The Last Shall Be First, Matthew 20:17-19
This is a tremendously interesting and exciting section of Scripture. We have focused on the fact that Jesus is giving the disciples a clear prediction that He was going to be going to Jerusalem where He was going to suffer, where He was going to be opposed by the chief priests and scribes, the religious leaders, and that while He was there He was going to suffer many things. He was going to be crucified and raised from the dead.
As we looked at this last time we saw that part of the significance of this was His reference to Himself as the Son of Man. This is a title that is a messianic title; a title that is ultimately related to is future rule. And that future rule that we often summarize as just the crown must come after the cross. Jesus has to suffer, and there are different ways we talk about this suffering of Jesus. There is suffering in His life, adversity that He faced due to the fact that He was in the Devil's world and the opposition that He faced. From the time that He was an infant, the opposition that He faced from Herod who sent his troops to kill all of the infants in Bethlehem under the age of two, up until the time that He was nailed to the cross. In fact, it went beyond that a little to the time when God darkened the earth at noon, because it was not until the end of the period from noon until 3pm, and the suffering at that time was shielded from the view of man, that God imputed to the righteous Lamb of God the sins of the world that we have the redemptive sufferings of Jesus. That was when He was paying the price.
This section from verse 17 to verse 28 is meant to be understood as a whole and that these themes work together.
What we see in terms of the progression in the life of Christ is that He has been ministering up in the north and around the Sea of Galilee, and starting at the beginning of chapter 19 we are told that he moved south to the area across the Jordan. He is going to move across the Jordan.
There are a couple of movements that take place at this time. One is to go to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, and than He comes back. But where He is in Perea, across the Jordan where He is having this teaching time with His disciples. He moves from here to Jericho, and then immediately following that at the beginning of chapter 21 we have the description of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which is remembered by the church as Palm Sunday.
So what we saw last time was Jesus' reminder to the disciples that He was going be going to Jerusalem where He was going to suffer. The idea of the doctrine of suffering is foundational for understanding what He is teaching the disciples in this particular section. This is the intro to this section in vv. 17-19 and the end of the section brackets it with the same theme, the work of redemption. The idea of ransom for many is the same Greek word used for redemption and it always focuses on the payment of a price. A price is paid for our sins, and that is the life of Christ.
The other thing we see as we come to the last two verses is that in verse 27 Jesus says, “and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave”. It is interesting to trace the use of the word “first” is this section. It is first used in 19:30 and it grows out of the context of what Jesus has said to the rich young ruler. That fits within the context of the argument between the disciples about who is going to be the greatest, or who is going to be first in the kingdom of heaven. What Jesus is teaching them is that it is not about status, the priority is to serve the Lord and let the Lord take care of the issues as to what our position is going to be in the future kingdom. That is an important aspect of the doctrine of rewards.
What Jesus is teaching here fits the whole context. So whatever is going on in the intervening section (vv. 20-26) has to be understood within the framework of Jesus' teaching what it means to be first—that you have to be last to be first.
It is very important to understand in Scripture that you don't just go in and take these little stories, cut them out and isolate them, and study them as if they hang by themselves. Every one of these sections fits within a larger section, and that fits within a larger section, and to truly understand any section you have to fully understand the general overall context and put it together. Once you come to an understanding of that there is another principle of interpretation that comes into play, and that is a principle called the analogy of Scripture. Most of us know it by the term comparing Scripture with Scripture. The Word of God is an integrated whole. The doctrines are written and developed in the Old Testament. Then there is progressive revelation and more is added as we move through the Scripture, and then when we get into the New Testament we see things together so that there is an integrated whole in terms of the Scripture. The Scriptures must be understood in terms of how they complement each other and that all of the Bible hangs together. When people start chopping it up and try to treat certain things separately often they come up with what they think are contradictions of Scripture, or this is when they begin to lose confidence in the Scripture. But rightly interpreted when things are seen together it reinforces our faith.
