OR,
FORESHADOWING S OF A NEW AND HEAVENLY BODY, TRACED SIMULTANEOUSLY
WITH ISRAEL'S REJECTION OF CHRIST ASTHEIR KING.
IT is necessary to apprize the reader of these Notes, &c., that they should be read in connection with the text, and as it is not the intention to give a detailed explanation of every paragraph, the reader is requested to keep his eye on the text between each quotation which appears in inverted commas. It will be remarked that the NOTES are divided into chapters corresponding with the text, in order to facilitate this plan.
The reader should not expect to find in the opening of this book large notices of a mystery not yet made known and which was kept secret since the world began (Rom. 16:2525Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, (Romans 16:25)); or diverted from pursuing the enquiry, because Jewish interests so largely engage the mind of the Spirit. We must ever remember that the Church arose consequent on the rejection of Israel; so that, if we would discover when the Church began, we must first ascertain when and how Israel placed itself beyond the pale of forgiveness, at least in this age. The object of the writer in submitting these Notes, &c., to his brethren is simply told. There has been great confusion and misconception in the mind of many saints as to what portion of the gospels applied to the Church, and what to Israel—some asserting that all applied to the Church, others to Israel. These conflicting statements led the writer to examine the subject for himself, and the result of that examination, irrespective of the peculiar notions of any, but looking to the Lord for help in His own truth, he now humbly lays before his brethren, and begs they will patiently peruse it, before they form any untoward conclusion on the subject.
Chapter 1.
IT is evident, from the dedication, that this gospel was not written to one ignorant of the glad tidings of great joy; and also that none of those already written by the many who took it in hand was suited for the purpose of the writer of this, namely, to certify to the most excellent Theophilus concerning things (λόγων) in which he had been instructed. Not the mere certainty of the subjects, I apprehend, but ἁσφάλειαν, the safety of them; it implies another idea besides truthfulness, and is only used in two other places in the Now Testament, in Acts 5:2323Saying, The prison truly found we shut with all safety, and the keepers standing without before the doors: but when we had opened, we found no man within. (Acts 5:23), and 1 Thess. 5:33For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. (1 Thessalonians 5:3). I think one might very justly expect, from this preface, that every allusion which fell from our Lord, referring however directly or indirectly to the abstruse things of which Paul was especially the minister, would be inserted here, inasmuch as Luke was a fellow-traveler with that apostle; and if even it were disputed that Luke wrote this gospel, it cannot be gainsayed that the writer of the Acts was a companion of the apostle, or that the writer of one was the writer of the other; and therefore, I repeat, we are justified in expecting to find, in this gospel pro-eminently, many notices of the yet undisclosed mystery of the Church.
Man's forfeiture of blessing has been over his own act; for God leaves him without excuse. Hence, if we are to look for the disclosure of another dispensation in this book, we should first be instructed as to the fullness of the offer of mercy to the one about to be superseded. Consequently, the subject begins by accurately recounting to us in this chapter all the circumstances of the birth of John the Baptist, who was to go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias, and whom "the scribes said should come." We get in Zacharias Israel's condition before God in its best estate—orderly in ceremonials, but distrustful of God's promises without a sign. We get also in this chapter the birth and origin of the promised Savior; all was purely to Israel. And yet more, there is no allusion to a Gentile, either by the angel to Zacharias or to Mary, nor in the prophetic utterances of Mary or of Zacharias. In their mind all the grace is confined to Israel: no other thought disturbs the full gladness of their soul. They witnessed the glorious favor to Israel, and they believed assuredly of their unhesitating reception of it. Surely, no son of Abraham could read this chapter and not feel that to him and his people did this salvation peculiarly come: if it turned aside from them, it must be from obstruction after its display, and not from a divergence in its issue. There could be no question but the first streak of light fell on Israel. “The day-spring from on high had visited us." If it diverged, it must be Israel's fault—and this we shall have to inquire into in the next chapter.
Chapter 2.
THIS chapter opens the fact that Israel is in bondage to the Roman power, the fourth beast; and, in submitting to the decrees of that power, Jesus is born in Bethlehem, not amid the happy exaltations of a thankful people, but unknown and unthought of, in a stable, in a manger, apart from even the haunts of men, because "there was no room for Him in the inn." It is a little, but very emphatic notice in the very dawn of the day, showing how Israel would receive Him. None of the shepherds of Israel were looking out for Him as the morning without clouds. Little they felt the grinding rule of Rome. Little did they feel the poverty and apostasy of the nation, when there was no straining of their necks in earnest, anxious expectation of a deliverer. None such as these in Israel. The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. The shepherds of man's sheep put to shame the shepherds of Israel, and to them is revealed the glories of grace as symbols of the fit characters for such blessing. When Saul did not tend the sheep of God, David, who tended his own sheep well, was chosen to fill his place. Here again is another notice of the un-readiness of Israel to receive the Lord of glory. No scribe or lawyer to announce and proclaim abroad the wonderful manifestations of the mercy of God to Israel! The shepherds fill this place. The sanctioned functionaries are unfit for the task, and God chooses more suitable instruments; “who made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning the child," but to the Jew only. No intimation, as yet, that this now and heavenly light would radiate to any but Israel. Everything is in Jewish order. On the "eighth day" Jesus is circumcised. "The days of purification according to the law of Moses being accomplished, he is brought to Jerusalem, to be presented to the Lord, and to offer the sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord." All confined within Jewish limits— but now Jesus being born as a Jew, circumcised as one, presented to the Lord as one—there falls from the mouth of one who waited only to see the Consolation of Israel, that this light which was shed on Israel would traverse beyond the limits of Palestine, and beyond the connection of any one people. Simeon, in the evidence of the Holy Ghost, could survey the wide unlimited range it was yet destined to occupy—" A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel." This is the first notice that any but a Jew should participate in this great blessing. No honest Jew, on reading these chapters, could cavil on the plea that he was not sufficiently considered. No; the Lord again provides an instrument to speak of Jesus to all them who looked for redemption in Jerusalem, or Israel. All must justify God in turning to the Gentiles. Where are their shepherds? Whore are those to comfort the mourners in Zion? Have not those who profess to fill these offices "fed themselves and fed not my flock"? The teachers of Israel were hid in a corner, yet God sought Him out shepherds who would tell abroad His grace, and now Anna, a prophetess, an aged widow, is the organ of comfort to all them “who looked for redemption in Israel." When the Lord saw there was no man, His own arm brought salvation. Anna, weighed down by years and sorrows, is charged with a message of the comfort to all the mourners wherewith she herself is comforted of God. Never was one so patient and long-suffering as God. If none of the recognized shepherds and elders of Israel can be used of God in the offices they had dishonored and abused, yet He who declared the Father, and faithfully witnessed of His mercy, is found, as His earliest service, sitting in the midst of the doctors or teachers, hearing them, and asking them questions, if haply they might be reformed. “Let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it," was to the end the expression of Christ's service towards Israel.
