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The Gospel According To Matthew (Modernized Edition)
The Gospel According To Matthew (Modernized Edition)
The King’s Kingdom for Real Life — Matthew Unfolded with Power and Clarity
Step into the Gospel of Matthew with one of the Church’s most trusted Bible expositors. G. Campbell Morgan opens Matthew’s message with clarity, depth, and pastoral warmth—helping you see Jesus Christ as Matthew presents Him: the King.
Tracing the movement from the promised King’s birth to the Great Commission, this volume helps familiar passages take on fresh power. See how Matthew’s themes of authority, righteousness, and discipleship connect to everyday life under Christ’s reign.
Key Insight: A Christ-centered guide that bridges the gap between deep scholarship and practical devotional living.
Best for: Personal study, sermon preparation, Sunday school, and small group leaders.
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About the Book:
About the Book:
G. Campbell Morgan’s The Gospel According to Matthew is a clear, reverent, and deeply searching guide to one of the most foundational books of the New Testament. Morgan reads Matthew as a carefully ordered portrait of Jesus Christ—especially highlighting His kingship, His authority, and the nature of His Kingdom. With a preacher’s warmth and a teacher’s precision, he helps readers see how Matthew moves from the promised King, to the King’s laws and life, to the King rejected, crucified, risen, and finally reigning.
What makes this book stand out is its ability to bring the text into sharp focus without turning it into a mere academic exercise. Morgan traces the flow of Matthew’s message, showing how the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the conflicts with religious leaders, the Cross, and the Resurrection fit together as one unfolding revelation of Christ. The result is both spiritually strengthening and intellectually satisfying—devotional in tone, yet anchored in close attention to Scripture.
This is also a book that confronts the reader in the best way. Matthew does not merely present information about Jesus; it presses a question upon every heart: What will you do with the King? Morgan’s exposition makes that question unavoidable. As you read, you are led not only to understand Christ more clearly, but to feel the weight and wonder of His claims—His call to obedience, His demand for true righteousness, and His promise of abiding presence.
What You’ll Gain from This Book
What You’ll Gain from This Book
You will see Matthew’s Gospel as a unified story with a clear purpose, rather than a collection of familiar scenes. You will gain a richer understanding of Jesus’ teaching—especially the Kingdom ethic—and how it relates to real life, not as idealism, but as the King’s authoritative word. You will be helped to read difficult passages with steadier footing, because Morgan consistently ties details back to the central theme: Christ the King, and the Kingdom He announces, embodies, and establishes through His death and resurrection.
Who Should Read This Book?
Who Should Read This Book?
For Bible readers who want depth without dryness: If you want more than surface-level notes, but don’t want to wade through technical commentary, this book offers a strong balance of clarity and substance.
For pastors, teachers, and small-group leaders: Morgan’s structure, insights, and Christ-centered emphasis make it a valuable companion for sermon preparation, lesson planning, and group discussion—especially through Matthew’s major teaching sections.
For believers who want their faith to be real and lived: Matthew’s Gospel speaks powerfully about obedience, integrity, and the inner righteousness God desires. This book helps connect those themes to the person of Christ, so discipleship becomes more than moral effort—it becomes loyalty to the King.
For seekers and new Christians who want to know who Jesus is: If you are exploring Christianity or returning to the Gospels, Morgan’s writing helps you meet Jesus not only as Teacher and Miracle-worker, but as the rightful King whose authority reaches every part of life.
A Book That Leads You Back to the King
A Book That Leads You Back to the King
At its heart, The Gospel According to Matthew is not simply about explaining a Gospel—it is about unveiling Christ. Morgan’s pages repeatedly bring the reader back to the central reality Matthew proclaims: Jesus Christ stands in royal authority, calls for true allegiance, and offers His presence to those who follow Him. If you want to read Matthew with clearer eyes and a steadier grasp of its message, this book is a trusted companion.
About This Modernized Edition
About This Modernized Edition
This edition has been carefully updated to help today’s readers engage G. Campbell Morgan’s rich exposition with greater ease and clarity. The goal is simple: to preserve Morgan’s voice, argument, and reverent tone while removing unnecessary barriers created by older style conventions, dated wording, and the kinds of minor inconsistencies that can distract modern eyes.
Throughout the book, the language has been gently refreshed for readability. Long, tangled sentences have been smoothed where needed, archaic phrasing has been clarified, and obvious scanning or transcription issues have been corrected so the text flows as Morgan intended. The structure of the work has also been presented in a clean, consistent layout suitable for both print and digital reading.
