IT is one common but remarkable feature in the history of the progress of the spiritual mind, that it gradually is turned away from the external evidences of Christianity, because of the convincing testimony of the Scriptures themselves to their divine origin. “He that believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself;” and this is the most happy liberty of the simple minded believer in Christ. He is delivered from that ceaseless questioning characterized as “always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,” which is the miserable state of those who, indulging the natural unbelief of their heart, are ever requiring a demonstration subjected to their understanding, instead of the exhibition of the moral glory of God in the person of His Son, addressed to their consciences. This indeed is the question between God and man. “Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” For after all, infidelity in its moral character, (and as such it is always treated in Scripture,) comes to this, man’s setting himself up in comparison with the Lord Jesus Christ, and giving himself the preference. But he that believeth on the Son of God, knows Him to be the great subject of the revelation of God, the grand doctrine taught of God, as well as being in His own person the revealer of God, and a teacher sent from God. Hence it is that the Scriptures are of such a peculiar character; they have a definite point in view—the unfolding the purpose of God in Christ. Hence even those parts of the Scriptures which are historical or biographical, pass over some incidents which, in the estimation of man, would be the best worth recording, and dwell on others which, insignificant in themselves, have a typical character, or are illustrative of some of the great principles of God. The rest of the acts of a king of Israel or Judah, monuments it might be of his genius or prowess, are written in the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel and Judah; but that which is profitable for us to know is written for our admonition in the Scripture of truth. If examples were wanting, why, it may be asked, is the incest of Judah so largely (comparatively speaking) recorded? Why the history of Ruth introduced into the sacred Canon? The answer is found by a spiritual understanding in Matt. 1:3-5, “Judas begat Phares and Zara of Tamar; and Salmon begat Boaz of Rachab; and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; and Jesse begat David the king.” It was connected with the genealogy of David and “of the Son of David.” In the New Testament, in the Gospels, we have the biography and we have the doctrines of Jesus— “all that Jesus began both to do and to teach;” and yet we should have but a very imperfect account indeed, if we looked only at these notices, of Him who went about doing good, and lose the most valuable instruction, if we did not seek for more than a mere historical record. The astonishing things which Jesus did would, each one by itself, in man’s estimation, have filled a volume. He went about doing good; and hardly a step did He move without doing that which, if man had been the recorder, and man’s fame the object, would have furnished materials too ample for man to digest. (John 20:30, 31, 21:25.) “And Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their Synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people; and His fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and He healed them.” It is in a way so succinct as this that works the most stupendous in the eyes of men, are noticed by the Spirit of God. It is “the Word made flesh, and that dwelt among us full of grace and truth,” which is exhibited to us in the gospels. And the occasions appear to be watched, arising either from contrast or circumstances, of bringing forth this grace and truth which was in Him to light.
It is not merely the personal biography of Jesus, neither is it the exhibition of film in one character alone which is there intended, but the setting Him forth as the Light and the Truth. Hence it is in a great measure that the orderly narration of events is not so much studied nor prominence given to those, which in our fleshly judgment were the most important, because it is not the event but the person and his manner and way in it which it is so important for us to know, Each of the Evangelists, as has been remarked in vol. i. of this publication, holds up Jesus in a different relation, the one is not supplemental to the other, but that which Jesus did. or said is either recorded. or omitted, as it tended to elucidate that part of His manifold character which the Holy Ghost, who glorifieth Jesus was thus by man’s instrumentality unfolding to us. The testimonies of John the Baptist to Jesus in Matt. 3 and John 1 and 3 are very different, but characteristically different in that Matthew is the historian of the “Son of David, the Son of Abraham” of Jesus the Messias, John of Him who was “from the beginning” “the Word made flesh.” But marked as these differences are in the narratives themselves, no less marked is the manner in which the Lord Himself takes the opportunity of evolving the truth. Almost all the recorded discourses of the Lord are incidental, they arose out of the circumstances in which He was, or from the observations of the bystanders. These constantly afforded. occasion for contrasting the thoughts and ways of God with those of man; not only showing them to be higher, but showing what grace was in God, and what truth was, by the absence of both in man.
