MATTHEW 12:38-45
GIVE ME A SIGN, and then I’ll believe. Give me some sign that Jesus is the Son of God, and then I will gladly become a Christian. I'll go to church, say my prayers, read my Bible, and do the other things Christians are supposed to do. Just give me a sign.
The request of the scribes and Pharisees in verse 38, said nearly 2,000 years ago, is an everyday, every-generation request. But it is not so much a request as it is an excuse. People want signs that God exists and that Jesus is Lord, but they always want their signs rather than the ones God provides.
Some people today want a scientific sign. “I would believe in God if engraved upon the first moon rock picked up by Neil Armstrong were the words, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ And if the genetic instructions of the complete DNA sequence somehow formed the sentence, ‘The Bible is inerrant in its original manuscripts,’ then I’d take this book as holy and authoritative. And if the cloud formation from the first atomic bomb spelled out, ‘Repent and believe in Jesus,’ I would gladly do so.”
Others want a political power sign. We might call this the Constantinian sign. When the Emperor Constantine was marching to war, he looked up to the sun and saw a cross of light above it, with the Greek words en touto nika, “In this [sign], you shall conquer.” And conquer he did (through the cross, so he thought). Some people today assert, “I will hold to the truths of the Christian faith if the Christian church holds worldly power and prestige. I want a St. Peter’s Basilica on every Main Street in every town in every country. Show me the political power. Show me the institutional presence. Show me the worldly glory, and then I will believe.”
Still others just want miraculous signs. “I will trust in Jesus if God cures this cancer... if he saves this unsalvageable marriage... if he right now turns my hair blonde, now black, now back to brown. Show me something miraculous. Just give me a sign.”
In our text the Jewish religious leaders fall somewhere into this third camp—the “show me something miraculous” camp. You might say, “But why are they in this camp? Haven’t they seen Jesus heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, and drive out madness?” Yes, they have. And from Matthew’s perspective we get the impression that those signs and wonders should have been enough to persuade them (cp. Acts 2:22). However, here they are not looking for another earthly miracle. They don't ask for a miracle but for a sign, the idea being “a heavenly miracle,” a sign in the sky (not one on earth). I’ll put it this way: not something an Egyptian magician could duplicate; something that would show them that the Lord in Heaven is for Jesus on earth.
So they ask, we might say, not for Jesus to multiply seven loaves of bread into 7,000, but for manna to fall from Heaven. They ask not for the Red Sea to part but for a cloud of smoke and a pillar of fire. If this Jesus is, as he has been claiming, greater than the temple and the Torah, the one who has come to deliver his people Israel, then let him do something greater than Moses. Order hail from Heaven (Exodus 9:13-35) or send darkness over the whole land (Exodus 10:21-29). Do something like that.
The Only Sign
And to that Jesus says to them, as much as he says to us today,
An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, (vv. 39, 40).
The only sign that has been given to every generation is the death and resurrection of Jesus. Just as Jonah was in the belly of that big fish and then vomited up alive, so Jesus will be buried and rise again on the third day.
Now let’s stop here, and let me make two simple observations, for I don’t want anyone to misunderstand some of the details of verses 39, 40.
First, the Jesus/Jonah comparison is not intended to be a perfect parallel. Jonah was a prophet, Jesus much more than a prophet. Jonah was disobedient up until the point he prayed that beautiful prayer of salvation in the fish. Jesus was perfectly obedient from the womb to the tomb. Jonah did not die when he was buried in the belly of the fish. Jesus died and was buried. The main similarity between Jesus and Jonah was that they were both delivered alive after three days from a deadly situation in which there was no normal hope for life afterward.
Second, don’t get bogged down by the mathematics of verse 40, where Jesus speaks of the three days and three nights. Perhaps when you read that you might think, “Wait, wasn’t Jesus buried for just one and a half days? He died at ‘the ninth hour’ (3:00 p.m.) on Friday, and then he was buried later that evening. So he was in the tomb some of Friday, all of Saturday, and then part of Sunday. That is not three days and nights.” In reality Jesus died on the Wednesday, 1st April AD 33 at 15:00 – the Friday idea is wrong!
