Matthew’s Unique Approach to Forgiveness

Forgiveness of Sins Through Death and Resurrection

Several years ago on a trip to Italy, I got to spend a week in the ancient northern city of Ravenna. While my artist wife took a masterclass in mosaics, I wandered around this beautiful walled town that played an important role in Roman and Christian history.¹ Ravenna and its environs are a rare place where you can see both Western and Eastern Christianity set in stone side by side. The city contains several important Eastern-influenced eight-sided basilicas covered in mosaics from the floor up and across the vast vaulted ceilings. You can also enter any number of Western cathedrals remodelled during the Baroque era that are built, as became the custom, in the shape of a cross, with the altar existing at the center point. Both the basilicas and the cathedrals are replete with images of Jesus, of course, but with a noticeable difference—the cathedrals are full of crosses and crucifixes while the basilicas represent Jesus as resurrected and reigning. As in theology, so in architecture: The Western tradition emphasizes Jesus’s suffering while the Eastern highlights Jesus’s victory and activity of blessing the world.

Both Jesus’s suffering/death and his death-defying resurrection are necessary parts of the gospel story, as they should be in our theology. Holding both together is arguably a greater weakness in the Western tradition, perpetuated even more in Protestant theology with its focus on the cross language that the apostle Paul emphasizes, especially in Romans and Galatians. But Matthew, along with all the apostolic writings, holds together cross and resurrection, suffering and joy, in a complex singularity. Without the resurrection, the cross is incomplete and insufficient to describe Jesus’s work. Without the cross and its suffering, the resurrection would be mere triumphalism.

Crucial to understanding Matthew’s Christology is reading the whole bios with the perspective that comes only from the ending. As with a mystery novel, the revelations that occur in the conclusion enable one to understand bits of the story that previously offered hints but that only make full sense once the details are tied together.

When we return once more to Matthew’s first fulfillment story, we see that in addition to the weighty ascription of Immanuel, the child will be given the name Jesus. Greek-only readers may not catch the play on words that Iēsous is a transfer from Hebrew yehoshua, meaning “God saves.” But if they don’t understand the theological meaning of the name, Matthew makes it explicit: “He will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Jesus will be the means by which God’s new-exodus / post-exile people will be delivered or saved from the consequences of their sins.

In light of this initial proclamation and what a dominant theme forgiveness of sins is in Christian theology, it is surprising how minor this theme is throughout the narrative of Matthew. The topic comes up at the end of the Lord’s Prayer but in a negative way, with the Father forgiving sins only for those who forgive others (Matt. 6:14). This is reiterated in Jesus’s instructions for life together in his community: The heavenly Father will not forgive your sins “if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matt. 18:35). Another negative articulation occurs when Jesus responds to the Pharisees’ accusation that he is demonic. The ones accusing him of blasphemy are in danger of blasphemy themselves by ascribing the work of Jesus to the prince of demons: “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matt. 12:32).

The only explicit, positive reference to the forgiveness of sin during Jesus’s Galilean ministry is found in the tide-turning story of Matthew 9:1–8, which is another example of Jesus’s compassion for and power to heal those in need. Jesus announces that the paralytic’s sins are forgiven (Matt. 9:4–5). By assuming this priestly role, he provokes anger and rejection by the religious leaders. This is a significant story that anchors Jesus’s ministry once again in his unique authority and his saving work to rescue people from the consequences of sin.

Without the resurrection, the cross is incomplete and insufficient to describe Jesus’s work.

Beyond this story, the sin-forgiving role highlighted by Jesus’s name does not explicitly appear again until the crucial event on the eve of his death. During this somber celebration of the Passover when he gathers with his new family of disciples, Jesus transforms the remembrance rituals of the Passover seder. The unleavened bread and the shared wine of that story are reframed and reinterpreted (fulfilled but not abolished) as Jesus’s body broken and blood poured out “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). In the events to follow, Jesus is indeed crucified; his blood pours forth, and he is killed (Matt. 27:32–56). He subsequently rises from the dead. In contrast to his resurrection to life, the feeble guards at the tomb become like dead men (Matt. 28:1–4). Interestingly, no theological interpretation is given in the narrative to describe Jesus’s suffering, death, and resurrection. The theological frame to understand these earth-shattering events is found instead in Jesus’s words at his Last Supper. These events procure the forgiveness of sins by making a new (and better) covenant between God and humanity. In theological terms we refer to Jesus’s work as providing atonement—an English word that signifies a new unity between God and humanity, a new relationship of “at-one-ness” that is only possible because humanity’s sins against God are now covered and expunged through Jesus’s life, suffering, death, and resurrection. Jesus emphasizes the future orientation of these events by pointing toward the next time he will eat and drink with them—on that new day “in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29).

This explanation ties together the theme of rescue, or forgiveness of sins, found at the beginning and end of Jesus’s life. Even though forgiveness of sin is not explicit throughout Matthew’s Gospel, with this retrospective insight we can see that it is indeed pervasively implicit through the use of many other metaphors, concepts, and actions. Jesus’s constant healings, cleansings, and blessings should be understood as manifestations of this same rescuing and forgiving. He continually speaks about entering the kingdom of heaven, gaining/inheriting/entering life, receiving rewards, hearing goodness, receiving mercy, being rescued from bondage to demons/diseases, finding rest/shalom, and being vindicated. All of these should be understood under the rubric that Matthew has used to frame Jesus’s ministry at the beginning and end. He has come to provide rescue and forgiveness of our sin.

This article is adapted from Becoming a Disciple of the King: A Theology of Matthew by Jonathan T. Pennington.

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