Friday, February 21
Hosea 2: In his first epistle Peter once describes his audience as God’s Chosen People: “But you are an elect generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a treasured People, that you may declare the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; formerly you were not a people, but now the People of God; you once had not obtained mercy, but now you have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).
Peter tells his audience that they had formerly “not obtained mercy,” but now they have “obtained mercy.” The reference here is drawn from the prophecies of Hosea: “And I shall sow her for Myself upon the earth, and I will have mercy on ‘her-that-received-no-mercy,’ and to ‘not-my-people’ I will say, “You are My People,” and he shall say, “You are the Lord my God” (Hosea 2:25).
The original context of this passage is important to Peter’s interpretation of it. Hosea, we recall, was commanded to give symbolic names to his children. With respect to his newborn daughter, for instance, the Lord commanded him, “Call her name ‘She-that-received-no-mercy’ (Lo-Ruhama in Hebrew), for I will no longer have mercy on the House of Israel” (Hosea 2:6). Somewhat later the Lord gave a similar instruction regarding a newborn son: “Call his name ‘Not-My-people’ (Lo-Ammi in Hebrew), because you are not My people, and I am not your God” (2:8)
These ominous names of Hosea’s children served as part of his prophetic message to the Northern Kingdom in the mid-eighth century. Like much of the rest of the Book of Hosea they were a warning about the catastrophe destined to befall idolatrous Israel not long afterwards, in 722, when Sargon II and the Assyrians destroyed the kingdom and dragged great masses of the population into exile in the eastern half of the Fertile Crescent. This sinful nation, in short, deserved to be called “She-that-received-no-mercy” and “Not-my-people.”
For Hosea, however, this coming catastrophe was not the end of Israel’s story; he went on to prophesy a restoration, a new era in which the Lord would remove the names of the false gods from Israel’s lips, renew His Covenant with His People, and betroth them to Himself forever (2:17-19).
In fact, nonetheless, the rest of Old Testament history testifies to no such restoration. The ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom were largely absorbed into the indigenous populations of Mesopotamia, and very little else was heard of them. That is to say, Hosea’s prophecy of restoration had not yet been justified by the facts.
But now, says Peter, Hosea’s foretold restoration is fulfilled in the Church, particularly in the incorporation—“embodying”—of the Gentiles into the historical continuity of God’s People. Up to the appearance of Christ, these Gentiles were certainly “She-that-received-no-mercy” and “Not-my-people.” They were “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, devoid of hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
It is appropriate to cite this Pauline text by way of explaining Peter’s view of Hosea, inasmuch as Paul himself read those prophecies in the same way. Some six or so years before Peter wrote this letter from Rome, Paul had written to Rome, “Suppose God, desiring to demonstrate wrath and to manifest His power, very patiently endured the vessels of wrath that were prepared for destruction—and to make known the riches of His glory towards the vessels of mercy that He had pre-planned for glory, even us whom He called, not only from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. As He says also in Hosea: “I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved.” “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God” (Romans 9:25-26)
As Peter and Paul regard these texts from Hosea, they perceive in them a further dimension, a fulfillment ranging far beyond the wildest dreams of Israel’s melancholy prophet eight centuries earlier. In the drama enacted in the geo-political world of ancient Assyria, they discerned God’s promise of a restoration that would transform all of history.
Saturday, February 22
Matthew 19.23-30: It is only with great difficulty, declares the Savior of the world, that a rich man can even enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus begins this section of Matthew (verses 23-30), paralleled in Mark 10:23-31 and Luke 18:24-30.
Over the centuries of Old Testament history we can discern a deep transformation in Israel’s thinking about wealth. The ancient Wisdom tradition had associated the accumulation of wealth with the virtuous life, as we see in Proverbs.
That earlier literature, while not unaware of the spiritual dangers associated with wealth, had spent little space expounding on those dangers. It was Israel’s prophetic voice, rather, beginning with Elijah’s denunciation of Ahab in the 9th century, that began to elaborate the theme of the dangers posed by too much preoccupation with wealth. This was a major theme, of course, in the great social prophets of the 8th century. Gradually it found its way more explicitly in the Wisdom literature as well, Sirach 31:3-5 being one of its more eloquent expressions. Jesus’ approach to the subject in the present text is of a piece with what we find in Sirach.