This doctrine related to the first shall be last and the last shall be first is an important leadership principle and attitude principle that Jesus is trying to drill into the disciples in this whole section in preparation for their future role and ministry as disciples.
It is interesting that we don't find the term “disciple” again in terms of a verb. After we get into Acts we see the twelve referred to as disciples but we don't really see the verb used, even though we see the concept implemented throughout the rest of the New Testament. Matthew has the greatest emphasis on the concept in his Gospel, ending with a repetition of Jesus' command that we are to go and make disciples. In other words, the mission of the church is to make students of the Word of God. It is focused around the idea of learning and studying and having our minds completely renovated by the Word of God (Romans 12:2). We are not to be conformed to this world but are to let our thinking be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Ultimately the pursuit of spiritual maturity is a mental activity related to a mental attitude of humility and submission to the Lord.
As we look at this principle what we are seeing in Matthew 20:17-28 is that the ultimate model of this principle that the one who would be last shall be first is the Lord Jesus Christ. As Isaiah 53 states, He came and we esteemed Him not. He was despised and rejected among men. He is looked down upon as a failure because He was not able bring to completion His mission of establishing the kingdom—at least in the eyes of the world—because they did not understand the principle that the cross had to come before the crown. He had to pay the price for sin before He could establish a kingdom, because if you establish a kingdom without sin being dealt with you have the same problem you have with every preceding kingdom run by sinners and it is governed by the corrupt ideas of man, and it is ultimately doomed to failure.
Matthew 20:28 NASB “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
We need to look at Philippians chapter two to see how the apostle Paul puts this together to illuminate this same principle. The epistle to the Philippians was primarily written as a letter of gratitude by Paul to the church. In this he is dealing with some problems that most congregations face, and that is the issue of just plain old narcissism. That is the orientation of the sin nature, which interprets everything in life as being “all about me”.
The first four verses of Philippians chapter two are emphasising the principle. In the first verse he lays out four statements of truth in relation to our position in Jesus Christ and what we have in Him. These are all expressed in “if” clauses, which are called grammatically conditional clauses, and the way they are set up in the Greek is in 1st, 2nd or 3rd class conditions. In Greek there are different ways you can state a condition. Here in the first verse we have a first class condition and it comes close to having the sense of since—since these things are true, do this. So he is emphasizing four things that are true in the body of Christ. There is consolation in Christ, we have comfort of love from Christ, we have the fellowship of the Spirit, which is our unity in Christ, and we have affection and we receive mercy.
Paul's command to the Philippians and to each one of us is: “make my joy complete ...” Because these things are true this is what you need to do. “... by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” They need to be likeminded. The problem with people being likeminded goes back to the whole principle of self-absorption. We have our ideas and our way, and when we start emphasizing our ideas and our way then the result is fragmentation. We are to be likeminded, have the same love, and be in one accord and one mind. There is a certain mindset. That is what Paul is referring to here when he uses the term one mind. There needs to be a common mental attitude. What is it that that common mental attitude is grounded on? It is going to be humility, the same thing Jesus is trying to teach the disciples.
In verse 3 Paul makes the statement in the negative in terms of prohibition. “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit ...” In other words, quit focusing on what you want and your agenda and your narcissistic little pleasures, and focus upon what you are here for, which is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. “... but with humility of mind [not self-abasement, but recognizing it is not all about us] regard one another as more important than yourselves.”
In the context of Mathew 20 James and John are clearly not esteeming the other ten as better than themselves. They want their mother to get them a special place of honor in the kingdom, just the opposite of everything that Jesus has been teaching.
Philippians 2:4 NASB “do not {merely} look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” He is not saying don't ever get your way. He is not saying don't ever think that the way you think you should do something is necessarily wrong. We all need to look out for our own interests to a certain degree, but also for the interests of others. Elevate your focus on the needs of others to the same level as yours, loving your neighbor as yourself.
Now he is going to give an example, and the same example that Paul gives is the example that Jesus is giving in Matthew chapter twenty. It is that He came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came not to be served but to serve.