Chapter 3.
IN the foregoing chapter we have seen the condition of Israel. Nationally subjects of the fourth beast, and so uncared for by them who assumed to be shepherds that they wandered on all mountains and upon every high hill; they were as sheep that had no shepherd. Here we have the ministry of John. The spirit and power of Elias leads him to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, if they would receive it. He took his place in the wilderness—the Jewish land was defiled. He came in the way of righteousness—and yet he cried, in the fullness of God's purposes, "All flesh shall see the salvation of God." None can accept his mission but through baptism—old things, for they had corrupted themselves, must be abandoned. They who had a quick sense of sin in them yielded to this confession; but when it had a tendency to be formal, when multitudes came to him, he warned them that men descended from Abraham could not meet the righteousness of God, and that God was not confined to the present children of Abraham, but was able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham—to procure children of faith, when there existed neither ability nor pretension to such a rank. Israel is sought and Israel is warned—but if Elias is not received, the Lord must come and smite the earth with a curse. (Mal. 4:66And 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 4:6).) John is cast into prison because he rebuked the unrighteous king; the throne that ought to have been established in righteousness is the first to indicate the nation's apostasy from God. Yet, though John, in the spirit and power of Elias, is silenced, still Jesus declines not from the path of sorrowing service he came to take. As a descendant from God through a Jewish line, and of mature years, for Levite service, He enters upon it.
Chapter 4.
THE Lord Jesus has entered on His course. In the desert, apart from the associations of men, and all the palliatives of human misery, in the fertile regions of the earth. The Son of God, born of a woman, born under the law, begins His course. In far different circumstances from the first Adam, He withstands the assault of Satan. In Eden everything the eye rested on proclaimed the goodness and love of an Almighty hand. In the wilderness, where not a green thing assured the heart of the care of God for man—a vast dreary scene—type, morally, of all creation—aggravated to the utmost by the presence of Satan, the malignant author of its ruin, did He unhesitatingly maintain the goodness and worthiness of God. He is faithful to God, let circumstances wear what aspect they may; He could be stripped as Job, as a pelican in the wilderness, and yet His heart would not swerve from confidence in His Father, or His feet decline from the mission of His grace. He is not to be interrupted in His service. He comes forth in the majesty of a conqueror to fulfill His course, and in the power of the Spirit, and is "glorified of all." He delays not to announce at Nazareth, "whore He had been brought up," the wonderful service on which He was then entering. He goes into the synagogue, and stands up to read. He reads the beautiful and comprehensive prophecy of the objects of His mission. "All (Israel) was amazed at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth," but all were incredulous, for truth was not to be valued for truth's sake, because it fell from the lips of one so humble as Joseph's son. Jesus is first rejected where He was brought up, where He ought to have been best accepted. When Cherith dried up—when the stream of Israel no longer flowed to cheer the prophet of God—is there no resource? Is there not a member of the human family to minister to the Lord of glory? Israel, where He was brought up, where the blessed features of His grace, from infancy to manhood, were developed—where he was best known-has rejected Him. To whom will He turn? Is there a Gentile widow? Is there a Gentile leper? The Gentile widow of Sarepta is the ready hostess to Elias of that cheer which was denied to him in Israel; the desolate Gentile, with gladness, and glorifying the word of the Lord, received the rejected of Israel. The widowed heart and the leprous mighty man, aptly embodied the characteristics of the family into whose circle the blessed Lord would retire from Israel. Where He ought to have been best known, where He was brought up, He is rejected even to death. He is led to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong.
He passes away from them, but His hands are still stretched out, the star of mercy is still in the ascendant. He teaches on the Sabbath-days, in a city of Galilee, and here encounters the root and power of all man's enmity and opposition to God. The spirit of an unclean devil lurks in the bosom of man. Satan holds possession—man surrendered to him! Who will evict him? The evil spirit cowers in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth. A man has risen up who will give it no place, but who will destroy it, for He is the Holy One of God. A man now commands Satan to loose his grasp on his fellow-man, and he yields; he must yield, but not without a struggle. Too long he held his sway in the human heart to surrender without resistance. The unclean spirit "had thrown him in the midst and came out of him." One is brought low in the world by the ejection of Satan; but this is the utmost of his power, for it "hurts him not." In the beginning of this chapter we have soon our Lord's personal conflict and victory over Satan; here we see His power over him in man's heart, the throne of his empire. Like a mighty warrior, Jesus assaults every citadel; having first in single combat proved Himself, He now proceeds to every place of Satan's power, and every result of it, as one able to meet any and all. In keeping with this I believe is the perfect and immediate cure of Peter's wife's mother of a " great fever;" the power of evil is not only met personally in the wilderness, but as an unclean spirit in man, and still more in its results, as a " great fever " conveys. Henceforth the devils know what the world refuse to own, “that He was Christ." Yet Jesus continues His course to other cities also; His comfort amidst all rejection—" For therefore am I sent."
Chapter 5.
THIS chapter opens with the fact that the people pressed on Him to hear the Word; so much so, that He entered into a ship which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land, and He sat down and taught the people. It could not be then from want of hearing that Israel refused the Son, the only Son. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the world, and their words unto the ends of the earth. “Now, when He left speaking," He gives another proof of His devoted service to Israel. If He is the messenger from God, He will increase the materials for service, by drawing to Himself, out of the mass, men whom He will endue with His own power, in order that they might labor with Him, and if by any means, save some. “How often would He have gathered them as a hen Both gather her chickens under her wing" is the assured conviction every one must rise up with, on reading this gracious history of His services towards Israel.
Simon Peter is now to be delivered and borne across the barrier that separated his people from the mercy so pressed on them. All the night he had toiled, and like his nation, had taken nothing; but at the word of the Lord, he was ready to let down the net. And now he is taught the vanity of earthly accumulations, for such a multitude of fishes does he enclose, that "the net brake;" and so little does the help of the partners avail, that when they came and filled the ships, " they began to sink." Dread eternity now opens before them. Of what value is this multitude of fishes? What gain to a man to secure the whole world, and lose his own soul? In this dismal hour he would look to Jesus; but sins which before could be borne with, now rise in awful contemplation before him, and he would escape the presence of Jesus, for the majesty of His holiness glared on his awakened conscience. For me Jesus came, so that all Peter's woe is met with "Fear not," and that from henceforth his occupation would be a higher one, even to catch men; to catch some of the wandering sheep of the house of Israel, and witness to them of the great Shepherd who, alone and unassisted, traversed this valley of Baca, to seek and to save that which was lost. The Jew cannot excuse himself that none received Christ; for Simon and his partners, James and John, "left all and followed Him;" on every side he must be left without excuse. We next see the Lord Jesus ready to identify Himself with Israel in its lowest physical condition: he touches the leper, and heals one whom all others would shrink from as loathsome and contaminating. And little therefore was the wonder that great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. But He cannot commit Himself unto them. He withdraws into the wilderness and prays.
