The Gospel of Matthew reveals the story of Jesus of Nazareth who comes to reveal himself as the Messiah. This Gospel focuses on the presence of Jesus with his people and how Jesus pulls together different traditions that unify the church in unison under Jesus’ leadership. Matthews correlation to the significance of moral and ethics present in the book is incorporated by the action that Jesus Christ sets with high moral standards he espouses. Jesus also presents the five teachings on discipleship and how it governs the behaviour with the way people involve themselves in the motion of participating and understanding the activity given to them with ethics. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the gospels of Matthew by examining the themes of compassion, forgiveness and unconditional love as depicted in the gospel. An overview of these themes will help shed light on one’s understanding of morality and ethics.
Compassion within the Bible recognizes the suffering of others and learning how to advocate towards yourself or others feelings in connection with love. The essential feeling of having compassion and love for yourself helps communicate and demonstrate verbal or non verbal acts of compassion towards our relationship with God. What the Gospel provides with compassion, Matthew 9:36 says “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” This verse serves our perspective on how humanity looks and treats our neighbour in contrast with how God seeks the good in the bad. God has compassion on humanity, meaning that even though we reject him he still chooses to send Jesus in order for us to follow his teachings and then hopefully develop a Christ-like self. God gave us grace and faith and he saw the condition of humanity and our own apart from him, Christ admired the voluntary works people can have within themselves with the help of hope and love. In Jack Dean Kingsbury’s book Matthew As Story he describes “Jesus as being obedient toward God and compassionate towards the crowds” (Matthew As Story, 10) This presents that Jesus sets an example of obedience towards God and trusts that we would do the same to Him and the Father. Obedience and compassion exhibits the characteristics we develop in becoming closer to God by loving our neighbour and God Himself.
Growing compassionately in relationship with Christ, is the practice in forgiving ourselves and our enemies. Forgiveness is for our own growth and happiness into enriching our relationship with ourselves, others, and Christ. In order to be forgiven, Jesus’ followers must first do the forgiving themselves. The Bible verse “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” Matthew 6:12-13 (Grudem 1251) incorporates forgiveness depicted in the Gospel which is taken out of the Fathers prayer. The Father’s prayer is a prayer for restoration of personal fellowship with god following sin. Matthew strongly focuses on forgiveness as a theme in the Gospel because it teaches us to grow from the past into a better and stronger person. Forgiveness gives us a chance to become more in the image of God. To seek and enhance our relationship with Christ, we must first find the knowledge of He himself in order to attain his image. Matthew also says “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” Matthew 18:35 (Grudem 1272) This verse explains that one who does not forgive from the heart, has not experienced God’s forgiveness. We cannot expect God to forgive us if we do not forgive our neighbour. When Mercy follows justice, perfection takes place. Forgiveness revolves around the golden rule to “treat others the way you want to be treated.” If we simply cannot treat our neighbour as a beloved brother or sister, how can we learn to love and forgive each other? Mercy shown upon us is the patience to become humble and seek the good in others as how God has seeked the good and faith in one another. The sacrifice of Jesus as a whole is forgiveness. Throughout Matthew Jesus goes around to sinners and gives them another chance thus teaching those how to love one another and learn to forgive.
The unconditional love the Gospel presents describes how to love without limits. To show our love to God beyond our measure is to simply love without conditions, to love how God has loved us. The sacrifices God has done for salvation is the greatest love he could give. To love unconditionally, requires to forgive the ones who have persecuted us. Matthew says “You have heard people say, “Love your neighbors and hate your enemies.” But I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. Then you will be acting like your Father in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both good and bad people. And he sends rain for the ones who do right and for the ones who do wrong. If you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends.” Matthew 5:43-48 It is God’s love that teaches us to love our brothers and sisters unconditionally. God loves us not because of who we are, but because of who He is. We love others not because of who they are, but because we see the image of God in them. Despite the sins, disobedience, and weaknesses we come across, He loves us enough to oversee and provide us with everlasting love and life that we do not deserve. The sacrifice Jesus has given to us illustrated in the bible states that “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life,” John 3:16 tells us that after his sacrifice, it is our decision to either accept or reject Jesus. Love is an act where one cannot force someone to return the favour, but to simply and genuinely mean it through all the trials one surpasses.
Compassion, forgiveness and unconditional love are all characteristics that one individual can discover in a person. The Gospel of Matthew provided some of the most important teachings that help understand the main themes of the book. It notes for Jesus’ sermon on the mount along with the 8 beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Golden Rule. The Gospel illustrates the works and teachings of Jesus through the main themes and how Jesus incorporates love, compassion, and forgiveness into his own and our life, that we may follow the right path towards enriching our relationship with God through him and with him.