follows His command in verse 19: "Be zealous, therefore, and repent."
He Offers a Yoke of Rest
into unregenerate lives, the Savior described in the New Testament is God in the flesh, who invades the world of sinful humanity, challenging sinners to turn from their iniquity.3 Rather than waiting for an invitation, He issues His own — in the form of a command to repent and take on a yoke of submission.
Not surprisingly, Jesus' personal invitation to sinners stands in stark contrast to the evangelistic message we are accustomed to hearing. Matthew 11:25 – 30 records these words, spoken by our Lord immediately after He pronounced condemnation on the Galilean cities that refused to repent:
At that time Jesus answered and said, "I praise Th ee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Th ou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes. Yes, Father, for thus it was wellpleasing in Th y sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall fi nd rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."
That is an invitation to salvation, not just an appeal for believers to move into a deeper experience of discipleship. The people our Lord spoke to were weighted down with sin and legalism, laboring in their own energy to find spiritual rest.
It is significant that our Lord began His invitation with a prayer recognizing God's sovereignty. He said it aloud in the presence of the people. Thus the truth it contained was a critical part of the message to them. It was a statement to all who heard — an affirmation that everything was going according to the divine plan, even though the mass of people had rejected their Messiah.
The Savior emphasized that God Himself is the determinative factor in salvation. We who witness for Christ are not ultimately responsible for how people respond to the gospel. We are only responsible to preach it clearly and accurately, speaking the truth in love. Some will turn away, but it is God who either reveals the truth or keeps it hidden, according to what is well-pleasing in His sight. His plan cannot be stymied. Though the gospel according to Jesus may offend, its message must not be made more palatable by watering down the content or softening the hard demands. In God's plan, the elect will believe despite the negative response of the multitudes.
3. Note that Jesus' invitation in Revelation 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock . . . " immediately follows His command in verse 19: "Be zealous, therefore, and repent."
Jesus Heralds His Gospel
Considering the overwhelming rejection swirling around Jesus when He uttered these words, we might conclude that things were at a low point in His ministry. His work in Galilee was coming to a close. Although He had demonstrated irrefutably that He was the Messiah, a majority of the people were unresponsive. Yet Jesus never wavered in His confidence that all things were under the Father's control. He continued to pursue His Father's will and reach out to the unregenerate. He had come to seek and to save the lost. Negative circumstances never deterred Him from that purpose.
Jesus' offer of rest for the weary is a call to conversion. It is a masterpiece of redemptive truth — a synopsis of the gospel according to Jesus. It outlines five essential elements of genuine conversion, all so inextricably linked that it is impossible to eliminate any one of them from the biblical concept of saving faith.
Humility
First is humility. Jesus prays, "Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes" (Matt. 11:25). He did not mean that "these things" — the spiritual realities of the kingdom — are hidden from smart people. Spiritual understanding has nothing to do with one's mental capacity. He is condemning people whose knowledge of spiritual truth is limited only to what they can discover with their own intelligence — those who are ultimately dependent on human wisdom. Their sin is not their intellect; it is their intellectual pride.
This warning was especially applicable to the Pharisees, the rabbis, and the scribes. They were closed to the revelation of God in Christ because they thought they already knew everything God had to say. Unaware that they were spiritually blind, they depended on human reason to interpret spiritual reality. Instead of finding truth, they had erected a system of theological error.
Human intellect cannot understand or receive spiritual truth. The things of the Spirit of God are not accessible through human wisdom or clever reasoning. This is the same truth the apostle Paul cited in 1 Co rin thi ans 2:9. The eye cannot see spiritual truth and the ear cannot hear it — it is not empirically or objectively discernible. Nor has it entered into the heart of man — it is not perceivable by intuition.
Jesus' point in Matthew 11 was not that God has withheld the truth from intelligent people, but rather that those who rely on their own cleverness cut themselves off from the truth. Their wisdom and intelligence are corrupted by pride. They have rejected God's truth, and He may seal their rejection by closing their minds to spiritual truth once and for all. God reveals the truth not
He Offers a Yoke of Rest
to the proud and sophisticated but to "babes." This parallels Jesus' statement in Matthew 18:3, "Unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." A childlike response is the antithesis of human wisdom and stubborn pride. It requires the humility of one who has limited skill, no education, and little human ability. One word best sums up the child — dependent.
