The Central Theme of Matthew’s Gospel

The central theme of Matthew’s Gospel is fulfillment. In it redemptive history comes rushing to Jesus like rivers run to the sea.

That’s why the Gospel of Matthew opens with a genealogy that’s designed to identify Jesus as Israel’s long promised Messiah (1:1-17). That’s why Jesus is called by so many OT names and why Matthew works with so many OT themes. That’s why there are over fifty quotations of the OT in Matthew’s Gospel, almost as many as the other three Gospels combined. (Not to mention hundreds of allusions and OT echoes.)

I agree with James Montgomery Boice’s description of Matthew as a “Bridge Book.” That’s a great way to think of Matthew’s Gospel because of the way it links the OT with the New.

Matthew wants us to see that Jesus is the very climax of Israel’s story. He wants us to see that the sweeping significance of the good news he shares cannot be fully appreciated apart from the surprising scope much larger story—a story that reaches all the way back into the very deepest recesses of Israel history while pointing forward to the very end of the age (Mathew 28:20).

That’s why Jesus’ baptism is presented as the fulfillment of all righteousness (3:15). That’s why his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is presented as the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets (5:17).  That’s why to be in Jesus’ presence is to behold something greater than Solomon (12:42), something even greater than the temple (26:61). It’s all about fulfillment.

Every Old Testament theme flows like a stream into the the deep sea of Jesus’ significance.