In pursuing these Scripture studies, it is with a certain kind of fear that I approach the New Testament, great as may be the blessing attendant on so doing. The concentration of divine light in this precious gift of God; the immense reach of the truths contained in it; the infinite variety of the aspects and true applications of one and the same passage, and of its relations with the whole circle of divine truths; the immense importance of these truths, whether considered in themselves, or with reference to the glory of God, or in relation to the need of man; the manner in which they reveal God, and meet that need:-all these considerations, which I can but imperfectly express, would cause any humble-minded person to retire from the pretension of giving a true and (in principle) adequate idea of the purpose of the Holy Ghost in the books of the New Testament. And the more is truth itself revealed, the more true light shines, the more one's incapacity to speak of it must be felt, and the more one must fear to darken that which is perfect. The more pure the truth is with which we have to do-and here it is truth itself-the more difficult it is to endeavor to lay it before others, without in some respect injuring its purity; and the more fatal also is this injury. In meditating on such or such a passage, we may communicate the measure of light granted us for the profit of others. But in attempting to give an idea of the book as a whole, all the perfection of the truth itself, and the universality of the purpose of God in the revelation He has made of it, present themselves to the mind; and one trembles at the thought of undertaking to give a true and general idea, if it be not a complete one, which no really Christian person would pretend to do.
The Old Testament may perhaps appear more difficult to some persons than the New, and with respect to the interpretation of certain isolated passages, it may be so; but although the inspired writers of that part of Scripture reveal the mind of God as communicated to them by Him, and we can admire the wisdom there unfolded; yet God himself was still hidden behind the veil. We may mistake or overlook the meaning of an expression, and we suffer loss, for it was God who spoke; but in the New Testament it is God Himself, meek, gentle, human, on earth, in the Gospels; instructing with divine light in the subsequent communications of the Holy Ghost; yet still God, who manifests Himself. But if the light is brighter both for our personal guidance and for the knowledge of Himself, it becomes a yet more serious thing to misinterpret these living communications, or to disguise, by our own thoughts, that which is the truth itself. For we must remember that Christ is The Truth. He is the Word. It is God who speaks in the person of the Son, who, being man, manifests also the Father.
As regards even interpretation itself, even the truth, the light, eternal life, being in that which is revealed to us in the New Testament, it may be looked at in so many aspects, that the practical difficulty is much greater. For this truth may be looked at in its intrinsic and essential value, we may view it as the manifestation of the eternal nature of God, or in its manifestation with respect to the glory of the Son. We may examine its connections and its contrasts with the partial communications of the Old Testament, which it fulfills and eclipses by its own brightness, with the economy of earthly government, which it set aside, in order to introduce that which is eternal and heavenly. It may be viewed in its relations to man, for the life was the light of men, God having been pleased to manifest and to glorify Himself in man, to make Himself known to man, and to constitute him the means of the revelation of Himself to his other intelligent creatures. On every passage there would be some thing to say with respect to each of these aspects; for the truth is one, even as it, is of God, but it shines on all things, and displays their true character.
Two things, however, encourage me. First, that we have to do with a God of perfect goodness, who has given us these wondrous revelations that we may profit by them. And in the second place, that although the source of truth is infinite and perfect, although these revelations flow from the fullness of truth in God, and its communication to us is perfect, after the perfection of Him that made it, nevertheless, it is made by means of divers instruments, in themselves of a limited capacity, of which God makes use in communicating this or that portion of truth to us. This pure and living water has been in no wise corrupted; but in each communication it has been limited by the purpose of God, in the instrument used by Him to dispense it; while still in connection with the whole, according to the perfect wisdom of Him who has communicated all truth. The channel is not infinite. The water which flows through it is infinite, but not infinite in its communication. They prophesied in part, and we know in part. The aspect and the application of truth has even an especial character, according to the vessel through which it is communicated. The living water is there in its perfect pureness. As it exists in its source, so it gushes forth: the form of the fountain through which it flows before men, is according to His wisdom who has formed it to be His instrument for that purpose. The Holy Ghost acts in man, in the vessel thereunto prepared. God had created, formed, fashioned, and adapted it morally and intellectually, for such and such a service in respect to the truth. He acts in the vessel, according to the object for which He has prepared it. Christ was and is the truth. Others have communicated it, each one according to that given him, and in connection with those elements with which God had brought his mind and heart into unison, and with that object for which the Holy Ghost had thus prepared him.
Leaving, therefore, my fears behind, I address myself confidingly to the accomplishment of this service, my heart resting on the perfect goodness of God, who delights to bless us. May the just sense of my responsibility prevent my hazarding anything not according to God; and may the Lord Himself, in His grace, deign to direct me, and furnish me with that which shall be a blessing to the reader.
The New Testament has evidently a very different character from the Old. That which I have already remarked constitutes the essence of this difference. The New Testament treats of the revelation of God Himself. Formerly, God had made promises, and He had executed judgments. He had governed a people on earth, and acted towards the nations with an eye to this people. He had given them His law, and bestowed on them, by means of the prophets, a growing light, which announced as nearer and nearer His coming, who should tell them all things from God. But the presence of God Himself, a man amongst men, changed the position of everything. Either man must receive, as a crown of blessing and of glory, the One whose presence was to banish all evil, and develop and perfect every element of good, furnishing, at the same time, an object which should be the center of all affections, rendered perfectly happy by the enjoyment of this object, or, by rejecting Him, our poor nature must manifest itself as being enmity against God, and must prove the neces,sity for a completely new order of things, in which the happiness of man and the glory of God should be based upon a new creation.
We know what happened. He who was the image of the invisible God, had to say, after the exercise of a perfect patience, " Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee." Alas! yet more than that, He had to say. " They have seen and hated both me and my Father."
Nevertheless, this condition of man has in no wise prevented God from fulfilling His counsels. On the contrary, it became the occasion of His so doing. He would not reject man until man had rejected Him. (As in the garden of Eden, man, conscious of sin, being unable to bear the presence of God, withdrew from Him, before God had driven him out of the garden.) But now that man, on his part, had entirely rejected God, come in mercy into the midst of his misery, God was free-if one may venture to speak thus, and the expression is morally correct-to carry out His eternal purposes. But it is not judgment that is carried into effect, as was the case in Eden, when man had already departed from God. It is sovereign grace which, when man is evidently lost, and has declared himself the enemy of God, carries on its work to magnify His glory, before the whole universe, in the salvation of poor sinners who had rejected Him.
But in order that the perfect wisdom -of God should be manifested, even in the details, this work of sovereign grace, in which God revealed Himself, must be seen as co-ordinate with all his previous dealings revealed in the Old Testament, and also as leaving its full place to His government of the world.
All this is the cause that (apart from the one great idea which reigns throughout there are four subjects in this wonderful book, which unfold themselves to the eye of faith.
The great subject, the dominant fact, is, that the perfect light is manifested. God reveals Himself.
Christ, who is the manifestation of this light, who, if He had been received, would have been the fulfillment of all the promises, is then presented to man, and especially to Israel (looked at in their responsibility), with every proof personal, moral, and of power, proofs which left them without excuse.
Being rejected (a rejection by means of which' salvation was accomplished), the new order of things-the new creation-man glorified, the Church sharing with Christ in heavenly glory, is put before us.
Afterward, the connection between the old order of things upon earth, and the new, with respect to the law, the promises, the prophets, or the divine institutions on earth, is set forth; whether in exhibiting the new as the fulfillment and setting aside of that which had grown old, or in stating the contrast between the two, and the perfect wisdom of God, which is demonstrated in every detail of His ways.
Finally, the government of the world, on the part of God, is prophetically displayed; and the renewal of God's relations with Israel, whether in judgment or in blessing, is briefly but plainly stated, on the occasion of the rupture of those relations by the rejection of the Messiah.
It may be added, that everything necessary for man, as a pilgrim on earth, until God shall accomplish in power the purposes of His grace, is abundantly supplied. Come forth, at the call of God, from that which is rejected and condemned, and not yet in possession of the portion that God has prepared for him, the man who has obeyed this call needs something to direct him, and to reveal the sources of the strength he requires in walking towards the object of his vocation, and the means by which he can appropriate this strength. God, in calling him to follow a Master whom the world has rejected, has not failed to supply him with all the light and all the directions needed to guide and encourage him on his way.
Every reader of the Bible will understand that these subjects are not treated methodically and separately in the New Testament. Were it so, they would be much less perfectly understood. It is in life and in power, whether that of Christ or that of the Holy Ghost in the inspired writers, that they develop themselves to our hearts.
The Gospels in general set Christ before us as light and grace, presented to men in this world, as well as the One in whom the promises made to Israel would be accomplished. The Revelation,-the government, on God's part, of this world, in reference to the responsibility under which its relations to a revealed God have placed it. The writings of Paul,-the new creation, and the church according to the counsels of God, the mystery of God. These various subjects are, however, found everywhere (except the Church, the body of Christ, which, in the Epistles, is only found in Paul's writings), and each separate development of one of these subjects, throws light upon all the rest. The writings of John, we may add, treat particularly of the manifestation of God, and of the divine life in man, as corresponding to one another. Those of Peter,-of the Christian's pilgrimage, founded on resurrection, and of the moral government of the world. But, I repeat it, whether in the person of Christ or in the communications of the Holy Ghost (His life, being, in one way or other, the light of men), the truth shines out in the living manifestation of God, and in its living application to men; and also, according to the wisdom of God, it is connected with the progressive development inherent to truth when communicated to man, and adapted to the especial wants and to the spiritual capacities of the men to whom it was addressed.
No doubt the revelations of the New Testament are for the Church in all ages; but they were addressed, speaking historically, to living men, and adapted to their condition. But this circumstance weakens in no manner the truth communicated: it is of God, even as the Apostle expresses it, " We are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ." And again, "Not handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." He adds nothing to this pure wine, he does not adulterate it. That which he received, flows from him as pure as he received it.
But the Word of God, addressed to men, has even greater reality; it is more immediately of God. We have not men's ideas with respect to God, nor the reasonings of men's minds even with truth for their subject; nor is it even truth, as it is in God, submitted abstractedly to the capacity of men that they may judge it. It is God who addresses Himself to man, who speaks to him, who communicates His thoughts as being His own. For if man is to judge them, they are not the words of God, proclaimed as such. " Ye received them," says the apostle, " not as the words of men, but as they were in truth the words of God."
The effect produced on man, which causes him to own the truth and authority of the Word, has been often confounded with a judgment formed by man upon the Word, as upon something submitted to him. Never can the Word thus present itself. It would be denying its own nature; it would be saying, It is not my God who speaks. Can God say that He is not God? If not, He could not speak and say that His Word has not authority in itself.
The Word is adapted to the nature of man: the life is the light of men. There are many things that produce an effect according to the nature of the thing to which they are applied, without their being judged by that thing. It is the case in all chemical action. A medicine is administered to me; I experience its effect. It has this effect according to my nature; thus I am convinced of this effect, and of the power of the medicine. It is not a question of my forming a judgment on the medicine as submitted to my capacity. It is the same thing with the revelation of Christ, save that the wicked will of man opposes and rejects it, so that it becomes a savor of death unto death. The Word of God is never judged when it produces its effect; "it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Man is subject to it. He does not judge it.
When man has received the Word of truth, which addresses itself to him as such, he is in a condition to understand all its bearings by the help of the Holy Ghost; and, in this case, the circumstances of the persons to whom it was addressed historically, become a means of understanding the intention of the mind of God in that part of the Word which is under consideration. These circumstances, as we have seen, do not at all affect the divine pureness of the Word; but since God speaks to men according to their condition, this condition, as set before us in the Word itself, is a very great assistance in understanding that which is said. This condition itself is only understood by the Word, and by the help of the Holy Ghost. Sometimes it is the effect of the wickedness of the human heart. Sometimes it partly depends on the dispensations of God. Whatever it may be, grace addresses itself to men according to their condition, and according to the faithfulness of God to His promises, and in connection with His ways, which He has already taught them. It is not that (the true light being come) this light is dimmed or lowered to accommodate it to the darkness. Were this done, it would no longer be capable of raising man by delivering him from the condition he is in; but it is so communicated as to be within the reach of men, and able to be applied to their condition. It was this which they needed, it was this which was worthy of God. He alone could do it. And this is applicable to the subjects of which the Lord speaks, and to those spoken of by the Holy Ghost through the apostles. He may address Himself to Jews, converted, but still attached to the Jewish system, in order to bring out the intentions of God (ever faithful to His promises), with regard to this people; as He might also, when raised on high, communicate by His Spirit all the consequences of the union of the church with Himself in the heavenly places, outside all the dealings of God upon the earth. And to those souls that were feeding on worldly elements, contrary to this heavenly elevation, and who did not lay hold, in it, of that which would deliver them from this worldly and carnal tendency-to such He might display the proofs of the evil into which they were falling; and this He might do by means that would bring them into unison with the eternal truths of God, in a manner which, although elementary, would judge this carnal disposition that is found at all times in those who do not rise to the height of God's purposes. Or the Spirit might reveal the truth more simply, in the elevation proper to it. He might dwell upon the essential characteristics of the nature of God, in order to judge all that pretended, under the most plausible forms, to be Christian light, but which sinned against that nature in the most simple things; and thus link the most simple and most immature souls with the most exalted qualities of God Himself, in the essence of His nature.
The understanding (derived from the scriptures themselves, in which these things are found), of the position of those persons to whom they are addressed, is of great use-under the guidance of the Holy Ghost-in apprehending the divine truth contained in them; truth which is absolute, but, by the grace of God, applied truth, practical truth, realized in the soul by the power of God working in it, and guarding it by means of this truth, from the carnal tendency of the heart to fall into those evils which were the occasion of the Scriptures that speak of them,-truth that comes down to us, whatever our condition may be, not by altering its own character to accommodate itself to us, nor by taking a form according to our condition; but, in order to raise us up to the source from whence it came down, and from which it never separates itself (for the truth communicated to us is ever the truth in God and in Christ), in order to raise us up morally to all the height of its own nature; "which thing is true in Him and in us, because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth." It is the effect of the intervention of Christ, to whom we are united by the Holy Ghost, and who is one with God the Father.
This truth, that the communications of God are adapted to the position of those who, historically received them, brings us into intelligency of all the counsels of God, for He reveals Himself in His authority, His wisdom, and His sovereignty, in these counsels, as He makes Himself known in His nature by the revelation of Himself in Christ. Christ is the center of these counsels, but every family in heaven and earth is ranged under the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Angels, principalities, powers, Jews, Gentiles, everything that is named, shall be placed under His authority; the church being united to Him in His glory. Now, the counsels of God with respect to us are revealed in His Word; and, although God does not speak to us in order to gratify our curiosity, many subjects outside salvation, strictly speaking, which are connected with this supremacy of Christ, are connected also with that which God sets before us for our instruction, as the development of this His dealings here below. Thus, although His intentions with regard to the Jews may, naturally, be much more developed in the Old Testament, yet the connection of their history with the subjects of the New, the historical transition from the old economy to the new, the reconciling the promises made to the Jews, with the universality of the gospel economy, all these subjects must necessarily have a place in the New Testament, if the ways of God are to be known by us. I say, the ways of God; for we have not to think of the Jews only, it is God who acts and who makes Himself known in His dealings. Thus, although the full light displays itself in the New Testament, we find there things addressed to the Jews, and to the disciples who had formed a part of that people, and which reveal the dealings of God towards them. And without these revelations, and if they did not refer to the position of that people, there would be no harmony in the ways of God; at least it would be hidden from us, and would not exist morally. This refers to doctrine, to history (that is, to the presentation of the Messiah), to prophecy, which shows the faithfulness of God, and to the judgment upon that people. In order that we may know God-the God who has condescended to interpose in the affairs of this world-mere light is not enough. He must be known, not only as He -is in His nature, although that is the essential and principal thing, but as He has revealed Himself in the totality of His ways; in those details in which our little narrow hearts can learn His faithful patient condescending love; in those dealings which develop the abstract idea of His wisdom, so as to render it accessible to our limited intelligence, which can trace in it things which have been realized amongst men, although entirely above and beyond all their pre-vision, but which have been declared by God, so that we know them to be of Him. Above all, God has been pleased to connect Himself in a special way with man in all these things: marvelous privilege of His feeble creature! Philosophy, senseless, narrow-minded, and even essentially stupid in its arguments, would have it that the world is too small for God thus to expend Himself on an impotent being like man-on that which is but a mere point in an immense universe. Contemptible folly! As if the material extent of the theater were the measure of the moral manifestations wrought upon it, and the war of principles which is there brought to an issue. That which takes place in this world, is the spectacle that unfolds to all the intelligences of the universe, the ways and the character and the will of God. It is for us to receive thereby, through grace, understanding and power, that we may enjoy it, and that in us God may be glorified; not only by us, which will be true of all things, but in us. This is our privilege, through the grace that is in Christ, and by our union with Him who is the wisdom of God and the power of God. The more we are as little children, obedient and humble, the more we shall realize this glorious position. Hereafter we shall know as we are known. Meanwhile, the more Christ is objectively our portion and our occupation, the more shall we resemble Him subjectively. Thanks be to God! He has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes. " Howbeit," says the apostle, " we speak wisdom among them that are perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to naught; but the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory."
Let us now present a general idea of the contents of the New Testament, or rather of the order in which the truths contained in it are revealed.
We need not depart from the order in which the books are usually placed; without, however, attaching any importance to it.
The first subject that presents itself is the history and person of the Lord Jesus Himself, contained in the four gospels.
The second is the establishment of the church, and the propagation of the gospel in the world after His ascension. The history of this is given in the Acts of the Apostles.
Afterward, the development of the true doctrine of Christ; the care bestowed by the apostles on the churches and on individual souls; with the directions necessary for a walk that would glorify the Lord; the refutation of errors by which the enemy sought to corrupt the faith, and the instructions needful to preserve the faithful from the seductions of the instruments of his malice. These subjects, the first especially, include all the personal glory of the Lord. We refer evidently to the contents of the epistles.
In the last place, we find the prophecies, which announce the evil that would tarnish and corrupt the testimony rendered to Christ in the world, and which, When fully developed, would lead to judgment. These prophecies reveal also the progress of God's judgments, which will end with the destruction of those enemies who will dare to rebel openly against the Lamb, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords; and likewise the glory and blessing which will succeed those judgments. This last subject links Christian teaching with the revelation of the ways of God as to the government of the world. It is largely developed in the Revelation; but in divers epistles its connection with the decay of the church is exhibited.
We shall naturally begin with the gospels which give us the history of the Lord's life, and present Him to our hearts, whether by His actions or by His discourses, in the various characters which make Him precious in every way to the souls of the redeemed, according to the measure of intelligence bestowed on them, and ac- cording to their need: characters which together form the plenitude of His personal glory, so far as we are capable of apprehending it here below in these our earthen vessels.
It is evident, that, according to the counsels of God, and according to the revelations of His Word, the Lord must unite in Himself more than one character on earth, for the accomplishment of His glory, and for the maintenance and manifestation of the glory of His Father. But, that this might take place, He must also be something that He might be viewed in the light of His real nature, as walking down here. He must needs accomplish the service which it behooved Him to render to God, as being Himself the true servant; and that, as serving God by the Word, in the midst of His people, according to Psa. 40 for instance, ver. 8, 9, 10. Isa. 49:4,54Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. 5And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. (Isaiah 49:4‑5); and many other passages.
A multitude of testimonies had announced that the Son of David should sit, on the part of God, on His Father's throne; and the accomplishment of God's counsels with regard to His earthly people, is linked in the Old Testament with Him who should thus come; and who on earth should stand in the relation of Son of God, to the Lord God.
The Christ, the Messiah, or, which is but the same word translated, the Anointed, was to come and present Himself to Israel, according to the revelation and the counsels of God.
But this character of Messiah, although the expectation of the Jews scarcely went beyond it-and even that they looked at in their own way, merely as the exaltation of their own nation, having no sense of their sins or of the consequences of their sins-this character of Messiah was not all that the prophetic word, which declared the counsels of God, had announced with respect to the One whom even the world was expecting.
He was to be the Son of Man-a title which the Lord Jesus loves to give himself-a title of great importance to us. It appears to me, that the Son of Man is, according to the Word, the heir of all that the counsels of God destined for man as his portion in glory, all that God would bestow on man according to those counsels (see Dan. 7:13,1413I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. 14And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13‑14); and Psa. 8:5,65For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. 6Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: (Psalm 8:5‑6)). But in order to be the heir of all that God destined for man, He must be a man. The Son of man was truly of the race of man -precious and comforting truth! born of a woman, really and truly a man, and, partaking of flesh and blood, made like unto His brethren.
In this character he was to suffer, and be rejected; that he might inherit all things, He was to die, and to rise again; the inheritance being defiled, and man being in rebellion: the co-heirs as guilty as the rest.
He was then to be the servant, the Son of David, and the Son of Man, and therefore truly a man on the earth, born under the law, born of a woman, of the seed of David, heir to the rights of David's family, heir to the destinies of man, according to the purpose and the counsels of God.
But who was to be all this? Was it only an official glory which the Old Testament had said a man was to inherit? The condition of men, manifested under the law, and without law, proved the impossibility of making them partakers of the blessing of God as they were. The rejection of Christ was the crowning proof of this condition. And in fact, man needed above all to be himself reconciled to God, apart from all dispensation and special government of an earthly people. Man had sinned, and redemption was necessary, for the glory of God and the salvation of men. Who could accomplish it? Man needed it himself. An angel had to keep and fill his own place and could do no more; he could not be a Savior. And who among men could be the heir of all things, and have all the works of God put under his dominion, according to the Word? It was the Son of God who should inherit them. It was their Creator who should possess them. He then who was to be the Servant, the Son of David, the Son of Man, the Redeemer, was the Son of God, God the Creator.
The gospels, in general, develop these characters of Christ,-not in a dogmatic manner, that of John alone having, to a certain degree, that form; but by so relating the history of the Lord, as to present Him in these different characters, in a much more living way than if it were only set before us in doctrine. The Lord speaks according to such or such a character, He acts in the one or in the other, so that we see Him Himself accomplishing that which belonged to the different positions that we know to be His according to scripture.
Thus, not only is the character much better known in its moral details, according to its true scriptural import, as well as the meaning and purpose of God therein revealed, but Christ Himself becomes in these characters more personally the object of faith, and of the heart's affections. It is a person whom we know, and not merely a doctrine. By this precious means which God has deigned to use, truths with respect to Jesus are much more connected with all that went before, with the Old Testament history. The change in God's dealings is linked with the glory of the person of Christ, in connection with which, this transition from God's relations with Israel and the world to the heavenly and Christian order took place. This heavenly system, while possessing a character more entirely distinct from Judaism, than would have been the case if the Lord had not come, is not a doctrine that nullifies by contradicting that which preceded it. When Christ came, He presented Himself to the Jews as, on the one hand, subject to the law, and on the other, as the seed in whom the promises were to be fulfilled. He was rejected; so that this people forfeited all right 'to the promises. God could then bring in the fullness of His grace. At the same time, the types, the figures, had their accomplishment. The curse of the law was executed. The prophecies that related • to the humiliation of Christ were fulfilled; and the relations of all souls with God-always necessarily attached to His person, when once he had appeared—were connected with the position taken by the Redeemer in heaven. Thence, the door opened to the Gentiles, and the purpose of God with respect to a church, the body of the ascended Christ, fully revealed. Son of David, according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power by his resurrection from among the dead; He was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers; and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His, mercy; He was the first-born from the dead, the head of His body, the church; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.
The glory of the new order of things was so much the more excellent, so much the more exalted above all the earthly order that had preceded it, that it was attached to the person of the Lord Himself, and to Him glorified in the presence of God His Father. And at the same time that which took place put its seal upon all that had preceded it, as having had its true place, and having been ordained of God; for the Lord presented Himself on earth in connection with the system that existed before he came.
AT 1Let us now consider the Gospel by St. Matthew. This gospel sets Christ before us in the character of the Son of David and of Abraham, that is to say, in connection with the promises made to Israel. It is He who, being received, should have accomplished them (and hereafter He will do so), in favor of this beloved people. This gospel is, in fact, the history of His rejection by the people, and, consequently, that of the condemnation of the people themselves, so far as their responsibility was concerned, for the counsels of God cannot fail.
In proportion as the character of the King and of the kingdom develops itself, and arouses the attention of the leaders of the people, they oppose it, and deprive themselves, as well as the people who follow them, of all the blessings connected with the presence of the Messiah. The Lord declares to them the consequences of this, and spews his disciples the position of the kingdom which should be set up in the earth after His rejection, and the glories in general which should result from it to Himself and to His people with Him. And, as far as regards His person, the foundation of the church even is revealed.
At length, after His resurrection, a new commission, addressed to all nations, is given to the apostles in virtue of the exaltation of Jesus.
The object of the Spirit of God, in this gospel, being to present the Lord as fulfilling the promises made to Israel, and the prophecies that relate to the Messiah, He commences with the genealogy of the Lord, starting from David and Abraham, the two stocks from which the messianic genealogy sprang, and to which the promises had been made. The genealogy is divided into three periods, conformably to three great divisions of the history of the people: from Abraham to the establishment of royalty; from the establishment of royalty, in the person of David, to the captivity; and from the captivity to Jesus.
We may observe that the Holy Ghost mentions, in this genealogy, the grievous sins committed by the persons whose names are given, magnifying the sovereign grace of God, who could bestow a Savior in connection with such sins as those of Judah, with a poor Moabitess brought in amidst His people, and with crimes like those of David.
It is the legal genealogy that is given here, that is to say, the genealogy of Joseph, of whom Christ was the rightful heir, according to Jewish law. The evangelist has omitted three kings of the parentage of Ahab, in order to have the fourteen generations in each period. Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim are also omitted. The genealogy is not at all affected by this circumstance.
The evangelist briefly relates the facts concerning the birth of Jesus,-facts which are of infinite and eternal importance, not only to the Jews, who were immediately interested in them, but to ourselves, facts in which God has deigned to link his own glory with our interests, with man.
Mary was betrothed to Joseph; her posterity was consequently that of Joseph, as to rights of inheritance, but the child she carried in her womb was of divine origin, conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost. The angel of the Lord is sent, as the instrument of Providence, to satisfy the tender conscience and upright heart of Joseph, by communicating to him that that which Mary had conceived, was of the Holy Ghost.
We may remark here, that the angel, on this occasion, addresses Joseph as "Son of David." The Holy Ghost thus draws our attention to the relationship of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus, to David; Mary being called his wife. The angel gives at the same time the name of Jesus, i.e. Jehovah the Savior, to the child that should be born. He applies this name to the deliverance of Israel from the condition into which sin had plunged them. All these circumstances happened, in order to fulfill that which the Lord had said by the mouth of His prophet, "Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel; which, being interpreted, is, God with us."
Here then is that which the Spirit of God sets before us in these few verses. Jesus, the Son of David, conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost; Jehovah, the Savior, who delivers Israel from their sins; God with them; He who accomplished those marvelous prophecies which, more or less plainly, drew the outline that the Lord Jesus alone could fill up.
Joseph, a just man, simple in heart and obedient, discerns without difficulty the revelation of the Lord and obeys it.
