Matthew 19:27-29

The Basis Of The New Kingly Rule - Jesus Now Explains The Future For All Who Fully Follow Him (19:27-29).

In order to fully appreciate what Jesus now says here we need to consider the similar words spoken at the Last Supper as described in Luke 22:24-30. There the context is specifically that of the disciples having false ideas about their future role, and Jesus is warning them that such ideas are to be quashed because they are dealing with something totally different than they know. There it is in the context of Him stressing that it is those who want to lord it over others (by sitting on their thrones) who are the ones who are least like what the disciples are intended to be. He stresses that in the case of the disciples it is the ones who seek to serve all, like servants serving at table, who are really the greatest, and He then points out that that is precisely what He Himself has come among them to be (compare Matthew 18:4; Matthew 20:25-28). And it is in that context that He cites the picture of the apostles as destined to sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel and expects them to understand it in terms of what He has just said (Luke 22:30).

Now taken at face value the ideas are so mutually contradictory that it is incredible. At one moment He appears to be warning them most severely against seeking lordly glory, and at the next moment He seems to be promising them precisely that and encouraging them to look forward to it, knowing that they are expecting His Kingly Rule soon to be manifested. In other words in this view He is depicted as promising them the very thing that He is at the same time trying to root out of them, and making both promises within seconds of each other. He is seemingly inculcating the very attitude that He is trying to destroy. We find this quite frankly impossible to believe. It suggests therefore that in fact Jesus meant something very different than He appears to be saying at face value, and that He expected His disciples to understand it, so that we thus need to look a little deeper at its parabolic significance in order to appreciate its significance (in the case of Luke see for this our commentary on Luke 22:0).

The second thing that we need to take into account in this regard is Jesus’ love for parabolic representation. Regularly in His parables His servants are pictured as men of great importance who are called on to serve faithfully. They are pictured as people placed in great authority, and that on earth for the purpose of a ministry on earth (Matthew 18:23-24; Matthew 25:14; Luke 12:42; Luke 16:1; Luke 19:12-13). They are seen as given positions of great splendour. But in contrast we have already been warned about how they must carry out that service. They are to carry it out by serving humbly (Luke 12:36-37; Luke 22:26-27; see also Matthew 18:4; Matthew 20:26-27). Thus He pictures His servants as on the one hand having great authority and power, and yet on the other as needing to be meek and lowly and menial in serving others. And He pictures the latter as the greatest service that there is, so great that it is what He Himself is doing while on earth (Matthew 20:26-28; Luke 22:26-27), and is also what He will do for them in the future Kingly Rule (Luke 12:37). For He is one Who Himself delights to serve, and is among them as One Who serves, and will go on serving into eternity for God is a God Who delights to serve and to give. He is the very opposite of what we naturally are. That is what He has done through history (note Exodus 20:1-2). So although His authority is total and His power omnipotent he continually serves His own.

Can we really think that the One Who sets such a picture before them of service is going to encourage them by presenting them with a goal that contradicts all that He has said at a time when they are vulnerable to such ideas? If there was one problem that the disciples had at this time above all others it was wrong ideas about their future importance, ideas which were making them almost unbearable (Matthew 20:20-24). Would Jesus really have been foolish enough to feed those wrong ideas by saying, ‘Don’t worry, you are going to lord it over everyone in the end’? Quite frankly it is inconceivable.

The third thing that is to be taken into account is that the promises then made to other than the twelve relate mainly to this life (Matthew 19:29). What they are promised is that whatever they lose for His sake they will gain the more abundantly here on earth (this is even clearer in Mark 10:30), as well as eternal life. If He wanted to encourage His disciples by pointing to their future glorified state, why did He not do the same openly with the others? Thus the obvious conclusion is that what He promises to the disciples is parallel with what He promises to the others, and that both therefore relate mainly to this life.

The fourth point to be considered is that these words are followed immediately by a parable that warns against presumption, in which it is emphasised that God promises to deal with all men equally when it comes to ‘reward’. But this sits very uneasily with the idea that twelve of those to whom He has spoken have already been promised thrones as a reward! (Even given that the context is Matthew’s arrangement).

And the final point that has to be considered is that when James and John did take Jesus’ words here too literally and made their bid for the two most important of the twelve thrones (Matthew 20:20-22) Jesus immediately pointed out what their real destiny was, that they were not to seek thrones, but were to share His baptism of Suffering and to be servants of all as He was (Matthew 20:23-28), and this immediately following the parable where all were to receive equal. If He was really offering them literal thrones He should have been praising their ambition.