It was a rare thing for the Lord to appear out of that place to which He had humbled Himself, though equal with God, the place of a Servant; for He took upon Him the form of a Servant being made in the likeness of men. He had voluntarily come into it (which no creature not the highest Archangel could do, for Servant is His proper place) and acted consistently in it—waiting Himself to receive the commandments of God to tell them to others. “The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself but the Father that dwelleth in me He doeth the works.” It was as thus humbled. that He watched His opportunity of instruction, waiting upon His Father, as He speaks, “the Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.” (Isa. 50:4.) It was thus as He said in another place, “My doctrine is not mine but His that sent me,” (John 7:16.) and it was brought out on the suitable occasion.
Hence arises the great danger of systematizing Christianity—it was not so introduced. The law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Moses comes clown from the Mount and continuously narrates to the people what he had heard and seen in the Mount. It was law, an ordered system; it was that which befitted. the holiness of God, and therefore capable of being at once exhibited. The Prophet like unto Moses but greater than Moses, for “He that cometh from heaven is above all,” testified to what He had seen and heard; but it was not law, but grace and truth; which, except in His own Person, were incapable of being at once exhibited, but required to be unfolded gradually, according as the manifold necessities of man discovered themselves; for there is not a single necessity of man (hard. as it is for us to learn all our wants) which is not met by the fullness of that grace which is in Christ Jesus. It is therefore of no small importance to notice attentively not only the matter but the manner of the Lord’s discourses—that which led to them as well as the point to which they tend. And it is this which ever gives a peculiar freshness to the gospels. In the epistles we have, as it were, God’s plans most graciously subjected to the spiritual understanding; but in the gospels the living, speaking, acting truth itself. Among other ways of the Lord, one appears very frequently marked, (standing as He did as “the minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers,” and yet in all the consciousness of rejection by His own, and with a Baptism before Him to be baptized with which so deeply straitened His soul,) He seized on every suitable occasion to break in on Jewish feeling and Jewish expectation, in order to lead the mind to another state of things. One very frequent way of doing this was by performing acts of mercy on the Sabbath, which afforded such matter of controversy between Him end the Scribes and Pharisees. (Matt. 12; John 5; 7:21-24.) And the record of this and the reference by the Lord to it, prove it to be an instructive point. It was clearly the breaking in on Jewish feeling, as to any rest in earthly things then. God had rested. in creation; man had broken in on that rest by sin. God had again, as it were, rested in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, supplying their wants with bread from heaven, (Ex. 16;23,) but they immediately broke it again and fell to murmuring. (Ex. 17) Joshua did not lead them into the typified rest; the commandment stood on the table of the covenant, it stood marked not as their present blessing, but as the memorial of God’s rest in creation and pledge and type of it. But man would rejoice in the works of His hands and although as a people they had notoriously profaned the Lord’s sabbath, (Ezek. 20:13-16.) they still kept them for their own sakes, so that the charge against them was, “the new moons and sabbath I cannot away with.” (Isa. 50) It formed an easy part of their religion, to make up by a scrupulous austerity on the seventh day for exaction and covetousness on the six. It was thus at the time of the Lord’s ministry that they were settled down in self-complacency, taking rest here, instead of anticipating their entrance into God’s rest. The reason of our Lord’s prominent acts of mercy being then done on the sabbath day, He Himself gives, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” (John 5:17.) It was not yet the rest of God; however they might take complacency in the existing system, God could not. This could not fail to be an instructive testimony to the Jews, as indeed is abundantly evident from the power it had of exasperating them. But it is not less instructive to us—there is no rest of God in the world—it is the subject of His long-suffering and forbearance, not of His complacency. There is One in whom His soul does rest, even Jesus, and in Him also does the Believer rest; and hence it is not the sabbath which the Christian delights himself in, but the Lord’s day, even in the resurrection of Jesus, where his soul can dwell on that which is not subject to change—even the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven. This infringement of the supposed sanctity of the sabbath, whilst it furnished a positive testimony to the glory of His Person, “the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath,” was especially intended to lead to a new hope and a new order of things, of which the sabbath was not properly typical. This was of frequent occurrence. But there were incidents from which the Lord took the occasion of seeking entirely to dissociate the minds of His disciples from the existing system, and to lead them on to another dispensation at direct contrast with it. Such an occasion was furnished by the confession of Peter. (Matt. 11:16.) As the patient servant, when Jesus saw the teaching of His Father to Peter as to the glory of His own Person, He immediately makes mention of the Church, a thing entirely new to them. His own Person thus confessed being the rock on which it was founded. He showed them that it was to intervene before their expectation would be realized, (ver. 27.) He points out its characteristics connected with His own humiliation (24, 25.); its assured blessing