There’s so much to think about in chapter 12 of Matthew’s Gospel that I’ve split it up into relatively short segments for these posts. Unfortunately, given the interruptions in posting, it would be easy to lose the connection between the previous two installments and this one. So—a reminder.
The previous segment concluded with a sweeping denunciation of the Pharisees. It’s important here to say once again that the Pharisees were not “bad” people. Indeed, there were great teachers of the faith among them, such as the much admired Hillel, and the entire group was dedicated to practicing their faith with great seriousness. Their conflict with Jesus, as Matthew presents it, arises from disagreements about how this was to be done. Because they disagreed radically with his approach to interpreting scripture (as did he with theirs), they came to see him as an enemy of truth and righteousness—and a dangerously successful one. This, in turn, led them to brand his miracles and exorcisms as covert disguises for hidden evil, even accusing him of being in league with Beelzebub.
This is why he accused them (12:31-32) of having moved to the extreme of evil themselves, a state in which the poles of good and evil have become reversed and one may no longer be able to recognize or repent of one’s misdeeds. But these are not deliberately evil people. To the contrary, they are pillars of society, deeply responsible, and very religious. Jesus is making the astonishing claim, then, that even our human endeavor to be the best possible people can actually lead to something profoundly destructive. These warnings are not aimed at them because they were Pharisees and certainly not because they were Jews like Jesus and his followers. They are applicable to devout and committed religious people of any religion—and of all the various political and philosophical “isms” that function as religion equivalents in our own time.
In the verses covered by this post, we have a kind of concluding statement for this stage of the developing conflict with the devout. The conflict will continue in later chapters, but, here, Jesus sets out a fundamental challenge to the sins of religion-as-usual and to the devout who mistake their devotion as a guarantee of their goodness and their favor with God.
But, in vs. 38, the scribes and Pharisees sound reasonably respectful. They address Jesus politely as “teacher.” And since he’s been doing signs all along, why is he angry when they ask for another one?
This group does approach Jesus more respectfully than the last one. And, for that matter, they may be different individuals, for neither scribes nor Pharisees were monolithic groups. Opinions about Jesus undoubtedly varied among them, and there may well be a hint of that here.
But he speaks of them as “an evil and adulterous generation.”
The problem here is partly one of timing. Why are they asking for a sign now? Why now, when so many signs of God’s love and generosity have already been performed? Another part of the problem is context. The request is, in a way, a rejection of Jesus’ arguments from scripture (e.g., 9:10, 12:1-8). Since they reject Jesus’ way of interpreting Torah through Israelite history and prophetic insights and, above all, the gospel of God’s love, they imply, in effect, that the only way he can establish his authority would be through some particularly astounding sign. Under the circumstances, it is hard to imagine what kind of a sign they would accept as adequate.
When he calls them “evil,” he implies that they are infected, to some degree, with the reversed polarization of good and evil we saw in the previous post. When he calls them “adulterous,” he suggests that they have, in effect, abandoned the real worship of God for something else, for “adultery” is a common metaphor for the worship of false gods in the Hebrew scriptures.
But what sort of idol does he think they’re worshipping?
Given all that we’ve read in the last few chapters, it seems to be a conviction that their own interpretation of Israelite faith—and thus their own righteousness—is unassailable.
So he just gives them riddles instead of the sign they want?
That’s about it. The phrase “the sign of Jonah” has no one clear meaning in itself. The prophet Jonah was a very reluctant servant of God. He didn’t want to preach judgement and repentance to the people of Nineveh (capital of the bloody and tyrannical Assyrian empire) because he was afraid they really would repent and God would spare them. As he tried to escape to Spain, God sent a great storm, which Jonah finally had to admit was directed at him. Having told the ship’s crew to throw him overboard in order to still the storm (which they did only with great reluctance), he was swallowed by the “great fish”—which helped him learn that he needed to become more humble and to cooperate with God’s love of the world. Each of these events was a sign.
