27  God’s Beloved  Servant (12:15-21)

But Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed Him, and He healed them all, and warned them not to make Him known, in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, might be fulfilled, saying, “Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen; My Beloved in whom My soul is well-pleased; I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel, nor cry out; nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out, until He leads justice to victory. And in His name the Gentiles will hope.” (12:15-21)

Scripture ascribes many titles to Christ [Messiah], and none is more fitting or lovely than My Servant, a title first used by Isaiah (42:1). Just as the prophet predicted of the Messiah, Jesus came in wonder, beauty, and majesty as the divine Servant, serving the Father and serving mankind in the Father’s name.

This brief passage is an oasis of refreshing beauty in the desert of chapters 11 and 12—which chronicle the first major rejection of Christ, led by the scribes and Pharisees. After Jesus put them to shame by showing that their Sabbath traditions were hardhearted, illogical, and unscriptural, “the Pharisees went out, and counseled together against Him, as to how they might destroy Him” (12:14). Those ungodly leaders believed the very opposite of the truth about Jesus, even to the point of accusing Him of doing His work by the power of Satan.

In the midst of his account of that mounting antagonism, Matthew here presents some of the outstanding characteristics of this Servant whom the world despises but God dearly loves.

CONFORMED TO GOD’S PLAN

But Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed Him, and He healed them all, and warned them not to make Him known, in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, might be fulfilled, saying, (12:15-17)

In His omniscience Jesus was aware of the Pharisees’ plan to destroy Him, and He therefore withdrew from there. Jesus had not come to do His own will but His Father’s (Matt. 26:29; John 6:38), and it was not yet the Father’s time for the Son’s ministry and life to be ended. When that time came, Jesus accepted His arrest, trial, and crucifixion without complaint or resistance—although at any time He could easily have saved Himself and destroyed those who sought to destroy Him. When the soldiers came to arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, they fell down in awe simply at hearing Him say, “I am He” (John 18:6). When, a few moments later, Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave, Jesus said, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:52-53).

Until the time of the events described in the Matthew 21, Jesus’ ministry was a continual cycle that consisted of going to a particular city or region; of preaching, teaching, and healing; of acceptance by some and rejection by others, particularly the religious leaders; and then of withdrawal to another place. As His ministry progressed, the cycles became shorter because opposition came more quickly and more intensely.

Yet Jesus was never forced away from a place of ministry, but always withdrew of His own volition. Had He been willing to use His power for that purpose, He could have continued at any place doing entirely as He pleased—because no force, including the crack troops of Rome, could have hindered Him in the least way. But the Father’s plan was not to shed Roman blood but His Son’s blood, because only His Son’s blood could atone for the sins of mankind and open the way to heaven.

The essence of Jesus’ life, His very food, was to do His Father’s will and “to accomplish His work” (John 4:34). Jesus had the true heart of a servant, and He was submissive to His Father and wholly given to redeeming a lost world. There was never a servant like this Servant, “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8).

After Jesus left the synagogue, many followed Him, and He healed them all. The Lord healed many people who did not believe in Him to salvation. Of the ten lepers He cleansed on one occasion, only one showed evidence of faith by returning to give thanks. Jesus’ words “Your faith has made you well” refer to the man’s spiritual healing through salvation, not to his physical healing, which had already taken place. All ten, lepers were physically healed, but only one was healed spiritually (Luke 17:11-19).

Jesus’ miracles of healing demonstrated His divine power, but they also demonstrated His divine love and compassion for suffering people. He healed in order to reveal the loving heart of God, which continually goes out to those who are hurting, burdened, and persecuted. The people Jesus healed were despised and neglected by the scribes and Pharisees, as well as by the priesthood, which God had established as a means for bringing His people nearer to Himself. The religious leaders were interested in the rich and influential, not the sick, the poor, and the outcast. As in the case of the man with the withered hand, their only interest in his affliction was to use it as a means of inducing Jesus to break a Sabbath tradition in order to accuse and convict Him (Matt. 12:10).