under all circumstances, chap. 18 its heavenly treasure, chap. 19 and the great principle of its gathering, the sovereignty of grace, chap. 20. And then again, chap. 21 He appears in the character properly of Messiah, and so leaves them, 23 ad. fin: Another instance is the inquiry of the Greeks to see Jesus, (John 12:21.) Here it is that Jesus went through in Spirit, (Isa. 49:1-6.) and takes the occasion to open the coming dispensation—its character and reward of service, 21-24—and to establish its principle—not Messiah come to His own, and the people gathered unto Him; but the Son of Man lifted up an attractive point to sinners—“this He said, signifying what death He should die.” Now I believe the 14, 15, 16 chapters of Luke furnish another occasion of the way which the Lord took to break in on Jewish thoughts and expectations. “It came to pass as He went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched Him.” He answered their unexpressed thoughts, making themselves the judges, and immediately healed the man of the dropsy. But how marked is the contrast: with all the eager desire of attaching blame to Jesus, and finding in Him some iniquity in which they could rejoice, they could convict Him of none. But He had only to turn His eyes on the scene before Him, and immediately the opportunity was presented. of showing forth the great principle of His own conduct and of His kingdom—the principle of God in its contrariety to the principle of man. “And He put forth a parable to them, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms.” (ver. 7.) it was the unfolding of His own grace; He took the lowest room, and could say, “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Humility may be learned in the distance between the Creator and creature, but as man would himself try to fill up that distance, it gives no rest to the soul. Humility also may be learned when awakened to sin from the light of the holiness of God— “I repent and abhor myself in dust and ashes;” but here there is no rest, till the power of the blood of Jesus in cleansing from all sin is known. But the humility which Jesus here inculcates, arose from the circumstances of man; the Lord of Glory could only take the lowest place in an evil world—He could not be great in man’s estimation, whose praise was not of man but of God. It is the ascertained condition of the world, as lying under the wicked one, that necessarily brings one who is risen with Christ into heavenly fellowship, to desire to be nothing in it; and this is humility, meekness, and lowliness. The desire to be great or high in the world, is to be great and high in the estimation of evil. “The day of the Lord is against everything which is high and lifted up.” This is now known to faith, Jesus came to do God’s will, and in doing it among those who were fulfilling the wills of their flesh and of their mind, he was necessarily lowly. The world passeth away, but “he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” Hence the word to us, “Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.” But farther than this, the Lord here taught the rule of service in His kingdom— “take the lowest place, and he that bade thee when he shall come, shall say unto thee, Friend go up higher, and then shalt thou have glory before those who sit at meat with thee.” This is the great rule of the kingdom, so often repeated— “Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted”—a rule totally opposed to Jewish feeling, as it is to: the course of the world; for what is Judaism in principle? “elements of the world;”—in its perfection—a worldly sanctuary, worldly worship, and worldly blessing. Now this was the thing to be broken down. God could not in an apostate world, about to consummate its apostasy by the rejection of the Lord of Glory, have a worldly people or worldly worship; and hence the constant effort of Jesus, both by teaching and practice, to break in upon its order, and to introduce those principles: on which at least the world, when pressed, has the honesty to confess it cannot possibly go on.
In ver. 12-24, we have opened to us, first the riches of God’s race; and, secondly, the compelling power of grace in testimony.
The usages of man then, as well as now, afforded the opportunity of setting in strong contrast the ways and thoughts of God, with those of men. “When thou makest a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again; but when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed.” Now whilst this, as preceptive, is a direct infringement on the refined social order of man, it is the most just exhibition of that grace, which invites those who have no claim and cannot recompense, to come freely to partake of all the bounty and blessedness of God. Hence, in the parable that follows, (ver. 21.) the very same persons are invited as he directed his host to invite. “Then the master of the house being angry, said to his servants, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind.” But whilst exhibiting this grace, the Lord in answer to the observer’s remark, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” showed the contempt in which men would hold the kingdom of God, by the preference of that which was connected with his own social arrangement. The Lord is put off with civility, decency, or reasonableness; but the excuses of the two first, as well as the rationality of the other, all arise from the circumstances of the course of the world; the question as to man, morally before God as a sinner, and the possibility of one so constituted, eating bread in the kingdom of God, does not arise in their thoughts. One great question at issue between God and man is, whether He shall arrange the world for blessing in His own way, or man improve it by his powers. Whilst man is for standing by his own order, anything however innocent in itself becomes a positive hindrance to his entering into the kingdom of God, or God’s order. The piece of ground fairly purchased, the oxen bought, the wife honestly married—preoccupied minds and hearts, effectually hindered the reception of the testimony to another order of things.
