The Grief Before the Glory Text: Matthew 17:22-23
Introduction: The Grammar of the Gospel
We live in an age that wants a crown without a cross, a resurrection without a grave, and a salvation without a price. Our therapeutic culture wants a Christianity that soothes, but never startles; a faith that affirms, but never offends. We want a Jesus who is a life coach, not a lamb led to the slaughter. But the gospel has a definite grammar, a non-negotiable syntax. And that grammar is this: death first, then life. The cross first, then the crown. The sorrow first, then the joy. To invert this order is not to find a gentler path to God; it is to get lost entirely.
Jesus has just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, where His glory was unveiled in a blinding flash, a sneak preview of the coming kingdom. Peter, James, and John saw Him shining like the sun, flanked by Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets, all testifying to Him. They heard the voice of the Father thunder from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him." You would think that after such a mountaintop experience, the disciples would be invincible, ready to conquer the world. But Jesus immediately brings them crashing back down to earth, to the bedrock reality of His mission.
He does not say, "Now that you've seen my glory, let's go set up the throne in Jerusalem." No, He begins, for the second time, to teach them the central, bloody, and glorious fact of all history. He is going to die. And He is going to be raised. This is the hinge upon which all of human history turns. It is not an unfortunate detour or a tragic accident. It is the plan, ordained before the foundation of the world. The disciples' reaction is telling: they were "deeply grieved." They heard the first part of the sentence, the death part, but the second part, the resurrection part, was like a language they couldn't yet understand. Their grief, though understandable, was a worldly grief. It was a grief that saw only the loss, not the purchase. It was a grief that saw the apparent victory of men, but not the absolute sovereignty of God.
This passage forces us to confront the heart of our faith. Do we believe in a God who is in control, even when evil men appear to be winning? Do we accept the divine logic that the path to ultimate victory runs straight through the heart of apparent defeat? And do we know the difference between the worldly sorrow that leads to death, and the godly sorrow that leads to life?
The Text
And while they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.” And they were deeply grieved.
(Matthew 17:22-23 LSB)
The Divine Passive (v. 22)
We begin with the stark prediction in verse 22:
"The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men..." (Matthew 17:22)
Notice first the title Jesus uses for Himself: "the Son of Man." This is His favorite self-designation, and it is freighted with meaning. It is a direct reference to Daniel 7, where "one like a son of man" comes on the clouds of heaven and is presented before the Ancient of Days to receive an everlasting dominion, glory, and a kingdom. It is a title of ultimate authority and cosmic triumph. So, in the very act of predicting His humiliation, Jesus is identifying Himself as the King of all creation. This is a glorious paradox. The one who will rule everything must first be subjected to the worst that sinful men can do.
Now, look at the grammar. "The Son of Man is going to be delivered." This is what is often called a "divine passive." The verb is passive, He is being acted upon. But who is the actor? On the surface, it is Judas, the Sanhedrin, the Roman soldiers. But the Scriptures are clear that behind the treachery of Judas, the envy of the priests, and the cowardice of Pilate, stands the sovereign hand of God the Father. As Peter would preach on the day of Pentecost, Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). This was not a plan that went awry. This was not God reacting to human sin. This was God ordaining human sin to accomplish His perfect, redemptive purpose.
This is the hard-edged truth that our sentimental age cannot stomach. God is not a helpless bystander wringing His hands in heaven. He is the one doing the delivering. The Father is delivering the Son. This is the cost of our salvation. The most wicked act in human history, the murder of the only innocent man who ever lived, was at the same time the most righteous and loving act of God. He used the hands of sinful men as His tools to accomplish our redemption. If we do not grasp this, we will never understand the cross. We will see it as a tragedy, instead of what it is: a triumph.
He is delivered "into the hands of men." This is a terrifying phrase. To be in the hands of sinful men, especially when they are acting as a mob, is to be in a place of utter helplessness. These are the hands that will slap Him, punch Him, and press a crown of thorns onto His brow. These are the hands that will drive the nails. But in the economy of God, these hands, in their very act of rebellion, are fulfilling a plan laid down before the first star was hung in the heavens.
The Double Prediction (v. 23a)
Verse 23 contains the core of the gospel prediction, a two-part prophecy that must always be held together.
