Foundation of Promise
Introduction
Foundation of Promise
Don’t Be afraid- Verse 1-10
Matthew’s key focus in vv. 1–10 (and on into vv. 11–15) centers on the witnesses to the resurrection—the angels, the soldiers, the women, and, more indirectly, the religious leaders.
28:1 All four Gospels agree that very early on Sunday morning a group of women headed for the tomb. NIV’s “at dawn” is perhaps too specific for what reads more literally “as the first day of the week was dawning” (TCNT). The two Marys are those mentioned in 27:61. Mark 16:1 explains the purpose of their visit: after the Sabbath had passed, they wished to anoint Jesus’ body with spices to give him a more appropriate embalming. Perhaps they were hoping to talk the guard into helping them get into the tomb. Instead, the women will become the first witnesses to the resurrection, a fact that seems to guarantee the credibility of the account in a world that usually did not accept women’s testimony as legally binding. Were the story fabricated, only male witnesses would have appeared. The role of the women also points to the dawning of a new age of equality among women and men in Christ (Gal 3:28).
28:2–4 This could conceivably be the same earthquake as in 27:51b–52a, if those verses are meant to be taken as concurrent with vv. 52b–53. More likely, however, this is a severe aftershock following that earlier quake. NIV’s “violent” is simply great. As before, the quake attests to the cosmic significance of the events. It probably preceded the women’s arrival, since Matthew seems to link it with the coming of the angel, who is already in place when they get to the tomb (cf. Mark 16:3–4). The angel’s sitting (v. 2) perhaps indicates a note of completion or triumph. The earthquake dislodges the rock but was not needed to enable Christ to be raised. Jesus’ resurrection had already occurred, notwithstanding the massive stone barrier (v. 6). The resurrection itself is never described anywhere in Scripture, presumably because no one ever saw Jesus leave the tomb. The appearance of the angel in v. 3 matches similar angelic appearances which surrounded Jesus’ birth, as do the words “don’t be afraid” in v. 5 (cf. esp. 1:20) and combines with chaps. 1–2 to frame the whole Gospel. Mark calls the angel a “young man” (Mark 16:5). Luke adds that a second person/angel was present (Luke 24:4). Neither detail contradicts Matthew. The young man’s appearance and garb are appropriately angelic: brilliant, glorious, and pure. The whole scene terrifies the guards and temporarily paralyzes them, so that they cannot intervene. The verb “shook” in v. 4 comes from the same root (seis-) as the “earthquake” in v. 2.
28:5–7 On their arrival, the women are understandably terrified as well though delighted that the question of Mark 16:3 (“who will roll the stone away?”) has been resolved. The angel reveals his understanding of their mission. They are looking for a corpse, but no body remains. Jesus is resurrected, not just spiritually alive, so that the tomb is empty. His own predictions have come true (16:21; 17:23; 20:19). Contra the NIV “he has risen,” the voice of the verb ēgerthē is passive (“he was raised”). No text of Scripture ever speaks of Jesus as raising himself but always as being raised by God. The angel’s emphasis, “who was crucified” (v. 5), underlines the reality of Jesus’ death. “Come and see the place” verifies that this is the correct tomb and correct location within the tomb, thus stressing that he really is alive. Verse 7 describes the fulfillment of 26:32 and commands the women to tell the Eleven to go to Galilee to see Jesus. This does not preclude other earlier resurrection appearances, as described in Luke 24 and John 20, but does prepare the way for his appearance “up north” following the end of the week-long festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Galilean pilgrims would return home. During this appearance, Jesus commissioned his disciples for their future ministry; herein lies Matthew’s particular interest.
28:8–10 The women begin to do as they are told. “Hurried away” translates went away quickly and matches the command “go quickly” of v. 7. Their emotions understandably mix fear and joy. Mark 16:8, if the original ending of Mark, refers to a temporary state and presupposes knowledge of subsequent behavior that would include the women’s joy and the proclamation of their message. En route to the city, they see Jesus himself, who gives them a cheery greeting (like our hello). Their extra-ordinary response reflects a posture and attitude of utter worship and testifies to the bodily nature of Christ’s resurrection. Jesus repeats very closely the words of the angel in vv. 5 and 7. But he now calls the disciples his “brothers,” the only such place in the Gospels (but cf. Rom 8:29 and Heb 2:11), disclosing keen psychological insight. Not only does he show himself as still loving and accepting those who had abandoned him, but he even treats them as equals! In other words, they remain laborers with him in the work of the Father. Jesus is neither denying his uniqueness nor deifying the disciples. But he is portraying the church as a brotherhood that manifests more equality than hierarchy, even if some functional differentiation between leaders and followers is clear from other Scriptures (e.g., 1 Pet 5:1–5; Heb 13:17).
