Image: Morning snowfall, North Garden, Virginia, January 31, 2021
Due to heavy and ongoing snow in Central Virginia, CRBC will meet online today by Zoom at 10:30 am and 6:00 pm. If you want to join us, email info.crbc@gmail.com and request a link.
Blessings, JTR
Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Matthew 3:7-12.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to
his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to
flee from the wrath to come? (Matthew 3:7).
John did not pull any punches. By modern standards many of
the things he said might be considered abrasive, offensive, and off-putting. John
does this not out of cruelty but out of a passion for Christ and a love for
souls.
Sometimes those who have lost consciousness have to be shaken
and even slapped across the face to get them to wake up. John was led by the Spirit
to get the attention of men and to call them to genuine repentance.
Matthew says that many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came
“to his baptism.” They were the religious elite. It does not say that they came
to be baptized, but simply that they came “to his baptism.” That is, they
likely came as critics, harshly to evaluate John’s ministry.
Notice how John addresses them: “O generation of vipers….” You
sons of snakes!
There is no doubt that this was meant to give these men a
spiritual slap in the face, to wake them up. It was probably the opposite of
the way they envisioned themselves. They likely saw themselves as good,
upright, respectable, and honorable men who came from a fine spiritual
pedigree.
By calling them a generation of vipers John was deconstructing
their self-image. He was telling them that they were sinners. He was telling
them what they truly looked like before an all-holy, all-righteous, all-pure,
and all-glorious God. A bunch of snakes!
Christ himself would use the same terms to describe those who
opposed and rejected him (see especially Matt 23:33: “Ye serpents, ye
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”).
After addressing them in this unusual manner John asks, “who hath
warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” In asking this question John is, in
fact, informing them of the wrath of God and warning them of the danger of
facing God’s wrath.
Biblical salvation is not about being saved from ourselves, but
about begin saved from undergoing the wrath and punishment from God that our
sin deserves (cf. John 3:36; Rom 5:9).
John’s words are
sharp, but they are given with concern for the honor of God and for the
spiritual well-being of the hearer. If we had a grave illness, we would not
want our physician to beat around the bush. We would want him to tell us the
unvarnished truth of our predicament and what was needed for our healing.
J. C. Ryle rightly
observed: “It is no real kindness to keep back the terrors of
the Lord: it is good for us all to be taught that it is possible to be lost
forever, and that all unconverted people are hanging over the brink of a pit” (Matthew,
20).
Ryle added, “Happy would it be for
the church of Christ, if all its ministers had been more like John the
Baptist!” (Matthew, 21).
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jeff Riddle
Note: Devotional taken from last Sunday's sermon on Matthew 3:1-6.
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness
of Judea, And saying Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mathew
3:1-2).
John the Baptist came as a preacher. Just as Peter could call Noah
before the flood a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), so John could be
called before the coming of Christ a preacher of righteousness.
Notice that the Lord
did not send a commander of armies before the Messiah; he did not send a
scholar; he did not send a scientist or a sage. He sent a preacher.
And what was the
message of John? “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
John’s message was a
call to repentance. You may have heard that the verb for “to repent” literally
means “to change one’s mind.” More simply, it has been described as turning
away from sin and turning toward God. The
person who repents was heading in the direction of sin and death, and he was
turned toward obedience and life.
John’s message was
also an announcement about the impending arrival of the kingdom of heaven. This
was not a political kingdom. Christ before Pilate would say, “My kingdom is not
of this world” (John 18:36). It was a way of speaking about the rule and reign
of God that would begin with the coming of Messiah and the calling of men to
repent of their sin and to believe in him. The Lord Jesus himself would later
tell his disciples in Luke 17, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, Lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God
is within you” (vv. 20-21).
One day the kingdom
will come in its fullness, and every knee will bow, and every tongue will
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and there will be new heavens and a new
earth, and a new Jerusalem. But in this age, the kingdom is built person by
person, heart by heart, as men turn from their sin in repentance and in faith toward
Christ.
Grace and peace, Pastor
Jeff Riddle
Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Matthew 2:19-23.
“And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth”
(Matthew 2:23a).