Matthew omits the initial wonderment of the disciples mentioned by Mark (10:24), but he does include the Lord’s elaboration of the theme in the hyperbole of the camel and the eye of the needle.
As an image of “great difficulty,” this seems an unlikely hyperbole. It strikes the reader, rather, as a simple metaphor for impossibility. Indeed, there is a clear parallel to it in rabbinical literature, which speaks of the impossibility of passing an elephant through the eye of a needle (Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth 55b). Does Jesus mean, then, “very difficult” or “utterly inconceivable”?
Since there appear to be no circumstances in which it is humanly possible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, various fanciful interpretations have been advanced to explain away the toughness of the text. One of these, manifestly invented by someone who had no idea what he was talking about, refers to a small gate in the wall of Jerusalem. This is fanciful; there ere is not the faintest historical evidence of such a gate.
On the other hand, since the Lord’s hyperbole contains a bit of metaphor-mixing, others have tried their hand at “correcting” Him. After all, why would anyone try to pass a camel, to say nothing of an elephant, through the eye of a needle? What purpose would it serve? You can’t sew with an elephant. It was apparently to address this difficulty that a tenth century copyist devised a very slight textual change in Luke’s version of the parable. He altered kamelos (camel) to kamilos (rope). A rope, after all, has an obvious affinity to a thread, whereas camel does not.
This reading of “rope” for “camel,” first found in a manuscript penned in A.D. 949 and copied into a few other manuscripts, is rather clever, even ingenious, but it is also too late in history to be taken seriously. One should be very cautious about biblical interpretations—much less biblical readings—that don’t appear at all in the first thousand years of Christian history!
What, then, about the impossibility implied in the Lord’s saying? The subsequent verse, in fact, confirms it. Yes, says Jesus, the salvation of the rich man is humanly impossible. This does not mean, however, that there is an impossibility on God’s side. God can pass a camel through the eye of the needle. Let the rich man take care, however. Let him be cautious, lest he be guilty of tempting the Almighty.
This metaphor of the camel and the needle, therefore, is something of a parallel with the moving of mountains. Both parables have to do with the power of faith in the God. Salvation is ever a gift of God, not a human achievement.
Peter’s response to this teaching may seem somewhat to exaggerate the size of his own abnegation. Just how successful was the fishing business that he gave up. After all, every time Peter catches a fish in the gospels, the event is regarded as a miracle. “Giving up everything” in Peter’s case may not appear, at first, to involve all that much.
Looks are deceptive, however. Peter’s commitment to our Lord would eventually lead him to witness the martyrdom of his wife (cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 7.11.63) and then be crucified upside down on Vatican Hill (cf. Tertullian, Scorpiace 15.3).
Moreover, the Lord himself honored what Peter had to say, and He promised to reward Peter’s self-sacrifice. He extends this promise to all the Twelve.
This is an important text in the ecclesiology of Matthew. The Apostles here—the institutional Twelve—become the new patriarchs, as it were, of the People of God. Their foundational role in the Church was so important that the Church took care to preserve even the exact number after the defection of Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:15-26).
The Lord’s promise of recompense is then extended to all those who, in imitation of the Twelve, would devote their lives to the closer following of Christ and the ministry of the Gospel along the road of self-abnegation (verse 29). These, too, will attain eternal life, the quest about which the rich man recently inquired (verse 16).
More than Mark, Matthew emphasizes the rewards of the world to come, omitting Mark’s inclusion of the rewards promised during the present age (cf. Mark 10:30).
The final verse in this chapter (verse 30), which is easily detachable from the present context, is apparently placed here because it prolongs the theme of reversal found in the previous verse—as the poor become rich, so the last become first, and the first last. This theme of reversal, in fact, appears to account for Matthew’s insertion of the next parable at this point. In that parable, as we shall see, the theme of reversal appears again (20:8).
Sunday, February 23
Matthew 21.23-32: We now come to the first of five controversy stories in which Jesus is confronted by various of His enemies. Matthew has inherited this series from Mark.
As we have seen, Jesus, upon entering Jerusalem, immediately began to behave as though the place belonged to Him. Right after His triumphal entry into the city with the acclamations of the crowd, He proceeded to purge the Temple and then curse the fig tree. All of this was an exercise of “authority” (exsousia).
