Category: Expository Thoughts on Matthew by J.C. Ryle

This chapter is one of peculiar solemnity. Here is the record of the first ordination which ever took place in the Church of Christ. The Lord Jesus chooses and sends forth the twelve apostles. Here is an account of the first charge ever delivered to newly ordained Christian ministers. The Lord Jesus Himself delivers it. Never was there so important an ordination! Never was there so solemn a charge!

There are three lessons which stand out prominently on the face of the first fifteen verses of this chapter. Let us take them in order.

We are taught, in the first place, that all ministers are not necessarily good men. We see our Lord choosing a Judas Iscariot to be one of His apostles. We cannot doubt that He who knew all hearts, knew well the characters of the men whom He chose; and He includes in the list of His apostles one who was a traitor!

There are four lessons in this passage which deserve close attention. Let us mark them each in succession.

Let us mark, in the first place, that strong faith in Christ may sometimes be found where it might least have been expected.

Who would have thought that two blind men would have called our Lord the “Son of David”? They could not, of course, have seen the miracles that He did: they could only know Him by common report. But the eyes of their understanding were enlightened, if their bodily eyes were dark; they saw the truth which scribes and Pharisees could not see; they saw that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. They believed that He was able to heal them.

Let us mark, in this passage, the gracious name by which the Lord Jesus speaks of Himself. He calls Himself “the Bridegroom.”

What the bridegroom is to the bride, the Lord Jesus is to the souls of all who believe in Him. He loves them with a deep and everlasting love; He takes them into union with Himself: they are “one with Christ and Christ in them.” He pays all their debts to God; He supplies all their daily need; He sympathizes with them in all their troubles; He bears with all their infirmities, and does not reject them for a few weaknesses. He regards them as part of Himself: those that persecute and injure them are persecuting Him. The glory that He has received from His Father they will one day share with Him, and where He is, there shall they be. Such are the privileges of all true Christians. They are the Lamb’s wife. (Rev. 19:7) Such is the portion to which faith admits us. By it God joins our poor sinful souls to one precious Husband; and those whom God thus joins together shall never be put asunder. Blessed indeed are they that believe!

Let us notice, in the first part of this passage, our Lord’s knowledge of men’s thoughts.

There were certain of the scribes who found fault with the words which Jesus spoke to a man sick of the palsy: they said secretly among themselves, “This man blasphemeth.” They probably supposed that no one knew what was going on in their minds: they had yet to learn that the Son of God could read hearts, and discern spirits. Their malicious thought was publicly exposed: they were put to an open shame. Jesus “knew their thoughts.”

The subject of these seven verses is deep and mysterious. The casting out of a devil is here described with special fullness. It is one of those passages which throw strong light on a dark and difficult point.

Let us settle it firmly in our minds that there is such a being as the devil. It is an awful truth, and one too much overlooked. There is an unseen spirit ever near us, of mighty power, and full of endless malice against our souls. From the beginning of creation he has laboured to injure man; until the Lord comes the second time and binds him, he will never cease to tempt, and practise mischief. In the days when our Lord was upon earth, it is clear that He had a peculiar power over the bodies of certain men and women, as well as over their souls. Even in our own times there may be more of this bodily possession than some suppose, though confessedly in a far less degree than when Christ came in the flesh. But that the devil is ever near us, and ever ready to ply our hearts with temptations, ought never to be forgotten.

In the first part of these verses we see a striking example of our Lord’s wisdom in dealing with those who professed a willingness to be His disciples. The passage throws so much light on a subject frequently misunderstood in these days, that it deserves more than ordinary attention.

A certain Scribe offers to follow our Lord whithersoever He goes. It was a remarkable offer, when we consider the class to which the man belonged, and the time at which it was made. But the offer receives a remarkable answer. It is not directly accepted, nor yet flatly rejected. Our Lord only makes the solemn reply, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.”

The eighth chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel is full of our Lord’s miracles: no less than five are specially recorded. There is a beautiful fitness in this. It was fitting that the greatest sermon ever preached should be immediately followed by mighty proofs that the preacher was the Son of God. Those who heard the Sermon on the Mount would be obliged to confess, that, as none “spake such words as this man,” so also none did such works.

The verses we have now read contain three great miracles: a leper is healed with a touch; a palsied person is made well by a word; a woman sick with a fever is restored in a moment to health and strength. On the face of these three miracles we may read three striking lessons. Let us examine them, and lay them to heart.

The Lord Jesus winds up the Sermon on the Mount by a passage of heart-piercing application. He turns from false prophets to false professors, from unsound teachers to unsound hearers. Here is a word for all. May we have grace to apply it to our own hearts!

The first lesson here is the uselessness of a mere outward profession of Christianity. Not everyone that saith “Lord, Lord” shall enter the kingdom of heaven. Not all that profess and call themselves Christians shall be saved.

In this part of the Sermon on the Mount our Lord begins to draw His discourse to a conclusion. The lessons He here enforces on our notice, are broad, general, and full of the deepest wisdom. Let us mark them in succession.

He lays down a general principle for our guidance in all doubtful questions between man and man.

We are “to do to others as we would have others do to us.” We are not to deal with others as others deal with us: this is mere selfishness and heathenism. We are to deal with others as we would like others to deal with us: this is real Christianity.

The first portion of these verses is one of those passages of Scripture, which we must be careful not to strain beyond its proper meaning. It is frequently abused and misapplied by the enemies of true religion. It is possible to press the words of the Bible so far that they yield not medicine, but poison.

When our Lord says, “Judge not”, He does not mean that it is wrong, under any circumstances, to pass an unfavourable judgment on the conduct and opinions of others. We ought to have decided opinions: we are to “prove all things”; we are to “try the spirits.’’ (1 Thess. 5:21; 1 John 4:1) Nor yet does He mean that it is wrong to reprove the sins and faults of others until we are perfect and faultless ourselves. Such an interpretation would contradict other parts of Scripture: it would make it impossible to condemn error and false doctrine; it would debar any one from attempting the office of a minister or a judge. The earth would be “given into the hands of the wicked“ (Job 9:24): heresy would flourish: wrong-doing would abound.