Others called to be associated with Him in His glorious work
Man, He was come for men. He will associate others with Himself in this glorious work. He has a right to do it. If He is in grace a servant, He is so according to the full power of the Holy Spirit.
He works a miracle well adapted to strike those whom He would call, and which made them feel that everything was at His disposal, that all depended on Him, that where man could do nothing He could do everything. Peter, stricken in conscience by the presence of the Lord, confesses his unworthiness, but drawn by grace goes to Christ. Grace raises him up and appoints him to speak of itself to others-to fish for men. Already it was not a preacher of righteousness among the people of God, but one who drew into His net those that were afar off. He attracted to Himself as the manifestation on earth of the power and the character of God. It was grace which was there.
The gracious work of the undefilable all-powerful One
He was there with the will and the power to heal that which was a figure of sin, and incurable but by the intervention of God. But God had intervened; and in grace He can say, and says, to one who acknowledged His power but doubted His will, “I will, be thou clean.”1 Yet He submitted to Jewish ordinances as one obedient to the law. Jesus prayed, as a man dependent on God. This was His perfection as a man born under the law. Moreover, He must needs acknowledge the ordinances of God, not yet abrogated by His rejection. But this obedience as man became a testimony; for the power of Jehovah alone could heal leprosy, and He had healed it, and the priests were to acknowledge that which had been done.
(1. If a man touched a leper, he was unclean. But here grace works, and Jesus undefilable touches the leper (God in grace, undefilable, but a man touching the defiled thing to cleanse it).)
The Son of Man exercising His power and rights as Jehovah to forgive sins
But He brings pardon as well as cleansing. He gives a proof of this by removing all infirmity and imparting strength to one who had none. This was not the doctrine that God could pardon. They believed that. But God had intervened, and pardon was present. They would no longer have to wait for the last day, nor for a day of judgment, to know their condition. A Nathan would not be required to come and proclaim it on the part of a God who was in heaven while His people were on earth. Pardon was come, in the Person of the Son of Man come down to earth. In all this, Jesus gave proofs of the power and the rights of Jehovah. In this instance it was the fulfillment of Psalm 103:33Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; (Psalm 103:3); but, at the same time, He gives these proofs as accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit, without measure in man, in His own Person the true Son of God. The Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins: in fact, Jehovah was come, a man on earth. The Son of Man was there before their eyes, in grace, to exercise this power-a proof that God had visited them.
The power of grace displayed in the midst of Israel
In both these instances1 the Lord, while displaying a power fitted to extend, and that was to extend, beyond this sphere, displays it in connection with Israel. The cleansing was a proof of the power of Jehovah in the midst of Israel, and the pardon was in connection with His government in Israel, and therefore proved itself by the perfect cure of the sick man, according to the psalm already quoted.2 No doubt, these rights were not limited to Israel, but at that moment they were exercised in connection with this nation. He cleansed, in grace, that which Jehovah alone could cleanse. He pardoned that which Jehovah alone could pardon, taking away all the consequence of their sin. It was, in this sense, a governmental pardon; the power of Jehovah present, fully to restore and reestablish Israel-wherever, at least, faith could profit by it. Afterwards, we shall find pardon for peace of soul.
(1. The call of Peter is more general in this respect, that it is connected with the Person of Christ. Nevertheless, although he was a fisher of men (a word used evidently in contrast with the fishes he was occupied with), he exercised his ministry more particularly with regard to Israel. But it was power in the Person of Christ that governed his heart; so that it was, fundamentally, the new thing, but as yet in its connection with Israel, while extending beyond them. It is at the end of chapter 7 and in chapter 8 that we enter on ground beyond the narrow limits of Israel.)
Grace extended beyond Israel
The call of Levi, and that which follows, shows that not only was this power of grace to extend beyond Israel, but that the old vessel was not able to bear it. It must form a vessel for itself.
The perseverance of faith and the power of God
We may also remark here, on the other hand, that faith is characterized by perseverance. In the consciousness of the evil, an evil without remedy, and in the assurance that One able to heal is there, it does not allow itself to be discouraged-does not put off the relief of its need. Now, the power of God was there to meet this need.
This terminates that part of the narrative which reveals, in a positive way, divine power, visiting the earth in grace, in the Person of the Son of Man, and exercised in Israel, in the condition in which it found them.