Let us now summarise the arguments:

1) The superficially obvious meaning is unlikely in view of Luke 22:24-30 where it contradicts the whole passage (see our commentary on Luke).

2) Jesus regularly speaks metaphorically of His disciples pictured in terms of high status (Matthew 18:23-24; Matthew 25:14; Luke 12:42; Luke 16:1; Luke 19:12-13), although serving in lowliness (Luke 12:36-37; Luke 22:26-27; see also Matthew 18:4; Matthew 20:26-27).

3) What is offered to the ‘others’ in Matthew 19:29 relates to a metaphorical picture of blessing on earth prior to their going on to eternal life, depicted in an exaggerated fashion. We would therefore expect that the parallel offered to the Apostles would also refer to a metaphorical picture of blessing on earth depicted in a similar exaggerated fashion.

4) The parable that immediately follows in chapter 20 refers to all receiving equal reward which sits ill with the Apostles having just been promised thrones in a future life.

5) When James and John then take what Jesus has said too literally and seek to get the best thrones they are informed that they are rather being called on to suffer and to serve, and are not to think in terms of enjoying literal thrones (Matthew 20:20-28), and this in similar terms to Luke 22:24-30.

But what then can Jesus mean by the words ‘You who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, you also will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ without it giving the disciples too great a sense of their own importance? What could He be trying to signify to His disciples? In the light of our criticisms above we would expect the obvious solution to be that He was indicating to them their prominent positions of service in regard to their future task on earth. Having that in mind as a possibility let us continue the phrases used and see if they at all fit in with that idea.

This first raises the question as to what Jesus means by ‘the regeneration’ (palingenesia). Now in dealing with this question the tendency is to go to apocalyptic passages in the Old Testament as interpreted in the light of Jewish apocalyptic (neither of which used palingenesia) and then to translate them in that light. But if there is one thing that is clear about Jesus it is that He is not tied in to such ideas. Rather He takes them and reinterprets them in His own way in the light of God’s programme as He sees it to be. For that is what He has come to bring, regeneration, a new creation (Romans 6:4; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15).

What then is the ‘regeneration’ (palingenesia)? The word can simply means ‘a becoming again’ or a ‘being born again’. But how is it used elsewhere? It is used by the Egyptian Jewish philosopher Philo of the renewal of the earth after the flood. It is also used by Paul of the ‘renewal’ of the Holy Spirit in men’s lives when they come to Christ (Titus 3:5). Now if, as seems probable, the dove in Matthew 3:16 was symbolic of the dove returning after the flood, indicating the issuing in of a new age (Genesis 8:11), and thereby indicated the coming of a new age in the coming of the Messiah along with the deluge of the Holy Spirit, this ties in with both Philo’s use and Paul’s use. Here therefore it will indicate the new age that Jesus is introducing as begun in His ministry and consummated in the coming of the Holy Spirit. A new nation is being brought to birth. Thus it is the time when the Holy Spirit comes to renew men and women (Isaiah 44:1-5; Joel 2:28-29; Ezekiel 36:25-29; Acts 2:18). It is the time when God breathes new life into His people (Ezekiel 37:9-14). It is the time when men and women stream out from Jerusalem taking His Law (Isaiah 2:2-4). It is the time when the waters stream out from God’s Dwellingplace bringing new life to all (Ezekiel 47:1-12 as explained in John 7:37-38). In other words it has in mind the ministry of Jesus followed by Pentecost and after. Compare the description of the work of John, which was ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to walk in the wisdom of the righteous’ (Luke 1:17) and that but as an introductory renewal. And that is to be followed by ‘out of your innermost beings will flow rivers of living water’ (John 7:38). This is a regeneration indeed.

But when will the Son of man be seated on the throne of His glory? Matthew makes that quite clear in Matthew 26:64, it is ‘from now on’ when He comes on clouds into the presence of the Father to receive the Kingship and the glory (Daniel 7:13-14); it is when He receives all authority in Heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18); it is when He is glorified (see John 7:39 where it is directly connected with the coming of the Spirit); see also John 12:23; it is when He receives the glory that He had with His Father before the world was (John 17:5); compare also Acts 2:34-36; Acts 7:55-56. He will thus sit on the throne of His glory after the resurrection when He is ‘glorified’ and returns to the glory that was His before the world was. That is, He receives the throne of His glory after His resurrection when He comes to His Father on the clouds of Heaven to be enthroned (Psalms 110:1 with Acts 2:34; Daniel 7:13-14). See also Revelation 4-5 where the idea of glory is prominent (Revelation 4:9; Revelation 4:11; Revelation 5:12-13). Then He will bring His throne with Him when He comes again to sit on the throne of His glory (Matthew 25:31); compare Ezekiel 1:0 where it is on such a throne that God carries out His judgments on the earth.

