And the Pharisees and Sadducees, coming to [him], asked him, tempting [him], to shew them a sign out of heaven.
At the start of Matthew 16, two groups who agreed on almost nothing arrive together. They ask Jesus for a sign from the sky. But they are not after evidence. Their request raises two questions: why do enemies unite against Him, and what does unbelief want when it asks for proof?
These two groups were opponents. One defended the law and its rules. The other were the freethinkers of their day. Only one thing brought them to the same spot.
It is a terrible thing to find opposing parties with only one thing uniting them — dislike of Jesus. At another time these people could have torn each other to pieces. But here is their meeting point: testing Jesus... There was no conflict between the scribes and the Pharisees, but a wide gap separated the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees were the freethinkers of the day. The Pharisees were the champions who stood up for religious rules and the authority of the law. But both joined together to test Jesus.
What holds such a partnership together is not shared conviction but a shared world.
Taken on their own, the Pharisee and the Sadducee thought completely differently. But the world can be what they hold in common when they resist Christ. We see this in Matthew 16:1-5. They come together and say to Him, "Show us a sign from heaven." That is, they challenge the Lord to prove Himself in some way the world could admire. If He will not, they will agree together to reject Him.
The verse says they came "to test him." One writer explains why this request in particular made such a good trap.
The "sign from heaven" was only a catch. It was just the sort of thing that the Sadducees, with their materialistic ideas, would never accept. In reply the Lord pointed out that they were good judges of material things seen in the face of the sky. But they were blind to the "signs of the times," which need spiritual discernment to be understood. Being "wicked and adulterous," they had no spiritual perception, and so the signs God gives were no use to them.
They were standing in front of the very One they wanted proof about. Kelly shows how absurd that is.
The greatest sign God ever gave to man was in front of them in the person of His Son, and He outshone every other sign. But that is what unbelief is like. It can walk into the presence of God fully revealed. It can stare at a light brighter than the midday sun. And right there it asks God for a cheap little candle.
The demand had a taste behind it. Bellett names what drove it, and what the Lord gave instead.
Why was it ever said to Christ, "Show us a sign from heaven"? Worldliness dictated it. They wanted a Christ who would astonish the world. The Lord would not and could not answer that. If you and I cannot accept our Jesus while He is rejected, we shall never have Him in glory... Instead of giving a sign from heaven, He gives one from deep in the earth — in death and humiliation.
He does not refuse them forever. One day they get their answer, in a form they never had in mind.
But in due time a sign from heaven will be given to them, though not in the way they were looking for. They asked for it (Matt. 16:1), and they will have it (Matt. 24:29-30). But it will be a sign of coming judgment — a sign that the Son of Man is on His way from heaven in the clouds to carry out the vengeance that is written.
This meeting marks a turn. How it ends points far beyond one conversation — to the nation, and to the Gentiles, the nations outside Israel.
The solemn thing here is that there is no longer any teaching or appeal for them. They seek a sign and get a warning. They could read the face of the sky, but they could not read the presence of the Lord among them, because they did not want to... "So he left them and departed." Very soon He would leave the guilty nation too, and He would do it by way of the Cross. Then, risen out of death, He would send the good news of salvation and blessing far away to the Gentiles.
- United — Two parties who despised each other joined forces. Opposition to Christ can bind people together when nothing else could.
- Testing — They came to trap Him, not to learn. They asked for the one proof the Sadducees themselves would never accept.
- Blind — The greatest sign God ever gave was standing in front of them, and they asked for a smaller one.
- Refused — He would not prove Himself on the world's terms. He gave a sign out of death instead — and the sign from heaven they asked for will come one day as judgment.
- Departed — They would not see Him, so they got a warning instead of a sign. He walked away — a picture of what was coming to the nation.
