Matthew 4:12-25: Jesus Begins his Kingdom of Heaven Movement

The Story So Far

Jesus has been born, inaugurating a new creation and reasserting God’s rule over the rebellious nations of the world. Visitors from the pagan East come to worship him even as the King of the Jews tries to use them to find the infant Jesus and kill him. John the Baptist has appeared announcing the imminence of God’s New Exodus. Many Jews have come to him to be baptized and prepare those Jews who will to participate in the new redemptive movement. Jesus himself has come to John for baptism and it hears the divine affirmation of his identity and vocation as King, Servant, and Sacrifice. In the wake of this experience the Spirit leads Jesus into the desert for another, very different experience at the hands of the devil. Jesus vanquishes this enemy and that brings us to the passage we look at in this post.

Jesus has retraced Israel’s steps as it sought to be faithful to God who graciously rescued them from slavery in Egypt. The people failed at almost every step on the path finally landing them in exile in Babylon, an exile that continued to oppress them at the time Jesus was born. Born an heir of Abraham, he too is God’s Son. He too comes through the water (of baptism) and is tested in the wilderness. Only he retains his faithfulness to God. He proves an obedient Son willing to submit to God’s way of being Messiah amid a welter of other models satanically designed to derail his faithfulness as they had Israel’s centuries earlier.

Now John has been thrown in jail for his courageous and prophetic witness. "But Herod the tetrarch, being rebuked by (John) about Herodias, his brother’s wife, and about all the evil things Herod had done, added this to everything else—he locked John up in prison"(Lk.3:19-20). Hearing this, Jesus moves even further north away from Herod to Capernaum. And there he made his programmatic announcement: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

Three Key Themes: Presence, Covenant, Kingdom

Let’s remind ourselves of the big picture God is working on and the role Jesus’ work narrated in this gospel plays in it.

-God’s presence, his being with his creatures in the closest and most intimate fellowship possible, suffusing his creation with himself that it reflects his glory in his people, is the bottom line of God’s plan. Temple is the biblical symbol for this divine end game.

-God’s covenant with his people forms the nucleus of his family through whom he will bless the rest of his rebellious creatures and bring them into his family. These are the people with whom God will share his presence and life throughout eternity here on this creation made new.

-God’s kingdom is his rule over his creation. Rebellious humanity usurped his rule seizing it for themselves in a heinous act of ingratitude and pride. God takes it upon himself to reassert his rightful rule through Jesus, though in ways no one could have imagined. This would take place in two stages. First, Israel would be offered one last chance to be the Israel God intended them to be and, failing to heed that offer, God would judge them for their infidelity. A second stage to God’s reasserting his rightful rule over his rebellious world is the resurrection of Jesus by which he is installed far above all other rule and authority as the world’s true ruler. This universal rule of the risen Jesus is the ground of Paul’s ministry and mission and constitutes God’s judgment of the illicit rule of the pagan nations over God’s world. Jesus’ ministry is focused on the first stage of this coming of God’s kingdom while Paul declares and operates on the second stage directed at the nations.[1]

Kingdom and covenant are essential conditions for God’s presence. God must be in charge and he must have a people to be present to. The reassertion of God’s kingship and the reconstituting of God’s people are the chief purposes of Jesus’ earthly ministry. It was for both kingdom and covenant that he came, lived and died as he did, and was raised from the grave to establish these essential conditions for God’s presence and glory to cover the earth as the water covers the seas.

Jesus Begins his Kingdom of Heaven Movement

Jesus kick-starts this whole process with his announcement that the kingdom of heaven has come near or is right at the doorstep. The clock has hit zero and there is no more time to wait. Now is the moment to get with God’s program or face the alternative. And that alternative was to be caught up in and crushed by the Roman juggernaut in the ill-fated war of 66-70 a.d. That is the judgment that awaits the Jews who do not embrace Jesus’ way of being Israel. The judgment that signifies ethnic Israel is as ethnic Israel is no longer God’s Abrahamic people who he will use to bless the world (more on this later).

