Miraculous Mercy

Matthew 20:1-28

Jesus illustrates the truth that the last will be first and the first will be last by telling the disciples a parable of workers in a vineyard. This parable is not difficult to follow: The workers who were first hired, and thus worked longer than the rest, complained about those who had been hired last. Those workers hired at the eleventh hour only had to work one hour, yet they were equally compensated. We learn from this that God's grace is surprising, for it surpasses our normal expectations. We tend to recoil at a story that's all about people not getting what they deserve. It's not fair; and that's the point. God's grace in salvation is, by definition, not fair. D. A. Carson has put it rather candidly: "Do you really want nothing but totally effective, instantaneous justice? Then go to hell" (Carson, How Long, O Lord, 161). Gratefully, God surprises us with His mercy. He does what we would never expect according to what we could never earn. Once again, we see this underlying truth emerge:270 God doesn't owe us salvation for something we have done; He gives us salvation despite everything we have done. Salvation is a free gift of divine mercy totally devoid of human merit. God owes us nothing, yet He gives us everything in Christ.

Not only is God's grace surprising, but also God's grace is sovereign. God is under no obligation to extend forgiveness to sinners like us. He has the right to dispense His mercy as He pleases. This is Paul's point in Romans 9, where he answers the objection that God's mercy is not fair: "But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God?" (Rom 9:20). Mercy is dispensed as God sees fit. This is actually good news for sinners who are unable to save themselves. We have small minds and small ways, but God's grace is wonderfully surprising and gloriously sovereign.

In verses 17-19 we see God's surprising and glorious grace expressed in the sacrifice of His Son. In His mercy, God ordained that His Son would be murdered by sinful men for the sake of our salvation. Jesus told His disciples of His own impending death, a death that would include being "mocked, flogged, and crucified" before being raised again (v. 19).

But the disciples didn't understand Him, a point that becomes evident in verses 20-28. In this passage we have a mom representing the prideful hearts of her sons. James and John wanted a prominent place in Jesus' kingdom, and we know this request ultimately came from them, because when Jesus responds, He addresses them directly (v. 22). In fact, in Mark's account of this story, the mom is not even mentioned (Mark 10:35). Jesus addressed the pride of these two disciples, but they weren't the only ones who needed more humility, as the other ten disciples were indignant when they heard this (v. 24). Their anger likely came from their own pride, so that in the end, the Lord had to address 12 proud disciples.

Matthew 20:28

In a statement loaded with theological meaning, Jesus says to His proud disciples, "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life—a ransom for many." Verse 28 gets to the heart of why Jesus came, and this truth can be broken down into several related components.

First, He came to suffer. The title Jesus used for Himself, "the Son of Man," highlights in a significant way His identification with us as271 men. As a man, He was able to sympathize with us in our suffering (Heb 4:15), and He was qualified as a sacrificial substitute for sinners (Rom 8:3). When He spoke of the cup that He would drink (Matt 20:22), He was speaking of drinking down the wrath of God in the place of sinners. Jesus willingly walked into the jaws of suffering and death on our behalf.

Verse 28 speaks of a second component to Jesus' coming: He came to save. That's what He means when He speaks of giving His life as "a ransom for many." The word Matthew uses for "ransom" is lutron, a word that can refer to a payment made to release someone from slavery. Today we might associate this word with a hostage situation, which is fitting given sin's control over us. We are slaves to sin, self, and death, but Jesus gave His life so that we might be free from these things (Rom 6:17; Heb 2:15).

You may be wondering how this is possible, that is, how does Christ's death save us from sin and death? The key lies in that little word "for" in verse 28. In this instance the word carries the sense of "in place of" (Osborne, Matthew, 742-43), and it speaks to the fact that He came to be our substitute. Jesus gave His life in the place of those He would save. We stand under the weight of our sin and the wrath of God, fully deserving death, but Jesus took our place; He became our substitute. This is the glory of the gospel: not just that Jesus died for you in order to express a loving sentiment, but that He died instead of you.44

Jesus came to suffer, to save, to be our substitute, and based on this context in Matthew 20, He came to show us how to live. Unlike worldly rulers who lorded their authority over people (vv. 25-26), Jesus' disciples were to manifest a different kind of leadership. Like their Master, they were to live selflessly for the good of others. God's glory, and not their own reputation, was to be their goal. The disciples were to love people by serving them. When Jesus tells James and John, "You will drink my cup," He is telling them that they too will lose their lives serving others. To be sure, these disciples didn't experience the cup of suffering that Jesus experienced on the cross in an atoning sense, but their lives would be lived in sacrificial service to others based on what Jesus had done. James was beheaded (Acts 12:2), and John was exiled as a prisoner on272 the island of Patmos (Rev 1:9). This kind of sacrificial service is what defines kingdom greatness.

