But there are other combinations in the Lord’s character that we roust look at. Another has said of him, “He was the most gracious and accessible of men.” We observe in his ways a tenderness and a kindness never seen in man, yet we always feel that he was “a stranger.” how true this is! He was “a stranger here”—a stranger as far as revolted man was, filling the place, but intimately near as far as misery or need demanded him. The distance he took, and the intimacy he expressed, were perfect. He did more than look on the misery that was around him, he entered into it with a sympathy that was all his own; and he did more than refuse the pollution that was around him, —he kept the very distance of holiness itself from every touch or stain of it. See him as exhibiting this combination of distance and intimacy in Mark 6 it is an affecting scene. The disciples return to him after a long day’s service. He cares for them. He brings their weariness very near to him. He takes account of it, and provides for it at once, saying to them, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile.” But, the multitude following him, he turns with the same readiness to them, acquainting himself with their condition; and having taken knowledge of them, as sheep that had no shepherd, he began to teach them. In all this we see him very near to the rising, varied need of the scene around him, whether that need be the fatigue of the disciples, or the hunger and ignorance of the multitude. But the disciples soon resent his attention to the multitude, and move him to send them away. This, however, will in no wise do for him. There is immediate estrangement between him and them, which shortly afterward expresses itself by his telling them to get into the ship while he sent the multitude away, but this separation from him only works fresh trouble for them. Winds and waves are against them on the lake; and then, in their distress, he is again near at hand to succor and secure them How consistent in the combination of holiness and grace is all this. He is near in our weariness, our hunger, or our danger. He is apart from our tempers and our selfishness. His holiness made him an utter stranger in such a polluted world; his grace kept him ever active. in such a needy and afflicted world. And this sets off his life, I may say, in great moral glory; that though forced, by the quality of the scene around him, to be a lonely One, yet was he, drawn forth by the need and sorrow of it to be the active One. And then activities were spent on all kinds of persons, and had therefore to assume all kinds of forms. Adversaries, —the people, a company of disciples who followed him (the twelve), and individuals; these kept him not only in constant, but in very various activity; and he had to know, as surely, he did to perfection, how to answer every man. And beside all this, we see him at times at the table of others; but it is only that we may still notice further various perfection. At the table of the Pharisees, as we see him occasionally; he is not adopting or sanctioning the family scene, but being invited in the character which he had already acquired and sustained outside, he is there to act in that character. He is not a guest simply, under the Courtesy and hospitality of the master of the house, but he has entered in his own character, and therefore he can rebuke or teach. He is still the Light, and will act as the Light; and tints he exposes darkness within doors as he did abroad. (See Luke 7. 11.)
But if he thus entered the house of the Pharisee, again and again, in the character of a teacher, and would then, acting as such, rebuke the moral condition of things which he found there, he entered the house of the publican as a Savior. Levi made hint a feast in his own house, and set publicans and sinners in his company. This is, of course, objected to. The religious rulers find fault, and then the Lord reveals himself as a Savior, saying to them, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; but go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice; for I am not conic to call the righteous, hot sinners to repentance.” Very simple, but very striking, and full of meaning, this is. Simon the Pharisee objected that a sinner should enter his house and approach the Lord Jesus; Levi the publican provided such as these to be the fellow-guests of the Lord Jesus. And according to this, the Lord in the one house acts as a reprover, in the other discloses himself in the rich grace of a Savior.
But we are to see him at other tables still. We may visit him in Jericho and at Emmaus. (See Luke 6 and 24.) It was desire that received him on each of these occasions; but desire differently awakened, —awakened, I mean, under different influences, Zaccheus had been but a sinner, a child of nature, which is, as we know, corrupt in its springs and in its activities. But he had been, just at that moment, under the drawings of the Father, and his soul was making Jesus its object. He wished to see him, and that desire being commanding he had pressed his way through the crowd and climbed up into a sycamore tree, if he might but just see him as he passed by. The Lord looked up, and at once invited himself into his house. This is very peculiar—Jesus is an uninvited, self-invited guest in the house of that publican at Jericho!
The earliest strivings of life in a poor sinner, the desire which had been awakened by the drawings of the Father, were there in that house ready to welcome him; but sweetly and significantly he anticipates the welcome, and goes in—goes in in full, consistent, responsive character to kindle and strengthen the freshly-quickened life, till it break forth in some of its precious virtue, and yield some of its own good fruit. “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.” At Emmaus, desire had been again quickened, but under different conditions. It was not the desire of a, freshly-drawn soul, but of restored saints. These two disciples had been unbelieving. They were returning home under a sorrow that Jesus had disappointed them. The Lord rebukes them shortly after he joined them on the road, but so orders his words as to kindle their hearts. When their walk together ends at the gate of their dwelling, the Lord makes as though he would go further. He would not invite himself as he had done at Jericho. They were not in the moral state which suggested this, as Zacchaeus had been; but, when invited, he goes in—goes in just to kindle further the desire which had here invited him—to gratify it to the full. And so he does; and they are constrained by their joy to return to the city that night, late as it was, to communicate it to their fellows.