“I am Jesus of Nazareth” (Acts 22:8).
A Bible Dictionary I consulted (Harper’s)
said the following about Nazareth: It was “an insignificant agricultural
village not far from a major trade route to Egypt, the Via Maris.” This
would be equivalent to saying it was something like a podunk bump in the road,
in the middle of nowhere, just off an interstate exit ramp. The entry
continues, “It is not mentioned in the OT, Josephus, or rabbinic writings.”
We know that Nazareth was something of a byword,
an object of scorn. To see this, we can look at the account in John 1 of how
the disciple Philip went to his friend Nathanael and told him, “We have found
him, of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph” (v. 45). Nathanael’s reaction: “Can there any good thing
come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see” (v. 46).
Nathanael did not expect the Messiah to come out
of Nazareth.
All this, of course, shows that the Gospel record
is true. If he had not been reared in such an inconsequential place as Nazareth
why would the early Christians have ever fabricated such a story?
If there was one thing that Nazareth had it was a
synagogue, which the Lord Jesus attended, as was his custom, as he grew in
wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Luke describes how he later came
back to that synagogue and was nearly thrown from the top of the hill on which
the town stood after he declared, “No prophet is accepted in his own country”
(Luke 4:24; for the whole story see Luke 4:16-30).
Why was it God’s will that Christ would come from
Nazareth? There is theological significance in this.
It seemed not enough for him to be born in little
Bethlehem, but to grind things home he had also to be reared in the “Nowheres-ville”
of obscure Nazareth. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
What this signifies is the depths of the
incarnation. As Paul describes it in Philippians 2, he “made himself of no reputation,
and took upon him the form of a servant” (v. 7), and “being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself” (v. 8).
And in 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For ye know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became
poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”
Reflecting on the obscurity of Nazareth, J. C.
Ryle observed, “almost five-sixths of the time that the Saviour of the world
was on earth, was passed among the poor of this world and passed in complete
retirement. Truly this was humility!” (Expository Thoughts on Matthew,
17).
To save nobodies like us, it pleased the Lord to
send his Messiah to a God-forsaken place like Nazareth. Behold the love and mercy
and condescension of our God toward us.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
Image: Isaiah, 1838, by Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891)
In preaching on Matthew 2:13-18 last Sunday we took note of
two more “fulfillment passages” from the Old Testament Scriptures in the description
of the nativity of Christ within the opening two chapters of Matthew.
An ordinary reader likely would not have perceived what was
here prophesied, but the apostle Matthew saw it under the guidance of the
Spirit.
As I noted in the message, it is striking that the prophetic citations
in Matthew 1-2 come from across the body of the Old Testament prophetic
writings, from Isaiah, to Micah, to Hosea, to Jeremiah:
Of his virgin birth, from Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin shall be
with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel…”
(Matt 1:23; Isa 7:14).
Of his birth in Bethlehem, from Micah: “And thou Bethlehem in
the land of Juda … out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people
Israel” (Matt 2:6; Micah 5:2).
Of his flight into Egypt, from Hosea: “Out of Egypt shall I
call my son” (Matt 2:15; Hosea 11:1).
Of Herod’s massacre of the innocents, from Jeremiah: “In Rama
there was a voice heard … Rachel weeping for her children…” (Matt 2:18; Jer
31:15).
All these prophecies have a subtle cumulative impact, telling
us that all the Scriptures were all pointing toward Christ.
It recalls what the risen Christ will later say to the two befuddled
disciples on the way to Emmaus (emphasis added):
Luke 24:25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to
believe all that the prophets have spoken:
26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter
into his glory?
27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he
expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself.
It is a striking thing to consider, especially in days like these,
that God was providentially at work in history to bring forth his son to “save
his people from their sin” (Matt 1:21). He had declared this in the prophets,
though men were slow of heart to perceive it.
The comforting thing to know is that he continues to work out his
will and purposes in Christ, to the end, “that God may be all in all” (1 Cor
15:28).
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
I want to add another note on the text of Matthew, focusing
on several variants in Matthew 1, before settling on a significant one in 1:25.
I am currently preaching through Matthew, and I previously
did a post on the genealogy, looking at Matthew 1:7-8, 10 (see WM 185).
