Grace: Free, Sufficient, Transformative. Matthew 15:21-28
We are now coming to the end of this
section within Matthew. Things shift when we get into Matthew chapter sixteen
and there is more of an intensification of the opposition against our Lord
during the last year of His ministry. So we will review a little bit of what we
have seen in this section because what we saw was a shift in the attitude of
the official leaders, the Pharisees, the scribes and the Sadducees who rejected
Christ. That began in chapter eleven, but it comes to a head in Matthew chapter
twelve where we saw that Jesus was rejected by the spiritual leaders of Israel
and accused by them of performing miracles by the power of Beelzebul, which was
a term of derision used for Satan. This brings the confrontation between Jesus
and the Pharisees to a final point and it is at that point that Jesus shifts
His ministry. He is no longer offering the kingdom to Israel. He began to teach
privately to His disciples and only those who came to Him as opposed to going
into the public market place, and He began to teach His disciples about the
intervening age, the age in which we now live. He had come to offer the
kingdom, the kingdom was rejected and so it was going to be postponed. What
would happen next? This was indicated by the kingdom parables in Matthew
chapter thirteen describing the basic trends of this particular age and
dispensation.
Then in chapter fourteen we see Jesus
beginning to train the twelve. This section really focuses on Jesus' training
of His disciples in preparation for the future ministry they would have after
His crucifixion, burial, resurrection and ascension. We get flashback at the
beginning of chapter fourteen related to John the Baptist and how Herod Antipas
executes John the Baptist. This indicates that not only is the ministry of John
the Baptist and Jesus rejected by the religious leaders but also by the
political leaders. There is now both religious and political opposition that
has come into play and from this point on through at least chapter fifteen
Jesus is going to be avoiding the territory in Galilee under the authority of
Herod Antipas. He is going to go elsewhere because He is trying to avoid a
head-on confrontation with the political leadership that might speed up their
opposition to Him. He is on a timetable related to the fulfillment of prophecy
and the proper time will come for His arrest, crucifixion, death, burial and
resurrection. Now is not the time.
In Matthew 14:13 we have the episode of
Jesus feeding the 5000. At the end of this section (the end of chapter fifteen)
we have a second episode where Jesus is feeding the 4000. Some, especially
liberal theologians, come and say, well this just shows how the writers are
making some things up here, adding some unnecessary things, and it doesn't fit
the context. Well Matthew and Mark talk about both miracles and while there are
certain things that are similar there are quite a number of things that are
different. What I want you to see is what Jesus is doing and what He is
teaching to the Jews through the feeding of the 5000 is going to be duplicated
at the end of chapter fifteen to show that He is providing and offering the
same grace ministry, the same sufficiency of grace to the Gentiles. So there is
a different group. In the feeding of the 5000 we also see an emphasis on Jesus'
compassion. He departs to be by Himself in verse 13, the multitudes hear about
it and pursue Him, and He "was moved with compassion". This is a
sub-theme in Matthew: 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 18:27; 20:34. This is an expression
of the love of God. John 3:16—Jesus came to die for the lost—those
who were hostile to Him, those at enmity with Him—and that is the love of
God for His creatures. God in eternity past had a plan of salvation because in
His omniscience He knew that Adam would disobey Him and bring about the fall of
the human race into sin. There would need to be a solution to that sin problem,
and so as part of God's love and His grace He provided a plan of salvation that
would not be dependent upon human beings, human effort or works. God alone
would provide the solution, and this would be done through His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who would pay the penalty for our sin on the cross so that by
trusting in Him we could have eternal life.