The next scene discloses how little the doctors of the law, and the great professionists of religion, really understood the blessedness of His mission. When the palsied man, whose total inability portrayed the Jew in his real estate, heard from the lips of Jesus the first and fondest desire of God—" Son, thy sins be forgiven thee "—the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this that speaketh blasphemies? In vain had they come from Galileo, and Judea, and Jerusalem, if their eyes were so blind, and their ears so dull of hearing, that they so think and speak of the Lord of glory. But He who can dry up the springs of evil and weakness within, and then originate now life and power, can also invigorate the nerveless members of the body, and make it, instead of a burden, a burden-bearer; at this the lesser blessing, but suited to their carnal expectations, they were amazed, and glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen strange things to-day." But they were in nowise convinced; for when, immediately afterwards, Jesus is found in the company of publicans and sinners, the scribes and Pharisees murmured against His disciples, saying, Why do ye eat with publicans and sinners? How blind to their own condition! Jesus meekly and blessedly replies, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." They can neither understand His power to forgive sin, nor His grace to associate with sinners. The natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God, and hence the parable of putting a piece of a new garment on an old. It would be but labor in vain; the rent would be made worse, and no unity, for the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. New wine also must be put into new bottles, and both are preserved. Deeply painful as it was to this gracious Missionary from God to discover how vain it was with the present materials to build again the tabernacle of David that was fallen down—nay, that the builders would refuse Him who ought to be the head of the corner—yet He can bear to see it, and, better still, though affected by it, to continue faithful to His mission, only letting drop now and again that He was prepared for rejection, and that His rejection might turn Him aside, yet it would never estrange His heart from the children of His people.
Chapter 6.
IN this chapter we find the path of rejection no longer concealed. The second Sabbath is marked by the Lord's entrance into circumstances similar to those under which David suffered, in the first journey of his rejection, from the hand of Saul. The disciples, the Lord's companions in His rejection, being hungry, rubbed the ears of corn in their hands as they passed through the corn-fields on the Sabbath-day. He who entered the world with no better reception than a manger, found ere long no place in it to lay His head. The ruthless Saul of His day pressed the companions of the rejected Jesus to unusual expedients to relieve their utter need. The scribes and Pharisees would value the day of rest (when the Lord of it had none) more than the Lord Himself. They would rest in their wretchedness and infirmities; He would not "rest till He had finished the thing." (Ruth 3:1818Then said she, Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day. (Ruth 3:18).) He would remove the hindrances; He sought God's rest, not man's rest. He would not rest till He could cast His eye to the utmost limit, and reassure the heart of God again with, “Behold, all is very good." Thus He first rested; thus He will eternally rest. He is now working on to that wondrous point, and hence on the next Sabbath He heals a remarkable symbol of Israel's state of incapacity, “the withered right hand." “The arm clean dried up " (Zech. 11) too Plainly told the powerlessness of the nation. The scribes and Pharisees could keep a Sabbath in utter unconsciousness of their condition. The Healer of the breach, the Restorer of paths to dwell in, would lay the foundation for everlasting rest; and hence, on the man with the withered hand, He enacts the mercies He was ready to administer to the whole house of Israel. His word, "stretch forth thy hand," to him their representative, was but indicative of His mind to the entire constituency, and by them ought to have been hailed as such; but instead of this, they were filled with madness, and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. Thus they despised the first dawning’s of the Sabbath of God. Jesus retires above the world to the mountains, to seek abstraction with God. The more rejected and painful His path, the more did His soul seek, alone and apart from all here, solace with God.
Another day dawns, and the faithful servant enters on His duties again. He now associates with Himself a distinct and remarkable number of disciples, whom He calls messengers or apostles. The service must not fail from want of' hands, or be denied from want of witnesses; and again He stands on " the plains " of this world to re-exhibit His graciousness and tender mercies; for to the great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon, "there went virtue out of Him and healed them all; " " and they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed." He then turns to His disciples, and enunciates the principles of His kingdom; not as to what grace effects for us, but what is required of us as heirs of this kingdom; they rather declare our responsibility than our capability—the law of the kingdom, not the grace of the kingdom—and opens it to everyone worthy of it. The good tree and the good man are to be valued, irrespective of everything; the corrupt tree and the evil man are to be rejected, irrespective of any original claim; and this practically we learn in the opening of the seventh chapter.
Chapter. 7.
A ROMAN centurion, a Gentile, seeks the Lord for blessing. He engages the elders of Israel, "to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants," &c. (Rom. 9:44Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; (Romans 9:4)), to be the ministers of Christ to him; for in the full sense of it, as a branch of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, he had no right to be grafted into the root and fatness of the olive tree. He presumes not to seek blessing from Christ but through the Jew. And what does Jesus find here? “I have not found," saith the rejected of Israel, "so great faith; no, not in Israel;" and where did He find it? In a Gentile. Let not the Lord of glory despond, though His own will not receive Him; yet through His grace, the heart of many a stranger will bid Him a true and an eternal welcome.
