Matthew 11:21 Commentary and Bible Study

Tyre and Sidon would have been terribly judged; they would have faced everlasting pain and woe. Yet an even worse judgement awaits those who spurn light. There are Jews of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum who are to be judged as the very worst. These things are very solemn, but we need to consider them or else Christ would not draw our attention to them. When a soul knows itself to be lost and that all possibility of receiving the mercy of God is ended, it will think back over its life in this world and the opportunities given by God to receive mercy. It will remember perhaps how the gospel came very close, for there was a time in the goodness of God when the message was preached clearly, and that soul heard it and had a certain amount of understanding, and yet failed to respond. It could have responded and then more light would have been given. It will know that the failure to respond was due to a preference for sin more than for Christ, and the torment of regret will torture the soul. This will be worse for those to whom more light was given. The self-recrimination will be so much the worse: ‘I was given such a wonderful opportunity to find salvation. God was sincere in offering me forgiveness and new life. I saw so much; I was so foolish to reject that opportunity. I would give anything to have that opportunity again, but I know that God has closed the door and will never open it again. All I needed to do was to act on the offer of mercy that God made to me and I would have been pardoned. The fault lies entirely in me.’ There will be no attempt to blame God for any failure to believe. All in hell will condemn themselves and all excuses will have ceased, but those who heard the gospel so clearly will condemn themselves with particular virulence. We all know what regret is, but regret is greater when we have lost out on what has more value, and there is nothing of more value than our eternal souls. There are a number of remarkable things about this statement. 1. Christ knows with certainty how those living so long ago would have behaved. This is not such a statement as we could make about the past, for what we say would be a guess, an estimation of what is likely. This is the Saviour’s authoritative and certain description of what would have happened. He knows all counterfactuals. 2. Christ knows exactly what would have been the effect of more evidence being shown to the people of Tyre and Sidon. He knows what that evidence would have produced in their hearts. Such knowledge is outside the domain of limited human knowledge. 3. He speaks as if more evidence alone would have produced a different result in them, but we must understand this to describe what the Spirit would have worked in them through this evidence. 4. God chooses to give this evidence to one and not to another, according to his sovereign will. He is the terrible God who is greatly to be feared. God did not choose to bring his offer of mercy to Tyre and Sidon, but pronounced judgment upon them (Isaiah 23:1; Joel 3:4). 5. Christ knows that a greater response would have come from those who were entirely outside the covenant people as a result of this evidence. This is a very strong indictment against Israel who should have responded far more readily to God’s warning because of their many centuries of training as a nation. 6. Both the message which Christ preached and the miracles which he did, urged people to repent and this is the only proper response to the gospel. Repentance comes as the first step on man’s side in the restoration of his relationship with God. Repentance here stands for the totality of man’s response to God’s mercy.