We are returning this morning to the gospel of Matthew, ending our time in chapter 12. Last week we saw the warning that Jesus gave to the crowds about the dangers of life reformation without the right foundation. Explaining the danger of the moralistic gospel which makes the message and purpose of Christianity little more than behavior modification. A gospel message that is at best a job half done. A message that says to the lost, God has a better way for you to live and will love and accept you if you just change your behavior a bit.
The danger in reformation without real relationship with Christ is that it opens up your heart to all new kinds of sin that are far more dangerous. You may be able to sweep out the house, cleanup your life so that you get rid of those life damaging sins. But unless the Holy Spirit takes up residence within your heart all you are doing is inviting the sin of self-righteousness, the sin of complacency, the sin of spiritual apathy; putting you in a place spiritually like that of the Pharisees.
That kind of reformation is not salvation, it is not regeneration, or redemption. In the end, it merely entrenches the person in self-satisfaction, blinding him to his need for God’s mercy. In order for us to have real salvation, there must be a new and right relationship with God, which comes only as a sinner humbly confesses and turns from his sin and receives Christ as Lord and Savior.
Having just concluded this warning, and in the perfect sovereign plan of God, the mother and brothers of Jesus shows up in order for the Lord to extend an invitation with a metaphor surrounding the family. Let us read our passage for this morning, Matthew 12:46-50 as we look to understand the invitation that Jesus gives. Matthew 12:46-50.
“While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him. Someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.’ But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
Jesus has been in a house speaking with the scribes and Pharisees who came to Him wanting to see a sign. This, I am sure tense, interaction included the promise that Jesus would perform the “sign of Jonah” which was an allusion to the resurrection and also included a severe condemnation of the Pharisees with the pronouncement that the men of Nineveh who repented at Jonah’s preaching would stand up on the day of judgment and condemn them. He continued into a warning for all those who were listening about the dangers of moralistic reformation without the true commitment to God. Then comes His family, giving the Lord the perfect illustration of the need for personal relationship with Christ.
We actually do not know much about the family of Jesus. The Gospels do not give us much detail simply because it was not pertinent information. We of course know Mary and Joseph and a little bit about each of them. Both were willing servants of the Lord who were chosen because of their lineage and commitment to God. Both were very aware of who Jesus truly was as they had received angelic visits explaining the divine nature of their first child. The fact that Joseph is not mentioned here or anywhere else in the Gospels or the book of Acts has led the majority of scholars throughout the ages to believe that he had been dead for several years before Jesus began His ministry. That being the case, as the eldest brother, Jesus would have been the de facto head of the family.
We know that Jesus had 4 half-brothers because they are named at the end of chapter 13. In verse 55, His brothers are named; James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. James was likely the second oldest as he is mentioned first in the list and because he became the head of the Jerusalem church after Pentecost. It is this James and not the apostle that is the one who wrote the epistle that bears his name in the New Testament. The other brothers of Jesus are not mentioned again, neither are His sisters whose names are never given, in fact, we are not even told how many sisters He had only that there was more than one.
It is worthy of noting that in these are the legitimate brothers and sisters of Jesus. Genetically, we would call them half-brothers and half-sisters as they shared the same mother but different father, but these were all children born from Mary. Around the fourth century there were a number of heretical, Gnostic gospels and cults that began teaching that Mary’s virginity remained intact even in giving birth to Jesus and that she never consummated her marriage with Joseph. This teaching gained adherents within mainstream Christianity some centuries later and has since developed within the Roman church into something far beyond.
Without going into all of the details and history, though I would love to do so later if you are interested, we can see the evident truth rejecting those claims clearly laid out in the New Testament. Roman scholars will argue that the terms “brothers and sisters” that are used here and in other passages referring to the siblings of Jesus can also be used to include cousins and other extended family members. Where it is true that it is semantically possible. Nowhere in Scripture or in Greek literature is it ever used like that when describing a member of a person’s immediate family along with it. There is a Greek word for “cousins” and if that is who these men were, when mentioning Mary as the mother of Jesus, that would have been the word they used. These brothers and, in chapter 13, sisters of Jesus were the other children of Mary and Joseph.