I thought I would add another on a variant at Matthew 1:25,
but before getting there I want to look briefly at a couple of other variants
which Bruce Metzger discusses in his Textual Commentary, second edition
(1994).
Several of these variants are supported by the TR, and incorporated
into the modern critical text, yet Metzger discusses them, and his interest
seems especially aimed at examining or considering readings that would be at
odds with an orthodox theological understanding of Christology or with inerrancy/infallibility.
Brief look at five other variants addressed by Metzger:
Between the opening two notes on Matthew 1:7-8 and 1:10, and
the final note on 1:25, Metzger discusses five other passages:
First: 1:11: He notes that several mss. add a name to the genealogy, Joakim.
He gives the omission an {A} rating.
Second: 1:16: the description of Joseph as “the husband of Mary, of whom
was born Jesus, who is called Christ.” This is the TR reading, and it also has
an {A} rating.
Metzger notes two variants.
Given the above as the first reading, the second is: “to whom
being betrothed the virgin Mary bore Jesus, who is called Christ”.
And the third: “Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary the
virgin, begot Jesus who is called Christ.” This is found in the Sinaitic Syriac.
It is the last variant that seems most to intrigue BM, since
it would be a reading that would deny the virgin birth and see Jesus as the
natural son of Joseph.
This is the longest discussion in the commentary on Matthew 1
(pp. 2-6) and closes with a decisive paragraph debunking the third reading (p.
6), but one might wonder why there was so much interest to begin with? Note:
There will be a connection with 1:25.
Third: 1:18: “of Jesus Christ.” This gets only a {B} reading since
Metzger dubs it “intrinsically improbable” that “Jesus Christ” would be
prefixed by a definite article. He even says this construction only appears in “inferior
manuscripts” like those with Acts 8:37. Circular reasoning!
Fourth: 1:18: The modern critical text reads genesis (creation, generation)
rather than gengesis (birth) as in the TR.
The traditional reading seems right in context, the genealogy
having already been given, and it seems even the modern English translations
use “birth” here.
Fifth: 1:22: It is noted here that a few ms. insert the name “Isaiah”
here as a “scribal explanation.” Neither
the modern text or the TR include the prophet’s name.
What is the issue in Matthew 1:25?:
The
traditional text reads (Scrivener’s TR): και ουκ εγινωσκεν αυτην εως ου ετεκεν τον
υιον αυτης τον πρωτοτοκον και εκαλεσεν το ονομα αυτου ιησουν
An
English translation (KJV): “And he knew her not till she had brought forth her
firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.”
The
modern critical text (W & H):
και ουκ εγινωσκεν αυτην εως [ου]
ετεκεν υιον και εκαλεσεν το ονομα αυτου ιησουν
An English translation (ESV): “but knew her not until she had given birth to a
son. And he called his name Jesus.”
Cf. Luke 2:7 (Scrivener): και ετεκεν τον
υιον αυτης τον πρωτοτοκον και εσπαργανωσεν αυτον και ανεκλινεν αυτον εν
τη φατνη διοτι ουκ ην αυτοις τοπος εν τω καταλυματι
External Evidence:
The traditional reading is supported by, among
others, the uncial codices C, D, K, L, N, W, Gamma, and Delta (note: of these
C, D, and W are very early), as well as the vast majority of later minuscules.
It is the Majority reading. It is also found in various Old Latin mss. (aur, d,
f, ff1, and q),as well as the Vulgate and the Syriac Peshitta and the Harklean
Syriac.
The modern reading is supported by the two
heavyweights Aleph and B, perhaps Z, perhaps 071, family 1, family 13, and 33,
as well the Old Latin, the Middle Egyptian, the Old Syriac (Sinaitic and
Curetonian), and the Coptic (Sahidic and Bohairic, with some variation).
Internal Evidence:
Metzger’s major assumption (see his first
paragraph in this entry) is that the traditional reading is a harmonization
with Luke 2:7 (Scrivener): και ετεκεν τον υιον
αυτης τον πρωτοτοκον και εσπαργανωσεν αυτον και ανεκλινεν αυτον εν τη
φατνη διοτι ουκ ην αυτοις τοπος εν τω καταλυματι
Though both Matthew 1:25 and Luke 2:7 are part of
their respective birth narratives, they are not necessarily literary parallels.