Philippians 2:5 NASB “Have this attitude [PHRONEO, which has to do with a way of thinking, not feeling] in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus”. The Christian life is not about how you feel; it is about what you think and what you do with what you understand to be true. Again and again and again we see this emphasis is Scripture about thinking, renewing the mind--“Have this mind in you”. It is not about how we feel. That doesn't mean that how we feel is irrelevant but it is not the determining factor. We all have emotions. They play a role sometimes but sometimes the role is a negative role and we have to do what is right despite how we feel about things; and how we feel about things is not a synonym for how we think. Paul says we are to have a certain attitude. It is a present active imperative, which means that this is to be the standard operating procedure or the basic reality of every Christian's life.
The attitude we are to have in ourselves is the one that was in Christ Jesus. So what is that? Then he develops that is verse 6. This section has the most significant verses for understanding the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in all of Scripture.
Philippians 2:6 NASB “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped”.
This is a difficult construction to translate into English and we need to take a little time to understand what these words meant and how we are to understand them. We start with a present participle that is translated “He existed”. It sounds like a finite verb but it is really the whole phrase “although He existed”, and it is stating something that is going to appear to be a contrast to what we might expect--“on the one hand He existed”. We ought to notice that grammatically this is a present tense, which means it is something that went on and on and on. He is treating it as an ongoing action.
“He existed in the form of God”. In English we take the word “form” as a physical form, like a physical mould. But that is not how it is used in Greek thought and among Greek philosophers. Often it was used to refer to the essence of something. In Platonic thought the form of a chair isn't its external shape, it is that which makes it a chair as opposed to a table—what we would call chairness. If we see a dog, the dog has the form of a dog and not the form of a cat, it is not talking about its shape, it is talking about it having that which characterizes and makes it a dog as opposed to a cat or some other four-legged creature.
What Paul is saying is that although He existed eternally in the essence of God, and being in the essence of God, being God, He “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped”. Or as the KJV translates it, He “didn't consider it robbery” to be equal with God. That really obscures it in terms of modern language, so it is preferable to use the NASB here. He is not grasping after His status as God. The disciples all want to be somebody; Jesus is somebody but doesn't want to make a big deal about it. Jesus is not going to emphasize His divine prerogatives when He enters into human history. He is willing to let His divine prerogatives and privilege be overlooked. He is not going to demand as He walks through the streets of Jerusalem that everybody bows down and worships Him as God. He is giving up the emphasis on how people should treat Him for the sake of the goal of redemption.
This is emphasizing Jesus' mentality. Remember, the command it to have “the same mind in you” and what he says about the mind is that Jesus did not regard, think, consider equality with God, what He is in His essence, something to be grasped.
Think about what happened in the Garden of Eden. God created Adam and Eve and placed them in a perfect environment. He provided everything they would need in terms of their food, nourishment and their relationship with Him. There was only one negative and that was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and God said don't eat from it because the day you eat from it you will certainly die.
One day the serpent came along, indwelt by Satan, and tempted Eve: “Did God really say that?” Immediately by the way he asks the question he is introducing doubt into Eve's mind. The Eve said God told them not to eat it or touch it. Then Satan said God was just holding things away from you, He just doesn't want you to be like Him. He doesn't want you to be like God. So the temptation in the garden isn't the fruit itself, it is the idea that by eating it they could take on deity, they could become like God.
So the contrast here with Paul is that Jesus is thinking that He is God and doesn't consider it something to be grasped after, not like Adam who wasn't God and wanted to get it. This is the kind of thinking: not asserting His privileges or His power. What the disciples want to do is assert their position and power.
One thing we might want to think through is whether this mental attitude part of His deity or part of His humanity. Remember it is saying that although He eternally existed He did not (past tense) … As God the Son, before the hypostatic union, He wasn't going to hold on to His deity, He wasn't going to have to grasp it. That is the Greek word HARPAGMOS, which is related to the word HARPAZO, translated the rapture, the great snatch. Same idea. He didn't think it was something to be grasped or held on to.
