"That It Might Be Fulfilled"

Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll.—Psalm 40:7, NIV

Timothy Alexander

Before the first word of history was ever written, it was as though our Lord had already given his life. A beautiful and comprehensive plan carefully fashioned by God had been set in place and was waiting for the Firstborn of All Creation to come and live it.

The beautiful relationship Adam enjoyed with God had been violently uprooted; Adam and his family were thrust into a hostile world of sin and ever-increasing depravity. The only prospect of peace was the coming of the Seed of the Woman, the Son of Man, the Messiah.

The whole of Hebrew Scripture is filled with promises of what that Messiah, that Savior of the World, would be. Some of its most beautifully poetic language describes the hope the Son of Man would bring.

In Hebrew Scripture the Messiah is promised to be the son of Abraham, the son of David, and, indeed, the Son of God. The opening words in Matthew’s gospel tell us that Jesus’ earthly lineage fulfills each of those promises.

The Tax Collector

The writer of this gospel has the name Matthew (see Matthew 9:9) and also Levi (Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27). He was a tax collector, an occupation relegated to a lower stratum of Jewish society. The general population had no affinity whatever for those so employed. The paying of taxes reminded the Jews that they were under the heel of the Romans, and the collectors of taxes for Rome became the focal point of Jewish frustration and hatred. The Pharisees and Scribes at the higher levels of Jewish society also had no respect for those who collected taxes. They were called publicans (Matthew 10:3) and lumped together with “sinners” (Matthew 9:11).

As a tax collector Matthew came in contact with some of the meanest elements of society. Every day his job provided him tangible proof not only that the world really needed a Savior, but also proof that the empty righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees was not the kind of loving care the true Messiah would have for God’s chosen people.

Is it any wonder that while “sitting in receipt of custom” and hearing the blessed words “Follow me” from the lips of one who spoke like none ever had, he left his job without hesitation and allowed his life to be changed forever? The name Matthew means “gift of Jehovah.” His new life following in Jesus’ footsteps was certainly a gift from God; but of much greater importance in his mind was that it was this man Jesus who was the real gift God had promised to our first parents so long before.

It is no surprise that Matthew considered it a privilege to host a “great feast” at his home with Jesus as guest of honor. He undoubtedly invited other tax collectors and friends with whom he had worked, perhaps to say goodbye. This dinner was a witness to his friends and co-workers, and it was also a personal celebration of having found the Messiah. There was true joy at that dinner table, and Jesus must have been delighted to have found one of his sheep, one who had been given to him by God himself. Sadly, it was also at this dinner where the Pharisees asked, “How is it that he eateth with publicans and sinners?” (Matthew 9:11). There was no recognition that the “publicans and sinners” were actually being blessed by the Light of the World. The bitterness and insolence of the Pharisees’ question served only to reinforce Matthew’s heart that he had done the right thing to leave that empty Jewish system and commit his life to following the footsteps of the master.

Messiah: Despised and Rejected

This great appreciation for the fact that Jesus was indeed the long-promised Messiah of the Hebrew Scriptures is beautifully reflected in his gospel account. Reading through Matthew’s words, one realizes that one of his main objectives is to demonstrate that the Old Testament prophecies that speak so wonderfully of Messiah are all fulfilled in Jesus. On more than fifty occasions, Matthew either quotes, cites, or refers to the Old Testament.

It was well known that the Messiah would be of the house of David. Isaiah says that God himself would give the house of David a sign to identify the Messiah: a virgin would conceive and bear a son and would call his name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:13,14). It is this promise that Matthew says was fulfilled by the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth: “Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet.” And then Matthew adds that the name Immanuel means nothing less than “God with us” (Matthew 1:22,23).

In the soft, reflective light of history, many centuries removed from the actual event, these beautiful and poetic words have come to convey to us that the Messiah would be born as a completely sinless child and would truly be the son of God. When we hear of the circumstances attendant to Mary’s conception, our hearts are filled with confidence that the angel of the Lord actually did come to young Mary, that she actually did conceive of the holy spirit, and that Jesus was not the son of Joseph but the son of God.

Were the hearts of Mary’s family and friends filled with that same confidence? Mary was a fine and upstanding young lady. She had spent her entire life earning that reputation. Her family was well respected in the community. When the neighbors heard of these events, were they filled with greater respect for Mary and her family? Was this evidence to them that this new child was indeed the Messiah? It seems unlikely that this was the case.

It is considerably more likely that those who were endeavoring to live righteous godly lives, and trying to raise their families by those same principles, considered Mary’s explanation of events to be less than genuine and certainly not reliable evidence of her child’s purity. Even Joseph, the man to whom Mary was engaged, a man whom the Scriptures describe as just and kind and considerate, was not sure of her explanation. He was “minded to put her away privily” until an angel helped him understand what had happened (Matthew 1:19,20).

It is noteworthy that the angel addressed Joseph as, “Joseph, thou son of David.” The original promise in Isaiah 7:13 was given to the House of David. With these words the angel reassured Joseph that he was also of that royal lineage, was of that house to which the promise of the coming savior was given. Joseph was the one chosen by God to be the man who would raise young Jesus to manhood.

If this was the struggle within Mary’s family and friends, what would it be like with the general public? Most of the others, and particularly the Scribes and Pharisees, probably saw Mary as just another sinful young girl who got herself into trouble and came up with a creative way to divert attention away from herself. Most who heard her story undoubtedly saw Jesus’ birth as common at best, and sinful at worst. This then became the first opportunity the self-righteous had to look down upon the Savior of the World, even before he was born.