But he answering said to them, When evening is come, ye say, Fine weather, for the sky is red;
The Pharisees and Sadducees came together to test Jesus. They asked Him for a sign from heaven, and He answered by pointing at the evening sky. Why could men who forecast tomorrow's weather not read the moment they were living in?
The two groups who asked had almost nothing else in common. Kelly shows what held them together:
It is a terrible thing to find opposing parties with only one thing uniting them — dislike of Jesus. These are men who could have torn each other to pieces on any other day. But this is their meeting point: testing Jesus. There was no conflict between the scribes and the Pharisees. But a wide chasm separated the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees were the freethinkers of the day. The Pharisees were the champions who stood up for ordinances and the authority of the law. But both joined to test Jesus.
Hole points out that one of these groups would have rejected the very sign they asked for:
The "sign from heaven" was merely a trap, since it was precisely what the Sadducees, with their materialistic ideas, would never accept.
Kelly weighs what they were asking for against who was standing in front of them:
The most significant token God ever gave to man was in front of them in the person of His Son, who outshone every other sign. But this is what unbelief is like. It can walk into the presence of God fully revealed. It can gaze at a light brighter than the sun at noon, and there and then ask God for a cheap candle.
What if He had given them the sign? One writer explains what it would have produced:
They wanted a sign that could work on an earthly-minded people, and it would have left them earthly-minded still. The faith it woke up would have had none of the moral qualities of faith in it. Conscience and heart would both have been absent, and God displayed that way would have been half dethroned.
Their skill with the sky was real. Grant lists the signs they overlooked:
They had no difficulty forecasting the next day's weather when they looked at the evening sky. In natural things they read the signs easily. Yet they claimed to be Israel's spiritual leaders. Many spiritual signs of the times surrounded them. Still they asked Him for a sign! His miracles of grace and power were signs. The moral condition of the people was a sign too. And a most striking sign was the spiritual deadness and hostility of Israel's leaders!
Kelly sets their skill in one area against their failure in another, and names the cause:
Men were good enough judges of the signs of the weather. They were shrewd enough in judging the present things they saw. But they failed completely in what matters most for a man: judging what is morally above him, judging what touches him most closely in his relationship to God, judging what concerns his eternal future. Their love of evil, covered over with a veil of fair religious appearance, made them blind. Their love of their own interests made them quick to notice present things, and practised at chasing them.
A red evening sky promised fair weather. Kelly asks what the fair weather and the foul weather meant for Israel that day:
Their own moral condition was the sign and proof that judgment was close. For those who could see, there was the fair weather, the dawn from on high that had visited them in Jesus. They did not see it! But could they not see the foul weather? They were in the presence of the Messiah, and were asking for a sign from heaven!
Ridout names what caused the threatening sky:
These leaders pretend to want a sign. But they fail to notice the very thing that testifies of the coming judgment: the red and threatening sky. That sky was caused by the dark cloud of unbelief, which hid the shining of the Sun of righteousness.
The exchange ends with the Lord walking away.
They had rejected Christ and now, after long patience, are rejected by Christ. They are a wicked and adulterous generation for whom there is only one sign — the sign of Jonah, which speaks of judgment about to fall. The Lord exposed their character, pronounced their doom, and left them and departed.
- Sign demanded. Two parties who despised each other united to ask Jesus for a sign from heaven. Hostility to Christ can bind together men who agree on nothing else.
- Sign refused. A sign from the sky would have produced belief with no conscience and no heart in it.
- Sign present. The Son of God stood before them. Asking for another sign was like asking for a candle in blazing sunlight.
- Sign missed. They read the red sky with ease. They missed the fair weather of the Messiah among them, and the storm of judgment gathering over them.
- Sign final. One sign was left — Jonah, speaking of judgment about to fall — and then He left them and went away.
and in the morning, A storm to-day, for the sky is red [and] lowering; ye know [how] to discern the face of the sky, but ye cannot the signs of the times.
