Matthew 8:11-12

[JKLeoPCA]

Howdy all

Just been reading back through the gospels lately and revisited these verses in Matthew and see what discussion they invoke here.

NKJV Matthew 8:11-12

"And I say to you that many will come from the east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Issac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Emphasis mine

Comments?

[Edited on 8-11-2005 by JKLeoPCA]

 

[Poimen]

He just healed the centurion's servant because of the soldier's faith.

Matthew 8:10 When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!

East and West from where? Israel. So the Gentiles will now be heirs of the kingdom but the Jews will be cast out for unbelief.

Matthew Henry notes:

First, A strange sentence passed; The children of the kingdom shall be cast out; the Jews that persist in unbelief, though they were by birth children of the kingdom, yet shall be cut off from being members of the visible church: the kingdom of God, of which they boasted that they were the children, shall be taken from them, and they shall become not a people, not obtaining mercy, Rom. xi. 20; ix. 31. In the great day it will not avail men to have been children of the kingdom, either as Jews or as Christians; for men will then be judged, not by what they were called, but by what they were. If children indeed, then heirs; but many are children in profession, in the family, but not of it, that will come short of the inheritance. Being born of professing parents denominates us children of the kingdom; but if we rest in that, and have nothing else to show for heaven but that, we shall be cast out.

See also:

Matthew 21:43 "Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it."

Romans 11:22 "Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off."

 

[Poimen]

It seems that you might be wondering how this verse would coincide or 'fit' with a belief in God's sovereign grace. If so, my answer would be that every natural born Jew was a member of God's covenant administration (thus sons/subjects of the kingdom) but not every member received the essence of the covenant (sons of God) as per John 1:12, Romans 8:14 & 1 John 3:1-2.

 

[JohnV]

I've found that the hardest people to convince anything of are those who are self-satisfied in their own religion. And that includes covenant members. What more could Jesus have done to convince people that He was the Son of God? He did signs, but they only asked for more; He had compassion on those in need, showing the exact love the law required, and which they all knew, and yet they scoffed at Him, accusing Him of consorting with sinners; He did nothing wrong, and yet they found grounds to condemn Him to death.

This has been repeated many times over since that time. Every time the church falls away, there are plenty of leaders who are happy to convince the people of what they are already more than willing to believe; and no power of persuasion or appeal to truth or the Word will dissuade them.

I think Jesus is telling us to take this all to heart, so that we too don't become proud of our being "sons of the kingdom", thinking ourselves to be saved by virtue of that. Instead, we are sons of the kingdom second because we are saved first.