THE next section of our Gospel sets forth, first by a parable, then by facts, lastly by the words which passed between the Lord and the twelve, the characteristics which suit the kingdom of God. The connection is with this as we know it now, rather than with its display when the Son of man comes in judgment of the quick as in the preceding parable. Indeed the exceeding breadth of the lesson about to be taught we learn in the words with which the evangelist opens: “And also to some that trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and made nothing of others, he spoke this parable.” It is no dispensational picture of the divine ways with Jews and Gentiles; it is a moral delineation which tells us how God regards those who plume themselves on their correctness of ways as a ground of confidence with Him, and what His estimate is of those who are broken before Him because of their conscious—and now to themselves loathsome—sinfulness.
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee standing prayed thus to himself, O God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men, rapacious, unjust, adulterous, or even as this tax-gatherer. I fast twice in the week, I tithe all things that I acquire. And the tax-gatherer, standing afar off, would not lift up even his eyes to heaven, but was striking upon his breast, saying, O God, be merciful to me the sinner. I say to you, this [man] went down to his house justified rather than the other; because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” (Ver. 10-14.) The Pharisee represents the religious world in its most respectable shape; the tax-gatherer, such as had no character to lose, but whatever he may have been, now truly penitent and looking to God's compassion in self-judgment. How different are the thoughts of God from those of men! A delicate difference is implied in the form of the two forms of the word which we translate “standing” in each case. With the Pharisee the form (σταθεὶς) implies a stand taken, a putting himself in position, such as one might naturally do in addressing a speech to an assembly. With the tax-gatherer it is the ordinary expression for standing in contradistinction from sitting.
Again, the essence of the Pharisee's prayer, if prayer it can be called, is not a confession of sin nor an expression of need even, but a thanksgiving; and this not for what God had done and been for him, but for what he himself was. He was not, like the rest of men, violent and corrupt, nor even as the tax-gatherer, of whom be cannot speak without a tinge of contempt— “this tax-gatherer.” He finally displays his owns habits of fasting and of religious punctiliousness. Not that he laid false claims; not that be excluded God, but he trusted, as a ground for acceptance, to his righteousness, and he made nothing of others. He never saw his own sins in the sight of God.
The tax-gatherer on the contrary is filled with shame and contrition. He stands afar off, with not even his eyes raised to heaven, and beats withal on his breast, saying, God be compassionate to me, the sinner if ever there was one. There is no solid reason to infer that he pleads the atonement in the word ἱλὰσθητι. No doubt the idea of propitiating is expressed by the verb; but it is used fir more widely, like its kindred word in Matt. 16:22, where no one could suppose such an allusion. Whatever the origin or usage of the word, we are not to suppose that the tax-gatherer in employing it thought of the day of atonement, or of the mercy-seat in the holiest; still less are we warranted to attribute to him an intelligence of the mighty work of redemption which Jesus was soon about to accomplish. The word might allude to propitiation; but that he did so in his crying to God thus is another matter altogether. We easily transfer to souls before the death of Christ a knowledge which, however simple and clear to us since the cross, could not be possessed before.
And this misapprehension has led to another, that the Lord was here pronouncing the tax-gatherer justified as we are who believe in the Lord Jesus and His blood. But this is not the teaching of the passage. The strong assertion of Archbishop Trench that it is, and the fact that Roman Catholic theologians deny it, need neither allure nor deter. It is in vain to say that the sentence of our Lord is that the publican was justified by faith at the time when he is described as going down to his house. There is a distinct comparison with the Pharisee, and it is affirmed that the tax-gatherer went down justified rather than the former. Had justification by faith been meant as in Rom. 3-5, no such statement could have been made. There are no degrees in the justification of which Paul speaks; the Lord implies that there are in what He speaks of. Besides the form of the word differs. He is said to have gone down, not δικαιωθεὶς absolutely but δεδικαιωμένος ... .παρ’ἐκεῖνον. The common English version seems quite correct, though founded no doubt on the vulgarly received text, ἰ ἐκεῖος. The great mass of uncials and cursives join in giving the strange reading ἰ γὰρ ἐκεῖνος, followed even in his eighth edition by Tischendorf, spite of the Sinai MS. which casts its weight into the scale of the Vatican (B) and Parisian 62 (L), not to speak of D with its not infrequent additions, and some few other authorities. I do not doubt that this is the true text. The late Dean of Canterbury shows us the danger of misapplying the case to justification, which is his own view, by the remark he adds: “Therefore he who would seek justification before God must seek it by humility and not by self-righteousness.” It is the more to be regretted that this glaring error should have been made by one who had just confessed that we are not to find any doctrinal meaning in ἱλάσθ. It would have been more consistent not to have pressed δεδικαιωμένος similarly.