At last, Jonah goes to Nineveh and preaches. The people do repent, but he goes out to a spot where he hopes he’ll be able to watch the city’s destruction. Trying to bring Jonah to see things another way, God shows him an example: first God makes a bush grow up to shade him. But at dawn God sends a worm to destroy the bush and Jonah gets very hot and cranky as he sits in the broiling sun waiting for the city to be destroyed. But God calls his attention to the bush and how much he misses it, even though he did nothing to grow it. Why should not God love and rescue the people of Nineveh—not to mention all the animals there—all of them God’s creations (Jonah 4:11)?
The “sign of Jonah” could be any aspect of this story.
But Jesus singles out the time Jonah spent in the belly of the big fish—or whale or sea monster or however it should be translated.
Take your choice! Nobody knows exactly what image the author had in mind. But the interesting thing about this is that it was a sign only to Jonah himself! There were no witnesses. Even if the sailors had seen him get swallowed (unclear that), we hear nothing of any witnesses to see him vomited up on the beach. (He was probably grateful for that. I imagine him as rather smelly and covered with slime.)
In other words, it’s a hidden sign? If that’s a possible notion. . . .
Yes, a good phrase for it. Matthew understands Jesus as alluding to his death and resurrection. But we only know that because we know the rest of the story. There’s nothing to suggest that this meant anything at all to his audience. (Later on, he’ll begin to be more explicit with his disciples and, even then, they still can’t make any sense of it.)
But the mention of Jonah is a chance for Jesus to raise once again his repeated topic of the Gentiles: some of them may turn out to be better, more faithful, more worshipful people than his very devout interlocutors. The Ninevites heeded Jonah and repented. This is a “sign of Jonah,” too. And the Queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of Solomon.
And “something greater” than either Jonah or Solomon is here. What does that mean?
Interesting that he says “something” not “someone.” The neuter gender would apply most naturally to Jesus’ message or mission (or both, since they’re intimately tied together). As in 12:37, he’s not demanding respect for himself. The respect he demands is for the gospel he carries.
Then we have another of Matthew’s annoying jumps. What is this little technical discussion of unclean spirits doing here?
The clue is at the end of vs. 45: “So will it be . . . with this evil generation.” Remember that the audience is still the one we met in vs. 38: “some of the scribes and Pharisees.” Whether their request for a sign was an expression of an honest willingness to be persuaded or a device to entrap Jesus, they are missing the point of all the signs he’s already done.
Are they the empty house?
Yes. And the world is full of unclean spirits happy to take up residence. And what sort of house better than one that has been kept scrupulously clean–”swept and put in order”? It is a parody of our human hopes for purity–whether physical or doctrinal or liturgical—hopes that are so close to the hearts of the religiously devout and, for that matter, the ideologically militant of all sorts. Obsession with purity, Jesus says, leaves you open to all sorts of demon possession.
Okay, you managed to connect that with the preceding verses. But what about vv. 46-50 and Jesus’ rejection of his family?
The point doesn’t seem to be any personal rejection of his family. It’s something much more radical—a reversal of prevailing assumptions about family. In Jesus’ world your identity depended above all on your family. He replaces that with a much deeper kind of identity: we become family to one another by virtue of our equal connection with God. This doesn’t make his words any less shocking, however. Jesus is overturning one of the most basic concepts of his society, sanctified by the commandment to honor father and mother.
This is as radical as Jesus’ stance on purity. And it’s a repeated theme in Matthew. We’ve already met it when Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. . . .” (10:37) And it’s of a piece with the way he places the gospel of God’s love above all human convictions and conventions, however sacred they may be. We’ll encounter it yet again at the end of chapter 13, when Jesus visits his hometown.

Next up: PARABLES (13:1-23)

The episode about plucking grain on the Sabbath must have happened out in the open field, where the disciples’ action could be seen by the authorities. But now, we read, “he left that place. . . .”
“And entered their synagogue”! That ominous “their” again.
Yes, Matthew is making it quite clear who’s in charge in the synagogue. And we’re back in town now, since that’s where synagogues were located. And what follows looks very much like a set-up. The authorities are hoping to catch Jesus in a clearcut violation of the Sabbath law.
I don’t mean that the paralyzed man was a “plant.” He was probably just a regular member of the community. He may even have hoped for a cure when he learned that Jesus was entering the synagogue.
