(Concluded from page 67.)
Here we find the disciples themselves unable to use that power in Christ which faith would have done. Only separation of heart and spirit, and reference to and confidence in God, could wield it and set aside the power of Satan down here. This answered, so to speak, to the coming glory of the Son of man, and made Satan powerless in the presence of a humbled Savior. But now, for all that, the new place belonging to the disciples, connected with His resurrection, is strikingly brought out. The coming glory did not belong to Christ's then position (that was the fasting and praying part of His path), and they were not to speak of the vision of glory till He was risen. But meanwhile He shows divine knowledge and divine power over creation. Those who collect the didrachma for the temple ask Peter if his Master was not a faithful Jew. Christ shows His divine knowledge of things in anticipating Peter, but puts Peter in the same place with Himself, “that we offend not.” They were both sons of the great King of the temple, “that we offend not.” Then He shows His power, making the fish bring the needed money, two didrachmas, and Peter was to give it “for Me and thee.” Redemption has brought us into the place of sons with Christ. Grace bowed to the place, but power over all creation showed Who was lowly there; and grace then brought believers into the place of new and infinite blessing in which Christ stood. This blessed “Me and thee” closed, in fact, the path of Christ here with the displayed glory. We have characteristics of the walk suited to this new place of the disciples individually and collectively; but the present testimony to Christ was over: they were charged indeed not to say any more that He was the Christ.
We have one notable miracle in 21. The fig-tree of God's planting, Israel after the flesh, man under the old covenant, when the Lord of the vineyard came seeking fruit, was judged as fruitless forever. This and the manifestation of the truth of Satanic power in the swine are the only miracles which were not the direct exercise of power in goodness. But they not only confirm the constant character of all the others, but show the state of man and God's judgment of that state as to man's responsibility, when all the testimony of grace and power had been given. The story of the didrachmas showed the new place in grace; that of the fig-tree, man's condition under responsibility and law as he was.
In chapter 20:17 to 28 are shown Christ's and the disciples' place here below as finally rejected. Then verse 29 begins His last presentation to Jerusalem as Son of David, and God's testimony to Him by the mouth of babes and sucklings. The mercy indeed continued, but the testimony was closed. He who believed He was Son of David received sight, the rest were judged. The greatest miracles of all were His death, giving up His own Spirit, when He could say, It is finished; and His resurrection. But these were either for stability of faith to believers or for the display of power in others as the subject of their testimony. Our subject has been Christ's own works as a testimony to His person, and the true character of God as so revealed.
For the present I close this paper, already extended far beyond my thought in commencing it. It may be interesting to examine the other Gospels, and study any peculiar aspect of the miracles connected with them. But for the general principle what we have found in Matthew folly suffices, and gives a character of divine goodness and entering into our sorrows which infidelity cannot touch, and, through the hardening of heart it always produces, cannot feel or see the beauty of. J. N. D.