Matthew 24:1-2 – Banishing Evil and the Coming of the Father’s Eternal Kingdom

Many of the oldest biblical manuscripts, when it comes to the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, do not include the final phrase “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.” In most instances, whether this line is part of the original prayer is of no real consequence, but in the context of this present study, the question is important. If the line is not in the original prayer, then no part of Matthew’s Gospel should be read through the lens of the Father’s eternally powerful kingdom. However, if the phrase is part of the original prayer, then there should be an inflection point in Matthew’s Gospel at which our discussion should move from the deliverance from evil to the promise of the Father’s eternally powerful and glorious kingdom.

For my part, I am not certain if that last phrase, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen,” is actually part of the original prayer. On the one hand, the inclusion of the phrase neatly wraps up the Lord’s Prayer in a way most of us expect prayers to conclude, that is, it concludes with an “Amen.” The inclusion of the phrase which recognizes the Father’s eternal power and glory also provides a neat and tidy thematic way to wrap up the prayer instead of abruptly ending our prayers with the request for protection from evil. On the other hand, however, the reasons for including the phrase are also reasons to argue against its inclusion: there is nothing demanding that the Bible, a text written nearly 2,000 years ago, meets our modern criteria of having a “neat and tidy” conclusion. We must not impose upon the Bible that which we want or expect. Additionally, the fact that the church has historically included this phrase in its recitation of the Lord’s Prayer doesn’t mean that Jesus actually said the words when teaching his disciples how to pray. Furthermore, a quick comparison between the Matthew 6 version of the Lord’s Prayer and the Luke 11 version of the prayer reveals that the phrase is absent, both in the actual text of Luke 11 and in the footnotes associated with the Luke 11 text. There doesn’t appear to be a question as to whether Luke recorded this phrase in Jesus’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer; the phrase simply does not appear to exist in any ancient Lukan manuscripts. With the historical argument appearing to fall on the side of its non-inclusion and the more modern argument appearing to fall on the side of its inclusion, I am, in the writing of this blog, facing a sticky wicket. If the phrase is original, there will be a transition in Matthew’s Gospel after which the emphasis will be seen in the light of the Father’s eternally powerful and glorious kingdom, but if it isn’t original, then no such transition will be found and the remainder of Matthew should be read through the lens of our request for deliverance from evil.

Even though I am uncertain as to the authenticity of the phrase, as I have studied Matthew, his Gospel appears to take on a different tone in Matthew 24 from that found in the preceding chapter. Matthew’s Gospel appears to move away from exploring the many ways in which we might pray for the deliverance from evil and begins exploring how our prayers can be focused on the coming of the Father’s eternally glorious and powerful kingdom. However, since I am uncertain as to whether this final petition regarding the Father’s coming kingdom was actually part of the original prayer in the first place Matthew, and since I am uncertain as to whether the Holy Spirit intended for us to view Matthew’s Gospel through the lens of the Lord’s Prayer, I am choosing to approach the remainder of Matthew’s Gospel through two lenses: our prayer for deliverance from evil and our prayer for the coming of the Father’s eternally powerful and glorious kingdom.

For those worried about such things, this doesn’t mean that the remainder of my posts on Matthew and the Lord’s prayer will grow in size. Assuredly, there will be some verses requiring longer explanations, but for the most part, my utilization of dual lenses will only require brief comments pointing our attention in both directions. I hope that any sort of jumping back and forth between the two lenses will be clear enough so as not to confuse matters, but I am a fallible amateur and, if I am being perfectly honest, I am not certain whether I am up to the task. I hope you, regardless of how clear the following posts may be, will find this continued study through Matthew’s Gospel an aid to help you better pray the Lord’s Prayer so that you may grow closer to our Heavenly Father.

With this all in mind here is brief a recap of how we have previously viewed Matthew’s Gospel through the lens of the Lord’s Prayer:

• Matthew 1-2 detailed God’s hand in history and helped us better pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,”
• Matthew 3-7 introduced us to the kingdom of heaven and showed us how to pray, “Your kingdom come,”
• Matthew 8-9, in showing Jesus healing the sick and calling his disciples, informed us how to pray, “Your will be done,”
• Matthew 10-14:12 introduced the twelve disciples preaching and healing “on earth as it is in heaven,”
• Matthew 14:13-17 highlighted the Father’s many ways of providing for us, helping us pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,”
• Matthew 18 emphasized forgiveness so we might better pray, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,”
• Matthew 19-20 revealed the many temptations for which we pray, “And lead us not into temptation.”
• Matthew 21-23 highlighted the many evils coming from false prophets so we might better pray, “but deliver us from evil.”

