, as the centuries moved forward to the prophets just before the exile of Judah, it was clear that the loss of the land simply would not be turned back. There was a movement from warning to final woe in the collected writings of the prophets starting with the earliest prophetic activity and moving to the latest prophets. John the Baptist and even Jesus were in that stream of that prophetic message as the final prophets to Israel and Judah.

A major part of the message of the Old Testament prophets had always been God’s indictment against the people of the Law. Keep in mind that even this indictment was within the context of God’s great work of grace. It was important for their sake and for ours that everyone had an understanding that we could never win peace with God through any system of law. How do you do that in any kind of full way, and still save people by grace through faith? (This is the only way anyone can ever be saved after the fall of Adam – by grace through faith in a Substitute that takes away sin.) A major function of the Law was to teach us that we could never have peace with God through Law. How do You save people by grace and teach them that they could not be saved through Law at the same time? You do that by making the prize of obedience the keeping of the land of Canaan as an inheritance and not entrance into heaven. Of course, the people will fail according to the Law and they will lose the land as a nation, but many will still be given heaven. Will they win heaven by the Law? Of course not. No one can be justified through the Law after Adam’s fall. They will be given heaven by God’s grace through faith in the work of a Perfect Substitute.

That Perfect Substitute is the one who spoke these woes about the Pharisees in Matthew 23. In the passage before us, He spoke in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets. By this point they were not on the early end of that tradition. The time for warning was long over. This was the time for announcing a final woe concerning the nation of Israel, particularly since the Pharisees had turned their version of law into a sure way to eternal righteousness.

If we had lived in the days of our fathers (29-32)

The Pharisees not only misinterpreted the Law of God. They also flattered themselves when they read the Prophets. They did not see themselves as guilty according to God’s indictment of His nation. Their true guilt was not only as individuals but as a part of the community that had rejected and even killed the prophets. They honored dead prophets, but they were unwilling to listen to a Living One. They imagined that they would have gladly listened to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, or Malachi, but they had been dead for centuries. They built monuments to them and honored them by decorating their tombs. In doing this they rightly identified themselves as the physical descendants of the men who persecuted and killed the prophets, but they rejected the idea that they were the spiritual descendants of such men. The only way to test their claim would be to place a true living prophet in front of them. Would they listen to such a man, or would they want to kill him? We don’t have to guess at the answer. They had Jesus, the final and greatest Prophet, and they were actively conspiring to murder Him. In this way they would fill up the measure of their fathers’ guilt. In their violation of the Law, they deserved the curse of losing the inheritance of the land. They also deserved a much more serious eternal penalty through there own sins and through the sin of Adam. But God provided a way of grace through Jesus Christ. Having shown their hatred for God and His Word through their mishandling of the Law, would they now finally reject the One who was the only hope for eternal life? Many would do this, but some would actually later repent and be baptized. What a thing it is that there is a way for us to heaven through Jesus Christ, though we once mocked Him and rejected Him!

How are you to escape (33)

In verse 33, Jesus calls them serpents and the offspring of snakes. We should not miss the connection here with the serpent from Genesis 3, Satan. They think that they believe in the prophets, just as they imagine that they keep the Law. But the Law and the Prophets are from God, and they are not really following Him. They are the spiritual offspring of those who killed the prophets in former days and even of God’s worst adversary, that fallen angel who deceived the woman in the garden and brought about the fall of mankind through the sin of one man.

People like the Pharisees deserve death, and in our sin, we have been people like this. It is so important that we not flatter ourselves as they did, thinking that we would have loved the prophets, and that we keep the Law of God. This kind of thinking is an insult to the cross, as is our continuing in sin. The question that Jesus asks in verse 33 is an extremely important one. “How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” The word that is translated hell here originally described a specific place outside of Jerusalem that was associated with dead and unclean things. This place, the Valley of Hinnom or what became known as Gehenna, was a fitting picture and symbol of what John calls the second death, the place of eternal judgment based on the justice of God. How will any of us escape that place? Just as removal from the land of Canaan was a picture of warning, so is every physical death. It reminds us of God and His justice. I am not talking just about the deaths of especially rebellious people. I am talking about your death and mine. If you need any proof that you will never make it with God by law, the decay of aging and the sentence of physical death insist on this point for all of us. As the loss of the land made this point to Israel under the Old Covenant, the decay and death of every man should speak to us of our sin. Jesus says to us, “How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” How will we escape? We certainly will not do it through the Law.

Prophets from God (34-36)

The prophets, men who came in the name of the Lord, have some answers to this question. They spoke to Israel and Judah largely about two things. First, as mentioned, they made the case against Israel as a covenant-breaking people who would be thrust out of the land. Second, they were heralds of a coming New Covenant, a covenant that God would keep through the obedience of a future Prophet who would offer Himself up as the Lamb of God.

These two messages from the prophets are to be embraced together. First, we are guilty according to the Law and surely deserve God’s curse upon us. Second, the Lord has provided a way of peace for us in the covenant relationship secured by Christ’s own obedience and blood. This will be an everlasting covenant. The arrangement of the Law for the nation of Israel was temporary. It was an important illustration, but it was part of a larger more permanent picture of grace through a Substitute. Some of the Pharisees would finally be able to embrace that message. Others would not, and like Saul before He became Paul, they would think that they were serving God by persecuting the church. They would hate and kill others who came in the name of the Lord, and in doing this they would bring upon themselves all the guilt that led to the end of the period of the Law, the destruction of the temple, and the loss of the nation of Israel. Jesus will have more to say about this in the next chapter of Matthew’s gospel.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem… (37-39)

The time had fully come for the end of Jerusalem in their rejection of the Law, the prophets, and the Messiah. The nation deserved to be gone. Each of us deserve to be gone too. Yet God will surely find a way to work out his plan of grace for His elect. Surely He can change a blind Saul to see that it is Jesus the Son of God whom he is persecuting when He drags Christians from their homes. Then that Saul will say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” when the message of grace through Christ is preached. Until you are able to bless the Lord and His messengers you are missing something. When you are able to see the blessing, then even your death can become a testimony not only to the sanction of the Law, but to the grace of God who rescues His people out of this world of decay. Your death becomes a very important fact of God’s grace, who works all things together for the good of those who love the message and the messenger. They love God and are called according to His purpose. If He works all things for their good, He certainly works their death for their good. As Paul says in Romans, not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Also in Philippians Paul insists that it is better for us to die and to be with the Lord. God has made us willing to be gathered into this New Jerusalem above.

Many prophets died at the hands of evil men. Death is a very complicated topic. Often we rightly decide not to comment on the death of a person. There is nothing we can say. Or is it that there is too much to say? It is all very confusing and seems to be contradictory. Let’s conclude by thinking of the meaning of the murder of the martyr Stephen at the hands of Pharisees in Acts 7. That death told at least three stories. First, it told us what every death tells us, that death has spread to all men, for all men sin and die, even good Stephen. Second, it spoke of the horrible evil of men who hate and kill God’s prophets. Finally and most importantly, it told us of the grace of God; grace for Stephen for he soon was in the presence of the Lord, but grace also for others, for by his death a persecution began that led to the scattering of many preachers to far-off places. Those men preached the same Word that you hear today of grace for guilty sinners through Jesus’ death for us. What a blessing it is to come in the name of the Lord!

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What does it appear that the Pharisees did with the tombs of the prophets? Why was that ironic?

2. What was the story of the prophets from Moses through Jesus?

3. Why would Jesus express such a love for Jerusalem? How will that love be finally fulfilled?

4. What does it mean to say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord?”