The distinct characters of the first part of the Lord’s ministry in power and grace
That which follows characterizes its exercise in contrast with Judaism. But that which we have already examined is divided into two parts, having distinct characters which deserve to be noticed. First, in chapter 4:31-41, it is the power of the Lord manifesting itself on His part, as triumphing (without any particular connection with the mind of the individual) over all the power of the enemy, whether in sickness or in possession. The power of the enemy is there: Jesus casts it out and heals those who are suffering from it. But, second, His occupation is to preach. And the kingdom was not only the manifestation of a power which casts out all that of the enemy, but of a power which brought souls also into connection with God. We see this in chapter 5:1-26. Here their condition before God, sin, and faith are in question-in a word, all that belonged to their relationship with God.
Here, consequently, we see the authority of the word of Christ upon the heart, the manifestation of His glory (He is owned as Lord), conviction of sin, just jealousy for His glory, in the sense of His holiness which should keep itself inviolate; the soul taking God’s part against itself, because it loves holiness and respects the glory of God, even while feeling the attraction of His grace; so that, owing to this, everything is forgotten-fish, nets, boat, danger: “one thing” already possesses the soul. The Lord’s answer then dispels all fear, and He associates the freed soul with Himself in the grace which He had exercised towards it, and in the work which He wrought in behalf of men. It was already delivered morally from all that was around it; now, in the full enjoyment of grace, it is set free by the power of grace, and wholly given to Jesus. The Lord-perfect manifestation of God-in creating new affections by this revelation of God, separates the heart from all that bound it to this world, to the order of the old man, in order to set it apart for Himself-for God. He surrounds Himself with all that is delivered, becoming its center; and, indeed, delivers by being so.
He then cleanses the leper, which none but Jehovah could do. Still He does not come out of His position under the law; and, however great His fame, He maintains His place of perfect dependence as man before God. The leper, the unclean, may return to God.
He next forgives. The guilty one is no longer so before God; he is pardoned. At the same time he receives strength. Nevertheless, it is still the Son of Man who is there. In both cases faith seeks the Lord, bringing its need before Him.
The character of grace
The Lord now exhibits the character of this grace in connection with its objects. Being supreme, being of God, it acts in virtue of its rights. Human circumstances do not hinder it. It adapts itself by its very nature to human need, and not to human privileges. It is not subject to ordinances,1 and does not come in through them. The power of God by the Spirit was there, and acted for itself, and produced its own effects, setting aside that which was old-that to which man was attached,2 and to which the power of the Spirit could not be confined.
(1. Christ, born under the law, was subject to them; but that is a different thing. Here it is a divine power acting in grace.)
(2. But here also the Lord, in giving the reasons why the disciples did not follow the ordinances, and the institutions, of John and of the Pharisees, connects them with the two principles already pointed out-His position in the midst of Israel, and the power of grace which went beyond its limits. The Messiah, Jehovah Himself, was among them, in this grace (in spite of their failure under the law, in spite of their subjection to the Gentiles) according to which Jehovah named Himself, “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” At least, He was there in the supremacy of grace for faith. Those, therefore, who owned Him as the Messiah, the husband of Israel, could they fast while He was with them? He would leave them: without doubt that would be their time to fast. Moreover, secondly, it is always impossible. He could not adapt the new cloth of Christianity to the old garment of Judaism, in its nature incapable of receiving its energy, or adapting itself to grace, worn out withal as a dispensation by sin, and under which Israel was, in judgment, made subject to the Gentiles. Besides, the power of the Spirit of God in grace could not be restricted to the ordinances of the law. It would destroy them by its very strength. The call of Levi violated, and most openly, all the prejudices of the Jews. Their own fellow-countrymen were the instruments of their masters’ extortion, and reminded them in the most painful manner of their subjection to the Gentiles. But the Lord was there in grace to seek sinners.
That which the Holy Spirit sets before us is the presence of the Lord, and the rights which are necessarily attached to His Person and to His sovereign grace, which had come into Israel, but necessarily went beyond its limits (setting aside, consequently, the legal system which could not receive the new thing). This is the key to all these narratives. Thus, also, in that which follows respecting the sabbath, the one case shows the supremacy which His glorious Person gave Him over that which was the sign of the covenant itself; and the other, that the goodness of God cannot abdicate its rights and its nature. He would do good even on a sabbath day.)
Opposition to grace; the old order of things and the new
The scribes and Pharisees would not have the Lord associate with the wicked and disreputable. God seeks those who need Him-sinners-in grace. When they ask why His disciples do not observe the customs and the ordinances of John and the Pharisees, by which they guided the legal piety of their disciples, it is that the new thing could not be subjected to the forms that belonged to that which was old, and which could not sustain the strength and energy of that which came from God. The old were the forms of man after the flesh; the new, the energy of God, according to the Holy Spirit. Moreover, it was not the time for a piety that took the form of self-mortification. What else could man do? But the Bridegroom was there.
Nevertheless, man would prefer that which was old, because it was man, and not the energy of God.