His enemies, who have already shown themselves nervous about these events, now approach Him in the Temple to challenge this “authority” implicitly claimed in what has happened. The reader already knows, of course, the source of Jesus’ authority, so the Gospel writers do not tell this story in order to inform the reader on this point. The story is told to show, rather, the Lord’s complete control of the situation, especially His deft discomfiting of these hypocritical enemies. We earlier considered the Lord’s reference to this hypocrisy with respect to their relations to both Himself and John the Baptist (11:16-19).
The question, then, has to do with Jesus’ “authority” (exsousia), a word that appears four times in this story, twice in the first verse. This is an important idea in Matthew’s Christology; it appears among the last words of Jesus in this Gospel (28:18). The presence of this term in the parallel accounts of Mark and Luke, however, indicate that this was a word commonly used of the ministry and person of Jesus.
Nonetheless, in the versions of Matthew and Luke there is a detail that adds a special nuance to Jesus’ authority; namely, Jesus is portrayed as “teaching” in the Temple. Indeed, a few days later the Lord will refer to this fact at the time of His arrest (26:55; Luke 22:53). That is to say, it is specifically as the Teacher in the Temple that Jesus is challenged.
Jesus’ exsousia has to do with His ministry as a Teacher. It was earlier observed that “He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (7:29). We should see in this Matthew’s ongoing polemic against the rabbinical teachers of his own day.
The purpose of the hostile question makes it what is sometimes called “a lawyer’s question,” indicating a question asked for the purpose of making the respondent say too much, a question asked in order to find something recriminating to be used later in a courtroom.
Knowing this, of course, Jesus is not disposed to answer the question. He responds, rather, with a question of His own, along with a pledge to answer the first question if His opponents will answer the second (verse 24). This recourse to the counter-question is common in rabbinic style, and Jesus seems often to have used it.
The priests and elders immediately perceive their dilemma (verses 25-26). They are unwilling to express themselves honestly about the baptism of John, which is a symbol of John’s entire ministry. They are being asked, with respect to John, exactly the question they had posed with respect to Jesus. They had never been obliged to deal with that problem before, because Herod had taken care of it for them. Now they are put on the spot.
Caught thus on the horns of a dilemma, they plead ignorance, and the Lord responds by declining to answer the question they had put to Him. They are thus effectively foiled in the presence of those gathered to hear Jesus in the Temple.
There is an important matter of theology contained in this story. All through the Gospel Jesus has presented men with a choice, a decision, a yes-or-no, but His enemies have everywhere resorted to evasion and hostility. They have never inquired with sincerity, and the time for them has now run out. There is no more place of discourse, and certainly no more place for lawyers’ questions. These men are not seekers of the truth; their hearts are hard. They have already ascribed to Satan those generous, benevolent deeds by which Jesus showered His blessings on the blind, the lame, the suffering. Never have they responded positively to so many manifestations of the power of God in the ministry of Jesus. They have made no effort to humble their minds to understanding.
And now they meet complete silence on the part of Jesus: “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” Why bother? They will not hear Him. They do not genuinely want to know. He will not answer them. They have never bothered truly to attend to Him. Now He will trouble them no more. This is a picture of the final retribution. There comes a point in the career of the unrepentant sinner when God says, “Forget about it. I have said enough. You will not hear from Me again,” and there ensues the vast silence of the God who is weary of speaking to deaf ears and hard hearts.
Monday, February 24
Romans 7.1-6: Already in this epistle Paul has touched on the function of the Law with respect to the reign of sin and death. In the present chapter he treats the theme in a more ample fashion. How is it, he wonders, that something so godly as the Law, given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, should actually serve the interests of sin and death?
When Paul had reflected on the historical function of the Law a few years earlier, his attitude had been more positive. Life under the Torah, he told the Galatians, was a stage of instruction, a period of pedagogy, a tutorial in the ways of righteousness, a preparatory time during which the People of God were kept morally safe. He wrote,
But before faith came, we were guarded by the Law, held in restraint for the faith which was going to be revealed. Therefore, the Law was our tutor unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (Galatians 3:23-25).
Here in Romans, however, Paul’s perspective on the Torah has clearly shifted and deepened. It has shifted in the direction of a dialectic and deepened in the perception of a mystery (Cf. 3:20,31; 4:15; 5:13,20).
The real problem, Paul argues now, was not with the Law itself; the problem was in the fallen human being, whose inherited bondage to sin and death rendered him incapable of observing the Law. The Torah, remaining external to man, did nothing to alter him within. Grace, Paul will argue presently, alters and transforms the human being from within.
