Matthew has some very significant things to say about the deity of Christ. To begin with, he opens his gospel with the assertion that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. Jesus’ very name, Emmanuel, means God with us (1:23); the child, Jesus, is Emmanuel. Matthew here says exactly the same thing as John, that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:1, 14). Here is perfect agreement between the two apostles and their doctrine.
And here indeed was astonishing news. The promised Messiah, the Son of David, is revealed to be more than just a man in the line of David; he was God himself, manifested in human flesh; not this time a theophany, a spirit appearing as a man or an angel, but God himself coming into this world, having taken on the nature of a true human being. And by coming through the line of David, he showed how the promises to Israel (and to the world) would be fulfilled; that God would send his servant David to be their shepherd and their king for ever (e.g. Ezek 34:23-24; 37:24-28).
The promise was fulfilled: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa 7:14). Both Matthew and Luke rightly understood that a virgin would conceive, not just a young woman, as the liberals insist.
Matthew had no doubt that this child was God manifest in the flesh, for he would have been aware of another prophecy concerning him, just two chapters after Isaiah’s prophecy of the Virgin Birth: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6). Here we see the child being called “Mighty God”, and it would be very unlikely and unreasonable to suppose that Matthew was unaware of both prophecies.
God comes to his People
Matthew shows how Jesus is the fulfilment of prophecy by connecting his coming to Israel with the Old Testament prophecies themselves: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” (Matt 3:2-3). The passage from which Matthew quotes is Isaiah 40:3. In our English bibles it says, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God”. If we read further on in the prophecy, it again states that the Person for whom the way is to be made straight, is God. “….say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand….He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young” (Isa 40:9-11).
Do we not see God described in this passage? Do we not see Christ as the fulfilment of it? Do we not see God and Christ identified as one and the same person? Yes, yes, and yes!
Jesus can forgive sin
In chapter 9, Matthew again reveals Jesus as being God. When the paralysed man was presented to him, Jesus said to him, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee” (Matt 9:2). The scribes were present there, and they recognised what this meant. They “said within themselves, This man blasphemeth” (Mark adds “…who can forgive sins but God only?” Mk 2:7). But Jesus didn’t disillusion them by denying his deity. On the contrary, he confirmed it by healing the paralytic. He said “But that ye may know that the son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house” (Matt 9:5-6). Even Jesus calling himself “the Son of Man” here is a claim to deity, especially as it is coupled with the power to forgive sins.
Jesus declares his deity
During his trial before the Sanhedrin, the Jews had already decided that Jesus was to be killed, and they sought for false witnesses to speak against him but they were unsuccessful; and Jesus did not speak. Finally, the High Priest demanded “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God” (Matt 26:63). He knew that the title “Son of God” equates to the “Messiah”, or “Christ” (Matt 16:16; 27:17; M15:32; Jn 6:69; 11:27; 20:31); and he knew that if Jesus admitted to it, they had him on a charge of blasphemy, a charge which carried the death penalty (Jn 5:18). To their malicious delight, Jesus replied “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matt 26:64).
R. T. France (2000, p. 941) tells us: “The Messiah was expected to restore, even rebuild, the temple, so that Caiaphas’ question in v 63 followed logically from the charge in v 61 but in more explicit terms. Jesus at last breaks the silence with a defiant declaration of who he really is. He is indeed the Christ, the Son of God, his guarded reply (lit. ‘You have said’) suggests, however, that he repudiates the construction Caiaphas would put on those titles. He preferred to use his own chosen title, the Son of Man, and by combining those words from Ps. 110:1 and Dn 7:13, he showed the true nature of the authority of the Son of Man. It was to be found not in any earthly reign, but through his enthronement at God’s right hand in heaven. They would see the truth of this when the prisoner they were about to condemn was vindicated by God through resurrection and the triumph of his gospel in the world.
It this outrageous claim was not true, it was blasphemy. The violent actions of the members of the Sanhedrin (65, 67-68) expressed their total repudiation of this impostor” (New Bible Commentary).
The High Priest who questioned Jesus, and the leading Jews who were also there, would have been self-righteously outraged at this claim by Jesus, while at the same time gleeful – it was all they needed, and his confession dispensed with the need for the false witnesses employed by these members of the Sanhedrin. That Jesus should identify himself with the Son of Man in this prophecy of Daniel, and that he should assert that he would be sitting on the right hand of power (i.e. the throne of God), a claim to deity, was utterly blasphemous in the eyes of the Jews, and they needed nothing more than this to sentence him to death.