Jesus, on the other hand, always had time for those who were suffering and in need. When He looked out over “the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36). Not only were they oppressed by the Romans but by their own religious leaders, those who should have been their shepherds. Those leaders were wolves dressed like shepherds, and instead of feeding the sheep they devoured them (Matt. 7:15; 23:14). They were like the wicked shepherd spoken of by Zechariah who devoured the flesh of the fat sheep and tore off their hooves (Zech. 11:16).

But when the true Shepherd came to Israel, He had great compassion for His suffering people and He lovingly healed them of every kind of disease and affliction. He called out to them saying, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light” (Matt. 11:28-30). False shepherds impose burdens, but the true Shepherd lifts them. That is why Peter tells us to cast our burdens and anxieties on the “Chief Shepherd,” because He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:4, 7).

Christ feels the pain that hurts us and the weight of burdens that grind us down; and in His gracious lovingkindness He heals our hurts and lifts our burdens.

After Jesus healed all the afflicted among those who had followed Him, He warned them not to make Him known, just as He had told the leper, “See that you tell no one” (Matt. 8:4), and the two blind men, “See here, let no one know about this!” (9:30).

There are probably several reasons why Jesus gave such instructions on certain occasions. In the case of the leper, Jesus prescribed the Old Testament procedure for going to the priests to have a cleansing verified (Lev. 14:2-32). The testimony of the priests would give official recognition of the man’s healing and therefore give more dramatic evidence of Jesus’ messianic credentials.

It may also have been that Jesus sometimes commanded that His miracles not be publicized so that He could confront in person as many people as possible with the initial wonder of His miraculous power. When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus if He were really the Messiah, Jesus did not simply tell them about what He had been doing but performed miracles especially for their sakes, giving them direct proof of His divine power. “At that very time,” Luke tells us, Jesus “cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He granted sight to many who were blind” (Luke 7:21).

Jesus also may not have wanted His miracles to become too widely known in order to keep them in perspective. The miracles were evidence of His divine power and His rightful claim to messiahship. He did not perform them to become famous or to build up a popular base of power and influence—as many of His followers expected Him to do. And although He had great compassion for the physical afflictions of the people, His primary work was to save souls, not bodies. Not only that, but continual demonstrations of power could easily have inflamed zealous enthusiasm for Him as a military and political deliverer, which most Jews expected the Messiah to be but which Jesus refused to be. It was for that reason that He withdrew from the crowds after the feeding of the five thousand. “Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone” (John 6:15).

Jesus’ miracles also served to further incite the rage of the scribes and Pharisees; and if His fame had spread too widely and quickly it would have prematurely increased the fatal opposition against Him.

But perhaps the most important reason Jesus did not want His miracle power to be too highly acclaimed was that this was not the time of His exaltation but of His humiliation.

Many of the people must have wondered why, if Jesus really was the Messiah, He was not accepted by the religious leaders and why He kept withdrawing from the multitudes and why He spent so much time with the poor and needy instead of the powerful and influential. How could such a person overthrow Rome and restore Israel?

But Matthew assures His readers that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, just as foretold by Isaiah the prophet. Jesus did not come to fulfill the confused and unscriptural expectations of the people but to fulfill His divine mission as predicted in His own Word. He was therefore determined that every divine prediction about Him might be fulfilled.

Matthew 12:18-21 is a modified quotation of Isaiah 42:1-4 and is one of the most strikingly beautiful descriptions of Jesus Christ anywhere in Scripture. Here we see that Jesus was commended by the Father and commissioned by the Holy Spirit, that He communicated His Father’s message, that He was committed to meekness and to comforting the weak, and that He would consummate the victory over sin and Satan.

COMMENDED BY THE FATHER

Behold, My Servant whom I have chosen; My Beloved in whom My soul is well-pleased; (12:18a)

Pais (Servant) is not the usual word for “servant” and is often translated “son.” In secular Greek it was used of an especially intimate servant who was trusted and loved like a son. In the ancient Greek edition of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), pais is used of Abraham’s chief servant (Gen. 24:2), of Pharaoh’s royal servants (41:10, 38), and of angels as the Lord’s supernatural servants (Job 4:18).