While, however, we get this general moral instruction, our Lord seems especially to have had in view the Scribes and Pharisees and Religionists of the day, who would have had everything to give up, in order to come to Jesus. They were invited—the Lord presented Himself to them as Messiah—but they excused themselves. The Lord. would have some, and therefore it was no longer invitation, but “bring in those” who had nothing, from the lanes of the city. Surely these are the poor of the flock to whom the Lord turned. when rejected by the nation, (Zech. 11) brought in on the sovereignty of His grace— “But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they καθ ον τροπον κακεινοι.” (Acts 15:11.) “To the poor the gospel is preached”—a new order to them would, humanly speaking, be a blessed change for them. But after they were brought in there was room, and the servant is sent out to the highways and hedges to “compel them to come in.” This is not in the city—but the going into all nations in the power of testimony, and compelling them to come in who would have had no thought of such a blessing themselves. For the faithfulness of God, Jesus was presented to the Jews—He came to His own and His own received Him not; but God’s faith was in no wise pledged to the Gentiles—they were “strangers from the covenants of promise”—but He was “preached unto the Gentiles, that they might glorify God for His mercy.” (Rom. 15:8, 9.) A Gentile comes into the kingdom upon simple pure mercy (so indeed a Jew); but there were children of the kingdom cast out. (Matt. 8:2.) Those to whom God. was pledged in faithfulness to offer the kingdom—they were invited, but they refused; now it is compel them—Go ye therefore into all nations. The ignorant, the unwilling, the unlikely—those who have no thought of the kingdom themselves, are to be pressed with the testimony of it. “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” This is the blessed gospel ministry—the ministry of reconciliation—Go and compel. “The love of Christ constraineth us. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did. beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” Now this is widely different from the Jewish priesthood—the man had to come to the priest, or to be brought or to bring his offering. There was no provision in the law strictly corresponding to this ministry. It was a new thing arising out of the new aspect in which God was presenting Himself to the world. In giving the law, Jehovah Himself had commanded barriers to be put round the mountain forbidding access unto Him; but now He breaks through the barrier, first, by sending His Son into the world, not to condemn, and then the Son sending others with the ministry of reconciliation. Nothing has tended more to obscure the riches of God’s grace than the attempt of man to confound the ministry of the gospel with priesthood, as if they were the same in nature, differing only in degree, whereas they are distinct.
Another violent inroad on Jewish feeling was immediately made by our Lord’s description of discipleship (ver. 25.); “And there went great multitudes with Him; and He turned and said unto them, If any man come unto me and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” How different was this from the feeling of the disciple of Moses; there it was, “He (the Lord) will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; He will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which He sware unto thy fathers to give thee.” (Deut. 7:13.) Jesus was abhorred by the nation, despised and rejected of men, and about to bid farewell to every earthly association; and therefore discipleship was to bid farewell to all one hath—πασι τοις εαυτ8 υπαρχ8Jιν—all subsisting things then present with which man was conversant, in order to be introduced into a new sphere of unseen and eternal realities, to which faith would give a present subsistence, (Heb. 11:1.) Therefore it is written, “If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature, old things have passed away, Behold all things are become new;” he must forsake all to follow Jesus—evidently connecting this with the excuses for not following Him. (v. 18.) Any admixture would spoil the disciple. Christ should be everything unto him, and if he be not a savor of Him he is worse than useless. (34, 35.)
The 15th chap. introduces Jesus giving a practical exhibition, in His own conduct, of that grace He had been pressing on others. In the former chap. He had been eating in the house of one of the chief Pharisees; but in this— “Then came near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him; and the Scribes and Pharisees murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.”