Jesus’ call to repent, then, is strictly speaking directed to his Jewish compatriots and the fateful decision they must make about how they will go about being Israel and its consequences. He is not calling later Gentile readers to have faith in Jesus and join a church. That will come but it is not what this passage is about. It is about, well, Tom Wright describes it well:

“Jesus grew up in the shadow of kingdom-movements. The Romans had conquered his homeland about sixty years before he was born. They were the last in a long line of pagan nations to do so. They had installed Herod the Great, and then his sons after him, as puppet monarchs to do their dirty work for them. Most Jews resented both parts of this arrangement, and longed for a chance to revolt.

“But they weren’t just eager for freedom in the way that most subject peoples are. They wanted it because of what they believed about God, themselves and the world. If there was one God who had made the whole world, and if they were his special people, then it couldn’t be God’s will to have pagan foreigners ruling them. What’s more, God had made promises in their scriptures that one day he would indeed rescue them and put everything right. And these promises focused on one thing in particular: God would become king.

“King not only of Israel but of the whole world. A king who would bring justice and peace at last, who would turn the upside-down world the right way up again. There should be no king but God, the revolutionaries believed. God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, was what they longed for, prayed for, worked for, and were prepared to die for.

“And now Jesus was declaring that God’s kingdom, the sovereign rule of heaven, was approaching like an express train. Those who were standing idly by had better take note and get out of the way. God’s kingdom meant danger as well as hope. If justice and peace are on the way, those who have twisted justice or disturbed peace may be in trouble. They had better get their act together while there’s time. And the good old word for that is: ‘Repent!’”[2]

And “repent” means something like, “Quick! Get on the right side now! Trouble is coming!” And Jesus’ kingdom message defined that “right side” for all who had ears to hear and eyes to see. The regime change he announces upends and redefines all other notions of authority and ruling and demands a response.

It was Herod’s imprisonment of John that somehow signaled to Jesus that it was time to go public with the ministry for which God had been preparing him for thirty years (v.12).

“The relationship between John and Jesus is like that between Elijah and Elisha. John is an Elijah figure—dressed in camel hair, alone in the wilderness, denouncing the leaders of his time, persecuted by a vacillating king and a far more determined queen. John is the paradigm of the lone prophet, calling the nation to repentance and predicting judgment. Jesus is not alone, and Jesus is not in the wilderness. He calls disciples, visits synagogues, travels from town to town, goes to Jerusalem. He is Elisha, gathering a group of disciples who will carry on His mission and ministry. Jesus’ ministry is also like Elisha’s in the fact that it is largely a ministry of mercy.”[3]

He moved north to Capernaum and went forth announcing, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” That Jesus feels it necessary relocate even further away from Judea, “land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali” and that Matthew interprets this as a fulfillment of prophecy clearly suggests that the powers that be in Judaism were not going to give Jesus’ kingdom announcement a welcome reception. We’ve already met this theme in the magi’s coming to worship Jesus versus Herod’s desire to exterminate him. Jesus’ cry of regime change finds open eyes and ears most readily at the margins, far from the seat of power, even among the Gentiles.[4] And that makes sense. The margins are usually the places where those left out or marginalized by the present system gather. So it is to them, “Galilee of the Gentiles” (v.15) that Jesus first goes, and it is there that “the light . . . dawned” (v.16). Even though his ministry was not to them, that Gentiles, like the pagan magi, respond favorably to his message puts official Judaism in a most unflattering light. It is judgment and condemnation on them and foreshadows the response Jesus will consistently receive from it. “The wickedness of Judah forces the light to withdraw to the northern extremities of the land, where the kingdom of the new David first begins to take shape among the semi-Jews of Galilee.”[5]

Fishing for People

The first thing Jesus does is recruit some disciples. He never imagines that his mission is as a lone ranger. He may be faithful Israel reduced to one but he has no intention of it remaining that way. His end game is his Father’s end game: a world full of people living in the intimacy and fullness of communication, communion, and community with him. So he starts with four fisherfolk he finds at work by the Sea of Galilee. Two sets of brothers, Peter and Andrew, James and John, “immediately” respond to his call, leave all and follow him (vv.20,22).