They do rather put Jesus on the spot with the question “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath?” If he does so, he can be charged with working on the Sabbath. Doctors don’t charge for no reason; what they do is work!
Yes. And if he doesn’t heal the man, would that mean that the Good News his miracles exemplify is out of order on the Sabbath? He’s in an awkward spot.
And he counterattacks.
Yes, essentially. He poses a challenge to his critics based on their own practice, since they would think it normal to work on the Sabbath in order to rescue an endangered animal—particularly if it’s your only one. The paralyzed man, to be sure, isn’t a perfect parallel, since his condition isn’t life-threatening. But Jesus counters that possible objection by saying that a human life is more valuable than that of an animal. At least, that’s how the NRSV translators have it. I think one could translate the Greek more literally as simply “A human being is quite a different matter from an animal!”
So he heals him on the Sabbath?
Yes, but he does it in such a way that, his opponents have no proof. There can be no real doubt as to what has happened and yet no one has really seen Jesus do any work on the Sabbath. He didn’t so much as touch the man, just said “Stretch out your hand.” It reminds me of the story of Elisha healing the enemy general Naaman (2 Kings 5). Elisha just sent his servant out to tell Naaman to go wash his leprosy off in the Jordan. Naaman was irate: “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” Miraculous healing wasn’t supposed to be this simple, quiet, inconspicuous!
So the set-up didn’t work.
And that makes the devout really angry. After all, he’s neatly foiled their plan. “The Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.” This is a major step in the developing conflict. They’re no longer just criticizing him behind his back or debating with him in public. They want to see the end of him. Does this mean they want to see him dead at this point? Not necessarily. But they at least want to deprive him of his audience. Since they are sure that their own interpretation of the Torah is correct, they are determined to be rid of this person who challenges it.
This, of course, is an age-old problem among religious folk. We confuse our fallible and sinful selves with the God, the ultimate Truth, to which we owe allegiance. We lose track of the distance between our finitude and imperfection and God’s boundless perfection. And we are capable of coming down with great fury on anyone whose interpretation differs from ours. I’m not talking just about religious conservatives; religious liberals are also prone to write off or condemn those who disagree with us. Nor is this dangerous propensity found only in the context of religion. People with strong commitments to communism, capitalism, environmentalism—any ‘ism you can think of—are just as capable of working up a hatred for those who disagree with them.
So what we have here is a first, fatal step toward crucifixion—though that cannot have been the conscious intent of any one at this point.
And Jesus leaves the arena!
Isn’t that interesting? Matthew specifies that he withdrew because he recognized exactly what was going on. Angering the Pharisees doesn’t seem to have been his purpose. But he isn’t willing to refrain from healing in order to satisfy them, either. So he simply moves his work away from them.
The Greek word for “departed” here is often translated “withdrew.” It’s the word used later on for what hermits and anchorites like St. Antony of Egypt did. They left the towns and withdrew from the crowds to live out in the open country—even in deserted, uncultivated “wilderness.” “Withdraw” might be a better translation than “departed” here. What Jesus is doing is moving away from conflict. His opponents will now have to come looking for him—as they do later on in Chapter 12.
But for now, he’s back with the crowds who’ve come to be cured.
But why does he order them not to make him known? It would hardly be possible to keep all this a secret when people start coming home cured and everybody insists on knowing what’s happened.
One part of it is to underline that Jesus didn’t using healings to gain popularity. Another part of the answer lies in the quotation from Isaiah 42:1-4 that follows. It describes a person who doesn’t “wrangle or cry aloud,” who wouldn’t so much as “break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick.” This is a peaceful and harmless person. But one who comes with an utterly serious aim that could indeed be dreaded by many: to bring justice to victory.
The ongoing conflict here is not of Jesus’ instigation. But perhaps it is an almost inevitable reaction—given the depth and complexity of human sin—to all that he stands for.
And here we have those Gentiles again. . . .
Yes, Matthew keeps pointing us to this dimension of Jesus’ teaching. Even though few Gentiles have actually crossed his path, he keeps making challenging comparisons between the devout of Israel and Gentiles who may be more righteous than they—despite being, by definition, impure and unholy.