As Jonah went down and came up, so Jesus will die and rise again. So, yes, there is a time correlation, but more so a sign relation. And the whole point of verses 39, 40 is that only one sign will be given to that generation, and only one sign has been given from the time of Jesus’ resurrection until his return—the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In Jesus’ life and ministry, God has delivered one proof after another, but in Jesus’ death and resurrection he has pulled out all the stops, giving us all that is necessary to believe. The resurrection of the crucified Christ—that is the sign. Period. Exclamation point. One sign. Take it or leave it.
Gather one, gather all for the greatest show on earth—the greatest sign you will ever see, God’s “once-for-all and perpetual” sign.” Behold the man! Behold your King! Behold the Lamb of God slain and yet he lives! Behold the sign of Jonah!
The Sufficient Sign
Wait. What is so great about that sign? Wouldn’t the scientific sign or the political power sign or some sign in the sky (some remarkable, unprecedented heavenly miracle) be a more sufficient sign? I don’t think so. And Jesus certainly doesn’t think so.
The sign of the death and resurrection of Christ is a fully sufficient sign for at least two reasons: (1) it is historically viable and, I'll argue, historically verifiable, and (2) it allows room for faith, and it is faith that allows room for anyone and everyone who will believe.
I'll touch on that second reason first. If a saving relationship with God were based on human strength, then only those who could bench-press at least 300 pounds would get into the Kingdom. If it was based on human intelligence, “getting into the kingdom would be like getting into Harvard,” and only a very few elite academics could do it. If it were based on beauty, only a few people like my wife would experience divine glory. But if salvation is obtained by faith alone (you see, there are an “infinite number of things which surpass” reason" and strength and beauty, including faith), then even humble folk like fishermen and weak people like little children can gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven. That is one reason the sign of Jonah is sufficient—faith is democratic, available to the masses. Faith allows all kinds of people (strong/ weak, pretty/ugly, smart/dumb, black/white, male/female, Jew/Gentile, and so on) to enter the kingdom.
The other reason that this sign is sufficient is the historical validity of Jesus’ resurrection. Oftentimes skeptics think that the burden of proof for the resurrection is on Christians: “You have to dig up the historical facts and prove that Jesus really rose from the dead.” But I think the burden of proof is on the skeptics. They have to find the corpse of Christ. The early Christians claimed he rose from the dead, and there were over 500 eyewitnesses (1 Corinthians 15:3-6), including Roman soldiers paid to guard the tomb and paid off when they couldn’t find the body. So you tell me, what happened to Jesus?
Surely someone somewhere (back then especially—the Romans, the Jews, the enemies of the Ecclesia) had the body or bones of Jesus. So where are they?
And then explain, I would urge skeptics, why Christianity emerged so rapidly and with such force in a culture more skeptical about bodily resurrections than ours. What on earth could have happened that would make a bunch of Jews—Simon Peter, James, John. Paul, and the others—not only start preaching that Jesus rose from the dead (new worldviews like that, and it was new for the time, don't formulate overnight) but then worship him? Have you read the New Testament lately? How do you explain Revelation 5, Philippians 2, or Colossians 1? These monotheistic Jews were worshipping Jesus! Explain that. Call him a prophet as Muhammad’s followers called Muhammad or enlightened as the Buddha’s followers called Buddha, but not “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28), like once-doubting Thomas did of Jesus.
Furthermore, what would make these same followers sacrifice their very lives for a lie? Pascal once wrote, “I [believe] those witnesses that get their throats cut.” Perhaps one man would die for a hoax, but not an honest man, only a deranged man. But for virtually all the apostles and many of the first eyewitnesses to die for some corporate hoax or hallucination, some made-up myth, some dead guy whose strange teachings they liked so much they were willing to be hanged, crucified, thrown to the lions, or tortured to death—that’s more far-fetched than if I claimed I could grow wings and fly home. It really is.