How then will the Apostles sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel? The idea is taken from Psalms 122:5. ‘Jerusalem -- there the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, -- for there are set thrones for righteous judgment, the thrones of the house of David’. The picture can be compared and contrasted with Isaiah 2:2-4. The picture here is of all the tribes of Israel streaming up to Jerusalem in order to obtain truth and righteous justice from those appointed by the Davidic King, who will sit on ‘the thrones of the house of David’ (thus representing the Davidic kingship) overseeing ‘the tribes of Israel’.

In fulfilment of this Jesus is now promising to the disciples that the days when those ‘thrones of David’ will be set up under His Messiahship are shortly to come about, when here on earth they will be able to serve Him in readiness for His coming, taking responsibility for the new Israel, sharing in His authority, manifesting His glory, receiving a hundredfold in this life, and all this in terms of acting as servants just as the King Himself has (as expanded on in Matthew 20:20-28).

And this, at least initially, will be over ‘the twelve tribes of Israel’, that is the new Jewish Christian ‘congregation’ formed in Jerusalem and spreading out into the world. What better picture could there be of this than what happened in Acts 1-6? Here were twelve men anointed and empowered to serve the Lord’s anointed (Acts 4:27; Acts 4:29-30; Acts 5:31 compare Acts 2:1-4; Acts 2:33). Here was the new Israel, flowering out of the old (Romans 9:6). Thus Jesus is saying that the greater David will receive His glorious throne, and His representatives will then be established in Jerusalem as of old, bringing truth and righteous justice to the people. It is noteworthy that it was specifically in the days of David and of the Exodus (Matthew 2:15) that Israel was represented by ‘the twelve tribes’. Thus what better description of Jesus’ new congregation, seen as the product of the new Exodus (Matthew 2:15) and of Jesus’ position as the son of David (Matthew 1:1; Matthew 1:17), than ‘the twelve tribes of Israel’ who were destined for redemption and over whom David held sway.

And from Jerusalem they will continue to exercise their power (Acts 1-11, Acts 1:15). And from there His word and His Law will go out to the world (Isaiah 2:2-4; Acts 1:8). And in accordance with the teaching of Jesus they will do it in humility and meekness, as servants of the people (Matthew 18:1-4; Matthew 20:25-28). There indeed they will (parabolically) ‘sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’, as thousands flock to His new congregation.

And for the first few years of the Christian era this is precisely what happened, and it would continue ‘literally’ for some years. And then it would expand into something even greater as many Gentiles became united with the twelve tribes of Israel (James 1:1). And then the Apostles will continue to ‘sit on their thrones’ and adjudicate (Acts 11:1-18; Acts 15:6-29) while the twelve tribes of Israel expand beyond all imagining. That is how John understood it in Revelation 5:10.

For in the end the ‘twelve tribes of Israel’ becomes a description of the ‘congregation’ of Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18; Matthew 18:17; James 1:1; Romans 9-11; Galatians 3:29; Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 2:11-22; 1 Peter 2:9 (compare Exodus 19:5-6); Revelation 7:1-8; Revelation 21:12-14). For the true church of ‘believers’ is the true Israel (John 15:1-6; Romans 11:17-26) made one in the One Who is Israel (see Matthew 2:15). For a more detailed argument see excursus below.

Jesus is thus promising His Apostles that the ‘regeneration’ will shortly come, and that as a result of their faithfulness in following Him they will then be established as His representatives of truth in Jerusalem, establishing the new Israel by His power and authority. And so it would prove to be. (They had no carefully worked out schemes like we have. They saw it all as on the verge of fulfilment and would see it in that light).

Analysis.

a Then answered Peter and said to him, “Lo, we have left all” (Matthew 19:27 a).

b “And followed you. What then shall we have?” (Matthew 19:27 b).

b And Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, you also will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28).

a “And every one who has left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

Note that in ‘a’ they have ‘left all’ and in the parallel those who have left all will receive a hundredfold. In ‘b’ they have followed Jesus and in the parallel those who have followed Him will enjoy the exercise of His authority in the new age among the new people of God.