It’s worth reminding ourselves again that this isn’t an issue of Judaism vs. Christianity. As we’ve noted before, Matthew is very much a Jewish writer, concerned with how to interpret the Law and Prophets—how to understand and practice the Jewish religion. For him, Jesus has shown the right way to do this. Mtthew is a Jew who follows Jesus’ understanding of Judaism rather than that of the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees or any other group. It’s quite possible that his own Christian community didn’t include any Gentiles. But the contrast here is not primarily ethnic, even though Jesus uses ethnic terms in describing it. The contrast is between those who seem to themselves “wise and intelligent” and those whom they despise as “infants” (compare 11:20).
And note that, even with all this talk about the possibility that Gentiles may surpass Jews in righteousness, Jesus is in no hurry to address Gentiles directly. He even told his disciples to stay away from Gentile towns (10:5). What he’s trying to do here is foster the development of humility among the pious!

Next up: OPEN CONFLICT—FROM SABBATH TO EXORCISMS (12:22-37)

In the last post you wrote about Matthew, you seemed to say that Jesus was a kind of populist who was leading a rebellion—not violent, but still a rebellion—against the established religion. Did I get that right?
I may have overstated that a bit. For one thing, he wasn’t trying to overthrow the religion of the Jewish people. Rather, he was seeking to rebalance it and revive some overlooked aspects of it, as we’ll be seeing in chapter 12. At the same time, he was deeply suspicious of the motives of the religious authorities and the devout because their public standing was so closely identified with their religious stance. It is the problem that always threatens religious leadership when it becomes politically powerful; the leaders confuse the goal of maintaining their power and that of being true to their faith. Any one who questions their authority is doubly suspect
Again, I don’t think Jesus was a populist—certainly not in the sense of assuming that the crowd is always right. It’s true that the crowds have been relatively supportive up to now. But he has already warned the Twelve against expecting popular success (10:16-25). And one suspects that he was not entirely surprised, later on in Jerusalem, when the crowd called for his crucifixion. In the material we begin with today, he even makes fun of popular enthusiasms as childish and fickle (11:16-19).
John and Jesus were both celebrities—to use a modern term. That is, they attracted crowds of enthusiasts who then may have felt some “ownership” in these people they idolized because they were so identified with them. Hence Jesus’ acknowledgement that both he and John were popular figures, but with very different characteristics. But he doesn’t trust this kind of crowd psychology.
Still, Jesus’ criticism of “this generation” in 11:16 doesn’t focus primarily on the enthusiasms of children’s games, but on the equally common capacity of children to switch sides and sit in judgement on one another. It is this judgmental turn that Jesus sees in the devout and the religious authorities—the people who are starting to say that he’s in league with the devil.
He’s accusing all those very substantial and reputable people of behaving like children?
Exactly. Children playing games and arguing with each other about the rules and who’s in charge. And that’s exactly the issue. The scribes and Pharisees are in charge in Galilee and they are determined to stay in charge. They’re the people who make the rules. That means that they object equally to both John the Baptist and Jesus, since neither was willing to play by their rules.
And yet, as Jesus says, John and he are extremely different from each other. John is an ascetic figure. Jesus eats and drinks freely and with all sorts of questionable people. “Yet Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds,” he says. Each of these two, in his own way, was serving God’s Wisdom, and this is their vindication.
“Wisdom” started out as an attribute of God but, by this time, was often spoken of as almost a distinct persona. You can see this, for example, in Proverbs 8-9 and Wisdom of Solomon 6-8. (You’ll find Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament—not quite full-fledged scripture for most Christians today, but very much revered by early Christians.) God’s Wisdom was regularly conceived as female, perhaps because both the Hebrew and Greek words for “wisdom” were of feminine gender.
So he’s poking fun at the dignified religious leaders here? But then he really savages them in what follows.
Yes, 11:20 marks a drastic change in tone. He attacks cities in Galilee where he’s been at work—Chorazin, Bethsaida, even Capernaum where he’s been living. Matthew doesn’t tell us any details of Jesus’ activities in Chorazin or Bethsaida; but we had several stories from Capernaum in chapters 8-9. We also know that some of Jesus’ Twelve came from Capernaum. (The Gospel of John 1:44 says that some were from Bethsaida, too.) So the issue isn’t that everybody in these towns rejected Jesus. This attack must be aimed specifically at the religious leadership. And, just as in the story of the centurion (8:5-13), Jesus says, in effect, “Even Gentiles can do better than you people”—a point he will make yet again in chapter 12.