Interestingly, Jesus tells the first pair, Peter and Andrew, that in following him he will make them “fish for people.” This image goes back to the Old Testament prophets. However, there it is associated with judgment.

“Prophets speak of Gentile nations invading the land to capture Israel and remove them from the land (Jeremiah 16:16; Amos 4:2). In these passages, “fishing for men” is a picture of invasion and exile. Yahweh threatens that Gentiles are going to come into the land and remove the Israelites. They are going to pursue them until they find them. There will be no place to hide. Those who are captured will be pulled from the sea and taken into exile in Babylon, among the Gentiles.”[6]

In Jesus’ hands this imagery of invasion is retained but turned on its head. Now it’s his followers “fishing” among the people of Israel to save as many as they can from the crushing end of exile which coming upon the Israel which does not follow Jesus. He makes this definitional of their work for him.

This invasion of those Jews still imprisoned in exile featured Jesus going through Galilee teaching and preaching about God’s soon to come reassertion of his rule over his rebellious world and his own reconstitution of Abrahamic Israel. And his actions that virtually every scholar regards as historically true of Jesus, his healings and exorcisms, were the main draw which gathered crowds and convinced many of them that he was, in fact, the real deal. He was soon overwhelmed by the crowds reports of his ministry among the people drew. And out in the margins of Galilee and beyond a sizeable following arose for Jesus. His kingdom of heaven movement was underway!

Reading the Call of the Disciples Today

Peter and Andrew, John and James, most dramatically, and all of the other twelve disciples who became apostles were called to drop the lives they were leading and follow Jesus on the road for the duration of his ministry. That, however, does not happen to most of us later disciples. How should we understand this seeming disconnect? Were they better than we are? Stronger? Able to bear the full weight of discipleship while we later followers are only held to lesser standard? Peter Leithart has some wise words for us on this matter.

“This is consistent with the radical demand that Jesus makes throughout the gospel. He calls people from an established way of life. He calls people from their families. He says that they have to be willing to leave everything behind if they are going to be His disciples. His disciples must be willing to hate father and mother for his sake. When someone wants to go back and bury his dead father, Jesus says, with scandalous indifference to filial duty, “Let the dead bury their dead.” The command and claim of Jesus overwhelms even the highest of natural affections and demands. Of course, Jesus also promises that we receive more back than we renounce; everyone who leaves father and mother to follow Jesus receives back fathers and mothers a hundredfold (Mark 10). There is a promise of increase, but the demand is radical and requires faith in Jesus, because the promise of increase is not immediately apparent.

“For Peter and Andrew, James and John, this is a call to ministry alongside Jesus that is unique. For these and the rest of the twelve, ministry with Jesus becomes a lifetime vocation. Not every believer is called to this kind of service, but every believer is called by Jesus to reorient everything in life around Him, around Jesus. Even if you don’t leave your home, you have to live in your home as a disciple of Jesus. Even if you don’t leave your nets and boats and business behind, you are called to follow Him. This is not a call to some elite shock troops of the kingdom. Every subject of Jesus’ kingdom, of the kingdom of heaven, is called to restructure their time, their spending of money, their desires and hopes, their actions, their plans, their child-raising, their marriages, their work, their leisure in radical ways. From the roots up, everything is to be redirected toward Jesus.”[7]

Healings, Exorcisms, and the Bible in its Cultural Context

This chapter introduces us in general to the healing and exorcizing ministry of Jesus. In the summary passages like 4:23. Usually these are seen as acts of compassion (which they are) or acts of combat against the spiritual forces fighting against God and God’s people (which they are). But there is even more going on than that, I think. Something even deeper and more profound.