How full of various beauty all these cases are! The guest in the house of Pharisees, the guest in the house of publicans, the guest in the house of disciples, —the invited and the uninvited guest, in the person of Jesus, sits in his place, in all perfection and beauty. I might instance him as a guest, at other tables; but I will now look only at one more. At Bethany we see him adopting a family scene.
Had Jesus disallowed the idea of a Christian family, he could not have been at Bethany, as we see he was. And yet, when we get him there, it is only some new phase of moral beauty we trace in him. He is a friend of the family, finding, as we find to this day among ourselves, a home in the midst of them. “Now Jesus loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus,” are words which bespeak this. His love to them was not that of a Savior, or a shepherd, though we know well he was each of these to them. It was the love of a family friend. But though a friend, an intimate friend, who might, whenever he pleased, find a welcome there; yet he did not interfere with the arrangements of the house. Martha was the housekeeper, the busy one of the family, useful and important in her place; and Jesus will surely leave her where he finds her. It was not for him to alter or settle such matters. Lazarus may sit by the side of the guests at the family table, Mary may be abstracted and withdrawn as in her own kingdom, or into the kingdom of God within her, and Martha be busy and serving. Be it so Jesus leaves all this just as he finds it. He who would not enter the house of another unbidden, when entered into the house of those sisters and brother, will not meddle with its order and arrangements, and in full moral comeliness this is. But if one of the family, instead of carrying herself in her family place, step out of it to be a teacher in his presence, he must and will resume his higher character, and set things right divinely, though he would not interfere with them or touch them domestically. (Luke 10.)
What various and exquisite beauty Who can trace all his paths? The vulture will have to say, it is beyond even the reach of his eye. And if no human eye can fully see the whole of this one object, where is the human character that does not aid in setting off its light by its own shadows and imperfections? We none of us think of John, or of Peter, or of the rest of them, as hard-hearted or unkind.
Quite otherwise. We feel that we could have entrusted them with our griefs or our necessities. But that little narrative in Mark 6, to which I referred, shows us that they are all at fault, all in the distance, when the hunger of the multitude appealed to them, threatening to break up their ease; but, on the contrary, that was the very moment, the very occasion, when Jesus drew near. All this tells us of him, beloved. “I know no one,” says another, “so kind, so condescending, who is come down to poor sinners, as he. I trust his love more than I do Mary’s or any saint’s; not merely his power as God, but the tenderness of his heart as man. No one ever showed such, or had such or proved it so well—none has inspired me with such, confidence. Let others go to saints, or angels, if they will; I trust Jesus kindness more.” Surely, again I say, this is so—and this occasion in Mark 6, betraying the narrow-heartedness of the best of us, such as Peter and John, but manifesting the full, unwearied, saving grace of Jesus, verifies it. But further there are in him combinations of characters, as well as of virtues or graces. His relationship to the world, when he was here, exhibits this. He was at once a conqueror, a sufferer, and a benefactor. What moral glories shine in such an assemblage! He overcame the world, refusing all its attractions and offers, he suffered from it, witnessing for God against its whole course and spirit; he blessed it, dispensing his love and power continually, returning good for evil. Its temptations only made him a conqueror; its pollutions and enmities only a sufferer; its miseries only a benefactor. What a combination! What moral glories shine in each other’s company there!
The Lord illustrated that word that is among “in the world, but not of the world”—a form of words which, I suppose, has been derived from what he himself says in John 17:1515I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. (John 17:15): “I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil.” He illustrates this condition all through his life; for he was ever in the world, active in the midst of its ignorance and misery, but never of it, as one that shared its hopes or projects, or breathed its spirit. But in John 7, I believe he is eminently seen in this character. It was the time of the feast of tabernacles, the crowning, joyous time in Israel, the past of the coming kingdom, the season of ingathering, when the people had only to remember that they had been, in other days, wanderers in a wilderness and dwellers in a camp. His brethren propose to him to take, advantage of such a moment, when “all the world,”
as we speak, was at Jerusalem. They would have him make himself important, make himself, as we again speak, “a man of the world.” “If thou do these things,” they say, “show thyself to the world.” He refused. His time had not then come to keep the feast of tabernacles. He will have his kingdom in the world, and be great to the end of the earth, when his day comes; but as yet he was on his way to the altar, and not to the throne. He will not go to the feast to be of the feast, though he will be in it; therefore, when he reaches the city at this time, we see him in service there, not in honor, not working miracles as his brethren would have had him, that he might gain the notice of men; but teaching others, and then hiding himself under this, “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.”
