Matthew: The Rejection of the Messiah and the Change in His Ministry

All my books can be read online free at wayneodonnell.com. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Mt. 10:8). This booklet is one section out of my book "Physical and Spiritual Salvation: Justification, Sanctification, Glorification, the Messianic Kingdom, & Ezekiel’s Temple in Ezekiel 40-48, Matthew, Romans, & 1 John."

Contrary to popular belief, the Jews of Jesus’ generation didn’t reject him because they were expecting a physical kingdom, while he offered a spiritual kingdom. Jesus’ offered a physical kingdom on earth just like they were expecting. Dan. 2 described the kingdom Jesus offered as “the kingdom of the God of heaven.” This can be shortened to “the kingdom of God,” or “the kingdom of heaven,” or just “the kingdom,” as in, “Thy kingdom come.”

The New Testament makes it clear the reason Israel rejected Jesus was because he rejected the rabbis’ oral law. “They asked him, saying, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days?’ so that they could accuse him. And he said to them, ... ‘It is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch forth your hand,’ ... and it was restored whole, like the other. Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they could destroy him,” Mt. 12:10-14.

The salvation God provided in Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew, which means ‘salvation’), is comprised of both spiritual and physical parts. Justification and sanctification are spiritual; but resurrection and glorification are physical. God’s workings with Israel are in the physical realm, the realm where genealogies matter. “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” Mt. 1:1. Much misinterpretation of scripture, like that of Reformed Theology, is due to the felt need to leave the principle of literal interpretation of scripture because of the failure to differentiate between things like personal spiritual salvation and national physical salvation.

Jesus’ ministry changed after the rejection. It’s critical to understand this in order to understand the Gospel of Matthew. This shows that dispensationalism is true, and Reformed theology is false, since things haven’t always continued the same in all times, and not even in Jesus’ ministry.