NCJ

In the sixth chapter Zaspel launches into his exegesis of the passage, offering the reader a well-researched contextualization. The first half of the chapter focuses on the wider context of the whole gospel of Matthew. With a barrage of resources, he amply demonstrates the close ties not merely between Jesus and Moses but also between Matthew’s gospel and the Pentateuch. The similarities are striking and nigh undeniable. Perhaps more than any New Testament writer, this apostle renders plain the metonymy of Jesus as Law-Giver. Without actually appealing to Moses’ original prophecy of the appearance of the new Prophet (“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.” Deut 18:15) as Luke does (cf. Acts 3:22; 7:37), Matthew makes clear this is his intention in writing.

With patently weaker support, Zaspel affirms that, like the author of Hebrews, Matthew associates Jesus as superior to many other great Old Testament figures besides Moses – Abraham, Joshua, David, Solomon, and others. How this is immediately relevant to the discussion is never explained. More significant is the clear emphasis of Matthew on the authority of Jesus in His earthly ministry. The case for Jesus’ authority over all the things in Matthew, most pertinently the Law of Moses, is weighty but too quickly asserted. One can almost feel Reformed readers bristling at the idea that Jesus’ statement in Matthew 12:8 (“The Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath”) means, to Zaspel, “he has authority over even the law itself… his authority surpasses even that of the law.” ⁹ In their minds, it must be a quantum leap in logic, or at least meagerly argued.

The last half of Chapter Six evaluates the “antitheses” of Matthew 5:21-48. Built upon the reasonable principle that these verses help explain the earlier text in verses 17 through 20, which are generally acknowledged as the more ambiguous of the two. Zaspel acknowledges the almost universal consent that Jesus is somehow commenting on the Law of Moses here. The question is the nature of that comment. Is it confirmatory? Does it extend or “qualitatively advance” the old letter? Does it merely eliminate the collective Talmudic clutter accumulated over the centuries? Does it abrogate the Law entirely? With such statements as “You have heard it said… but I [note the emphatic, Christological ego] say unto you…,” and with the Lord’s clarion call to possess an internal, heart-driven righteousness greater than the Pharisees, it behooves the exegete to know how these assertions reflect upon their introductory remarks in vv. 17-20. Zaspel quickly dismisses opposing views from Covenant theologians, whom he accuses of the logical fallacy of begging the question. He also dispenses with the Dispensationalists, who err in failing to see the clear connection between the laws of Moses and of Christ in this passage.

Zaspel’s own analysis thankfully slows the pace, allowing the reader to digest not only his assertions but his rationale in reaching them. He opens by asking the right questions of the passage, then answers them using the clear biblical context. When Jesus’ audience heard Him say, “You have heard it said…,” what was the antecedent of “it”? By evaluating each of the six antithetical couplets, Zaspel attempts to prove that Jesus refers not to some rabbinical perversion of the Mosaic Law, but the very words of the Law itself. He does so forcefully until the sixth antithesis (5:43-44), where the phrase “and hate your enemy” – which appears nowhere else in the bible – is suddenly encountered. Zaspel labors to find some equivalent of this in the Torah, elsewhere in the Old Testament, and even in the scrolls of the Essenes. His argument is considerably weakened here, but not devastated in his mind. After interacting with Bahnsen on the matter of Jesus’ usage of errethe (“it was said”) versus gegraptai (“it is written”), Zaspel admits “[i]t must also be recognized that the sixth antithesis may possibly include a reference to something more than Scripture.” ¹⁰ This admission may not undo his thesis, but certainly warrants more research than was provided here.