Meditations in Matthew 23—A Full Measure

“The Synoptic Gospels give more details of the teaching of Jesus on this Tuesday in the Temple and on the Mount of Olives than for any other single day.”¹ Matthew devotes more than four chapters to those details (Matt 21:19–25:46).

Our last post (here) discussed the four questions in Matt 22. In the last one, Jesus stumped the Pharisees by using Psalm 110:1 (Matt 22:41–46). As we noted, this is the most-often quoted Old Testament verse in the New Testament. It describes Christ’s reign in the messianic age.

At the beginning of Matt 23, Jesus says, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat” (Matt 23:2; emphasis added). The Lord is not finding fault with the Mosaic age or the law that governed it. Rather, he is preparing to condemn the Jewish leaders who were misusing their authority.

The scribes and Pharisees were resisting the transition from the Mosaic age to the messianic age. Jesus said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matt 23:13; emphasis added).

This is the first of eight woes Jesus pronounced in Matt 23.² They show the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees. Their long prayers were pretentious (Matt 23:14). Their proselytes were the sons of perdition (Matt 23:15). Their promises were perversions of Temple priorities (Matt 23:16–22). 

These apostates strained out gnats of tithing from their drinks to avoid defilement. Yet, they swallowed unclean camels by ignoring the law’s judgment, mercy, and faith (Matt 23:23–24).³ They gave attention to external cleanliness and appearance, but not to more important internal issues (Matt 23:25–28).

Jesus’s final woe (Matt 23:29–33) provides the subject for this post. The Jewish leaders attempted to honor the prophets. This was a farce. Jesus said,

[You] say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Matt 23:30–33; emphasis added)

Jesus envisions a vessel that contains Israel’s sins. It is not yet full, but the Jewish leaders will soon fill it to the brim. God had used this imagery in Abraham’s day: “in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Gen 15:16; emphasis added).⁴ Jesus was predicting the Jews would fill up the measure of their sins as the Amorites had filled theirs.

We will make three observations about this filling: its source, its result, and its implications for our understanding of prophecy.

The Source of the Filling

A specific sin would fill the measure of which Jesus spoke—the persecution of God’s messengers. Only Jerusalem could commit this sin. During his final trip to Jerusalem, Jesus said, “I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33; emphasis added).

In the Past

Jerusalem had mistreated God’s prophets in the past. So, Jesus said they would suffer for “all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom [they] slew between the temple and the altar” (Matt 23:35).

The Old Testament gives examples of Jerusalem’s sin. She had killed Zechariah: “They conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD” (2 Chr 24:21). 

Ezekiel says,

Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew her all her abominations. Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord GOD, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come…. (Ezek 22:1–3; emphasis added)

Before sending Israel into Babylonian captivity, God said to Jeremiah, “Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem.…” (Jer 2:2). He condemned the city for its treatment of his prophets. “In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets.…” (Jer 2:30; cp. Jer 26:23; emphasis added).

After returning from Babylon, the Jews confessed this sin of their fathers. They said, “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets.…” (Neh 9:26; emphasis added).

Jerusalem had shed the blood of God’s prophets throughout her history. But the measure of her sin was not yet full.

In that Generation

Jesus revealed when the full measure would come. “Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation (Gk. genea)” (Matt 23:36; emphasis added).⁵ 

He also showed how it would happen. “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city” (Matt 23:34).⁶

The New Testament gives evidence of the fulfillment of this prophecy. Paul, for example, mentions it while speaking to the Thessalonians. He says:

For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. (1 Thess 2:14–16)

Paul’s personal sufferings contributed to filling up the measure of Israel’s sin. He said, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church” (Col 1:24 NKJV; emphasis added). 

The Apostle’s suffering did not “fill up” Christ’s atonement. Instead, it filled up Israel’s sin as they opposed his preaching. They persecuted him for preaching “the circumcision made without hands” and the removal of the law (Col 2:11, 14). This added to their measure of sin.

Luke records specific examples. One occurred in Iconium. “The unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren.… And … there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them” (Acts 14:2, 5; emphasis added). 

Another happened in Lystra. “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead” (Acts 14:19; emphasis added).