Most importantly, this edition treats Scripture with special care. All Bible quotations and references remain unchanged, allowing Morgan’s teaching to stand on the same biblical foundation he originally laid. The result is a reading experience that feels more natural for contemporary readers while staying faithful to the content, meaning, and spiritual weight of the original work.
About the Author: G. Campbell Morgan (1863–1945) — The Prince of Expositors
About the Author: G. Campbell Morgan (1863–1945) — The Prince of Expositors
G. Campbell Morgan (1863–1945) was one of the most widely respected Bible expositors of his era—renowned for making Scripture both understandable and compelling. He had a rare ability to trace the message of an entire Bible book with clear structure, then open each passage with pastoral warmth and spiritual force. Readers come to Morgan not only for insight, but for the sense that the Bible itself is being allowed to speak—fresh, direct, and Christ-centered.
Morgan’s influence reached far beyond his printed pages. He served at Westminster Chapel in London, where his preaching and Bible teaching drew large crowds and helped shape generations of Christian leaders. His ministry was marked by careful attention to the text, a deep reverence for Christ, and an urgency to call people to real discipleship—not merely admiration of Jesus, but allegiance to Him.
Among his best-known works are The Crises of the Christ, which traces pivotal moments in Jesus’ life and mission, and a range of classic expositions on the Gospels and other biblical books. This volume, The Gospel According to Matthew, stands within that larger legacy: Morgan guiding readers through Matthew’s portrait of Christ with clarity, depth, and a steady focus on the King and His Kingdom.
If you want a trusted companion who is serious about Scripture, clear in explanation, and strong in application—without turning the Gospel into a dry textbook—Morgan remains a wise and enduring guide.
Foreword
Foreword
As in the case of my volume on The Acts of the Apostles, this volume consists of stenographically reported sermons—seventy-three in all. This method involves both loss and gain. It loses the literary finish possible to the writer; but it gains, through the very roughness and directness of words extemporaneously uttered, in the natural form of the sentences.
From first to last, these sermons proceed on the assumption that it was the intention of the writer of this Gospel to set forth the Person of our Lord in relation to His kingly office. From the mystic account of His advent in human history, through the record of the authority of His ethical enunciation, the mercifulness of His method, the majesty of His death, and the glory of His resurrection, to the ringing claim of “all authority,” and the clarion command to “disciple the nations,” we are ever in the presence of the King.
With happy memories of the days when they were prepared and spoken, and with profound gratitude to God for His acceptance of them then—manifested in the blessing they were to many—I now commit them to the wider ministry of the printed page, praying that they may still be helpful, in some measure, in showing forth some of the glories of Him who was attested of God in the words, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased;” and thus the Son, to whom He gives the nations for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession.
G. C. M.
Glendale, California.
MATTHEW 1. 1–17
MATTHEW 1. 1–17
The first verse of this section provides its title, while the last verse summarizes its content. The opening words are undoubtedly the title of the genealogy of Jesus as it stood in the Jewish records, and the closing words are Matthew’s summary of that genealogy.
It is not my purpose to dwell at length on the difference between this genealogy and the one found in the Gospel according to Luke. However, there are one or two matters it will be well to note by way of introduction. First, as I have already twice pointed out, the words, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” do not constitute the title of the Gospel according to Matthew, but the title of the genealogy of Jesus Christ as it is given here. We may take it for granted that Matthew drew this genealogy from the legal records in order to preface the Gospel in which he was about to present the One whom he had come to know as the long-looked-for Messiah-King of his people.
My personal conviction is that this genealogy does not appear in our Gospel exactly as Matthew found it in the records. His concluding summary, in which he declares that the generations from Abraham to the Messiah fall into three cycles of fourteen, makes this improbable for the simple reason that there are conspicuous omissions. In the eighth verse, between Joram and Uzziah, the names of Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah are omitted; and in verse eleven, Jehoiakim is omitted between Josiah and Jechoniah. I am inclined to believe that the former omissions were deliberately made for spiritual reasons.
It is noticeable that the evangelist says, “All the generations from Abraham unto David are fourteen generations,” and in that section there are no omissions. But with regard to the subsequent divisions he says, “from David unto the carrying away to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the carrying away to Babylon unto the Christ fourteen generations”—not that they are all, but that he has named those chosen to complete the chain. When it is remembered that those first omitted were the immediate descendants of the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, we may have a clue to the principle of Matthew’s selection.
