By James Fire
At the risk of repeating myself, ad nauseum, may I beg your
indulgence in reminding us all that the Gospel of Matthew is directed towards a
particular people group: the nation of Israel. Each Gospel account has a different audience it is appealing to. The portrait of Jesus in this
Gospel is specifically as the coming King of Israel, Who is intent on
establishing the kingdom of Israel, once the sins of Israel were paid in full
by His own Holy blood.
Yet they rejected their Messiah – nevertheless, He paid for all of their sins, as well as for all the sins of the world.
In these kingdom parables, the church is often seen as the
subject, however, if one examines the text and rightly identifies who the
church is, who Israel is, who the Gentiles are, then one can understand who
these are in the parables of the kingdom of Israel.
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