When we think about the gospel a little
bit, let us think and probe this a little more. We see throughout these
miracles an emphasis on Jesus' power, which demonstrates that He is the
creator. As the creator God designed man a certain way. He understands everything
there is to know about man, his makeup, his capabilities, his failures, and his
weaknesses; there is nothing about a human being that God does not know, His
omniscience covers everything. So in eternity past as part of His omniscience
He knew exactly what needed to be done in order to solve the sin problem in
terms of its eternal dimensions. The penalty for sin is spiritual death,
separation from God, and those who do not trust in God's plan of salvation end
up in eternity in condemnation in the lake of fire. God has provided a solution
to that eternal problem through the death of Christ on the cross. But beyond
that God has provided a solution to the problem of personal sin in our lives
from the moment we are saved on, and that also finds its foundation in the work
of Christ on the cross. The grace of God is sufficient for every problem that
we face in life. God designed everything in creation and understands how
everything in creation works. He understands bacteria, viruses, and the chaos
that would come into creation because of sin; He understands all of the nuances
of everyone's sin nature and is able to provide a solution because He is
omnipotent, a solution so that we can face and handle anything that comes into
our life by trusting Him. He has the ability to solve those problems. This is
one thing that Jesus as the Messiah demonstrates through all of these miracles.
He is omnipotent; He is the creator; He is the one who can solve these
problems.
We talk about the fact that in the
feeding of the 5000 what moved people there was that they were sick. What we
see in other passages is that this is defined as those who were demon
possessed, those who were lame, crippled, those who were blind, those who had
leprosy, and Jesus was able to cure all of these diseases. He is able to take
that which is mortified flesh and heal it, making those cells living and
healthy again. He is demonstrating that from the fact that He is the creator,
He is omnipotent, and He is able to solve these things. The principle is that
if He can do that He can solve any other problem. This is always what is behind
these miracles. If our Lord has the power, the ability to solve these problems,
then He can solve any other problem that we face in life.
We often hear people talk about having
this problem and that problem: I have problems with anger, problems with sexual
temptation, problems with same-sex sexual temptation, all of these things, that
is just the way God made me. No, that is the way you were born under the
condemnation and corruption of sin, but God has provided a perfect solution.
The God who was able to pay the penalty for sin, the God who was able to create
everything in the universe and all of the systems in the universe, is that same
God who is able to solve whatever the problem it is that we are dealing with.
We don't look elsewhere for solutions, and neither do we rationalize and
justify our failures, but we must learn to radically look to the God of the
Bible, the creator of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, to
provide the solutions. That is what these people are doing. They come out to
Jesus, there is a crowd of 5000 men, and Jesus has compassion on them. They are
not all believers but they are seeking help for their problems. This is a
miserable crowd filled with suffering people.
At this time we see the miracle of the
feeding of the 5000 and Jesus takes the five loaves and two fish and multiplies
them. No one here or in the feeding of the 4000 witnesses the miracle per se. Jesus
is up front, His disciples are around Him, and they have this one little
basket. It is interesting that the word for basket here is a word that refers
to the small kosher food basket that the Jews would carry, a different word
than the word for basket used in the feeding of the 4000. Jesus begins to just
reach in, and as He is doing this He is creating more and more fish, more and
more bread, and passing them out. So this aspect of bread and eating and
feeding and providing nourishment is a thread that runs through several of
these episodes as we lead to the end of this section, the feeding of the 4000.
We are reminded that bread often
represents God's ability to spiritually nourish us. For example, Deuteronomy 8:3 in reference to the
manna, the physical feeding through this miraculous bread that appeared every
morning: ÒHe humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which
you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand
that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that
proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD."
The physical features are not sufficient; we have to be fed spiritually. So we
see with the feeding of the 5000 that God is the one who supplies our physical
nourishment; and it is sufficient—there were twelve baskets left over.
Twelve represents the number of the tribes of Israel. It was a Jewish audience;
it is in the context of His ministry to Israel and the house of Judah. What we
learn from this is that the Triune God, the creator God, is able to provide for
us and sufficiently solve any problems. Sufficiently means that it is more than
enough. God can do it, for with God nothing is impossible.
Following that, Jesus
went off to be by Himself in prayer and the disciples leave in a boat to head
back across to Capernaum. They get caught in a massive storm and are unable to
make headway. For three or four hours they are fighting the wind, not getting
anywhere, and then what happens? Jesus comes walking to them in the wee hours
of the morning on the water. What is the lesson? Once again we see that He is
sufficient to overcome the problems of life. Whatever the storms of life may be
Jesus Christ is superior to those problems. He is superior to nature and to
creation; He can walk on the water and He can still the storm. And He teaches
that to Peter. As Peter comes out to walk on the water, Peter then gets his
eyes on the details, the storms of life, begins to sink, and the Lord chastises
him and calls Him to look to Him; and as long as he is looking to Him Peter is
able to walk above the storm, above the problems, above the tempest. And so we
learn the principle again, that dependence upon Jesus we can walk above the
circumstances of life.