That these examples occurred outside Jerusalem is of no consequence. “Jerusalem was the religious center of non-Christian Judaism; it was also the place which was causing Christian believers to be blinded to the full implications of the gospel—and to interfere with the Gentile converts.”⁷

Jews in other cities contributed to the full measure of sin on Jerusalem’s behalf.

Before some who heard Jesus speak had died (Matt 16:27–28), the measure of Jerusalem’s sin was complete.

The Result of the Filling

In Jesus’s generation, all the righteous blood shed “on the land” (Matt 23:35)⁸ would come upon Jerusalem. They would incur “the wrath of God to the uttermost; which would quickly come upon them, when the measure, of their fathers sin were filled up by them.”⁹

Their blood-guilt would bring a specific result—their house would be left desolate. John Gill says this means

the temple, formerly the house of God, but now only their’s, and in which they trusted, would be abandoned by God, he would grant his presence no more in it; and the Messiah, the proprietor of it, and who was now in it, would then take his leave of it, and never more return to it; and that also should share the same fate as the city, and at the same time. Our Lord seems to have in view those passages in Jer. 12:7 and [Jer 22:5] and which the Jewish writers understood of the temple.¹⁰

The Implications of the Filling

This identification of Jerusalem as the persecutor of God’s prophets tends to confirm inmillennialism. It does so by reinforcing its interpretation of Revelation. There, John repeatedly speaks of God’s judgment against those who killed God’s messengers. Our prophetic model says this is the same judgment of which Jesus spoke in Matt 23:32–39.

We will list two examples from Revelation. The first comes from The Vision of Seven Vials (Rev. 15:1–16:21).¹¹ This vision begins with a reference to the Song of Moses.

And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.… And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. (Rev 15:1, 3) 

God had given this song to Moses to serve as a witness against Israel in her latter days (Deut 31:19, 21, 29. It would do so as God judged her for her sin.

The vision specifies the sin under consideration. “They have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy” (Rev 16:6; emphasis added).

The second example in Revelation is in The Vision of the Great Whore (Rev 17:1–20:15). John says, “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” (Rev 18:24; emphasis added). Considering Jesus statements (e.g., Matt 23:37; Luke 13:33), this can refer only to Jerusalem. She is Babylon the Great Whore whom God would judge (Rev 18:8, 10, 20; 19:2).

 The timing of this judgment in Revelation matches Jesus’s prophecy. He said it would “come upon this generation” (Matt 23:36). John says it would “shortly come to pass” (Rev 1:1; cp. Rev 1:3; 22:6, 7, 10, 12, 20). 

The judgment of Jerusalem in Matt 23 is the same as the judgment of those who kill the prophets in Revelation. John’s visions are mostly about events in Jesus’s generation.

Conclusion

The concept of Jerusalem filling up her sin permeates the New Testament. John the Baptist warned her to flee “the wrath about to break at any moment” (Matt 3:7).¹²

Jesus said she would complete the measure in his generation (Matt 23:32, 36). The apostles showed their awareness of this “filling up” as they ministered the gospel between AD 30 and AD 70. And, just before the great tribulation and the Temple’s fall (Rev 7:14; cp. Matt 24:21), John mentioned it multiple times. God was about to judge Jerusalem for her persecution of the prophets. She had filled up the measure of her fathers.

Jesus reiterated and expanded this prophecy later on the Tuesday of Passion Week. We call this passage the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24:1–25:46). Our next post will consider his words.

1. A. T. Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels for Students of the Life of Christ (New York: Harper, 1922), 159. We mentioned this in a previous post (here).
2. The Authorized Version (KJV) has them in Matt 23:13, 14, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29.
3. See John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 9 vols. (1809–1810; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 7:276.
4. See Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, 6 vols. (McLean, VA: MacDonald, 1985), 5:340.
5. Jesus used this Greek word again later the same day (Matt 24:34).
6. The image in this post (here) is Flagellation of Christ by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). It is used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 only as published by the Free Software Foundation.
7. Peter W. L. Walker, Jesus and the Holy City: New Testament Perspectives on Jerusalem (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), 129.
8. Paul R. McReynolds, Word Study Greek-English New Testament, 3rd ed. (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1999).
9. Gill, “Exposition,” 7:280.
10. Gill, “Exposition,” 7:283.
11. We discussed this vision here, here, and here.
12. Kenneth S. Wuest, Expanded Translation of the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 6.