The Pharisees and Sadducees ask Jesus for a sign from heaven. He answers by pointing at the sky they read every day, and His question is sharp: how can men who can forecast tomorrow's weather be blind to what God is doing in front of them?
The two groups who came to Him normally had nothing in common. One commentator draws attention to what it took to bring them together, and to the strangeness of asking for a sign while standing in front of the Son of God:
It is an awful thing to find opposed parties with only one thing uniting them — dislike of Jesus. At another time these people could have torn each other to pieces, but this is their meeting point: testing Jesus… They wanted a sign from heaven. The greatest token God ever gave man stood in front of them in the person of His Son, and He eclipsed all other signs. But such is unbelief. It can walk into the presence of the full display of God, gaze at a light brighter than the sun at noonday, and there and then ask God for a small candle.
The "signs" were not hidden. Both the mercy and the coming judgment were on display, and reading the weather was the very skill they should have applied here:
They understood the signs of nature, the warnings of a coming storm and the signs of a fine day… They observed every change in nature, but they did not discern the signs of the times. They were blind to these. If their eyes had been open, they would have known that a great change of seasons had come in a realm beyond nature. They could have seen the evidence of judgment fast approaching the nation that had turned from God. They could equally have seen the blessed evidence of the visit from on high, in the presence of the Lord, that had already taken place.
Their own state was part of the evidence. Kelly reads both halves of the weather picture back into the scene:
Their own moral condition was the sign and proof that judgment was near. For those who could see, there was the fair weather, the Dayspring from on high that had visited them in Jesus. They saw it not! But could they not discern the foul weather! They were in the presence of the Messiah, and were asking for a sign from heaven! The God that made heaven and earth was there, but the darkness did not comprehend it… They could discern physical changes, but had no perception of the moral and spiritual glories actually before them.
Kelly explains what made these men so shrewd in one area and so dull in another:
Men were good enough judges of the signs of the weather. They were shrewd enough about the present in what they saw. But they failed completely in what suits a man most: judgment of what is morally above him, judgment of what touches him most closely in his relationship to God, judgment in what concerns his eternal future. In these things they failed, and they were hypocrites. Their love of evil, covered with a veil of fair religious appearance, made them blind. Their love of their own interests made them sharp-eyed and skilled at chasing present things.
A further sign would not have cured them, because the request came out of the disease rather than a genuine search:
They require proof to their natural senses, that is, to their unbelief. They will not believe God, either by listening to His words or by looking at His works. God must satisfy their wilfulness, which would be neither faith nor the work of God. They had understanding for human things that were much less clearly shown, but none for the things of God.
Another writer adds what kind of faith such a spectacle would have produced — and what it would have cost:
A sign that could work on a carnal people was what they sought, and which would have left them a carnal people still. The faith so awakened would have had none of the moral qualities of faith in it: conscience and heart would have been alike missing.
This failure was not only theirs. Faith still has to read the times, and Scripture is the measure:
These "signs of the times" are seals of God's hand on the passing hour. It is the duty of faith to discern them, because they always line up with the advance notices of Scripture. Current events are only "signs" as they agree with, or fulfil, those earlier notices.
Kelly turns the Lord's reproach into a positive expectation for believers:
The Lord reproached the Jewish leaders because they were unable to discern the signs of the times. We ought to be able not only to read what is before us according to God, but also to speak of the future with calm confidence because we believe the Word of God.
- Sight — They could read a red sky at evening with ease. Their failure was not a lack of intelligence but a lack of spiritual sight.
- Sign — The greatest sign God ever gave stood in front of them. Asking for another was like staring at noonday light and asking for a candle.
- Season — Two things were in plain view: God's visit in Jesus, and judgment coming on a nation that refused Him.
- Self — He calls them hypocrites. Love of evil behind a religious front blinded them, while love of their own interests kept them sharp about everyday things.
- Scripture — Faith still reads the times. It reads them by what God has already written, and so speaks of the future with calm confidence.