The charge was a charge against the very principle He had been pressing on them— “When thou makest a feast call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind;” and His invitation, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring hither the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.” The coming of all the publicans and sinners was, as it were, the answer to the invitation, and afforded a further occasion of unfolding the riches of the grace of God. Jesus did receive those whom they would not. What a marvelous contrast! God in His unsullied purity able to receive and bless a sinner; but man, a sinner himself, scornfully rejecting a fellow-sinner as degrading for him to receive. But here the pride of man led Jesus into vindication of the grace of God; yes, we have here, as it were, God before the tribunal of His own creatures, vindicating His character, not for judging, but for waiving His title to judge sinners, and to deal with them in grace. Man would fain vindicate himself and deny the title of God to judge him; but the gospel is that of the grace of God, and Christ Himself, God’s vindication of His own character for exhibiting such surpassing grace. On this suitable occasion, with the fact before his eyes, it seemed strange in man’s judgment that God should show mercy to a sinner, acknowledged as such; but herein are God’s ways not as our ways, and His thoughts not as ours. Man would expect mercy, because in his own estimation he was righteous: God would show mercy, because, in His righteous judgment, man was a sinner—lost, ruined, helpless. Man would prefer his claim for mercy, God would show it where no claim could be so preferred. Thus it was that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; and constantly was the opportunity afforded of putting in the strongest contrasts the ways and thoughts of God with those of men, and meeting the reasonings of man against God, but in fact against himself, by bringing out in this way “mercy rejoicing against judgment.” The most refined casuistry of man, relative to his standing before God, leaves him at best in uncertainty as to his condition, but the reasoning of God in respect of His grace to man, whilst it shows its perfect consistency with His own character, that it is, as the Apostle says, “the righteousness of God,” at the same time answers the very thoughts and reasonings of man against himself in reference to God. I enter not into the further unfolding of the parables in this chapter, as illustrating the conduct of God in grace; only here it is that we see distinctly brought out the thoughts of earth and heaven on the same subject. Man on earth is indignant at Jesus, the Son of God—God manifested in the flesh receiving a sinner; angels in heaven rejoice. “For,” says the Lord, “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isa. 55:9.) There is one other point of correspondence between this and the former chapter, which I think is to be found in the conduct of the elder brother. He was angry at the reception of the worthless younger brother, and would not come into the feast; therefore came his father out and entreated him. In the former chap. we find the feast ready and the guests bidden, but they would not come in. (17-21.) But here we have further the reason set forth—The elder brother might have come in and been welcome, but he would not. This seems clearly to represent the Jew in his moral standing before God, just where the Apostle leaves them in Rom. 10 and they are found to this day.—“They being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” And thus, while on the one hand the conduct of the elder son fully proved his ignorance as to the manner of obtaining blessing, He, in whom all the promises of God are Yea and Amen, could vindicate God’s faithfulness to the Jew in that blessing he coveted—i.e. earthly blessing. Israel was still God’s first-born: (Ex. 4:22.) to him still pertained the adoption and the promises; (Rom. 9:1) and therefore it is said, as showing that their unbelief did not make the faith of God. without effect, (Rom. 3:3.) “Son thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” It was pride and selfishness which effectually hindered his entering into the meetness of making merry and being glad at that time, when all the grace of the father’s heart was shown, and the openness of his house displayed to the returning worthless one. He kept back from that feast in which alone the fatted calf was killed, because the most worthless came in unto it. And how does the same pride and selfishness work in us to hinder our entering into the meetness of God to rejoice over one returning sinner. How effectually do the very riches of God’s grace (and surely hereby the sin of man is exceeding sinful) binder man, sufficient of himself in his own thought, from coming to the full blessing of God, because the vile and worthless may come into it on the very same ground as himself. “But wisdom is justified of her children.”