But, already, how wonderful this revelation of Him by whom the words and promises of the Lord were to be fulfilled; what a ground-work of truth for the understanding of what this glorious and mysterious person was, of whom the Old Testament had said enough to awaken the desires and to confound the minds of the people to whom He was given.
Born of a woman, born under the law, heir to all the rights of David according to the flesh, also the Son of God, Jehovah the Savior, God with His people. Who could comprehend or fathom the mystery of His nature in whom all these things were combined! His life, in fact, as we shall see, displays the obedience of the perfect man, the perfections and the power of God.
The titles which we have just named, and which we read in chap. 1:20, 23, are connected with His glory in the midst of Israel. That is to say, the heir of David, Jesus the Savior of His people, and Emmanuel. His birth, of the Holy Ghost, accomplished (Psa. 2:77I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. (Psalm 2:7)) with regard to Him as a man born on the earth. The name of Jesus, and His conception by the power of the Holy Ghost, no doubt go beyond this, but are linked also in an especial manner with His position in Israel.
AT 2Chapter 2 Thus born, thus characterized by the angel, and fulfilling the prophecies that announced the presence of Emmanuel, He is formally acknowledged King of the Jews by the Gentiles, who are guided by the will of God acting on the hearts of their wise men. That is to say, we find the Lord, Emmanuel, the Son of David, Jehovah the Savior the Son of God, born King of the Jews, recognized by the heads of the Gentiles. This is the testimony of God in Matthew's gospel, and the character in which Jesus is there presented. Afterward, in the presence of Jesus thus revealed, we see the leaders of the Jews, in connection with a foreign king, knowing, however, as a system, the revelations of God in His word, but wholly indifferent to Him who was their object; and this king, the fierce enemy of the Lord, the true King and Messiah, seeking to put Him to death.
The providence of God watches over the child born unto Israel, employing means that leave the responsibility of the nation its full place; and that accomplish at the same time all the intentions of God with regard to this only true remnant of Israel, this only true source of hope for the people. For, out of Him, all would fall, and suffer the consequences of being connected with the people.
Gone down into Egypt to avoid the cruel design of Herod to take away His life, He becomes the true Branch, He recommences, i.e. morally, the history of Israel in His own person; as well as (in a wider sense) the history of man, as the second Adam in relation with God. It is not only the prophecy of Hosea which thus applies to this true beginning of Israel in grace (as the beloved of God), and according to His counsels; the people having entirely failed, so that without this, God must have cut them off. We have seen in Isaiah, Israel the servant giving place to Christ the servant, who gathers a faithful remnant (the children whom God has given Him while He hides His face from the house of Jacob), that become the nucleus of the new nation of Israel according to God. The 49th chapter of that prophet gives this transition from Israel to Christ, in a striking manner. Moreover, this is the basis of all the history of Israel, looked at as having failed under the law, and being re-established in grace. Christ is, morally, the new stock from which they spring (compare Isa. 49:3,53And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. (Isaiah 49:3)
5And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. (Isaiah 49:5)*).
(* In ver. 5, Christ assumes this title of Servant.)
Herod being dead, God makes it known to Joseph, in a dream, commanding him to return, with the young child and its mother, into the land of Israel. We should remark, that the land is here mentioned by the name that recalls the privileges bestowed by God. It is neither Judea nor Galilee; it is the land of Israel. But, can the son of David, in entering it, approach the throne of His fathers? No. He must take the place of a stranger, among the despised of His people. Directed by God, in a dream, Joseph carries Him into Galilee, whose inhabitants were objects of sovereign contempt to the Jews, as not being in habitual connection with Jerusalem and Judea, the land of David, of the kings acknowledged by God, and of the temple, and where even the dialect of the language common to both betrayed their practical separation from that part of the nation who, by the grace of God, had returned to Judea from Babylon.
Even in Galilee, Joseph establishes himself in a place, the very name of which was a reproach to one who dwelt there, and a blot on his reputation.
Such was the position of the Son of God when He came into this world, and such the relations of the Son of David with His people, when, by grace and according to the counsels of God, he stood amongst them. On the one hand, Emmanuel, Jehovah their Savior, on the other, the Son of David; but, while taking His place among His people, associated with the poorest and most despised of the flock, sheltered in Galilee from the iniquity of a false king who, by help of the Gentiles of the fourth monarchy, was reigning in Judea, and with whom the priests and rulers of the people were in connection. The latter, unfaithful to God and dissatisfied with men, proudly detesting a yoke which their sins had brought upon them, and which they dared not shake off, although they were not sufficiently sensible of their sins, to submit to it as the just infliction of God.
Thus is it that the Messiah is presented to us by this Evangelist, or rather by the Holy Ghost, in connection with Israel. We now begin His actual history.
John the Baptist comes to prepare the way of the Lord before Him, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and calling on the people to repent. It is by these three things that John's ministry to Israel is characterized in this Gospel. First, the Lord Jehovah Himself was coming. (The Holy Ghost leaves out the words "for our God," at the end of the verse, because Jesus comes as man, although acknowledged at the same time to be the Lord). In the second place, the kingdom of heaven was at hand,-that new dispensation which was to take the place of the one which, properly speaking, belonged to Sinai, where the Lord had spoken on the earth. In this new dispensation "the heavens should reign." They should be the seat of God's authority in His Christ. Thirdly, the people, instead of being blessed in their present condition, were called to repentance. John, therefore, takes his place in the wilderness, departing from the Jews, with whom he could not associate himself, because he came in the way of righteousness (21:32). His food is that which he finds in the wilderness. Even his prophetic garments, bearing witness to the position which he had taken on the part of God, being filled with the Holy Ghost.
Thus was he a prophet, for he came from God, and addressed himself to the people of God to call them to repentance, and he proclaimed the blessing of God according to the promises of the Lord their God; but he was more than a prophet, for he declared as an immediate thing the introduction of a new dispensation, long expected, and the advent of the Lord in person. At the same time, although coming to Israel, he did not own the people, for they were to be judged; the threshing-floor of the Lord was to be cleansed; the trees that did not bear good fruit to be cut down. It would be a remnant only that the Lord would place in the new position, in the kingdom that he announced, without its being yet revealed in what manner it was to be established. He proclaimed the judgment of the people.
What a fact of immeasurable greatness was the presence of the Lord in the midst of His people, in the person of him who, although He was doubtless to be the fulfillment of all the promises, was necessarily the Judge of all the evil existing among His people.
And the more we give these passages their true application, that is to say, the more we apply them to Israel, the more we apprehend their real force.
No doubt, repentance is an eternal necessity to every soul that approaches God; but, what a light is thrown upon this truth, when we see the intervention of the Lord Himself, who calls His people to this repentance; setting aside-on their refusal-the whole system of their relations with Him, and establishing a new dispensation, a kingdom which only belongs to those who hear Him, -and causing at length His judgment to break forth against His people and the city which-He had so long cherished. "Oh, if thou hadst hearkened even in this thy day, to the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes."
This truth gives room for the exhibition of another and most highly important one, announced here in connection with the sovereign rights of God, rather than in its consequences, but which already contained in itself all those consequences.
The people in general went out to be baptized, confessing their sins. But those who, in their own eyes, held the chief place among the people, were, in the eyes of the prophet, who loved the people according to God, the objects of the judgment he announced. Wrath was impending. Who had warned these scornful men to flee from it? Let them humble themselves like the rest-let them take their true place, and prove their change of heart. To boast in the privileges of their nation or of their fathers, availed nothing before God. He required that which His very nature, His truth, demanded. Moreover, He was sovereign,-He was able of those stones to raise up children to Abraham. This is what His sovereign grace has done, through Christ, with regard to the Gentiles. There was reality needed. The ax was at the root of the trees, and those that were barren should be cut down. This is the great moral principle which the judgment was going to put in force. The blow was not yet struck, but the ax was already at the root of the trees. John was come to bring those who received His testimony into a new position. On their repentance he would distinguish them from the rest by baptism. But He who was coming after John,-He whose shoes John was not worthy to bear,-would thoroughly purge His floor, would separate those that were truly His, morally His, from among His people Israel (that was His floor), and would execute judgment on all the rest. John, on his part, opened the door to repentance beforehand; afterward should come the judgment.
Judgment was not the only work that belonged to Jesus. Two things are, however, attributed to Him in John's testimony. He baptizes with fire,-this is the judgment proclaimed in verse 12, which consumes all that is evil. But He baptizes also with the Holy Ghost, -that divine energy in man, which brings him out from the influence of all that acts on the flesh, and sets him in connection and in communion with all that is revealed of God, with the glory into which He brings His creatures by destroying-morally, in us,-all that is contrary to the enjoyment of these privileges.
Observe here, that the only good fruit recognized by John, as the way of escape, is the sincere confession, through grace, of sin. Those only who make this confession escape the ax. There were no really good trees excepting those which confessed that they were bad.
But what a solemn moment was this for the people beloved of God! What an event was the presence of the Lord in the midst of the nation with whom He stood in relation.
Observe that John the Baptist does not here present the Messiah as the Savior come in grace, but as the Head of the kingdom, as Jehovah, who would execute judgment if the people did not repent. We shall see afterward the position which He took in grace.
In verse 13, Jesus Himself; who until now has been presented as the Messiah, and even as Jehovah, comes to. John to be baptized with the baptism of repentance. We must remember that to come to this baptism, was the only good fruit which a Jew-in his then condition,—could produce. The act proved itself to be the fruit of a work of God-of the vital work of the Holy Ghost. He who repents, confesses that he has previously walked afar from God; so that it is a new movement, the fruit of God's work in him,-of a new life, of the life of the Spirit in his soul. By the very fact of John's mission, there was no other fruit, no other admissible proof of life from God, in a Jew. We are not to infer, from this, that there were none in whom the Spirit acted vitally; but, in this condition of the people, and according to the call of God by His servant, that was the proof of this life, of the turning of the heart to God. These were the true remnant of the people, those whom God acknowledged as such,-and it was thus they were separated from the mass, who were ripening for judgment. These were the true saints-the excellent of the earth; although the self-abasement of repentance could be their only true place. It was there they must begin. When God begins in mercy and in justice, they avail themselves thankfully of the former, confessing it to be their only resource, and they bow their heart before the latter, as the just consequence of the condition of God's people.
Now Jesus presents Himself in the midst of those who do this. Although truly the Lord, Jehovah, the righteous Judge of His people, He who was to purge His floor, He nevertheless takes His place among the faithful remnant, who humble themselves before this judgment. He takes the place of the lowest of His people before God. As in the sixteenth Psalm, He calls the Lord, His Lord, saying unto Him, " My goodness extendeth not to Thee;" and to the saints and the excellent in the earth, " all my delight is in them." Perfect testimony of grace-the Savior identifying Himself; according to this grace, with the first movement of the Spirit in the hearts of His own people, humbling Himself not only in the condescension of grace towards them, but in taking His place as one of them in their true position before God; not merely to comfort their hearts by such kindness, but in order to sympathize, as being really one of them, with all their sorrows and their difficulties; in order to be the pattern, the source, and the perfect expression of every sentiment suitable to their position; and to bring them all into relation with their God according, to the favor which rested on perfectness like His, and on the love which, by taking up His people's cause, satisfied the heart of the Lord, and even made it possible for Him to satisfy Himself with goodness. We know, indeed, that in order to this, the Savior had to lay down His life, because the condition of the Jew, like that of every man, required this sacrifice before either the one or the other could stand in relation with the God of truth. But even for this the love of Jesus did not fail. Here, however, He is leading them to the enjoyment of the blessing which should be securely founded on that sacrifice-blessing which they must reach by the path of repentance, into which they entered by John's baptism; which Jesus received with them, that they might go on together towards the possession of all the good things which the Lord had prepared for them that loved Him.
John, feeling the dignity of the person of Him who came unto him, opposes the Lord's intention. The Holy Ghost by this brings out the true character of the Lord's action. As to Himself; it was righteousness which brought Him there, and not sin. Righteousness which He accomplished in love. He, as well as John the Baptist, fulfilled that which belonged to the place assigned. Him by God. With what condescension He links Himself at the same time with John,-" It becometh us." He is the lowly and obedient servant. It was thus He ever behaved Himself on earth. Moreover, as to His position, grace brought Jesus there, where sin brought us. In confessing sin as it is, in coining before God in our sin, we find ourselves in company with Jesus. This was the case with the poor sinners who came out to John. Thus it was that Jesus took His place in righteousness and obedience among men, and, more exactly, among the repentant Jews. It is in this position of a man righteous, obedient, and fulfilling on earth in perfect humility the work for which He had offered Himself in grace, according to Psa. 40, given Himself up to the accomplishment of all the will of God in complete self-renunciation, that God His Father fully acknowledged. Him and sealed Him, declaring Him on earth to be His well-beloved Son.
Being baptized-that most striking token of the place He had taken with His people, the heavens are opened unto Him, and He sees the Holy Ghost descending on Him like a dove; and lo! a voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
But these circumstances demand attention.
Never were the heavens opened to the earth before the beloved Son was there. God had, doubtless, in His long-suffering and in the way of providence, blessed all His creatures; He had also blessed His own people, according to the rules of His government on earth; besides this, there were the elect, whom He had preserved in. faithfulness; nevertheless, until now the heavens had not been opened. A testimony had been sent by God, in connection with His government of the earth, but there was no object on the earth upon which the eye of God could rest with complacency, until Jesus, sinless and obedient, His beloved Son, stood there. As soon as, in grace, He takes this place of humiliation with Israel, i.e., with the faithful remnant, presenting Himself thus before God, flailing His will, the heavens open upon an object worthy of their attention. Ever, doubtless, was He worthy of their adoration, even before the world was. But now He has just taken this place in the dealings of God, and the heavens open unto Jesus, the object of God's entire affection on the earth. The Holy Ghost descends upon Him visibly. And He, a man on earth, a man taking His place with the meek of the people who repented, is acknowledged as the Son of God. He is not only sealed by God, but as man He is conscious of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him, the seal of the Father set upon Him. Here it is evidently not His divine nature in the character of the eternal Son of the Father. The seal would not even be in conformity with that character. While He is such, He is also a, man, the Son of God, on the earth, and is sealed as man. As man He has the consciousness of the immediate presence of the Holy Ghost with Him. This presence is in connection with the character of lowliness, meekness, and obedience, in which the Lord appeared down here. It is " like a dove," that the Holy Ghost descends upon Him; just as it was in the form of tongues of fire, that He came down upon the heads of the disciples, for their testimony in power in this world, according to the grace which addressed each and every one in his own language.
Remark also that there is no object presented to Jesus, as to Saul, for instance, and, in a still more analogous case, to Stephen, who, being full of the Spirit, sees the heavens opened. But here, Jesus Himself is the object; and the faith of the believer, and the testimony of the Holy Ghost with which he is filled, refer to Him. Jesus is Himself the object over whom the heavens open; it is His relationship with His Father, already existing, which is sealed. Neither does the Holy Ghost create His character (except so far as, with respect to His human nature, He was conceived in the virgin Mary's womb by the power of the Holy Ghost); He had connected Himself with the poor, in the perfection of that character, before He was sealed. Christ acts according to the energy and the power of that which He received without measure in His human life here below. Compare Acts 10:3838How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. (Acts 10:38).
We find in the Word four memorable occasions on which the heavens open. Christ is the object of each of these revelations; each has its especial character.-Here, the Holy Ghost descends upon Him, and He is acknowledged the Son of God. Compare John 1:33,3433And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. 34And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God. (John 1:33‑34). At the end of the same chapter of John, He declares Him- self to be the Son of Man. There it is the angels of God who ascend and descend upon Him. He is the object of their ministry. At the end of the seventh chapter of the Acts, an entirely new scene is opened. The Jews reject the last testimony that God sends them. Stephen, by whom this testimony is rendered, is filled with the Holy Ghost, and the heavens are opened to him. The earthly system was definitely closed by the rejection of the Holy Ghost's testimony to the glory of the ascended 'Christ. But this is not merely a testimony. The Christian, a member of the body of Christ, is filled with the Spirit, heaven is opened to him, the glory of God is manifested to him, and the Son of Man appears to him, standing at the right hand of God. This is a different thing from the heavens open to Jesus, the object of God's delight on earth. It is heaven open to the Christian himself when rejected on earth; and he sees there, by the Holy Ghost, the heavenly glory of God, and Jesus, the Son of Man, the special object of his vision, in the glory of God. The difference is as remarkable as it is interesting, to us; and it exhibits in a most striking manner, the true position of the Christian as on earth, and the change which the rejection of Jesus by His earthly people has produced. Only the church, the union of believers in one body with the Lord, in heaven was riot yet revealed.
Afterward (Rev. 19) heaven opens, and the Lord Himself comes forth, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.
Thus we see Jesus, the Son of God on earth, the object of Heaven's delight, sealed with the Holy Ghost.
Jesus, the Son of Man, the object of the ministry of heaven, angels being His servants.
Jesus on high at the right hand of God, and the believer, full of the Spirit, and suffering here for His sake, beholding the glory on high, and the Son of Man in the glory.
Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, coming forth to judge and make war against the scornful men who dispute His authority, and oppress the earth.
To return: the Father Himself acknowledges Jesus, the obedient Man on earth, who enters as the true Shepherd by the door, as His beloved Son in whom is all His delight. Heaven is opened to Him, He sees the Holy Ghost come down to seal Him, the infallible strength and support of the perfection of His human life; and He has the Father's own testimony to the relationship between them. No object on which His faith could rest, is presented to Him, as it is to us. It is His own relation to heaven and to His Father which is sealed. His soul enjoys it through the descent of the Holy Ghost and the voice of His Father.
Having thus, if I may so speak, taken up His position as man on earth, He commences His earthly career, being led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The righteous Man, the Son of God, enjoying the spiritual privileges proper to such a one, He must undergo the trial of those devices through which the first Adam fell. It is His spiritual condition which is tested. It is not now an innocent man in the enjoyment of all God's natural blessings, who is put to the proof in the midst of those blessings, which should have made him remember God. Christ, nigh to God as His beloved Son, must have his faithfulness to this position fully tried, with respect to His perfect obedience. To maintain this position, He must have no other will than that of His Father, and fulfill it or suffer it, whatever might be the consequences to Himself. He must fulfill it in the midst of all the difficulties, the privations, the isolation, which might tempt Him to follow an easier path than that appointed for the glory of His Father. He must renounce all the rights that belonged to His own person, excepting as He should receive them from God; yielding them up to Him with a perfect trust.
The enemy did his utmost to induce Him to make use of His privileges for His own relief, in order to bear witness to Himself, or to enjoy that which belonged rightly to Him, apart from the command of God, and in avoidance of the sufferings which might accompany the performance of His will.
Jesus, enjoying in His own person the full favor of God, the light of His countenance, goes into the wilderness for forty days, to be in conflict' with the enemy. He did not go away from man, and from all intercourse with man and the things of man, in order (like Moses and Elias) to be with God. Being already fully with God, He is separate from men by the power of the Holy Ghost, to be alone in His conflict with the enemy. In the case of Moses, it was man out of his natural condition, to be with God. In the case of Jesus, it is so to be with the enemy: to be with God was His natural position, the Son of Man also is in heaven.
The enemy tempts Him first by persuading Him to satisfy His bodily need, and, instead of waiting on God, to employ, according to His own will and on His own behalf, the power with which He was endowed. But, if Israel was fed in the wilderness with manna from God, the Son of God, however great His power, would act in accordance with what Israel should have learned by that means, namely, that "man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The Man, the obedient Jew, the Son of God, waited for this word, and would do nothing without it. He was not come to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. This is the principle that characterizes the Spirit of Christ in the Psalms. No deliverance is accepted but the intervention of Jehovah, at His own good time. It is perfect patience, in order to be perfect and complete in all the will of God.
In the second place, the enemy sets Him on a pinnacle of the temple, to induce Him to apply to Himself the promises made to the Messiah, without abiding in the ways of God. The faithful man may assuredly reckon on the help of God while walking in His ways. The enemy would have the Son of Man put God to the test (instead of reckoning on Him while walking in His ways), to see whether He might be trusted in. This would have been a want of confidence in God, and disobedience, and pride, presuming on its privileges, instead of counting on God in obedience. Jesus, always taking His place with Israel in the wilderness (for there remaineth a rest for the people of God), uses for His guidance that part of the Word which contains the instruction for the wilderness on this subject, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
The enemy, failing to deceive that obedient heart, even by hiding himself under the use of the Word of God, shows himself in his true character, tempting the Lord thirdly to. spare Himself all the sufferings that awaited Him, by showing Him the inheritance of the Son of Man on earth, that which would be His, when He had reached it through all those paths, toilsome, yet necessary to the Father's glory, which the Father had marked out for Him. All should now be His, if He would acknowledge Satan by worshipping Him. This, in fact, was what the kings of the earth had done for only a part of these things; but He should have the whole. But if Jesus was to inherit earthly glory (as well as all other), the object of His heart was God Himself, His Father, to glorify Him. Whatever might be the value of the gift, it was as the gift of the Giver that His heart prized it. Moreover, He was in the position of a faithful Israelite; and whatever might be the trial of patience, into which the sin of the people had brought Him, be the trial ever so great, He would serve none but His God alone.
But if the devil carries temptation, sin, to the utmost, and shows himself to be the adversary [Satan], the believer has the right to cast him out. If He comes as a tempter, the believer should answer him by the faithfulness of the Word, which is man's perfect guide, according to the will of God. If he comes as the open adversary of God, the believer has a right to have nothing to do with him.
The believer's safeguard, morally (i.e., as to the state of his heart), is a single eye. If I seek only the glory of God, that which presents no other motive than my own aggrandizement, or my own gratification, whether of body or mind, will have no hold upon me; and will show itself, in the light of the Word, which guides the single eye, as contrary to the mind of God. This is not the haughtiness that rejects temptation on the ground of being good; it is obedience, humbly giving God His place, and, consequently, His Word also. "By the Word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer," from him that did his own will and made it his guide. If the heart seeks God alone, the most subtle snare is discovered, for the enemy never tempts us to seek God alone. But this supposes a pure heart, and that there is no self-seeking. This was displayed in Jesus.
Our safeguard against temptation is the Word, used by the discernment of a perfectly pure heart, which lives in the presence of God, and learns the mind of God in His Word, and therefore knows its application to the circumstances presented. It is the Word that preserves the soul from the wiles of the enemy.
Observe also, that, consequently, it is in this spirit of simple and humble obedience that power lies; for where it exists, Satan can do nothing. God is there, and accordingly the enemy is conquered.
It appears to me that these three temptations are addressed to the Lord in the three characters of man, of Messiah, and of Son of Man.
He had no sinful desires like fallen man, but He was an hungered. The tempter persuades Him to satisfy this need without God.
The promises in the Psalms belonged to Him as being made to the Messiah.
And all the kingdoms of the world were His as the Son of Man.
He always replies as a faithful Israelite, personally responsible to God; making use of the book of Deuteronomy which treats of this subject, namely, the obedience of Israel, in connection with the possession of the land, and the privileges that belonged to the people in connection with this obedience. And this, apart from the organization which constituted them a corporate body before God.
Satan departs from Him, and the angels come to exercise their ministry towards the Messiah, the Son of Man, victorious through obedience.
John being cast into prison, the Lord departs into Galilee. This movement, which determined the scene of His ministry outside Jerusalem and Judea, had great significance with respect to the Jews. The people, so far as centered in Jerusalem, and boasting in possession of the promises, the sacrifices, and the temple, and in being the royal tribe, lost the presence of the Messiah, the Son of David. He went away for the manifestation of His Person, for the testimony of God's intervention in Israel, to the poor and despised of the flock. He thus really became the true Stock, instead of being a Branch of that which had been planted elsewhere; although this effect was not yet fully manifested. We may remark here, that, in John's gospel, the Jews are always distinguished from the multitude. The language, or rather, the pronunciation, was entirely different. They did not speak Chaldee in Galilee.
At the same time, this manifestation of the Son of David in Galilee, was the fulfillment of a prophecy in Isaiah. The force of that prophecy is this:-although the Roman captivity was far more terrible than the invasions of the Assyrians when they came up against the land of Israel, there was, nevertheless, this circumstance, which altered everything, namely, the presence of the Messiah, of the true Light, in the land.
We observe that the Spirit of God here passes over the whole history of Jesus until the commencement of His ministry after the death of John the Baptist. He gives Jesus his proper position in the midst of Israel-Emmanuel, the Son of David, the Beloved of God, acknowledged His Son, the faithful One in Israel, though exposed to all Satan's temptations; afterward, His prophetic position, announced by Isaiah, and the kingdom proclaimed as at hand.
He then gathers around Him those who were definitively to follow Him in His ministry and His temptations; and, at His call, to link their portion and their lot with His, forsaking all beside.
The strong man was bound, so that Jesus could spoil his goods, and proclaim the kingdom with proofs of that power which was able to establish it.
Two things are then brought forward in the Gospel narrative. 1st. The power which accompanies the proclamation of the kingdom. In two or three verses, without other detail, this fact is announced. The proclamation of the kingdom is attended with acts of power that excite the attention of the whole country, the whole extent of the ancient territory of Israel. Jesus appears before them invested with this power. 2ndly. The character of the kingdom is announced in the Sermon on the Mount, as well as that of the persons who should have part in it.
It is evident, that in all this part of the Gospel, it is the Lord's position which is the subject of the teaching of the Spirit, and not the details of His life. The details come after, in order fully to exhibit what He was in the midst of Israel, His relations with that people, and the conduct and spirit which led to the rupture between the Son of David and the people who ought to have received Him. The attention of the whole country being thus engaged by His mighty acts, the Lord sets before His disciples-but in the hearing of the people-the principles of His kingdom.
This discourse may be divided into the following parts:-
Chapter 5:1-16, contains the complete picture of the character and position of the remnant who received His instructions. Their position, as it should be, according to the mind of God. This is complete in itself.
Ver. 17-48 establishes the authority of the law, which should have regulated the conduct of the faithful until the introduction of the kingdom, the law which they ought to have fulfilled, as well as the words of the prophets, in order that they (the remnant) should be placed on this new ground; and the despisal of which would exclude whoever was guilty of it from the kingdom. But'while thus establishing the authority of the law, He gives, by enhancing its exigencies, that which was to be the conduct of His disciples, their moral law-that which was to characterize them as such. Instead of weakening that which God required under the law, He would not only have it observed until its fulfillment, but that His disciples should be perfect even as their Father in heaven was perfect. This adds the revelation of the Father to the exigencies of the law specifically understood.
Chapter 6-We have the motives, the object, which should govern the heart in doing good deeds, in living a religious life. Their eye should be on their Father. This is individual.
Chapter 7-This chapter is essentially occupied with the intercourse that would be suitable between His own people and others-not to judge their brethren,-to beware of the profane. He then exhorts them to confidence in asking their Father for what they needed, and instructs them to act towards others with the same grace that they would wish shown to themselves. This is founded on the knowledge of the goodness of the Father. Finally, He exhorts them to the energy that will enter in at the strait gate, and choose the way of God, cost what it may; for many would like to enter into the kingdom, but not by that gate; and He warns them with respect to those who would seek to deceive them, by pretending to have the word of God. It is not only our own hearts that we have to fear, and positive evil, when we would follow the Lord; but also the devices of the enemy and his agents. But their fruits will betray them.)