Jesus Christ is God’s supreme Servant, His only Son whom He has chosen to redeem the world. The Greek phrase translated I have chosen (from hairetiz) indicates a firm and determined decision and is used nowhere else in the New Testament. It was used in secular Greek of irrevocably adopting a child into the family as an heir who could never be disenfranchised. The Father had irrevocably chosen His beloved Son to be His divine Servant, the only One qualified for the task of redemption.

Because the prophets frequently spoke of God’s choosing the Messiah, He was often referred to as “The Chosen One.” At Jesus’ crucifixion, “the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, ‘He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ [Messiah] of God, His Chosen One’”(Luke 23:35). The fact that they knew so much truth about the Messiah made them all the more culpable for rejecting Him.

Jesus is the Father’s beloved, in whom His soul is well-pleased. It is through the grace of God “which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved,” that “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Eph. 1:6-7). The One who is hated and rejected by the world, including His own people, is beloved by God, who is well-pleased. Against the testimony of Israel and of the world is the testimony of the Father. Jesus said, “If I alone bear witness of Myself, My testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness of Me, and I know that the testimony which He bears of Me is true.… the witness which I have is greater than that of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father who sent Me, He has borne witness of Me” (John 5:31-32, 36-37).

At Jesus’ baptism the Father declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am wellpleased” (Matt. 3:17), and at the transfiguration He declared again, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him” (17:5).

It is not possible for men to be well-pleasing to God unless they come to Him through His Son, with whom He is well-pleased. “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” Paul tells us. “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Rom. 8:8-9). God is well-pleased with believers because He sees them as He sees His own Son.

COMMISSIONED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

I will put My Spirit upon Him, (12:18b)

Through Isaiah, God promised that He would put His Spirit upon the Messiah in a unique way, and at Jesus’ baptism the Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove (Matt. 3:16). But that was not when He was indwelt by the Spirit. Unique to all mankind, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20); and if John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from His mother’s womb (Luke 1:15), how much more so was Jesus.

Yet, if Jesus was the preexistent Son, eternally one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, in what way could the Spirit have come upon Him during His humanity? First of all, the coming of the Spirit upon Jesus was a bestowing of power to His human nature. His divine nature was already one with the Spirit and did not require special assistance, but His human nature did. Jesus was fully human, even to the point of being tempted in the same ways every human being is, yet without sinning (Heb. 4:15). As a child, He grew in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52). He had human feelings and human emotions. He was hungry and thirsty, and He became tired and felt pain and sorrow. His humanness received the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit in order for it to function in concert with His deity. Therefore “God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38).

Second, Jesus required the anointing of the Spirit in order to attest to His royal service as the Messiah. For thirty years He had lived in obscurity, but when His ministry began He was given a special attestation of authority and approval by the Father. A prophecy of the Messiah was quoted by Jesus and applied to Himself as He taught in the synagogue at Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). After He sat down, Jesus explained, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).

As the perfect submissive Servant, Jesus functioned not only in the Father’s will and by the Father’s commendation but in the power of the Father’s Spirit.

COMMUNICATING THE MESSAGE

and He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles. (12:18c)

Isaiah prophesied that the Lord’s beloved Servant would proclaim a message of truth and justice even to the Gentiles; and that is what Jesus did. Contrary to the thinking and expectations of most Jews, the Messiah was to be the Redeemer of the whole world, not just of Israel. Israel was, in fact, to be the channel of God’s grace to the rest of the world. In His first great promise to Abraham, God declared, “And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Israel was called to be God’s agency for reaching the world for Himself; and when the Jews as a nation rejected God, He had to raise up a new agent, the church, to accomplish that purpose.

The first woman to whom Jesus revealed His messiahship was a Samaritan, half Jew and half Gentile (John 4:26). Early in His ministry He had Gentile followers from Idumea, the Trans-Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon (Mark 3:8). Of the Gentile centurion whose servant He healed, Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel” (Matt. 8:10).