Yet Israel must learn the fullness of His mercy, and therefore the next day He raises from the dead the last hope of the widowed heart. He comforts the widow and restores her last hope, though she had endured the withering pang that death had for ever extinguished it. Oh that the widow of Israel who desolate sits on the ground could but understand these things! At least the conviction steals over them, and they reiterate the words of the prophet, that God had visited His people; “and this rumor of Him went forth throughout all Judea, and throughout all the region round about. Surely they were left without excuse! Yet there was a veil on their hearts—the desperate reluctance that is in man to give credit to the unselfish love of Christ, and of this even John the Baptist seems to partake. He who had gone before Jesus in the spirit and power of Elias, now needs to be confirmed himself. The unsuccessfulness of his own testimony, the apparent un-profitableness of all his labors, no doubt did lead his soul to waver as to the Lord's identity. He himself in prison, so contrary to the expectations of one who came to fill the place of Elias, was doubtless assured that in a little time Jesus would so increase as to counteract all opposition. But now, disheartened, he sends two disciples to learn and gather fresh evidence, and confirm his heart touching the nature and object of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth. In reply to this enquiry, Jesus enumerates the nature and extent of His works, adding this warning: "And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me." Let none of your preconceived notions as to my service, and the effects of it, divert you from recognizing and acknowledging me; let not my rejection at the hands of Israel lead you to question my claims, or from the effects of it on my position, to be found assenting with them in their evil deeds. John was not to waver from his first happy thoughts, as the friend of the Bridegroom. True, true, men said “he hath a devil; " and of Jesus, " on whom he had seen the Holy Ghost descending and remaining on Him," they say, " Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." To the men of this generation every service proved ineffectual. Of them it could be said, “We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept." What then? "Wisdom is justified of all her children," and of one of them we have an example in the following scene:—The Pharisee here represents the better sort of public acceptance accorded to our Lord, acknowledging Him as a remarkable character; and though unconvinced of His pro-eminent station, yet not ready to appear hostile to Him, nor join in his rejection. As such, he receives Him as his guest, but so as to exhibit how little his heart honored Him as a distinguished one; and though, perhaps at personal sacrifice, he is the host of the Son of God, yet he loses the blessing obtained by one of wisdom's children, because he "knew Him not." Israel's acceptance of Christ did not exceed the Pharisees. The woman that was a sinner represents the Church; she sought to Christ because of her sins, not because of other and temporal expectations. She served Him because she was forgiven, not that she might be honored by Him: her love taught her a service which the learned self-righteous Jew either neglected or was ignorant of. In the house of the Jew, at his very table, the unwelcome sinner is saved, and bid "go in peace." The Church of God, despised and unwelcome, sprung into life and blessing in the very precincts of Jewish hospitalities, and I believe is here darkly shadowed. It is a scene which does not occur in the other gospel narratives.
Chapter 8.
THIS chapter opens with the account of the still larger ministrations of this blessed servant throughout every city and village, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God, and in company with the twelve who were to be witnesses of these things, and of His manifold labors in service towards Israel. “Certain women," "a remnant according to the election of grace," followed Him, and ministered” of their substance " to the destitute heir of all Jewish inheritance. There, in the presence of many which "were come to Him out of every city," He utters the parable of the sower; and this kind of teaching at once discloses to us God's judgment of Israel nationally. They are now to be dealt with as "seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand." If you hear without a heart to heed, your hearing will only harden you the more. So it was with Israel; but the Lord contents Himself that the seed will not fall always in unsuited and unproductive soil, but that honest and good hearts will be found which, having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. The seed will not be confined to the barren unfruitful spot. "God is no respecter of persons." (Acts 10:3434Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: (Acts 10:34).) “But in every nation," wherever, in the largeness of the grace of the sower, the seed should be sown, and wherever it grew, it would be accepted of God. God "lighted a candle" on the earth, that all they which enter in may see the light; therefore take heed how you hear, for you are responsible, and will be called to an account for it. If you “have," you shall have more; you have something to build on; if you "have not," you shall even lose the semblance of it. In a word, the Lord now says, I shall no longer recognize family or class relationships. My own mother and brethren I recognize not as such from nature, but my mother and brethren are those which hear the word of God and no IT. "From henceforth," said the faithful revealer of the thought here mysteriously announced, "know we no man after the flesh." Such was the peculiar self-denying path the Lord now opened to His disciples, which He more practically instructs them in by the vicissitudes they endure in passing over "the lake." He is asleep, as if personally unconnected with their circumstances. His disciples awoke Him by the agonizing cry, “We perish!" so little prepared were they for the path of "faith" over the sea of life; and here they first learned that Jesus commands the winds and water, and they obey Him. To remove the hindrances to the growth of this faith in the human heart is, I apprehend, the Spirit's object in placing before us the following acts of our Lord. We have here man as he is by nature; a legion of perverse, ungovernable, and senseless passions: all educational restraints, “chains and fetters," no barrier to the spring tide of their desires: a fool, one that saith to everyone, I am a fool.
“He wore no clothes," and the haunts of the dead, "the tombs," were his abode. But the word of Jesus, the word that can control the winds and the waves, can emancipate poor man from this grievous thralldom; and many such are found sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind. Yet how unpopular His gracious work to the covetous Gadarenes of this world! “They besought Him to depart from them! " Blessed gentle Jesus returned where the people received Him. He is a ready visitant to them waiting for Him. And there too He gives a fuller illustration of His grace to answer the faith of the most wretched. The ruler of the synagogue, a person of considerable note among the Jews, enlists the sympathies of Jesus for his only daughter, who “lay a dying," and beseeches of Him to come into "his house." Jesus accedes to the request of the supplicating Jew, who, in the spirit of his nation, seems to recognize no power in Christ but in person. Jesus is on His way to assuage the bitter cry the hand of death was wringing from His people; but as He went, as He journeys along to the great day of Israel's final, complete, and death-released deliverance, He is not unmindful or insensible to the touch of faith from the most despised and unheeded. A woman, who, whatever her condition had been, is now destitute and penniless, all her living having been spent in her search after health. Twelve long years of sickness and expenditure only found her, having spent all her living upon physicians, and neither could be healed of any. Job-like, wealth was gone, and health was unattainable; not a shred of earthly hope remained. Jesus, the fountain of grace and mercy, is on His journey; she, by the eye of faith, knows Him. Unseen, she touches Him, and immediately a stream of mercy imparts life and vigor to her. “She was healed." Another striking type of the Church, who, without hope or enjoyment on earth, by faith finds all her life and blessing in Jesus, not as appropriating Him exclusively to herself, for that is high-mindedness, but, as He passes on to the ruler's house, through faith engaging His best services—yea, while the blessings of His grace and affiliation are ringing in her ears, the doubts of the extent of His power are uttered by the Jew in unhappy discordance around, while she, of no earthly hope, drinks largely, through faith, of the fountain of life. The Jew, in unbelief, cries out, “Thy daughter is dead, trouble not the Master;” death has laid his rude hand on what was most dear to me, and, alas! there is none to help—" our hope is lost." (Ezek. 37:1111Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. (Ezekiel 37:11).) But, behold! Jesus pursues His way, un-riveted from His purpose, through storms of unbelief and scorn, till that wondrous hour when He shall take the virgin daughter of Israel (now sunk in the sleep of death) by the hand, and shall sound " Arise," and, before wondering multitudes, her spirit shall come again, and she shall arise straightway. But on this scene for the present the curtain falls, and the charge is, “that they should tell no man what was done."
Chapter 9.
