Scriptural Discussion - The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence...

[RAIDER]

Matthew 11: 11 - 12

"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."

What is your interpretation of verse 12?

 

[Citadel of Truth]

Matthew 11: 10 - 11

"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."

What is your interpretation of verse 11?

The verses you quoted are verse 11 & 12. I believe what Jesus may have been saying is that, since John began preaching "repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" there have been those (Pharisees primarily) who have capitalized on the truth of how to get into the kingdom of heaven. They promoted their own brand of righteousness. They saw what they considered to be a good thing and so took advantage of the public acceptance of John's preaching.

 

[RAIDER]

Matthew 11: 10 - 11

"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."

What is your interpretation of verse 11?

The verses you quoted are verse 11 & 12.

Thanks.  Correction made.

 

[Fresh Air]

Matthew 11: 11 - 12

"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."

What is your interpretation of verse 12?

I haven't studied this out but on the surface I would say that Jesus is alluding to the misdeeds of the pharisaic rabbinical leadership of the day. Even prior to the Sanhedrin led conspiracy which resulted in His own assassination Israel's religious leadership was guilty of fomenting mob violence against Him. (Witness repeated attempts on His life, by my count at least six prior to the crucifixion.) On the Tuesday morning of the Passion week Jesus and the Pharisees went at each hammer and tongs in the Temple, and He ends His interaction with them with the almost vicious diatribe found in Matthew 23. At this point Jesus has nothing to lose and He holds nothing back. But included in that denunciation of their system is this:

Matthew 23:33–35
33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

IOW, Jesus essentially says that the Pharisees were responsible for actual physical violence against God's messengers. Of course, they did this in the name of leading Israel to follow Jehovah. The Pharisees then were violent, and sought to take possession of God's kingdom via that violence.


...curious question though, and I hope other people answer it.

 

[Edwards]

I read a short book once by Thomas Watson that was excellent on this subject (he used Matthew 11:12).  Here is a three paragraph quote from that book: (sorry about the cut and paste - it is written in 17th century language but it is worth the effort)


"The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." -Matt 11:12

The exercises of the worship of God are contrary to nature; therefore, there must be a provoking of ourselves to them. The movement of the soul toward sin is natural, but its movement toward heaven is violent. The stone moves easily to the center. It has an innate propensity downward, but to draw up a millstone into the air is done by violence because it is against nature. So to lift up the heart to heaven in duty is done by violence and we must provoke ourselves to it. What is it to provoke ourselves to duty? It is to awaken ourselves and shake off spiritual slothfulness. Let us then examine whether we put forth this holy violence for heaven. Do we set time apart to call ourselves to account and to try our evidences for heaven? "My spirit made diligent search" (Ps. 77:6). Do we take our hearts, as a watch, all in pieces to see what is amiss and to mend it? Are we curiously inquisitive into the state of our souls? Are we afraid of artificial grace, as we are of artificial happiness? Do we use violence in prayer? Is there fire in our sacrifice? Is the wind of the Spirit filling our sails, causing unutterable groans (Rom. 8:26)? Do we pray in the morning as if we were to die at night? Do we thirst for the living God? Are our souls enlarged with holy desires? "There is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee" (Ps. 73:25). Do we desire holiness as well as heaven? Do we desire as much to look like Christ as to live with Christ? Is our desire constant? Is this spiritual pulse ever beating?

Are we skilled in self-denial? Can we deny our ease, our aims, our interests? Can we cross our own will to fulfill God's? Can we behead our beloved sin? To pluck out the right eye requires violence. (Matt. 18:9). Are we lovers of God? It is not how much we do, but how much we love. Does love command the castle of our hearts? Does Christ's beauty and sweetness constrain us? (2 Cor. 5:14). Do we love God more than we fear hell? Do we keep our spiritual watch? Do we set spies in every place, watching our thoughts, our eyes, our tongues? When we, have prayed against sin, do we watch against temptation? Do we press after further degrees of sanctity? "Reaching forth unto those things which are before" (Phil. 3:13). A good Christian is a wonder; he is the most contented yet the least satisfied. He is contented with a little of the world, but not satisfied with a little grace.

How violent Christ was about our salvation! He was in agony; He "continued all night in prayer" (Luke 6:12). He wept, He fasted, He died a violent death; He rose violently out of the grave. Was Christ so violent for our salvation, and does it not become us to be violent who are so intimately concerned in it? Christ's violence was not only satisfactory, but exemplary. It was not only to appease God, but to teach us. Christ was violent in dying to teach us to be violent in believing.

 

[Smellin Coffee]

Time to break out the straw, stake, chains and fire.

Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom which differs from the gospel of atonement.

Dallas Willard:

“The way it practically works out is this, if you have the Gospel of the Atonement, and that’s all you’ve heard, the rest of your life you will run on your own and you may or may not think of being a disciple of Jesus or of obeying him or of devoting your life to the Kingdom of God. You can still do that, but those things are all optional for you. That is where we really stand in our Christian culture today. Anything more than forgiveness of sins, and by that I mean ‘Heaven when you die’, is optional and most of our professed believers now do not know that they can live in the Kingdom of God now.

“By contrast, anyone who is alive in the Kingdom of God now knows that their sins are forgiven because they have the life of Heaven in them now. So Heaven and forgiveness are natural parts of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God whereas discipleship and holiness and power and other scriptural evidences are not a natural part of the Gospel of the Atonement. I want to emphasize that sense of being a natural part.

“Here’s one of the ways I try to help ministers understand this difference. I ask them, ‘Does the Gospel you preach truly lead to discipleship to Jesus?’ and the Gospel of the Kingdom has that natural connection. It’s not trusting the Kingdom, it’s about trusting Jesus and living in the Kingdom with Him. So then, for example, the New Birth is the birth from above and as Jesus was telling Nicodemus, “You must be born again..”, now that’s about new life that isn’t just Atonement. One of the strange things that has happened is that verses like John 3:16 is treated as if it were a forgiveness verse whereas it is really a new life verse. The whole context is about having the life of The Kingdom. Nicodemus came saying he could see it and Jesus said, ‘No, you can’t see it’, and helped him to understand why he couldn’t.

“So, it’s the idea of a natural part of The Kingdom containing forgiveness, and if you’re trusting Jesus, and not just his death on the cross alone, but the person of Jesus, then life in the Kingdom comes with that and, as a natural part, also comes discipleship, forgiveness, all of the things that any good theology would cover.”

Source: http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=150

(I believe Willard is about halfway there. )

Anyway with the concept of the gospel of the kingdom in mind, we need to ask ourselves what particular "violence" was prevalent in Jesus' time on earth and how had the "violent ones" taken control of the kingdom. Only two things come to my mind as to what the violence could possibly be. The first would be persecution. However, I think this is the less likely of the two. Persecution of godly prophets was sporadic and limited in Jesus' day. Certainly John was killed but his execution was not due to his gospel presentation and in essence, not even due primarily because his statements to Herod angered the king. There were many religious sects in that era in that geographical location and heavy persecution had not yet gripped that area at that point in time. So I don't believe the violence was simply persecution.

The second thing that comes to mind concerning violence is the idea of bloody, atoning sacrifice. The idea of a blood atonement had infiltrated the gospel of the kingdom (IMHO, of course) despite the warnings of the OT prophets who certainly detracted from a blood sacrifice (Samuel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel,  Hosea) for atoning purposes. The sacrifice system was still in operation by the Pharisees (among others) and was declared as necessary for salvation. John the Baptist, like the OT prophets, stood apart from the religious right and preached the gospel of the kingdom: the gospel of repentance, obedience and forgiveness.

To quote the Master:

Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”