Who can enter into salvation? Those who, like children, are dependent, not independent. Those who are humble, not proud. Those who recognize that they are helpless and empty. Aware that they are nothing, they turn in utter dependency to Christ. Psalm 138:6 says, "For though the Lord is exalted, yet He regards the lowly; but the haughty He knows from afar." Those with true humility, the "babes," have access to God and His truth. But the proud, the "wise and intelligent," have no knowledge of Him whatsoever.
The contrast between the wise and the childlike is actually a contrast between works and grace. The Galileans who rejected Christ were oriented to a system of works-righ teous ness. They were prosperous, self-sufficient, and egotistical. Jesus stood in opposition to all they loved, so they rejected Him. Less sophisticated people, deeply distressed over their own emptiness, humble and broken, were open to Him. They had no righ teous ness of their own to rely on. And so it seemed good in God's sight to reveal the truth to them.
Isaiah 57:15 says, "For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, 'I dwell on a high and holy place.' " That statement places Jehovah on as high a level as we can envision Him. But then He adds, "[I dwell] also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." The word "revive" in that verse is translated in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures) with the same Greek word translated "give you rest" in Matthew 11:28. God gives rest — salvation — to humble people, people filled with contrition, brokenness, and a sense of dependency. There is no place for the proud.
First Corinthians 1:26 – 28 says, "Consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish . . . and the weak . . . and the base." They are the ones who sense their need and are not proud. Pride says, "I can do it on my own. I have my own resources." The wise and prudent who take that position are shut out from the kingdom.
Revelation
A second essential element of conversion is revelation. Salvation comes to one who is childlike but only on the basis of revelation from God through
Jesus Heralds His Gospel
Christ. Jesus said, "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27). What is revealed is a personal knowledge of the Father and the Son. The only people who receive it are those who are sovereignly chosen.
That verse is one of the most profound passages in all of Scripture. It begins with a declaration of Jesus' deity: "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father." Two elements of that statement would have been especially offensive to those steeped in the teaching of the Pharisees. First, Jesus called God "My Father." This is the first time Scripture records Jesus' use of that name in His public ministry. He had often called God "Father," and "Our Father," but never before had He publicly said "My Father." "My Father" underscores the Son's uniqueness as the only begotten of God, and it places Him in a position of absolute equality with the Father. The other offensive element in this verse is His claim, "All things have been handed over to Me." It is an affirmation of His sovereignty and again a clear claim of deity. A parallel statement is found in Matthew 28:18, where Jesus said, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth."
Jesus had already demonstrated His authority over Satan, demons, illness, the elements, the body, the soul, life, death, and even His disciples. He had showed His authority to save, to forgive sin, and to judge. He had proved that He had authority over men, earth, heaven, hell — even time. His ministry was dramatic proof that everything in the universe is under His sovereignty.
Verse 27 of Matthew 11 continues, "No one knows the Son, except the Father." No one with mere human perception can ever know the Father like the Son does. Such knowledge is unavailable to finite beings. That is why philosophy and man-made religion are fruitless and vain. How then can we know God? Only by revelation from the Son of God Himself: "Nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." Thus God chooses to reveal truth to babes. Fully dependent and emptied of human wisdom, they receive His revelation of divine truth.
Repentance
If you are troubled by the fact that God's sovereign grace determines the recipients of saving revelation, note that those words are immediately followed by an all-inclusive invitation: "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavyladen, and I will give you rest" (v. 28).
The tension here echoes John 6:37, where the Lord said, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me," and then immediately added, "The one who comes
He Offers a Yoke of Rest
to Me I will certainly not cast out." God is sovereign in election, but He issues an open invitation. We must affirm both truths, despite the difficulty in harmonizing them.
The word "weary" in Greek is kopiaom. It signifies labor to the point of sweat and exhaustion. As Jesus uses it here, it is a reference to the futility of attempting to please God through human effort. It describes one weary of the search for truth, one who has despaired of trying to earn salvation.
"Heavy-laden" brings to mind the pitiable image of someone working hard, with a heavy burden on his back that continually gets heavier. The rabbis said the way to find spiritual rest was by keeping the minutiae of their religious laws. But the law created a yoke that was too heavy to bear (cf. Acts 15:10). And the legacy of the rabbis' teaching was a whole nation of people utterly spent and desperately in need of relief from the crushing load of a sin-laden, guilt-ridden conscience.