The character and the portion of those who should be in the kingdom (5:1-12).
Their position in the world (13-16).
The connection between the principles of the kingdom and the law (17-48).
The spirit in which His disciples should perform good works (6:1-18).
Separation from the spirit of the world and from its anxieties (19-34).
The spirit of their relation with others (7:1-6).
The confidence in God which became them (7-12).
The energy that should characterize them, in order that they might enter into the kingdom, and the means of discerning those who would seek to deceive them, as well as the watchfulness needed that they might not be deceived (12-23).
Real and practical obedience to His sayings, the true wisdom of those that heard His words (23-29).
There is another principle that characterizes this discourse, and that is the introduction of the Father's name. Jesus puts his disciples in connection with His Father, as their Father. He reveals to them the Father's name, in order that they may be in relation with Him, and that they may act in accordance to that which He is.
This discourse gives the principles of the kingdom, but supposes the rejection of the King, and the position into which this would bring those that were His; who, consequently, must look for a heavenly reward. They would be a spectacle to the whole world; moreover, this was God's object. Their confession was to be so open that the world should refer their works to the Father. They were to act, not merely according to the spirituality of the law, but according to the Father's character in grace; to approve themselves to the Father, who saw in secret, where the eye of man could not penetrate. They were to have full confidence in Him for all their need. His will was the rule according to which there was entrance into the kingdom.
We may observe that this discourse is connected with the proclamation of the kingdom, as being near at hand, and that all these principles of conduct are given as characterizing the kingdom, and as the conditions of entrance into it. Beyond doubt, it follows that they are suitable to those who have entered in. But the discourse is pronounced in the midst of Israel, to set forth the fundamental principles of the kingdom, in connection with that people, and in moral contrast with the ideas they had formed respecting it.
In examining the beatitudes, we shall find that this portion in general gives the character of Christ Himself.
They suppose two things: the possession of the land of Israel by the meek, and the persecution of the faithful remnant who asserted the rights of the true King; heaven being set before them as their hope, to sustain their hearts.
This will be the position of the remnant in the last days, before the introduction of the kingdom. It was so, morally, in the days of the Lord's disciples, in reference to Israel, the earthly part being delayed. In reference to heaven, the disciples are looked at as witnesses in Israel, but-the only preservative of the earth-they were a testimony to the world. So that the disciples are seen as in connection with Israel, but, at the same time, as witnesses on God's part to the world; the kingdom being in view, but not yet established. The connection with the last days is evident; nevertheless, their testimony in those days had, morally, this character. Only the establishment of the earthly kingdom has been delayed, and the church, which is heavenly, brought in. Chapter 5:25, evidently alludes to the position of Israel in the days of Christ. In fact, they remain captive, in prison, until they have received their full chastisement, and then they shall come forth.
The Lord ever speaks and acts as the obedient man, moved and guided by the Holy Ghost; but we see, in the most striking manner, in this Gospel, who it is that acts thus. And it is this which gives its true moral character to the kingdom of heaven. John the Baptist might announce it as a change of dispensation, but his ministry was earthly; Christ might equally announce this same truth; and that change was all-important; but in Him there was more than this. He was from heaven, the Lord who came from heaven. In speaking of the kingdom of heaven, He spoke out of the deep and divine abundance of His heart. No man had been in heaven, excepting He who had come down from thence, the Son of man who was in heaven. Therefore, when speaking of heaven, He spoke of that which He knew, and testified of that which He had seen. This was the case in two ways, as shown forth in Matthew's Gospel. It was no longer an earthly government according to the law; Jehovah, the Savior, Emmanuel, was present. Could He be otherwise than heavenly in His character, in the tone, the essence of His whole life? Moreover, when He began His public ministry, and was sealed by the Holy Ghost, heaven was opened to Him, He was identified with heaven as a man sealed with the Holy Ghost on earth. He was thus the continual expression of the Spirit, of the reality, of heaven. There was not yet the exercise of the judicial power which would uphold this character, in the face of all that opposed it. It was its manifestation in patience, notwithstanding the opposition of all around Him, and the inability of His disciples to understand Him. Thus, in the Sermon on the Mount, we find the description of that which was suitable to the kingdom of heaven, and even the assurance of reward in heaven for those who should suffer on earth for His sake. This description, as we have seen, is, essentially, the character of Christ Himself. It is thus that a heavenly spirit expresses itself on earth. If the Lord taught these things, it is because He loved them, because He was them, and delighted in them. Being the God of heaven, filled, as man, with the Spirit without measure, His heart was perfectly in unison with a heaven that He perfectly knew. Consequently, therefore, He concludes the character which his disciples were to assume, by these words,-" Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." All their conduct was to be in reference to their Father in. heaven. The more we understand the divine glory of Jesus, the more we understand the way in which He was, as man, in connection with heaven, the better shall we apprehend what the kingdom of heaven was to Him, with regard to that which was suitable to it. When it shall be established hereafter in power, the world will be governed according to these principles, although they are not, properly speaking, its own.
The remnant in the last days, I doubt not, finding all around them contrary to faithfulness, and seeing all Jewish hope fail before their eyes, will be forced to look upward, and will more and more acquire this character, which, if not heavenly, is at least very much conformed to Christ.
AT 55:1.-There are two things connected with the presence of the multitude. First, the time required that the Lord should give a true idea of the character of His kingdom, since already He drew the multitude after Him. His power making itself felt, it was important to make His character known. On the other hand, this multitude who were following Jesus, were a snare to His disciples; and He makes them understand what an entire contrast there was between the effect which this multitude might have upon them, and the right spirit which ought to govern them. Thus full himself of what was really good, He immediately brings forward that which filled His own heart. This was the true character of the remnant, who, in the main, resembled Christ in it. It is often thus in the Psalms.
The salt of the earth is a different thing from the light of the world. The earth, it appears to me, expresses that which already professed to have received light from God -that which was in relation with Him by virtue of the light-having assumed a definite shape before Him. The disciples of Christ were the preservative principle in the earth. They were the light of the world, which did not possess that light. This was their position, whether they would or no. It was the purpose of God that they should be the light of the world. A candle is not lighted in order to be hidden.
All this supposes the case of the possibility of the kingdom being established in the world; but the opposition of the greater part of men to its establishment. It is not a question of the sinner's redemption, but of the realization of one character of reconciliation with God; that which the sinner ought to seek while he is in the way with his adversary, lest he should be delivered to the judge-which, indeed, has happened to the Jews.
At the same time, the disciples are brought into relation with the Father, individually, and a yet more excellent thing is set before them than their position of testimony for the kingdom. They were to act in grace, even as their Father acted, and their prayer should be for an order of things in which all would correspond morally to the character and the will of their Father. " Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come," is, that all should answer to the character of the Father, that all should be the effect of His power. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," is, perfect obedience. Universal subjection to God in heaven and earth, will be, to a certain point, accomplished by the intervention of Christ in the Millennium, and absolutely so, when God shall be all in all. Meanwhile, the prayer expresses daily dependence, the need of pardon, the need of being kept from the power of the enemy, the desire of not being sifted by him, as a dispensation of God, like Job or Peter, and of being preserved from evil.
This prayer, also, is adapted to the position of the remnant; it passes over the dispensation of the Spirit, and even that which is proper to the Millennium, in order to speak of the condition and the dangers of the remnant, until the Father's kingdom should come. Many of these principles are always true, for we are in the kingdom, and, in spirit, we ought to manifest its features; but the special and literal application is that which I have given. They are brought into relation with the Father with respect to His character, which was to be displayed in them by virtue of this relation, causing them to desire the establishment of His kingdom, to overcome the difficulties of an opposing world, to keep themselves from the snares of the enemy, and to do the Father's will. It was Jesus who could impart this to them. He 'thus passes from the law, recognized as coming from God, to its fulfillment, when it shall be, as it were, absorbed in the will of Him who gave it, or accomplished in its purposes by Him who alone could do so in any sense whatever.
Then, in the eighth chapter, the Lord begins in the midst of Israel His patient life of testimony, which closed with His rejection by the people whom God had so long preserved for Him.
He had proclaimed the kingdom, displayed His power throughout the land, and declared His character, as well as the spirit of those who should enter the kingdom.
But His miracles, as well as the whole gospel, are always characterized by His position among the Jews. Jehovah, yet the man obedient to the law, foreshowing the entrance of the Gentiles into the kingdom of the Father, and while detecting, as the effect of His presence, the perversity of the people, yet bearing on His heart, with perfect patience, the burden of Israel.
First of all, we find the healing of a leper. Jehovah alone, in His sovereign goodness, could heal the leper. Here, Jesus does so. "If thou wilt," says the leper, "thou canst." "I will," replies the Lord. But, at the same time, He spews forth in His own person, that which repels all possibility of defilement, that which is above the sin; and the most perfect condescension towards the defiled one. He touches the leper, saying, "I will, be thou clean." We see the grace, the power, the undefileable holiness of Jehovah, come down, in the person of Jesus, to the closest proximity to the sinner. It was indeed "The Lord that healeth thee." At the same time, He conceals Himself, and commands the man who had been healed to go to the priest, according to the ordinances of the law, and offer his gift. It is the Jew in subjection to the law.
But, in the next case, we see a Gentile who, by faith, has the full enjoyment of the effect of that power which his faith ascribed to Jesus, giving the Lord occasion to bring out the solemn truth, that many of these poor Gentiles should come and sit down in the kingdom of heaven with the fathers who were honored by the Jewish nation as the first parents of the heirs of promise, while the children of the kingdom should be in outer darkness.
In fact, the faith of this centurion acknowledged a divine power in Jesus, which, by the glory of Him that possessed it, would (not forsake Israel, but) open the door to the Gentiles, and graft into the olive-tree of promise, branches of the wild olive-tree, in the place of those which should be cut off. The manner in which this should take place in the church, was not now the question. He does not yet forsake Israel. He goes into Peter's house, and heals his wife's mother. He does the same to all the sick, who crowd, at even, around the house. They are healed, the devils are cast out, so that -the prophecy of Isaiah was being fulfilled: " Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." Jesus put Himself, in heart, under the weight of all the sorrows that oppressed Israel, in order to relieve and heal them. It is still Emmanuel, who feels for their misery, and is afflicted in all their affliction, but who has come in with the power that shows Him capable of delivering them.
These three cases show this character of His Ministry In a clear and striking manner. He hides Himself; for, until the moment when He would show judgment to the Gentiles, He does not lift up His voice in the streets. It is the dove that rests upon Him. These manifestations of power attract men to Him; but this does not deceive Him; He never departs in spirit from the place He has -taken. He is the despised and the rejected of men, He `has nowhere to lay His head; the earth had more room for the foxes and the birds than for Him, whom we have seen appear, a moment before, as the Lord; acknowledged at least by the necessities which he never refused to relieve. Therefore, if any man would follow Him, he must forsake all, to be the companion of the Lord, who would not have come down to the earth if everything had not been in question; nor without His presence thoroughly testing everything; nor without an absolute right, although it was, at the same time, in a love which could only be occupied by its mission and by the necessity that brought Him there. The Lord on earth was everything or nothing. This, it is true, was to be felt, morally, in its effects, in the grace, which, acting by faith, united the believer to Him by an ineffable bond. Without this, the heart would not have been, morally, put to the test. But this did not make it the less true. Accordingly, the proofs of this were present; the winds and waves, to which, in the eye of man, He seemed to. be exposed, obeyed His voice at once; a striking reproof to the unbelief that woke Him from His sleep, and had supposed it possible for the waves to engulph Him, and with Him the counsels and the power of Him who had created the winds and waves. It is evident that this storm was permitted, in order to try their faith, and manifest the dignity of His person. If the enemy was the instrument who produced it, he only succeeded in making the Lord display His glory. Such indeed is always the case.
Now, the reality of this power and the manner of its operation are forcibly proved by that which follows.
The Lord disembarks in the country of the Gergesenes. There, the power of the enemy shows itself in all its horrors. If man, to whom the Lord was come in grace, did not know Him, the devils knew their Judge in the person of the Son of God. The man was possessed by them. The fear they had of torment at the judgment of the last day, is applied in the man's mind to the immediate presence of the Lord: " Art thou come to torment us before the time?" Wicked spirits act on men by the dread of their power; they have none unless they are feared. But faith only can take this fear from man. I am not speaking of the lusts on which they act; I speak of the power of the enemy. Here, the devils wished to manifest the reality of this power. The Lord permits it, in order to make it plain, that in this world it is not merely man that is in question, whether good or bad, but that also which is stronger than man. The devils enter into the swine, which perish in the waters. Sorrowful reality, plainly demonstrated, that it was no. question of mere disease or of sinful lusts, but of wicked spirits. However, thanks be to God! it was a question also of One who, although a man on earth, was more powerful than they. They are compelled to acknowledge this power, and they appeal to it. There is no idea of resistance. He completely delivers the man whom they had oppressed with their evil power. The power of the devils was nothing before Him. He could have delivered the world from all the power of the enemy, and from all the ills of humanity, the strong man was bound, and the Lord spoiled his goods. But the presence of God, of Jehovah, troubles the world even more than the power of the enemy degrades and domineers over mind and body. The control of the enemy over the heart-too peaceful, and, alas! too little perceived-is more mighty than his strength. This succumbs before the word of Jesus, but the will of man accepts the world as it is, governed loy the influence of Satan. The whole city who had witnessed the deliverance of the demoniac, and the power of Jesus present among them, entreat Him to depart. Sad history of the world! The Lord came down with power to deliver the world, man, from all the power of the enemy, but they would not. Their distance from God was moral, and not merely bondage to the enemy's power. They submitted to his yoke, they had become used to it, and they would not have the presence of God.
I doubt not that that which happened to the swine, is a figure of that which happened to the impious and profane "Jews, who rejected the Lord Jesus.
Afterward, the Lord acts in the character and according to the power of Jehovah (as we read in Psa. 103), " Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases." He thus presents Himself to Israel as their true Redeemer and Deliverer; and to prove His title (which unbelief already opposed) to be this blessing to Israel, and to pardon all their iniquities that raised a barrier between them and their God, He accomplishes the second part of the verse, and heals the disease. Beautiful and precious testimony of kindness to Israel; and, at the same time, the demonstration of His glory who stood in the midst of His people.
But now we enter on another portion of the instruction in this gospel: the development of the opposition of unbelievers, of the learned men and the religionists in particular; and that of the rejection of the work and person of the Lord.
The idea, the picture of that which took place, has been already set before us in the case of the Gergesene demoniac. The power of God present, for the entire deliverance of His people, of the world, if they received Him, power which the devils confessed to be that which should hereafter judge and cast them out which displayed itself in blessing to all the people of the place, but which was rejected, because they did not desire such power to dwell among them; they would not have the presence of God.
AT 8The narration of the details and the character of this rejection, now commences. Observe that chap. 8:1-27, gives the manifestation of the Lord's power-this, power being truly that of Jehovah on the earth. From the twenty-eighth verse, the reception this power met with in the world, and the influence which governed the world, are set forth; whether as power, or morally in. the hearts of men.
We come here to the historical development of the rejection of this intervention of God upon the earth.
The multitude glorify God who had given such power to a man. Jesus accepts this place. He was man, the multitude saw Him to be man, and acknowledged the power of God, but did not know how to combine the two ideas in His person.
The grace which contemns the pretensions of man to righteousness, is now set forth.
Matthew, the publican, is called; for God looks at the heart, and grace calls the elect vessels.
The Lord declares the mind of God on this subject, and His own mission. He came to call sinners. He would have mercy. It was God in grace, and not man with his pretended righteousness counting on his merits.
He assigns two reasons which make it impossible to, reconcile His course with the demands of the Pharisees. How should they fast when the Bridegroom was there? When the Messiah was gone, they might well do so. Moreover, it is impossible to introduce the new principles and the new power of His mission, into the old Pharisaic forms.
Afterward, being entreated to raise up a young girl from her bed of death, He obeys the call. As He goes, a poor woman, who had already employed every means of cure without success, is instantaneously healed by touching, in faith, the hem of His garment.
This history supplies us with the two great divisions of the grace that was manifested in Jesus. Christ came to awaken dead Israel. He will do this hereafter in the full sense of the word. Meanwhile whosoever laid hold of Him by faith, in the midst of the multitude that accompanied Him, was healed, let the case be ever so, hopeless. This, which took place in Israel when Jesus was there, is true, in principle, of us also. Grace in Jesus, is a power which raises from the dead, and which heals. Thus, He opened the eyes of those in Israel who owned him to be the Son of David, and who believed in His power to meet their need. He cast out devils also, and gave speech to the dumb. But having performed these acts of power in Israel, the Pharisees, the most religious part of the nation, ascribe this power to prince of the devils. Such is the effect of the Lord's presence on the leaders of the people, jealous of his glory thus manifested among those over whom they exercised their influence. But this in no way interrupts Jesus in His career of beneficence. He can still bear testimony among the people. In spite of the Pharisees, His patient kindness still finds place. He continues to preach and to heal. He has compassion on the people, who were like sheep without a shepherd, given up, morally, to their own guidance. He still sees that the harvest is plenteous and the laborers few. That is to say, He still sees every door open to address the people, and He passes over the wickedness of the Pharisees. So long as God gives Him access to the people, He continues His labor of love. Nevertheless, He was conscious of the iniquity that governed the people, although He did not seek His own glory. Having exhorted His disciples to pray that laborers might be sent into the harvest, He begins to act in accordance with that desire. He calls His twelve disciples, He gives them power to cast out devils and to heal the sick, and He sends them to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We see, in this mission, how much the ways of God with Israel, form the subject of this gospel. They were to announce to that people, and to them exclusively, the nearness of the kingdom; exercising at the same time the power they had received. A striking testimony to Him who was come, and who could not only work miracles Himself, but confer power on others to do so likewise. He gave them authority over evil spirits for this purpose. It is this which characterizes the kingdom-man healed of all sickness, and the devil cast out. Accordingly, in Heb. 6, miracles are called " The powers of the world to come."
They were also, with respect to their need, to depend entirely on Him who sent them. If miracles were a proof to the world of their Master's power, the fact that they lacked nothing, should be so to their own hearts. This ordinance was abrogated during that period of their ministry, which followed the departure of Jesus from this world (Luke 22:35-3735And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing. 36Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. 37For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. (Luke 22:35‑37)). That which He here (Matt. 10) commands His disciples, appertains to His presence as the Messiah, as Jehovah Himself, on the earth. Therefore the reception of His messengers, or their rejection, decided the fate of those to whom they were sent. In rejecting them, they rejected the Lord, Emmanuel, God with His people. But, in fact, He sent them forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. They would need the wisdom of serpents, and were to exhibit the harmlessness of doves: rare union of virtues, found only in those who, by the Spirit of the Lord, are wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil.
If they did not beware of men, (sad testimony to these), they could but suffer; but when scourged and brought before councils and governors and kings, all this should become a testimony unto them: a divine means of presenting the gospel of the kingdom to kings and princes without altering its character, or accommodating it to the world, or mixing up the Lord's people with its usages and its false greatness. Moreover, circumstances like these, made their testimony much more conspicuous than association with the great ones of the earth would have done.
And to accomplish this, they should receive such power and guidance from the Spirit of their Father, as would cause the words they spoke to be not their own words, but His who inspired them. Here, again, their relation with their Father, which so distinctly characterizes the sermon on the mount, is made the basis of their capacity for the service they had to perform. We must remember that this testimony was addressed to Israel only; only that Israel being under the yoke of the Gentiles, since the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the testimony would reach their rulers.
But this testimony would excite an opposition that should break all family ties, and awaken a hatred that would not spare the life of those who had been the most beloved. He who in spite of all this should endure to the end, should be saved. Nevertheless, the case was urgent. They were not to resist, but if the opposition took the form of persecution, they were to go and preach the gospel elsewhere, for before they had gone over the cities of Israel, the Son of man should come. They were to proclaim the kingdom. The Lord, Emmanuel, was there, in the midst of His people, and the heads of the people had called the master of the house Beelzebub. This had not stopped His testimony, but it very strongly characterized the circumstances in which this testimony was to be rendered. He sent them forth, warning them of this state of things, to maintain this final testimony among His beloved people as long as possible. This took place at that time, and it is possible, if circumstances permit, to carry it on until the Son of man comes to execute judgment. Then the master of the house will have risen up to shut the door. The "to-day" of Psa. 95 will be over. Israel, in possession of their cities, being the object of this testimony, it is necessarily suspended when they are no longer in their land. The testimony to the future kingdom, given in Israel by the Apostles after the Lord's death, is an accomplishment of this mission, so far as this testimony was rendered in the land of Israel: for the kingdom might be proclaimed as to be established, while Emmanuel was on the earth; or it might be by Christ returning from heaven, as announced by Peter in the third of Acts. And this, even until Christ should return. Thus, the testimony may be resumed in Israel, whenever they are again in their land, and the requisite spiritual power is given by God.
Meanwhile, the disciples were to share in Christ's own position. If they called the master of the house Beelzebub, much more they of His household. But they were not to fear. It was the necessary portion of those who were for God in the midst of the people. But there was nothing hid that should not be revealed. They themselves were to hold nothing back, but were to proclaim on the house-tops all that they had been taught; for everything should be brought into the light; their faithfulness to God in this respect as well as all other things. Therefore were they to fear nothing while performing this work, unless it were God Himself, the righteous Judge at the last day. Moreover, the hairs of their head were numbered. They were precious to their Father, who took notice of even a sparrow's death.
Finally, they were to be thoroughly imbued with the conviction that the Lord was not come to send peace on the earth; no, it should be division, even in the bosom of families. But Christ was to be more precious than father or mother, and even than a man's own life. He who would save his life at the expense of his testimony to Christ, should lose it. He who would lose it for the sake of Christ, should gain it. He also who should receive this testimony, in the person of the disciples, received Christ, and, in Christ, Him that sent Him. God, therefore, being thus acknowledged in the person of His witnesses on earth, would bestow on whoever received the latter, a reward according to the testimony rendered. In thus acknowledging the testimony of the rejected Lord, were it only by a cup of cold water, he who gave it should not lose his reward. In an opposing world, he who believes the testimony of God, and receives (in spite of the world) the man who bears this testimony, really confesses God, as well as His servant. It is all that we can do. The rejection of Christ made Him a test, a touchstone. From that hour, we find the definitive judgment of the nation.
This judgment is unfolded, not by the cessation of Christ's ministry, which wrought, notwithstanding the opposition of the nation, in gathering out the remnant, and in the still more important effect of the manifestation of Emmanuel. It is unfolded in the character of His discourses; in the positive declarations which describe the condition of the people; and in the Lord's conduct, amid circumstances which gave rise to the expression of the relations in which He stood toward them.
AT 11In chap 11, having sent His disciples away to preach, He continues the exercise of His own ministry.
The report of the works of Christ reaches John in prison. He, in whose heart, notwithstanding his prophetic gift, there still remained something of Jewish thoughts and hopes, sends by his disciples to ask Jesus if He is the One who should come, or if they were still to look for another. God allowed this question, in order to put everything in its place. Christ, being the Word of God, ought to be His own witness; He ought to bear testimony to Himself as well as to John, and not to receive testimony from the latter; and this He did in the presence of John's disciples. He healed all the diseases of men, and preached the gospel to the poor; and John's messengers were to set before him this true testimony of what Jesus was. John was to receive it. It was by these things men were tested; blessed was he who should not he offended at the lowly exterior of the King of Israel. God, manifest in the flesh, did not come to seek the pomp of royalty, although it was His due, but the deliverance of suffering men. His work revealed a character much more profoundly divine, which had a spring of action far more glorious than that which depended on the possession of the throne of David; than a deliverance which would have set John at liberty, and put an end to the tyranny that had imprisoned him. To undertake this ministry, to go down into the scenes of its exercise, to bear the sorrows and the burdens of His people, might be an occasion of stumbling to a carnal heart that was looking for the appearance of a glorious kingdom, which would satisfy the pride of Israel. But was it not more truly divine, more necessary to the condition of the people, as seen of God? The heart of each one, therefore, would be thus tested, to show whether he belonged to that remnant who discerned the ways of God, or to the proud multitude who only sought their own glory, possessing neither a conscience exercised before God, nor the sense of their need and misery.
Having set John under the responsibility of receiving this testimony, which put all Israel to the test, and distinguished the remnant from the nation in general; the Lord then bears witness to John himself, addressing the multitude and reminding them how they had followed the preaching of John. He shows the exact point to which Israel had come in the ways of God. The introduction of the kingdom made the difference between that which preceded and that which followed. Among all that are born of woman there had been none greater than John the Baptist, none who had been so near the Lord, none who had rendered Him a m ore exact and complete testimony, who had been so separate from all evil by the power of the Spirit of God, a separation proper to the fulfillment of such a mission among the people of God. Still, he had not been in the kingdom; it was not yet established; and, to be in the presence of Christ, in His kingdom, enjoying the result of the establishment of His glory, was a greater thing than all testimony to the coming of the kingdom.
Nevertheless, from the time of John the Baptist, there was a notable change. From that time the kingdom was announced. It was not established, but it was preached. This was a very different thing from the prophecies that spoke of the kingdom for a yet distant period, while recalling the people to the law as given by Moses. The Baptist went before the King, announcing the nearness of the kingdom, and commanding the Jews to repent, that they might enter into it. Thus the law and the prophets spoke, on God's part, until John. The law was the rule, the prophets, maintaining the rule, strengthened the hopes and the faith of the remnant.
Now, the energy of the Spirit impelled men to force their way through every difficulty and all the opposition of the leaders of the nation and of a blinded people, that they might, at all costs, attain the kingdom of a King rejected by the blind unbelief of those who should have received Him. It needed, seeing that the King had come in humiliation, and that He had been rejected, it needed this violence to enter the kingdom.
If faith could really penetrate the mind of God therein, John was the Elias who should come. He that had ears to hear, let him hear. It was in fact for those only.
Had the kingdom appeared in the glory and in the power of its Head, violence would not have been necessary; it would have been possessed as the certain effect of that power; but it was the will of God that they should morally be tested. It was thus also that they ought to have received Elias in spirit.
The result is given in the Lord's words which follow; i.e. the true character of this generation, and the ways of God in relation to the person of Jesus, manifested by His rejection itself. As a generation, die threatenings of justice and the attractions of grace, were equally lost upon them. The children of wisdom, those whose consciences were taught of God, acknowledged the truth of John's testimony, and the grace, so necessary to the guilty, of the ways of Jesus. John, separate from the iniquity of the nation, had in their eyes a devil. Jesus, kind to the most wretched, they accused of falling in with evil ways.
Yet the evidence was powerful enough to have subdued the heart of a Tire or a Sodom; and the righteous rebuke of the Lord warns the perverse and unbelieving nation of a more terrible judgment than that which awaited the pride of Tire or the corruption of Sodom.
But this was a test for the most favored of mankind. It might have been said, Why was the message not sent to Tire, ready to hearken? why not to Sodom, that that city might have escaped the fire that consumed it? It is that man must be tested in every way, that the perfect counsels of God may be developed. If Tire and Sodom had abused the advantages which a God of creation and of Providence had heaped upon them, the Jews were to manifest what was in the heart of man when possessing all the promises, and made the depositaries of all the oracles of God.