From the homily on lowliness in view of our sins we are now to receive another, lowliness because of our insignificance. “And they brought to him also their infants that he might touch them; but the disciples when they saw [it] rebuked them. But Jesus called them to [him] and said, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter into it.” (Ver. 15-17.) The babes were of great price in the eyes of Jesus, not of the disciples, who, if not rabbis themselves, would have lowered their Master to the level of such an one in contempt of little ones. But this could not be suffered, for it was not the truth. Neither the Son nor the Father so feel toward the weak and evidently dependent. Nor is this all: “of such is the kingdom of God.” Those who enter into His kingdom must by grace receive the Savior and His word as a child that of its parents. Self-reliance is excluded and replaced by dependence on God in the sense of our own nothingness.
Next comes the young and rich ruler, who went away sorrowfully from Christ rather than give up the self-importance attached to his manifold possessions. “And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, doing what shall I inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor thy father and thy mother. And he said, All these have I kept from my youth. And Jesus on hearing [it] said to him, One thing is lacking to thee yet: sell all that thou hast and distribute to poor [men], and thou shalt have treasure in the heavens; and come, follow me. But he on hearing these things became very sorrowful, for he was exceedingly rich. And Jesus having seen him [become very sorrowful] said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to enter through a needle's eye than for a rich [man] to enter into the kingdom of God.”
The case is plain. The young ruler had no sense of sin, no faith in Christ as a Savior, still less did he believe that a divine person was there, which indeed He must be to save sinners. He appealed to Jesus as the best expression of goodness in man, the highest in the class in which he counted himself no mean scholar. The Lord answers him on the ground of his question. Did he ask the Lord as the good master or teacher, what thing doing he should inherit eternal life? He took his stand on his own doing; he saw not that he was lost and needed salvation. It had never occurred to him that man as such was out of the way, none good, no, not one. That Jesus was the Son of God and Son of man sent to save was a truth to him unknown. The Lord brings in the commandments of the second table; but his conscience was untouched: “All these have I kept from my youth.” “Yet lackest thou one thing,” said Jesus to the self-satisfied yet dissatisfied ruler, conscious that he had not eternal life and that he had no solid security for the future: “Sell all that thou Last, and distribute to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” The conscience which had resisted the test of law fell at the first touch of Jesus. “And hearing this he became very sorrowful, for he was exceedingly rich.”
Yet how infinitely did the demand fall short of what we know and have in the Master, good indeed, God indeed, who never laid on others a burden which He had not borne, who bore one immeasurably more and under circumstances peculiar to Himself, and for ends redounding to the glory of God, and with the result to every sinful creature on earth of a testimony of grace without limit, and of a blessing without stint where He is received! To the ruler it was overwhelming, impossible, the annihilation of all he valued; for indeed now it was evident that he loved his riches, money, mammon, a thing he had never suspected in himself before; but there it had been all along, discovered now in presence of and by Him who, though He were rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. The ruler valued his position and his property, and could not bear to have nothing and be nothing. O what a contrast with Him who counted it not a matter of robbery to be on equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking a bondsman's form, born in likeness of men; and who, when found in fashion as a man, humbled Himself by becoming obedient as far as death, yea death of the cross.
How plain too that worldly prosperity or wealth, fruit of fidelity according to the law, is a danger of the first magnitude for the soul, for eternity And Jesus did not fail to draw the searching moral for the disciples, ever slow, through unjudged selfishness, to learn it. They knew not yet to what Christians are called, even to be imitators of God as dear children, and to walk in love according to the pattern of Christ. It is all but impossible, it is impossible, as far as man is concerned, for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. “And who can be saved?” is the remark of those that heard a sentence so counter to their secret desires. Jesus replied, The things impossible with men are possible with God. There is no other hope of salvation. It is of God, not of man. Yet to save cost God everything, yea His own Son. And if the righteous are with difficulty saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? and why wonder at the danger to a rich man through the unrighteous mammon? None can serve two masters. Happy he who through grace makes wealth to be only for Christ's service, looking to have the true riches his own in everlasting glory!
“And Peter said, Behold we have left all things and followed thee. And he said to them, Verily I say to you, There is none who has left home, or wife, or brethren, or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who shall not get manifold more at this time, and in the age that is coming life eternal.” (Ver. 28-30.) But if Peter was thus prompt to speak of their losses for Christ, who certainly repays as God only can both now and through eternity according to the riches of His grace, “he taking the twelve to [him] said to them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all the things written by the prophets for the Son of man shall be accomplished; for he shall be given up to the Gentiles, and mocked, and insulted, and spit upon; and after scourging they will put him to death, and on the third day he will rise again.” (Ver. 31-33.) Again, what a contrast even with the thoughts and hopes of disciples! Alas! “they understood none of these things; and this word [or matter] was hid from them, and they did not know what was said.” (Ver. 34.) So it ever is where the eye is not single. By faith we understand. Where nature is still valued by saints, the plainest words of Jesus are riddles even to such.