<p>12:18<em>&nbsp;Look at My servant whom I have chosen, My beloved in whom My soul is well pleased. I will put My Spirit upon him-&nbsp;</em>The focus was to be upon beholding Jesus personally, and not listening to endless tales of miracles, inevitably exaggerated as they were passed around. If this is the reason for the quotation, then the stress would be upon&nbsp;<em>beholding</em>&nbsp;Him, appreciating Him, rather than seeking to get temporal benefit from His healing miracles.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>And he shall declare judgment to the Gentiles-</em>&nbsp;The Lord didn't want the crowds getting so maxed out on His miracles and other physicalities that they paid no attention to His message; for the purpose of His being amongst men was primarily to &quot;show justice&quot;. And that justice was to be shown to&nbsp;<em>Gentiles</em>- they were to be shown justice and salvation, not slain so that a Kingdom of God open to Jews only could be established upon Gentile corpses. This was the kind of false view of the Kingdom which the Lord didn't hold and didn't want given credibility by associating Himself and His miracles with it. But&nbsp;<em>krisis</em>, translated &quot;justice&quot;, can also mean judgment in the sense of future judgment to come. Yet these same Gentiles who were to be shown (according to that reading) judgment to come, were to be given the opportunity to trust in the Messiah's Name (:21). And justice [s.w.] was to be &quot;cast out&quot; in victory- i.e. victory against judgment. In Christ, mercy was to triumph against judgment, rejoicing against it as if after a bitter contest which was won by mercy (James 2:13). But to appreciate that good news, the Gentiles firstly had to realize what &quot;judgment&quot; really was. These were the things the Lord wanted to teach, but to get the points over, He needed the crowds to not be so hyped up by His miracles and to stop all talk of establishing a political Kingdom at that time.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Lord's showing judgment to the Gentiles and not publicly striving or crying in his preaching (Mt.12:18-21) primarily fulfilled the Kingdom prophecy of Is. 42:1-3. Note how His gentle, low pressure attitude to preaching will be the same in the Kingdom as it was in the first century. In the same way Is. 54:13 concerning the future preaching of the Gospel in the Kingdom is quoted about Christ in Jn. 6:45.</p>
<p>As in :21, the purpose of the healing was to show something to the Gentiles. But there were no Gentiles mentioned as being in the audience. Are we to infer that there were some present? More likely, as this whole incident occurred in a Jewish synagogue (:9), the Lord&rsquo;s point was that the unbelieving amongst God&rsquo;s people are no better than Gentiles. The Lord's miracles showed forth God's judgment principles; in them He showed judgment to the Gentiles, and sent forth God's judgments (Mt. 12:18-20 quotes Is. 42:1-3 concerning how the Lord will do this at the events of the second coming).</p>