Jesus' desire to show us how to live leads to the final purpose for His coming in this context, and this purpose is really at the center of all the others: He came to serve us. This truth may seem simple, but it's worth pondering for a moment. The reality here completely reverses our expectations. Consider:

For a religious teacher to talk like this sounds like lunacy. However, unlike earthly rulers, Jesus did not come as some potentate whose personal whims were to be catered to by lowly servants. He came to be our lowly servant by becoming a man and providing salvation for us. The One who deserves to be served came to serve, and this service was ultimately demonstrated on the cross. Matthew may very well be alluding to the "Servant" prophesied by Isaiah, the One who "bore the sin of many" (Isa 53:11-12). We need Him in the profoundest sense of the word; He doesn't need us. We need to consider, then, what this means.

Jesus is our servant, but in order to understand what Jesus does mean here, we need to make sure we also understand what Jesus does not mean. This does not mean we tell Jesus what to do; He's not our servant in that way. Mark's Gospel records this kind of misguided approach by James and John, as they told Jesus, "Teacher, we want You to do something for us if we ask You" (Mark 10:35). That's not the way to approach Jesus, as if He is there to do all our bidding. That's a classic example of what this text does not mean.

This text does not mean we tell Jesus what to do, but this does mean Jesus gives us what we need. This point is absolutely key to understanding Christianity. Jesus had just told James and John that they were going to suffer and that following Him would involve the radical sacrifice of their lives in service to others. But this radical call to service from Jesus was accompanied by a radical promise from Jesus. To renounce the ways of this world and to give their lives as slaves in this world was not possible, humanly speaking; but Jesus could empower James and John by His service to them.273

The one overarching point in this section of Matthew's Gospel surfaces once again: salvation is all of divine mercy, and not by human merit.

That we are utterly and completely dependent on God's mercy is not only true at the point of conversion. Even after we're saved, we are dependent on divine mercy in every part of our lives. Jesus promises to give us what we need on a daily, moment-by-moment basis. When He leads His children into difficult places or calls us to do difficult things, He enables us to do these things because He is our servant.

Some people wonder whether Jesus' teaching in this passage contradicts what Paul and other New Testament authors say about being a "slave," or "servant," of Jesus Christ (Rom 1:1; Jas 1:1; 2 Pet 1:1). The Bible does talk about our service to Him: "Do not lack diligence; be fervent in spirit; serve the Lord" (Rom 12:11). So which is it—is Jesus our servant? Or are we supposed to serve Him? Yes... and no.

We are Jesus' servants. The Bible is clear on this point. But this does not mean that Jesus needs our aid. When some people hear this servant language, they assume that Jesus needs our help. Acts 17:25 is a good corrective here: "Neither is He [God] served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives everyone life and breath and all things." God is Almighty, and He needs no support. We cannot supply His needs, since He has none. He never gets tired, hungry, or lonely. He does not need us; we need Him. So, then, what does the Bible mean when it says we are servants of Jesus? This does mean that we submit to Jesus' authority. He reigns over us as Lord and King, and we now gladly live for His glory and His purposes on earth.

How we respond to Jesus says a lot about our view of Him. We trust Jesus to serve us because Jesus' service to us enables our obedience to Him. Every time Jesus calls us to do something, it is His way of telling us how He wants to serve us. When He calls us to give up everything we have, for example, or when He calls spouses to love each other even when times are tough, in all these situations Jesus aims to serve us and sustain us. Everything Jesus commands us to do is a call to trust Him, and only with such trust is obedience possible.

We are being served at every moment, and as we realize this, we exalt Jesus by serving others. As we are strengthened by His power and love, our service to others demonstrates His sacrifice for us. This was Jesus' point to His disciples in John 13:35: "By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."274

Matthew 20:29-34

So far we've had a story of children who in their humility could see Jesus and a rich man who in his riches could not see Jesus. We've also observed disciples who in their pride were struggling to see the love of Christ. These stories are capped off at the end of chapter 20 with a story of two blind men who, based upon confession of faith in Jesus, the Son of David, were brought from darkness to light.

For those in need of Jesus' help (which is all of us), the application of this story is simple: boldly confess your need for His mercy. Throw aside your pride and say, maybe for the first time in your life, "Lord Jesus, have mercy on me." That was the cry of these blind men, for they knew that they could not open their own eyes. They were fully dependent on Jesus' power and kindness. Even if you're already a Christian, the same truth applies: Daily confess your need for Christ's mercy. Trust Him to serve you.

As we boldly confess our need for God's mercy, we also need to humbly believe in His power to do the miraculous. We must trust God to do what only He can do. When Jesus asked these two men what they wanted done for them, they responded in verse 33 by saying, "Open our eyes!" They were trusting in the sovereign power of Jesus to cure their blindness. We are reminded one last time in this section that the entirety of the Christian life is based on divine mercy, not human merit.