To illustrate the Christian’s freedom from the Law, Paul resorts to an analogy prompted by his considerations of death in the previous chapter. He compares the Law to the regulation of marriage, the rule that provides for the dissolution of a marriage at the death of one of the partners. Now, as Paul has already argued, Christians have died to sin in their baptism. Since they are dead, therefore, the Law can make no further claim over them (verses 1-6; cf. 6:9, 14).
This was the truth at stake in the Judaizers’ conflict in Galatia a few years earlier, when Paul saw the very Gospel at risk. The claim that Christians are still bound by the sundry precepts of the Mosaic Law meant for Paul that they would return to the reign of death. Their union with Christ in baptism and faith would count for nothing.
In baptism the Christian had died, by being sacramentally united to Christ in His death (verse 4). It is through their union with the sacrificial body of Christ that Christians are delivered from the curse of the Law (Galatians 2:10-20; 3:13). The faithful are no longer wed to the Law but to the Lord who died and rose again. This mystery introduces the “eschatological now” (verse 6), “the newness of the Spirit” (6:4).
In contrasting this newness of the Spirit with “the oldness of the letter,” Paul touches on an exegetical theme that he had treated at some length the previous year, in 2 Corinthians 3—4.
Tuesday, February 25
Psalm 136 (Greek & Latin 135): Because the line “for His mercy endures forever” appears in each of its twenty-six verses, Psalm 136 is known in Greek as the polyeleion, or “manifold mercy.”
After three introductory verses that call for the praise of God, one may distinguish three stanzas in this psalm. Stanza 1, verses 4–9, we may think of as the “cosmic stanza,” because it deals with God’s work of Creation described in the opening verses of Genesis. This stanza is structured on four verbs (descriptive participles in Hebrew): “does great wonders . . . made the heavens . . . laid out the earth . . . made great lights.” Verses 8 and 9 are a continuation of verse 7 (“the sun to rule by day . . . the moon and stars to rule by night”) and bring the “cosmic” portion of the psalm to a close.
But Creation is the stage on which God makes history, so in stanza 2, verses 10–22, we move from Genesis to Exodus. This we may think of as the “history stanza,” containing material from the Books of Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua. In this stanza likewise there is a fourfold series of verbs (again, descriptive participles in Hebrew), this time mainly in pairs, that describe God’s redemptive activity for His people: (1) “struck Egypt . . . and brought out Israel;” (2) “divided the Red Sea . . . and made Israel pass through;” (3) “overthrew Pharaoh . . . led His people through the wilderness;” (4) “struck down great kings . . . slew famous kings . . . and gave their land as a heritage.”
Finally, stanza 3, verses 23–26, speaks of God’s continuing care for His people down through the ages. He is not simply a God of the past, but of “us,” the present generation of believers. The last part of the psalm is about here and now: “remembered us in our lowly estate . . . rescued us from our enemies . . . gives food to all flesh.”
Thus, Psalm 136 pursues a threefold theme: creation, deliverance, and the continued care of the redeemed. In this respect, the triple structure of our psalm is identical with that of the Nicene Creed: God made us, God saved us, God stays and provides for us all days unto the end. In the Creed, this structure is explicitly Trinitarian: “one God, the Father Almighty, the Creator . . . one Lord, Jesus Christ . . . the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life.”
Psalm 136 insists, literally in every verse, that the root of all of God’s activity in this world, beginning even with the world’s creation, is mercy—hesed. This mercy is eternal—le‘olam—“forever.” Mercy is the cause and reason of all that God does. He does nothing, absolutely nothing, except as an expression of His mercy. His mercy stretches out to both extremes of infinity. “For His mercy endures forever” is the palimpsest that lies under each line of Holy Scripture.
The encounter with God’s mercy is the root of all Christian worship. Everything else that can be said of God is but an aspect of His mercy. Mercy is the defining explanation of everything that God has revealed of Himself. Every service of worship is a polyeleion, a celebration of God’s sustained and abundant mercy.
Mercy is the explanation of every single thought that God has with respect to us. When we deal with God, everything is mercy; all we will ever discover of God will be the deepening levels of His great, abundant, overflowing, rich and endless mercy. “For His mercy endures forever” is the eternal song of the saints.