Chapter 16—In its commencement, is directly addressed by Jesus to His disciples— “And he said also unto His disciples;”—and it appears to me to have been intended specially to detach them from the then existing system of things, as the former chapter had served to break in on their principle of establishing their own righteousness. The Jew was God’s steward—their privileges were a sacred deposit, as it is written— “What advantage then hath the Jew? much every way; chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” (Rom. 3:2.) But there was their “lie”—their failure: instead of God being benefited by their stewardship, they had wasted His goods—the name of God was blasphemed among the heathen through them. The stewardship was to be taken away—their distinctive privileges were to be withdrawn—the oracles of God no longer entrusted to their keeping—as it is written, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” (Hos. 4:6)
The time was coming, when God would be no longer worshipped at Jerusalem, and when “Lo-ammi” would be legibly written on the Jew. The prospect therefore was most humiliating. “I cannot dig; to beg, I am ashamed.” While the Lord is leading the minds of the disciples onwards, so as to carry them on to the everlasting habitation, He seems by the way, in these words, to characterize the Jew. He has no land to till, and his pride is so indomitable that he refuses to beg of a dog of the Gentiles; so that cleverness, overreaching, and dishonesty alone open a field to him of prosperity. But the instruction to the disciples was most important—seeing that all these were about to pass away, it would be their wisdom to be provided with another house; to make themselves friends, whilst they could, of the mammon of unrighteousness—giving it up and forsaking it, that they might have everlasting habitations. The steward’s wisdom was for a temporary accommodation; theirs would be for everlasting habitations—a residence unaffected by changes here.
But farther: the change would be to those who were faithful from little to much—from the unrighteous mammon to the true riches—from stewardship to proprietorship—as those who would be sons; and if sons, heirs of God. (10-12.) It is thus the Lord drew the minds of His disciples away from that which, however glorious in itself, would have no glory by reason of that glory which excelleth. The Lord give us to know the riches that are “our own.”
In the next place, we find the Lord meeting the readiness of our minds to blend the two systems—one conversant with the mammon of unrighteousness, and the other with the true riches—by stating the impossibility of success in the attempt, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” But here the discourse turns to others than the disciples.— “The Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things; and they derided Him.” Now just so far as the world can have a show of godliness, it must proceed as if the Jewish system was still in being and recognized of God. To be sober, diligent, thriving, and at least outwardly devout, is that which the eye of man can recognize; and so “long as you do well to yourself men will praise you:” but in the rejection of the Jewish system by God—the rejection, be it remarked, of the only system of worldly polity or worldly worship ever owned of God—outward prosperity ceased to be the proof of God’s favor, though not of man’s praise. And the Lord said unto them, (the Pharisees,) “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” The το ανθρωποις υψηλον—is covetousness, using God Himself for its cloak; making even the very privileges conferred of God to subserve selfishness. “Men shall be lovers of their ownselves; having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” But the Lord showed them that God’s worldly dispensation was run out; “the law and the prophets were until John.” Worldly prosperity was therefore now out of the question; it was now, as to God’s blessing, the kingdom of God or nothing. “Since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.”
Whilst “every man” shows its principle to be of grace, the Publican and Harlot as well as the Pharisee, the word “presseth into it” shows the urgent necessity of getting that or losing everything. But again does the Lord press on their consciences the integrity of the law and its inviolable sanctity; it could not be adjusted to bend to man’s weakness, as he vainly supposed. “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the law to fail.” They might put it away from them, but if they did not really see it as dead, and they become joined to another, they would be treated as adulterers. (James 4:4. Rom. 7:1-3, compare with ver. 18.) The importance of this instruction we cannot fail to recognize, if we mark well the leadings of our mind, ever to attempt the admixture of Jewish blessing, present and earthly, with Christian privilege and hope—spiritual, heavenly, and eternal; and to connect Jewish worship, earthly and worldly, with the Christian worship in heaven, in Spirit and in truth. The Jewish rural was adapted to the world; the first tabernacle had ordinances of divine worship and a worldly sanctuary. (Heb. 9:1.) There was a mountain of the Lord’s house, a house made with hands, owned of God—as the center of worship, called by our Lord, “my house;” and when the Lord again has an earthly people, His house shall be “a house of prayer for all people.” (Isa. 56:7.) But the attempt of man would be to unite this worldly system and the kingdom of God, and the result would be confusion. The law was a perfect system in itself, one tittle could not pass away: if a man was circumcised, he was a debtor to the whole law. So is the system of grace perfect in itself; it leads not to a mountain that might be touched, (Heb. 12; John 4:20.) or to a temple made with hands, but to heaven itself. (Heb. 9:21.) There is the proper scene of Christian worship, in the power of the resurrection of Christ, as those who are alive from the dead, worship in Spirit and in truth—the true worshippers—those whom the Father seeks.