Whew! Even Sodom will do better! He’s really twisting the knife here, isn’t he?
Very much. And what was the great sin of Sodom? Not homosexuality, as was long claimed and is still believed by some. Not even same-sex rape, but rather their hostility toward foreigners (xenophobia) and their eagerness to take advantage of defenseless visitors. The religious leadership of his own time, Jesus is saying, is committing an offense worse than the very worst one recorded in the Torah. They are not only attacking strangers; they’re trying to keep their own neighbors from receiving the healing message of the Gospel.
But next we get another instance of whiplash from Matthew: with verse 25, the subject changes, the tone changes.
True. But it’s the other side of the same coin, so to speak. The people who see themselves as “wise and the intelligent”—the religious leadership, the people who should have welcomed Jesus’ message as authentic—are only trying to obstruct it. Who, then, actually “gets it”? The people you would never have expected—metaphorically described here as “infants.” Infants can’t argue the complexities of religion. But they know love when they experience it.
But then in verses 26-27, Matthew’s Jesus starts sounding very strange—more like he does in the Gospel of John than he usually does in Matthew.
It’s true, isn’t it? Jesus, in John’s Gospel, often speaks of his intimacy with God as that of Son with Father. Matthew’s Jesus usually speaks of God as “our father” or “your father.” But the language here claims an exalted status for Jesus as the perfect intermediary between God and this world: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” In John’s Gospel, this wouldn’t surprise us at all. In Matthew’s, it is really unexpected.
I have no explanation for how this brief “thunderbolt from the Johannine heaven,” as it has been called, came to Matthew. But, however it did, we already know that he arranges his materials with great care. Jesus asserts here that he has a distinctive, indeed a unique, closeness to God. And he makes this assertion precisely at the point when his opponents have decided that he’s an agent of the devil.
And the next question, I suppose, has to be “Who is this person to whom the Son reveals God and how does he go about it?”
Right on!
It must refer to the sort of people Jesus has just described as “infants.” They’re the ones prepared to hear Jesus’ proclamation of God’s love and see it enacted in his miracles and trust themselves to that love.
And then another case of whiplash! Verses 28-30 seem like a complete non sequitur.
It does seem that way in relation to what immediately precedes it, especially the woes of verses 20-24. On the other hand, Jesus’ invitation to the weary and promise that “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” are very reminiscent of the end of chapter 10.
Both chapters, in fact, follow a similar pattern. Each begins with a positive depiction of Jesus’ ministry (the sending out of the Twelve in chapter 10; his response to the questions from John in chapter 11). Then the middle part of each chapter focuses on conflict. Finally, each closes with words of encouragement. We’ve actually been encountering this sort of dialogue between warning and encouragement all along, starting in the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7).
There must be something important to Matthew about this pattern. He doesn’t want us to forget that those who trust and follow the gospel of God’s love can expect opposition. But he is also certain that accepting the gospel of love makes for a uniquely rich and hopeful human life—a burden, of a kind, yes, but a life-giving one that is not, when all is said and done, difficult to bear. Why? Because it gives strength for difficult times.

Next up: OPEN CONFLICT BEGINS (12:1-8)

Setting the scene: where have the Twelve disappeared to? It appears that they’re off on the mission that Jesus instructed and commissioned them for. And Matthew, unlike Mark (6:30), never tells us specifically when they return. Instead, he has Jesus turn to a different audience.
And what audience is that?
He was teaching and proclaiming “in their cities.”
Okay. Who are “they”?
At first it sounds as if Matthew is talking about the cities where the Twelve are also working, but, since they never show up in what follows, it’s more helpful if we go back to the last similarly vague reference to “them”—”their synagogues.” (10:17) That seemed to refer to synagogues in which the scribes and the Pharisees were the principal authorities, as was probably the general picture throughout the larger towns in Galilee. Not everyone in these towns was opposed to Jesus; but the authorities, increasingly, were. “Their cities,” in other words, are the places where this conflict will develop further.