WE have seen in the last chapter that, though great was the manifestation of mercy to Israel, yet so unfit were they for the disclosure, so little ready to appreciate it, that the marvelous service of Jesus to Jairus' daughter (so typical of His heart's desire and purpose toward the whole house of Israel) is not to be made public. The charge is “that they should tell no man what was done; " and yet this chapter unfolds to us, not One declining any more to serve a people so unworthy of it, but, on the contrary, enduing His twelve disciples with power to counteract and remove their sorrows. Grace, like a flowing stream, only accumulates an expression of its power as every fresh barrier is raised against it. This was largely shown to the Jew. Twelve new currents of blessing must now permeate their land, carrying with them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases, to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. And so great is the effect of this combined movement that the tetrarch on his throne is “perplexed." He had beheaded John, once happy harbinger of all this mighty blessing. The tender budding of it as a bitter frost he had nipped. He who from his throne had all but crushed it in its infant state, now bears testimony to Christ's wondrous mission, and, conscience-smitten, desires to see Him. Can any Jewish caviler say: "Jesus gave not sufficient evidence of Himself to the house of Israel" P Their King who, without remorse, did imbrue his hands in the blood of Christ's herald, is now so convinced that he desires to see Him—Him the personification of all the power he had contumaciously rejected in the execution of John the Baptist! The virus of rejection originates with the throne. The tide of conviction now reaches the throne. The apostles having returned from their mission, and given in a detail of their task, Jesus leads them "aside privately into a desert place belonging to a city called Bethsaida." Whether “the house of provision “or not we shall shortly see, for thither Jesus is followed by the people when "they knew it," and He receives them in all the fullness of His grace, and, still unwearied in His service towards them, "spoke unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing; " but here He also teaches the emptiness of all earthly pretension. At Bethsaida, “the house of provision," there is no sustainment for the followers of Christ. As at Nain, "the beautiful place," the dark hand of death had changed the scene only to be repaired by Him who can make all things new. So here, He Himself is the fountain of supply. If earth and earthly things fail, Jesus can meet, and more than meet, the need of His people. Twelve baskets full of fragments attest the more manifold blessings which will flow from Mm than from the most honored place in Israel.
Now, the question must be propounded to His disciples—the future nucleus of blessing—" Whom say the people that I am?"
This occurs when the Lord is “alone” from man, and abstracted unto God. The answer declares the effect of His services to Israel.
He was said to be "John the Baptist, or Elias, or one of the old prophets," but none but Peter knew Him. None but he said "the Christ of God;" but none yet must didactically remove the veil from the heart of Israel. The disciples are "commanded to tell no man that thing," but rather to learn for themselves the path of unearthly expectation which following Him would demand. And to sustain them in this path, not by what earth could provide, not from the supplies of the failing Bethsaida of this world, but from a heavenly sphere, does He reveal to them, " ere they should taste of death"(as unreached by that wide-spreading, unsparing scourge, as unconscious " whether in the body or out of the body," 2 Cor. 12: 3), the glory of God's kingdom.
On the mountain, in prayer with God—above the earth, and separated in spirit from it—does He reveal to Peter, John, and James, the power of glory. The fashion of His countenance is altered, and His raiment white glistering. Moses, for whose body the devil contended, and Elias, for whom fifty sons of the prophets three days did seek, are manifested in glory. In personal intimacy with Jesus, they talked with Him of the great results of His sorrowing service here—His ἔξοδον, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. The disciples betray how little they are prepared for such a scene; they are either heavy with sleep, or they only awake to prove a wrong judgment. To assimilate this wondrous glory to something earthly, Peter places the Lord of glory on an equality with Moses and Elias, perhaps comparing the scene to a feast of tabernacles, the most celebrated of earthly festivals. But a cloud intercepts all earthly hopes and plans, and a voice out of the cloud proclaims that Jesus is chief.
“This is my beloved Son, hear Him." The right estimate of Jesus is learned in the glory; and Peter afterwards, speaking of this scene, describes it as “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.... His majesty." (2 Peter 1:1010Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: (2 Peter 1:10).) The majesty of Jesus, learned in the glory by men as yet unreached by death, discloses to us, then, only that high place of attainment in which the apostle says, “Of such an one will I glory." (2 Cor. 12:55Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. (2 Corinthians 12:5).) No earthly connection, service, or gift, entitled him to glory; elevation into this scene alone entitled him; but then he was not only unearthly, but unconscious of a link with earth.
This revelation was necessary to sustain the disciples in the path of unearthly expectation which He had been unfolding to them; and hence, when they return again on that path, an incident occurs which exposes the nature and violence of the power arrayed against them. “When they came down from the hill," a man of the company beseeches Him for his only child—the earthly hope of the father centered in this child. But this condition is: "A spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out, and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him." There are two important features in this scene which does not present themselves in other cases of Satanic possession. The suppliant here is not the sufferer: the sufferer appears to have seasons of respite. This manifestation of suffering, and the inability of the disciples to remove it, call forth from the Lord a censure on this generation for faithlessness and perverseness, the two great causes of our difficulty in encountering the power against us on earth; and because of them, Satan affects us in the humiliating manner here described. On the way to Jesus, “yet a coming, "he gains us no reprieve. It is no easy thing to, be rid of Satan. We must not expect deliverance without being “thrown down and torn." When Satan has done his worst, when you are humbled and torn before men, then you know the comfort and rest of the healing of Jesus. Jesus knew what His disciples would have to suffer if they would learn, from glory, to hear the beloved Son. This is here depicted for them, and then He tells them to let these sayings (λόγους) sink down into your ears, for I myself will have to pass through bruisings and tearings. “The Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men." “But they understood not this saying," but only offer fresh evidence of how little led they are above earthly hope, for they reason among them “which of them should be greatest." Oh, how slowly we all learn our place and portion! How needful for the disciples, as for us, to receive a Spirit which would bring to remembrance the teachings of Christ!
A helpless babe is a disciple's proper earthly condition: assuming nothing, neither important enough to forbid anybody, nor affecting power even in judgment on those who will not “receive" the Lord of glory. Our place is to follow Him, as the lowest and most unprovided for in creation. As to earth, “the foxes and the birds of the air" have the advantage. Neither respect for "the dead," nor affection for the living, “at home at my house," must divert the sincere follower of Christ from the plough of service he has put his hand to. Such ought to be the miserable expectancy of Christ's servant on earth. Alas! how few have learned it.
Chapter 10.
