Matthew 10:15 Commentary and Bible Study

The Day of Judgment is coming, and it will take account of all that has happened in this life. God forgets nothing. His judgment scrutinises the smallest details of human behaviour and attitudes. In particular he notes how men treat the gospel. Those in mind here are people who have by the providence of God had the Lord’s apostles come to their city with a message which so many other cities did not have the privilege of hearing. How many have lived and died and never heard of the grace of God, never heard of the Messiah and the message of free forgiveness through Jesus Christ! When evil men reject a gift they do not deserve to be offered, their wickedness is proportional to the value of the gift. The coming of Christ into the world and his declaring himself to Israel was the ultimate expression of God’s undeserved favour to the world. This was the greatest gift he could bring. It cost him his only begotten Son, besides whom there is no one loved more by the Father. The apostles were sent with a message about Christ, about the proximity of the kingdom of heaven. Grace had gone this far: that it had come to their very city to offer them a free pardon from the Lord. The King of heaven had left his home in glory and come and knocked on their doors to plead with their souls. Is there not a danger that grace will appear weak in doing this, that it will invite contempt in presenting itself with such condescension? Yes, there is a danger that proud human beings will conclude that God owes them a favour, that he is at their disposal, that they have the upper hand. But sinful men misjudge the mercy of God and his motive in offering it to them. Those who rejected the apostles rejected Christ, and those who rejected Christ rejected the one who sent him. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah stand out in the minds of those who read Moses as the most extreme of wicked men, those who were judged as an example to the whole of the rest of humanity. Can any guilt be greater than theirs with such unnatural sins? Yes, says Christ. ‘The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up’ (Matthew 4:16). Those who rejected that light did something that the people of Sodom never did, for Sodom never had the gospel preached to it and, although it was without excuse, it was sinning against the light of nature. Capernaum sinned against the light of special revelation.