We saw in Matthew 14:34 a
summary where the people began to come to Him for healing, and then in 15:1-20
He was confronted by the Pharisees. What is the issue? The disciples were not
washing their hands before they ate. So the issue goes back to eating. The
feeding of the 5000 has to do with providing spiritual nourishment, and here
they are challenging the way in which the disciples are eating; they are not
following the Pharisees' traditions. One issue here is that though they are
emphasizing their own tradition of hand washing we saw that that wasn't part of
Scripture; it was something they manufactured as part of their tradition, and
so they were setting their own tradition, their own ideas over the authority of
God's Word. In essence what they were doing was minimizing the significance of
God's bread of life by elevating their own views over it. The result was
sin—making an idol of their traditions. Again, what they were doing was
failing to trust in the sufficiency of God's Word; they were adding their own
traditions.
Today we add to the Word of God from
science, sociology, psychology, various philosophical systems, self-help
techniques and motivational techniques, and we are not radically dependent upon
the Word of God and the Word of God alone.
After that confrontation Jesus left the
area and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. There He showed the extension of
God's grace to the Gentiles, specifically a woman referred to by Matthew as a
Canaanite, referring to the ancient enemies of Israel. She was a descendant of
the Canaanites and is identified by Mark as a Syro-Phoenician woman, a Gentile,
and Jesus is going to provide healing for her. What we saw was that as she
approached Him and continued to cry out that He would solve her problem He
ignored her. But His apparent callousness was not because He didn't care but
because He understood what His mission was; and secondly, He wanted her to
continue to plead with Him so that she would develop and express the
understanding of the Word of God that she already had. Sometimes God doesn't
answer our prayers because He wants us to get more focused on His Word and to
drive us back into thinking through what the Word of God says in order to apply
it to our problem. She addresses Him as the Son of David, which indicates that
she is a believer and recognizes Him as the Messiah. She has accepted that and
is pleading with Him to deliver her daughter who is demon possessed. She
recognizes, though, that the gospel of God's grace was for Gentiles. This was
clearly indicated by Jesus when He talked with the woman at the well,
indicating that salvation is for the Jews—there was a priority to the Jew
first and then to the Gentile. This Canaanite recognizes that, and this shows a
tremendous insight on her part.
When she approaches Jesus she
recognizes what the priority is and she doesn't plead with Jesus to make an
exception. Accepting the fact that as a Gentile she is referred to as a dog,
she says that even the little dogs in the house feed from the crumbs from the
table. That is, you have come to give this bounteous feast to the Jews but even
we Gentiles should have access to some of the crumbs—not wanting the Lord
to violate Hs primary mission, but "we just want to get the extras; we
want the leftovers". She shows her understanding of that, and furthermore
as she moves through that she first of all addresses Him formerly as the Son of
David, as the Messiah, and then moves to a much more personal plea (Matthew
15:25) where she came and worshipped Him and said, "Lord help me". She
is desperate at that point, and it is at that point that the Lord recognizes
what she has asked for and He solves that problem.
It terms of geographical movement what
we have seen is that Jesus fed the 5000 by Bethsaida. The disciples went across
the northern part of the Sea of Galilee and it was there that Jesus walked on
the water. They landed just south of Capernaum where he had the confrontation
with the Pharisees from Jerusalem, and then He left that territory. So He just
spent a minimal amount of time there in Herod Antipas's territory and then
heads out of the Jewish territory to the area of Tyre and Sidon, which is
Gentile territory; and it is there that He has this meeting with the
Syro-Phoenician woman.
Next He is going to head south. Matthew
15:29 NASB "Departing from there, Jesus went along by the
Sea of Galilee, and having gone up on the mountain, He was sitting there."