But the first person who turns up (indirectly, through his own disciples) is John the Baptist—who’s now in prison (when and how did that happen?) and whom we haven’t heard a thing about since he baptized Jesus back in chapter 3!
For some reason, Matthew delays the story about John’s arrest till chapter 14. At this point, it’s enough for him to remind us that being an independent preacher like John or Jesus could be dangerous work. There were many ways to run afoul of the authorities.
By the way, if you’re thinking “Herod was the secular authority, not the religious,” think again. In the first century everything was religious. There was no neat dividing line between “church” and “state.” It was all mixed up together.
You may remember that John was expecting someone “more powerful than” he to succeed him (3:11-12). Being in prison has made him all the more anxious as to whether Jesus was really living up to that prediction.
And Jesus doesn’t really give him a “yes” or a “no.”
Right. He just says, “Well, your disciples can tell you what they see. You decide.” And that makes sense because, for Jesus, everything in his ministry is an expression of the love of God. Words can easily be distorted, but what he does is clear. It’s the same principle he applied earlier to the identification of true prophets: “By their fruits you will know them” (7:20).
It’s interesting, too, that some of the language in his response to John is lifted right out of Isaiah: “the blind receive their sight,” “the deaf hear,” “the dead are raised up” (e.g., Isa. 26:19; 29:18-19; 35:5; 42:7 & 18). Matthew doesn’t remind us this time that this is all fulfillment of prophecy. But he probably didn’t need to for his ancient audience. They would recognize it.
Most of these “proofs” seem pretty clear, but the last one there in vs. 6 seems oddly flat: “And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Is this such a big deal?
I’m not so sure myself. At least “anyone who takes no offense” at Jesus would stand in contrast to the devout folk who are turning against him. Still, “blessed” is a pretty strong word, as we saw back in chapter 5 at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. It speaks of a full, rich, deeply flourishing human existence. Perhaps it’s a bit like what we saw in 10:40-42, where all you have to do to participate in the rewards of the righteous is to show a bit of kindness to a righteous person. You don’t have to be one of Jesus’ ardent followers; you need only acknowledge the life-giving quality of his teaching. If that sounds too easy to us, it might be a sign that we’re edging in the direction of the devout who want everything in its place and get upset at those who are less devout than they!
In any case, John’s disciples go off to relay Jesus’ message to their teacher, and Jesus turns to the other people around him and starts to joke with them.
Is that what this is? It does seem a bit pointless otherwise.
It starts with a little friendly joking, but then turns serious. Asking them if they went out to the wilderness along the Jordan River to watch the wind blow the reeds can only have elicited a laugh. The second question, whether they went there to see someone dressed in the height of fashion, is equally absurd. The third question—did they go out to see a prophet—touches on the real point. They may not have been certain that John was a prophet, but they suspected he was.
Then Jesus springs his punch line. Not a comic punch line, but one that pushes their understanding of John and his importance a step further: he wasn’t just a prophet, but the harbinger of a new age.
Is that what the quotation in vs. 10 is about? Where does it come from?
The quotation is from Malachi 3:1, but with an alteration: the original speaks of “my way” rather than “your way.” Jesus says that John has been sent by God to prepare someone else’s way. (The “your” here is specifically singular in Greek, not plural.) John is a transitional figure. Verse 11 makes the same point in another way: John is the greatest of human beings up to this point in time, but in the new age, the kingdom of the heavens, even the least person will be greater than John.
Yet another way of talking about this is found in vs. 13: “All the prophets and the law prophesied until John came.” The implication is that he represents the climax and conclusion of that process.
Wait up. What is this about “the law” prophesying? I thought the law was the law and the prophets were the prophets.
People did draw a distinction between different kinds of literature in the scriptures. But early Christians believed that prophecy might be found anywhere in them. To them, all the scriptures were full of mysteries—mysteries that would only come clear at the appropriate time or to the appropriate reader. Later on, for example, we’ll find Matthew treating a Psalm text as a prophecy.
But that’s not the whole story here. What about verse 14?