The problem is not with the sign. The sign is sufficient. Eyewitness testimony is still the most valid and reliable form of witness in our courts today. If people don’t believe, the problem is with them.
Many people who don’t believe in Jesus and his resurrection suffer from what I’ll call the rich man’s syndrome. Do you remember the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19—31? It was told to the Pharisees, who knew their Bibles but were “lovers of money” and full of pride (they thought their own righteousness justified them, see Luke 16:14-17). I won’t go through the whole parable. I’ll just touch on the end. Toward the end, the rich man is suffering in Hell, while the poor man, Lazarus, is in heavenly luxury. The rich man says something quite telling. He asks Abraham to send someone to warn his five brothers, who obviously were living as hellishly as he did. To that request Abraham basically replies, “They have the Bible—Moses and the prophets—let them listen to that voice.” The rich man replies, “No, Father Abraham, send someone back from the dead, then they will repent.” Abraham concludes, “No, they won’t. If they won't listen to what the Bible says, they won’t listen to anyone, even someone who rises from the dead” (see Luke 16:29-31).
The point of that parable concerns the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a testimony to Christ and a fitting testimony against the self-righteous, self-indulgent Pharisees. Applied to our text in Matthew, this parable addresses those people who make up any and all excuses not to believe in Jesus. “Oh, I will believe in Jesus if...” Then they lay out their demands. If this, if that. “If someone visited me from the dead and told me what to believe, then I’d believe.” Like Abraham, I respond, "I doubt it.” The problem is not the sign God has given—the problem is unbelieving individuals. They won’t accept the sign. They want God’s sign to be their sign. God has shown them A, B, and C, but they ask for X, Y, and Z. It is a pride issue. It is rebellion. They refuse to submit. They won’t cast their crowns before God. They continue to steady their puny little crown upon their big oversized head. Pride is the problem. The sign is sufficient—the death and resurrection of Jesus is enough. But it’s not enough for those who refuse to see and hear.
The Right Responses
That is what Jesus will address in the coming parables in chapter 13, and it is what he addresses next in verses 41-45.
Let’s look first at verses 41, 42, what I’ll label the damning witness of two right responses. After Jesus says, “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (v. 40), he follows with, “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah [not the miracles of Jonah, just from hearing his message; so little evidence, and yet so much repentance], and behold, something greater than Jonah is here” (v. 41). That’s the first right response. Then comes the second: “The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here” (v. 42).
Do you see the picture here? Jesus envisions this trial scene on the last day or “at the judgment,” as he puts it. There on trial stand the scribes, Pharisees, and those like them who have refused to believe in Jesus despite what they have seen and heard, despite having front row seats to the greatest show on earth. The first witness is called. Will it be Abraham or Moses? No; here come the Ninevites. What? The awful Assyrians? Yes, even the awful Assyrians are valid witnesses because they repented when Jonah (aka Unmerciful Prophet of the Century) came to town. So the men of Nineveh stand up, walk over to the accused, point a finger, and say, “Guilty as charged.”
Then the second witness is called. It is Elijah or Isaiah? No. It's not a man. It’s not even a Jew. It's a Gentile woman, “The queen of the South.” Jesus loves to use the most unlikely characters to rile up the religious snobs of his day. Do you remember her story? It’s recorded in 1 Kings 10. The queen of the South—“the queen of Sheba” as she is called there—heard about Solomon’s wisdom but doubted the accuracy of the reports. “No one can be that wise,” she thought. “I have to see and hear this man for myself.” So she journeyed from Ethiopia. Addis Ababa to Jerusalem is 1,588 miles! And remember Henry Ford wasn’t around back then. She traveled all that way, 1 Kings 10:1 tells us, “to test him [Solomon] with hard questions.” In this way she was just like the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day. They came to test Jesus’ wisdom, to ask him tough questions. But once the queen listened to Solomon’s words of wisdom, she believed. “There was no more breath in her” is how 1 Kings 10:5 puts it. What a beautiful way to say “she believed.” For her, seeing and hearing was believing. And then, after she had seen and heard Solomon, like the magi (Matthew 2:1-11), she emptied her pockets and gave some of her treasures to him. Then she worshipped. She said to Solomon, “Blessed be the Lord your God” (1 Kings 10:9). So the good old queen of Sheba, with her awe at and acceptance of Solomon’s wisdom, stands up, walks over to the accused, points a finger, and says, “Guilty as charged.”
