And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and overcast. O you hypocrites, you can discern the appearance of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times?
All Commentaries on Matthew 16:3 Go To Matthew 16
John Chrysostom
AD 407
What then was the cause? Much as in the sky, says He, one thing is a sign of a storm, another of fair weather, and no one when he saw the sign of foul weather would seek for a calm, neither in calm and fair weather for a storm; so should you reckon with regard to me also. For this present time of my coming, is different from that which is to come. Now there is need of these signs which are on the earth, but those in Heaven are stored up against that time. Now as a physician am I come, then I shall be here as a judge; now to seek that which is gone astray, then to demand an account. Therefore in a hidden manner am I come, but then with much publicity, folding up the heaven, hiding the sun, not suffering the moon to give her light. Then 'the very powers of the heavens shall be shaken,' Matthew 24:29 and the manifestation of my coming shall imitate lightning that appears at once to all. Matthew 24:27 But not now is the time for these signs; for I have come to die, and to suffer all extremities.
Heard ye not the prophet, saying, He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall His voice be heard without? Isaiah 42:2 and another again, He shall come down as rain upon a fleece of wool?
And if men speak of the signs in Pharaoh's time, there was an enemy then from whom deliverance was needed, and it all took place in due course. But to Him that came among friends there was no need of those signs.
And besides, how shall I give the great signs, when the little are not believed? Little, I mean, as regards display, since in power these latter were much greater than the former. For what could be equal to remitting sins, and raising the dead, and driving away devils, and creating a body, and ordering all other things aright?