It’s another way of making the distinction between one age and the other. Elijah was generally thought of as the greatest of all prophets—a great miracle-worker and intransigent opponent of wrong-doing. And there was a possibility that Elijah might return. After all, according to 2 Kings 2, God took Elijah up into heaven in a fiery chariot. Since he never died, he could conceivably return if the need for him was great enough.
There’s a prediction of exactly that in the last two verses of Malachi: “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.” Jesus admits that identifying John with “Elijah to come” will be controversial—”if you’re willing to accept it,” he says. But he does seem to affirm it. And that, in turn, implies that the Day of the Lord, the great turning point is about to occur. After that the era of prophecy will be over.
You skipped something! What does vs. 12 have to do with all this?
Yes, I did. And since we’re trying to read carefully here, I’d better have a good explanation! In fact, I’ve kept it for separate discussion because it’s obscure and, lately, controversial among interpreters. What’s clear is that it’s part of Jesus’ interpretation of John as the transitional figure, the turning point. Some great change began to happen in “the time of John”—the time when he was actively preaching, before he was imprisoned. Since then, “the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” What could Jesus possibly mean?
John, of course, is suffering violence himself at the hands of Herod. But Jesus has already said that the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. So that isn’t the point. Some recent interpreters take the reference to violence literally and refer it to the increasing number of Jewish guerrillas who were resisting the Roman Empire in Judea and Galilee. They argue that Jesus intended to encourage armed rebellion; and they note that he was, after all, executed by the Romans in precisely the way they reserved for such rebels.
There are major problems with such an interpretation of Jesus. One is the assumption that the indictment, trial, and execution of Jesus were accurate responses to the specific realities of his ministry. We have no evidence that that was the case; in fact, the gospels all insist it wasn’t. And a broad knowledge of Roman courts suggests that one could not count on strict attention to justice, particularly in remote provinces. Roman legal theories were good. But the courts themselves were heavily influenced by social status, political connections, and the rhetorical skill of prosecutors or defenders. Most important, there was no real separation between the courts and the rest of government. A courtroom trial before Pontius Pilate was inevitably just as much a matter of public policy and governance as it was a matter of justice.
Furthermore, the notion that Jesus was a kind of first-century Che Guevara inevitably runs up against the fact that the vast majority of his teachings never suggest anything remotely resembling political revolution. Some have dismissed this vast array of teachings as having been created by later disciples to cover up their revolutionary past. If it was the case, we would have to believe that those disciples were much real religious geniuses, not Jesus. And, frankly, none of them cuts the kind of figure that would encourage any such idea.
So, if the violence here isn’t literal, what is it about?
I see two possibilities, which actually work together here. The first is that Jesus is simply making an observation about the degree of turmoil within Jewish life and faith in his time. There were several prominent, organized groups of devout people with quite different understandings of their common religion: Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, Essenes, the followers of John, Jesus’ own followers. In addition, practical religious authority was divided between the priestly families who controlled the Temple and the Scribes who served as local authorities on religion in most other places. The members of the Pharisee party also had a popular reputation for religious expertise and were often consulted. In other words, Jesus is saying that kingdom of heaven is a subject of serious contention—something every one could see.
The other possibility is that Jesus is noting a tendency in John’s and his own ministry to open up Jewish religion more fully to people without a high level of expertise or who were unable to embrace the strictness of the other parties. They placed other concerns ahead of some of the details of the Law. We have seen this, for example, in Jesus’ sabbath healings, and in his relative lack of concern about purity. John, for his part, clashed with the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him for baptism (3:7-10). From the perspective of the more established devout, they must have seemed like brash revolutionaries who were “breaking into” the religious sphere.
Then who are “the violent” who are actually taking the kingdom by force?
If I’m right in what I’ve just said, these “violent” people are the folk who came to John for baptism in order to get a new start with God and the folk who come to Jesus and feel themselves closer to God through his words and actions than through the specifics of their religion as defined by the religious authorities and the particularly pious. They form a kind of mob of irregulars doing the shared Jewish faith their own way—barging their way in, as it were..

Next up: JESUS DEFINES HIS TRUE AUDIENCE (11:16-30)