Other expressions of Jesus’ deity
Jesus commands angels
In the parable of the wheat and tares, Jesus is shown as commanding angels and hell: “The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 13:41-42). This agrees with Hebrews 1:6, where the Father says of Jesus, “let all the angels of God worship him”. If, as God emphatically said, “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another” (Isa 42:8), why would he command the angels to worship Jesus if he wasn’t God, the second Person of the Trinity?
Furthermore, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus warns us that he is returning to earth in judgment. “…and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt 24:30-31).
Who has command of the angels? Only God! When God gave the Law to Israel, it was preceded and accompanied by angels and trumpets and earthquake and fire – it was terrifying (Heb 12:18-24). The One who gave the Law on Sinai is the One who will be returning, at which time the powers of heaven shall be shaken – this One is Jesus, God and creator of heaven and earth! The angels are his to command, and he sends them out to gather his elect to be with him – see also Matt 13:40-43; 49-50.
Jesus sends prophets, wise men, and scribes
Who has power and authority to send prophets to the people of God but God himself? The bible says it is God. God prepares each prophet, equips him with a message, and calls him. For example, Jeremiah writes: “Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations…..I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, and to plant” (Jer 1:4-5, 9-10).
Isaiah also describes the moment that God called and ordained him to be a prophet. After seeing God in a vision, God sends a seraph to prepare him for his great task, and told Isaiah, “Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not’” (Isa 6:9).
So would it not be blasphemous for Jesus to say to the Jews, “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes” (Matt 23:34-39), if he were not God?
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath
When Jesus was accused by the Pharisees of breaking the Sabbath, he referred them to the Old Testament where King David ate the shewbread that was reserved in the temple. Jesus told the Pharisees he was greater than the temple, therefore he had the right to break the Sabbath because, he said, “…the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day” (Matt 12:8).
How could Jesus make such a statement, one which was a claim to deity, if he wasn’t God? When God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel, in the fourth Commandment which is that concerning the Sabbath, he says in part, “the seventh day is the sabbath to the LORD thy God……wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it” (Exod 20:10-11). How could any mere man or prophet make such a claim if it wasn’t true? Jesus’s statement that he is Lord of the Sabbath shows that he is identifying himself with the creator God; and therefore if he chooses to break the Sabbath by working, it is his prerogative to do so because the Sabbath is his alone.
Jesus is Lord of the temple
“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them who sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matt 21:12-13).
Jesus called the temple “My house”. It was the place where God’s presence was on earth; where daily sacrifices were offered to God to atone for the sins of the people; where the people came to worship God and to pray – and Jesus called it his house.
“This cleansing of the temple was His first official act after entering Jerusalem. By it He unmistakably asserted His lordship over the temple” (MacDonald p 1204).
Jesus is the judge of all the nations
Only God has authority to judge the nations on the dread Day of Judgment. “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:11-15).
This scene is the backdrop to that which Jesus described while on earth; a future time when he judges the nations. “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats” (Matt 25:31-32). Jesus then judges them “according to their works” (Matt 25:32-45 cf Rev 20:12); and consigns them to the place of their reward or punishment accordingly: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matt 25:46).
Gentiles recognise his deity
And, as Matthew reveals Jesus as the Son of God through being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, at his death, he shows some Roman soldiers, gentiles, declaring his deity. “Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt 27:54). Not the son of God in the Jewish understanding, as Messiah, but as deity. These soldiers knew what they were implying; for their own emperor, Augustus, claimed the title Son of God for himself, and it was a title of deity.
Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity
Finally, Matthew has recorded Jesus’ last words to his disciples while on earth. When he was about to ascend to the Father, he said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost….and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt 28:19-20).
Here Jesus identifies himself with and as God; he is the second Person of the Trinity; the Son of God; God, the Son. Matthew is in agreement with the apostle John here; John opens his gospel with the glorious statement, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (Jn 1:1-2).
References
“Bible Believer’s Commentary: second edition” 1995, 1992, 1990, 1989 by William MacDonald, publ. Thomas Nelson, Nashville, Tennessee.
France, R. T. 2000, Commentary on Matthew, New Bible Commentary, ed. Carson, D. A., France, R. T., Motyer, J. A., Wenham, G. J., Publ. IVP Leicester, England, and Downers Grove, Illinois, USA
Henry, M. 1997, “The Matthew Henry Study Bible: King James Version”, copyright Thomas Nelson Inc., pub Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA.