Heaven and Earth

Heaven and earth are key themes in Matthew’s gospel (see Jonathan Pennington’s  Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew ).  The two words are used in combination eight times in the gospel, and those uses fall out into a nearly chiastic pattern:

A. Heaven and earth pass away, 5:18

B. Will done on earth as in heaven, 6:10

C. Praise Father, Lord of heaven and earth, 11:25

D. Keys of kingdom of heaven (heaven/earth/heaven/earth/heaven), 16:19

D’. Binding and loosing (earth/heaven/earth/heaven/earth/heaven), 19:18-19

C’. Call no one father but Father in heaven, 23:9

A’. Heaven and earth pass away, 24:35

B’. All authority in heaven and earth to Jesus, 28:18

If this structure works, then the authority given to Jesus is authority given to fulfill the prayer of 6:10.  Jesus receiving authority means that the will of the Father is beginning to be done; Jesus receives authority so that the will of the Father will be done more and more.

Further, if, as Pennington argues, the heaven and earth language is intended to signal a “new creation” theme, then that new creation is more emphatically realized in the resurrection of Jesus and the transfer of authority to Him.  As the structure suggests, the old heaven and earth has passed away, and a new one, ruled by Jesus Christ, has moved in.

(This is partly inspired by my student, Timothy van den Broek, who this week read a paper on quotation patterns in Matthew.)