1. Matthew’s But has adversative force as he sets the holy women over against the guards the Jews had set over the tomb. He moves to the time after the Sabbath. He is not speaking of the time immediately after the Sabbath, for that would commence at sunset; he is going on to early morning, as it began to dawn; the women would not have been able to do much at the tomb during the hours of darkness, and in any case there would have been no sense of urgency once the body of Jesus had been placed in the tomb. Matthew says that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb, but the only indication as to their reason was that they came to see it. Mark tells us that when the Sabbath was over they bought spices, and both Mark and Luke say that they brought their spices to the tomb, evidently to complete the burial that had been done in haste on the Friday. Presumably Matthew omits the reference to the spices because he knows (as the women probably did not) that there was a guard at the tomb that would have prevented them from using their spices anyway; the whole reference to spices was for him irrelevant. John informs us that Nicodemus had used a large quantity of spices at the burial, but even so the women would have wanted to bring their tribute (just as in our day no matter how many wreaths there may be at a funeral we still want to make our own contribution). Matthew concentrates on the fact of the resurrection and simply says that the women came to see the tomb. It is enough for his purpose that they were there.
2. Matthew’s characteristic And look (see on 1:20) introduces a note of vividness; he wants his readers to see the scene at the tomb. He says that there was a great earthquake (for “earthquakes” in Palestine see the note on 27:51; only Matthew has this reference). For introduces a reason for this one: an angel of the Lord came down from heaven. It is not easy to be clear on just what happened when the women came to the tomb. Matthew has one angel, Mark speaks of a young man sitting on the right-hand side (Stendahl thinks that he is the angel in Matthew, for “angels had no wings in the 1st cent.”), Luke has two men in dazzling clothes, while John refers to two angels in white. It seems clear that all these are references to angels; the small differences should not disconcert us unduly. Each of the Evangelists is saying in his own way that when the women came to the tomb they encountered an angelic visitation. It is not surprising that they speak of what happened in slightly different ways, for different people may well have had different perceptions.7 The important thing is that there were unusual angelic visitations and what the angels said concerned Jesus’ rising from the dead. The angel of whom Matthew writes went and rolled away the stone from the tomb. It appears that he made contact with the earth at some place other than the tomb and that from there he went to the place where Jesus had been buried. That he rolled away the stone, of course, was not in order that the risen Jesus might get out, but that the women might get into the tomb. Matthew implies that Jesus had already risen; the rolling away of the stone was to let the women see that the body was no longer there. They had been there on the Friday and seen Jesus buried, and unless the stone was rolled away they would surely think that his body was still there, inside the tomb. Mark tells us that as they came to the place they discussed the problem of rolling the stone away, as well they might, for it was a great stone (27:60). But when they arrived, they found their problem solved; the angel had done it for them, and having rolled the stone away he sat on it. What had been an insuperable obstacle for the women was no more than a place to sit for the angel.
3. Matthew inserts a little comment about the way the angel looked. He speaks of his appearance and compares it to lightning. This undoubtedly signifies that it was impressive, but it is not easy to understand exactly what it means. Perhaps we can say that the angel was “striking” to look at. His clothing was white as snow; this description has become conventional for that which is very white, but it is used of clothes only here in the New Testament (and only once of anything else, with reference to hair, Rev. 1:14). We are left with the impression of an august personage.
4. And the angel certainly made that impression on the guards. They were supposed to keep the tomb safe from disciples who might try to steal the body, and they may well have been prepared to repel any such attempt. But an angel coming from heaven and rolling back the huge stone was another proposition altogether. They had never seen such a being, and not surprisingly they trembled11 at the sight. Matthew is not saying that they were slightly disturbed, but is speaking of an experience that overwhelmed them with fear; they were caught up in a terror that paralyzed them. That they became like dead men points to the paralysis that overtook them when they were face to face with an angel. They had probably been prepared to face human opposition of some sort; why else would they have been assigned their task? But a striking heavenly visitant who manipulated the great stone with ease and whose appearance was like nothing they had ever seen was something else altogether.