As we might have been prepared for, this chapter declares the long and fullest sound of the trumpet ere judgment be pronounced—seventy additional instruments, answering to the number who shared with Moses the burden of the stiff-necked and rebellious Israel of his day. Their perverseness in that day made it necessary, and so now. The harvest must not lie un-gathered for want of hands. “Into every city and place whither He Himself would come," there must be a twofold announcement of His mercy. They are warned of His approach. If they reject, they must do so deliberately. The Lord could already pass sentence on some cities where "mighty works had been done." The Chorazin, the Bethsaida, and the Capernaum of this world have already deserved condemnation. As the return of the twelve in the former chapter was an occasion for the Lord to explain to them a large page of their yet future history, so might we expect another of still greater interest and matter to be unfolded here. The seventy return with joy, gratified with the fact "that the devils are subject unto us through thy name." Little yet, doubtless, had they learned the extent of Satan's power; for the reply of Jesus is, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." We know what is the terrific effect of lightning on the inhabitants of earth. But yet, saith the Lord, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the powers of the enemy (heavenly or earthly), and nothing shall by any means hurt you." Though this assurance might appear the highest of all blessings, yet there was a higher.
"In this rejoice not ... .but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven." (τοῖςοὐρανῖς.) Your names inscribed in a region afar and above all here, is the real source of joy. And in the sense of this Jesus exults in the purposes of God being so accomplished, that " the babes," the powerless un-intellectual class, have revealed unto them what the magnates of wisdom and prudence, the highly esteemed among men, knew nothing of; and therefore, "privately," the disciples are told by Him that " blessed are the eyes which see the things which they see, for that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them "—" the mystery which was kept secret since the foundation of the world," and of which they themselves as yet knew scarcely anything.
The stern demands of law are all answered by grace. The more it demanded from us, the more does Jesus, by substitution, for us. The greater the difficulty we had to encounter through it, the greater the service Jesus performed for us. The more my responsibility to my fellow man from the law, the more do I gain from Jesus, born of a woman, born under the law. Thus grace resolves all the difficult questions that the law can raise; and Jesus but describes Himself when He recounts the traits and acts of the good neighbor. Who but Jesus, as an unbidden friend, an unwelcome servitor, a Samaritan, would visit the Jerusalem wanderer, the self-immolated sufferer, the victim of human malice, without money or clothes, and almost lifeless—when neither priest nor Levite, the boasted appendages of the law, could aught avail-would come "where he was," be it into the darkness of death? "He had compassion on him, and went to him" (side by side with him on the cross of Calvary), and "bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine; " and on that living power which bore this gracious neighbor to the sufferer's side, was now the sufferer to be conducted and raised out of this scene of sorrow. He " set him on His own beast," and brought him to an inn—the abode of travelers and strangers—and then, having cared him to be trusted to no other hands at first, He on the morrow consigns him to “ the host" (the proprietor of all needful supplies by the way), defraying the probable expense, but chargeable with all, cost what he will!—" And whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee." If the host has great and arduous services in the absence of Jesus, His coming again will crown his labors with rich rewards. May the saints understand their service!—" If ye love me, feed my sheep."
From the next little scene we gather the nature of the best services we can render. Jesus is “received "into Martha's house. Who so great a stranger here? Who so way-worn and friendless? Surely, a most desolate One, yet, for love's sake, “received." Well, reception is one thing, right hospitality is another. Doing one thing well often leads us to do the next thing indifferently. Martha understands not the nature of the services this desolate servant of God would value most. Mary has learned this. "She sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word." The service most grateful to Jesus will be so, in like manner, to His Spirit in His people. And, doubtless, the patient lover and student of Christ's word will, towards the wearied traveler, exceed in hospitalities more than the more apparently laborious and external attentions of Martha.
Chapter 11.
WE should ever remember, in tracing this interesting subject, that the great Teacher of the Church is very patient, minute, and comprehensive, in His mode of instruction; and I think the more we trace the slow trail of our progress in truth, the less will we wonder at the dullness of the disciples, or be surprised at the apparent repetition of principles already proved. The Holy Ghost is, in this book, meeting the entire question, and practically it will be found a much more difficult lesson than many apprehend to practically take a heavenly standing with a happy conscientious rejection of all the claims an earthly one may appear to have on us.
This chapter opens with a desire expressed by the disciples to be taught to pray as John taught his disciples. They were led to this, I suppose, both from realizing, in some measure, the barrenness of present things, and from seeing what a continual resource it was to their Lord and Master. Prayer always implies circumstances of need and privation. Praise is the language of enjoyment and satiety. The latter was ever the more ostensible with the Jew, because when righteous they were in scenes of abundant blessings. Prayer therefore implies a departure from these; and John, who was to take the kingdom by violence, making a last effort in the flesh, endeavoring to produce righteousness from it by the severity of bodily exercise, taught his disciples to pray, for the wilderness was his sphere while waiting for " Him who should come." The Lord yields to the desires of the disciples, and gives them a prayer suited to their then understandings. In fact this prayer lots us into the amount of light and knowledge possessed by them at this moment. It is evident they had not the Holy Ghost as an abiding unction of thought in their souls at this time, for "the Holy Ghost was not yet given" (John 7:3939(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:39)); and they are here, in verse 13, told that if they pray for the Holy Spirit their heavenly Father will give it. Well, then, this prayer was suited to their present knowledge, or else it would have been an unintelligible prayer; and indeed the sentiments generally in the prayer establish this point. The forgiveness of sin is here only contingent on their extending the same toward those who may trespass against them: not the fullest idea of the largeness of God's forgiveness to us; though practically one may lose the sense of forgiveness when one departs from the principle of forgiveness, for (as with all God's blessings) it has a reciprocation.. I do not think this prayer gives any leading to a heavenly hope. A faithful Jew, feeling the ruin about him, could unhesitatingly utter it, under the full conviction that when the kingdom would come, the will of God would be done on earth as now in heaven. But though the Lord gives them a prayer suited to their then circumstances and knowledge, yet He would not have them to be contented with it; but He explains to them the nature of real prayer. If we know God as a friend, no circumstance or delay on His part to answer and relieve us should cause us to discontinue seeking blessing from Him. This was a great point for a Jew, nay, for any to learn, that one is never to judge of God by what one sees of His favors, but from what one knows of His power. It was so with the example here. The needy man sought from his friend, and persisted even when friendship seemed to have gone, because he knew he could be then supplied, and his need knew no refusal. Let the disciples be prepared for any and every adverse circumstance which may arise in this world. Let them maintain their judgment of the grace and power of God, in spite of all the contradiction appearances may raise against it. Let them but ask, and continue asking.
The next occurrence, I have no doubt, is intended by the Holy Ghost to teach us the real hindrance to our utterance before God. The devil has no interest in either speaking to God or of God. When his power is dominant we must be dumb; but Jesus casts out the unclean spirit, and the dumb spake: another subject of wonder to "the people," as all the effects of Christ's power on us ever are, as well as another ground for misconstruction and rejection of His grace. Some of them said, "He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils." "And others" would not trust Him till they would prove Him—" tempting, sought a sign from heaven." Their opposition increases in proportion as His grace and power are manifested. The Lord meets their thoughts first by the unreasonableness of them. “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation." Secondly, that His work was not unusual in Israel; and whatever judgment they pass on Him, they must pass on their own children; and if they judge their act as of God, then let them recognize how near the kingdom of God had come unto them in the person of Jesus.