Matthew 1:25 comes after the account of the angelic appearance to Joseph and
the fulfillment citation of Isaiah 7:14. Luke 2:7 comes in its own distinctive context.
Would a scribe have recalled this parallel or
even turn to compare it?
Is it not just as possible not that a scribe of Matthew
drew from Luke to “correct” Matthew, but that both Matthew and Luke drew from a
common Christian tradition that identified Jesus as the firstborn son of Mary?
Metzger proceeds to note the reading in the Sinaitic
Syriac: “She bore to him [to Joseph] a son.” And to compare this to the Sinaitic
Syriac of Matt 1:16.
His point seems to be to raise the possibility of
early sources that would not have known the virgin birth and there did not need
to stress Jesus as the first born son of Mary.
Conclusion:
The traditional reading of Matthew 1:25 has ancient
(C, D, W) and widespread (Majority, early vulgar translations) attestation.
Jesus was clearly known in the tradition as the “firstborn
[prōtotokos]” of Mary (cf. Luke 2:7).
We can easily see either how the traditional reading
might have been omitted through scribal error or through an intentional effort
to deny the virgin birth.
On the other hand, we do not believe there is a compelling
reason to abandon the traditional reading and run the risk of possibly undermining
a cardinal doctrine of Christ’s virgin birth.
We are repeatedly told that no variant affects
doctrine, but this is not so. Aside from doctrines of canon, sufficiency, and
preservation of Scripture, various issues arise within individual variants like
this one in Matthew 1:25. The modern critical text of Matthew 1:25 by omitting “her
firstborn son” offers a muted undermining of the traditional text’s affirmation
of the miraculous conception and virgin birth of Christ.
The traditional text, thus, should be maintained.
JTR
Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Matthew 2:1-12.
And when
they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother,
and fell down, and worshipped him (Matthew 2:11a).
Matthew and Luke are the two Gospels that provide for us a
detailed account of the birth of the Lord Jesus in Bethlehem.
Only Matthew provides the account of the “wise men” [Greek magoi]
from the east who follow a providential star to seek out the newborn Messiah.
You may have heard reports that on December 21, 2020 there
was an event known as the “Great Conjunction” in which the planets of Jupiter
and Saturn lined up from the vantage point of earth to create an appearance “as
one bright shining star” (as the website astronomy.com put it). The astronomers
tell us that this alignment had not occurred in the same way for about 800
years, since the last great conjunction on March 4, 1226.
Some have referred to this as the “Christmas Star.” The
seventeenth century astronomer Johannes Kepler apparently suggested that a
similar alignment took place in 7 BC, around the time of the birth of Christ.
That theory may or may not be true. Matthew makes mention of a star which
guided the wise men from the east to the new-born Christ, but there is nothing
to indicate that it was or was not the result of a “Great Conjunction.” As we
noted with respect to the virgin birth of Christ, once we posit a God who can
create the world in the space of six days and all very good, then there is
little anxiety about his power to do in that creation as he pleases to fulfill
his purposes.
If there is one main theme that permeates Matthew 2, it might
be worship. The wise men are seeking the Messiah to worship him: “for we have
seen his star in the east and have come to worship him” (v. 2).
Herod falsely claims that he desires to worship Christ:
“bring word again, that I may worship him” (v. 8).
While the wise men have their quest fulfilled as they are led
to Christ and worship him: “And when they were come into the house, they saw
the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him” (v.
11a).
One might see a model of three types of “worshippers” in
these three references to worship:
There are those who have a hunger to seek to
worship the one they do not yet fully understand or comprehend.
There are those who duplicitously feign interest
in Christ, even though their hearts are, in truth, hard toward him, and they
prefer to do away with him.
Finally, there are those who reach their goal
when they discover Christ by the help of special revelation. They rejoice with
great joy. They fall down before him and offer him the very best of all that
they have, even themselves.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
In the review I made passing reference to Parker’s discussion
of allegations made in the nineteenth century that this codex is a forgery,
created by a man named Constantine Simonides (1820-1890).