They boasted of the gift, and departed from the Giver. Their blinded heart acknowledged not, and even rejected their God.
The Lord felt the contempt of His people whom He loved; but, as the obedient man on earth, He submitted to the will of His Father, who, acting in sovereignty, the Lord of heaven and earth, manifested, in the exercise of this sovereignty, His divine wisdom and the perfection of His character. Jesus accepts the will of His Father in its effects, and thus subject, sees it to be perfection.
It was befitting, that God should, reveal to the lowly all the gifts of His grace in Jesus, this Emmanuel on earth; and that he should hide them from the pride that sought to scrutinize and to judge them.
The truth was, that His person was too glorious to be fathomed or understood by man; although His words and His works left the nation without excuse, in their refusal to come unto Him that they might know the Father.
Jesus, subject to His Father's will, although thoroughly sensible of all that was painful to His heart in its effects, sees the whole extent of the glory that should follow His rejection.
All things were delivered unto Him of His Father. It is the Son who is unfolded to our faith, the veil that covered His glory being taken away, now that He is rejected as Messiah. No one knoweth Him but the Father. Who among the proud could fathom what he was? He who from all eternity was one with the Father, become man, surpassed, in the deep mystery of His being, all knowledge save that of the Father Himself. The impossibility of knowing Him who had emptied Himself to become man, maintained the certainty, the reality, of His divinity, which this self-renunciation might have hidden from the eyes of unbelief. The incomprehensibility of a being in a finite form, revealed the infinite which was therein. His divinity was guaranteed to faith, against the effect of His humanity on the mind of man. But if no one knew the Son, except the Father only, the Son who is truly God, was able to reveal the Father. No man has ever seen God. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed Him. No one knows the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him. Wretched ignorance, that in its pride rejects Him! It was thus according to the good pleasure of the Son that this revelation was made. Distinctive attribute of divine perfection. He came for this purpose; He did it according to His own wisdom. Such was the truth of man's relations with Him, although He submitted to the painful humiliation of being rejected by his own people.
Observe also here, that this principle, this truth, with regard to Christ, opens the door to the Gentiles, to all who should be called. He reveals the Father to whomsoever He will. He always seeks the glory of His Father. He alone can reveal Him. He, to whom the Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, has delivered all things. The Gentiles are included in the rights conferred by this title; even every family in heaven and earth. Christ exercises these rights in grace, calling whom He will to the knowledge of the Father.
Thus we find here-the perverse and faithless generation; a remnant of the nation, justifying the wisdom of God as manifested in John and in Jesus; the sentence of judgment on the unbelievers; the rejection of Jesus in the character in which He had presented Himself to the nation; and His perfect submission, as man, to the will of His Father in this rejection, giving occasion for the manifestation to His soul of the glory proper to Him as Son of God-a glory which no man could know even as He alone could reveal that of the Father. So that the world was in total ignorance, save at the good pleasure of Him who delights in revealing the Father.
We should also remark here, that the mission of the disciples to Israel, who rejected Christ, continues (if Israel be in the land), until He comes as the Son of Man;-His title of judgment and of glory as heir of all things; that is to say, until the judgment by which He takes possession of the land of Canaan, in a power that leaves no room for His enemies. This, His title of judgment and of glory as heir of all things, is mentioned in John 5, Dan. 7, Psa. 8 and 80. Observe too, that in chap. 11 the perverseness of the generation that had rejected John's testimony, and that of the Son of Man, come in grace, and associating Himself in grace, with the Jews, opens the door to the testimony of the glory of the Son of God, and to the revelation of the Father by Him in sovereign grace-a grace that could make Him known as efficaciously to a poor Gentile as to a Jew. It was no longer a question of responsibility to receive, but of sovereign grace that imparted to whomsoever it would. Jesus knew man, the world, the generation which had enjoyed the greatest advantages of all that were in the world. There was no place for the foot to rest on in the miry slough of that which had departed from God. In the midst of a world of evil, Jesus remained the sole revealer of the Father, the source of all good. Whom does He call? What does He bestow on those who come? Only source of blessing, and revealer of the Father, He calls all those who are weary and heavy laden. Perhaps they did not know the spring of all misery, namely, separation from God, sin. He knew, and He alone could heal them. If it was the sense of sin which burdened them, so much the better. Every way the world no longer satisfied their heart; they were miserable, and therefore the objects of the heart of Jesus. Moreover, He would give them rest. He does not here explain by what means. He simply announces the fact. The love of God which, in grace, in the person of the Son, sought out the wretched, would bestow rest, not merely alleviation, or sympathy, but rest, to every one that came to Jesus. It was the perfect revelation of the Father's name to the heart of those that needed it; and that by the Son. Peace, peace with God. They had but to come to Christ; He undertook all the rest. But there is a second element in rest. There is more than peace through the knowledge of the Father in Jesus; and more than that is needed, for even when the soul is perfectly at peace with God, this world presents many causes of trouble to the heart. In these cases, it is a question of submission or of self-will. Christ, in the consciousness of His rejection, in the deep sorrow caused by the unbelief of the cities in which He had wrought so many miracles, had just manifested the most entire submission to His Father, and had found therein perfect rest to His soul. To this He calls all that heard Him, all that felt the need of rest to their own souls. Take my yoke upon you, learn of me, that is to say, the yoke of entire submission to His Father's will, learning of Him how to meet the troubles of life; for He was meek and lowly in heart, content to be in the lowest place at the will of His God. In fact, nothing can overthrow one who is there. It is the place of perfect rest to the heart.
AT 12Chapter 12 The rejection of the nation, in consequence of their contempt of the Lord, is plainly shown here in detail, as well as the cessation of all His relations with them as a nation, in order to bring out, on God's part, an entirely different system, that is to say, the kingdom in a particular form.
The first circumstance that brought forward the question of His person, and of His right to close the dispensation, was the disciples plucking the ears of corn and crushing them in their hands, to satisfy their hunger. For this, the Pharisees rebuke them, because it was on a Sabbath day. Jesus sets before them that the king, rejected by the malice of Saul, had partaken of that which was only given to the priests. The Son of David, in a similar case, might well enjoy a similar privilege. Besides, God was acting in grace. The priests also profaned the Sabbath in the service of the temple; and One greater than the temple was there. Moreover, if they had really known the mind of God, if they had been imbued with the Spirit which His word declared to be acceptable to Him, "I will have mercy and not sacrifice," they would not have condemned the guiltless. In addition to this, the Son of man was Lord even of the Sabbath. Here, He no longer takes the title of Messiah, but that of Son of man: a name which bore witness to a new order of things, and to a more extended power. Now, that which He said had great significancy; for the Sabbath was the token of the covenant between Jehovah and the nation (Ezek. 20:12-2012Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. 13But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them. 14But I wrought for my name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, in whose sight I brought them out. 15Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands; 16Because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols. 17Nevertheless mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness. 18But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: 19I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; 20And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God. (Ezekiel 20:12‑20)); and the Son of man was declaring His power over it. If that was touched, it was all over with the covenant.
The same question arises in the synagogue, and the Lord persists in acting in grace, and in doing good; showing them that they would do the same for one of their sheep. This only excites their hatred, great as was the proof of His beneficent power. They were children of the murderer. Jesus withdraws from them, and great multitudes follow Him. He heals them,
charging them not to make Him known. In all this, however, His doings were but the fulfillment Of a prophecy, which clearly traces out the Lord's position at this time. The hour would come when He should bring forth judgment unto victory. Meanwhile, He retained the position of entire lowliness, in which grace and truth could commend themselves to those who appreciated and needed them. But in the exercise of this grace, and in His testimony to the truth, He would do nothing to falsify this character, or so attract the attention of men as to prevent His true work, or which could make it even suspected that He sought His own honor. Nevertheless, the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him, as His beloved, in whom His soul delighted; and He should declare judgment to the Gentiles, and they should put their trust in His name. The application of this prophecy to Jesus, at that moment, is very evident. We see how guarded He was with the Jews, abstaining from the gratification of their carnal desires respecting Himself, and content to be in the background, if God, His Father, was glorified; and glorifying Him perfectly Himself on the earth, by doing good. He was soon to be declared to the Gentiles; whether by the execution of the judgment of God, or by presenting Himself to them as the One in whom they should trust.
This passage is manifestly placed here by the Holy Ghost, in order to give the exact representation of His position, before laying open the new scenes which His rejection prepares for us.
He then casts out a devil from a man who was deaf and dumb. A sad condition, truly depicting that of the people with respect to God. The multitude, full of admiration, exclaim, " Is not this the Son of David?" But the religionists, hearing that-jealous of the Lord and hostile to the testimony of God-declare that Jesus wrought this miracle by the power of Beelzebub; thus sealing their own condition, and putting themselves under the definitive judgment of God. Jesus demonstrates the absurdity of what they had said. Satan would not destroy his own kingdom. Their own children, who had the pretention to do the same, should judge their iniquity. But, if not the power of Satan (and the Pharisees admitted that the devils were really cast out), it was the finger of God, and the kingdom of God was among them.
He who had come into the strong man's house to spoil his goods, had first to bind him.
The truth is, that the presence of Jesus put everything to the test; everything on God's part was centered in Him. It is Emmanuel Himself who was there. He who was not with Him, was against Him. He who did not gather with Him, scattered. Everything now depended on Him alone. He would bear with all unbelief as to His own person. Grace could remove that. He could pardon all sin; but to speak against and blaspheme the Holy Ghost, i.e., to acknowledge the exercise of a power, which is that of God, and to attribute it to Satan, could not be pardoned; for the Pharisees admitted that the devil was cast out, and it was only with malice, with open-eyed deliberate hatred to God, that they attributed it to Satan. And what pardon could there be for this? There was none, either in the age of the law, or in that of the Messiah. The fate of those who thus acted was decided. This the Lord would have them understand. The fruit proved the nature of the tree. It was essentially bad. They were a generation of vipers. John had told them the same. Their words condemned them. Upon this, the Scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign. This was nothing but wickedness. They had had signs enough. It was only stirring up the unbelief of the rest.
This request gives the Lord occasion to pronounce the judgment of this generation.
There should be only the sign of Jonah, for this evil generation. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so should the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. But lo! Christ was already rejected. But the Ninevites, by their conduct, should condemn this generation in the day of judgment, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and a greater than Jonah was here.
The queen of the South likewise testified against the wickedness of this perverse generation. Her heart, attracted by the report of Solomon's wisdom, had led her to him from the uttermost parts of the earth; and a greater than Solomon was here. Poor ignorant Gentiles understood the wisdom of God in His word, whether by the prophet or the king, better than His beloved people, even when the Great King and Prophet was among them.
This was then His judgment: the unclean spirit (of idolatry) which had gone out of the people, finding no rest away from Israel (alas! its true house, whereas they ought to have been the house of God), should return with seven spirits worse than itself. They would find the house empty, swept and garnished; and the last state should be worse than the first. What a solemn judgment of the people was this-that those among whom Jehovah had walked, should become the habitation of an unclean spirit, of a superabundance of unclean spirits; not merely of seven, the complete number, but together with these, who would incite them to all madness against God and those who honored God, thus leading them to their own destruction, that other unclean spirit also, who would draw them back into the wretched idolatry from which they had escaped.
In conclusion, Jesus publicly breaks the bonds that naturally existed between Himself and the people, acknowledging those only which were formed by the word of God, and manifested by doing the will of His Father which was in heaven. Those persons only would He acknowledge as His relations, who were formed after the pattern of the Sermon on the Mount. His actions and His words after this, bear witness to the new work which He was really doing on the earth. He leaves the house and sits beside the lake. He takes a new position, outside, to proclaim to the multitude that which was His true work. A sower went forth to sow.
The Lord was no longer seeking fruit in His vine. It had been requisite, according to God's relations with Israel, that He should seek this fruit, but His true service, He well knew, was to bring that which could produce fruit, and not to find any in men.
It is important to remark here, that the Lord speaks of the visible and outward effect of His work as a Sower. The only occasion here on which He expresses His judgment as to the inward cause, is when He says, " They had no root"; and even here it is a matter of fact. The doctrines respecting the divine operation needed for the production of fruit, are not here spoken of. It is the Sower who is displayed, and the result of his sowing, not that which causes the seed to germinate in the earth. In each case, except the first, a certain effect is produced.
The Lord is then here presented as commencing a work which is independent of all former relation between God and men, bearing with Him the seed of the word, which He sows in the heart by His ministry. Where it abides, where it is understood, where it is neither choked nor dried up, it produces fruit, to His glory, and to the happiness and the profit of the man who bears it.
Ver. 11. The Lord shows the reason why He speaks enigmatically to the multitude. A distinction is made between the remnant and the nation: the latter was under the judgment of blindness, pronounced by the prophet Esaias. Blessed were the eyes of the disciples which saw the Emmanuel, the Messiah, the object of the hopes and desires of so many prophets and righteous men.
I would add a few remarks on the character of the persons whom the Lord speaks of in the parable.
When the word is sown in a heart that does not understand it, when it produces no relation of intelligence, of feeling, or of conscience between the heart and God, the enemy takes it away, it does not remain in the heart. He who heard it is not the less guilty; that which was sawn in his heart was adapted to every need, to the nature and to the condition of man.
The immediate reception of the word with joy, in the next case, tends rather to prove that the heart will not retain it; for it is scarcely probable, in such case, that the conscience was reach-ed. A conscience touched by the word, makes the man serious; he sees himself in the presence of God, which is always a serious thing, whatever may be the attraction of His grace, or the hope inspired by His goodness. If the conscience has not been reached, there is no root. The word was received for the joy it imparted; when it brings tribulation it is given up.
Every day's history is, alas! the sad and best explanation of the third class. There is no ill will, there is barrenness.
That the word was understood, is only affirmed of those who bear fruit. The true understanding of the word brings a soul into connection with God, because the word reveals God, expresses what He is. If I understand it, I know Him; and the true knowledge of God, that is, of the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ, is eternal life. Now, whatever may be the degree of light, it is always God, thus revealed, who is made known by the word that Jesus sows. Thus, being begotten of the word we shall produce, in diverse 'measures, the fruits of the life of God in this world. For the subject here is the effect, in this world, of the reception of the truth brought by Jesus; not heaven, nor that which God does in the heart to make the seed bear fruit.
This parable does not speak of the kingdom, but of the great elementary principle of the service of Christ in the universality of its application, and as it was realized in his own person and service while on earth.
In the six following parables we find similitudes of the kingdom. We must remember that it is the kingdom established during the rejection of the king, and which, consequently, has a peculiar character, that is to say, it is characterized by an absent king; adding to this, in the explanation of the first parable, the effect of his return.
The three first of these six parables, present the kingdom in its outward forms in the world. They are addressed to the multitude. The three last, present the kingdom according to the estimate of the Holy Ghost, according to the reality of its character as seen by God. They are addressed, consequently, to the disciples alone. The public establishment of the kingdom in the righteousness and power of God, is also announced to the latter, in the explanation of the parable of the tares.
Let us consider, first, the exterior of the kingdom publicly announced to the multitude the outward form which the kingdom would assume.
We must remember that the King, that is, the Lord Jesus, was rejected on earth; that the Jews, in rejecting Him, had condemned themselves, and that the word being used to accomplish the work of Him whom the Father had sent, the Lord thus made it known that He established the kingdom, not by His power exercised in righteousness and in judgment, but by hearing testimony to the hearts of men that the kingdom now assumed a character connected with man's responsibility, and with the result of the Word of Light being sown in the earth, addressed to the hearts of men, and left as a system of truth to the faithfulness and the care of men; God, how- ever, still holding good His sovereign right for the preservation of His children and of the truth itself. This latter part is not the subject of these parables. I have introduced it here because it might, otherwise, have been supposed that everything depended absolutely on man. Had it been so, alas! all would have been lost.
The parable of the tares is the first. It gives us a general idea of the effect of these sowings, as to the kingdom; or, rather, the result of having, for the moment, committed the kingdom here below to the hands of men.
The result was that the kingdom here below no longer presented, as a whole, the appearance of the Lord's own work. He sows not tares. Through the carelessness and the infirmity of men the enemy found means to sow these tares. Observe, that it is no question here of the heathen, or of the Jews, but of the evil done among Christians by Satan, through bad doctrines, bad teachers and their adherents. The Lord Jesus sowed. Satan-while men slept-sowed also. There were Judaisers, philosophizers, heretics, who held with both the former on the one hand, or, on the other, opposed the truth of the Old Testament.
Nevertheless, Christ had only sowed good seed. Must the tares then be rooted out? Clearly, the condition of the kingdom during the absence of Christ, depends on the answer to this question, and it throws light also upon that condition. But there was still less power to bring in a remedy than there had been to prevent the evil. All must remain unremedied until the King's interposition at the time of harvest. The kingdom of heaven on earth, such as it is in the hands of men, must remain a mingled system. Heretics, false brethren will be there, as well as the fruit of the Lord's work, testifying man's inability to maintain that which is good and pure.
At the time of harvest-a phrase that designates a certain space of time during which the events connected with the harvest will take place. At the time of harvest, the Lord will deal first, in His providence, with the tares. I say, "in His providence," because He employs the angels. The tares shall be bound in bundles, ready to be burnt.
We must observe, that outward things in the world are the subject here, acts which root out corruption-corruption that has grown up in the midst of Christianity.
The servants are not capable of doing this. The intermingling (caused by their weakness and carelessness) is such, that in gathering out the tares they would root up the wheat also. Not only discernment, but the practical power of separation would be wanting to carry out their purpose. When once the tares are there the servants have nothing to do with them as to their presence in this world, in Christendom. The work of purging Christendom from them was not in their province. It is a work of judgment on that which is not of God, belonging to Him who can execute it according to the perfection of a knowledge that embraces everything, and a power that nothing escapes, which, if two men are in one bed, knows how to take the one and leave the other. The execution of judgment on the wicked, in this world, does not belong to the servants of Christ. He will accomplish it by the angels of His power, to whom He commits the execution of this work.
After the binding of the tares, He gathers the wheat into His garner. There is no binding the wheat in bundles, He takes it all to Himself. Such is the end of that which concerns the outward appearance of the kingdom here below. This is not all that the parable can teach us, but it ends the subject of which this part of the chapter speaks. During the absence of Jesus the result of His sowing will be marred, as a whole, by the work of the enemy. At the close He will bind all the enemy's work in bundles, i.e., He will prepare them in this world for judgment. He will then take away the church. It is evident that this terminates the scene below which goes on during His absence. The judgment is not yet executed. Before speaking of it, the Lord gives other pictures of the forms which the kingdom will assume during His absence.
That which had been sown as a grain of mustard-seed becomes a great tree; a symbol that represents a great power in the earth. The Assyrian, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, are set before us, in the word, as great trees. Such would be the form of the kingdom, which began in littleness through the word sown by the Lord, and afterward by His disciples. That which this seed produced would gradually assume the form of a great power, making itself prominent on the earth, so that others would shelter themselves under it, as birds under the branches of a tree. This has, indeed, been the case.
We next find, that it would not only be a great tree in the earth, but that the kingdom would be characterized as a system of doctrine, which would diffuse itself, a profession, which would enclose all it reached within its sphere of influence. The whole of the three measures would be leavened. I need not dwell here on the fact that the word leaven is always used in a bad sense by the sacred writers, but the Holy Ghost gives us to understand that it is not the regenerative power of the word in the heart of an individual, bringing him back to God, neither is it simply a power acting by outward strength, such as Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and the other great trees of Scripture, but it is a system of doctrine that should characterize the mass, pervading it throughout. It is not faith, properly so called, nor is it life; it is a religion; it is Christendom. A profession of doctrine, in hearts which will neither bear the truth nor God, connects itself always with corruption in the doctrine itself.
This parable of the leaven concludes His instructions to the multitude. All was now addressed to them in parables, for they did not receive Him, their King, and He spoke of things that supposed His rejection, and an aspect of the kingdom unknown to the revelations of the Old Testament, which have in view either the kingdom in power, or a little remnant, receiving, amid sufferings, the word of the Prophet-King who had been rejected.
After this parable Jesus no longer remains by the seaside with the multitude-a place suited to the position in which He stood towards the people after the testimony borne at the end of chap. 12, and whither He had repaired on quitting the house. He now re-enters the house with his disciples, and there, in secluded intimacy with them, He reveals the true character, the object, of the kingdom of heaven, the result of that which was done in it, and the means which should be taken to cleanse everything on earth, when the outward history of the kingdom, during His absence, should have terminated. That is to say, we find here that which characterizes the kingdom to the spiritual man, that which he understands as the true mind of God with regard to this kingdom, and the judgment which should purge out from it all that was contrary to Him, the exercise of power which should render it outwardly in accordance with the heart of God.
We have seen its outward history ending with this, the wheat hidden in the garner, and the tares left in bundles on the earth, ready to be burnt. The explanation of this parable resumes the history of the kingdom at that period, only it gives us to understand and distinguish the different parts of the intermixture, ascribing each part to its true author. The field is the world; there the word was sown, for the establishment, in this manner, of the kingdom. The good seed were the children of the kingdom; they belonged to it really; according to God, they are its heirs. The Jews were no longer so, and it was no longer the privilege of natural birth. The children of the kingdom were born of the word. But among these, in order to spoil the Lord's work, the enemy introduced all sorts of people, the fruit of the doctrines which he had sown among those who were born of the truth. This is the work of Satan, in the place where the doctrine of Christ had been planted. The harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are the angels. It will be remarked here, that the Lord does not explain, historically, that which took place, but the terms used to bring in the issue, when the harvest is come. The fulfillment of that which is historical in the, parable, is supposed; and He passes on to give the great result, outside that which was the kingdom during His absence on high. The wheat, that is, the Church, is in the barn, and the tares in bundles on the earth. But He takes all that constitutes these bundles, all that offends God in the kingdom, and casts it into the furnace of fire, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. After this judgment, the righteous shall shine forth like Himself, the true Sun of that day of glory, of the age to come, in the kingdom of their Father. Christ will have received the kingdom from the Father, whose children they were, and they shall shine forth in it with Him according to that character.
Thus we find, for the multitude, the results, on earth, of the divine sowing, and the machinations of the enemy -the kingdom presented under this form; afterward the confederacies of the wicked among themselves, apart from their natural order, as growing in the field-; and the taking away of the church. For His own disciples, the Lord explains all that was necessary to make them fully understand the language of the parable. We then find the judgment executed by the Son of Man upon the wicked, who are cast into the fire; and the manifestation of the righteous in glory. These last events taking place after the Lord had risen up and put an end to the outward form of the kingdom of heaven upon earth, the wicked being gathered in companies, and the saints taken up to heaven.
And now, having explained the public history, and its results in judgment and in glory, for the full instruction of His disciples, the Lord communicates to them the thoughts of God, with respect to what was going on upon earth, while the outward and earthly events of the kingdom were being developed: that which the spiritual man should discern in them. To him, to one who understood the purpose of God, the kingdom of heaven was like a treasure, hidden in a field. A man finds the treasure, and buys the field in order to possess it. The field was not his object, but the treasure was in it. Thus Christ has purchased the world, He possesses it by right, His object is the treasure hidden in it, His own people, all the glory of the redemption connected with it, in a word, the church; looked at, not in its moral and, in a certain sense, divine, beauty, but as the special object of the desires and of the sacrifice of the Lord; that which His heart had found in this world, according to the counsels and the mind of God.
In this parable, it is the powerful attraction of this " new thing," which induces the one who has found it, to purchase the whole place, that he may obtain possession of it.
The Jews were nothing new; the world had no attraction; but this new treasure induced the one who had discovered it to sell all he had that he might gain it. [ In fact, Christ forsook everything. He not only emptied Himself to redeem us, but He renounced all that belonged to Him as man, as the Messiah on earth, the promises, His royal rights, His life, to take possession of f the world which contained in it this treasure, the people whom He loved.
In the parable of the pearl of great price, we have again the same idea, but it is modified by others. A 1 man was seeking goodly pearls. He knew what He was about. He had taste, discernment, knowledge, as to that which He sought. It was the well-known beauty of the thing that caused his research. He knows, when He has found one corresponding to His ideas, that it is worth while to sell all, that He may acquire it. It is worth this in the eyes of one who can estimate its value. And He buys nothing else with it. Thus Christ has found in the church by itself, a beauty and (because of this beauty) a value, which made Him give up all to obtain it. It is just so with regard to the kingdom. Considering the state of man, of the Jews even, the glory of God required that all should be given up in order to have this new thing; for there was nothing in man that He could take to Himself. He was not only content to give up all for the possession of this new thing, but that which His heart seeks for, that which He finds nowhere else, He finds in that which God has riven Him in the kingdom. He bought no other earls. Until He found this pearl, He had no inducement to sell all that He had. As soon as He sees it, His mind is made up; He forsakes all for it. Its value decides Him, for He knows how to judge, and He seeks with discernment.
I do not say that the children of the kingdom are not actuated by the same principle. When we have learned what it is to be a child of the kingdom, we forsake all that we may enjoy it, that we may be of the pearl of great price. But we do not buy that which is not the treasure, in order to obtain it; and we are very far from seeking goodly pearls before we have found the one of great price. In their full force, these parables only apply to Christ. The intention in these parables is to bring out that which was then doing, in contrast with all that had taken place before, with the Lord's relations to the Jews.
There remains yet one of the seven-that of the net cast into the sea. In this parable, there is no change in the persons employed. That is to say, in the parable itself. The same persons who cast the net draw it to shore, and make the separation by gathering the good fish into vessels, taking no farther notice of the bad. Securing the good fish, is the work of those who drew the net to shore. It is only when landed that this is done. The sorting is their work, doubtless; but they have only to do with the good fish. They know them, this is their business, the object of their fishing. Others, indeed, come, and are found in the net together with the good; but these are not good. No other judgment is needed. The fishermen know the good. These are not such. They leave them. This forms a part of the history of the kingdom of heaven. The judgment of the wicked is not found here. The bad are left on the shore, when the fishermen gather the good into vessels. The final destiny of either good or bad is not given here. That does not take place on the shore with respect to the good; nor, as to the bad, by simply leaving them there. It is subsequent to the action of the parable; and, with respect to the bad, it does not take place merely by their separation from the good with whom they had been intermingled, but by their destruction.
Thus the gospel net has been cast into the sea of the nations, and has enclosed of all kinds. After this general gathering, which has filled the net, the agents of the Lord, having to do with the good, gather them together, separating them from the bad. Remark here, that this is not the primitive gathering together of the church, but a similitude of the kingdom. It is the character which the kingdom assumes, when the gospel has assembled together a mass of good and bad. At the end, when the net has been drawn, so that all kinds are en closed in it, the good are set apart, because they are precious,-the others are left. The good are gathered into divers vessels. The saints are gathered, not by the angels but by the work of those who have labored in the name of' the Lord.
The execution of the judgment is another matter. The laborers have nothing to do with that. At the end of the age, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, where there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Here, nothing is said about the just. Gathering them into vessels was not the angels' work, but that of the fishermen. The public result had been given, whether during the period of the kingdom of heaven, or afterward, in the parable of the tares. It is not repeated here. The work to be done with regard to the righteous when the net is full is added here. The destiny of the wicked is repeated, to distinguish the work done with respect to them, from that wrought by means of the fishermen who gather the good into divers vessels. Still, it is presented under another aspect.
