In a few years of lingering agony and of ever lowering evil the cruel Babylonian carried them away, having slain nearly all who were noble and great. The closing verses in the Chronicles sum up the whole case. The utmost forbearance of God, and the continued rebellion of Judah. “And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.” (Chap. 36:15, 16.) Nebuchadnezzar was only the executor of God's sentence. No son of David has since that time sat upon his throne. Here Matthew's second period closes. The foreigner has ruled them ever since, and will until the true Heir, the next King of the house of David, even the Lord Jesus, come. Until then they lie under the judgment of God.
The truth that man, with the highest privileges joined to paternal care, cannot maintain himself before God in righteousness, is seen in clearer characters in Judah than in Israel, though in these enough was seen. But neither Israel nor Judah had the light, the privileges, and blessings which Christianity confers; and Christendom is still guiltier than those of old, and will meet with a heavier doom. The whole is a sad solemn picture of ruin, man's impotency for good, his power for evil. God must be a Savior-God, if such evil is to be met and put away. True, eternal destruction would meet it, and righteous wrath put it away forever; but God wants to be a Savior-God, to judge the sin, and save the sinner; and how can these things be? That wonderful book, which, the more we know of it, the more wonderful it is-that book of God declares it fully. There we learn how God is just, while justifying every sinner that believes in Jesus. So to the dark picture of human evil there is a bright and exceeding glorious side. The development of the evil is one part of the moral preparation for bringing in His salvation, of preparing a theme of praise for intelligent and redeemed man to sing.
But there is more yet to be done before that hymn can be sung in glory. The period of probation is not yet over. A new and very different phase of the trial now appears. The Gentile is called to the earth's sovereignty, and the chosen people must submit to his dominion till Messiah, their own King, come. Meanwhile the lessons of faith continue. It is a fresh chapter, a new sphere, where circumstances are, for the most part, adverse and threatening, but where faith is more renowned and honored on that account. The giving of the law and its teachings occupied but a limited portion of the processes of God, but faith was taught from the first. Abel was the first bright instance of it, and ever since, without law or with it, in Israel or among the Gentiles, we see examples of the power and blessedness of faith. And so it ought to be; for not law-doings, but faith and its holy fruits, are the only correlatives to the sovereign grace of God. Sin made them captives in a strange land; yet by grace the strange land was a better school for faith than the land of promise.
Daniel, a captive, is pre-eminent in faithfulness to God. Every human motive was there to induce him to give up his allegiance to God. He could plead his duty as a captive to show gratitude to the king for the favor of being fed from the royal table, besides owing obedience to the king's command. But he would not defile himself, and trusted God for the result. He reaps the reward of faith. Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego might have shrank from the furnace which awaited them if they refused to worship the golden image. But neither the three cast into the furnace of fire, nor Daniel later on cast into the lions' den, counted their lives dear to them; and literally, of the three it may be said, their faith was as gold tried by fire. God gave the needed faith for the ordeal. And these bright examples are recorded to show the supremacy of God over all, and to make the Gentile king, to whom power was then entrusted, bow to Him who had given the power; a striking lesson, and wonderfully adapted to a heathen king. What could more demonstrate his impotency, when the expression of his fiercest anger was made harmless, and his three captives beyond his reach, unhurt, walking in the fierce flame? And who made him say that the fourth was like the Son of God? What did he know about a Son of God? Is it not a direct appeal to him by a stupendous miracle, more astonishing to him than any other exhibition of almighty power possibly could be? Here, then, behold the two things combined-a direct lesson from God to Nebuchadnezzar as to His power and Godhead, and His extraordinary intervention in baffling the rage of an idolatrous king, and setting aside the action of fire on behalf of His faithful servants. It is written for our learning, that a like power of faith might be exemplified in us. Peter (chap. 4: 12) speaks of the fiery trial which is to try us, and, whether the fire be symbolically fiery or even literally, the same God is ready to give the same faith, and lead us on to a like victory. By faith we overcome the world; moreover we have the word of Him who has overcome the world, of Him who was in the furnace with the three Hebrews, the peat Captain of our salvation-” Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” The godly among the captives, who in sorrow remembered their departed privileges and greatness, must have been cheered and encouraged by the firm stand made by Daniel and his companions against the corruption and infidelity of Babylon. For if corruption-the king's food-and infidelity marked the acts of Nebuchadnezzar, the decree of Darius equally marked infidelity and its constant concomitant, the exaltation of man.
So the faith of these saints of the captivity comes out in clearer prominence than of those who had every advantage in the land. Indeed it is always. true that, the more adverse outward circumstances are, the more favorable is the opportunity for the action of faith. Therefore we are not to count it strange-foreign to the sphere of faith-when a fiery trial comes; it is God's way of strengthening faith. So, when to follow on in God's path seems to involve the loss of all here below, even life itself, then faith has a glorious opportunity to honor God. Is it too much to, say that God reserves these special privileges for those whose general walk is characterized by close communion with Him Then we may count it joy concerning the fiery trial which is to try us. God does not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able. And when it comes, it is because God in grace has given faith able to bear it. And this is how saints are honored. Not to be tried, not to have our. faith put to the test, is to treat us as babes. The burden is for the shoulders of the strong. Only let us remember that our real strength lies in the consciousness of our own weakness, in our complete dependence upon God, coupled with unswerving fidelity at all costs. This dependence and fidelity marked the three witnesses on the plain of Dura. “O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the image which thou hast set up.”