I also noted on my youtube subscription feed that that there is a debate
scheduled for 1.3.21 on Josh Gibbs’s Talking Christianity podcast between James
Snapp, Jr. and Steve Avery on the topic: “The World’s Oldest Bible Is a
Replica: Simonides the Scribe" (look here).
I thought it might be on interest to do a study of some of
the background to the Simonides forgery allegation, by looking at a few
discussions of it.
Let’s begin with the Wikipedia article on Constantine
Simonides.
Next, let’s look at Parker’s dismissal of the allegation in
his work on Codex Sinaiticus (see pp. 151-152, and the bibliography on p. 154,
especially the work by Elliot).
Finally, let’s look at a few relevant entries in Stanley E.
Porter’s biography Constantine Tischendorf: The Life and Work of a 19th
Century Bible Hunter (Bloomsbury, 2015).
See pp. 38-39 where Porter discusses how Simonides in 1855
sold to the University of Leipzig Library manuscripts of the Shepherd of
Hermes, later challenged as inauthentic by various scholars, including
Tischendorf. Around the same time, Simonides was also arrested on the charge of
forging a palimpsest manuscript attributed to Uranius of Alexandria and Porter
notes that Tischendorf also wrote disputing the authenticity of these
documents.
See also pp. 48-50 and Porter’s discussion of the forgery
claim made by Simonides and his ten reasons to reject the plausibility of this
claim (taken from Elliot).
Conclusion:
Codex Sinaiticus may be a forgery, but I believe it is more
likely it is authentic based on the arguments made by Elliot (relayed by
Porter).
There are people who are experts on papyrology and who have
examined the documents firsthand, and their judgements should be given proper
weight.
This is not to say, however, that scholars cannot be duped.
They can! And their presuppositions can lead them to embrace dubious “evidence”
to support their views.
There have been various examples of modern disputes about the
age or authenticity of ancient documents.
Three contemporary examples:
First, Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of
Mark (1958).
The dispute here involves the authenticity of the Mar Saba
letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria and its reference to an extended
version of Mark.
Second, Dan Wallace and “first-century Mark” (2012). In a debate
with Bart Ehrman in 2012, Wallace claimed that a fragment of Mark was about to
be published that was dated to the first century. He later, however, had to
withdraw this claim (see his 2018 blog post).
Third, Harvard Divinity scholar Karen L. King and the “Gospel of
Jesus’s Wife” (2012).
This Coptic papyrus was proven to be a forgery and exposed as
such in an Atlantic article in 2016.
Warning:
Scholars can make overblown and even deceptive claims about
mss. in order to support their points, just as traditionalists can to support
theirs.
The three examples cited above all involved relatively short
and fragmentary documents. One of the arguments in favor of the authenticity of
Codex Sinaiticus is the fact that it is such a massive document and that it
shows evidence of so much scribal correction.
Nevertheless, the claim probably cannot be completely
dismissed. At the least the dispute illustrates a glary weakness of the
reconstruction method. If you are going to rely on reconstruction as a method
how can you do so without knowing with certainty the provenance or origins of
many of the documents upon which you rely to make your reconstruction.
My review of Will Willimon, Accidental Preacher: A Memoir, appeared in Midwestern Journal of Theology, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Fall 2020): 94-96.
The review is now posted to my academia.edu page (read it here).
I also covered the material in this review back in WM 165.
JTR
Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Matthew 1:18-25 (not yet posted to semonaudio.com).
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost (Matthew 1:18).
Matthew 1:18 begins with a heading for the narrative to follow:
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise….”
In one of the earliest confessions of faith, the Apostle’s
Creed, the doctrine of the birth of Christ is rightly affirmed as essential to
orthodox faith, confessing him as one “who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the virgin Mary.”
The Biblical foundation for this is found in Matthew 1:18, which
continues, “When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph….”
In those days among the Jews, it was common to have a formal
engagement or espousal agreement between a man and a woman, as a preliminary
step, before they formally entered into marriage.