Other Roman scholars will argue that these were children of Joseph from a previous marriage, but that could not be the case because they would have been his primary heirs rather than Jesus and the whole point of the genealogy given in Matthew is to show that Jesus was the legitimate heir to the throne of David through His earthly father Joseph.
The other thing that we know about these brothers of Jesus is that they did not believe in Him as the Messiah at this point. In John 7:5 we are told specifically that they did not believe in Him. They cared about Him, they were concerned about Him as we see in John 7, they were just not convinced that He was the Messiah.
Matthew does not tell us why His mother and brothers were standing outside seeking to speak with Jesus. It is possible, as His brothers did not believe He was the Messiah, they were beginning to worry about Him. It is quite possible that word had made it to them about some of the claims Jesus was making about Himself and how He was giving these terrifying rebukes to the religious leaders. We read in Mark chapter 3 that some of the Lord’s own people, His friends and family went to get Him and bring Him home because they believed He had lost His senses.
Think about it, if you are older brother was going around claiming to heal the sick and cast out demons, claiming to be the Messiah and the Son of God, you would be a little worried to. Not only that, but at every turn He is antagonizing and condemning the religious and social leaders of your community that you have known all of your life. He is telling them that their traditions are unbiblical and ungodly. He is condemning them as hypocrites and false shepherds.
We cannot be certain, but I would guess that His brothers were coming, at least in their minds, on something of a rescue mission to try to get Jesus out of the situation He had put Himself in before He got himself stoned for blasphemy. They knew the things He was claiming could get Him killed and so they wanted to help. Jesus’ condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees was continuing to grow in intensity and seriousness and in turn, they were accusing Jesus of doing His work by Satan’s power. It is not much of a stretch to think that their plans to destroy Jesus was not well vailed or even common knowledge among the people. Mary was coming along, knowing His true identity, probably to try to smooth things over. At least convince Jesus to back away from His condemning of the Pharisees.
Whatever their reason, Mary and the brothers of Jesus show up to speak with him while he is in the middle of a tense confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees. And His response to being informed of their presence was, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” Now Jesus was not denouncing his family. He was not rejecting them or separating himself from them in the sense of not wanting to be associated with them anymore. That sort of family separation did occasionally occur, but it usually happened the other way around, with a family renouncing an individual for their actions. If a good and upstanding family had a child that had gone wild, getting into all kinds of sin and trouble, the father may stand in the gates of the city and publicly announce that the troublemaker was no longer his child. We do not have anything quite that severe anymore, the closest might be cutting someone out of your will, but I am sure you can picture it.
Jesus was not doing that by any means with this rhetorical quesiton. He loved them far more than they could love Him. His love for them extended to the cross and accepting their sin upon Himself even though they did not believe in Him at that point. It was not until after the resurrection that they believed. Jesus even went so far as to request while on the cross that John care for His mother. Even in the worst of pain, Jesus was planning for the welfare of His family.
So, what was the Lord saying? The point that Christ was making was that earthly, physical relationships are not the most important familial relationships that we should be a part of. “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” In other words, “who is really related to me, who is really my family? Who am I really most like and connected to?”
What is a family? Family is what we are born into but we all know that there is far more to it than that. Families take many different forms. From foster or adoptive families to things like gangs. Watch any old war movie and you will constantly hear soldiers refer to their comrades as “brothers.” Bonds forged out of experiences that know one else could understand. Families are created by people coming together and identifying together over just that unique, shared experiences. They share a bond of unity, a bond of love that goes further than other relationships. Those families give them a whole new aspect of identity.
Jesus asks this question and then in verse 49 he answers it. “And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold, My mother and My brothers.” To be a part of the family of Christ is to share in a unity, a bond that goes deeper than blood relations. A shared experience in the death and resurrection of Christ, in the freedom from sin and an experience of the righteousness of Christ. The Lord’s purpose in referring to His disciples as His family was to demonstrate that He invites the entire world into His intimate and divine family. He is making it clear that His spiritual family is open to anyone who is willing to trust in Him.
To be associated with Jesus, to be adopted into the family of God is not a physical thing, it is a spiritual thing, and entrance into that family is contingent on only one thing, doing the will of God the Father. You are not a child of God simply by birth. We have talked about this in the past. Unfortunately, the common mindset of our Western culture assumes that God is the Father of everyone, that there is a brotherhood of all mankind with God as Father equally among all those in the world. However, Scripture never makes those sort of claims.