In the explanation of the second parable, it is absolute judgment in the case of the tares, destroying and consuming that which remains on the field, already collected together and separated, providentially, from the wheat. The angels are then sent, at the end, not to separate them but to cast them into the fire, thus cleansing the kingdom. In the parable of the fish, when the angelic work itself is accomplished, the sorting itself takes place. There will be just ones on the earth, and the wicked will be separated from among them. The practical instruction of this parable, is the separation of the good from the wicked, and the gathering together in companies of many of the former; this is done more than once, many others of the same being gathered elsewhere into one also. The servants of the Lord are the instruments employed.
These parables contain things new and old. The doctrine of the kingdom, for instance, was a well-known doctrine. That the kingdom should take the forms described by the Lord, that it should embrace the whole world without distinction, the people of God drawing their existence not from Abraham but from the word; all this was quite new. All was of God. The Scribe had knowledge of the kingdom, but was entirely ignorant of the character it would assume, as the kingdom of heaven planted in this world by means of the word; on the which all here depends.
The Lord resumes His work among the Jews. To them, He was only " the carpenter's son." They knew His family after the flesh. The kingdom of heaven was nothing in their eyes. The revelation of this kingdom was carried on elsewhere, and there the knowledge of divine things was communicated. The former saw nothing beyond those things which the natural heart could perceive. The blessing of the Lord was arrested by their unbelief.-He was rejected as prophet as well as king by Israel.
AT 14Chapter 14 Our gospel resumes the historical course of these revelations; but in such a manner as to exhibit the spirit by which the people were animated. Herod, loving His earthly power and His own glory, more than submission to the testimony of God, and more bound by a false human idea than by his conscience-although in many things he appears to have owned the power of the truth-had cut off the head of the forerunner of the Messiah, John the Baptist; whom he had already imprisoned, in order to remove out of the sight of his wife the faithful reprover of the sin in which she lived.
Jesus is sensible of the import of this action, which is reported to Him. Accomplishing, together with John, the testimony of God in the congregation, He felt Himself united in heart and in His work to him; for faithfulness in the midst of evil binds hearts very closely together; and Jesus had condescended to take a place in which faithfulness was concerned (see Psa. 40:9,109I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. 10I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. (Psalm 40:9‑10)). On hearing, therefore, of John's death, He retires into a desert place. But while departing from the multitude who thus began to act openly in the rejection of the testimony of God, He does not cease to be the supplier of all their wants, and to testify thus that He who could divinely minister to all their need, was amongst them.
For the multitude, who felt these wants, and who, if they had not faith, yet admired the power of Jesus, follow Him into the desert place; and Jesus, moved with compassion, heals all their sick. In the evening, His disciples beg Him to send the multitude away, that they may procure food. He refuses, and bears a remarkable testimony to the presence of Him who was to satisfy the poor of His people with bread (Psa. 132) Jehovah, the Lord, who established the throne of David, was there in the person of Him who should inherit that throne. I doubt not the twelve baskets of fragments refer to the number which, in scripture, always designates the perfection of administrative power.
Remark also here, that the Lord expects to find His twelve disciples capable of being the instruments of His acts of blessing and power, administering according to His own power the blessings of the kingdom. "Give ye them," said He, " to eat." This applies to the blessing of the Lord's kingdom, and to the disciples of Jesus, to the twelve, as being its ministers; but it is likewise an all-important principle with regard to the effect of faith, in every intervention of God in grace. Faith should be able to use the power that acts in such intervention, to produce the works which are proper to that power, according to the order of the dispensation and the intelligency she has respecting it. We shall find this principle again elsewhere more fully developed.
The disciples wished to send the multitude away, not knowing how to use the power of Christ. They should have been able to avail themselves of it in Israel's behalf, according to the glory of Him who was among them.
If now the Lord demonstrated, with perfect patience, by His actions, that He who could thus bless Israel was in the midst of His people, He does not the less bear testimony to His separation from that people, in consequence of their unbelief. He makes His disciples get into a ship to cross the sea alone; and, dismissing the multitude Himself, He goes up into a mountain apart to pray; while the ship that contained the disciples was tossing on the waves of the sea, with a contrary wind. A living picture of that which has taken place. God has, indeed, sent forth His people to cross the stormy sea of the world alone, meeting with an opposition against which it is hard to strive. Meanwhile, Jesus prays alone on high. He has sent away the Jewish people, who had surrounded Him during the period of His presence here below. The departure of the disciples, besides its general character, sets before us peculiarly the Jewish remnant. Peter, individually, in coming out of the ship, goes beyond (in figure) the position of this remnant. He represents that faith which, forsaking the earthly accommodation of the ship, goes out to meet Jesus who has revealed Himself to it, and walks upon the sea. A bold undertaking, but based on the Word of Jesus" Come." Yet, remark here that this walk has no other foundation than, " If it be Thou," that is to say, Jesus Himself. There is no support, no possibility of walking, if Christ is lost sight of. All depends on Him. There is a known means in the ship-there is nothing but faith, which looks to Jesus, for walking on the water. Man, as mere man, sinks, by the very fact of being there. Nothing can sustain itself except that faith which draws from Jesus the strength that is in Him, and which therefore imitates Him. But it is sweet to imitate Him; and one is then nearer to Him, more like Him. This is the true position of the Church, in contrast with the remnant in their ordinary character. Jesus walks on the water as on the solid ground. He who created the elements as they are, could well dispose of their qualities at His pleasure. He permits storms to arise for the trial of our faith. He walks on the stormy wave as well as on the calm. Moreover, the storm makes no difference. He who sinks in the waters, does so in the calm as well as in the storm, and he who can walk upon them, will do so in the storm as well as in the calm; that is to say, unless faith fail, and so the Lord is forgotten; for often circumstances make us forget Him, where faith ought to enable us to overcome circumstances through our walking by faith in Him who is above them all. Nevertheless, blessed be God I He who walks in His own power upon the water, is there to sustain the faith and the wavering steps of the poor disciple; and, at any rate, that faith had brought Peter so near to Jesus that His outstretched hand could sustain him. Peter's fault was that he looked at the waves, at the storm, which, after all had nothing to do with it, instead of looking at Jesus, who was unchanged, and who was walking on those very waves, as his faith should have observed. Still, the cry of his distress brought the power of Jesus into action, as his faith ought to have done; only, it was now to his shame, instead of being in the enjoyment of communion and walking like the Lord.
Jesus having entered the ship, the wind ceases. Even so it will be when Jesus returns to the remnant of His people in this world. Then also will He be worshipped as the Son of God by all that are in the ship, with the remnant of Israel. In Gennesaret, Jesus again exercises the power which shall hereafter drive out from the earth all the evil that Satan has brought in. It is a fine picture of the result of Christ's rejection, which this gospel has already made known to us as taking place in the midst of the Jewish nation.
Chapter 15 displays the moral contrast between the doctrine of Christ and that of the Jews. The Jewish system is rejected morally by God. When I speak of the system, I speak of their moral condition, systematized by the hypocrisy that sought to conceal iniquity, while increasing it in the sight of God, before whom they presented themselves. They made use of His name in order to sink lower, under the pretense of piety, than the laws of natural conscience. It is then that a religious system becomes the great instrument of the power of the enemy, and more especially when that of which it still bears the name was instituted by God. The judgment which the Lord pronounces on this system of hypocrisy, while manifesting the consequent rejection of Israel, gives rise to instruction that goes much farther; and that, searching the heart of man, and judging man according to that which proceeds from it, proves the heart to be a spring of all iniquity, and thus makes it evident that all true morality has its basis in the conviction and confession of sin. For, without this, the heart is always false, and flatters itself in vain. Thus also Jesus goes to the root of everything, and comes out of the special and temporary relations of the Jewish nation, to enter on the true morality which belongs to all ages. The disciples did not observe the traditions of the elders; about them the Lord does not concern Himself. He avails Himself of the accusation to lay it upon the conscience of their accusers that the judgment occasioned by the rejection of the Son of God, was authorized also on the ground of those relations that already existed between God and Israel.
They made the commandment of God of none effect through their traditions; and that, in a most important point, and one even on which all earthly blessings depended for the children of Israel. By their own ordinances also, Jesus exposes the consummate hypocrisy, the selfishness and avarice, of those who pretended to guide the people, and to form their heart to morality and to the worship of Jehovah. Isaiah had already pronounced their judgment.
Afterward he shows the multitude that it was a question of what man was, of what proceeded from his heart, from within Him; and points out the sad streams that flow from that corrupt spring. But it was the simple truth with respect to the heart of man, as known by God, which scandalized the self-righteous men of the world, which was unintelligible even to the disciples. Nothing so simple as the truth when it is known; nothing so difficult, so obscure, when a judgment is to be formed respecting it by the heart of man, who does not possess the truth; for he judges after his own thoughts, and the truth is not in them. In short, Israel and true morality are set in contrast; man is placed in his proper responsibility and in his real colors before God.
Jesus searches the heart; but, acting in grace, He acts according to the heart of God, and manifests it by coming out, both for the one and for the other of the conventional terms of God's relations with Israel.
He leaves the borders of Israel, and His disputes with the learned men of Jerusalem, to visit those places which were farthest off from Jewish privileges. He departs into the coasts of Tire and Sidon, the cities which He had Himself used as examples of that which was farthest from repentance. See chap. 11, where He classes them with Sodom and Gomorrha. A woman comes out of these countries. She was one of the accursed race, according to the principles that distinguished Israel. She was a Canaanite. She comes to beg the interposition of Jesus on behalf of her daughter, who was possessed by a devil.
In begging this favor, she addresses Jesus by the title which faith knew to be His in connection with the Jews "Son of David." This gives rise to a full development of the Lord's position, and, at the same time, of the conditions under which man might hope to share the effect of His goodness.
As the Son of David, He has nothing to do with a Canaanite. He makes her no answer. The disciples desired to get rid of her by granting her request, in order to have done with her importunity. The Lord answers them that he was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This was indeed the truth whatever may have been the counsels of God manifested on occasion of His rejection (see Isa. 49) He was the minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to fulfill His promises made to the Fathers.
The woman, in more simple and direct language, the more natural expression of Her feelings, begs for the merciful interposition of Him in whose power she trusted. The Lord answers her, that it is not meet to take the children's bread and give it to dogs. We see here His true position, as come to Israel; the promises were for the children of the kingdom. The Son of David was the minister of these promises. Could He as such blot out the distinction of the people of God?
But that faith which derives strength from necessity, and which finds no resource but in the Lord Himself, accepts the humiliation of its position, and deems that with Him there is bread for the hunger of those who have no right to it.
What had the Lord done by His apparent harshness? He had brought the poor woman to the expression, to the sense of her real place before God, that is to say, to the truth as to herself. Was this to say that God was less good than she believed, less rich in mercy towards the destitute, whose only hope and trust was in that mercy? This would have been to deny the character and the nature of God, of which He was the expression, the truth, and the witness, on earth. It would have been to deny Himself, and the object of His mission. He could not say, "My God has not a crumb for such." He answers, in fullness of heart: "O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." God comes out of the narrow limits of His covenant with the Jews, to act in His sovereign goodness according to His own nature. He comes out to be God in goodness, and not merely Jehovah in Israel.
But this goodness is exercised towards one who is brought, in the presence of that goodness, to know that she has no right to it. To this point the seeming harshness of the Lord was leading her. She received all from grace, while in herself unworthy of all. It is thus, and thus only, that every soul obtains blessing. It is not merely the sense of need-the woman had that from the beginning, it was that which brought her there. It is not merely to own that the Lord Jesus can meet that need-the woman came with that acknowledgment. We must be in the presence of the only source of blessing, and be brought to feel that although we are there, we have no right to avail ourselves of it. And this is a terrible position. When it comes to this, all is grace; God can then act according to His own goodness, and He answers every desire the heart can form for its happiness.
Thus we see Christ here as minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to fulfill the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles also might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written. At the same time, this last truth makes manifest the real condition of man, and the full and perfect grace of God. On this He acts, while still faithful to His promises; and the wisdom of God is displayed in a manner that calls forth our admiration.
We see how much the introduction in this place of the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman develops and illustrates this part of our gospel. The beginning of the chapter shows forth the moral condition of the Jews; the dealings of Jesus with this woman, display the faith- fullness of God to His promises; and the blessing finally granted, exhibits the full grace of God, in connection with the manifestation of the real condition of man, acknowledged by conscience. Grace rising above the curse which lay upon the object of this grace-rising above everything to make itself a way unto the need which faith presented to it.
The Lord now departs from thence and goes into Galilee, the place where He was in connection with the despised remnant of the Jews. It was neither Zion, nor the Temple, nor Jerusalem, but the poor of the flock, where the people were sitting in gross darkness (Isa. 8:99Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. (Isaiah 8:9)). Thither His compassions follow this poor remnant, and are again exercised in their behalf. He renews the evidences; not only of His tender mercies, but of His presence who satisfied the poor of His people with bread. Here, however, it is not in the administrative power which He could bestow on His disciples, but according to His own perfection and acting from Himself. He provides for the remnant of His people. Accordingly, it is the fullness of seven baskets of fragments that is gathered up. He departs also without anything else taking place.
AT 16Chapter 16 goes farther than the revelation of the simple grace of God. Jesus reveals the counsels of that grace, showing the rejection of the proud among His people, that He abhors them as they abhor Him (Zech. 11) Shutting their eyes (through perversity of will) to the marvelous and beneficent signs of His power, which He constantly bestowed on the poor who sought Him, the Pharisees and Sadducees-struck with these manifestations, yet unbelieving in heart and will-demand a sign from heaven. He rebukes them for this unbelief, showing them that they knew how to discern the signs of the weather. Yet, the signs of the times were far more striking. They were the adulterous and wicked generation, and He leaves them.
And He warns His forgetful disciples against the devices of these subtle adversaries to the truth, and to Him whom God had sent to reveal it. Israel is abandoned, as a nation, in the persons of their leaders.
Afterward, He questions His disciples as to what men said of Him. It was all matter of opinion, i.e. the uncertainty that belongs to moral indifference, to the absence of that conscious need of soul which can rest only in the truth, in the Savior one has found. He then inquires what they themselves said of Him. Peter, unto whom the Father had deigned to reveal Him, declares His faith, saying, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." No uncertainty, no mere opinion here, but the powerful effect of the revelation, made by the Father Himself, of the person of Christ, to the disciple whom He had elected for this privilege.
Here, the condition of the people displays itself in a remarkable manner, not, as in the preceding chapter, with respect to the law, but with respect to Christ, who had been presented to them. We see it in contrast with the revelation of His glory to those that followed Him.
AT 15In Chapter 15, grace towards one who had no hope but in it, is put in contrast with the disobedience and the hypocritical perversion of the law, by which the Scribes and pharisees sought to cover their disobedience with the pretense of piety.
AT 16Chapter 16, judging the unbelief of the Pharisees respecting the person of Christ, and setting aside these perverse men, brings in the revelation of His person, as the foundation of the church, which was to take place of the Jews as the witness for God in the earth; and announces the counsels of God with respect to its establishment. It shows us, in adjunction to this, the administration of the kingdom, as it was now being established on the earth.
Let us consider first the revelation of His person.
Peter confesses Him to be the Christ; the fulfillment of the promises made by God, and of the, prophecies that announced their realization. He was the One who should come, the Messiah whom God had promised.
Moreover, He was the Son of God. The second Psalm had declared, that in spite of the schemings of the leaders of the people, and the haughty animosity of the kings of the earth, His King should be anointed on the hill of Zion. He was the Son, begotten of God. The kings and judges of the earth are called to submit themselves to Him, lest they should be smitten with the rod of His power, when He takes the heathen for His inheritance. Thus the true believer waited for the Son of God, born in due time upon this earth. Peter confessed Jesus to be the Son of God. So had Nathaniel also, " Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel." And still later, Martha did the same.
Peter, however, especially taught of the Father, adds to his confession a word, simple, yet full of power: "Thou art the Son of the living God." Not only He who fulfills the promises, and answers to the prophecies; it is of the living God that He is the Son.
He inherits that power of life in God, which nothing can overcome or destroy. Who can vanquish the power of Him-of this Son-who came forth from "Him that liveth?" Satan has the power of death, it is he who holds man under the dominion of this dreadful consequence of sin; and that, by the just judgment of God, which constitutes its power. The expression " the gates of Hades," of the invisible world, refer to this kingdom of Satan. It is then on this power, which leaves the stronghold of the enemy without strength, that the church is built. The life of God shall not be destroyed. The Son of the living God shall not be overcome. The kingdom then which God founds upon this rock of the unchangeable power of life in His Son, shall not be over- thrown by the kingdom of death. If man has been overcome and has fallen under the power of this kingdom, God, the living God, will not be overcome by it. It is on this that God builds His church. It is the work of Christ, not of the first Adam; His work accomplished according to the power which this truth reveals. The person of Jesus, the Son of the living God, is its strength. It is the resurrection that proved it. Accordingly, it is not during His life, but when raised from the dead, that He begins this work. Life was in Himself, but when He has burst the gates of Hades and is risen, He begins, by the Holy Ghost, to build that which the power of death-already overcome-can never destroy. It is His person that is here contemplated, and it is on His person that all is founded. The resurrection is the proof that He is the Son of the living God, and that the gates of Hades can do nothing against Him; their power is destroyed by it.
The work of the cross was needed; but it is not the question here of that which the righteous judgment of God required, but of that which nullified the power of the enemy. It was the person of Him whom Peter was given to acknowledge, who lived according to the power of the life of God. It was a peculiar and direct revelation from heaven by the Father. Doubtless, Christ had given proofs enough of who He was, but here, the Father had directly revealed the truth of Christ's own person: a revelation which went beyond all question of relation with the Jews. On this foundation, Christ would build His church. Peter, thus named by the Lord, receives a confirmation of that title on this occasion. The Father had revealed to Simon, the Son of Jonas, the mystery of the person of Jesus, and Jesus also betokens by the name He gives him, the steadfastness, the firmness, the durability, the practical strength, of His servant favored by grace. The right of bestowing a name belongs to a superior, who can assign to the one who bears it, his place and his name in the family or the situation he is in. This right supposes discernment, intelligency, in that which is going on. Adam names the animals. Nebuchadnezzar gives new names to the captive Jews. The king of Egypt to Eliakim, whom He had placed on the throne. Jesus, therefore, takes this place when He says, the Father hath revealed this unto thee, and I also give you a place and a name connected with this grace. It is on that which the Father hath revealed unto thee that I am going to build my church, against which (founded on the life that comes from God) the gates of the kingdom of death shall never prevail; and I who build, and build on this immovable foundation, I give you the place of a stone (Peter) in this living temple. Through the gift of God thou belongest already, by nature, to the building-a living stone, having the knowledge of that truth which is the foundation, and which makes of every stone a part of the edifice. Peter was preeminently such, by this confession. He was so, in anticipation by the election of God. This revelation was made by the Father in sovereignty. The Lord assigns him his place, as possessing the right of administration and authority as Son in the house of God.
Thus far with respect to the church, now mentioned for the first time; the Jews having been rejected because of their unbelief.
Another subject presents itself in connection with this;, of the church the Lord was going to build, namely, the kingdom which Christ was going to establish. It was to have the form of the kingdom of heaven; it was so in the counsels of God, but it was now to be set up in a peculiar manner, the King having been rejected on earth.
But, rejected as He was, the keys of the kingdom were in the Lord's hand, its authority belonged to Him. He would bestow them on Peter, who, when Christ was gone, should open its doors to the Jews first, and then to the Gentiles. He should also exercise authority from the Lord, within; so that whatsoever he bound on earth in the name of Christ (the true King, although gone up to heaven), should be bound in heaven, and if he loosed anything on earth, his deed should be ratified in heaven. In a word, he had the power of command in the kingdom of God on earth, that kingdom having now the character of kingdom of heaven, because its king was in heaven.
These four things then are declared by the Lord in this passage. 1st. The revelation made by the Father to Simon. 2nd. The name given to this Simon by Jesus, who was going to build His church on the foundation revealed in that which the Father had made known to Simon. 3rd. The church, built on the foundation of the person of Jesus acknowledged as Son of the living God. 4th. The keys of the kingdom, that should be given to Peter. That is' to say, authority in the kingdom as administering it on the part of Christ, ordering in it that which was His will, and which should be ratified in heaven. All this is connected with Simon personally, in virtue of the Father's election, who, in His wisdom, had chosen him to receive this revelation, and of Christ's authority who had bestowed on Him the name that distinguished him as personally enjoying this privilege.
The Lord having thus made known the purposes of God with regard to the future, purposes to be accomplished in the church and in the kingdom, there was no longer room for His presentation to the Jews as Messiah. Not that He gave up this testimony full of grace and patience, towards the people, which He had borne throughout His ministry. No, that indeed continued, but His disciples were to understand that it was no longer their work to proclaim Him to the people as the Christ. From this time also, He began to teach His disciples that He must suffer and be killed and be raised again.
But, blessed and honored as Peter was, by the revelation which the Father had made to him, his heart still clung in a carnal manner to the human glory of his Master (in truth, to his own), and was still far from rising to the height of the thoughts of God. Alas! he is not the only instance of this. To be convinced of the most exalted truths and even to enjoy them sincerely as truths is a different thing from having the heart formed to the sentiments and to the walk here below, which are in accordance with those truths. It is not sincerity in the enjoyment of the truth, that is wanting. It is to have the flesh, the self, mortified, it is to be dead to the world. Peter, so lately honored by the revelation of the glory of Jesus, and made in a very special manner the depositary of administration in the kingdom given to the Son, having a distinguished place in that which was to follow the Lord's rejection by the Jews, is now doing the adversary's work with respect to the perfect submission of Jesus to the suffering and ignominy that were to introduce this glory and characterize the kingdom. Alas! the case was plain, He savored the things of men and not the things of God. But the Lord, in faithfulness, rejects Peter in this matter, and teaches His disciples that the only path, the appointed and necessary path, is the cross. If any one would follow Him, that is the path He took. Moreover, what would it profit a man to save his life, and lose all-to gain the world, and lose his soul; for this was the question, and not now the outward glory of the kingdom.
Having examined this chapter as the expression of the transition from the Messianic system, to the establishment of the church founded on the revelation of the person of Christ, I desire also to call attention to the characters of unbelief which are developed in it, both among the Jews and in the hearts of the disciples. It will be profitable to observe the forms of this unbelief.
First of all, it takes the grosser form of asking a sign from heaven. The Pharisees and Sadducees unite to show their insensibility to all that the Lord had done. They require proof to their natural senses, that is, to their unbelief. They will not believe God, either in hearkening to His words or in beholding His works. God must satisfy their willfulness-which would neither be faith, nor the work of God. They had understanding for human things that were much less clearly manifested, but none for the things of God. A Savior lost to them, as Jews on earth, should be the only sign granted them. They would have to submit, willing or not, to the judgment of the unbelief they displayed. The kingdom should be taken from them; the Lord leaves them. The sign of Jonah is connected with the subject of the whole chapter.
We next see this same inattention to the power manifested in the works of Jesus; but it is no longer the opposition of the unbelieving will; occupation of heart with present things withdraws such from the influence of the signs already given. This is weakness, not ill-will. Nevertheless, they are guilty; but Jesus calls them " Men of little faith," not " hypocrites, and wicked and adulterous generation."
We then see unbelief manifesting itself in the form of indolent opinion, which proves that the heart and conscience are not, interested in a subject that ought to command them; a subject such that if the heart would really face its true importance, it would have no rest until it had arrived at certainty with respect to it. The soul here has no sense of need; consequently, there is no discernment. When the soul feels this need, there is but one thing that can meet it; there can be no rest till it is found. The revelation of God that created this need, does not leave the soul in peace until it is assured of possessing that which awakened it. Those who are not sensible of this need, can rest in probabilities, each according to his natural character, his education, his circumstances. There is enough to awaken curiosity-the mind is occupied about it, and judges it. Faith has its own wants, and-in principle-intelligency as to its object, which meets those wants; the soul is exercised until it finds that which it needs. The fact is that God is there.
This is Peter's case. The Father reveals His Son to him. We see the condition of his soul when he says, " Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Happy the man to whom God reveals such truths as these; in whom He awakens these wants! There may be conflict, much to learn, much to mortify; but the counsel of God is there, and the life connected with it. We have seen its effect in the case of Peter. Every Christian has his own place in the temple, of which Simon was so eminent a stone. Does it then follow, that the heart is, practically, at the height of the revelation made to it? No; there may be, after all, the flesh not yet mortified, on that side where the revelation touches our earthly position. In fact, the revelation made to Peter implied the rejection of Christ on earth-necessarily led to His humiliation and death. That was the point. To substitute the revelation of the Son of God, the Church and the heavenly kingdom, for the manifestation of the Messiah on earth-what could it mean, except that Jesus was to be delivered up to the Gentiles, to be crucified, and after that to rise again? But, morally, Peter had not attained to this. On the contrary, his carnal heart availed itself of the revelation made to him, and of that which Jesus had said to him, for self-exaltation. Therefore he saw the personal glory, without apprehending the moral consequences. He begins to rebuke the Lord Himself, and seeks to turn Him aside from the path of obedience and submission. The Lord, ever faithful, treats him as an adversary. Alas! how often have we enjoyed some truth, and that sincerely, and yet have failed in the practical consequences that it led to on earth! A heavenly, glorified Savior, who builds the Church, implies the cross on earth. The flesh does not understand this. It will raise its Messiah to heaven, if you will; but to take its share of the humiliation that necessarily follows, is not its idea of a glorified Messiah. The flesh must be mortified, to take this place.We must have the strength of Christ by the Holy Ghost. A Christian who is not dead to the world, is but a stumbling-stone to every one who seeks to follow Christ. These are the forms of unbelief that precede a true confession of Christ, and that are found, alas! in those who have sincerely confessed and known Him. The flesh not being so mortified that the soul can walk in the height of that which it has learned of God, and the spiritual understanding being obscured by thinking of consequences which the flesh rejects.
But if the Cross was the entrance into the kingdom, the revelation of the glory would not be delayed. The Messiah being rejected by the Jews, a title more glorious and of far deeper import is unfolded. The Son of man should come in the glory of the Father (for He was the Son of God), and reward every man according to his works. There were even some standing there who should not taste of death (for of that they were speaking) till they had seen the manifestation of the glory of the kingdom that belonged to the Son of man.
We may remark here the title of " Son of God," established as the foundation; that of Messiah given up, so far as concerned the testimony rendered in that day, and replaced by that of " Son of man," which He takes at the same time as that of Son of God, and which had a glory that belonged to Him in His own right. He was to come in the glory of His Father as Son of God, and in His own kingdom as Son of man.
It is interesting to remember here the instruction given us in the beginning of the book of Psalms. The righteous man, distinguished from the congregation of the wicked, had been presented in the first Psalm. Then, in the second, we have the rebellion of the kings of the earth, and the rulers, against the Lord and against His Anointed, i.e. His Christ. Now, upon this, the decree of Jehovah is declared. Adonai, the Lord, shall mock at them from heaven. The Lord's s King shall be established on Mount Zion. This is the decree: " The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee." The kings of the earth and the judges are commanded to kiss the Son.