Although the word repentance is not specifically used here, that is what our Lord is calling for. "Come to Me" demands a complete turnaround, a full change of direction. The invitation is for people who know they have no answers. Overpowered and overburdened by sin, they have failed to gain entry into the kingdom through self-effort. They know they are lost. He says, "Turn around. Leave your futile despair and come. I offer the gift of God's grace."
No one is invited to bring the load and simply add Jesus to it. The invitation applies only to those who know they are at the end of their own resources, people desperate to turn from self and sin to the Savior. This is not an invitation to people who enjoy their sin.
When Jesus blasted in fury at the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum back in verses 20 – 24, He did it because they had refused to repent. Now, moments later, He invites those who are weary of their sin and their self-righ teous, works-based religion to turn to Him and lay down the load they are carrying.
Faith
Another essential element of genuine conversion is faith. "Come to Me" is tantamount to saying, "Believe in Me." In John 6:35 Jesus said, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst." To come to Jesus is to believe in Him.
Faith is the flip side of repentance. Repentance speaks of turning from sin. Faith is turning to the Savior. It is one turning. Salvation occurs when a heart is humbled by a sovereign God who reveals His truth. In desperation the soul turns from sin and embraces Christ. It is not an intellectual exercise (which
Jesus Heralds His Gospel
would appeal to "the wise and intelligent"), but rather a turning of the whole heart to Christ.
Submission
Salvation does not end there. There is another element of genuine conversion — submission. Jesus' invitation does not end with the words "I will give you rest." He goes on to say, "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light" (v. 29). The call to surrender to Jesus' lordship is part and parcel of His invitation to salvation. Those unwilling to take on His yoke cannot enter into the saving rest He offers.
Jesus' hearers understood that the yoke was a symbol of submission. In the land of Israel yokes were made of wood, carefully fashioned by the carpenter's hand to fit the neck of the animal that was to wear it. Undoubtedly Jesus had made many yokes as a young man in Joseph's carpentry shop in Nazareth. It was a perfect illustration of salvation. The yoke was worn by the animal to bear a load and was used by the master to direct the animal.
The yoke also signified discipleship. When our Lord added the phrase "and learn from Me," the imagery would have been familiar to Jewish listeners. In ancient writings, a pupil who submitted himself to a teacher was said to take the teacher's yoke. One writer records this proverb: "Put your neck under the yoke and let your soul receive instruction." Rabbis spoke of the yoke of instruction, the yoke of the Torah, and the yoke of the law.
It is a yoke that also implies obedience. The imagery of the yoke itself argues against the notion that one can take Jesus as Savior and not as Lord. Jesus does not bid people come to Him if they are unwilling to receive His yoke. True salvation occurs when a sinner in desperation turns from his sin to Christ with a willingness to have Him take control.
Salvation is by grace through faith. It has nothing to do with meritorious human works. But the only possible response to God's grace is a broken humility that causes the sinner to turn from his old life to Christ. The evidence of such a turning is the willingness to submit and obey. If coldhearted disobedience and deliberate rebellion continue unabated, there is good reason to doubt the reality of a person's faith.
The yoke of the law, the yoke of human effort, the yoke of works, and the yoke of sin are all heavy, chafing, galling yokes. They represent large, unbearable burdens carried in the flesh. They lead to despair, frustration, and anxiety. Jesus offers a yoke we can carry, and He also gives the strength to carry it (cf. Phil. 4:13). Therein is true rest.
He Offers a Yoke of Rest
The yoke He offers is easy and the burden He gives is light because He is meek and lowly. Unlike the Pharisees and scribes, He does not desire to oppress us. He does not want to pile burdens on us that we cannot bear. He is not trying to show how hard righ teous ness can be. He is gentle. He is tender. And He gives a light burden to carry. Obedience under His yoke is a joy. It is when we disobey that the yoke chafes our neck.
The yoke of submission to Christ is not grievous; it is joyous. It means liberation from the guilt and burden of sin — "rest for your souls." This is an echo of Jeremiah 6:16, where the prophet says, "Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.' "
Jesus received an identical response. Subsequent events in His ministry show that the hatred for Christ only intensified — to the point that the rejecting crowd finally crucified Him. His yoke was easy, but for hypocritical, rebellious, stubborn, sin-laden hearts, the demand to come to Him was too much. His invitation was spurned. His salvation was rejected. These people loved the darkness of their sin more than the brightness of His glory. And thus by their unbelieving rejection of His lordship, they condemned themselves.
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Part 3
Jesus Illustrates
Gospel
His
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