5. But the angel’s business was not with those irrelevant guards. He ignored them and addressed the women. Matthew says that he answered them. They are not recorded as having said anything he might answer, but he responded to their situation. They had come to do something about burying a dead body and there was no dead body; there were guards, armed men, though they were trembling and afraid. The angel answered the women’s unexpressed fears with “Don’t you be afraid.” Fear in the presence of a denizen of another world is natural enough, but the angel had come to help the women, not to terrify them, so he begins by calming their fears. He goes on to encourage them by assuring them that he knows all about their mission: “you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.”13
6.“He is not here” tells them that their search is a vain one; no more should they look in a tomb for Jesus. “He has been raised,” where the passive points to the truth that the Father raised his Son. The angel goes on, “as he said,” which should remind them of the predictions that Jesus had made and that apparently none of his followers had taken as they were meant. But the predictions were important, and the angel draws their attention to them. They were not facing a situation in which Jesus had undergone a totally unexpected fate and had then experienced an unanticipated deliverance. He had prophesied both his death and his resurrection, and it was important that his followers should come to understand that the wonderful happening that had just taken place was in fact no more than what Jesus had prophesied during his lifetime. The angel backs up his statement that Jesus had been raised by inviting them to come and to see the place where he lay. This might not perhaps give an infallible proof of what the angel had said, but at least it would make clear that there was no point in concentrating their attention on the tomb. They could see for themselves that Jesus was not there; then perhaps they would take to heart what the mighty angel had told them.
7. From reassuring the ladies the angel turns to commissioning them to do something. “Go quickly,” he says; the good news is not something to be hugged to oneself. They are to be the messengers to the disciples, which, while it refers to all who follow Jesus, in this place signifies particularly the eleven. We might have expected that the good news would be given first to Peter or John or some other member of the eleven. But God’s ways are not our ways, and the message was given first to a couple of women, people who did not rate highly in first-century estimation. This was not the only place in which the Christian message cut across the accepted idea of the time, specifically in connection with the way women were viewed. These two ladies then were told that they should tell the disciples two things: first, that Jesus “has been raised from the dead” and, second, that “he is going ahead of you into Galilee,” a meeting that he had prophesied before his death (26:32). This does not mean that he is even now on his way to Galilee, but is a prophecy that he is going to be in Galilee before them. This is the second time the angel has said that Jesus has been raised; it is important for the women to be clear on this. And it is of interest that he tells them to assure the disciples that he is going ahead of them into Galilee (the use of the present tense for a future event makes it more vivid and certain). In Luke and John there are appearances of Jesus in and around Jerusalem, but of course John also has the story of the miraculous catch of fish, and that took place in Galilee. Matthew puts more emphasis on Galilee than does any of the other Evangelists. The disciples would have to walk to Galilee, so there was no problem about Jesus being there before them. The angel completes his message with “look, I have told you.” He had done all he could for them. The rest was up to them.
8. The women made haste to do what they were told. They went away from the tomb quickly; the place of death no longer had any meaning for them. That they went with fear indicates that they were in the grip of the awe that had been aroused in them by their contact with the visitant from another world. But they were not simply scared; they went with great joy. They had come to that place mourning the death of their great leader and dear friend; they went away knowing that he was dead no longer. Well might their emotion be great joy. They had been told to go quickly and tell the disciples, and they took the injunction literally. They ran to tell his disciples. Such good news should be spread abroad quickly, so they certainly made haste. His disciples is a general term and is broad enough to cover all those who had given him their allegiance. While the news of the resurrection would in due time be conveyed to all his followers, in this place it appears that the term is used especially of the eleven. They were closest to Jesus, and it was important that they learn at the soonest possible moment that their Master had conquered death. For some reason that is not disclosed to us the news was first given to the women and the first appearances of Jesus were to women. But the disciples were not to be overlooked, and these ladies were commissioned to bring them the good news. We should not overlook the fact that in Matthew the only appearance of the risen Jesus in Jerusalem was to the women, while from there he goes on to speak of appearances in despised Galilee. Both point to a rejection of accepted values. “Galilee of the Gentiles” (4:15), of course, fits in with the emphasis on the Gentiles that was to intensify from the time of the resurrection on.