Jesus then declares that He will have no half measures; that as long as Satan, "the strong man armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in safety;” but of that there must be an end when a stronger than he comes upon him. He will overcome him, take from him all his armor wherein he trusteth, and divide the spoil. Satan has used all natural things, with which the Jew abundantly was blessed, as instrumental against God. "They waxed fat, and kicked." All these shall be now sunk in the cross. From the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop which grew on the wall, all nature must be merged in the blood of the sacrifice. And if you are not with Christ, you must be against Him; you must not be so listlessly; you must gather with Him, or you are scattering. The mere deliverance from an unclean spirit does not ensure complete surrender to God. Israel was now much reformed, yet its future history is shortly told. It was set in "dry places;" the greatness of Canaan had departed, and yet they were "seeking rest," and, finding none, they would return to their own home, and then and there associate with themselves a more malignant power of evil than ever, and so their last state would be worse than the first. Seeking rest in "dry places," whether by a Jew or a Gentile convert, is ever followed by the same results. The earth is the dry place; if you seek rest, you must seek it beyond earth. May the saints remember this, or surely they will yet have to learn it! As He spake these things, a woman of the company, in the spirit of popery, in veneration for the descent of Christ, blesses not Him, but the channel through which He came. This was too truly the spirit of many in Israel, highly venerating the earthly lineage of Christ, and in doing so, overlooking the aim and object of all His labor and mission, allowing His greatness only to shed a halo around His human origin. This thought is corrected by the Lord announcing that still more blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it. No natural blessing, however great, can transcend an humble following of the word of God. Jesus came through the Jew; they were thus highly distinguished among men, but they can be surpassed by a Gentile follower of the word of God.
To those who sought a sign the Lord gives a sign, first premising that it is an evil generation which seeks a sign, because they have no faith; that there shall no sign be given but the sign of Jonas, the prophet. Ere Jonas testified to the Ninevites, he sank in the waters of death; thus was the Son of man to be a sign to this generation; and subsequently a Gentile queen shall rise up in judgment against this generation and condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon—the wisdom of Christ in glory, as Solomon symbolizes—and yet this generation lightly esteems a greater than Solomon amongst them. In like manner, a Gentile people shall rise up in the judgment against this generation, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. Israel would be surpassed by a Gentile, is the great fact established here. Who is to blame for this? Surely not He who lighted the candle. God has lighted His candle for light-sake, and all who come in shall see the light. It will be publicly manifested, and for public benefit. It is not kept in a secret place or under a bushel; it is not to be confined to the narrow limits of Palestine. If you do not see it, your eye is not single; you are not fully set upon it; if you were, your whole body would be luminous with the purpose of your soul, with the deep engagement of your heart, and light will increase. Not only will your body be full of light, having no part dark, but it will omit vivid light from it, as a candle by its bright shining. Such would be the blessed effect of learning the grace of Christ, which I apprehend a Pharisee assumes as descriptive of his doctrine; for, as Jesus spake, "a certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with him." The Lord accepts the invitation, and then takes occasion to expose the inconsistent and delusive doctrine of the Pharisees. Their pretensions to light and power were hollow and limited. The Lord washed not before dinner. He regarded not one act here more clean or sacred than another; the meal needed as much to be sanctified as the person. All earth was corrupt before Him. Restriction implied that some things were better than others, but the doctrine of Christ is, "To the unbeliever is nothing pure." If you will have all things pure, give all present things (τὰἐνόντα) in alms. If you will place yourself on the ground of merit, then here is your responsibility, here is your requirement, giving all present things as alms to those from whom you can expect no return—expecting no gain from them in this present time. But on the course and practices of the Pharisees nothing but judgment awaits. Woe unto the Pharisees, unto them who assumed to give the best expression of righteousness among Israel! Woe unto the scribes, classed with the disciples they produced, and woe also to the lawyers! The nation and their guides must now hear their sentence. Mercy towards them is exhausted. From this generation must be required the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world. Are they smitten with remorse and penitence at these awful denunciations? No; they only seek to aggravate their destiny in their fruitless efforts against the Son of God; they exposed the terrible enmity of their hearts against Him, as well as the hollowness of their professions, in that they urge Him and provoke Him expressly for the purpose that He might commit Himself, and so give them ground for accusation against Him. Alas! such teachers of the people! Watching for evil, not for God!
Chapter 12.
"In the mean while," whilst the scribes and Pharisees were thus so unworthily employed, " an innumerable multitude of the people were gathered together," and the Lord uses the opportunity for impressing on His disciples to beware, in particular, or "first of all," " of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." The Pharisees, by their assumption of godliness, were deceivers of the people; they were greater enemies to the truth, by pretending to be what they were not, than if they had been openly vicious. No greater danger to true religion than the leaven of hypocrisy; malice is only masked. There is no power of it in the heart. It is merely adopted as a cloak for the evil within; and hence what the disciples are first of all warned against shall mark the full blown apostasy of Christendom, "having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." It is the design to make religion conspicuous and acknowledged, which never can be in a world which rejected Christ. But there will be a full disclosure of all motives. Mere privacy will not avail; yet on the other hand you are not, if " friends " of Christ, to fear to confess His name; you are not to assume a character without power, nor again shrink from a testimony which you can afford; you are not to seek the gaze of men for religiousness, nor shrink from confessing His Name through fear of men. If your body is full of light, it will not fear them who kill the body; this will be one bright ray from it. Covetousness will not be your snare, for you will have learned that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth "—a Jewish idea, and one to which all nature is wedded—but ye will learn to "take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on." Abandon all natural calculations, such as all the nations of the earth seek after. Know it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. The word "kingdom" did not sound strangely on Jewish ears; they all expected a kingdom; and truly what is here promised shall be realized, though I apprehend that in the next verse a new thought was introduced, and cue which embodied the place and hope of the saints now. Here they are told to "sell" all their property on earth, and give it to those needing it, and lay up treasure in a region utterly unknown or unheard of to a Jew, save as the throne of God; and the value of this doctrine is enforced by the remarkable words, that "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." If Jesus be rejected to the heavens, and Jesus is your treasure, then your heart will be there; or in other words, you will be set down together with Christ in the heavenlies; and the natural consequence of having such a hope and interest beyond this scene will be that " your loins will be girt and your lights burning," marked by an alacrity in moving onwards, and your course luminous with the light of the body described in this chapter.
