Matthew 21:9 says, “The crowds who went before Him and those who followed cried out, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” The Hebrew word hosanna means “save now” (Psa. 118:25). The title Son of David was the royal title of the meek, lowly King. In their warm welcome of the heavenly King, the people shouted out a quotation from Psalm 118: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of Jehovah” (v. 26). According to this psalm, only the One who came in the name of the Lord was qualified to be praised in this way. Thus, the spontaneous praise of the people sovereignly indicated that this meek King did not come in His own name but in the name of Jehovah. (Here Lord equals Jehovah.) Those who welcomed the Lord Jesus as the King indicated through their praise that He was the One sent by the Lord, thus the One who came in the name of the Lord.
In Matthew 21:42 and 43 we see that Christ is the cornerstone of God’s building. In verse 42 Jesus said to the Jewish leaders, “Have you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner. This was from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” The stone here is Christ for God’s building (Isa. 28:16; Zech. 3:9; 1 Pet. 2:4). Christ is not only the foundation stone (Isa. 28:16) and the topstone (Zech. 4:7) but also the cornerstone. In Matthew 21:42 Christ is referred to as the cornerstone, not as the foundation, because the emphasis here is on the cornerstone that joins the two main walls: the wall of the Jewish believers and the wall of the Gentile believers.
The builders in Matthew 21:42 are the Jewish leaders, who were supposed to work on God’s building. The Lord’s word here unveiled the Jewish leaders’ rejection of Him and God’s honoring of Him for the building of His habitation among His people on earth. When the Jewish builders rejected Christ, they rejected Him as the cornerstone which joins the Jews and the Gentiles for the building of God’s house.
Whereas Christ was rejected by the Jewish builders, He is trusted by the church for the producing of fruit. This is indicated by the Lord’s word in Matthew 21:43. “Therefore I say to you that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and shall be given to a nation producing its fruit.” This nation is the church, which trusts in the Lord as the cornerstone (1 Pet. 2:6).
In Matthew 23:37 the Lord Jesus likens Himself to a hen.
In verse 37 the Lord, speaking to Jerusalem, says, “How often I desired to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” It has always been God Himself who cared for Jerusalem, like a bird fluttering over her young (Isa. 31:5; Deut. 32:11-12). Hence, when the Lord spoke these words, He was indicating that He was God Himself. The Lord is like a loving bird, fluttering, brooding, over her young.
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