A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it save the sign of Jonas. And he left them and went away.
Two religious parties who agreed on almost nothing joined forces to ask Jesus for proof from the sky. He named what they were, refused them every sign but one, then left them and departed. That departure marks a turning point in Matthew's account.
The request looks fair until you see who was standing in front of them.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees hated one another, yet they join together in their still greater hatred of Christ. The ritualists and the rationalists of the day join hands to tempt the Son of God. Both reveal their utter blindness to the glory of His Person by asking for a sign from heaven. As one has well said: "That is unbelief. It can walk into the presence of God fully displayed, gaze at a light brighter than the sun at noon, and then and there ask God for a candle." They had rejected Christ, and now, after long patience, He rejects them.
Commentators read the two words in different ways. One takes them as fitted to the two parties standing there:
The Sadducees were marked above all by wickedness in their doctrine. The Pharisees were marked by adulterous unfaithfulness to the truth they claimed to hold. The only sign they would get was the sign of Jonah the prophet. His three days and three nights in the belly of the fish picture the death and resurrection of Christ.
Another writer traces "adulterous" back to Israel's old idolatry. The charge held even though the nation had given up its idols:
Verse 4 calls them adulterers because of their idolatry of old, though they are not idolaters now. The house was swept and decorated, and the evil spirit had gone out.
So what made Jonah a sign? Not the man himself, but what happened to him — and what the Lord did next.
What was this sign? It is the sign of a man who disappeared from the earth. Through the figure of death he passed away from the Jewish people, and after a while was given back to them. It was the symbol of death and resurrection, and our Lord acted on it at once. He "left them and departed." He would pass under the power of death; He would rise again, and the message which Israel had despised He would carry to the Gentiles.
One writer follows the story to the day the sign came.
Being "wicked and adulterous" they had no spiritual perception, and so such signs as God gives were no use to them. As He had said before (Matt. 12:39), one sign remained: "the sign of the prophet Jonah" — His own death and resurrection. With that word He left them. When that great sign took place they used all their craft and their money to try to cancel it. We see this in the last chapter of this Gospel.
It can jar to hear such words from Jesus. One writer sets them beside the welcome He gave to sinners.
He was the perfect display of love. But remember: He is the One who said "wicked and adulterous generation" and "brood of vipers"! Such words flow from true love, if only men would bow to the truth that convicts them. Bow to God's word, to the truth, now in this world, and you are saved. Be convicted by the truth only in the next world, and you are lost for ever. Jesus can meet a soul in its ruin. He may eat with tax collectors to show that He can receive sinners. Yes, He came to seek and to save the lost, and to forgive sins to the full. But He will never give any sign to satisfy the unbelief that rejects Him.
What does Jonah's sign stand for, and what did the Lord not say here?
As they had no eyes to see God's signs, they should have no other sign than that of Jonah: a man who was cast into the overwhelming judgement of God, and found deliverance from Him. Christ's death and resurrection is God's way of deliverance. In Matthew 16:4 the Lord does not tell them that this picture is fulfilled in Himself. Instead we have the dreadful words, "He left them and departed." They were left in the judgement of Jonah.
One writer draws the warning out for us:
Now the Lord leaves them. This is very solemn. Nothing worse could happen to us than to be left to ourselves. "Whom the Lord loves He disciplines."
- Demand — Two parties who despised each other united against Christ. They asked for a candle while standing in light brighter than noon.
- Verdict — "Evil" points to corrupt doctrine. "Adulterous" points to broken faith with the truth they claimed, and to Israel's old idolatry.
- Sign — Only Jonah's: three days buried, then raised. That is the death and resurrection of Christ, and the message Israel despised then went to the Gentiles.
- Love — Naming the evil is love speaking. Bow to the truth now and you are saved; meet it only in the next world and you are lost.
- Departure — He states the sign without explaining it and walks away. Nothing worse can happen to anyone than to be left to himself.