But I say unto you, that many shall come from [the] rising and setting [sun], and shall lie down at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens;
A Roman officer, an outsider to Israel, has just come to Jesus in faith, and Jesus has healed his servant. Now the Lord looks ahead and names guests at a table nobody expected them at — so who does get into the kingdom?
The announcement is not a change of subject. It grows out of what the officer believed about Jesus.
In the next case we see a Gentile who, by faith, enjoys the full effect of the power his faith credited to Jesus. This gave the Lord the occasion to bring out a solemn truth. Many of these poor Gentiles would come and sit down in the kingdom of heaven with the fathers, whom the Jewish nation honoured as the first parents of the heirs of promise.
Matthew also chose where to place this scene. The healing of a leper stands just before it, and that order carries a message.
Matthew sets the leper right before the centurion, to mark the grace ready for the Gentile when the defiled people would reject the Messiah. The Gospel shows this from its beginning to its end. So in its account of the centurion (not in Luke's matching account), the Lord declares that many would come from east and west and share the feast with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
"East and west" means people with no family link to Abraham at all. They arrive the same way the officer did — by faith, not by bloodline.
Jesus speaks as the Messiah. In that character He warns the unbelieving Jews that their descent from the patriarchs will do them no good. They were children of the men God made the promises to. Yet if they rejected Him, they would be thrown out. The centurion, whose servant He had healed, had pressed by faith into the possession of blessing. In the same way, numbers of people from every quarter would press into the kingdom when God set it up. By faith they would gain the blessed privilege that these Jews were now despising.
To the first hearers this was not a comfortable thought.
This must have been a solemn and startling announcement to Jewish ears. It plainly foretells that Gentiles will be let into the privileges of the kingdom, while the natural heirs are shut out.
The picture is not just entry but welcome — a shared meal. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are the fathers who received God's promises.
His soul looks ahead to those gathering crowds who would come from opposite quarters to sit down at the glad feast of welcome with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are at this table, so the scene is still future and it needs resurrection. Writers differ on where it happens. Some read it of the coming reign on earth. Others read it of the heavenly side of that kingdom. All agree that God raises the fathers and seats them there.
God will then fulfil every promise to the fathers. Yes, no doubt, when the Lord reigns, the fathers will be raised from the dead and will appear in the kingdom... To apply this text to the Church would completely overturn the present gospel of the grace of God. But the Lord is speaking about the kingdom, and so this text throws great light on that reign.
Trotter stresses the heavenly side of the same scene. He also notes that the gathering has already begun.
Right now, while the kingdom of heaven exists in a hidden form, God is bringing these Gentile strangers in from the east and from the west. But later on... these strangers will be seen sitting down with the patriarchs in the heavenly part of that glorious kingdom. Israel, pardoned and restored, will occupy the earth, together with the nations that are spared.
Some have read this verse as proof that Abraham and the other Old Testament believers belong to the church. Kelly answers that sharing their table takes nothing from the church's own place.
It is certain that we will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But that in no way conflicts with the place of the church as the body and bride of Christ. What is there to stop us enjoying other spheres of glory besides the ones that are our own in a special way?
- Faith opens it. One outsider's trust in Jesus is what draws this promise out; the officer is the sample, not the exception.
- Birth does not. Being born into Abraham's family settles nothing. Those who press in by faith are the ones who get in.
- The reach is worldwide. "East and west" names people from every quarter with no natural tie to Abraham.
- The welcome is a table. Not bare entry, but a "glad feast of welcome" seated with the fathers of faith.
- The date is future. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are there, raised from the dead. That sets the scene in the coming kingdom, not in this age.
but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.