In the most basic sense, God is the father of all mankind because he is the giver and sustainer of life. But nothing in Scripture indicates that lost sinners may approach God in this familial sense. No one may call God “Father” and God does not call anyone His child unless they have been granted repentance and salvation, being brought into the family of God. To call Him “Father” without the proper credentials of adoption is an extreme act of presumption and arrogance on the part of the sinner.
Jesus Himself makes it clear that not all are the children of God, and especially that we cannot rely on our natural birth. The Pharisees in John 8 were claiming to be children of Abraham, offspring of God by ancestral association. Jesus not only challenged them on this point but goes beyond by saying, “if God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on my own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to the desires of your father… He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them because you are not of God.”
Physical relationships do nothing for our salvation. It is never a matter of being born into the right family. Simply because your parents are believers, simply because you were born into a family of Christians does not mean that you are part of the family of God. Jesus’ own brothers, His literal flesh and blood family were not a part of His eternal family until they came to recognize Him as Messiah and Lord and put their trust in Him for salvation, doing the will of God.
Simply being a part of a church does not save you. It does not matter if you have been going to church your entire life. If you have been hearing the Gospel preached, hearing the word of God preached every Sunday. No matter how good the theological foundation of your church is or how strictly it adheres to certain doctrines; unless you are brought into the family of God by submitting to the will of our heavenly Father, you will not be part of the family of Christ.
Notice also, the only restriction on entering that family is in doing the will of God. The “whoever” indicates the universality of the invitation. No one who believes is excluded. Paul makes that clear several times in his epistles. At the end of Galatians 3 he writes, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.”
All believers throughout history, no matter our skin color, gender, or cultural background are equal in inheritors with Christ our elder brother. There is no distinction in requirements to be adopted, no unique sin to be overcome or to repent from as you go from one group or culture or skin color to the next. We have unique lives and histories and some sin may be more prevalent in one culture over another, but there is only one body and one spirit, just as we are called in one hope of our calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. Once we are made a part of the family of God we should have absolute unity within the Spirit and no matter where we come from or what we look like.
What kicked off this interaction was a request by the scribes and Pharisees, “teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” They wanted to see a sign from heaven, something cosmic, something divine. Jesus ends this interaction with an emphasis on the divine and the heavenly. “For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.” They wanted a sign from heaven and the Father is giving them one. If you want to be a part of His family, adopted by God the father then it begins by recognizing and acknowledging Jesus Christ as his son. What is God’s will? To accept that Jesus is his Messiah who has accomplished our salvation.
I am sure you have heard the phrase “Christianity is not a religion it is a relationship.” I heard that so many times growing up. And there is truth to it. It is not about a set of moral principles or behavior modification, it is about getting your relationship with Christ right. But we also must always be careful not to fall into error on one side or the other of this equation.
We must remember that this invitation is given in the context of the warning in verses 43-45 that we looked at last week. You have the false reformation contrasted with true relationship in verses 46-50. The false reformation gives you a Pharisee who does not lie or cheat or steal or commit adultery, who is consistent in attending church every Sunday and giving tithes of everything he possesses, and goes to hell because he swept out his heart, cleaned it up but left it empty of anything with eternal value. All that it did was allow in the more wicked sins of self-righteousness and complacency. He was a perfect adherent to a religion of his own making, but there was no relationship with Christ.
On the other hand, we must also be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking our salvation is secure simply because we prayed a prayer or claimed to invite Jesus into our hearts. We must remember back in Matthew chapter 7 the warning Jesus gave, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.” It is not simply what you say, the claims that you make, but by doing the will of the Father. And the will of the Father is believing the Lord Jesus Christ and receiving the gift of salvation that He offers.
There are plenty of people in the world calling for morality. Christ is calling you to have a relationship with Him. That is the message of the gospel, that out of that relationship comes true morality, true repentance, true reformation. It comes only as it is generated and affected and maintained by the power of the Holy Spirit. A right relationship with Christ brings completely new life, both inside and out. We have been called to be transformed, not simply to be reformed. The saving relationship with Jesus Christ comes only from submissively believing in him as Lord and Savior and receiving the gift of salvation he offers freely to all who come to him. “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has given among men, by which we must be saved.”