9. The women had had the great blessing of contact with an angel and of being charged with an angelic message to the disciples. But there was something even greater in store for them, for as they went Jesus met them (only Matthew has this information; John has a story of an appearance to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, but only Matthew tells us of an appearance to the women as they went on their way to obey the angel’s command). They had been last at the cross and first at the tomb, and now they are the first of whom Matthew writes that they had the joy of seeing their Lord. From what the angel had told them they would have expected that no one would see Jesus until the appointment in Galilee. But now as they went on their way to do as the angel said, look (the word makes it vivid), there was Jesus before them. Matthew says little about the manner of the meeting, simply that Jesus met them. It is not easy to convey the force of his greeting in English. I have tried with “Greetings,” but this is not a usual way of greeting someone we meet, though it was quite a normal thing to say in the first century. The Basic English translation renders it literally, “Be glad”; GNB reads “Peace be with you,” which was a normal Jewish greeting and may convey something of the meaning. But it was not what Matthew wrote. However, we should not engage in a lengthy discussion of this word as though it were important. The women clearly were not concerned with such matters. They were simply filled with joy at seeing Jesus himself, so they came to him. Evidently when they sighted him on the way, there was still a little distance between them. So they came right where he was. They took hold of his feet, an act of homage. Carr cites a clay cylinder of Cyrus in which that great king says of subject kings, “they brought me their full tribute and kissed my feet.” In thus taking hold of his feet the women symbolically recognized Jesus’ kingship; indeed, it may indicate that they had come to realize that he was more than mortal. However much or little they had understood who he was before, the fact that he was now risen from the dead made it clear to them that he was more than any mere man. So they prostrated themselves before him and held his feet. In including this detail Matthew makes it clear that Jesus’ risen body was a real body—the Evangelist is not describing a vision. Matthew also says that they worshiped him. This means that they now regarded him as divine.
10. Then (see on 2:7) here means “next in sequence.” Jesus apparently was not going to spend a lot of time with them at this point. He accepted their worship and then proceeded to reassure them and to repeat the angel’s command. “Don’t be afraid” is a word of reassurance in the exciting but highly unusual situation in which the ladies found themselves. They had been told by the angel that Jesus was alive, and now they had had this confirmed by seeing and hearing him for themselves. They could recognize something of what all this meant and gladly accept it. But it was still something outside human ken; it is a natural thing to be at least a little frightened of the supernatural. Jesus addressed himself to this natural feeling and told them not to be afraid.
Just as the angel had done, he told them to take the good news to his followers. Here he calls them “my brothers.” It is just possible that he is referring to his human brothers, but this is not likely. He had spoken of those who gave their allegiance to him as his family (12:50; 25:40), and it seems that it is this kind of thinking which underlies these words. Jesus is asking the women to go to the disciples and tell them to go into Galilee. Most of Jesus’ ministry had been exercised in Galilee; thus it was natural that he would expect his followers to go there and that he would be ready to meet them there. So he says, “there they will see me.” Neither the angel nor Jesus said where he would meet them in Galilee, and Galilee covered quite an area. But Jesus had spent most of his life there and most of his public ministry. Those who had followed him would know the places he was accustomed to frequent. At any rate neither the women nor the disciples seem to have raised any query about this.
Have no Doubt- Matthew 28:16-17
16. The adversative But sets the disciples over against the Jews and the intrigues about the guard over the tomb. This is a different kind of story. “The Twelve” have now become the eleven disciples, and we find that, in obedience to the command passed on through the women mentioned earlier in this chapter, they went into Galilee. In the other Gospels the appearances are mostly in Judea, but Matthew has nothing to say about appearances in that region, apart from the brief appearance of Jesus to the two Marys. But this Evangelist has depicted the greater part of Jesus’ ministry as being in Galilee, perhaps to indicate that the task the risen Christ assigns to his followers is continuous with the ministry he exercised when he was here on earth. Matthew goes on to say that the eleven went to the mountain that Jesus had appointed them. We have no way of identifying this mountain, but the disciples were familiar with Galilee and we need not doubt that there was no problem for them with appearing at a mountain that is unknown to us.