In all likelihood the omission of Jehoiakim was due to the work of a copyist, because that omission makes it necessary, in order to preserve the three groups of fourteen, to use the name Jechoniah at the end of the second group and at the beginning of the third. Finally, it should be noticed that this genealogy does not say that Jesus was the son of Joseph. It is the genealogy of Jesus only because of His mother’s marriage to Joseph; and in the Jewish records He appears as one born to Mary, whose husband was Joseph.
I propose to glance briefly at the genealogy itself as given in the paragraph beginning with the second verse and ending with the sixteenth verse, and then to examine more carefully the title given in the first verse, and the summary given in the seventeenth verse.
These intervening verses are interesting for several reasons. The first is that, while they are entirely Jewish in outlook, they nevertheless overleap the boundary of the Hebrew nation in a most remarkable way by including Rahab; and they violate the prejudice of Judaism by introducing women. This is the more remarkable when we remember the character of the women whose names are introduced. The first is Tamar, a notorious sinner. The second is Rahab, a foreigner and a sinner. The third is Ruth, a foreigner, although received into the nation. The fourth is Bathsheba, through whose sin with David the shadow of shame for ever rests upon the royal line. The fifth is Mary, the mother of the Lord. Thus, in this genealogy, consciously or unconsciously, there are signs and portents of the grace that is being brought to all men through the coming King.
Another point of interest is found in the closing declaration of the genealogy proper: “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus.” This is entirely out of harmony with the method followed throughout until that point. It marks a separation that must be explained by the story of the birth of Jesus which immediately follows. It emphasizes the fact that He was not the son of Joseph. Thus, on the first page of the Gospel, Jesus is presented as connected with a race that nevertheless could not produce Him. He came into it, was of it, and yet was distinct from it. As we have said, the mystery is not explained here, but waits for the unveiling of the story that follows.
Turning to the first verse, which constitutes the title of the genealogy, we are at once arrested by the fact that it emphasizes a relationship between Jesus Christ and the two outstanding men in Hebrew history, namely Abraham and David. In each case the relationship is distinctly affirmed to be that of sonship. He is the son of David, and the son of Abraham. Thus His connection with the Hebrew people is royal and racial. He is of the kingly line, and He is from the father and founder of the people.
It may be well at this point to draw attention to the fact that the genealogy given in Matthew corresponds exactly with that of Luke between Abraham and David. The differences are found in the portion from David to Jesus. The genealogy in Luke gives His lineal descent through Mary, and He was through her the son of David. Matthew therefore speaks of Him as son of David, and not as son of any of those who are in the genealogy of Joseph subsequent to that point.
The remarkable fact of this title is that it speaks of Jesus as son of David and son of Abraham. Now the peculiar promise of God to each of these men, according to Old Testament history, was that of a son; and the immediate fulfilment in each case was, in many senses, disappointing. Therefore the son of Abraham, who came for the fulfilment of the ideals for which he stood in obedience to faith, and the son of David, who came for the fulfilment of the ideals for which he stood in obedience to faith, was neither Isaac nor Solomon, but Jesus.
This fact is worthy of closer examination in each case. Let us take them in the order of the statement in the verse.
The son of David, to whom he looked for the fulfilment of his purpose of establishing the kingdom around the temple of Jehovah, was Solomon. His name—Solomon, the peaceful—suggested the principle of the kingdom. His greatest endowment was wisdom. His specific work was the building of the temple. His reign was characterized by peace and prosperity. Nevertheless, the story of Solomon is one of disastrous failure. In spite of gifts of wisdom from on high, he lived a life of unutterable and appalling folly. Even though he built the temple, he so contradicted all that for which it stood as to make it a center of form without power. And even though, through the goodness of God to him for the sake of his father, the kingdom was maintained in peace and prosperity during his lifetime, he had sown it with seeds of disruption that bore harvest immediately after his death. Thus David was disappointed in his son after the flesh.
Jesus Christ, the Son of David after the flesh, but the Son of God—as the resurrection finally attested—came to overcome all the failure that characterized the life and reign of Solomon. With infinite wisdom He proceeded to build the temple that cannot be destroyed, and laid the foundation for the establishment of the Kingdom in peace and prosperity, from which all that offends will finally be cast out.
The son of Abraham, to whom he looked for the fulfilment of the promise of God—that from him there should spring a nation that should be the medium of blessing to all the nations—was Isaac. His name, Isaac, laughter, was to Abraham for evermore a witness of the merging of the human and the Divine, in that he was born because “Sarah received power to conceive seed when she was past age.” Through him Abraham received that seed consisting of sons who, to his vision, were destined to carry forward the enterprises of God. The one influence Isaac exerted was the power, retained by faith, of blessing his sons after him.