Now, in the Psalms that follow, all this glory is darkened. The distress of the remnant, in which Christ has a part, is related. Then, in the eighth, He is addressed as Son of man, Heir of all the rights conferred in sovereignty upon man, by the counsels of God. The name of Jehovah becomes excellent in all the earth. These Psalms do not go beyond the earthly part of these truths, excepting where it is written: " He that sitteth in heaven shall laugh at them." While in Matt. 16 the connection of the Son with God, His coming with His angels (to say nothing of the Church), are set before us. That is to say, we see that the Son of man will come in the glory of heaven. Not that His dwelling there is the truth declared; but that He is invested with the highest glory of heaven, when He comes to set up His kingdom on earth. He comes in His kingdom. The kingdom comes to the earth; but it comes with the glory of heaven. This is displayed in the following chapter, according to the promise here in ver. 23.
In each Gospel that speaks of it, the transfiguration immediately follows the promise of not tasting death before seeing the kingdom of the Son of man. And not only so, 'but Peter in his second Epistle, 1:16, when speaking of this scene, declares that it was a manifestation of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, that the word of prophecy was confirmed to them by the view of His majesty; so that they knew that whereof they spoke, in making known to them the power and the coming of Christ, having beheld His majesty. In fact, it is precisely in this sense that the Lord speaks of it here, as we have seen. It was a sample of the glory in which He would hereafter come, given to confirm the faith of His disciples, in the prospect of His death which He had just announced to them.
AT 17In chap. 17 Jesus leads them up into a high mountain, and there is transfigured before them: " His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." Moses and Elias appeared also, talking with Him. I leave the subject of their discourse, which is deeply interesting, till we come to the Gospel of Luke, who adds a few other circumstances, which in some respects give another aspect to this scene.
Here the Lord appears in glory, and Moses and Elias with Him. The one, the legislator of the Jews; the other (almost equally distinguished), the prophet who sought to bring back the ten apostate tribes to the worship of Jehovah; and who, despairing of the people, went back to Horeb, from whence the law was given, and afterward was taken up to heaven without passing through death.
These two persons, pre-eminently illustrious in the dealings of God with Israel, as the founder and the restorer of the people in connection with the law, appear in company with Jesus. Peter, struck with this apparition-rejoicing to see his Master associated with these pillars of the Jewish system, with such eminent servants of God, ignorant of the glory of the Son of man, and forgetting the revelation of the glory of His person as the Son of God-desires to make three tabernacles, and to place the three on the same level as oracles. But the glory of God manifests itself; that is to say, the sign known in Israel as the abode (Shechinah) of that glory; and the voice of the Father is heard. Grace may put Moses and Elias in the same glory as that of the Son of God, and associate them with Him; but if the folly of man, in his ignorance, would place them together as having equal authority over the heart of the believer, the Father must at once vindicate the rights of His Son. Not a moment elapses, before the Father's voice proclaims the glory of the Person of His Son, His relation to Himself, that He is the object of His entire affection, in whom is all His delight. It is He whom the disciples are to hear. Moses and Elias have disappeared. Christ is there alone, as the One to be glorified, the One to teach those who hear the Father's voice. The Father Himself distinguishes Him, presents Him to the notice of the disciples, not as being worthy of their love, but as the object of His own delight. In Jesus He was Himself well-pleased. Thus the Father's affections are presented as ruling ours-setting before us one common object. What a position for poor creatures like us! What grace!
At the same time, the law, and all idea of the restoration of the law under the old covenant, were passed away, and Jesus, glorified as Son of man, and Son of the living God, remains the sole dispenser of the knowledge and the mind of God. The disciples fall on their faces, sore afraid, on hearing the voice of God. Jesus, to whom this glory and this voice were natural, encourages them, as He always did when on earth, saying, " Be not afraid." Being with Him who was the object of the Father's love, why should they fear? Their best Friend was the manifestation of God on the earth; the glory belonged to Him. Moses and Elias had disappeared, and the glory also, which the disciples were not yet able to bear; Jesus-who had been thus manifested to them in the glory given Him, and in the rights of His glorious Person, in His relations with the Father-Jesus remains the same to them as they had ever known Him. But this glory was not to be the subject of their testimony until He, the Son of man, was risen from the dead-the suffering Son of man-the great proof should then be given, that He was the Son of God with power; testimony thereunto should be rendered, and He would ascend personally into that glory which had just shone forth before their eyes.
But a difficulty arises in the minds of the disciples, caused by the doctrine of the Scribes with regard to Elias. These had said, that Elias must come before the manifestation of the Messiah. And, in fact, the prophecy of Malachi authorized this expectation. "Why, then," ask they, "say the Scribes, that Elias must first come?" (that is to say, before the manifestation of the Messiah); " whereas we have now seen that Thou art He, without the coming of Elias." Jesus confirms the words of the prophecy, adding, that Elias should restore all things. "But," continues the Lord, "I say unto you, that he is come already, and they have done unto him whatsoever they listed; likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them." Then understood they that He spoke of John the Baptist, who came in the spirit and power of Elias, as the Holy Ghost had declared by Zacharias his father.
Let us say a few words on this passage. First of all, when the Lord says, " Elias truly cometh first, and shall restore all things," He does but confirm that which the Scribes had spoken, according to Malachi's prophecy. As though He had said, "They are in the right." He then declares the effect of the coming of Elias: "He shall restore all things." But the Son of man was yet to come. Jesus had said to His disciples, " Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." Nevertheless, He had come, and was even now speaking with them. But this coming of the. Son of man, of which He spoke, is His coming in glory, when He shall be manifested as the Son of man in judgment, according to Dan. 7 It was thus that all which had been said to the Jews should be accomplished; and in Matthew's Gospel He speaks to them in connection with this expectation. Nevertheless, it was needful that Jesus should be presented to the nation, and should suffer. It was needful that the nation should be tested by the presentation of the Messiah, according to the promise. This was done; and, as God had also foretold by the prophets, " He was rejected of men." Thus, also, John went before Him, according to Isa. 40, as the voice in the wilderness, even in the spirit and power of Elias: he was rejected as the Son of man should also be.
The Lord then, by these words, declares to His disciples, in connection with the scene they had just left, and with all this part of our Gospel, that the Son of man, as now presented to the Jews, was to be rejected. This same Son of man was to be manifested in glory, as they had seen for a moment on the Mount. Elias, indeed, was to come, as the Scribes had said; but that John the Baptist had fulfilled that office in power, for this presentation of the Son of man; which (the Jews being left, as was fitting, to their own responsibility) would only end in His rejection, and in the setting aside of the nation, until the days in which God would begin again to connect Himself with His people, still dear to Him, whatever their condition might be. He would then restore all things; a glorious work, which He would accomplish by bringing again His First-born into the world. The expression, "restore all things," refers here to the Jews, and is used morally. In Acts 3 it refers to the effect of the Son of man's own presence.
The temporary presence of the Son of man was the moment in which a work was accomplished on which eternal glory depends, in which God has been fully glorified, and of which even the outward glory of the Son of man is but the fruit, so far as that depends on His work, and not on His Divine Person, in which, morally, He was perfectly glorified, by perfectly glorifying God. Still, with respect to the promises made to the Jews, it was but the last step in the testing to which they were subjected by grace. God well knew that they would reject His Son; but He would not hold them as definitively guilty until they had really done it. Thus, in His Divine wisdom (while afterward fulfilling His unchangeable promises), He presents Jesus to them, His Son, their Messiah. He gives them every necessary proof. He sends them John the Baptist in the spirit and power of Elias, as His forerunner. The Son of David is born at Bethlehem, with all the signs that should have convinced them; but they were blinded by their pride and self-righteousness, and rejected it all. Nevertheless, it became Jesus, in grace, to adapt Himself, as to His position, to the wretched condition of His people: thus also the Antitype of the David rejected in his day. He shared the affliction of His people: if the Gentiles oppressed them, their King must be associated with their distress; while giving every proof of what He was, and seeking them in love. Rejected, all becomes pure grace. They have no longer a right to anything according to the promises, and are reduced to receive all from that grace, even as a poor Gentile would do. God will not fail in grace. Thus God has put them on the true footing of sinners, and will nevertheless fulfill His promises. This is the subject of Rom. 11.
Now, the Son of man who shall return, will be this same Jesus who went away. The heavens will receive Him until the times of the restitution of all things, of which the prophets have spoken. But he who was to be His forerunner in this temporary presence here, could not be the same Elias. Accordingly, John was conformed to the manifestation of the Son of man, saving the difference that necessarily flowed from the person of the Son of man who could be but one, while that could not be the case with John the Baptist and Elias. But even as Jesus manifested all the power of the Messiah, all His rights to everything that belonged to that Messiah, without assuming as yet the outward glory, His time not being come (John 7); so John fulfilled morally, and in power, the mission of Elias, to prepare the way of the Lord before Him, (according to the true character of His coming, as then accomplished), and answered literally to Isa. 40, and even to Mal. 3, the only passages applied to Him. This is the reason that John said he was not Elias, and that the Lord said, " If ye can receive it, this is Elias which was for to come." Therefore also John never applied Mal. 4:5,65Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 6And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:5‑6), to himself; but he announces himself as fulfilling Isa. 40:3-53The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: 5And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 40:3‑5), and this, in each of the gospels, whatever may be its particular character.
But let us go on with our chapter. While the Lord was on the Mount, a poor father had brought his son,
who was a lunatic and possessed by a devil, to the disciples. Here is developed another character of man's
unbelief, that even of the believer, inability to make use of the power which is, so to say, at his disposal, in the Lord. Christ, Son of God, Messiah, Son of man, had overcome the enemy, had bound the strong man and had a right to cast him out. As man, the obedient one in spite of Satan's temptations, He had overcome him in the wilderness, and had thus a right as man to dispossess him of his dominion over man as to this world; and this He did. In casting out devils and healing the sick, He delivered man from the power of the enemy. " God," said Peter, " anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, and He went about doing good and healing all those that were oppressed by the devil." Now this power should have been used by the disciples, who ought to have known how to avail themselves by
faith of that which Jesus had thus manifested on earth; but they were not able to do it. Yet what availed it to bring this power down here, if the disciples had not faith to use it? The power was there; man might profit by it for complete deliverance from all the oppression of the enemy; He had not faith to do so even believers had not. The presence of Christ on earth was useless, when even His own disciples knew not how to profit by it. There was more faith in the man that brought his child than in them. All therefore come under the Lord's sentence, "Oh faithless and perverse generation." He must leave them; and that which the glory had revealed above, unbelief shall realize below. Observe here that it is not evil in the world which puts an end to a particular intervention of God; on the contrary, it occasions the intervention in grace. It was on account of Satan's dominion over men that Christ came. He departs, because those who had received him are incapable of using the power that he brought with him, or that He bestows for their deliverance; they cannot profit by the very advantages they enjoyed; faith was wanting. Nevertheless, observe also, that as long as such dispensation from God continues, Jesus does not fail to meet individual faith with blessing, even when His disciples cannot glorify Him by the exercise of faith. After all, to be able to avail ourselves of His power, we must be in communion with Him by the practical energy of faith.
He blesses then the poor father according to His need; and, full of patience, He resumes the course of instruction He was giving His disciples on the subject of His rejection and His resurrection as the Son of man. Loving the Lord, and unable to carry their ideas beyond the circumstances of the moment, they are troubled; and yet this was redemption, salvation, the glory of Christ.
Before, however, going farther and teaching them that which became the disciples of a Master thus rejected, and the position they were to occupy, He sets before them His divine glory in the most touching manner, if they could but have understood it; and at the same time, with perfect condescension and tenderness, He places Himself with them, or rather He places them in the enjoyment of His own rights over the earth.
Those who collected the tribute-money for the service of the temple, come and ask Peter if his Master does not pay it. Ever ready to put himself forward, forgetful of the glory he had seen, and the revelation made to him by the Father, Peter, coming down to the ordinary level of his own thoughts, anxious that his Master should be a good Jew, and without consulting Him, replies that he does. The Lord anticipates Peter and shows him His divine knowledge of that which took place at a distance from Himself. At the same time, he speaks of Peter and Himself as children of the King of the temple. He then commands creation, for He can do all things, as He knows all things, and causes a fish (the last creature with whom one would expect to find money) to bring precisely the sum required; coupling anew the name of Peter with His own. He had said, " Lest we offend them"; and now, " Give unto them for Me and thee." Marvelous and divine condescension He who is the Searcher of hearts, and who disposes at will of the whole creation, the Son of the sovereign Lord of the temple, puts His poor disciples into this same relationship with His heavenly Father, with the God who was worshipped in that temple. He submits to the demands that would have been rightly made on strangers, but he places His disciple in all His own privileges as Son. We see very plainly the connection between this touching expression of divine grace and the subject of these chapters. It demonstrates all the significance of the change that had taken place.
It is interesting to remark that the first epistle of Peter is founded on Matt. chap. 16, and the second on chap. 17, which we have just been considering. In chap. 16, Peter, taught of the Father, confessed the Lord to be the Son of the living God; and the Lord said that on this rock He would build His Church, and that he who had the power of death should not prevail against it. Thus also Peter in his first epistle declares that they were born again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now it is by this resurrection, that the power of the life of the living God was manifested. Afterward, he calls Christ the living stone, in coming unto whom we, as living stones, are built up, a holy temple to the Lord.
In his second epistle, he recalls in a peculiar manner, the glory of the Transfiguration, as a proof of the coming and the kingdom of the Son Of man. Accordingly lie speaks in that epistle of the judgment of the Lord.
AT 18In chap. 18, the great principles proper to the new order of things, are made known to the disciples. Let us search a little into these sweet and precious instructions of the Lord.
They may be looked at in two ways. They reveal the ways of God with regard to that which was to take the place of the Lord upon earth, as a testimony to grace and truth. Besides this, they depict the character which is in itself the true testimony to be rendered.
This chapter supposes Christ rejected and absent; the glory of chap. 17 not yet come. It passes over chap. 17 to connect itself with chap. 16 except so far as the last verses of 17 give a practical testimony to His abdication of His true rights until God should vindicate them. The Lord speaks of the two subjects contained in chap. 16, the Kingdom and the Church.
That which would be proper for the kingdom was the meekness of a little child, who is unable to assert its own rights in the face of a world that passes it by; the spirit of dependance and humility. They must become as little children. In the absence of their rejected Lord, this was the spirit that became His followers. He who received a little child in the name of Jesus, received Himself. On the other hand, he who put a stumbling block in the way of one of those little ones who believed in Jesus* should be visited with the most terrible judgment. Alas! the world would do this; but, we unto the world on that account. As to the disciples, if that which they most valued became a snare to them, they must pluck it out and cut it off. They were not to despise these little ones, for if unable to force their own way in this world, they were the object of the Father's special favor, as those who had the peculiar privilege of seeing the King's face. Not that there was no sin in them, but that the Father did not despise those that were far from Him. The Son of man was come to save the lost. And it was not the Father's will that one of these little ones should perish. He spoke, I doubt not, of little children like those whom He took in His arms, but he inculcates on His disciples, the spirit of humility and dependence on the one hand, and on the other, the spirit of the Father, which they were to imitate in order to be truly the children of the kingdom; and not to walk in the spirit of man, who seeks to maintain his place and his own importance, but to humble themselves and submit to contumely; and at the same time (and this is true glory) to imitate the Father who considers the lowly and admits them into His presence. The Son of man was come on behalf of the worthless. This is the spirit of grace spoken of at the end of chap. 5. It is the spirit of the kingdom.
But the Church more especially was to occupy the place of Christ on earth. With respect to offenses against oneself, this same spirit of meekness became His disciple, he was to gain his brother. If the latter would hearken, the thing was to be buried in the heart of the one whom he had offended; but if the appointed means are unavailing, it must be made known to the assembly, and if this did not produce submission, he who had done the wrong should be to him as a stranger, as a heathen and a publican were to Israel.
The Church took the place of Israel on earth. The without and within henceforth applied to her. Heaven would ratify that which the assembly bound on earth, and the Father would grant the prayer of two or three who should agree together in making their request; for Christ was in the midst wherever two or three should be gathered together in His name. Thus, for decisions, for prayers, they were as Christ on the earth, for Christ Himself was there with them. Solemn truth! immense favor, bestowed on two or three when really gathered together in His name; but which forms a subject of the deepest grief when this unity is pretended to while the reality is not there.
Another element of the character proper to the kingdom, which had been manifested in God and in Christ, is pardoning grace. In this also, the children of the kingdom are to be imitators of God, and always to forgive. This refers only to wrongs done to oneself, and not to public discipline. We must pardon to the end, or rather, there must be no end; even as God has forgiven us all things. At the same time, I believe that the dispensations of God to the Jews are here described. They had not only broken the law, but they had slain the Son of God. Christ interceded for them, saying, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," In answer to this prayer, a provisional pardon was preached by the Holy Ghost, through the mouth of Peter. But this grace was rejected. When it was a question of showing grace to the Gentiles, who, no doubt, owed them the hundred pence, they would not hear of it, and they are given up to punishment, until the Lord can say, " They have received double for all their sins."
In a word, the spirit of the kingdom is not outward power, but lowliness; but in this condition there is nearness to the Father, and then it is easy to be meek and humble in this world. One who has tasted the favor of God, will not seek greatness on earth; he is imbued with the spirit of grace, he cherishes the lowly, he pardons those who have wronged him; he is near God, and resembles Him in His ways. The same spirit of grace reigns, whether in the church or in her members. She alone represents Christ on the earth; and to her relate those regulations which are founded on the acceptance of a people as belonging unto God. Two or three really gathered together in the name of Jesus, act with His authority, and enjoy His privileges with the Father, for Jesus Himself is there in their midst.
AT 19Chapter 19 carries on the subject of the spirit that is suited to the kingdom of heaven. A question asked by the Pharisees-for the Lord had drawn nigh to Judea-gives rise to the exposition of His doctrine on marriage; and turning away from the law, given on account of the hardness of their hearts, He goes back to God's institution, according to which one man and one woman were to unite together, and to be one in the sight of God. He establishes, or rather, re-establishes, the true character of the indissoluble bond of marriage. I call it indissoluble, for the exception of the case of unfaithfulness, is not one; the guilty person had already broken the bond.
It was no longer man and woman one flesh. At the same time, if God gave spiritual power for it, it was still better to remain unmarried.
He then renews His instruction with respect to children, while testifying His affection for them. Here, it appears to me, rather in connection with the absence of all that binds to the world, to its distractions and its lusts, whereas, in chap. 18, it was the intrinsic character of the kingdom. After this, He shows (with reference to the introduction of the kingdom in His person) the nature of entire devotedness and sacrifice of all things, in order to follow Him, if truly they only sought to please God. The spirit of the world was opposed at all points. Carnal passions, riches,-no doubt the law of Moses restrained these; but it supposes them, and, in some respects, bears with them. According to the glory of the world, a child had no value. What power can it have there? It is of value in the Lord's eyes.
The law promised eternal life to the man that kept it. The Lord makes it simple and practical in its requirements, or, rather, recalls them in their true simplicity. Riches were not forbidden; that is to say, although moral obligation between man and man was maintained by the law, that which bound the heart to the world was not judged by it. Rather was prosperity, according to the government of God, connected with obedience to it. Christ judges everything that has a bad effect on the heart, and acts upon its selfishness, thus separating it from God. "Sell that thou hast," saith He, " and follow me." Alas! the young man could not renounce his possessions, his ease, himself. " Hardly," saith Jesus, " shall a rich man enter into the kingdom." This was manifest: it was the kingdom of God, of Heaven,-self and the world had no place in it. The disciples, who did not understand that there is no good in man, were astonished that one so favored should be still far from salvation. Who then could succeed? The whole truth then comes out. It is impossible to men. They cannot overcome the desires of the flesh. Morally, and as to his will and his affections, these desires are the man. One cannot make a negro white, or take his spots from the leopard; that which they exhibit is in their nature. But to God, blessed be His name! all things are possible.
These instructions with regard to riches give rise to Peter's question, What shall be the portion of those who have renounced everything? This brings us back to the glory in chap. 17. There would be a regeneration; the state of things should be entirely renewed, under the dominion of the Son of man. At that time they should sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. They should have the first place in the administration of the earthly kingdom. Each one, however, should have his own place; whatever any one renounced for Jesus' sake, he should receive an hundred-fold and everlasting life. Nevertheless, these things would not be decided by appearances here; some that were first should be last, and the last first. In fact, it was to be feared that the carnal heart of man would take this encouragement given in the shape of reward for all his labor and all his sacrifices in a mercenary spirit, and seek to make God his debtor; and, therefore, in the parable by which the Lord continues His discourse, He establishes the principle of grace and of God's sovereignty in that which He gives, and towards those whom He calls, in a very distinct manner, and makes His gifts to those whom He brings into His vineyard, depend on His grace and His call.
We may remark, that when the Lord answers Peter, it was the consequence of having left all for Christ upon His call. The motive was Christ Himself, therefore He says, " Ye which have followed me." He speaks also of those who had done it for His name's sake. That was the motive. The reward is an encouragement when, for His sake, we are already in the way. This is always the case when reward is spoken of in the New Testament. He who was called at the eleventh hour was dependent on this call for his entrance into the work; and if, in his kindness, the master chose to give him as much as the others, they should have rejoiced at it. They adhered to justice; they received that which was agreed upon; the last enjoyed the grace of his master. But who understood it? A Paul might come in late, God having then called him, and be a stronger testimony to grace than the laborers who had wrought from the dawning of the gospel day.
The Lord afterward pursues the subject with His disciples. He goes up to Jerusalem, where the Messiah ought to have been received and crowned, to be rejected and put to death, but after that to rise again; and when the sons of Zebedee come and ask Him for the two first places in the kingdom, He answers that He can lead them indeed to suffering, but as to the first places in His kingdom, He could not bestow them except (according to the Father's counsels) on those for whom the Father had prepared them. Wondrous self-renunciation! 'It is for the Father, for us, that He works. He disposes of nothing. He can bestow on those who will follow Him, a share in His sufferings; everything else shall be given according to the counsels of the Father. But what real glory for Christ and perfection in Him, and what a privilege for us to have this motive only, and to partake in the Lord's sufferings; and what a purification of our carnal hearts is here proposed to us, in making us act only for a suffering Christ, sharing His cross, and committing ourselves to God for recompense.
The Lord then takes occasion to explain the sentiments that become His followers, the perfection of which they had seen in Himself. In the world, authority was sought for; but the Spirit of Christ was a spirit of service, leading to the choice of the lowest place, and to entire devotedness to others. Beautiful and perfect principles, the full bright perfection of which was displayed in Christ. The renunciation of all things, in order to depend confidingly on the grace of Him whom we serve, the consequent readiness to take the lowest place, and thus to be the servant of all,-this should be the spirit of those who have part in the kingdom as now established by the rejected Lord. It is this that becomes His followers.
With the end of ver. 28 this portion of the gospel terminates. At ver. 29 begins His last manifestation to Israel as the Son of David, the Lord, the true King of Israel, the Messiah. He begins His career in this respect at Jericho, the place where Joshua entered the land-the place on which the curse had so long rested. He opens the blind eyes of His people who believe in Him and receive Him as the Messiah, for such He truly was, although rejected. They salute Him as Son of David, and He answers their faith by opening their eyes. They follow Him-a figure of the true remnant of His people, who will wait for Him.
Afterward (chap. 21) disposing of all that belonged to His willing people, He makes His entry into Jerusalem as King and Lord, according to the testimony of Zechariah. But although entering as King-the last testimony to the beloved city, which (to their ruin) was going to reject Him-He comes as a meek and lowly King. The power of God influences the heart of the multitudes, and they salute Him as King, as Son of David, making use of the language supplied by Psa. 118, which celebrates the Millennial sabbath brought in by the Messiah, then to be acknowledged by the people. The multitude spread their garments, to prepare the way for their meek though glorious King, they cut down branches from the trees to bear Him testimony, and He is conducted in triumph to Jerusalem, while the people cry "Hosanna [save now] to the Son of David! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the Highest!" Happy for them if their hearts had been changed to retain this testimony in the spirit. But God sovereignly disposed their hearts to bear this testimony; He could not allow His Son to be rejected without receiving it.
And now the King is going to review everything, still maintaining His position of humility and of testimony. Apparently, the different classes come to judge Him, or to perplex Him; but, in fact, they all present themselves before Him, to receive at His hands, one after another, the judgment of God respecting them. It is a striking scene that opens before us-the true Judge, the everlasting King, presenting Himself for the last time to His rebellious people, with the fullest testimony to His rights and to His power; and they, coming to harass and condemn Him, led by their very malice to pass before Him one after another, laying open their real condition, to receive their judgment from His lips, without His forsaking for a moment (unless in cleansing the temple, before this scene commenced) the position of faithful and true Witness, in all meekness on the earth.
The difference between the two parts of this history is distinguishable. The first presents the Lord in His character of Messiah and Jehovah. As Lord, He commands the ass to be brought. He enters the city, according to the prophecy, as King. He cleanses the temple with authority. In answer to the priests' objections He quotes Psa. 8, which speaks of the manner in which Jehovah caused Himself to be glorified, and perfected the praises due to Him, out of the mouth of babes. In the temple also He heals Israel. He then leaves them, no longer lodging in the city, which He could no longer own, but with the remnant outside. The next day, in a remarkable figure, He exhibits the curse about to fall upon the nation. Israel was the Lord's fig-tree; but it cumbered the ground. It was covered with leaves, but there was no fruit. The fig-tree, condemned by the Lord, presently withers away. It is a figure of this unhappy nation, which bore no fruit for the husbandman.
Israel, in fact, possessed all the outward forms of religion, and was zealous for the law and the ordinances, but they bore no fruit unto God. So far as placed under responsibility to bring forth fruit-that is to say, under the old covenant-they will never do so. Their rejection of Jesus put an end to all hope. God will act in grace under the new covenant; but that is not the question here. The fig-tree is Israel as they were. All was over. That which He said to the disciples, while it is a great general principle, refers also, I doubt not, to that which should take place in Israel, by means of their ministry. Looked at corporately on the earth, as a nation, Israel should disappear, and be lost among the Gentiles. The disciples were those whom God accepted according to their faith.
We see the Lord entering Jerusalem as a king-Jehovah, the King of Israel-and judgment pronounced on the nation. Then follow the details of judgment on the different classes of which it was composed. First come the chief priests and elders, who should have guided the people; they draw near to the Lord and question His authority. Thus addressing Him, they took the place of heads of the nation, and assumed to be judges, capable of pronouncing on the validity of any claims that might be made; if not, why concern themselves with Jesus.
The Lord, in His infinite wisdom, puts a question to them which tests their capability. To tell them the foundation of His authority was useless. It was too late now.. They would have stoned Him, if He had alleged its true source. He replies, "Decide on John the Baptist's mission." If they could not do this, why inquire respecting His? They cannot do it. If they acknowledged John to have been sent of God, it would be acknowledging Christ. To deny it, would be to lose their influence with the people. Of conscience there was no question with them. They confess their inability. Jesus then declines their competency as leaders and guardians of the faith of the people. They had judged themselves; and the Lord proceeds to set their conduct, and the Lord's dealings with them, plainly before their eyes, from ver. 28, to chap. 22:14.
