The Gospel of Matthew

by John-Peter Gernaat

​The Gospel of Matthew has opened up a particular theme for me that I hope to follow as we continue. Matthew was Levi, the tax collector. He was well educated in the religious understanding of the Hebrews, and he uses his Gospel to show the Hebrews how the man, Jesus of Nazareth, is the fulfilment of the promised “Anointed One” (Messiah) spoken of in the Holy Scriptures. He therefore regularly refers back to the Old Testament, demonstrating how these teachings are fulfilled in Jesus.

Matthew begins his Gospel with the lineage of Jesus from Abraham, the father of the Hebrew people, to Jesus. This is a kingly lineage and tells the Hebrew people that this human being is the rightful king of the Hebrew people, from King David. This is emphasised in the wise men from the east who arrive in Jerusalem seeking the king newly born.

Now Matthew draws the attention of the Hebrew people to an important parallel. Herod orders the slaughter of the children two years old and younger. Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill all Hebrew boys born. Moses was saved by being placed in a basket and set adrift on the Nile, where he was rescued by the daughter of the Pharaoh. Jesus is rescued by being taken by his parents into the land of the Pharaoh. This parallel draws the attention of the Hebrews to an important event in the life of Moses: the meeting of the “I am” in the bush that was green but appeared to be burning. Through this parallel, Matthew introduces the “I am” incarnate in the man Jesus.

Then Matthew introduced John the Baptist and his message that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Jesus repeats the message when he first begins preaching. John makes it clear that the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees has come to an end.

Then Jesus comes to John, and John is the witness to the Spirit of God descending and remaining on Jesus, and he hears the voice from heaven confirming that the Kingdom of Heaven has descended to the world of human beings.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus immediately goes into the wilderness to be tempted. The period of forty days is a clear message that this is an initiation for the man Jesus. The initiation is completed with the physical body experiencing hunger. Even though the Gospel says that Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted, the tempter arrives only when Jesus experienced hunger.

The temptation is very interesting. The tempter does not force any of the situations in the way that a human temptation might be played on someone. The tempter leaves the way open for Jesus to respond to each temptation. In each case Jesus responds with a quote from scripture, whereby Matthew strengthens his case for this being the Anointed One.

The first temptation can be seen as a temptation of the power of the will, feeding himself and averting the whole course of his ministry. The second temptation can be seen as a temptation of the life of feeling. Jesus even responds by using the word, the ‘capricious’ nature of the human being. The last temptation relates to thinking, the human capacity to see and know the world. In each case, Christ in Jesus brings the human quality under control, suggesting to the Hebrew people that a new condition is now at work in a human being that can shepherd the will, the feeling and the thinking. This condition arises from the “I am” that Moses encountered in the burning bush, which Matthew indicates is now present in this ‘new Moses’.

Matthew makes the case that the “I am” that Moses engaged with is now present in the man Jesus as a result of the baptism and the event that John the Baptist witnessed.

After making himself known throughout Galilee, Jesus gives his first teaching to the disciples he has gathered, known as the ‘Sermon on the Mount’. Rudolf Steiner suggests that the beatitudes are pictures of the condition of the human being as the “I am” works into the human constitution, beginning with the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, the consciousness soul, transforms the astral nature into Spirit Self, the etheric nature into Life Spirit and the Physical nature in Spirit Human. The beatitudes represent the evolution of human consciousness as a result of Christ, the “I am”, working in the human being. Christ demonstrates this as He penetrates the human being Jesus through the next three years. The completion is the Resurrection Body that appears to the apostles in the Upper Room and by the lake shore. This is the future evolution of the human being made manifest.

The message of Matthew appears to be to the Hebrews that the “I am” of the burning bush is now among them, the incarnate Spirit of God in the Anointed One, the Messiah. This means that the Kingdom of God is now in a human Being. We know from the events that unfold that at Pentecost this Spirit alights on each Apostle and enters into them. From that time on, the Kingdom of Heaven is in the human Being as Christ preached, fulfilling the promise of John the Baptist and Jesus in his early preaching that the Kingdom of God is at hand.