Nevertheless, the story of Isaac is one of disappointment—both in the weakness of his own character, and in the appalling failure of his sons through the long succession of the ages, and in the fact that they failed to enter into the true meaning and value of the blessing he pronounced. Thus Abraham was disappointed in his son after the flesh.
Jesus, the son of Abraham after the flesh, but in the mystery of His Person able to say, “Before Abraham was I am,” came to realize and fulfil all the purpose that had failed through Isaac and his seed after him. He was the true son of Abraham, both human and Divine; and there sprang from Him “so many as the stars of heaven in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore, innumerable,” to carry out the purposes of God.
Thus Jesus Christ, the Son of David and the Son of Abraham, came in the fullness of the times to overcome the failure of Solomon the son of David and Isaac the son of Abraham, and to establish the throne and to perfect the nation.
In the summary with which the section ends, three crises in the history of the people are mentioned. The first is that original movement connected with the call of Abraham—his obedience and the consequent founding of the new race on the principle of faith. The second is connected with David, the king after God’s own heart, whose appointment was nevertheless the outcome of national failure, in that they clamored for “a king like unto the nations.” The last is the carrying away into captivity to Babylon of the people whose very existence in the economy of God was intended to be a force antagonistic to everything of which Babylon was the embodiment.
The three cycles culminate in Christ, and that fact suggests His relation to all. As we think of them and of Him, we are impressed by a threefold fact of relationship in each case, which may be described as identity of principle, superiority of realization, and correction of failure.
The relationship between Abraham and Christ is first that of identity of principle. The principle on which Abraham acted when he left Ur of the Chaldees, and throughout the whole of his life, insofar as it was in accord with the Divine will, was faith. The whole life and ministry of Jesus, on the plane of His humanity, was true to the same principle. As has often been pointed out, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews gives Him precedence over Abraham in this matter, declaring Him to be the Author, or File-leader, of faith.
The difference is at once seen in the absolute superiority of His realization of this principle of faith. In the life of Abraham we read of deflections that issued in disgrace, and almost in disaster. In the life of Jesus there was no doubt, and consequently no deviation from the path of obedience.
Moreover—and principally—the relation between Christ and Abraham is that of His correction of the failure. In His case, the city of God is not only looked for, but built; the glory of God is not only sought, but manifested.
The relationship between David and Christ is first that of identity of principle in the matter of kingship. David’s loyalty to Jehovah was the condition of his royalty. It was because of his fidelity to Him in circumstances of difficulty that he came at last to full and glorious crowning. In the case of Jesus, all that was imperfectly foreshadowed in the experience of David was absolutely fulfilled. Loyalty to the will of God was the master passion of His life, and created the majesty and might of His regal authority.
The superiority of realization is even more marked here than in the former case. David’s deflections from loyalty not only tarnished the honor of his royalty, but limited the extent of his authority. The absolute abandonment of Jesus to the acceptable will of His Father created the luster of His crown, and ensured that limitlessness of empire which enabled Him to say, “All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.”
The final and gracious fact of relationship between Christ and David is that of His assured establishment of the Kingdom, and the vindication of the glory of God.
The relationship between the carrying away into captivity and Christ is again that of identity of principle. These people passed under the yoke of a nation full of pride and rebellious against God’s government. Christ was born under the yoke of Rome, among His people, in days when their independence was lost. The very surroundings of His birth were shaped by the fact that His mother, with Joseph her husband, were traveling in obedience to the edict of the Emperor that all the world should be enrolled.
His infinite superiority is seen in the quiet dignity of His submission through all the days of His earthly life, as He rendered to Caesar the things that belonged to Caesar; and in that fine triumph over the outward yoke of Caesar, as He rendered to God the things that belong unto God.
The final fact of relationship between Christ and the captivity is that of His breaking of all the bonds resulting from sin, and leading the exodus of all who trust Him.
Thus, in this genealogical paragraph, humanity’s aspirations and incompetencies are represented in these generations; and aspirations and incompetencies alike look wistfully to Him. The founder and the king look to Him as Son for the fulfilment of purpose. Faith, which by comparison with sight has seemed feeble through the passing of the centuries, waits His vindication. Government, which has perpetually failed, waits His administration. Captivity, which has sighed and sobbed in its agony, waits His emancipation.
What can He do? We will pursue the story presently, and in the meantime crown Him in hope:
“Hail to the Lord’s anointed,
Great David’s greater Son!
Hail, in the time appointed,
His reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression,
To set the captive free;
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.”
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