After He delivered the woman's daughter from demon possession He leaves and
went round about—He didn't come down through the territory of Galilee
where He would be under the authority of Antipas—and circled around to
the north and then down through the territory of Philip the tetrarch, and south
to the east of the Sea of Galilee, which is known as the Golan Heights. It was
Gentile territory, and we learn from the parallel passage in Mark that He
headed to the area of the Decapolis. The term "Decapolis" is a Greek
term [DECA = ten; POLUS =
cities]. There were ten cities, only one of which was in the territory of
Israel, so He is still ministering to the Gentiles. It is not as clear to us as
it would have been to a Jewish reader in the first century. He is coming to
them to continue this outreach, this ministry to the Gentiles.
Matthew 15:30 NASB
"And large crowds came to Him, bringing with them {those who were} lame,
crippled, blind, mute, and many others, and they laid them down at His feet;
and He healed them." The multitudes are composed of Gentiles, not Jews, so
we are going to get a duplication of His ministry to the Jews in the feeding of
the 5000 in this feeding of the 4000. This shows that His grace is extended to
the Gentiles in the same way that it has been extended to the Jews.
There are a couple of
other reasons why we know that this is a Gentile audience—we know that
this is Gentile territory. In verse 31 it says that they glorified the God of
Israel". Matthew 15:31 NASB "So the crowd marveled as they
saw the mute speaking, the crippled restored, and the lame walking, and the
blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel." That phrase isn't
used when it speaks of Jews, but speaking of Gentiles they would be not
normally be worshipping the God of Israel; they would be worshipping their
pagan god. So now they are worshipping the God of Israel because it is through
the God of Israel the Messiah has come and provided healing for them.
Furthermore, when we read of the basket
full of broken pieces of leftovers (v. 37) it is "seven baskets". Matthew
15:37 NASB "And they all ate and were satisfied, and they
picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, seven large baskets
full." When it was the 5000 it was twelve baskets. The twelve baskets is
significant because that relates to the twelve tribes of Israel; here it is
just seven baskets. Also, the Greek word for basket here is a different word
than that used in Matthew chapter fourteen. The word there used was of the
small kosher baskets that the Jews used, whereas the basket referred to here is
a large basket that was used by the Gentiles. This would also indicate that he
is speaking to a Gentile audience.
The fact that they came
to Him bringing the lame, the blind, the mute, the maimed, and many others and
laid them down—the Greek there almost indicates that they threw them
down. They wouldn't be that cavalier but they are in a hurry—and the
level of excitement that is going on in this episode where they are bringing
all of these people who are ill, and Jesus is healing them one after another.
More and more people come. This goes on for three days and the level of
activity is so intense and the level of excitement over what is happening, the
transformation that is taking place in these people physically is so enormous
that it is going on around the clock. They don't even want to stop and eat
because they have never seen anything like it, and they glorify God and
recognize that this is the evidence of the Messiah. Isaiah 29:18, 19 NASB
"On that day the deaf will hear words of a book, And out of {their} gloom
and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. The
afflicted also will increase their gladness in the LORD,
And the needy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel." Isaiah 35:5, 6 NASB "
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened And the ears of the deaf will be
unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the mute will
shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness And streams in the
Arabah." This is what was expected of the Messiah, these were the unique
signs of the Messiah.
The third day ends and it
is approaching dusk: Matthew 15:32 NASB "And Jesus called
His disciples to Him, and said, 'I feel compassion for the people, because they
have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want
to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way'.Ó We see this
emphasis on the compassion of the Lord again. Not all of these are saved, so
this references the common grace of God. The term "common grace" is a
theological term that relates to God's goodness to mankind whether they are
saved or not. God sends the rain upon the righteous and the unrighteous alike.
This references His care and concern as the creator for His creatures.
But the disciples haven't
quite gotten the picture yet even though it was probably no more than two or
three weeks earlier that He fed the 5000. They may even have been thinking,
well that was a Jewish audience, they deserved to be fed, but what are we going
to do with these pagan Gentiles? They just haven't gotten the point that Jesus
can solve the problem, which is not unusual because most Christians don't
recognize that Jesus can solve their problems either, and they look all kinds
of places to find a solution rather than recognizing that the solution is
spiritual and they have to radically trust in God through His Word and through
the Holy Spirit to solve problems.