That something begins with us reminding ourselves that the creation was a divine act of temple building.

“[T]he cosmos is seen as Yahweh’s temple-palace, and the climax of creation is the installation of humanity as his “cult-idol” or image-bearer within it . . . the exodus from Egypt, Israel’s return from exile, and God’s new exodus/new creational work in Christ Jesus are best understood in terms of the restoration of the defaced image-bearer and consequently the restoration of the cosmos as Yahweh’s temple-palace in which the newly Spirit-indwelt image-bearer is installed.”[8]

Further, it is important to realize, as do most interpreters these days, that the depictions of God in the Bible include his physicality. To be made in God’s image, then, is to be “an embodied form (which) is also integral to our “functioning” as Yahweh’s image in this physical world. Furthermore, far from being an inanimate object, the image was indwelt by the very life of the deity, such that the image became the primary focus of his presence on the earth (cf. Jer. 10:14; Hab. 2:19).”[9]

The Spirit indwells and animates us as his image-bearers, even in our physicality. We are God’s hands, feet, and arms! Sin and devil deform and mar that divine image we are. Jesus heals and exorcizes out of compassion, and as a part of his struggle against the forces of evil, but most importantly, he does so to restore the image of God that we are so we may be restored to our identity and vocation as royal priests in God’s creational temple-palace.

That’s why most of the healings that are specifically recorded in the gospels are of eyes, ears, and limbs and their extremities and exorcisms of evil spirits. Jesus obviously healed all kinds of illnesses and injuries. We don’t read of him healing a bad back, a cold, a case of pneumonia, shingles, or such things, though. Most of what read are stories like we find in Mt.8-9:

-of a leper,

-a paralyzed child,

-a fever,

-two demoniacs,

-a paralyzed man,

-a dead daughter of a synagogue leader,

-two blind men, and

-a mute demoniac.

Leprosy ostracized one from the community, paralysis from active life and caring from others, demoniacs’ minds, hearts, and bodies needed a new Spirit to restore them to sanity and health, death from life itself, blindness from sight, and muteness from communicating with others. We also find a fever healed in this series of miracle stories, included probably because the woman involved was Peter’s mother-in-law and Matthew makes a point of her healing leading to her serving the others. Interestingly, this selection of stories seem to parallel much of the ritual in pagan temples as they serve the image of their deity. Specific rituals are performed to bring the various parts of the image to life: feet, arms, ears, eyes, and mouth. Another ritual called on the spirit of the god to infuse the image making it a real representation of that deity. I suspect this paralleling is intentional, at least on the deepest level, to speak of God’s restoration of his image and Spirit to his defaced and lifeless human images.

A final note here from Watts:

“Creation’s faith, as temple-palace for the image-bearer, is intimately linked to the authenticity of the image-bearer. Therefore, Paul can say that just as our rebellion caused creation to be subjected to the futility of not achieving its intended goal, so ‘creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of god;… in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God’ (Rom. 8:19-21 NRSV).”[10]

And that integrity and authenticity comprise the gift of salvation. Salvation is our destiny by God’s grace to be sure. But it is also and most importantly our opportunity and duty to exercise the ministry of royal priesthood in God’s creational temple for which we were created.

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[1] This view of Jesus’ work and the two stages of the coming of God’s kingdom are expounded in more detail in Andrew Perriman, Re: Mission (Paternoster, 2007).

[2] Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part1: 681-692.

[3] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 1357-1361.

[4] Galilee was not a thoroughly Gentile region, but it was considered a borderland, not quite fully Gentile but not quite fully Jewish either. Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 1378.

[5] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 1395.

[6] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 1422-1426.

[7] Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew: 14061418.

[8] Rikk Watts, “The New Exodus/New Creational Restoration of the Image of God” in What Does it Mean to Be Saved? (edited by John Stackhouse), 18.

[9] Watts, “New Exodus,” 21.

[10] Watts, “New Exodus,” 35.