Paraphrase: “The Lord Jesus Christ, although He eternally existed with identical essence to God, did not think equality with God a claim to be selfishly grasped after, but instead He emptied Himself …” So there is a contrast there. The word “emptied Himself” is one that has been debated a lot by theologians. It is the verb KENAO. This is referred to as the Kenosis problem: what does it mean that Jesus emptied Himself?
He “emptied Himself” is described more fully by the participles that come after it. He doesn't empty Himself by giving up deity; He empties Himself by taking on humanity. He adds something to Himself by taking on the form of a bondservant. He emptied Himself by taking on the form or essence of a servant or slave—DOULOS, a word that is usually translated slave or bond slave, not an honorary position.
Remember what Jesus teaches at the end of this section in Matthew chapter twenty? Matthew 20:27 NASB “and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave [DOULOS]. Jesus is talking out of His own experience in this chapter. He took on the form of a slave. He became last with the result that He would be first.
Continuing the paraphrase: “ … by receiving the essence of a bond servant, being made [GINOMAI] in the likeness of man”. That introduces the humanity, the human body. He becomes something He was not.
He empties Himself two ways: by taking on the form, essence or nature of a servant, and by coming into existence in the essence of man, having a physical body.
Philippians 2:8 NASB “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” How did He humble Himself? Not through some technique or psychological manipulation. He is obedient to the point of death. That is what humility is. A humble person is somebody who is obedient to the plan, purpose and will of God. It is somebody who understands who the authorities are over them and is submissive to them. Jesus humbled Himself by being obedient, putting Himself and maintaining Himself in right relationship with the authority of God the Father. “... to the point of death, even death on a cross.” That involves the suffering.
In Matthew chapter 16 when Jesus announced He was going to the cross, how did He follow that up? He said: “I want you to take up your cross daily and follow me”. That is the essence of a disciple. It is not how we get saved, but we are not going to grow without submission to authority. “Obedient to the point of death” involves suffering.
The point that is being emphasized at the end of this section is that if we want to be true disciples of Jesus then there will be suffering, adversity and conflict. It will be different for different people. But we are to be obedient and submit to the Lord, and we don't know how to do that outside of being in an adversity type of situation.
The result of Jesus submitting to the authority of God isn't that He is just abased. It isn't that He is put down and becomes a nobody, but because He is willing to do the will of God and submit to Him, recognizing that it is not about His position or power but about God's will. Then God elevates Him. The same can be true of disciples. That is why Jesus said when Salome comes to Him to get James and John a position that it is not His responsibility. It is up to the Father. The Father is the one who exalts.
Philippians 2:9 NASB “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, [10] so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
He was treated as a common criminal, as the lowest of the low, the last of the last, and yet He is going to be the first of the first because He submitted Himself to the will of God.
The principle that we see all through the Scripture is that the path to exaltation and glory is through complete submission to the authority of God. But we aren't to be concerned about what that glory is going to look like.
This idea of suffering and adversity is brought out a lot in 1 Peter. 1 Peter 2:21 NASB “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps”. We were called to suffer, i.e. in terms of the Gospel. Not just suffering in its own sake but that as we are living in the devil's world to be a representative of God's grace, authority and salvation, we are going to face opposition. [22] “WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH. [23] and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting {Himself} to Him who judges righteously; [24] and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.”
1 Peter 4:1, 2 NASB “Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.”
In 2 Corinthians 12 God allowed in His permissive will an angel of Satan to provide a level of persecution or opposition to Paul's, called the thorn in the flesh, and Paul had to deal with this. This wasn't direct and personal; it was indirect through all the opposition and suffering that Paul went through. Paul pleaded with God three times that it might depart from him. But God said no, I'm not taking it away. Why? Because you have to learn something: 2 Corinthians 12:9 NASB “And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” That is the focal point. We don't learn that though unless we are willing to submit to the authority of God.