Matthew adds, “before they came together.” This is, of course,
a discreet way of saying, “before they shared in conjugal intimacy as husband
and wife.” Such intimacy would not have been allowed during the engagement or
betrothal period.
And he continues, “she was found with child of the Holy
Ghost.” I think the language of the KJV here is just right in its ability to be
circumspect and discreet but also plain about the scandalous circumstances. She
and Joseph had not yet come together, and yet she was found to be with child!
Contrast the KJV rendering with the crassness of some modern translations (like
the NIV).
Matthew gives us privileged information. This conception had
come about not by ordinary generation but by extra-ordinary generation, not by
natural means but by supernatural means. This child was conceived “of the Holy
Ghost.”
In Luke’s account he tells us that the angel Gabriel announced
this to Mary even before the miraculous conception, “And the angel
answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power
of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). The description brings to mind the work of the
Holy Spirit at creation with the Spirit moving upon the face of the waters
(Genesis 1:2).
How did this conception take place? What were the details? We
are not told. It reminds me somewhat of the way the resurrection will be described.
There is not detailed description of how it came about, but just a declaration
that it did come about.
Christ was conceived in the womb of a virgin of the Holy
Spirit. We know this conception came about in such a way that neither Joseph
nor any other man was the natural father, but in such a way that Mary was rightly
called his natural mother. He shared in the fleshly nature of Mary. One medieval
theologian put it this way: When God made the Eve, the first woman, in the
garden, he did so by taking from the rib of Adam. But when the second Adam, the
Lord Jesus Christ, was conceived by God, he did so by taking “the virginal
flesh [of Mary, a daughter of Eve] without seed” (see St. Symeon the New
Theologian, The First Created Man, 96). We might say: The first woman, Eve, was made
without a woman. The true man, Christ, was made without a man.
There is no naturalistic explanation for this. If there was,
it would not be a miracle, which it is!
Today we affirm and defend the doctrine of the supernatural
conception and the virgin birth of Christ. We can affirm with the Apostles’
Creed that we believe “in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord; who was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary.”
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Matthew 1:1-17.
The book
of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Matthew
1:1).
If you were
to attempt to explain the life of the Lord Jesus where would you begin?
Mark begins
with Christ’s baptism by John.
Luke begins
with the birth of the John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and then
proceeds to describe Christ’s birth in Bethlehem.
John begins
in pre-existence: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
Matthew,
like Luke, also begins with the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, but before he
describes his birth, he provides us with the genealogy of the Lord Jesus
Christ, or his family tree (Matthew 1:1-17).
What
applications can we draw from this genealogy?
First, we see the sovereign plan of God being worked
out in his providence:
At many points along the way it might have seemed that
all hope was lost and that the Lord would never send his Messiah.
So too we may despair in our circumstances, but this
genealogy teaches us not to despair. What we see is so limited. We will never
likely see in this life the fulfillment of all the Lord’s purposes, but we can
trust that his plan is good and that nothing can thwart it.
Psalm 42:11 Why art
thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in
God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my
God.
Second, we see that the Lord works
through the lives of sinful and fallen men to achieve his own ends, whether
they be Jacob, or Judah, or Rachab, or David, etc.
The Puritan exegete Matthew Poole notes, “That it was
no way incongruous, that He who came into the world to die for great sinners,
should be born of some that were such.”
We trust not in the competence or the faithfulness of
his servants, but in the ability and faithfulness of our God.
Third, the end or goal of history is the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham.
This genealogy reminds us that he came in time as a
true man, to redeem sinful men.
This is the way the apostle Paul put it:
Hebrews 2:16 For verily he took not
on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
17 Wherefore in all
things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make
reconciliation for the sins of the people.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jeff Riddle
The issue:
I was preaching last Sunday through
the genealogy which begins the Gospel of Matthew and noted a textual variation
at Matthew 1:7-8.
The TR reads Asa, ασα, while the modern critical text
reads Asaph, ασαφ (Westcott
and Hort, NA 28, THGNT).
Translations
based on the TR, then, read “Asa” while those based on the modern critical text
read “Asaph” (see, e.g., the RSV/NRSV/ESV; though some, like the NIV, demur and
follow the traditional reading “Asa”).