First, while professing to do the will of God, they did it not; while the openly wicked had repented and done His will. They, seeing this, were still hardened. Again, not only had natural conscience remained un- touched, whether by the testimony of John, or by the sight of repentance in others, but, although God had used every means to make them bring forth fruit worthy of His culture, He had found nothing in them but perversity and rebellion. The prophets had been rejected, and His Son would be so likewise. They desired to have His inheritance for themselves. They could not but acknowledge that in such case the consequence must necessarily be the destruction of those wicked men, and the bestowal of the vineyard on others. Jesus applies the parable to themselves, by quoting Psa. 118, which announces that the stone rejected by the builders, should become the head-stone of the corner. Moreover, that whosoever should fall on this stone-as the nation were at that moment doing-should be broken; but that on whomsoever it should fall-and this would be the lot of the rebellious nation in the last days-it should grind them to powder. The chief priests and the Pharisees understood that He spoke of them, but they dared not lay hands on Him, because the multitude took Him for a prophet. This is the history of Israel, as under responsibility, even till the last days.
In chap. 22, their conduct with respect to the invitations of grace, is, in its turn, presented. The parable is, therefore, a similitude of the kingdom of heaven. The purpose of God is to honor his Son by celebrating His marriage. First of all, the Jews, already invited, are bidden to the marriage feast. They would not come. This was done during Christ's life-time. Afterward, all things being ready, He again sends forth messengers to induce them to come. This is the mission of the apostles to the nation, when the work of redemption had been accomplished. They either despise the message or slay the messengers. The result is the destruction of those wicked men and of their city. This is the destruction that fell upon Jerusalem. On their rejection of the invitation, the destitute, the Gentiles, those who were outside, are brought in to the feast, and the wedding is furnished with guests. Another thing is now presented. It is true that we have seen the judgment of Jerusalem in this parable, but it is a similitude of the kingdom; we have, therefore, also the judgment of that which is within.
There must be fitness for the occasion. For a wedding-feast there must be a wedding-garment. If Christ is to be glorified everything must be according to His glory. There may be an outward entrance into the kingdom, a profession of Christianity; but he who is not clothed with that which appertains to the feast will be cast out. We must be clothed with Christ himself. On the other hand, all is prepared, nothing is required. It was not the guest's part to bring anything. The King provided all. But we must be imbued with the spirit of that which is done. If there is any thought of what was suitable to a wedding-feast, the need of a wedding-garment to appear in would surely be felt. If not, the honor of the King's Son has been forgotten. The heart was a stranger to it- the man himself shall become so by the judgment of the King when he takes cognizance of the guests who have come in.
Thus also has grace been shown to Israel, and they are judged for refusing the invitation of the great King to the marriage of His Son. And then, the abuse of this grace by those who appear to accept it, is also judged. The bringing in of the Gentiles is declared. Here the history of the judgment of Israel in general, and of the character which the kingdom would assume, concludes.
After this, the different classes of the Jews come forward, each in turn. First, the Pharisees, and the Herodians, i.e., those who favored the authority of the Romans, and those who were opposed to it, seek to entangle Jesus in His talk. The blessed Lord answers them with that perfect wisdom that ever displayed itself in all He said and all He did. On their part, it was pure wickedness, manifesting a total want of conscience. It was their own sin that had brought them under the Roman yoke; a position contrary indeed to that which should have belonged to the people of God on earth. Apparently, therefore, Christ must either become an object of suspicion to the authorities, or renounce His claim to be the Messiah, and, consequently, the Deliverer. Who had occasioned this dilemma? It was the fruit of their own sins. The Lord shows them that they had themselves accepted the yoke. The money bore the mark of this; let them render it then to those unto whom it belonged, and let them also-which they were not doing-render unto God the things that were God's. He leaves them under the yoke which they were obliged to confess they had accepted. He reminds them of the rights of God which they had forgotten. Such might, moreover, have been Israel's state according to the establishment of power in Nebuchadnezzar, as a "spreading vine of low stature."
The Sadducees come next before Him, and question Him with respect to the resurrection, thinking to prove its absurdity. Thus, as the condition of the nation had been exhibited in His discourse with the Pharisees, their unbelief is here displayed. They thought only of the things of this world, seeking to deny the existence of another. But whatever might be the state of degradation and subjection into which the people had fallen, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob changed not. The promises made to the remained sure, and the fathers were living, to enjoy these promises hereafter. It was the word and the power of God which were in question. The Lord maintains them with power and evidency. The Sadducees were silenced.
The lawyers, struck with His reply, ask a question which gives the Lord occasion to extract from the whole law, that which, in the sight of God, is its essence, presenting thus its perfection, and that which-by whatever means it may be reached-forms the happiness of those that walk in it. Grace alone rises higher.
Here their questionings cease. All is judged, all is brought to light with respect to the position of the people and the sects of Israel; and the Lord has laid before them the perfect thoughts of God respecting them, whether on the subject of their condition, of His promises, or of the substance of the law.
It was now the Lord's turn to propose His question in order to bring out His own position. He asks the Pharisees to reconcile the title of Son of David with that of Lord, which David himself gave Him, and that, in connection with the ascension of this same Christ, to sit at the right hand of God until God had made all His enemies His footstool, and established His throne in Zion. Now, this was the whole of Christ's position at that moment. They were unable to answer Him, and no man thirst ask Him any more questions. In fact, to understand that Psalm would have been to understand all the ways of God with respect to His Son, at the time they were going to reject Him. This necessarily closed these discourses, by showing the true position of Christ, who, although the Son of David, must ascend on high to receive the kingdom, and, while waiting for it, sit at the right hand of God, according to the rights of His glorious person. David's Lord, as well as David's Son.
There is another point of interest to be remarked here. In these interviews, and these discourses with the different classes of the Jews, the Lord brings out the condition of the Jews on all sides, with respect to their relations with God, and then, the position which He took Himself. He first shows their national position towards God, as under responsibility to Him, according to natural conscience and the privileges belonging to them. The result would be, their cutting off, and the bringing in of others into the Lord's vineyard. This is chap. 21:28-.46. He then exhibits their condition with regard to the grace of the kingdom, and the introduction of Gentile sinners. Here also, the result is the cutting off and the destruction of the city. Afterward, the Herodians and the Pharisees, the friends of the Romans, and their enemies, the pretended friends of God, bring out the true position of the Jews with respect to the imperial power of the Gentiles and to God. In His interview with the Sadducees, He shows the certainty of the promises made to the fathers, and the relations of God with them in respect of life and resurrection. After this, He puts the real meaning of the law before the Scribes; and then, the position which He took, Himself the Son of David, according to Psa. 110 which was linked with His rejection by the leaders of the nation, who stood around Him.
AT 23Chapter 23 clearly shows how far the disciples are viewed in connection with the nation, inasmuch as they were Jews; although the Lord judges the leaders, who beguiled the people and dishonored God by their hypocrisy. He speaks to the multitude and to His disciples, saying, " The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat." Being thus expositors of the law, they were to be obeyed in all that they said according to that law, although their own conduct was but hypocrisy. That which is important here is the position of the disciples. It is, in fact, the same as that of Jesus; they are in connection with all that is of God in the nation, that is to say, with the nation as the recognized people of God; consequently, with the law, as possessing authority from God. At the same time, the Lord judges, and the disciples also were practically to judge the walk of the nation, as publicly represented by their leaders. While still forming part of the nation they were carefully to avoid the walk of the Scribes and Pharisees. After having reproached these pastors of the nation with their hypocrisy, the Lord points out the way in which they themselves condemned the deeds of their fathers, by building the sepulchers of the prophets whom they had slain. They were then the children of those who slew them, and God would put them to the test, by sending them also prophets and wise men, and scribes, and they would fill up the measure of their iniquity by putting these to death and persecuting them; condemned thus out of their own mouths, in order that all the righteous blood which had been shed, from Abel's to that of the prophet Zechariah, should come upon this generation. Frightful amount of guilt, accumulated from the beginning of the enmity which sinful man, when placed under responsibility, has ever shown to the testimony of God; and which increased daily, because the conscience became more hardened each time that it resisted this testimony. The truth was so much the more manifest from its witnesses having suffered. It was a rock, exposed to view, to be avoided in the people's path. But they persisted in their evil course, and every step in advance, every similar act, was the proof of a still increasing obduracy. All would be heaped up on the head of this reprobate generation.
Remark here, the character given to the apostles and Christian prophets. They are scribes, wise men, prophets, sent to the Jews—to the ever rebellious nation. This very clearly brings out the aspect in which this chapter regards them. Even the apostles are "wise men," "scribes," sent to the Jews as such.
But the nation-Jerusalem, God's beloved city-is guilty and is judged. Christ, as we have seen, since the cure of the blind man near Jericho, presents Himself as Jehovah. How often would He have gathered the children of Jerusalem, but they would not; and now their house should be desolate until (their hearts being converted) they should use the language of Psa. 118, and, in desire, hail His arrival who came in the name of the Lord, looking for deliverance at His hands, and praying to Him for it: in a word, until they should cry Hosannah to Him that should come. They would see Jesus no more until, humbled in heart, they should pronounce Him blessed whom they were expecting, and whom they now rejected: in short, until they were prepared in heart. Peace should follow, desire precede, His appearing.
The three last verses exhibit clearly enough the position of the Jews, or, of Jerusalem, as the center of the system before God. Long since, and many times would Jesus, Jehovah the Savior, have gathered the children of Jerusalem together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but they would not. Their house should remain forsaken and desolate, but not forever. After having killed the prophets and stoned the messengers sent unto them, they had crucified their Messiah, and rejected and slain those whom He had sent to proclaim grace unto them, even after His rejection. Therefore should they see Him no more until they had repented, and the desire to see Him was produced in their hearts, so that they should be prepared to bless Him, and would bless Him in their hearts, and confess their readiness to do so. The Messiah, who was about to leave them, should be seen of them no more until repentance had turned their hearts unto Him whom they were now rejecting. Then they should see Him. The Messiah, coming in the name of the Lord, shall be manifested to His people Israel. It is the Lord their Savior who should appear, and the Israel who had rejected Him should see Him as such. The people should thus return into their relations with God.
Such is the moral and prophetic picture of Israel. The disciples, as Jews, were viewed as part of the nation.
AT 24We have already seen that the rejection of the testimony to the kingdom in grace, is the cause of the judgment that falls upon Jerusalem and its inhabitants. Now, in chap. 24 we have the position of this testimony in the midst of the people, the condition of the Gentiles, and the relation between them and the testimony rendered by the disciples. After this, the condition of Jerusalem consequent upon her rejection of the Messiah and her contempt for the testimony; and then, the universal overthrow at the end of those days: a state of things which should be ended by the appearance of the Son of man, and the gathering together of the elect of Israel from the four winds.
We must examine this remarkable passage, at once a prophecy, and instruction to the disciples, for their direction in the path they must follow amid the coming events.
Jesus departs from the temple, and that, forever. A solemn act, which we may say executed the judgment He had just pronounced. The house was now desolate. The heart of the disciples was still bound to it by their former prepossessions. They draw His attention to the magnificent buildings that composed it. Jesus announces to them its entire destruction. Seated apart with Him on the Mount of Olives, the disciples inquire when these things were to happen, and what would be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age. They class together the destruction of the temple, the coming of Christ, and the end of the age. We must observe that here the end of the age is the end of the period during which Israel was subject to the law under the old covenant: a period which was to cease, giving place to the Messiah and to the new covenant. Observe also, that God's government of the earth is the subject, and the judgments that should take place at Christ's coming, which would put an end to the existing age. The disciples confounded that which the Lord had said of the destruction of the temple with this period. The Lord
treats the subject from His own point of view; that is to say, with regard to the testimony which the disciples were to render in connection with the Jews, during His absence, and to the end of the age. He adds nothing as to the destruction of Jerusalem, which He had already announced. The time of His coming was purposely hidden. Moreover, the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus put an end, in fact, to the position which the Lord's instructions had in view. There was no longer any cognizable testimony among the Jews. When this position shall be resumed, the applicability of the passage will also recommence. After the destruction of Jerusalem, until that time, the church only is in question.
The Lord's discourse is divided into three parts:-
1. The general condition of the disciples and of the world during the time of the testimony.
2. The period marked out by the fact that the abomination of desolation stands in the holy place.
3. The Lord's coming and the gathering together of the elect in Israel.
The time of the disciples' testimony is characterized by false Christs and false prophets among the Jews; persecution of those who render testimony, betraying them to the Gentiles. But there is yet something more definite with regard to those days. There would be false Christs in Israel. There would be wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes. They were not to be troubled-the end would not be yet. These things were only a beginning of sorrows. They were principally outward things. There were other events which would bring them into greater trial, and test them more thoroughly—things more from within. The disciples should be delivered up, put to death, hated of all nations. The consequence of this among those who made profession, would be that many would be offended, they would betray one another, false prophets would arise and deceive many, and, because iniquity abounded, the love of many should wax cold. A sorrowful picture; but these things would give occasion for the exercise of a faith that had been put to the proof. He who endured to the end should be saved. This concerns the sphere of testimony in particular. That which the Lord says, is not absolutely limited to the testimony in Canaan, but as it is from thence the testimony goes forth, it is all connected with that land as a moral center. In addition to this, the gospel should be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then should the end come: the end of this age. Now, although heaven is the source of authority when the kingdom shall be established, Canaan and Jerusalem are its earthly center. So that the idea of the kingdom, while extending throughout the world, turns our thoughts to the land of Israel. It is " this gospel of the kingdom"; it is not here the proclamation of the union of the church with Christ, nor redemption in its fullness, as preached and taught by the apostles after the ascension, but the kingdom which was to be established on the earth, as John the Baptist, and as the Lord Himself, had proclaimed. The establishment of the universal authority of the ascended Christ, should be preached in all the world, to test their obedience, and to furnish those who had ears to hear, with the object of faith. This is the general history of that which would take place until the end of the age, without entering on the subject of the proclamation of the church properly so called. The destruction of Jerusalem, and the refusal of the Jews to receive the gospel, caused God to raise up a special testimony by the hands of Paul, without annulling the truth of the coming kingdom. That which follows, proves that such a going forth of testimony of the kingdom will take place at the end, and that the testimony will reach all nations before the coming of that judgment which will put an end to the age.
But there will be a moment when, within a certain sphere, all testimony shall cease. That is to say, in Jerusalem and its vicinity; unless it be the testimony of suffering. It is from the moment that the abomination that maketh desolate shall be set up in the holy place. The Lord refers us to Daniel, that we may understand whereof He speaks. Now, Daniel brings us definitely to the last days- the time when Michael shall stand up for Daniel's people, i.e., the Jews, who are under the dominion of the Gentiles-the days in which there shall be a time of trouble, such as never had been nor ever again should be, and in which the remnant should be delivered. In the latter part of the previous chapter of that prophet, this time is called " the time of the end," and the destruction of the king of the North is prophetically declared. Now, the prophet announces that 1335 days before the full blessing(blessed is he that has part therein!), the daily sacrifice should be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up; that from this moment, there should be 1290 days, that is one month more than the 1260 days spoken of in the Revelation, during which the woman who flees from the serpent is nourished in the wilderness, and also more than the three years and a half of Dan. 7 At the end, as we find here, the judgment comes and the kingdom is given to the saints. Thus it is proved that this passage refers to the last days, and to the position of the Jews at that time. The events of the time past confirm this thought. Neither in 1260 days, nor in 1260 years, after the days of Titus, nor in 30 days or years after, did any event take place which could be the accomplishment of these days in Daniel. The periods are gone by, many years ago. Israel has not been delivered, neither has Daniel stood in his lot at the end of those days. It is equally plain that Jerusalem is in question, and its vicinity, for they that are in Judea are commanded to flee into the mountains. The disciples who shall be there at that time are to pray that their flight may not be on a Sabbath day: an additional testimony that it is Jews who are in question; but a testimony also of the tender care which the Lord takes of those who are His, thinking, even in the midst of these unparalleled events, of whether it would be wintry weather at the time of their flight. Besides this, other circumstances prove, if farther proof were needed, that it is the Jewish remnant who are in question, and not the church. We know that all believers are to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. They will afterward return with Him. But here, there will be false Christs on the earth, and people will say, "He is here in the wilderness," " He is there in the secret chambers." But the saints who shall be caught up and return with the Lord, have nothing at all to do with false Christs on earth, since they will go up to heaven to be with Him there, before He returns to the earth: while it is easy to understand that the Jews, who are expecting earthly deliverance, should be liable to similar temptations, and that they should be deceived by them, unless kept by God Himself. This part then of the prophecy applies to the last days, to the last three years and a half before the judgment, which will be suddenly poured out at the coming of the Son of man. The Lord will come suddenly, as a flash of lightning, as an eagle to its prey, unto the spot where the object of His judgment is found. Immediately after the tribulation of that last three years and a half, the whole hierarchical system of government shall be shaken and utterly overthrown. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. This ver. 30 contains the answer to the second part of the disciples' inquiry in ver. 3. The Lord gives His disciples the warnings necessary for their guidance; but the world would see no signs, however plain they might be to those that understand. But this sign should be at the moment of the Lord's appearing. The brightness of His glory whom they had despised, would show them who it was that came: and it would be unexpected. What a terrible moment, when, instead of a Messiah who should answer to their worldly pride, the Christ whom they had despised shall appear in the heavens.
Afterward, the Son of Man thus come and thus manifested, would send for all the elect in Israel from the four corners of the earth. It is this which ends the history of the Jews, and even that of Israel, in answer to the disciples' question; and unfolds the dealings of God with respect to the testimony, among the people who had rejected it, and announces the time of their deep distress, and the judgment that shall be poured out in the midst of this scene when Jesus comes, the subversion of all powers, great and small, being complete.
The Lord gives the history of the testimony in Israel, and that of the people themselves, from the moment of His departure until His return; but the length of time during which there should be neither people, nor temple, nor city, is not specified. It is this which gives importance to the capture of Jerusalem. It is not here spoken of in direct terms-the Lord does not describe it; but it put an end to that order of things to which His discourse applies, and this application is not resumed until Jerusalem and the Jews are again brought forward. The Lord announced it at the beginning. The disciples thought that His coming would take place at the same time. He answers them in such a manner, that His discourse should be of use to them until the capture of Jerusalem. But when once the abomination of desolation is mentioned, we find ourselves carried on into the last days.
The disciples were to understand the signs He gave them. I have already said that the destruction of Jerusalem, by the fact itself, interrupted the application of His discourse. The Jewish nation was set aside; but ver. 34 has a much wider sense, and one more really proper to it. Unbelieving Jews should exist, as such, until all was accomplished. Compare Deut. xxxii. 5, 20, where this judgment on Israel is specially in view. God hides His face from them until He shall see what their end will be, for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. This has taken place. They are a distinct race of people unto this day. That generation exists in the same condition-a monument of the perpetuity of God's dealings, and of the Lord's
words.
To conclude, the government of God, exercised with regard to this people, has been traced to its end. The Lord comes, and He gathers together the dispersed elect of Israel. The prophetic history then continues, chap. 25:31, which is connected with chap. 24:30. And as chap. 24:31 relates the gathering together of Israel, after the appearance of the Son of man, chap. 25:31 announces His dealings in judgment with the Gentiles. He will appear, doubtless, as the lightning, with regard to the apostasy, who will be as a dead body in His sight. But when He shall come solemnly to take His earthly place in glory, that will not pass away like lightning. He shall sit upon the throne of His glory, and all nations shall be gathered before Him on His throne of judgment, and they shall be judged according to their treatment of the messengers of the kingdom, who had gone out to preach it unto them. These messengers are the brethren (ver. 40), those who had received them are the sheep; those who had neglected their message are the goats. It is the nations then who are judged on earth, according to their treatment of these messengers. It is the judgment of the living, so far at least as regards the nations; a judgment as final as that of the dead. It is not Christ's judgment in battle, as in Rev. 19. It is a session of His supreme tribunal, in His right of government over the earth, as in Rev. 20:44And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4). I speak of the principle, or rather of the character of the judgment. I do not doubt that these brethren are Jews, such as the disciples were, that is to say, those who will be in a 'similar position as to their testimony. The Gentiles who had received this message should be accepted, as though they had treated Christ in the same manner. His Father had prepared for them the enjoyment of the kingdom, and they should enter into it, being still on earth, for Christ was come down in the power of eternal life.
I have, for the moment, passed over all between chap. 24:31 and chap. 25:31, because the end of this last chapter completes all that concerns the government and the judgment of the earth. But there is a class of per-; sons, whose history is given us in its great moral features; a history that comes in its place between the two verses I have just mentioned.
They are the disciples of Christ (outside the testimony in the midst of Israel), to whom He has committed His service, and a position in connection with Himself, during His absence. This position and this service are in connection with Christ Himself, and not in connection with Israel, wherever it may be that this service is accomplished.
There are, however, some verses of which I have not yet spoken, which apply more particularly to the state of things in Israel, and to the disciples who are there. I speak of them here, because all this part of the discourse, namely, from -chap. 24:31 to chap. 25:31, is an exhortation, an address from the Lord, on the subject of their duties during His absence. Chapter 24:36-44 The continual expectation, which their ignorance of the moment when the Son of Man would come imposed on the disciples, while from ver. 45, the Lord addresses Himself more directly, and at the same time in a more general manner, to their conduct during His absence; not in connection with Israel, but with His own, His household. He had committed to them the task of supplying them with suitable food in due season. This is the responsibility of ministry in the church. It would be on his return that judgment should be pronounced on their faithfulness during the interval. Faithfulness should be approved in that day. On the other hand, practical forgetfulness of His coming would lead to license and tyranny. It is not an intellectual system that is meant here, " the evil servant says in his heart, my lord delayeth his coming"; his will was concerned in it. The result was that the fleshly will manifested itself. It was no longer devoted service to His household, with a heart set upon the Master's approval at His return; but worldliness in conduct and the assumption of arbitrary authority, to which the service appointed him gave occasion. He eats and drinks with the drunken; he unites himself to the world and partakes in its ways; he smites his fellow-servants at his will. Such is the effect, during His absence, of forgetfulness of the Lord's return. Instead of faithful service, worldly-mindedness and tyranny. Is it not too true a picture? What is it that has happened to those who had the place of service in the house of God? The consequences on both hands are these: the faithful servant, who from love and devotion to his master, applied himself to the welfare of His household, should be made ruler, on his Master's return, over all His goods: those who have been faithful in the service of the house, shall be set over all things by the Lord, when He. takes His place of power, and acts as King. All things are given into the hands of Jesus by the Father. Those who, in humility, have been faithful to His service during. His absence, shall be made rulers over all that is committed to Him, i.e., over all things:-they are but the "goods" of Jesus. On the other hand, he who during the Lord's absence, had set himself up as master, and followed after the spirit of the flesh and of the world, to which he had united himself, should not merely have the world's portion. His Master should come quite unexpectedly, and he should receive the same punishment as the hypocrites. What a lesson for those who take to themselves a place of service in the church! Observe here, that it is not said he is drunken himself, but that he eats and drinks with those that are so. He allies himself with the world, and follows its customs. This, moreover, is the general aspect which the kingdom will assume in that day, although the heart of the evil servant was wicked. The bridegroom will indeed tarry; and the consequences that might be expected from the heart of man, will not fail to be realized. But the effect will be to make manifest the fundamental difference between the two classes.
AT 25Chapter 25 Professors, during the Lord's absence, are here presented as virgins, who went out to meet the bridegroom, and light him to the house. In this passage, He is not the Bridegroom of the church. No others go to meet Him for His marriage with the church in heaven.
The bride does not appear in this parable. Had she been introduced, it would have been Jerusalem on earth. The church is not seen in these chapters as the church. It is individual responsibility during the absence of Christ. That which characterized the faithful at this period was that they came out from the world, from Judaism, from everything, to go and meet the coining Lord. The Jewish remnant, on the contrary, wait for Him in the place where they are. If this expectation was real, the characteristic of one governed by it, would be the thought of that which was necessary for the coming One: the light, the oil. Otherwise, to be the companions of professors meanwhile, and to carry lamps with them would satisfy the heart. Nevertheless, they all take a position, they go out, they leave the house to go out and meet the Bridegroom. He tarries. This also has taken place. They all fall asleep. The whole professing church has lost the thought of the Lord's return; even the faithful who have the Spirit. They must also have gone in again somewhere to sleep at ease. But, at midnight, unexpectedly, the cry is raised- "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him." Alas! they needed the same call as at first. They must again go out to meet Him. The virgins rise, and trim their lamps. There is time enough between the cry and the Bridegroom's arrival, to prove the condition of each. There were some who had no oil in their vessels. Their lamps went out. The wise had oil. It was impossible for them to share it with the others. Those only who possessed it went in with the Bridegroom to take part in the marriage. He refused to acknowledge the others. What business had they there? The virgins were to give light with their lamps. They had not done it. Why should they share the feast? They had failed in that which gave this place. What title had they to be at the Feast? The virgins of the feast were virgins who accompanied the Bridegroom. These had not done so. They were not admitted.
Even the faithful ones had forgotten the coming of Christ. They fell asleep. But at least they possessed the essential thing that corresponded to it. The grace of the Bridegroom causes the cry to be raised which proclaims His arrival. It awakens them, they have oil in their vessels, and the delay which occasions the lamps of the unfaithful to go out, gives the faithful time to be ready and at their place; and, forgetful as they may have been, they go in with the Bridegroom to the wedding-feast.
For, in truth (ver. 14), it is as a man who had gone away from his home-for the Lord dwelt in Israel—and who committed his goods to his own servants and then departs. Here we have the principles that characterize faithful servants. It is not now the personal individual expectation, and the possession of the oil, requisite for a place in the Lord's glorious train; neither is it the public and general position of those who were in the Master's service, characterized as position, and therefore represented by a single servant; it is individual faithfulness in the service, as before in the expectation of the Bridegroom. The Master, on His return, will reckon with each one. Now, what was their position? What was the principle that would produce faithfulness? Observe, first of all, that it is not providential gifts, earthly possessions, that are meant. These are not the "goods" that Jesus committed to His people when He went away. They were gifts which fitted them to labor in His service while He was absent. The Master was sovereign and wise. He gave differently to each, and to each according to his capacity. Each was fitted for the service in which he was employed, and the gifts needed for its fulfillment were bestowed on him. Faithfulness to perform it, was the only thing in question. That which distinguished The faithful from the unfaithful, was confidence in their Master. They had sufficient confidence in His well-known character, in His goodness, His love, to labor without being authorized in any other manner than by their knowledge of His personal character, and by the intelligency which that confidence and that knowledge produced. Of what use to give them sums of money, except to trade with them? Had He failed in wisdom when He bestowed these gifts? The devotedness that flowed from knowledge of their Master, counted upon the love of Him whom they knew. They labored, and they were rewarded. This is the true character, and the spring, of service in the church. It is this that the third servant lacked. He did not know his Master-he did not trust in him. He could not even do that which was consistent with his own thoughts. Those who knew their Master's character entered into His joy. There is this difference between the parable here and that in Luke 19, that in the latter each man receives one pound; his responsibility is the only question. And consequently he who gained ten pounds is set over ten cities. Here the sovereignty and the wisdom of God are concerned, and he who labors is guided by the knowledge he has of his Master; and the counsels of God in grace are accomplished. He who has the most, receives yet more. At the same time, the reward is more general. He who has gained two talents, and he who has gained five, enter alike into the joy of the Lord whom they have served. They have known Him in His true character-they enter into His full joy. The Lord grant it unto us!
