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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - Matthew 10:32 - 10:33
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_10:32-33
32"Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. 33But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is heaven."
Mat_10:32 "who confesses Me before men" This meant " publicly acknowledge" (cf. Mar_8:38; Luk_12:8-9). Mat_10:32-33 are contrasting parallel statements. Christianity is a God-offered covenant that must be personally, publicly received, obeyed and maintained.
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▣ "My Father in heaven" There are several different pronouns used with Father.
1. your - Mat_5:16; Mat_5:45; Mat_6:1; Mat_7:11
2. our - Mat_6:9
3. My - Mat_7:21; Mat_10:32-33; Mat_12:50
I think Mat_12:50 is crucial, one who does the Father's will, as Jesus does, is part of the family. One who refuses is not part of the family. It must have been particularly irritating to the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day to hear Him, an unofficial rabbi and Galilean upstate, to use "Father" to refer to YHWH, the Holy One of Israel. Even more so to allow the outcast to be included in God's family!
Mat_10:33 The antonym of "confess" (homologeô, cf. Mat_10:32 [twice]) is "deny" (arneomai, cf. Mat_10:33 [twice]; Mat_26:70; Mat_26:72 [aparneomai in Mat_26:35; Mat_26:75]). See hyperlink at Mat_10:32 above.
This is a shocking verse, as is 2Ti_2:12. It must be remembered that public acknowledgment in word (cf. Rom_10:9-13) and deed (cf. Mat_13:1-23; Mat_25:36-46) is crucial. The decisions made now relate to eternity (cf. Mat_25:46).