Image via Wikipediato the Gospel of Matthew
The Scriptures of God, in their nature and pattern of composition, must reflect the nature and pattern of the world into which they speak. Through the word of God comes light and through light comes life. The light that shines into the human mind from the Scriptures of God shines according to precise measure in order to give sight and not destroy the vessel. Even as there is revelation there is concealment. Indeed, where there is revelation by light, darkness itself is revealed, and that which has been hidden in the darkness is also revealed. So then also in revealing darkness, the light reveals that there is more yet to be revealed. In other words, before the light comes, the darkness itself conceals that it is concealing all things, but the light, when it comes, reveals that the darkness is a concealment, which makes it possible for those who are found in the darkness to seek the light. In this measured way the light gives sight to those blinded by darkness and does not cause them to be so blinded by the light itself that it seems like darkness to them.
And so it is that the Scriptures of the God of Israel present the birth of the Messiah of Israel in a manner that allows the eyes of understanding time to adjust to the light. The record speaks of Mary as giving birth to the child but in the full light it will be seen that the record is given in the form of a great filter of the revelation in order that Israel and the world would not be blinded by the light of the revelation of his birth. For just as the Wisdom of God cannot be separated from the Will of God, so Mary, as a daughter of Israel cannot be separated from Israel corporately as the humanity chosen by God. For it is God's will that Israel corporately should be His and in His wisdom he brings forth its sons and its daughters to serve His design for realizing His will. When Scripture speaks of Mary, therefore, it is also speaking of all Israel. Scripture will later speak of this relationship in The Book of The Revelation of Yehoshua The Messiah chapter 12.
How can the way in which Scripture measures its light be understood? When later Yehoshua will say, "I am the door," it is possible for us to understand that he is the only true door and that every door found in the world is but a metaphor. We see in this way how that Holy Scripture reveals the inversion of all metaphor. Those things that are spiritual in the word of God are the true thing, which are made known by the metaphors of the physical world. That which is found in the physical world is made true and real and enduring insomuch that it is made true in its service of that which is spiritual in the word of God. Without the light that shines from Yehoshua himself the story recorded here of his birth is seen only as a story of a boy born of a young woman who has not consummated her relationship with her husband. We should not avoid this scandal or be dismayed by it or cover it over, for it is precisely this measure of light which will convert our blindness.
Yes, the one who Matthew, in the end, claims is the redeemer of Israel, the saviour of the world, is the one whom he begins as representing to our natural understanding as an illegitimate child. We should not avoid the implications of this, as if it were an unfortunate coincidence that if it were necessary that he would be conceived miraculously by the power of the Holy Spirit then it would appear that he was illegitimate. No, rather, it should be acknowledged that to our natural minds this divine conception can be no more than a legend. The scandal is in accordance with the will of God in the design of His own Scriptures, His own revelation. Therefore the scandal is for our good.
Yes, the one who Matthew, in the end, claims is the one who dies for Israel, (Matt. 16:21), who is buried and who God raises from the dead, to conceal him at His right hand, is the one who appears to our natural mind to have been born in sin and conceived in iniquity. We should not pretend it is otherwise. Only if we come in the end, like Matthew, to recognize that this one who we can only honestly think of naturally as having been conceived and born illegitimately is actually the promised redeemer of Israel will we be worthy of seeing that his apparent illegitimacy was only a cloak for the actual illegitimacy of our own hearts and minds in the judgment of what is true and real. Only when we confess that it is by the cloaking of his light that we are able to see our own darkness will we learn the nature and pattern of all the Scriptures.
Is our natural mind baffled by Matthew's claim that Yehoshua lived in Nazareth so that it might be fulfilled as foretold by the Prophets that he would be called a Nazarene? (ch. 2:28. See comments following.) Only when we are able to confess with Matthew that, in the words of David, it was our hearts and minds that were born in sin and conceived in iniquity will we be able to recognize that Matthew does not mean to quote proof texts to the natural mind but rather to instruct the spiritual mind in righteousness, while cloaking the light so as to allow the natural mind to be shown its own darkness.
When we have learned the nature and pattern of Scripture as unfolded by Matthew, we can see that, not only when Matthew directly mentions that his record is expounding the prophecies of the good news of Israel and her Messiah do we find that they are doing so but also in every other place. For example, we come to understand that it is no coincidence that Mary's husband is named Joseph, for from this we may learn to understand the nature of how the Messiah is the son of Joseph, that redeemer who brought Israel into Egypt for the sake of Israel's salvation from a famine of certain death.
Now Joseph, as the viceroy of Pharaoh, was concealed from Israel in order that Israel might be brought into a place of repentance of brother to brother. Such repentance was the repentance that would allow for the rectification of the error of Abraham and Sarah in introducing Ishmael, as an expression of their natural minds, into their witness to the God who had called them out of the darkness of Adam. For they introduced Ishmael as a brother to Isaac, who was the one who was promised for the line to come through Sarah, chosen in the place of Eve. For the natural mind which is unable to comprehend the revelation of God envies the spiritual mind like an illegitimate son envies his true firstborn brother. But if with God we sometimes see the older brother serving the younger, it is because the natural Adam is not to be rejected by the spiritual Adam, but by being brought to serve the spiritual Adam the natural Adam is to be redeemed through the spiritual Adam.
So we see then Joseph's brothers wrestling with Joseph and we see also Joseph, both in the Land of Israel and in Egypt, wrestling with the word of God, as his father wrestled with the angel. We will see also Yehoshua, for our sake, learning obedience by the things that he suffers, (Hebrews 5:8), and, for our sakes, wrestling with the commandment given to him, "And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will,'" (ch. 26:39). We also see him wrestling, for our sakes, with the word of God in his quotation of David's words, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" (ch. 27:46). And through all of these things it is given to us to understand the blindness of Israel, which is the blindness which arises out of Sarah's longing for her child, the child of her womb. And if we understand this we will read Matthew as we ought to read him, as he intended that he should be read.