Though born sinless, Jesus came to this earth to be mistreated and die as though a sinner, to be despised and rejected of men. Matthew (in 2:15) quotes Hosea saying that God would call his son out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1). Hosea’s words have a primary application to the Passover when the children of Israel came out of Egypt. In Exodus 4:22,23 God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh, “My son, my firstborn, is Israel … But if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I am going to slay thy son, thy firstborn” (Rotherham). That is why the tenth plague caused the death of the firstborn of Egypt.

But Matthew says Hosea’s prophecy also applies to Jesus. Jesus truly was God’s firstborn, his only begotten, and eventually the firstborn of many brethren. With the Passover event Egypt represented the world, the sinful human condition. Jesus never was a part of that condition, he never was a sinner, but he died as though he had been. In John 3:14 we are told that Jesus would be lifted up in the same way the copper serpent was lifted up in the wilderness to save the people (see Numbers 21). That copper serpent represented Jesus. Copper showed Jesus’ perfect human nature; the serpent showed that, when Jesus was lifted up on the cross, he was dying as though he were actually sinful, having taken the penalty of Adam upon himself.

In another sense and in the minds of the Jewish community, Egypt was a contemptuous place. It was the place where the Jews endured the bitterness of slavery for centuries. For Jesus to have come “out of Egypt” may have added to the scorn most Jews had when they looked upon him.

Matthew quotes an Old Testament prophecy which says, “He [Jesus] came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene” (Matthew 2:23). Nazareth was a city in Galilee and was a poorly regarded place. Judea was where Jerusalem, the holy city, was located, as well as Bethlehem, the City of David. Both Jerusalem and Bethlehem were places of great honor; Nazareth was not.

The Judeans looked down upon the Galileans. Galilee was considered a place of lower cultural character, less sophisticated language, and less pure religious practice compared to Judea. And while those in Judea looked down upon those from Galilee, those in Galilee looked down upon Nazareth. Nathanael was from Cana, another city in Galilee (John 21:2). Jesus described Nathanael as “an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” Even though Nathanael was a man of generous heart, when he heard that the Messiah was from Nazareth, he wondered and said, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46,47). Nazareth became one more obstacle for faith in Jesus, one more opportunity to stumble on the Rock of Offense.

Thus Judea looked down upon Galilee, Galilee looked down upon Nazareth, and Nazareth looked down upon Jesus. There was a time when Jesus taught in the synagogue in Nazareth and spoke these most gracious words from Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me … [he] hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek … to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” After these beautiful words, the people of Nazareth, because of their lack of faith, “rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong” (Luke 4:16-29).

Messiah Fulfills Prophecy

According to Matthew the prophecy was, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” Which prophet said this? Neither “Nazareth” nor “Nazarene” appear anywhere in the Old Testament. McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia says the name Nazareth comes from a Hebrew word meaning “a sprout.” In this sense Matthew could have been referring to the prophecy in Zechariah which says, “Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD” (Zechariah 6:12). The word “Branch” is the Hebrew word #6780 in Strongs and means a branch, a growth or a sprout. Messiah is referred to as a branch in many places in the Old Testament. Isaiah speaks about the Branch that grows from the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1). Jeremiah speaks about a Righteous Branch in the House of David (Jeremiah 23:5). Zechariah continues by saying that the Branch shall build the temple of the Lord, the New Creation, and shall be both a king and a priest upon his throne, and the result of those two royal roles will be that the “counsel of peace shall be between them both” (Zechariah 6:13).

Matthew tells us even Satan quoted the Old Testament and unwittingly demonstrated that Jesus was the Messiah. One of Satan’s temptations was to take Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple where he challenged him to prove he really was the son of God by casting himself down because God promised to protect him (see Matthew 4:5,6). Satan was quoting a psalm: “He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:11,12).

Psalm 91 contains the words of the older brother Jesus to his younger brothers, the New Creation. In verses 2 and 3 Jesus says that he has found from experience that he can trust God to protect him; you will find the same to be true in your lives. In verse 9, Jesus says to the New Creation, because you made God your dwelling place, because you gave your lives to God, he will give his angels the responsibility to protect you.

Jesus always did the will of his heavenly Father. Indeed he was “about his Father’s business” even at age twelve (Luke 2:49). And forty days before the wilderness temptations he announced the beginning of his formal ministry by being baptized at the hands of John. When Satan quoted Psalm 91, he was mocking the promise of God’s protection, to which Satan knew Jesus was entitled. But Satan stopped his quotation at verse 12 because verse 13 says Messiah and the resurrected New Creation will tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon, all references to Satan himself. Here is the same promise that was given to Mother Eve in the garden, that the serpent would bruise the heel of the promised seed, and the seed would bruise the head of the serpent. This is a clear reference to Jesus as the Messiah, something Satan acknowledged by omission.

Each of the Old Testament references in Matthew’s gospel carries a story, each is another compelling fragment of evidence that Jesus is Israel’s, and the world’s, Messiah, and each is fulfilled by a specific event in Jesus’ life.

After meeting the one he recognized as the Savior, Matthew experienced a miraculous transformation. His honest heart endured the trauma and sadness inflicted upon him and upon his Jewish brethren by the corrupt righteousness of the Pharisees. Thus when Jesus, the Light of the World, blessed Matthew’s life with the true spirit of grace and truth, his honest heart sprang to life and rejoiced that he had indeed found the Messiah.

What a blessing it is for us to have Matthew’s carefully prepared account of Jesus’ life, tenderly setting forth the prophetic evidence that Jesus, that despised young man from Nazareth, is indeed the Savior of the world.