Smoodock's Blog

In the context of Jesus offering the Kingdom of Heaven to a people without spiritual understanding, Jesus began the second year of his public ministry with, what I believe to be, a change of emphasis. For nearly a year, Jesus had been presenting himself as the Messiah to the Jewish nation, first in Galilee and then in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the legitimate Jewish authorities opposed Jesus and kept the people from following him. The Jewish authorities rejected him, because they looked for the Messiah, who would be someone unlike Jesus! Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven was unexpected.

The people perceived John to be a prophet of God (cp. Matthew 21:26; Mark 11:32; Luke 20:6), and many were aligning themselves behind him. John kept pointing to Jesus, saying he was the Messiah who was to come. Something had to be done, if the Jewish authorities, who publicly criticized and rejected Jesus, wished to maintain their influence and power over the people.

Therefore, they sought to destroy both John and Jesus by creating a sense of dissonance between their ministries, whereby mutual distrust would lead to opposition and even open conflict between their disciples (John 3:25-26). If they were successful the people would be dividend and choose sides, and the Jewish authorities would be able to claim their ministries were not of God. When their plan failed, the Pharisees conspired with the Herodians (cp. Mark 3:6; 12:13) and had John arrested by Herod (Matthew 4:12). This was done so suddenly that Jesus had to hastily flee Judea in order to avoid an evil plot against him (John 4:1-3).

Upon his arrival in Galilee, Jesus left Nazareth, where he had grown up, and came to dwell in Capernaum (Matthew 4:13). Apparently, Jesus had not made the move to Capernaum, as immediately as a reading of Luke’s account might lead us to believe (Luke 4:31). Luke’s Gospel narrates Jesus’ movements during the autumn of what I believe to be AD 27, more precisely from the Feast of Trumpets of that year (Luke 4:16-30) to the Last Great Day, or the 8^th day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Luke 6:20-49), vis-à-vis the first of the 7^th month of the Jewish calendar to the 22^nd day of the month (Luke 4 through Luke 6), comprising 22 of the 40 days of Jesus’ temptations. Luke 7 begins Jesus’ 2^nd year of public ministry, when Jesus left Judea after John’s imprisonment and came into Galilee preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. It was at this time that Jesus made his permanent move from Nazareth to Capernaum (Matthew 4:12-13).

Matthew interprets this movement as a fulfillment of what Isaiah prophesied. In the previous chapter, chapter 8 of the Book of Isaiah, he finished prophesying about a time of great trouble in Israel, wherein the king of Assyria would come and destroy Samaria. Zebulun and Naphtali would have been among the first to meet the armies of Assyria. Darkness, hopelessness, would have fallen upon them first. Nevertheless, the prophet said that the people, there, will see great light (Isaiah 9:2). Although death seems to reign, the light of life, hope, would shine through. The Assyrians brought in other people, gentiles, to replace the Jews who were removed to the land of Assyria. Yet, the common people who were left in the land were given hope, as the prophet foresaw: “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son (Son of God = Messiah) is given…” (Isaiah 9:6).

However, when Jesus, the Messiah, had come, he was rejected! The prophet, John, had pointed to him, but the Jewish authorities rejected him, because Jesus didn’t meet their traditional expectations, and he refused to be their puppet. With John now imprisoned and Jesus rejected as the authentic Messiah, the people lived in darkness, but light burst forth with Jesus leaving Judea and returning to Galilee! As it was in Isaiah’s day, so it came to be in Jesus’ day.

From this time forward, therefore, it wasn’t the nation, whom Jesus sought to receive him but the whomsoever (John 1:11-12), the individual soul, the believer, who obeyed his command to “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 4:17). This kingdom knew no borders, because it wasn’t physical, and it cannot be located on a map. Nevertheless, this very Kingdom that Jesus preached was the Kingdom of Heaven that Daniel prophesied would come (Daniel 2:44-45) in the days of the kings of the 3^rd and 4^th empires. This kingdom, Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven would ultimately destroy all other kingdoms, and all nations would, eventually, flow into it (Isaiah 11:10; 27:13; 49:6).