Establishing the kingship of Jesus Christ was an important theme as Matthew recorded this gospel. The intended demographic of this message was to the Jews. Throughout the Old Testament a major message was conveyed in varying instances. Despite Israel’s continual bouts with apostasy, God wants in an earnest and sincere way to redeem his people. The promised of that final redemption was in the promise of a king. This is not to be confused with the establishment of the office of king that the Israelites desperately begged God to bless. This would be the King who would bring about the eternal victory to God’s people and would be from the lineage of Israel’s most beloved king, King David.
Matthew’s gospel begins with a genealogy for this very purpose.
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There were those who listened and followed Jesus, some of which were in the original twelve disciples, who struggled with the duality of this message. Most assuredly Jesus was speaking of a physical kingdom to come. This would be the kingdom in which he will reign victoriously and his followers will reign with him. The failure of previous messiahs is that they too declared a new kingdom, but they failed. Matthew’s first readers would have understood the struggle of those hearing Jesus and longing for him to overthrow Rome and free Israel from the evil empire. This was not Jesus’ purpose or God’s timing, but that did will …show more content…
Paul later explains in his writings that this new kingdom that Jesus establishes picks backup the covenant of grace established with Abraham and allows that relationship to be offered to not just the Jews but also to the Gentile. This is what the kingdom of heaven on a spiritual level looks like. In the teachings of Jesus, Matthew shows that he taught in parables of what the kingdom of God was like. Most of these dealt with the heart, attitude, and motivations of the kingdom’s citizens. Those in the kingdom of heaven will very much be the embodiment of the salt and light principle.
Sadly in the theme of Jesus being King, we see the rejection of the King. This rejection started in Jesus’ ministry as those who knew where he grew up doubted the validity of his ministry solely due to his earthly mother and father. The crowds were very large at times following Jesus. But, we see they began to dwindle when Jesus taught about what the kingdom of God was and what those who seek this kingdom must do. Principles