Looking, therefore, to our present Gospel for proofs of its original destination, we find internal evidence tend- ing to confirm the traditional statement. The great object of the evangelist is evidently to prove to his countrymen that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah, the antitype of the figures of the old covenant, and the fulfilment of all prophecy. The opening words of his Gospel declare his purpose. Jesus Christ is set forth as " the son of David" and " the son of Abraham," fulfilling " the promises made to the fathers," and re- viving the faded glories of the nation in the heir of Da- vid's royal line, Abraham's promised seetl (comp. Iren. Fragm.xxix; Hcrr. iu,9,l; Orig. «n .7ofl?(». iv, 4). In the symmetrical arrangement of the genealogy also — " its divisions," as dean Goodwin has remarked {Comm. in St. Matt., Introd.), '■ corresponding to the two great crises in their national life, the maximum and minimum points of Hebrew prosperity" — we have an accommoda- tion to Jewish prejudices and Jewish habits of thought, in marked contrast with the continuous order of the universalistic Luke. As we advance, we find that the accomplishment of the promises, the proof that Jesus Christ is he of whom "Moses in the law and the proph- ets did write," is the object nearest to his heart. Thus he is continually speakmg of the necessity of this or that event hajtpening. in order that a particular proph- ecy might be fulfilled (iVa Tr\r)pw^y to pri^iv i'lro tov Ki'piov [or BfoT'] Cia -oh Trpc^iirov, i, 22 ; ii, 15; xxi,4 ; xxvi, 56 ; comp. ii. 17 : iii. 3 ; iv. 14 ; viii, 17. etc.), while his whole Gospel is full of allusions to those passages and sayings of the O. Test, in which Christ was predict- ed and foreshadowed. As Da Costa has remarked (Four Witnesses, p.20), he regards the events he narrates as " realized prophecy," and everj-thing is recorded with
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this view, that he may lead his countrymen to recognise in Jesus their promised Deliverer and King.
It is in keeping with the destination of his Gospel that we tind in Matthew less frequent explanations of Jewish customs, laws, and localities than in the other Gospels. Knowledge of these is presupposed in the readers (Matt, xv, 1, 2 with IVIark vii, 1-4 : Matt, xxvii, G-2 with Mark xv, 42 ; Luke xxiii, 54 ; John xix, 14, 31, 42, and other places). Jerusalem is the holy city (see below, Style and Diction). Jesus is of the elect line (i, 1 ; ix, 27 ; xii, 23 ; xv, 22 ; xx, 30 ; xxi, 9, 15) ; is to be born of a virgin in David's place, Bethlehem (i, 22 ; ii, 6) ; must flee into Egypt and be recalled thence (ii, 15, 19); must have a forerunner, John the Baptist (iii,3; xi, 10) ; was to labor in the outcast Galilee that sat in darkness (iv, 14-lG) ; his healing was a promised mark of his office (viii, 17 ; xii, 17), ancl so was his mode of teaching by parables (xiii, 14) ; he entered the holy city as Messiah (xxi, 5-16) ; was rejected by the people, in fulfilment of a prophecy (xxi, 42), and deserted by his disciples in the same way (xxvi, 31, 56). The Gospel is pervaded by one principle, the fulfilment of the law and of the INIessianic prophecies in the person of Jesus. This at once sets it in opposition to the Judaism of the time, for it rebuked the Pharisaic interpretations of the law (v, xxiii), and proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world through his blood, ideas which were strange to the cramped and limited Juda- ism of the Christian rera. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ is introduced declaring himself not as the de- stroyer but the fultiller of the Mosaic law. When the twelve are sent forth they are forbidden to go " into the way of the Gentiles" (x, 5 ; comp. xv, 24). In the same passage — the only one in which the Samaritans are men- tioned— that abhorred race is put on a level with the heatlien, not at once to be gladdened with the Gospel message.
But while we keep this in view, as the evangelist's first object, we must not strain it too narrowly, as if he had no other purpose than to combat the objections and to satisfy the prepossessions of tlie Jews. No evan- gelist expresses with greater distinctness the universal- ity of Christ's mission, or does more to break down the narrow notion of a Messiah for Israel who was not one also for the whole world ; none delivers stronger warn- ings against trusting to an Abraham ic descent for ac- ceptance with God. It is in Matthew that we read of the visit of the magi (ii, 1 sq.), symbolizing the mani- festation of Christ to the Gentiles; it is he that speaks of the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy, when " the na- tions that sat in darkness saw a great light"' (iv, 15, 16), and adds to the narrative of the cure of the centurion's servant what is wanting to the universalistic Luke, that "many should come from the East and West," etc. (viii, 11). Tlie narrative of the Syro-Phcenician woman, omit- ted by Luke, is given by Matthew, in whom alone we also tind the command to " make disciples of all nations" (xxviii, 19), and the unrestricted invitation to "all that labor and are heavy laden" (xi, 28). Nowhere are we made more conscious of the deep contrast between the spiritual teaching of Christ and the formal teaching of the rulers of the Jewish Church, We see also that oth- ers besides Jewish readers were contemplated, from the interpretations and explanations occasionally added, e. g. Immanuel, it, 23 ; Golgotha, xxvii, 33 ; Eli, lama sabach- thani, ver. 46.