These two right responses provide a damning witness. But so too does Jesus himself. Three times in chapter 12 Jesus has used this phrase of himself—“greater than.” In 12:6 he said, I’m “greater than the temple” (i.e., greater than the priesthood and sacrificial system). In 12:41 he said, I’m "greater than Jonah” (i.e., greater than the prophets). And finally in 12:42 he said. I’m “greater than Solomon” (i.e., greater than the kings). In other words, he claims to be the prophet, priest, and king. And as such he stands also as the judge, saying to the Pharisees and all like them, “Guilty as charged.” For while pagans understood the truth when it reached their ears, the teachers of the Torah refused to come, refused to repent, refused to stop their mouths, quiet their questions, step back, and look and listen and admit, “Truly this must be the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
A Warning about Neutralism
But what is Jesus getting at in verses 43-45, with this bit about the eight spirits? Let’s take a step back and follow the flow of the whole text. I’ll put it in question/answer form.
First, in verses 38-40 we have the question, what’s the sign? Answer: God’s sign is the sign of Jonah (Jesus’ death and resurrection).
Second, in verses 41, 42 we have the question, how should we respond to this sign? Answer: Be like the men of Nineveh and that woman from the south. Repent and come to Christ. Unless you want to stand guilty at the judgment, journey to Jesus.
Third and finally, in verses 43-45 we have the question, what if I don’t repent and believe? What if I just stay where I am? To this our Lord replies in essence, “Religion won’t save you from the final judgment. Outward reform will not do. And neutrality toward me is not neutral. The choice is this: (a) stay with this evil generation or (b) embrace Christ.”
Just listen to what our Lord says in verses 43-45. Listen to how he illustrates his answer:
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.
It look me a while to get my head around what Jesus is saying here. While he is talking about a person and a generation (a group of persons from one time period), it helped me to envision “the house” here as the temple, and then that house being “swept” clean and “put in order” as the time when Jesus cleansed the temple. For at least one day or moment, the demon, if you will, had been expelled. The house was empty of evil. But will it be filled with faith in Christ? If not, the demon will soon return, and that demon won’t be alone; seven others will be with him—a perfection of evil, so to speak. And “the last state” will be “worse than the first” (cp. 2 Peter 2:20). There is nothing worse than a Pharisee—an outwardly clean/inwardly unclean person.
Here Jesus calls those who won’t repent an “evil generation,” which serves as an inclusio to this text (in v. 39 and v. 49). Those who, after hearing and seeing sufficient evidence, refuse to repent and commit to Christ are guilty. Neutrality is not neutral. Neutrality toward Jesus is disbelief, and as we have seen in Matthew, disbelief is treason, the worst evil of all.
A Harmless Holiday?
This text teaches about Easter and the evil generation. We have the sign of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and we have the “evil generation”—that is, any group of people at any time who will not repent as the Ninevites did and will not come to the King like the queen of Sheba did, any group that will not recognize, acknowledge, and live like Jesus is Lord.
Easter is indeed a happy holiday—a day filled with pastel colors, sweet smells, lovely lilies, and cute little girls dressed so prettily. But it’s not a harmless holiday. It may not have any betrayal or blood, no cross or nails, but it still has some teeth to it (see Acts 17:30, 31). Easter is not as harmless as a cute, fluffy, big-eyed bunny. It’s as dangerous as a tiger. It is based in the worship of the goddess Ishtar. To a world looking for signs for and from God, God has given his sign to the world—the one and only, sufficient sign, the sign of Jonah. And for those who are willing and able to see it and believe it, every day is a day to repent and rejoice that Christ the Lord is risen.
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)