17. When the women saw the risen Jesus they worshipped him (v. 9), and now the eleven disciples did the same. Jesus told the women that the disciples would see him in Galilee (v. 10), and now we read that they did see him. Worship was the natural response to the realization that the Jesus who had meant so much to them throughout his earthly ministry was stronger than death and was alive again. Matthew goes on to say, but some hesitated, the meaning of which is not immediately obvious. Many translations have “some doubted,” and this may indeed be the meaning, but “hesitated” seems more likely (so JB).26 It can scarcely mean that the hesitators were included among the worshipers; Matthew is saying that there were those who worshiped and there were those who hesitated. But why did they hesitate? Perhaps they were not sure that the person they were seeing was the one who was crucified. Perhaps they were not sure that Jesus really was risen; they may have wondered whether they were seeing a vision, not a real person. Perhaps they were not sure that it really was Jesus who was before them (cf. LB, “some of them weren’t sure it really was Jesus!”). We must bear in mind that they were not alone in having difficulty in recognizing Jesus. The two who walked with him to Emmaus did not know who he was (Luke 24:16; cf. vv. 37, 41), and the disciples in the boat did not recognize the risen Jesus on the shore (John 21:4). But in any case we may ask, Who has perfect faith? We should bear in mind that even one of the eleven, Thomas, not only doubted but roundly denied the resurrection when told about it by the ten (John 20:24–25). It is surely not surprising that when the whole body of the followers of Jesus knew that he had been crucified, that he had died, and that he had been buried in a sepulchre, some should have difficulty with the thought that now he was alive again.
This raises another question. It is difficult to think that the hesitation was coming from the eleven, considering all that had happened to them during the recent past. It may well be that others than the eleven were present, perhaps even the group of more than 500 of whom Paul writes (1 Cor. 15:6). This would give more scope for people who believed and people who doubted than if the group had been limited to the eleven who had been closest to Jesus. France argues strongly that only the eleven were present, but it is not easy to see how the hesitators could have been some of the eleven after the dramatic removal of Thomas’s doubts (John 20:24–29).
28:16 We skip ahead a few weeks to the only other event Matthew chooses to include in his Gospel. This short account contains the culmination and combination of all of Matthew’s central themes: (1) the move from particularism to universalism in the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom; (2) discipleship and the establishment of the church; (3) Jesus’ commands as ultimately incumbent on Christians; and (4) the abiding presence of Jesus as teacher, as divine Son of God, and the risen and sovereign Lord of the universe.
The disciples, minus Judas, are back in Galilee, at least a week after the resurrection (cf. John 20:26 with 21:1) and quite possibly closer to the end of the forty-day period of his appearances (cf. Acts 1:3–9). Their climactic commissioning takes place at “the mountain” (or the hill country), recalling the setting of the Sermon on the Mount (5:1) and “the mountain” as a place of revelation and communion with God throughout Matthew (cf. 4:8; 14:23; 15:29; 17:1; 24:3; 26:30). They are in “Galilee” because Galilee is home but perhaps also because it is Galilee “of the Gentiles” (4:15). As in his life so also in his resurrection, Jesus anticipates the ministry of the gospel expanding beyond the boundaries of Judaism. The Book of Acts dramatically describes the expansion of this fledgling sect. “Where Jesus had told them to go” apparently refers to more details of the conversation in v. 10 than Matthew recorded there.
28:17 The disciples’ response of worship, like that of the women in v. 9, strikes us as appropriate. “But some doubted” raises questions. Is this a different group than those who worshiped? Was a larger gathering than just the Eleven present? What kind of “doubt” does Matthew have in mind? The latter question is more easily answerable. Distazō refers more to hesitation than to unbelief. Perhaps, as elsewhere, something about Jesus’ appearance makes him hard to recognize at first. Perhaps they fear how he may respond to them. Perhaps their Jewish scruples are still questioning the propriety of full-fledged worship of anyone but Yahweh.107 Or (most likely?) they may simply continue to exhibit an understandable confusion about how to behave in the presence of a supernaturally manifested, exalted, and holy being. There is no clear evidence that more than the Eleven were present, but the particular grammatical construction hoi de (“but some”) does seem to imply a change of subject from the previous clause (“they worshiped him”). So “they” probably means some of the Eleven, while “some” means the rest of the eleven. Some of the disciples worshiped Jesus at once; some were less sure how to react.
God is with us-Matthew 28:20
28:20a Teaching obedience to all of Jesus’ commands forms the heart of disciple making. Evangelism must be holistic. If non-Christians are not hearing the gospel and not being challenged to make a decision for Christ, then the church has disobeyed one part of Jesus’ commission. If new converts are not faithfully and lovingly nurtured in the whole counsel of God’s revelation, then the church has disobeyed the other part. Key implications for preaching appear here. There must be a balance between evangelistic proclamation and relevant exposition of all parts of God’s Word, including the more difficult material best reserved for the mature (cf. 1 Cor 2:1–5 with 2:6–10). So, too, the ministries of the church overall must reflect a healthy balance of “outreach” and “inreach.” Individuals who have differing gifts should be encouraged to expend most of their energies developing their strengths, whether evangelizing or nurturing, speaking or serving. Nevertheless, Jesus calls all Christians to be both witnesses and disciplers.
