Introduction: For many months now, I have been teaching through the Gospel of Matthew verse-by-verse. This coming Lord’s Day, we are in Matthew 22:23ff. This passage is where Sadducees and Pharisees continue to try to entrap and outmaneuver the Lord Jesus. Let that sink in. Outmaneuver God incarnate? Man’s hubris knows no limits.

The hostility of religious people who hated the Lord Jesus knew no limits either. This all precedes the “Seven Woes” Jesus pronounces in Matthew 24, a blistering divine rebuke of the Scribes and Pharisees. When I read these passages over and over, I shake my head at the image some professing Christians have of a Jesus who is meek and mild.

The historical record of the Christ is quite different. Jesus rebuked people to their faces by calling them snakes, vipers, whitewashed tombs, and hypocrites. He didn’t bow his head and say, “Let’s just pray about it.” He called out mendacity and false shepherds, and the lying world hated Him for it. But He was on the side of truth, because He was and is truth incarnate.

In Matthew 22:29 and following, Jesus told the Sadducees plainly, “you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Then in Matthew 22:46, the Apostle reminds us, “And no one was able to answer him [Jesus] a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”

The Biblical Account: In other words, when truth dominates, every mouth is stopped. Truth means light–and light exposes the darkness (John 1:5; 3:19-21; Romans 3:19; Ephesians 5:13).

• “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5, ESV).
• “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God” (John 3:19-21 ESV).
• “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (Romans 3:19, ESV).
• “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible” (Ephesians 5:13, ESV).

Takeaways: It really comes down to something quite simple: Do we believe God? When I ruminate upon things, it is hard not to think that most people fear men rather than fearing God. And of course, God has spoken to this clearly: “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe” (Proverbs 29:25, ESV) and “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10, ESV).

Does anyone think that’s unclear? Should not believers love the light? Is that in fact not commanded by the Lord from Genesis to Revelation?

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5, ESV). Light and truth. They’re metaphors from the very beginning of redemptive history to its consummation. Light and truth.

As I finalize my notes for teaching Sunday, that’s my prayer for God’s people. May we be known for light and truth. Anything less than that comes from not from God but from a quite different source.