From verse 36 to 40 I am very much disposed to think the return to Israel is spoken of. The Lord's return here being placed subsequent to "the wedding," strongly disposes me to this thought, and in the perfect keeping with the fact that the Lord always only casually and subsidiarily referred to the Church, while the open and general narrative manifestly bears on Israel. This is still more confirmed by Peter's question, “Speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all?” To this I believe the Lord replies, giving strict reference to the Church as now. "A faithful and wise steward," οἰκονόμος, leads you at once to a house and its domestic economy. In the preceding parable we have servants and the master of the house, their service "watching," efficient if they are ready to answer to the knock of their returning Lord, in which the house-master, οικοδεσπότης, is especially interested. Here the service is not watching, but feeding and caring for the domestics in the absence of their Lord. Whoever observes this service is blessed when the Lord returns; his reward shall be great, though I think the word “enter" is not expressed in the original. The Church, as the habitation of God through the Spirit, should be known here as in domestic relationship; and then in proportion as one is faithful and wise will he care and nurture his fellows. The principle is only declared here, that is, service to one another in a domestic scene. If the Lord's return is appreciated, service to His people here will be proportionately observed, but if apostasy creep in, the judgments on Christendom will be very great. The word stripes, πληγων, is translated "plagues" in the Revelation. The thought of this judgment leads our Lord to disclose the issue of His mission on earth. "I am come," saith He, "to send fire on the earth." We road in another place, "The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." (2 Peter 3:1010But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (2 Peter 3:10).) Premonitory notices of this terrible issue were already to commence. Natural domesticity would be outraged. The fairest scene on earth, the social hearth, would be marred by the malignancy of Satan, no longer to be restrained. The Lord having thus glanced at the earth's destiny and the progress to it, with His unwearied grace chides the people for not forming a more truthful judgment of the purposes of God. In natural things they were wise enough. Why then so dull as to matters so momentous? And He concludes by showing them the only mode for escape, and if that be neglected, incarceration till they have paid the last farthing must be their doom.
Chapter 13.
THE chapter division here is infelicitous; for "at that season," as He enunciated these predictions and warnings, there were present " some " who told Him of the terrible judgments on the Galilean by the hand of Pilate, their blood being "mingled with their sacrifices," or in other words, judgment and death in the hour and with the act from which they looked for blessing and acquittal. This, alas! but too aptly illustrates what the Jew in his self-will was hanging on to. “I tell you," said One who knew them, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Also in the fate of the eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell, is foreshadowed to them their destiny, except they repent. When the greatest blessing is rejected, as it was assuredly at Siloam, then the direct judgments would be perpetrated. The parable that follows explains how fully the Jew deserved excision. The Lord can appeal, “What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done?" And there was no want of patience, year after year He looked for fruit and found none! But mercy is not yet exhausted; the Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, and knew and answered to His heart, did say, "Let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it." This last trial should be made ere the natural branches be cut off; and we have an evidence of this, and the manner of it, in the next miracle. The Lord was teaching on the Sabbath-day; they must not put the shadow for the reality. He would lay the foundation for the latter; consequently the infirmity of one who was "bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself," at once engages His sympathies and power. When He saw her, He called and said, " Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." But how is this service, a sample of His purpose towards Israel, received by the nation? "The rulers of the synagogue," blind as to their real condition, and, as is ever the case, pertinaciously upholding a form when the power of it was gone, answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath-day. Miserable Sabbath, when such infirmity was occurrent! How unlike the Sabbath of God! Jesus was laboring to make all “straight," and introduce again on an eternal basis God's day of rest and complacency in unbroken bliss over the wide universe. But the Jew resisted, for he was too blind to see, and too fat of heart to feel his infirmity. Jesus convicts them of waiving obligations when their own selfish interests are concerned, which are denied to a daughter of Abraham. God's glory is concerned in the rescue of the one; our own in that of the other. We might seek our own rest, even religiously so, and overlook the characteristics of God's rest; but yet no real keeping of a Sabbath until we enter into the rest of God. At this juncture the Lord discloses to us His judgment of the kingdom of God on earth. He put little confidence either in the confusion of His adversaries or in the rejoicing of the people, for the resemblance of their whole condition passes before Him. It was not possible to find a likeness to it in nature. It would not be confined within natural limits. I should think that the parables of "the mustard seed" and ”leaven” here refer to the Jewish economy, though I believe they have a different signification in a different connection in other places in Scripture. The Lord sees and unfolds to us what Judaism had grown to, of unnatural size in both similitudes; in the one it became a covert for the fowls of the air, and in the other the increase was not solid or genuine. I cannot gainsay that Judaism or earthly religiousness in a former time or now will ever be sure to issue after a like manner and bear a similar representation. (Verse 22.) The Lord continues His progress through "cities and villages," still unwearied in His work, but at the same time “journeying toward Jerusalem." "Then said one unto Him," less patient than his Master-perhaps troubled at the little effects such blessed service was producing, "Lord, are there few that be saved?" In answering this, the Lord takes occasion first to confirm His disciples in a jealous watchfulness over themselves, and then pronounces in solemn sentences the sad consequences of rejecting Him, at the same time intimating that the kingdom of God shall comprise within it all Jewish greatness, "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets," and that from the four corners of the earth should guests flow into it, to the eternal reproach of those who now were unbelieving, though amidst the very foundations of the kingdom, and in the presence of the great Architect of all. Though they could say, “We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our street;" yet they would be last though they were the first offered blessing, and they who were the last would exceed the first. But while the Lord thus comforts Himself, and looks beyond all present failure with a heart prepared for it, He hears the "same day" from the lips of the Pharisees, the great religionists of the day, that the king, the false king of Israel, was ready to kill Him (the true and rightful King). The Pharisees only say, "Get thee hence, for Herod will kill thee." Under the shelter of this they seek to accomplish their own malevolent desires, even to get rid of Christ—too un-candid, like many a one, to say for themselves what they so readily say for Herod. But the Lord, in answering him, answers them. He first declares that
He will run His course until He is perfected, until the resurrection. He will cast out devils and do cures to the end, but His project must continue till the third day, because a prophet cannot perish out of Jerusalem. He must fulfill His mission ere He reaches the metropolis of rejection. Most failure where was most blessing, like Gilgal and Bethel, so was Jerusalem; “better for them not to have known the way of righteousness" than, like the sow that was washed, to have wallowed in the mire. Yet, wonderful grace! the very lowness of their condition seems only to arouse afresh the sympathies of this blessed revealer of the Father's heart. He cries, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that stonest the prophets, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her chickens," and what then? hear it every Jew—" AND YE WOULD NOT!" Hear your judgment: " Your house is left desolate," but it shall be only until you learn to value ME, " until you shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord."—(To be continued, if the Lord will.)