"and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day." (Matthew 17:23a)
Here is the gospel in miniature. First, the brutal reality: "they will kill Him." Jesus does not soften the blow. He does not say they will "harm" Him or "imprison" Him. He says they will kill Him. This is the wages of our sin. The penalty for rebellion against a holy God is death, and He, our substitute, must pay that penalty in full. The cross was not just an example of love; it was an execution. It was the place where the wrath of God against sin was poured out upon His own Son. This is penal substitution, and without it, the cross is just a piece of Roman jewelry.
But the sentence does not end there. The period does not come after "kill Him." The sentence continues with a divine conjunction: "and He will be raised on the third day." This is just as certain as the first part. The same divine power that delivers Him over to death is the power that will raise Him from the dead. The crucifixion and the resurrection are not two separate events; they are two movements in the same symphony. The death of Christ pays for our sin. The resurrection of Christ proves that the payment was accepted. As Paul says, He was "delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25).
The resurrection is God the Father's cosmic "Amen!" to the finished work of the Son. It is the public vindication of Jesus as the Son of God with power (Romans 1:4). It is the guarantee of our own future resurrection. Without the resurrection, the crucifixion is a meaningless tragedy. Without the crucifixion, the resurrection is a mere resuscitation. You must have both. The disciples, as we are about to see, only heard the first part. They were deaf to the second.
Worldly Grief (v. 23b)
The disciples' reaction reveals their fundamental misunderstanding of the entire mission.
"And they were deeply grieved." (Matthew 17:23b)
Now, on one level, their grief is understandable. They loved Jesus. The thought of Him being brutally killed was horrifying. But their grief was not a godly grief. It was a worldly grief. What is the difference? Worldly grief is horizontal. It sees only the immediate circumstances. It sees the loss, the pain, the apparent defeat. It operates entirely within the realm of human sight and understanding. Their grief was rooted in their own messianic expectations. They were still thinking in terms of a political Messiah who would overthrow Rome and set up an earthly kingdom. Jesus' talk of being killed short-circuited all their ambitions. Their grief was, in part, grief for themselves and their dashed hopes.
They heard "they will kill Him," and their minds slammed shut. The glorious promise, "He will be raised on the third day," just bounced off. They couldn't process it. It didn't fit their paradigm. They were grieving as those who had no hope. This is the sorrow of the world, and the apostle Paul tells us that it "worketh death" (2 Corinthians 7:10). It leads to despair because it cannot see past the grave.
Godly grief, on the other hand, is vertical. It is a sorrow that is informed by the promises of God. Godly grief for our sin leads to repentance and life. And godly grief in the face of suffering and death is a grief that is shot through with hope. It is a grief that weeps, as Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, but it weeps in the sure and certain knowledge of the resurrection. The disciples had not yet learned this kind of grief. They were looking at the cross from the wrong side of the resurrection. They saw a period where God had placed a comma.
Conclusion: Learning the Logic of the Gospel
So what does this mean for us? It means we must have our minds constantly renewed by the logic of the gospel. The world's logic is that life leads to death. You are born, you live, you die, and that's the end. The gospel's logic is that death leads to life. You must die to yourself to live in Christ. The seed must fall into the ground and die before it can bear fruit. Jesus must be delivered into the hands of men and killed before He can be raised in glory.
This pattern applies to our entire Christian life. When we are faced with trials, with suffering, with apparent defeat, our temptation is to react like the disciples, with a worldly grief that despairs. We see our plans crumbling, our health failing, our enemies gloating, and we think the story is over. But that is because we are forgetting the second half of the sentence. We are forgetting the resurrection.
God is always working His sovereign plan. He is always using the malice of sinful men, the chaos of a fallen world, and the pain of our own lives to accomplish His good purposes. He is in the business of bringing life out of death. Our calling is to believe both halves of the prediction. Yes, in this world we will have tribulation. We will be delivered into the hands of various troubles. We will face death. But the promise is that we will be raised. The third day is coming. For Christ, it was a literal three days. For us, it is the day of His return. But it is just as certain.
Therefore, we must learn to grieve with hope. We must learn to see the hand of God not just in the victories, but in the apparent defeats. The cross was the blackest moment in human history, and it was the very place where God won the decisive victory over sin, death, and the devil. So when you find yourself in Galilee, hearing a hard word from the Lord, when you are staring at a future that looks like a crucifixion, do not let your heart be overcome with worldly sorrow. Listen to the whole sentence. He was killed, yes. But He was raised on the third day. And because He was, we who are in Him will be also. That is the grammar of our great salvation.