Jesus’ words further demonstrate that Christian ethics and morality should first of all focus on Jesus’ teaching, even though the Old Testament still remains relevant, as one sees how it is fulfilled in Christ (Matt 5:17–20), and even though the rest of the New Testament remains relevant as further explanation of the significance of Christ and his teachings. But the testimony of the Gospels and the commands Jesus issued (of which more are found in Matthew than in Mark, Luke, or John) must comprise the central core of Christian faith and proclamation.
28:20b Matthew closes his Gospel with Jesus’ promise to be spiritually present with his followers until the end of this age, that is, until his return, when he will once again be present bodily (although “the end of the age” might be an idiom roughly equivalent to forever). John describes how Jesus had explained this provision in much more detail as the ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 13–17). Acts 2 will describe the decisive moment of the fulfillment of this promise at Pentecost. Matthew chooses to leave his readers here. The disciples represent everyone in the church to which he writes and, derivatively, everyone who professes to follow Christ in any age. The Lord is now risen! He calls his people to become disciple makers, and he promises to be with them irrespective of their successes or failures. Verse 20b forms an inclusio with v. 18, which indicates the central focus of Jesus’ closing words. Despite the Great Commission, Matthew wants to end his Gospel centering more on Christ’s attributes than on the disciples’ task. Verses 18–20 link back with 1:23 to frame the entire Gospel with references to Immanuel—God with us. In Jesus, God remains with us for now and eternity! What more do we need to persevere in Christian living? We must go out and obey his commission. But the final word of the Gospel remains Christ-centered. Even when we fail, he remains faithful.
20. Baptism is not the be-all and end-all; it is no more than the beginning. The new disciple is to be baptized, but he or she is also to be taught “to observe all the things I have commanded you.” The church’s teaching function is thus of great importance. We teach because Jesus commanded us to teach, and there is no way of diminishing the importance of an activity that owes its origin to the command of our Lord himself. But Jesus is not speaking about education for education’s sake. He speaks of the taught as “observing” what Jesus has commanded. In other words, Jesus is concerned with a way of life. As we have seen throughout this Gospel, he continually urges his followers to live in a manner pleasing to God. He has objected to the sterile legalism of many in his day and has gone beyond the letter of the law to the things that are rightly seen as arising from its spirit. So there is to be instruction and there is to be purity of life. We should not miss the significance of all the things. Jesus is not suggesting that his followers should make a selection from his teachings as it pleases them and neglect the rest. Since the teaching of Jesus is a unified whole, disciples are to observe all that this means.
The final promise is introduced by Matthew’s characteristic “and look” (see on 1:20); NIV translates with “and surely,” which conveys some of the reassurance the term implies here. The Gospel ends with Jesus’ breathtaking promise that he is with his followers all the days to the end of the age.44 He does not say “I will be with you,” but “I am with you,” and his I is emphatic, “no less than I.” Bruce sees this expression as “conveying the feeling of certainty, but also spoken from the eternal point of view, sub specie aeternitatis, for which distinctions of here and there, now and then, do not exist.” In other words, the disciple is not going to be left to serve God as well as he can in the light of what he has learned from the things Jesus has commanded. The disciple will find that he has a great companion as he goes on his way through life. This tells us something about Jesus. The Jesus of whom Matthew writes is no small Palestinian figure, but a mighty Person who is with his followers wherever they may be. And this, he says, will last through time. He is not speaking of a temporary residence with first-century disciples, but of a presence among his followers to the very end of time. This Gospel opened with the assurance that in the coming of Jesus God was with his people (1:23), and it closes with the promise that the very presence of Jesus Christ will never be lacking to his faithful follower. This does not, of course, mean that Jesus has not been with his people hitherto; he has made it clear that where two or three are met in his name he is there, right in the middle of them (18:20). But when Matthew draws his Gospel to its close, he has nothing in the way of an ascension account. He emphasizes the importance of his continuing presence and concludes his Gospel with the magnificent assurance to the followers of Jesus that that presence will never be withdrawn; he will be with them always, to the end of the world and to the end of time.