Matthew 16:21

‘From that time Jesus began to show to his disciples, that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.'

Now He feels it important to make clear to His disciples the deeper truths concerning His coming, and ‘from that time' He began to emphasise His coming suffering. Going to Jerusalem for these purposes was something that ‘it was necessary' for Him to do. For it was in the will and purposes of God. So they must recognise once and for all that He was not here to lead them to victory against the Romans. Rather He was here to ‘suffer many things', as the Son of man had suffered in Daniel 7 (as one with ‘the saints of the Most High') under the depredations of the wild beasts, which represented empires like Rome, and as the Servant had suffered for the redemption of His people (Isaiah 53), and as the Psalmist king had suffered in readiness for the new dawn (Psalms 22). And this must be so because the world is such that godly people must always suffer if good is to triumph (Acts 14:22). Let them consider the Psalms which consistently refer to suffering. Let them consider what had happened to the prophets. Let them consider the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 50, 53. It was the nature of the world that those who followed God would suffer (compare Hebrews 11). And thus He, Who as the Son of Man and Servant was representative man, must also ‘suffer many things' including scorn, rejection, tears, scourgings and death. (Compare Matthew 17:22; Matthew 20:17; Matthew 20:28; Matthew 21:39; Matthew 26:2; Matthew 26:12; Matthew 26:24; Matthew 26:28; Matthew 26:31; Mark 9:12; Mark 10:45; Luke 17:25; Luke 22:15; Luke 24:7; Luke 24:26; Luke 24:46; John 3:14; John 10:15; John 10:17; Acts 1:3; Acts 3:18; Hebrews 2:18; Hebrews 5:8; Hebrews 9:26; Hebrews 13:12; 1 Peter 2:21; 1Pe 2:23; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 Peter 4:1)

‘At the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes.' The elders were the prominent lay people on the Council (Matthew 21:23; Matthew 26:3; Matthew 26:47; Matthew 26:57; Matthew 26:59; Mark 11:27; Mark 14:43; Mark 14:53; Mark 15:1; Luke 7:3; Luke 20:1; Luke 22:52; Luke 22:66), the chief priests were the hierarchy who regulated Temple affairs (Matthew 21:15; Matthew 21:23; Matthew 21:45; Matthew 26:3; Matthew 26:14; Matthew 26:47; Matthew 26:59 etc.) and the scribes were the Teachers of the Law (Matthew 9:3; Matthew 12:28; Matthew 15:1; Matthew 21:15; Matthew 23; Matthew 26:3; Matthew 26:57; Matthew 27:41; Luke 5:21; Luke 5:30; Luke 6:7). He was already rejected by many of them and He recognised that it was to be expected that almost all of them would turn against Him (Psalms 118 (LXX 117).22), for He knew what was in man (John 2:25), and He was hardly ensuring His popularity by tearing down their structures and their hypocrisy. He was no different in this respect than the previous prophets. He was here to be rejected by the great Jewish religious leaders of the day, as the great prophets had always been, and necessarily must be (compare Matthew 21:35; Matthew 23:35; Matthew 23:37; Mark 12:5; Luke 6:23; Luke 13:33; Luke 20:10). In His view this was inevitable. Had He not Himself declared, ‘Woe to you when all men speak well of you'? (Luke 6:26). It was of false prophets that men spoke well (Luke 6:26). They had rejected Jeremiah. Would they not do the same to Him?

We can consider here God's complaint against the Jewish leaders in Jeremiah 2:8, of whom He says, “the priests did not say ‘where is the Lord' and they that handle the Law knew Me not.” They had long ago turned against God. Compare in this regard Jeremiah 18:18 where Jeremiah too was rejected by those who handled the Law and Jeremiah 20:1 where he was smitten by ‘the priest who was the chief officer in the house of the Lord'. See also Jeremiah 26:7; Jeremiah 26:11 where ‘the priests and the prophets' sought his death. Jeremiah would be especially significant to Jesus as he too prophesied the destruction of the Temple (Jeremiah 7:14), calling it a ‘den of robbers' (Jeremiah 7:11). And now a greater than Jeremiah was here saying the same things. So it would be nothing new for the religious leaders of Israel to condemn such a prophet ‘for the sake of the nation' (John 18:14). This idea of the rejection by the Jewish leaders is further based on the pattern of such Scriptures as Zechariah 11 where the true shepherd who had fed the flock was rejected by the false shepherds of Judah and Israel, and was dismissed for thirty pieces of silver, the value of a slave, which he cast to the potter in the house of the Lord as a sign that the amount was rejected by him and was insufficient. Thus rejection by the elders, and chief priests and scribes must not be seen as anything unusual. It was what had always been.