There is more than this in the second parable. It refers more directly and more exclusively to the heavenly character of Christians. It is not the Church-properly so called-as a body; but the faithful have come out to meet the Bridegroom, who was returning to the marriage. At the time of His return to execute judgment, the kingdom of heaven will assume the character of persons come out from the world, and still more from Judaism-from all that, in point of religion, belongs to the flesh-from all established worldly form-to have to do with the coming Lord alone, and to go out to meet Him. This was the character of the faithful from the beginning, as having part in the kingdom of heaven, if they had understood the position in which they were placed by the Lord's rejection. The virgins, it is true, had gone in again; but this falsified their character and the midnight cry brought them back into their true place. Therefore they go in with the Bridegroom, and there is no question of judging and rewarding, but of being with Him. In the first and third parables, the subject is His return to earth, and individual recompence; the results, in the kingdom, of their conduct during the King's absence. This is not the subject in the Parable of the Virgins. Those who have no oil, do not go in at all. This is enough. The others have blessing in common; they go in with the Bridegroom to the marriage. There is no question of particular reward, nor of difference in conduct between them. Whatever the place of service might have been, the reward was sure. This parable applies, and is limited to the heavenly portion of the kingdom, as such. It is a similitude of the kingdom of heaven.
We may also remark here, that the delay of the Master is noticed in the third parable likewise: "After a long time" (ver. 19). Their faithfulness and their constancy were thus put to the test. May the Lord give unto us to be found faithful and devoted, now in the end of the ages, that He may say unto us, " Good and faithful servants!"
Weeping and gnashing of teeth are his portion who has not known his Master, who has outraged Him by the thoughts he entertained of His character.
In ver. 31, the prophetic history is resumed from the 31st ver. of chap. 24. There we saw the Son of man appear like a flash of lightning, and afterward gather together the remnant of Israel from the four corners of the earth. But this is not all. If He thus appears in a manner as sudden as unexpected, He also establishes His throne of judgment and glory on the earth. If He destroys His enemies whom He finds in rebellion against Himself, He also sits upon His throne to judge all nations. This is the judgment on earth of the living. Four different parties are here found together. The Lord, the Son of man Himself-the brethren-the sheep -and the goats. I believe the brethren here to be Jews, His disciples as Jews, whom He had employed as His messengers, to preach the kingdom during His absence. The Gospel of the kingdom was to be preached, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end of the age should come. At the time here spoken of, this had been done. The result should be manifested before the throne of the Son of man.
He calls these messengers, therefore, His brethren. He had told them, they should be ill-treated; they had been so. Still there were some who had received their testimony.
Now, such was His affection for His faithful servants, so highly did He value them, that He judged those to whom the testimony was sent, according to the manner in which they had received these messengers, whether well or ill, as though it had been done to Himself, What an encouragement for His witnesses during that time of trouble, tried as their faith should be in service! At the same time, it was justice, morally, to those who were judged; for they had rejected the testimony, by whomsoever it was rendered. We have also the result of their conduct, both the one and the other. It is the King-for that is the character Christ has now taken on earth-who pronounces judgment; and He calls the sheep, those who had received the messengers, and had sympathized with them in their afflictions and persecutions, to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world: for such had been the purpose of God with respect to this earth; He had always the kingdom in view. They were the blessed of His, the King's, Father. It was not children, who understood their own relation with their Father; but they were the receivers of blessing from the Father of the King of this world. Moreover, they were to enter into everlasting life; for such was the power, through grace, of the word which they had received into their heart. Possessed of everlasting life, they should be blest in a world that was blest also.
They who had despised the testimony and those that bore it, had despised the King who sent them; they should go away into everlasting punishment.
Thus, the whole effect of Christ's coming, with regard to the kingdom, and to His messengers during His absence, is unfolded-with respect to the Jews, as far as ver. 31 of chap. 24; with respect to His servants during His absence, to the end of ver. 30 of chap. 25, including the kingdom of heaven in its present condition, and the heavenly rewards that shall be given; and then, from ver. 31 to the end of chap. 25, with respect to the nations who shall be blessed on the earth at His return.
The Lord had finished his discourses. He prepares, to suffer, and to make His last and touching adieus to His disciples, at the table of His last passover on earth, at which He instituted the simple and precious memorial which recalls His sufferings and His love with such profound interest. This part of our Gospel requires little explanation-not, assuredly, that it is of less interest; but because it needs to be felt, rather than explained. With what simplicity the Lord announces that which was to happen! (ver. 2).
He had already arrived at Bethany, six days before the passover (John 12:11Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. (John 12:1)): there He abode, with the exception of the last supper, until He was taken in the Garden of Gethsemane, although He visited Jerusalem, and there partook of His last meal.
AT 26We have already examined the discourses uttered during those six days, as well as His actions, such as the cleansing of the temple. That which precedes this chapter (26) is either the manifestation of His rights as Emanuel, King of Israel, or that of the judgment of the great King with respect to the people-a judgment expressed in discourses to which the people could make no answer; or, finally, the condition of His disciples during His absence. We have now His submission to the sufferings appointed Him, to the judgment about to be executed upon Him; but which was, in truth, only the fulfillment of the counsels of God His Father, and of the work of His own love.
The picture of man's dreadful sin in the crucifixion of Jesus, unfolds before our eyes. But the Lord Himself announces it before-hand, with all the calmness of one who had come for this purpose. Before the consultations of the chief priests had taken place, Jesus speaks of it as a settled thing: << Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to be crucified."
Afterward, the priests, the scribes, and the elders assemble to concert their plans for obtaining possession of His person, and ridding themselves of Him.
In a word, first, the marvelous counsels of God, and the submission of Jesus, according to His knowledge of those counsels, and of the circumstances which should accomplish them; and, afterward, the iniquitous counsels of man, which do but fulfill those of God.
Judas was but the instrument of their malice, in the hand of Satan; who, after all, did but arrange these things according to Divine intention. They wished to avoid taking Him at the time of the feast, on account of the multitude, who might favor Jesus, if He appealed to them. They had already done so at His entrance into Jerusalem; and wickedness always reckons on finding its own principles in others. This is the reason why it so frequently fails in circumventing the upright, because they are artless. Here it was the will of God. But He had prepared a gracious relief to the heart of Jesus-a balm to His heart more than to His body-in a circumstance which is used by the enemy to drive Judas to extremity, and put him in connection with the chief priests.
Bethany-linked in memory with the last moments of peace and tranquility in the Savior's life, the place where dwelt Martha and Mary, and Lazarus, the risen dead-Bethany receives Jesus for the last time. The blessed, but momentary retreat of a heart which, ever ready to pour itself out in love, was ever straitened in a world of sin, that did not and could not respond to it; yet a heart which has given us, in these sojourns at the house of this beloved family, the example of an affection, perfect yet human, which found sweetness in being responded to and appreciated. The nearness of the cross, when He would have to set His face as a flint, did not deprive His heart of the joy or the sweetness of this communion, while rendering it solemn and affecting. In doing the work of God, He did not cease to be man. In everything He condescended to be ours. This sanctuary sheltered Him for a moment from the rude hand of man. Here He could display what He ever was as man. It is with reason that the act of one who appreciated this privilege-an act that expressed his affection -should be told in all the world. This is a scene, a testimony, that brings the Lord sensibly near to us; that awakens a feeling in our hearts, which sanctifies by binding them to His beloved person.
His daily life was one continual tension of soul, in proportion to the strength of His love-a life of devotedness in the midst of sin and misery. For a moment, He could give free course to sentiments proper, in their origin, to innocence; but enhanced by the fact, that it was the operation of grace, in the midst of sin, which gave them liberty.
The reader will do well carefully to study this scene of' touching condescension and outpouring of heart. Jesus, Emanuel, King and Supreme Judge, had just been causing all things to pass in judgment before Him (from chap. 21 to the end of 25). He had finished that which He had to say. His task here, in this respect, was accomplished. He now takes the place of Victim: He has only to suffer, and can allow Himself freely to enjoy the touching expressions of affection that flow from a heart devoted to Him. It was thus also with His mother. It was but for a moment, when His task was ended. Like Jonathan, in other circumstances, while pursuing His work, He tastes the honey at the end of His rod, and passes on.
Again, observe the effect of deep affection for the Lord. This affection/necessarily breathes the atmosphere in which at that moment the Spirit of the Lord is found. The woman who anointed Him, was not informed of the circumstances about to happen. But the approach of that hour of darkness was felt by one whose heart was fixed on Jesus. The different forms of evil developed themselves before Him, and displayed themselves in their true colors; and, under the influence of one master, grouped themselves around the only object against whom it was worth while to array this concentration of malice, and who brought their true character out into open daylight.
Jesus, for this very reason, was still more the object 'that occupied a heart which, doubtless led of God, instinctively apprehended what was going on. The time of testimony, and even that of' the explanation of His relations to all around Him, was over. His heart was free to enjoy the good and true and spiritual affections of which He was the object; and which, whatever might be their human form, showed so plainly their Divine origin, in that they were attached to that object on which, at this solemn moment, all the attention of heaven was centered.
Jesus Himself was conscious of His position. His thoughts were on His departure. During the exercise of His power, He hides, He forgets Himself. But now, oppressed, rejected, and like a lamb led to the slaughter, He feels that He is the just object of the affections and thoughts of those who belong to Him, of all who have hearts to appreciate that which God appreciates. His heart is full of the coming events. See ver. 2, 10-13, 18, 21. But yet a few words more on the woman who anointed Him.
The effect of having the heart fixed in affection on Jesus, is shown in her in a striking manner. Occupied with Him, she is sensible of His situation. She feels what affects Him; and this causes her affection to act in accordance with the special devotedness that that situation inspires. Consequently, with the tact of devotedness, she does precisely that which was suited to His situation. The poor woman was not, intelligently, aware of this; yet she did the thing that was meet. Her value for the person of Jesus, so infinitely precious to her, made her quick-sighted with respect to that which was passing in His mind. In her eyes, Christ was invested with all the interest of His circumstances; and she lavishes upon Him that which expressed her affection. Fruit of this sentiment, her action met the circumstances; and although it was but the instinct of her heart, Jesus gives it all the value which His perfect intelligency could attribute to it, embracing at once the sentiments of her heart and the coming events.
But this testimony of affection and devotedness to Christ, brings out the selfishness, the want of heart, of the others. They blame the poor woman. Sad proof (to say nothing of Judas) how little the knowledge of that which. concerns Jesus, necessarily awakens suitable affections in our hearts I After this, Judas goes out, and agrees with the unhappy priests to betray Jesus unto them for the price of a slave.
The Lord pursues His career of love; and as He had accepted the poor woman's testimony of affection, so He now bestows one on His disciples, of infinite value to our souls. The 16th Verse concludes the subject of which we have been speaking: Christ's knowledge, according to God, of that which awaited Him; the conspiracy of the priests; the affection of the poor woman, accepted by the Lord; the selfish cold-heartedness of the disciples; the treachery of Judas.
The Lord now institutes the memorial of the true passover. He sends the disciples to make arrangements for the celebration of the feast at Jerusalem. He points out Judas as the one who would deliver Him up to the Jews. It will be noticed, that it was not merely His knowledge of the one who should betray Him, that the Lord here expresses; He knew that when He called him; but He says, "One of you shall betray me." It was that which touched His heart: He wished it to touch theirs likewise.
He then points out that it is a Savior slain, who is to be remembered. It is no longer a question of the living Messiah: all that was over. It was no longer the remembrance of Israel's deliverance from the slavery of Egypt. Christ, and Christ slain, began an entirely new order of things. Of Him they were now to think-of Him slain on earth. He then draws their attention to the blood of the new covenant; adding that which extends it to others beside the Jews, without naming them: "It is shed for many." Moreover, this blood is not, as at Sinai, only to confirm the covenant, to which they were responsible to be faithful. It was shed for the remission of sins. So that the Lord's Supper presents the remembrance of Jesus slain, who, by dying, has broken with the past, has laid the foundation of the new covenant, obtained the remission of sin, and opened the door to the Gentiles. It is only in His death, that the supper presents Him to us. His blood is apart from His body. He is dead. It is neither Christ living on the earth, nor Christ glorified in heaven. He is separate from His people, as to their joys on earth; but they are to expect Him as the companion of their happiness-for He condescends to be so -in better days. " I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." But, these links broken, who, save Jesus, could sustain the conflict? All would forsake Him. The testimonies of the word should be accomplished. It was written, " I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered abroad."
Nevertheless, He would go, to renew His relations as a risen Savior with these poor of the flock, to the same place where He had already identified Himself with them during His life. He would go before them into Galilee. This promise is very remarkable; because the Lord resumes, under a new form, His Jewish relations with them and with the kingdom. We may here remark, that as He had judged all classes (to the end of chap. 26), He now exhibits the character of His relations with all those among whom He maintained any. Whether it is the woman, or Judas, or the disciples, each one takes his place in connection with the Lord. This is all we find here. If Peter had natural energy enough to go a little farther, it would only be for a deeper fall, in the place where the Lord alone could stand.
And now He isolates Himself, to present, in supplication to His Father, the sufferings that awaited Him.
But while isolating Himself for prayer, He takes three of His disciples with Him, that in this solemn moment they may watch with Him. They were the same three who were with Him during the transfiguration. They were to see His glory in the kingdom, and His sufferings. He goes a little way beyond them. As for them, they fall asleep, as they did on the mount of transfiguration. The scene here is described in Heb. 5:77Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; (Hebrews 5:7). Jesus was not yet drinking the cup; but it was before His eyes. On the cross He bore the wrath of God, His soul feeling itself forsaken of Him. Here, it is the power of Satan, using death as a terror with which to overwhelm Him. But the consideration of this subject will be more in place when we come to Luke's Gospel.
We here see His soul under the load of death-by anticipation-as He alone could know it. We know who has the power of death. But He watches and He prays. As man, subjected by His love to this assault, in the presence of the most powerful temptation to which He could be exposed, on the one hand He watches, on the other He presents His anguish to His Father. His communion was not here interrupted, however great His distress. This distress only cast Him the more, in all submission and in all reliance, upon His Father. But if we were to be saved, if God was to be glorified in Him who had undertaken our cause, the cup must not pass away from Him. His submission is complete.
He tenderly reminds Peter of his false confidence, making him sensible of his weakness; but Peter was too full of himself to profit by it; he awakes from his sleep, but his self-confidence is not shaken. A sadder experience was needed for its cure.
The Lord therefore takes the cup; but He takes it from His Father's hand. It was His will that He should drink it. Committing Himself thus entirely to His Father, it is neither from the hand of His enemies, nor from that of Satan, that He takes it. According to the perfection with which He had subjected Himself to the will of God in this matter, committing all to Him, it is from His hand alone He receives it. It is the Father's will. It is thus that we escape from second causes, and from the temptations of the enemy, by seeking only the will of God, who directs all things. It is from Him we receive affliction and trial, if they come.
The disciples need no longer watch: the hour is come. He was to be betrayed into the hands of men. That was saying enough. Judas designates Him by a kiss. Jesus goes to meet the multitude; rebukes Peter for seeking to resist with carnal weapons. Had Christ wished to escape, He could have commanded the angels; but all things must be fulfilled. It was the hour of His submission to the effect of the malice of man, and the power of darkness. He is the Lamb for the slaughter. Then all the disciples forsake Him. He surrenders Himself, setting before them what they were doing. If no one can prove Him guilty, He will not deny the truth. He confesses the glory of His person as Son of God, and declares that hereafter they should see the Son of man, no longer after the meekness of one who would not break the bruised reed, but coming in the clouds of heaven, and sitting on the right hand of power. Having borne this testimony, He is condemned on account of that which He said of Himself- for the confession of the truth. The false witnesses did not succeed. The priests and the heads of Israel were guilty of His death, by virtue of their own rejection of the testimony He rendered to the truth. He was the truth; they were under the power of the father of lies. They rejected the Messiah, the Savior of His people. He would come to them no more, except as Judge.
They insult and outrage Him. Each one, alas! takes, as we have seen, his own place: Jesus, that of victim; the others, the place of betrayal, rejection, abandonment, denial of the Lord. What a picture! What a solemn moment! Who could stand in it? Christ alone could steadily pass through it. And He passed through it as a victim. As such, He must be stripped of all, and that in the presence of God. Everything else disappeared, except the sin which led to it; and, according to grace, that also, before the powerful efficacy of this act. Peter, self-confident, hesitating, detected, answering with untruth, swearing, denies his Master; and, painfully convinced of man's powerlessness against the enemy of his soul, and against sin, goes out and weeps bitterly. Tears, which cannot efface his guilt-but which, while proving the existence, through grace, of uprightness of heart-bear witness to that powerlessness, which uprightness of heart cannot remedy.
After this, the unhappy priests and heads of the people deliver up their Messiah to the Gentiles, as He had told His disciples. Judas, in despair, under Satan's power, hangs himself; having cast the reward of his iniquity at the feet of the chief priests and elders. Satan was forced to bear witness, even by a conscience that he had betrayed, to the Lord's innocence. What a scene! Then the priests, who had made no conscience of buying His blood from Judas, scruple to put the money into the treasury of the temple, because it was the price of blood. In the presence of that which was going on, man was obliged to show himself as he is, and the power of Satan over him. Having taken counsel, they buy a burying-ground for strangers. These were profane enough in their eyes for that, provided they themselves were not defiled with such money. Yet it was the time of God's grace to the stranger and judgment to Israel. Moreover, they established thereby a perpetual memorial of their own sin, and of the blood which has been shed.
This prophecy, we know is in. the book of Zechariah. The name " Jeremiah" may have crept into the text, when there was nothing more than " by the prophet"; or it might be, because Jeremiah stood first in the order prescribed by the Talmudists for the books of prophecy; for which reason, also, it is very likely they said, " Jeremiah or one of the prophets," as in chap. 16:14. But this is not the place for discussion on the subject.
This scene closes. The Lord stands before Pilate. Here, the question is not whether He is the Son of God, but whether He is the King of the Jews. Although He was this, yet it was only in the character of Son of God that He would allow the Jews to receive Him.
Had they received Him as the Son of God, He would have been their King. But that might not be. He must accomplish the work of atonement. Having rejected Him as Son of God, the Jews now deny Him as their King. But the Gentiles also become guilty, in the person of their head in Palestine, the government of which had been committed to them. The Gentile head should have reigned in righteousness. His representative in Judea acknowledges the malice of Christ's enemies; his conscience, alarmed by his wife's dream, seeks to evade the guilt of condemning Jesus; but the true prince of this world, as regards present exercise of dominion, was Satan. Pilate, washing his hands (futile attempt to exonerate himself), delivers up the guiltless to the will of His enemies; saying, at the same time, that he finds no fault in Him. And he releases to the Jews a man guilty of sedition and murder, instead of the Prince of Life.
Barabbas, the expression of the spirit of Satan, who was a murderer from the beginning, and of rebellion against the authority which Pilate was there to maintain -Barabbas was loved by the Jews; and with him, the wrongful carelessness of the governor, who was powerless against evil, endeavored to satisfy the will of the people, whom he ought to have governed. " All the people" make themselves guilty of the blood of Jesus. Sad and frightful ignorance, which self-will has brought upon a people who rejected the Light! Alas! how each one, I again say, takes his own place in the presence of this touchstone-a rejected Savior The company of the Gentiles, the soldiers, do that in derision, with the brutality habitual to them as heathen and as executioners, which the Gentiles shall do with joyful worship, when He whom they now mocked shall be truly the King of the Jews in glory. Jesus endures it all. It was the hour of His entire submission: patience must have its perfect work, in order that His obedience may be complete on every side. He bore it all without relief, rather than fail in obedience to His Father. What a difference between this and the conduct of the first Adam, surrounded with blessings!
Every one must be the servant of sin, or of the tyranny of wickedness, at this solemn hour, in which all is put to the proof. They compel one Simon (known afterward, it appears, among the disciples) to bear the cross of Jesus; and the Lord is led away to the place of His crucifixion. There He refuses that which might have stupefied Him. He will not shun the cup He had to drink, nor deprive Himself of His faculties in order to be insensible to that which it was the will of God He should suffer. The prophecies of the Psalms are fulfilled in His person, by means of those who little thought what they were doing. At the same time, the. Jews succeeded in becoming to the last degree contemptible. Their King was hung. They must bear the shame in spite of themselves. Whose fault was it? But, hardened and senseless, they share with a malefactor the miserable satisfaction of insulting the Son of God, their King, the Messiah, to their own ruin. Jesus felt it; but the anguish of His trial, the abyss of His sufferings, contained something far more terrible. The floods, doubtless, lifted up their voices. One after another, the waves of wickedness dashed against Him; but the depths beneath that awaited Him, who could fathom? His heart, His soul-the vessel of a Divine love-could alone go deeper than the bottom of that abyss which sin had opened for man, to bring up those who lay there, after He had endured its pains in His own soul.
The fathers, full of faith, had in their distress experienced the faithfulness of God, who answered the expectation of their hearts. But Jesus (as to the condition of His soul at that moment) cried in vain. " A worm, and no man," before the eyes of men He had to bear the forsaking of the God in whom He trusted.
Their thoughts far from His, they that surround Him did not even understand His words, but they accomplish the prophecies by their ignorance. Jesus, bearing testimony by the loudness of His voice that it was not the weight of death that oppressed Him, commends His soul into the hands of His Father, and expires.
The efficacy of His death is presented to us in this gospel in a double aspect. 1st. The veil of the temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom. God, who had been always hidden behind a veil, discovered Himself completely by means of the death of Jesus. The entrance into the holy place is made manifest-a new and living way which God has consecrated for us through the veil. The entire Jewish system, the relations of man with God under its sway, its priesthood, all fell with the rending of the veil. Every one found himself in the presence of God, without a veil between. The priests were to be always in His presence. But, by this same act, the sin which would have made it impossible for us to stand there, was for the believer-entirely put away from before God. The holy God, and the believer cleansed from his sins, are brought together by the death of Christ. What love was that which accomplished this!
2nd. Besides this, such was the efficacy of His death, that when His resurrection had burst the bonds that held them, many of the dead appeared in the city,-witnesses of His power who having suffered death had risen above it, and had overcome it.
The presence, therefore, of God without a veil, and of sinners without sin, prove the efficacy of Christ's sufferings.
The resurrection of the dead, over whom the king of terrors had no more right, displayed the efficacy of the death of Christ for sinners, and the power of His resurrection. Judaism is over, for those that have faith, and the power of death also. The veil is rent. The grave gives up its prey.
There is yet another especial testimony to the mighty power of His death, to the import of that word, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me." The centurion who was on guard at the crucifixion of the Lord, seeing the earthquake and those things that were done, trembling, confesses the glory of His person; and, stranger as he is to Israel, renders the first testimony of faith among Gentiles: "Truly this was the Son of God."
But the narrative goes on. Some poor women-to whom devotedness often gives, on God's part, more courage than to men in their more responsible and busy position-were standing near the cross, beholding what was done to Him whom they loved.
But they were not the only ones who filled the place of the terrified disciples. Others-and this often happens-whom the world had held back, when once the depth of their affection is stirred, by the question of His sufferings whom they really loved, when the moment is so painful that others are terrified, then, emboldened by the rejection of Christ, they feel that the time is arrived for decision, and become fearless confessors of the Lord. Hitherto associated with those that have crucified Him, they must now either accept that act or declare themselves. Through grace they do the latter.
God had prepared all beforehand. His Son was to have His tomb with the rich. Joseph comes boldly to Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus. He wraps the body, which Pilate grants him, in a clean linen cloth, and lays it in his own sepulcher, which had never yet served to hide the corruption of man. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary-for they were known-sat near the sepulcher, bound by all that remained to their faith, of Him whom they had loved and followed with adoration during His life.
But unbelief has no faith in itself, and fearing lest that which it denies be true, it mistrusts everything. The chief priests request Pilate to guard the sepulcher, in order to frustrate any attempt the disciples might make, to found the doctrine of the resurrection, on the absence of the body of Jesus from the tomb in which it had been laid. Pilate bids them secure the sepulcher themselves; so that all they did was to make themselves involuntary witnesses to the fact, and assure us of the accomplishment of the thing they dreaded. Thus, Israel was guilty of this effort of futile resistance to the testimony which Jesus had rendered to His own resurrection. They were a testimony against themselves to its truth. The precautions which Pilate would not perhaps have taken, they carried to the extreme, so that all mistake as to the fact of His resurrection was impossible.
The Lord's resurrection is briefly related in Matthew. The object is again, after the resurrection, to connect the ministry and service of Jesus-now transferred to His disciples-with the poor of the flock, the remnant of Israel. He again assembled them in Galilee, where He had constantly instructed them, and where the despised among the people dwelt, afar from the pride of the Jews. This connected their work with His in that which especially characterized it with reference to the remnant of Israel.
I shall examine the details of the resurrection elsewhere. Here I only consider its bearing in this gospel. The sabbath ended (Saturday evening with us) the two Marys come to see the sepulcher. At this moment, that was all they did. Vers. I and 2 are not consecutive. When the earthquake and its attendant circumstances took place, no one was there except the soldiers. At night, all was secure. The disciples knew nothing of it in the morning. When the women arrived at early dawn, the angel who sat at the door of the sepulcher, re-assured them with the tidings of the Lord's resurrection. The angel of the Lord had come down and opened the door of the tomb, which man had closed with every possible precaution. They had in truth only guaranteed by unexceptionable witnesses the truth of the apostles' preaching, by placing the soldiers there. The women by their visit the evening before, and in the morning when the angel spoke to them, received a full assurance to faith, of the fact of His resurrection. All that is presented here, are these facts. The women had been there in the evening. The intervention of the angel certified to the soldiers the true character of His coming forth from the tomb; and the visit of the women in the morning, established the fact of His resurrection as an object of faith to themselves. They go and announce it to the disciples, who-so far from having done that which the Jews imputed to them-did not even believe the assertions of the women. Jesus himself appears to the women who were returning from the sepulcher, having believed the words of the angel. As I have already said, Jesus connects Himself with His former work among the poor of the flock, afar from the seat of Jewish tradition, and from the temple, and from all that linked the people with God according to the old covenant. He appoints His disciples to meet Him there, and there they find Him and recognize Him; and it is there, in this former scene of the labors of Christ, according to Isa. 8; 9, that they receive their commission from Him. All power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth, and their commission, accordingly, extends to all nations. In them they were to proclaim His rights.
It was not, however, the name of the Lord only, nor in connection with His throne at Jerusalem. Lord of heaven and earth, His disciples were to proclaim Him throughout all nations, founding their doctrine on the confession of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. They were to teach, not the law, but the precepts of Jesus. He would be with them, with the disciples who thus confessed Him, unto the end of the world. It is this which connects all that will be accomplished until Christ sits upon the great white throne, with the testimony that He Himself rendered on the earth in the midst of Israel. It is the testimony of the kingdom, and of its Head, once rejected by a people that knew Him not.