Wednesday, February 26
Matthew 22:15-22: From a purely material perspective, this series of conflict stories, all of them placed during the final week of our Lord’s earthly life, is nearly identical in the three Synoptic Gospels. This fact offers strong testimony that the final chapters in these three Gospels reflect the preaching of the early Church, which apparently knew a standard narrative structure respecting the last week of Jesus’ life on earth.
Matthew follows this structure. In this series of conflict stories he has already begun to introduce those persons who will play an active hand in the drama of the Crucifixion. Already he has introduced the chief priests, the elders, and the Pharisees (21:23,45). Now he introduces the Pharisees again, the Herodians, and the Roman government—the latter symbolized in the coin of taxation.
In the story that follows this one he will introduce the Sadducees, the party of the priesthood (verse 23). Throughout these stories, then, Matthew is bringing back once again that confluence of enemies that were intent on killing “the King of the Jews” at the beginning of this Gospel (2:3-4).
The evil intent of the Pharisees’ question is noted at the beginning of the story (verse 15). This question is part of a “plot” (symboulion). His enemies want to “trap” Jesus (padigevo), a verb that appears only here in the New Testament). Pharisees and Herodians had no use for one another, but their common hatred of Jesus unites their efforts to spring a trap on Him.
This conspiracy of God’s enemies made a deep impression on the early Christians. Indeed, they saw it as the fulfillment of a prophecy in Psalm 2 (cf. Acts 4:23-30).
The Lord’s enemies commence with manifest flattery, evidently to put Jesus off His guard before springing their loaded question (verse 16). All three of the Synoptics mention this detail.
The payment of the head tax to the Roman government was a source of resentment and occasional rebellion among the Jews, both because it was a sign of their subjection to Rome and because they disliked handling the graven image of the emperor on the coin. To this question, then, either a yes or a no answer could provide the basis for a political accusation against Jesus—or at least could gain Him new enemies. If Jesus forbade the paying of this tax, He would offend the Herodians. If He approved of it, He would further offend the Pharisees. Either way, He would give offense.
Reading their hearts (verse 18; 9:4) and reprimanding their hypocrisy, the Lord obliges them to produce the coin in question, thereby making it clear that they all do, in fact, have the coin and do pay the tax (verse 19).
That point established, He then obliges them to identify the head and name on the coin, namely, Tiberius Caesar (A.D. 14-37). Obviously the coin belongs to the emperor, so they can continue doing what they have always done—pay the tax. Caesar minted and distributed the coin. It is his.
Separated from its literary context, this story answers a practical question for Christians, and it has always served that purpose. Considered thus, it is consonant with the general teaching about taxation that we find elsewhere in the New Testament (cf. Romans 13:7; 1 Peter 2:13-19).
But then Jesus goes on. The concern of Jesus, however, is not identical with that of His enemies. He is not concerned about what is owed to Caesar, but what is owed to God. This, too, must be paid, and Jesus is about to pay it. Rendering unto God the things of God refers to our Lord’s approaching sufferings and death. Thus, what began as a mundane political question is transformed into a theological matter of great moment, leaving them all amazed (verse 22).
It is important, however, to keep this story in the context where the Gospels place it, the context of the Lord’s impending death. The question posed to Jesus is not a theoretical question. Indeed, it is not even a practical question. It is a loaded question—a question with an evil ulterior motive. It is a sword aimed at the Lord’s life.
And this is the sense in which we should understand Jesus’ response. Understood in this way, the Lord’s directive is full of irony. He tells His enemies to give back to God that which belongs to Him. And, in context, just what is that? It is Jesus Himself, whose life they will steal, and in their act of murder that which belongs to God will be rendered unto God.
Thursday, February 27
Romans 8;1-11: The Spirit, hitherto referred to only five times in the previous seven chapters, will be named twenty-nine times in the present chapter, easily the highest concentration in all of Paul’s writings, and even in the whole New Testament.
Once again Paul begins with the “eschatological now”: “Therefore, there is no condemnation now for those is Christ Jesus.” This qualifier is important in Romans. The “condemnation” of which we are free is the ancient “curse,” the finality of death and corruption (Galatians 3:10; 2 Corinthians 3:7, 9).
The grace of justification, “this grace in which we stand” (5:2), comes from the Holy Spirit who abides in us as a new and internal Law: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has liberated me from the law of sin and death” (v. 2). The indwelling Holy Spirit is the reason of our final salvation, which is the resurrection of our bodies.
If, however, we go back and begin again to “live according to the flesh” (verse 5)—flesh which is still destined to die (verse 10)—we place ourselves once more under the reign of death.