In ver. 19, there is a continuation of the address to the Pharisees, and it would appear an amplification of the το εν ανθρωποις νψηλον. In the rich man we have a picture of the happiness to which those before him would aspire who derided the lowliness of Jesus and His self-denying teaching; and also the issue of the attempt to serve God and mammon, with its secret principle disclosed, infidelity at heart. It is a deeply solemn representation of the refined worldly religionist, infidel in principle, though not avowedly so, but moral it may be in character. He would call Abraham his father; he could make all the use of that which came to him hereditarily, as many can of Christian privileges. But though he was Abraham’s seed, he was not Abraham’s son. (John 8:37-39.) Abraham stands out as the acknowledged father of all, whether Jew or Gentile, before God; (Rom. 4:12.) not as boasting in anything outward, not as finding anything as to the flesh, but as giving up all that was present for the promise of God. He was before God, and had God for his portion—not his country—not the land of Canaan—not his good things—but God. It is of this he reminds the rich man, (ver. 25.) “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst THY good things,” the good. things that he preferred; in fact he had his reward, and must not expect that which he never valued nor sought until his good things could profit him no longer. In ver. 27-31, we have the statement of condition in which those of similar character would be left; and it appears to be the general character of the nation; who, because “they knew not Jesus nor the voices of their own prophets, which are read every sabbath day,” would be given over to blindness, and collectively reject the testimony unto the resurrection of Jesus. In Lazarus we have the representation of those who gladly picked up the crumbs, which were the refuse of the rich man, rich in his own conceit, rich and increased in goods, having store laid up for many years. Here in principle the Gentile comes in. (Matt. 15:27.) What were once crumbs to the eye of the rich man, were precious in the eye of Lazarus and the Syrophoenician woman, and precious too in the sight of God. For in Lazarus we see the resurrection glory; despised by the Jew, and by all who, like them, stand. by the existing order, and seek for glory and honor, and happiness in it. We find the resurrection state always in Scripture connected with suffering in the world.—“Likewise Lazarus evil things:” “In the world ye shall have tribulation:” “ but now he is comforted and thou art tormented.” “Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy; and ye now therefore have sorrow, (answering to “thou in thy lifetime receivedst My good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things,”) but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one taketh from you.” Such then is the solemn warning of the Lord to those who would seek to serve God and mammon. Many of us have, in the Lord’s forbearing love, learned the folly of such an attempt by our own painful experience. May the consideration of the issue of such an attempt lead us into more decision; that with purpose of heart we may cleave unto the Lord, and only spend and be spent in that labor which is in the Lord, which will not be in vain.
But let us more specifically consider the latter part of this chapter. (ver. 27-31.) In these verses the character of the unbelief of the nation is most distinctly brought out. The Jews ever sought a sign, but a sign is not the warrant of faith, but the word of the Lord; at this “they stumbled, being disobedient.” They had Moses and the prophets but they heard them not, and therefore no proof could be to them convincing. The fact of one rising from the dead was to them as an idle tale, to them who shut their eyes to the evidence from Moses and the prophets, that “the Christ ought to have suffered and enter into His glory,” “that He died according to the. Scriptures, and rose again according to the Scriptures.” And what is the fact before our eyes at the present day? that the great bulk of the Jews hear not Moses and the prophets; that they evade by the arguments and the subtleties of the infidel, the force of their own Scriptures relative to Messiah suffering; and not only do they stand before God morally as others guilty, but positively as incapacitated from any religious worship properly Jewish—i.e. national, priestly, and sacrificial. “Surely God hath given them the Spirit of slumber—eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear.” (Rom. 11:8) Now it is very profitable to remark that the hearing of Moses and the prophets, is with the Jew repentance; by disobedience to their voices, they first rejected, then condemned Jesus, to whom those Scriptures testified. And when He was preached to them as risen and glorified, preached to them nationally as in Acts 3 repentance was to precede their blessing, consistently with the latest declaration of their prophetic Canon. “Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto Him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statues and judgments.” “Behold I will send unto you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of their children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” (Mal. 4) It was quite in the Spirit of this, that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Great Prophet, as well as the subject of prophetic testimony, addressed them, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father, there is one that accuseth you even Moses, in whom ye trust; for had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me; but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words;” (John 5:45-47.) And the remnant according to the election of grace received Jesus, as the one testified of by Moses and the Prophets. “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, we have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.” (John 1:45.) Here then must be their repentance—the acknowledgment of Moses and the prophets. God can never sanction disobedience; and the same principle in them which made them turn a deaf ear to Moses and the prophets, necessarily led them not to hear Jesus; it was the rejection of the same God in both cases, who spake by Moses, and sent His Son. If they had been of God they would have recognized Moses and heard the voice of Jesus. It is a solemn warning to ourselves to find the Lord thus asserting the real value of the Scripture, and pointing out the source of unbelief. Man wants something more than the word of God; he desires a proof to be subjected to his senses; this is the most daring disobedience—rebellion against God, in that which makes him to be God, even that he is the true God. We know so little of the “evil heart of unbelief,” we estimate so imperfectly its real moral character, that we think lightly of the sin of confessing the Scriptures to be the word of God, and then refusing submission to their authority. Man is still heard, and authority attached to his saying; but where is “the ear to hear” what Jesus says? Man can give an opinion, but none but Jesus can say, “Verily, verily.” The simple character of unbelief is not hearing Moses and the prophets— “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Man may require more proof, but no proof will satisfy him who hears not God’s word. It is this will be the judge— “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” (John 12:48.)