Matthew 15:33 NASB
"The disciples said to Him, 'Where would we get so many loaves in {this}
desolate place to satisfy such a large crowd?' Ó Notice that their emphasis
isn't just that they were going to give them a little bit to eat, they were
going to fill them up. That is important to understand in juxtaposition to the
fact that when it is over with there will be seven huge baskets left
over—more than twelve small baskets for the Jews; there are seven large
baskets that are going to be filled up.
Matthew 15:34 NASB
"And Jesus said to them, 'How many loaves do you have?' And they said,
'Seven, and a few small fish'.Ó These are only small loaves and the fish are
very small fish, maybe even fragments of fish. [35] "And He directed the
people to sit down on the ground." In the previous situation He had them
sit down, but that was early in the spring and that area of the land would have
been covered with grass and comfortable to lie down on. But now it is later,
probably the early part of the summer and it is hot, the grass has withered
under the heat of the sun. They have to sit on the ground and it wouldn't be
quite as comfortable.
Matthew 15:36 NASB
"and He took the seven loaves and the fish; and giving thanks, He broke
them and started giving them to the disciples, and the disciples {gave them} to
the people." Again, it is a private miracle; nobody has seen it happen.
The disciples are around Him and He just continues to reach into the basket and
pull out more fish and more bread, and supply them with what they need, and
they begin to pass it to the multitudes.
Matthew 15:37 NASB
"And they all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up what was left
over of the broken pieces, seven large baskets full." Two things to note
here: They are filled. That means that God's grace is not going to give you
barely enough; God's grace is going to give you all you need to solve your
problem. He may not give you all you want but He is going to give you all you
need. There was excess. This is the Greek word SPURIS,
which describes these baskets, and it is used in Acts 9:25 to describe the
basket the apostle Paul was put in to lower him down off of the wall at
Damascus. It was a good-sized basket for a human being to fit in and a little
different from the small kosher basket that the Jews had at the feeding of the
5000.
Whenever we look at the
Scriptures and we look at this aspect of feeding people it takes us back that
this pictures God's grace to provide nourishment for us. It always has in the
background the Old Testament episode of God providing food for the Israelites
as they are going through the wilderness. This is also described in Psalm
107:4-9.
Psalm 107:4 NASB
"They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region; They did not find a
way to an inhabited city." This is pointing out that they had a major
problem. They didn't have a permanent place to live; they didn't have a
permanent source of food or water; they are out in a pretty barren area with
hardly any vegetation at all.
Psalm 107:5 "{They
were} hungry and thirsty; Their soul fainted within them." That is often
the situation with believers as they face problems in life. They come to the
end of the rope and don't find anything to do. They are hopeless and they feel
helpless. We have to learn to depend upon God.
Psalm 107:6 NASB
"Then they cried out to the LORD
in their trouble; He delivered them out of their distresses." In all the
problems that they had God was the solution.
Psalm 107:7 NASB
"He led them also by a straight way, To go to an inhabited city."
This is speaking of Him leading them and taking them eventually to the
land.
Psalm 107:8 NASB
"Let them give thanks to the LORD for
His lovingkindness, And for His wonders to the sons of men! [9]
For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, And the hungry soul He has filled with
what is good." God is the solution. God is the one who richly fills us,
but what we have to do is learn to depend upon Him, to really trust the fact
that as the creator God, the one who created everything and the one who
intimately knows the workings of every problem, every situation, understands
our sinfulness, our self-absorption and arrogance more than we could ever
imagine, He is the God who designed everything so that He can solve those
problems. So there is no situation, no struggle, no difficulty that God doesn't
have the solution to. He is the ultimate solution. We need to trust in Him.
This is what Jesus is teaching.
Matthew 15:39 NASB
"And sending away the crowds, Jesus got into the boat and came to the
region of Magadan." There is a textual problem here. There was a different
term in many MSS; we don't know where that is located. There is a different
location given in Mark. There is an assumption by many that it is Magdala,
which is where Mary Magdalene was from, but we are not really certain.
What we have to remember
is a great promise. Philippians 4:19 NASB "And my God will
supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."
He has an infinite bank account; He is omnipotent, there is no problem that is
too big for God's grace.