In
spelling the difference is but one letter.
The external evidence:
The TR
reading is supported by:
K, L, W, Γ,
Δ, 33, 565, 579, 892, 1241, 1424, and the Majority text. It is also in the
Latin Vulgate and the Syriac.
The
modern critical text is supported by:
P1 (vid),
א, B, C, family 1, family 13, and 700. It is
also found in the Old Latin, in some mss. of the Harklean Syriac, and in the
Coptic.
The internal evidence:
Metzger’s
Commentary gives the modern critical text a {B} rating (17).
Metzger
begins by noting that “Asaph” is “the earliest form of text preserved in the
manuscripts” and that it comes from geographically diverse sources.
He adds:
“Furthermore,
the tendency of scribes, observing that the name of the psalmist Asaph (cf. the
titles of Pss 50 and 73 to 83), would have been to correct the error, thus
accounting for the prevalence of [Asa] in the later Ecclesiastical text and its
inclusion in the Textus Receptus.”
He cites
the scholar LaGrange’s demurral from the scholarly consensus, noting that the
author would not have drawn up this list “without consulting the Old Testament.”
Asaph then, must be “a very ancient [scribal] error.”
Metzger contrarily
concludes, “Since, however, the evangelist may have derived material from the
genealogy, not from the Old Testament directly, but from subsequent
genealogical lists, in which the erroneous spelling occurred, the Committee saw
no reason to adopt what appears to be a scribal emendation in the text of
Matthew.”
So, Metzger’s
theory is the following:
The original
author of Matthew derived his genealogical list not directly from the OT, but
from some later genealogical list, in which the name of Asa had been misspelled
(it was not even an alternative spelling for Asa but an error). In a footnote,
Meztger does not that Asa is spelled Asab in one ms. of the genealogy of
1 Chron 3:10 and that it is spelled Asanos in Josephus’s Antiquities,
viii.xi.3-xx.6 (and spelled Asaph in a Latin translation).
Conclusion:
This is a
minor variation (one letter), but it is significant.
Would the
Gospel of Matthew have included an erroneous spelling of the name of a king of Israel
(Asa), possibly confusing the name with a Psalmist (Asaph)?
Would
Matthew (a Jewish apostle, steeped in the OT) have included “Asaph” in a Gospel
that most scholars agree was likely aimed at a Jewish Christian audience?
The
traditional reading has ancient attestation. W is one of the earliest uncials.
Only one papyrus favors Asaph and its reading is unclear. The clear consensus
reading, confirmed by its appearance in the Majority of extant mss., was Asa.
There is
a plausible explanation for the brief appearance of Asaph in the tradition: an
early scribal error.
The
modern critical text’s preference for a historically incorrect reading is that
they are supposedly restoring the hypothetical original. This decision shows their
bias against historical accuracy in the original and in the consensus text.
Thus, it subtly undermines the historical reliability of Scripture.
Metzger’s
approach gives us insight into the mind of the modern reconstructionist text
critic. As David C. Parker so colorfully puts it, “The editor is the person who
confronts this terrifying anarchy of competing variants, [and] is in effect the
scholarly world’s exorcist who drives out the legion demons and leaves the work
sitting and clothed and in its right mind” (104).
So, the modern
scholar sees the traditional text as a demon possessed monstrosity, which he
must exorcized in order to restore the text to its “right mind.”
In this
case, however, it appears to be an anti-exorcism with the original and correct
Asa being removed and replaced by the corruption, Asaph!
How would
a preacher or teacher who uses a translation such as the ESV handle his
exposition of this passage? Would he say, “This reading is historically
inaccurate, appears only in a minority tradition, but we believe it was probably
the original and we are going to accept it in our Bibles even though (and perhaps
even because of the fact that) it is historically wrong.”?
The
traditional reading is to be preferred.
Note: A
very similar divergence appears in Matthew 1:10 where the TR reads “Amon,”
while the modern critical text reads “Amos.”
JTR
Praying for Reformed churches in British Columbia, including Free Grace BC, Chilliwack, who are continuing to meet for Lord's Day worship services. See this news article.
JTR