But the Jews resented Jesus’ giving any attention to Gentiles, and especially His treating them equally with Jews. And the idea of the Messiah coming to redeem Gentiles was anathema. When Paul was defending himself before a large group of Jews in Jerusalem, he managed to keep their attention as he recounted his former life, his conversion experience, and his vision in the Temple. But when he reported that God told him, “‘Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles,’… they listened to him up to this statement, and then they raised their voices and said, ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live!’” They were so uncontrollably incensed that “they were crying out and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air” (Acts 22:21-23). Almost no truth of the gospel was as hard for Jews to accept as the truth that salvation and fellowship with God were for Gentiles as well as Jews. The notion was utterly inconceivable to them, and, as is clear from the account just mentioned, they considered it a form of blasphemy.

But God’s plan for redemption had always included the Gentiles, and to them the Messiah was to proclaim justice and deliverance from sin just as to the Jews.

COMMITTED TO MEEKNESS

He will not quarrel, nor cry out; nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. (12:19)

Epiz (to quarrel) carries the idea of wrangling, hassling, or even brawling. Kraugaz (to cry out) means to shout or scream excitedly. The term was sometimes used of a dog’s barking, a raven’s squawking, and even a drunk’s bawling.

Jesus did not come to harangue and cajole people with the gospel like a rabble-rousing zealot who inflames his hearers by appealing to their emotions and prejudices. He spoke with dignity and control, and He used no means of persuasion but the truth. He never organized a mob or resorted to trickery, lies, or scheming, as His opponents routinely did against Him. His was the way of gentleness, meekness, and lowliness. Although He was the Son of God, the divine Messiah, and the rightful King of kings, Jesus never tried to secure a hearing, much less a following, by political power, physical force, or emotional agitation.

Even the wisdom of man knows that no real persuasion can be made by force or intimidation. As Solomon reminds us, “The words of the wise heard in quietness are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools” (Eccles. 9:17; cf. 1 Cor. 2:1-4).

COMFORTING THE WEAK

A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out, (12:20a)

In ancient times reeds were used for many purposes, but once a reed was bent or battered it was useless. A shepherd would often make a flute-like instrument from a reed and play soft music on it to while away the hours and to calm the sheep. When the reed became soft or cracked, it would no longer make music and the shepherd would break it and throw it away.

When a lamp burned down to the end of the wick, it would only smolder and smoke without making any light. Since such a smoldering wick was useless, it was put out and thrown away, just like a broken reed.

The battered reed and the smoldering wick represent people whose lives are broken and worn out, ready to be discarded and replaced by the world. Because they can no longer “make music” or “give light,” society casts off the weak and the helpless, the suffering and the burdened. Those were the kind of people the Romans ignored as useless and the Pharisees despised as worthless.

One of the most obvious legacies of the Fall is man’s natural tendency to destroy. Small children will often step on a bug just for the sake of killing it, or snap off a beautiful bud just before it flowers. A tree branch is broken for the sake of breaking it, and a stone is thrown at a bird just to see it fly away or fall to the ground. On a more destructive scale, adults devour and undercut each other in business, society, politics, and even in the family.

The nature of sinful man is to destroy, but the nature of the holy God is to restore. The Lord will not break off or put out even the least of those who come to Him, and He gives dire warning to those who would do so. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble,” Jesus said, “it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).

In the hands of the Savior, the battered reed is not discarded but restored, and the smoldering wick is not put out but rekindled.

CONSUMMATING THE VICTORY

until He leads justice to victory. And in His name the Gentiles will hope. (12:20b-21)

Ultimately right will win. In spite of oppression, persecution, and rejection, Jesus was destined to be victorious. As He leads justice to victory, He will bring with Him all who belong to Him and who have themselves been oppressed, persecuted, and rejected by the world. When Christ takes His rightful place as Lord and King, justice will “roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

Down in the human heart,

Crushed by the tempter,

Feelings lie buried

That grace can restore,

Touched by a loving heart,

Wakened by kindness,

Chords that were broken

Will vibrate once more.

(“Rescue the Perishing,” Fanny J. Crosby)