This is the Ask Pastor Alex podcast with your host, Pastor Alex.
All right, welcome back to the podcast, everyone. We’re here with another episode and another
question. And the question this episode is, what’s the significance of Jesus entering
Jerusalem from the East? And this is actually a question that was raised from a recent sermon
that I preached. So recently at our church, I was preaching a Palm Sunday sermon on Jesus’
triumphal entry into Jerusalem. And in Matthew 21, the Bible says that Jesus entered Jerusalem
from the East. And I mentioned in the sermon how that phrase had a whole lot of biblical
theology and so much good stuff to unpack. But unfortunately, I didn’t have time in the
sermon to mention everything that I wanted to. And so I said, hey, if you’re curious,
submit the question to the podcast, I’d be happy to answer it. And thankfully, someone
did. So we get to actually dive in and figure out what the significance of His entering
Jerusalem from the East actually is. And we really need to understand that this has a
lot to do with biblical theology. So for the answer, you actually have to go all the way
back to the beginning of the Bible, all the way back to the book of Genesis, where we
read in the beginning that God creates mankind. And you see that God creates mankind, He gives
them this beautiful place and it’s called Eden. And in the midst of Eden, there’s a
garden. And this garden served as kind of a first temple. It’s a place where God and
man can meet together, where mankind is allowed to enter into the presence of the Lord. But
as we continue reading, we know what happens. Adam and Eve, they rebel and they sin against
God. And so they are banished from the garden. They’re banished from Eden. And really, they
are banished from the presence of the Lord. They no longer have the privilege of fellowship
with the Lord. And so they’re banished from His presence. And we continue reading in Genesis
chapter 3, and the Bible says that God places the cherubim with a flaming sword in the East
of the garden. Meaning, if someone was to enter the garden, they must enter by the East.
And this becomes a theme throughout the book of Genesis. You can actually track this phrase
and see the progression of people moving further away from the presence of God, further away
from God’s loving relationship and towards sin. Even in the very next chapter of Genesis,
in Genesis chapter 4, we read about how Cain kills his brother Abel. And the Bible specifically
says in Genesis 4, 16, then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled
in the land of Nod, East of Eden. So again, you’re continuing with that idea of moving
eastward is moving towards sin, towards rebellion, away from the presence of the Lord. A few
chapters after that, we read about how Abraham and Lot, their families were growing, their
herds were growing so much that they could no longer dwell in the same land. And so Abraham
tells Lot, hey, pick whatever land you want, and I’ll choose what you don’t choose. You
get first pick. And so Lot lifts up his eyes and he looks to the east and he sees the land
that he wants to settle in. And it’s actually the land of Sodom. And so Lot moves further
towards the east, further towards sin, further away from the presence of the Lord, and he
ends up dwelling in a land of sin. And we all know what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.
And so this theme really continues throughout the book of Genesis. You can see it continue
throughout the Old Testament itself. And it’s this idea again of moving eastward is moving
away from the presence of the Lord and towards sin and rebellion. And so that takes us really
to the New Testament. And it’s really interesting to see how the Old Testament and the New Testament
both start. The Old Testament starts with mankind sinning against God and walking away
from the presence of the Lord to the east. Well, interestingly, the New Testament starts
with men coming from the east to the very presence of the Lord. Remember, Matthew 2.1
says, Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold,
wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. And of course, we know that they announced
to Herod that they had come to worship him who was born the king of the Jews. And so
you have people coming from the east to the very presence of God, to Jesus. It’s the
first sign that with the arrival of Jesus, sin’s curse is being undone. That though
mankind had sinned against God and were forced away from his presence, Jesus was bringing
mankind back to God. And this is seen again in Jesus’s triumphal entry. In Matthew 21,
we read about Jesus’s triumphal entry, and it’s interesting how the Gospel of Matthew
has these bookends, right? The Gospel of Matthew begins with wise men coming from the east
to worship the king of the Jews, and the whole city was stirred. And it begins its conclusion
with a wise man being Jesus coming from the east as the king of the Jews. And the Bible
says in Matthew 21, 10 that the whole city was stirred. And so Jesus entering Jerusalem
from the east is the climactic resolution to the problem of sin that was started way
back in the garden. His arrival was a sign of peace, that he was going to make peace
between God and man, the peace that we need that was originally undone by mankind in the
garden. And Jesus was going to make this peace by paying for the very sins that caused enmity
between God and man in the first place. It is a sign that Jesus is the true king who
has the authority and the power to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And so
as I said, there’s a whole lot of biblical theology here. The first Adam was our federal
head, meaning he represented all of mankind. And the first Adam disobeyed God and took
us away from the presence of the Lord. Well, the Bible refers to Jesus as the second Adam.
And this second Adam also served as our federal head, meaning Jesus represented us to God.
And we know the Bible says that he obeyed God perfectly and brought us back into the
presence of the Lord by making peace by the blood of his cross. And so you see, this is
just one of those amazing times in Scripture where it’s a very small detail that could
easily be looked over. And this is what I love about the Bible. I love everything about
it, but I love how God just packs all these amazing, wonderful details in his word that
are worthy of dwelling upon and thinking about if we would just take the time to do so. Because
here’s what I know. When most of us are going to read the story of the triumphal entry,
we focus on all other sorts of details. And I think that’s appropriate. It’s good to focus
on those as well. And we’ll read a phrase like Jesus entered Jerusalem from the east
and we just read right over it. We don’t pay it any more attention, give it any other thought.
But when we take the time to ask questions, why was that included? Why did God find it
necessary to include that little phrase? It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t just something
he throws in. Every word is intentional. And when you begin to look at the theology of
the east and you track that phrase throughout the Bible, you begin to unpack all of these
rich details about how it started all the way back in the garden. And you see that this
phrase takes us all the way back to the very beginning. And so Jesus entering in Jerusalem
from the east is this sign that Jesus is bringing us back to God. That Adam took us away from
God, but the second Adam is bringing us back to God. The first Adam disrupted peace with
God. The second Adam is establishing peace with God forever. The first Adam sinned against
God and his guilt was passed down to all of us as well as his sin nature, meaning that
all of us are going to incur the wrath of God. We deserve the wrath of God for our sin.
But then we see that the second Adam comes and he is going to pay the penalty for our
sin so that he would take the wrath of God in our place and we could have peace with
God through him. And this all comes from just taking time to dwell on that one phrase. I
think our prayer should be that of the psalmist who said, open up our eyes to behold wondrous
things from your word. So that’s the significance of Jesus entering Jerusalem from the east.
Thanks for the question. I look forward to answering more in the future.