Who are “His People?”

In Matthew 1:21 the angel of the Lord, or Yahweh, tells Mary’s husband, Joseph, in a dream about the unborn child in her womb, “She will give birth to a son. And you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” In this series of posts, I want unpack what Matthew intends for his readers to understand. To start, I want to begin with understanding what it means that Jesus “will save.” But to do that implies something from which one needs to be “saved.” So in this post I want to start at the end of the post and try to understand what it is that Jesus is to save them from. This post will bleed over into the post that discusses what it “will save” means, except that post will focus more on the role of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and how it will save from “their sins.” So what does Matthew envision the sin of his people to be from which they need to be saved?

Well, I lied. I can’t really start out with what the sin is until I understand who it is that needs to be saved. So actually I’m starting in the middle. But, no harm no foul, right? So okay, who is the “his people” that Jesus will save from their sins?

In the previous context, we see that Matthew connects Israel’s exile into Babylon with the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:17). And then without mentioning the return under the Medo-Persian king, Cyrus, Matthew begins to talk about Jesus’ birth, which includes Matthew saying that the events of Jesus’ infancy fulfills two texts (Hosea 11:1 and Jeremiah 31:15) that speak of Israel being in exile. And then when Jesus begins his ministry in Matthew 4:12-17, Matthew relates this ministry as fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 9:1-2) where a light will go to the people in the land of Naphtali and Zebulon who are in the darkness of exile. When Matthew concludes Jesus’ first major discourse (Matthew 5-7) and miracle narrative (Matthew 8-9) with a statement about how the people are like lost sheep and when he sends out his twelve disciples, he sends them only to Israel and not to Samaritans or Gentiles. It seems likely that Jesus’ people are Israelites.

But I don’t think that neither Jesus nor Matthew are defining “his people” of Matthew 1:21 as ethnic Israel for a couple of reasons. First, as Joel Willitts argues, Jesus’ Galilean ministry was Jesus going to national-political Israel, remnant of the ten-tribe kingdom in the north that broke off from Judah and David’s house, and calling them back into the twelve tribe league under his rule and reign. Yes he and his twelve emissaries preached to the disenfranchised Jews of the former kingdom of Israel. But Jesus sent them to the lost sheep of the house of Israel only, not to the Jews in Diaspora or in Judah to the south, to the Samaritans who lived between Judah and Galilee, and not to the Gentiles who live east of Galilee.

But when one surveys Matthew’s text and Jesus’ interaction with Gentiles, we see that for Matthew the kingdom is not limited to an ethnic group. Follow Matthew’s narrative. Matthew 2:1-12 the Magi from Parthia come and worship infant Jesus.

In Matthew 8:5-13, a Roman officer asked Jesus to heal his servant. He demonstrated an amazing faith by saying that Jesus need not come to the centurion’s house to heal the servant, Jesus need only to speak the command to be healed and the servant would be healed–much like an officer gives a command in his unit and it is done, all upon his authority to give that command. When Jesus sees this faith, he not only grants the centurion’s wish for the servant to be healed, he says to those following him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This man’s faith will grant him a seat at the great banquet of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; while those who are supposed to have a seat there will be cast into darkness.

In Matthew 15:21-28, a Canaanite woman (Note that Matthew calls her a Canaanite instead of a Gentile to highlight that she is not part of ethnic Israel, but an enemy of Israel!) asks Jesus to heal her daughter. When Jesus tells her that he has been “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24 NIV) and that, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” (Matthew 15:27 NIV) she acknowledges her position before him. She says, “No I do not get to sit at the table as a child, but even as a dog I am entitled to the food that is appropriate for me.” She acknowledges Israel as the people of God and Jesus as their Messianic Shepherd-King, calling him “Lord” 3 times and kneeling before him. She agrees with Jesus’ Israel-centric mission and her place in Israel as a Gentile to be entitled to the Messianic Age. This faith in Jesus to grant her his blessing as a Gentile is what motivated Jesus to grant her request. Jesus is granting the life of the Messianic Age to both Jews and Gentiles

Then in Matthew 21, Jesus begins to confront the religious leadership of Israel and Judah. He tells two parables. In the first parable (Matthew 21:28-32), a father asks his two sons to work in his vineyard. One son said he would not go, but then later changed his mind. The other son said he would go, but never did. Jesus equated the “sinners and tax collectors” to the first son and the Jewish religious leadership to the second son and to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matthew 21:31 NIV).

The second parable (Matthew 21:33-46) is about a landowner who builds a vineyard. He hires some people to care for the vineyard. When he sends some servants to collect his share of the fruit at harvest time, the workers beat and humiliate the servants of the owner. After repeatedly sending his servants, the owner sends his own son thinking they would respect his son. But instead the kill the son, thinking they would be able to keep the vineyard for themselves. Both Jesus and the religious leadership agreed that when the owner comes to collect, he will not only take his rightful due from the harvest but also destroy the hired workers who killed his sons and beat his servants. Then he will hire other servants who will give him his share of the harvest. In conclusion, Jesus tells the leadership that they are the servants and that the kingdom of God is being taken away from them and given to a people who will bear its fruit (Matthew 21:43).

So what can we conclude from this very brief survey of Matthew’s narrative (There is so much more that can be drawn from Matthew 6 and Matthew 16 and Matthew 20) about who it is that Matthew 1:21 is referring to when it says that Jesus will save “his people?” I think that it is those Jews and Gentiles who recognize and believe that Jesus is the Messianic Davidide Sheperd-King come to restore Israel, like the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman. They are those people who then abandon their own lives for the sake of entering into his kingdom, seeking it instead of their own worries (Matthew 6:33). They take up their cross and follow Jesus, not seeking to preserve their own lives but losing it for Jesus’ sake (cf. Matthew 16:24-27). They are what Jesus called tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes. The disenfranchised of Israel who are poor, oppressed, suffering from disease and injury and disabilities. Those are “his people.” He ate with them (Matthew 9:9-13). He identified with them.

So what then are the sins from which Jesus will save them from? That will be the topic taken up in the next post.