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The Holy Scriptures Analysed
and Annotated

BY

A. C. GAEBELEIN
Editor of "Our Hope"

The New Testament

Volume T

The Gospels and the Book of Acts

PUBLICATION OFFICE "OUR HOPE"

456 Fourth Avenue, New York

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Copyright 1913, by A. C. Gaebelein.

NOV -71923

CBD
G-117

6

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

The Gospel of Matthew.

The Key to the Gospel of Matthew.*

The Gospel of Matthew stands first among the Gospels and in the New Testament, because it belongs in the first place and may be rightly termed the Genesis of the New Testament. Genesis, the first book of the Bible, contains in itself the entire Bible. Matthew is the book of the beginnings of a new dispensation. It may be compared to a mighty tree. The roots are deeply sunk in massive rocks while its uncountable branches and twigs extend upward higher and higher in perfect symmetry and beauty. The foundation is the Old Testament with its Messianic and Kingdom promises. Out of this all springs forth in perfect harmony, reaching higher and higher into the new dispensation and to the end of the millennial age.

The instrument chosen by the Holy Spirit to write this Gospel was Matthew. He was a Jew. However, he did not belong to the religious, educated class, to the scribes, but he belonged to the class which was most bitterly hated. He was a publican, that is, a tax gatherer. The Roman government had appointed officials whose duty it was to have the legal tax gathered, and these officials, mostly, if not all Gentiles, appointed the actual collectors, who were generally Jews. Only the most unscrupulous among the Jews would hire themselves out for the sake of gain to the avowed enemy of Jerusalem. Wherever there was still a ray of hope for Messiah's coming, the Jew would naturally shrink from being associated with the Gentiles, who were to be swept away from the land with the coming of the King. For this reason the tax gatherers, being Roman employees, were hated by the Jews even more bitterly than the Gentiles themselves. Such a hated tax

*This Preface should be carefully read before the Gospel is studied.

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