‘And be killed.' He had no doubts about what lay ahead. It is not really surprising that Jesus saw His future in terms of suffering. He had witnessed what had happened to John the Baptist (Matthew 14:3; Luke 9:7; Luke 9:9), He knew of the growing antagonism against Him (Matthew 9:11; Matthew 9:34; Matthew 12:1; Matthew 12:24; Matthew 15:1; Matthew 16:1; Mark 3:6; Mark 3:22; Luke 6:11), He knew of the career of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 51:4; Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12, and of the Smitten Shepherd in Zechariah 13:7 (consider John 10:11). He knew of the references to the suffering of the godly in the Psalms (e.g. Psalms 22; Psalms 118:10 on) and He knew that the Son of Man in Daniel as the representative of God's people would come out of suffering into the presence of God, even while ‘the wild beasts' were attacking the true people of God (Daniel 7:13 with Matthew 16:22 and Matthew 16:25). He had no Messianic delusions. Unlike the disciples He knew precisely what was in store for Him. And He knew that His death was necessary so that He could be a ‘ransom for many' (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45)

Strictly speaking the disciples should also have been prepared for this, but like us, and like the Jews, they had the ability to make words mean what they wanted them to mean. Some of them had been disciples of John the Baptiser, and they had been shocked when he had met a violent end. And they had also been told that the Bridegroom was to be ‘snatched away' from them (Matthew 9:15; Mark 2:20; Luke 5:35), and then they would fast. It had further been inferred that the temple of His body would be destroyed, and in three days raised again (John 2:19). And Jesus had clearly stated that He was giving His flesh for the life of the world (John 6:51) and that men would ‘eat and drink' of Him (John 6:56), a clear reference to His being put to death according to Old Testament passages such as Psalms 14:4; Psalms 53:4; Micah 3:3; Isaiah 49:26; Zechariah 9:15 LXX; compare Matthew 23:30. But in the way men have they had refused to accept the unpalatable truth and had ignored it. Now they were being faced up with it in a way that could not be ignored.

Interestingly we have here an evidence of how carefully the actual words of Jesus were preserved. It would have been so easy to alter it to read ‘crucified', especially in the light of Matthew 16:24 (and see Luke 24:7) and the fact that crucifixion was the normal death under the Romans for high treason, but they did not. Compare Matthew 20:19 where, by then aware that He was to be handed over to the Gentiles, He recognised the inevitability of crucifixion.

‘And the third day be raised up.' But on the third day He would rise again. He may not have intended ‘the third day' literally. ‘Three days' indicated a relatively short period of time and could mean ‘within days' (compare the ‘three days journey', a standard phrase in the Pentateuch indicating a shortish journey compared with the longer ‘seven days journey' - Genesis 30:36; Exodus 3:18; Exodus 5:3; Exodus 8:27; Numbers 10:33; Numbers 33:8; Jonah 3:3).

This idea of a third day resurrection is found in Hosea 6:1, and as Jesus has previously mentioned (Matthew 12:39), in Jonah 1:29. (Matthew, like Luke, interprets the ‘three days' of Mark as ‘the third day' in accord with Jewish practise). And this interpreted in the light of the suffering Servant of Isaiah. Hosea 6:1 was initially spoken of Israel, (God's vine). But Jesus was here as in Himself representing the true Israel, the true Vine (John 15:1), as God's Son called out of Egypt (Matthew 2:15). As the Servant He was Israel (Isaiah 49:3). Thus he could apply Hosea 6:1 to Himself.

Note the context in Hosea. God will wait ‘in His place' until Israel acknowledge their guilt and seek His face, and in their distress seek Him and say, ‘come let us return to the Lord'. But this will not be until ‘He has torn that He may heal them, He has stricken and will bind them up'. These last words could well have been spoken looking at the Servant. For as Isaiah has made clear (Isaiah 53:3) this was what first had be played out on the One Who was to come as the representative of Israel. We have here a clear picture of the Servant as described in Isaiah 53. It is in Him finally that He has torn them, it is in Him that He has stricken them, for He has borne in their place all that they should have faced (Isaiah 53:3). And the result will be a reviving and a raising up on the third day, first for Him (Isaiah 53:10; Isaiah 53:12) and then for them. For He will have gone before them in order to be a guilt offering and make it possible for all (Isaiah 53:10). Indeed it could all only be because their representative had first gone through it for them that they could enjoy it.

So as the One Who saw Himself as suffering for Israel in their place, and as their representative, Jesus also saw Himself as being raised again like them, on the third day as in Hosea.

Indeed a moments thought reveals that the Servant's task could only be fulfilled by resurrection. How else could He ‘see His offspring', ‘prolong His days' and receive the spoils of victory (Isaiah 53:10; Isaiah 53:12)? (Compare also Isaiah 52:13). And how else could the Son of Man come triumphantly out of the suffering and death of the true people of God (the holy ones of the Most High) into the presence of the Ancient of Days to receive the everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:13)? And unless He was raised how could the Holy One ‘not see corruption' (Psalms 16:10)? Resurrection was required as God's vindication in a suffering world (Isaiah 26:19), and especially so for the suffering Servant. And it is also constantly implied by such statements as Luke 9:24. All this was clear from the Scriptures (Luke 18:31).