Hosea 8: Following the death of Solomon, the Northern Kingdom—called here both Israel and, from its largest tribe, Ephraim—was founded as an act of rebellion against Solomon’s successor, Rehoboam. In the mind of the biblical author, however, it was an act of rebellion against God.
From the beginning of that rebellion, its true motive had always been financial: The ten northern tribes had far more resources and advantages than the royal tribe of Judah in the south: their land was more fertile, and, because of their geographical proximity to Phoenicia, they were better situated with respect to the international markets. Consequently, the northern tribes were reluctant to be ruled any longer by a tribe unable to pull its own economic weight. They separated from Judah for financial reasons, which in their estimate were more important than adherence to the covenanted kingship at Jerusalem.
Beginning with Jeroboam, says the Lord, “they set up kings, but not by Me; they made princes, but I did not acknowledge them.” Going further, they set up shrines at Bethel and Dan to rival the Temple at Jerusalem. These shrines quickly became idolatrous. Their financial and political idolatry finally found expression in cultic idolatry.
Now, Hosea warns them, having sown the wind of temporary advantage, they will reap the whirlwind of history which is the lot of all those acting outside the will of God.
And now, says Hosea, they are about to pay for that infidelity. Their love of money was only the first of the idolatrous preferences that have, at last, brought them to the disaster soon to visit them. Hosea sees the signs of that impending doom in the geopolitics of his day, particularly the rivalries among Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt. Poor little Israel will be trampled when these elephantine nations begin to march. Like Amos, his contemporary, Hosea foresees the tragedy of 722, barely a generation in the future. The Northern Kingdom will be no more, its tribes dispersed by exile throughout the Fertile Crescent.
Friday, February 28
Matthew 5:13–20: In verse 11 the address of Jesus shifted from the third to the second person: “Blessed are you.” The addressed party is the Church—or rather, the Christians—inasmuch as the number of the address is plural. That plural, addressed to Christians, is maintained in the verses now under consideration: “You are the salt of the earth,” this section begins, and it ends, “for I say to you (verse 20).
We start with the metaphors of salt and light, both of them referring to Christians. In each case the beneficiary of these two blessings is the earth (ge) or World (kosmos), meaning those who are not Christians (verse 13). Salt and light describe the very people that the world persecutes and maligns (verses 11–12). No amount of persecution justifies the forfeiture of the Christian vocation to be salt and light to the rest of humanity. Neither salt nor light exist for themselves. Should Christians fail in this vocation, they are no longer of any use. They are to be “thrown out,” like the tares (13:40) and the inedible fish (13:48).
The metaphor of light on a lamp stand is transformed into a city seated on an acropolis, where it is visible to everyone (verse 14). Neither can Christians be concealed if they do the “good works” (ta kala erga) that their heavenly Father expects of them (verse 16). Those who see these good works belong to the same “earth” or “world” that persecutes the Christians. The world is to be enlightened by the very people it persecutes.
What Matthew has in mind here is the Christian vocation to holiness, by which the world is instructed in the ways of God. This holiness, according to the present passage, pertains to the missionary mandate of the Church. It is the way the Church shares the Gospel with “all nations” (28:19–20). This is the light that shines on those sitting in darkness (4:16).
The connecting link of verses 13–16 with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount is “your Father in heaven” (verse 16). This reference will become a leitmotif in the following chapter.
The rest of chapter five, starting with the present verses, is concerned with Jesus’ relationship to the Old Testament Law. This theme is related to the metaphors of salt and light through the continuity linking the Church to ancient Israel, the legitimate continuation of God’s redeemed people. It is the Church that continues Israel’s vocation to “salt” and illumine the world. For this reason it is imperative to speak of the Church’s relationship to the Torah, and this relationship is the subject of the rest of the present chapter.
Matthew has already begun to say a great deal about Jesus’ fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Now he starts to speak of Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law. Indeed, the word “prophets” in the present passage (verse 17) does not refer to the fulfillment of biblical prophecies in the Old Testament. It refer, rather, to the prophets in their role as interpreters of the Law—the prophets as moral teachers. The sense of this verse, then, is that Jesus completes, or brings to fulfillment, the moral doctrine of the Law and its continuation in the Prophets. Throughout the rest of this chapter, therefore, Matthew speaks simply of the Law, not mentioning the Prophets again.