But it is especially here to the purpose to notice, that it is the written word which is here appealed to— “written also for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come;” and this same record corroborated unto us by subsequent facts, again become matter of written testimony. Surely we may well tremble when we see Scripture made light of; we must anxiously fear for the state of that soul which would be now requiring a sensible proof over and above the written testimony, to Jesus and His work, and demand other authority than the light of that word for guidance—authority I mean as superseding and going beyond it; for surely the word and Jesus, to whom both it and the Spirit testifies, are in perfect harmony—the living acting truth, even Jesus, exhibiting in the example He has left us, the best comment on the commandments He Himself gave. Apart from Jesus, the living Word, the written word is used by man to foster his own pride, and to aid the natural skepticism of man’s heart, so that the inquiry is, What is truth? But when once the mind is subjected to Him, however imperfect and slow the progress of the spiritual mind may be, nevertheless it ascertains some certain truth, and not probable opinions. Hence it is that we find the highest in-subjection to God, the most desperate apostasy of man, (surely yet to be manifested, but now in its principles actively at work,) to be thus characterized— “Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thess. 2)
It is awfully serious not only to think of the probability, but to be assured that it will actually be so: that whilst through the energy of Satan, “with all signs, and powers, and lying wonders,” many will be deceived and ruined, all signs, and powers, and wonders of truth would fail of convincing the mind that rejected the testimony of the scripture. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” God is now revealed to faith, not subjected to sense. The experiment of God so dealing with man has been fully made, and man failed; and yet presumptuous man would think that if he saw, then he would believe. The way God taught Israel was by what happened to them, either in the way of deliverance or judgment.— “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples, τυποτ.” “Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? or hath God assayed to go and take Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptation, by signs, by wonders, and by wax, and by a mighty hand, and by stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes; unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the Lord He is God, and there is none else beside Him:” (Deut. 4) But Israel failed; “they could not enter in because of unbelief.” God subjected Himself to the judgment of man’s senses, and the failure proved both that man would not trust God, and that God could not trust man. Hence, therefore, faith is the only security; it honors God, it gives Him glory, it blesses, stablishes and settles man. But faith rests on that which is written; these things are “written for out admonition;” “these things are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye might have life through Him.” (John 20:31.) It is proof of a most unhealthy state of soul when disciples of Christ are looking to signs or wonders without, instead of subjecting their minds to the word. Obedience to it, is that which God now requires in His people, that they may be so molded according to it, that even they may win those who obey it not. Any particle of the word of God known and obeyed, is real strength, is positive sanctification. But Satan’s will is to turn, by any means, the soul from the word, to set it afloat on speculation, to lead it to question everything, and become a prey to its own restlessness, because it finds not sensible proofs where God never designed. to give them. Thus they are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth;” because they obey unrighteousness. As such God looks on it; for the first principle is, “Have faith in God.”
“Without faith it is impossible to please God;” and the warrant of faith to us is that which is written. Surely, therefore, if we believe not Jesus and the Apostles, we are morally incapacitated from exercising a right judgment. May we then prize the word—give ourselves to it—weighing well His testimony “who spake as never man spake.”
“Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man, which built his house upon a Rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a Rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it,” (Matt. 7:24-27.)