Now, with this brief introduction to a new section of Matthew’s Gospel behind us, let’s look at the first couple of verses in Matthew 24 through both lenses of protection from evil and the Father’s coming kingdom. I think you will find that instead of making things more complex, these two lenses are actually quite compatible with one another and bring more clarity than we might see with only one lens at our disposal.

After Matthew wrote of Jesus’s confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees, he and his disciples left the temple and Matthew wrote,

1 Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. 2 But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

Matthew 24:1-2

When looking at this passage through the lens of our prayer for deliverance from evil, we must not forget that Jesus had just finished prophesying to the scribes and Pharisees that the kingdom of God was to be taken from them and given to a nation that would produce its fruit (Matt. 21:43). We must not also forget that Jesus pronounced seven woes upon the scribes and Pharisees as a result of their behavior (Matt. 23). God, as he once spoke through Isaiah (Isa. 5), pronounced judgment upon Israel because they rejected God’s movement through history. But unlike God’s words in Isaiah 5, God’s new judgment proclaimed that he had chosen another nation to do the work of the kingdom until Israel repented (Matt. 11:39). Without entering the debate regarding Israel’s role in prophecy and future events, it appears safe to say that when Jesus and the disciples left the temple and pointed out the buildings on the temple mount, they were admiring structures of beauty and majesty that no longer had any role to play in God’s kingdom. The disciples saw the buildings as the physical substance and the icon of the Father’s glorious and powerful kingdom, but Jesus saw them as the residence of the evil from which the Father’s children needed deliverance, and it was for such deliverance that Jesus prophesied the coming destruction of the buildings. This prophecy, in case you were wondering, was fulfilled some 40 years later when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, and God once and for all delivered his disciples from the evil of the scribes and Pharisees.

But we can also look at this passage through the lens of the Father’s eternally powerful and glorious kingdom. The magnificent buildings Israel had valued for so long were about to reach their end of life. They had once housed the glory of the Lord, but the Lord’s glory was no longer in residence, instead, the kingdom was given a new home. It is about this new home that Paul wrote, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (I Cor. 3:16). When Jesus prophesied the destruction of the temple and the deliverance from the evil of Israel’s false prophets, he was also declaring the beginning of the Father’s eternal kingdom whose glory does not fade and whose power does not diminish.

At the present time, the Father’s glorious and powerful kingdom coexists with the many kingdoms of the world. The world is crisscrossed by numerous borders separating a multitude of countries in which stand exquisite castles, thrones, and parliaments of power, but in reality, there is only one border and two kingdoms. Kings and peasants alike, presidents and populace, either bow their knees to the throne of the Father or they pay allegiance to one of the many facets of the kingdom of the evil one; there is no other option. Certainly, we are told to submit to the governments under which we live and are even told that such governments have been established by God (Rom. 13:1), but all such governments are doomed to eventually fail, their power will diminish, and their glory will fade. Should we decide to declare our sole allegiance and place our trust in such a kingdom we will find that we have bowed our knees to an idol crafted by the hand of man, and such an idol is destined to topple (Isa. 41:7; 42:17; 44:9-20; 45:16). We need the Father’s hand to deliver us from the long arm of the evil one, but our deliverance from evil is also our deliverance into the Father’s eternally powerful and glorious kingdom. This does not mean we renounce our citizenship in whichever nation we reside, but it does mean that we place our full trust and hope only in the Father’s kingdom, for it is only the Father’s kingdom that is eternally powerful and glorious, and it is only the Father’s kingdom that provides for us eternal citizenship.

It is easy to look back at the scribes and Pharisees and cast judgment upon them; it is simple to see the error of another man’s ways. But when it comes to events far closer to home and in our own daily lives, we can often find ourselves blinded to the truth. In the case of kingdoms and citizenship, the truth we willfully ignore is that we have made idols of temporal institutions of power and glory. It really only takes no more than a brief five-minute conversation with nearly any person to discover if their lives have been drawn into despair because of how their government is failing them. Regardless of which side of the aisle on which you sit, the structures of power have become the means of our salvation; the glory of our nation is seen as unassailable, and the longevity of our government does not come into question. But if there is one thing history has told us it is that no government, regardless of how powerful or how glorious, can last forever. This undeniable historical truth should not, however, be cause for despair. At least, it should not be cause for despair for those who have placed their full hope and faith in the only kingdom with power that never diminishes and glory that never fades.

Jesus may have been talking about the temple in Jerusalem when he said there would be no stone standing upon another, but his words also point to every other construct of human imagination, ingenuity, and strength. Lives built on such stones are doomed to fall, but lives built upon the Father’s eternally powerful and glorious kingdom will stand forever. This we acknowledge when we pray, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.”

• Click HERE to go to the page containing all the posts for this study on The Lord’s Prayer and Matthew’s Gospel