Matthew 22 Commentary
Please choose a passage:
Matthew 22:1-14
Jesus tells a parable about a wedding feast of the king’s son. But when the invitation is sent informing the invitees that the wedding is now, they refuse to come. Others among them kill the messengers.
Matthew 22:15-22
The Pharisees send spies to trap Jesus into saying something against Rome. They bring along some pro-Roman Herodians as conspirators in their plot. They ask Jesus whether it is lawful to pay poll-taxes to Caesar or not.
Matthew 22:23-28
The Sadducees ask Jesus a loaded question about the resurrection. They introduce their question with an extreme scenario about a woman seven-times married. Their scenario was intended to show the ridiculousness of the resurrection.
Matthew 22:29-33
Jesus answers the Sadducees loaded question about the resurrection by pointing out their error. He then proceeds to explain how people are not given in marriage in the resurrection, before demonstrating the resurrection from the books of Moses. The crowds are amazed at His answer.
Matthew 22:34-36
A lawyer from the Pharisees asks Jesus which commandment is the greatest.
Matthew 22:37-38
Jesus answers the lawyer’s question about the great commandment. He tells Him it is this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Matthew 22:39-40
Jesus tells the Pharisees’ lawyer that the second greatest commandment is to ‘love your neighbor as your love yourself’. He tells him that this commandment along with the first, are what the entire moral code of Jewish ethics are based upon.
Matthew 22:41-46
With aid of Psalm 110, Jesus asks the Pharisees a series of questions about how the Messiah is both the Lord of David and his son? The Pharisees have no response, and Jesus’s enemies are afraid to publicly confront Him.
Additional Resources
The Gospel of Matthew was written to demonstrate to the Jews of Jesus, the Messiah’s generation that He was indeed the Christ. Matthew thematically substantiates the Messianic identity of Jesus beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, which ran from Abraham, the father of Israel’s people through King David who was promised to have a son who would be on Israel’s throne forever. Throughout his Gospel account Matthew makes use of numerous prophecies both explicitly stated and by way of subtle allusion to support his thesis. Matthew further makes use of parallel events in Jesus’s life to those of Messianic figures from the Old Testament (Moses, Joseph, David, etc.) to bolster his argument.
Jesus came to offer the Jews the chance to participate in the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom. To do this, they would have to receive and follow Him as their Messiah. Jesus’s message was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Ultimately, they rejected Him as their Messiah and condemned Jesus to death by crucifixion. The Jews’ rejection of the Messiah opened the door for Gentiles to enter the kingdom (Matthew 8:11-12, 22:1-10). Matthew’s Gospel is therefore a call for the Jews repent of their murder of Jesus and to embrace Him for the divine Messiah He is.
Matthew shows how their rejection of Him and His brutal death was predicted not only by Jesus Himself, but also was foretold in the Jewish scriptures of the Messiah.
The main proof that Jesus was the Messiah was “the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 12:39, 16:4). This was Jesus’s death and resurrection from the dead. “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).
Because Matthew’s Gospel was written to people who were already members of God’s eternal family by virtue of their faith in God’s promise to send the Messiah, Matthew emphasizes the “reward of eternal life” (aka “The Prize of Eternal Life”) rather than “the Gift of Eternal Life”. In other words, Matthew’s Gospel focuses on how to “enter the kingdom” rather than how to “be born again”.
Matthew’s Gospel demonstrates how Jesus came to fulfill the law and open a way for God’s people to participate in the Messianic kingdom if they would follow His example of worshiping God from the heart by forgiving and serving others.
For “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). If we have faith to follow the example set forth by the resurrected Messiah, whom all authority on heaven and earth has been granted (Matthew 28:18) and take up our cross for His sake (Matthew 16:24-25), then we will become great in His kingdom (Matthew 20:26).
Finally, Matthew provides extensive samples of Jesus’s teachings including “the Sermon on the Mount”, “the Little Commission”, and “the Olivet Discourse” and many parables, alongside accounts of numerous miracles and wonders, personal moments with His twelve disciples, interactions with seekers, and increasingly as his Gospel account progresses: challenges and confrontations with His adversaries – the Pharisees, Scribes, and Priests.
Jesus shares another parable against the religious leaders in Jerusalem. It is a story about a wedding feast. He answers questions from the Pharisees and Sadducees concerning Roman taxes, the afterlife, and the greatest commandment. He then asks the Pharisees a question about the Son of David. They do not give an answer.
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