Very peculiar and characteristic indeed all this is. And all this was sonic of the moral glory of the man, the perfect man, Jesus, in his relation to the world. He was a conqueror, a sufferer, and a benefactor—in the world, but not of it. But with equal perfectness do we see him at times distinguishing things, as well as exhibiting these beautiful combinations. Thus, in dealing with sorrow which lay outside, as I may express it, we see tenderness, the power that relieved; but in dealing with the trouble of disciples, we see faithfulness as well as tenderness. The leper, in Matthew 8, is a stranger. He brings his sorrow to Christ, and gets healing at once disciples, in the same chapter, bring their sorrow also, their fears in the storm; but they get rebuke as well as relief. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” he says to them. And yet the leper had but little faith, as well as the disciples. If they said, “Lord save us, we perish;” he said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” But they are rebuked, while he is not. Just because there was a different thing before the mind of the Lord, and justly so. It was simply sorrow in the one case; it was the soul as well as the sorrow in the other. Tenderness, unmixed tenderness, was, therefore, his answer to the one; faithfulness must form part of the other. The different relationship to him, of disciples and strangers, at once accounts for this, and may strew us how perfectly he distinguished things that came very near each other, but still were not the same. But further, as to this perfection. Though he himself rebuke, he will not allow others lightly to do it. As in earlier days, Moses may be humbled by the Lord, but the Lord will not allow Miriam and Aaron to, reproach him. (Numbers 11. 12.) Israel in the wilderness will be chastened again and again’ by the hand of God, but in the face of Balaam, or any other adversary, he will be as one that has not seen iniquity in his people, and will not suffer any enchantment to prevail against them. So the Lord Jesus will beautifully, and strikingly step in between the two disciples and the rebuking ten (Matthew 20), and though he send a word of warning and admonition to John the Baptist, as in secret (such a word as John’s conscience alone might understand), he turns to the multitude to speak of John only with commendation and delight. And still further, as to this grace in distinguishing things that differ. Even in dealing with his disciples, there did come a moment when faithfulness can be observed no longer, and tenderness alone is to be exercised. I mean in the hour of parting, as we see in John 14:1616And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; (John 14:16). It was then “too late to be faithful.” The moment would not have admitted it: It was a time which the heart claimed as entirely belonging to itself. The education of the soul could not go on then. He opens fresh secrets to them, it is true, secrets of the dearest awl most intimate relationships, as between them and the Father but there is nothing that is to be called rebuke. There is no such word as, “O ye of little faith,” or “How is it that ye do not understand?” A word that may sound somewhat like that is only the discharging of a wound which the heart had suffered, that they might know the love he had for them. This was the sacredness of the sorrow of a moment of parting, in the perfect mind and affection of Jesus; and we practice it ourselves in some poor manner, so that we are, at least, able to enjoy and admire the full expression of it in him. “There is a time to embrace,” says the preacher, “and there is a time to refrain from embracing.” This is a law in the statute—book of love, and Jesus observed it.
But again, He was not to be drawn into softness; when the occasion demanded faithfulness, and yet he passed by many circumstances which human sensibilities would have resented, and which the human moral sense would have judged it well to resent. He would not gain his disciples after the poor way of amiable nature. Honey was excluded from the offerings made by lire, as well as leaven. The meat offering had none of it (Leviticus 2:1111No meat offering, which ye shall bring unto the Lord, shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey, in any offering of the Lord made by fire. (Leviticus 2:11)); neither had Jesus the true meat offering. In was not the merely civil, amiable thing that the disciples got from their Master. It was not the courtesy that consorts for the ease of another. He did not gratify, and yet he bound them to him very closely; and this is power. There is always moral power when the confidence of another, is gained without its being sought; for the heart has then become conscious of the reality of love. “We all know,” writes one, “how to distinguish between love and attention, and that there may: be a great deal of the latter without any of the former. Some might say, attention must win our confidence; but we know ourselves that nothing but love does.” This is so true attention, if it be mere attention, is honey, and how much of this poor material is found with us! And we are disposed to think that it is all well, and perhaps we aim no higher than to purge out leaven, and fill the lump with honey. Let us be amiable, perform our part Well in the civil, courteous, well-ordered social scene, pleasing others, and doing what we can to keep people on good terms with themselves, then we are satisfied with ourselves, and others with us also. But is this service to God? Is this a meat offering? Is this found as part of the moral glory of perfect man? Indeed, it is not we may naturally judge, I grant, that nothing could do it better or more effectually; but still it is one of the secrets of the sanctuary, that honey was not used to give a sweet savor to the offering.
Thus, in progress, in seasonableness, in combinations, and in distinctions, how perfect in moral glory and beauty were all the ways of this Son of Man! J. G. B.