Many a Jew on the plain would have felt no reluctance to obey the king's command-it was only what they had often done before in their own land. But no doubt there were others who trembled, and shrink from what was before them, who yet had no faith to resist and refuse homage to the idol. God did not leave Himself without witnesses, and Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego stood forth as the representatives of the godly remnant, their champions in the conflict between the powers of darkness and the one true God; and through their victory all are blessed. Nebuchadnezzar commands universal homage to be paid to the God of Israel, which, of course, meant that the Jews were to be protected. He was astonished at the miracle, and this decree was the natural result.
But the king did not cease to be an idolater, he did not deny his own gods; he praises the three Jews for not giving up their own religion, “that they might not serve nor worship any god except their own God.” He owns that the God of Israel is the greatest, “there is no god that can deliver after this sort,” but does not disown other gods. There was enough done in the plain of Dura to have made him acknowledge but the one true God. For if the idol was a god, why did he not vindicate himself against those who refused him homage? The king would avenge him, and finds himself confronted by the power of the one God whom he had, like Pharaoh of old, defied-” Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hand?” He learns that there is One who can deliver after a wondrous sort. Satan, hidden from the eye, and far from the thought, of the idolatrous votary, is the black reality there, and, under cover of the golden image, leading the gathered masses of human souls on that plain, at the sound of music, to worship himself. It is a picture of the world's glory, the world's religion, its hatred of the worshippers of God, and of the Son of God overcoming (not then setting aside) and rendering naught the power of this world. But the haughty king is made to bow before the God he insulted, and to own the troth that God was supreme. God began with Israel in Egypt by teaching the same truth; Pharaoh hardened himself against it, would not bend, and was broken in the Red Sea. Miracles do not convert, the king's heart is unchanged, and he is soon after driven as a beast from his throne.
The hour is coming when another image will be set up, in more open and avowed antagonism to God, when the power of Satan will be unrestrained, and when, during his brief hour, he will cause the saints to be slain who have not his mark. In the plain of Dura God was with His own in the fire, and by miracle sustained them unhurt, so that not even the smell of fire remained upon their garments. In the future scene fire will descend as from heaven to confirm the worship of the image that Antichrist will have set up in honor of the first beast. The pseudo-miracle will be found then on the side of evil. The image will speak, and thus men will be carried away by a strong delusion to believe a lie. It is judgment. Then, at that awful moment, it will seem as if all that God had taught and revealed was in vain. “When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith on the earth?”
The day came for the return of the captives. Cyrus is the chosen instrument to carry out this purpose of God. In Cyrus we do not see the power of faith, but, just as Nebuchadnezzar was the executor of God's work, so is Cyrus the minister of His mercy to bring the Jew back to the land. Personally he is in advance of Nebuchadnezzar; for he says (Ezra 1:2,2Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. (Ezra 1:2) &c.) that the Jehovah-God had given him the kingdoms of the earth, and a charge to build the house at Jerusalem. Whether this confession of God's sovereignty was the result of faith leading to salvation is another matter. God is able to make the world confess His power and authority. Be this as it may, Cyrus is called by name, he is called God's shepherd, His anointed, though Cyrus had not known God (Isa. 44:28; 45:428That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. (Isaiah 44:28)
4For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. (Isaiah 45:4)), and this solely with the view to what God had called him. The point is not what Cyrus was personally, but his work.
What a grand spectacle for the Gentile nations was the return from the captivity: more than fifty thousand going back to their own land. And what is that to the great re-gathering yet future, “from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south?” (Psa. 107:33And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. (Psalm 107:3).) Well might the psalmist exclaim in prophetic strain, “Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.” The return from Babylon is comparatively but a little thing; nevertheless, to a certain extent, there was repentance, and the fruits of it. They gave after their ability, and offered freely for the house of God, to set it up in his place. There was zeal for the purity of God's house, and they excluded from the priesthood those who could not find their register, and prove their descent from the priests' family. This beginning was of fair appearance. But the glory that formerly crowned the house could not now rest upon it. For the Gentile had rule over them. It was grace to bring them back; but the visible manifestation of Jehovah's presence would have been like sanctioning their present captive condition as their true one, and ignoring their sin which brought them into it. This could not be. So, if the young, who had not seen the former glory, shouted for joy, the ancients wept at the remembrance of glory departed. It was a mingled scene: joyful shoutings and tearful remembrances, past glories and present deliverances, but withal Gentile servitude. Their deliverance was only partial: for complete restoration and unmixed gladness they must wait till the Priest come who will stand up with Urim and Thummim. Then the excluded priest will find his lost register, and prove his genealogy; then will he eat of the holy things.
Our High Priest has already come, and now stands for us with Urim and Thummim in the presence of God, and with far greater glory than Aaron arrayed in his beautiful garments. Our genealogy is proved, our register is in heaven, written in the book of life of the Lamb. We were children of wrath, even as others: now we are children of God.
During the time of Ezra and Nehemiah the power of God on their behalf was most manifest, yet the very way in which God appeared for them witnessed their sin. He graciously sustained them in their weakness; He controlled the mind of Darius, nor permitted him to be influenced by the representations of their enemies. But no stronger proof of their fallen condition than to have to appeal to a Gentile king against those who would hinder their building the temple, to get his permission to worship the God of their fathers. If Daniel and his companions displayed the power of faith in the presence of death, Ezra and Nehemiah did also in face of Gentile opposition. Faith is essentially the same at all times, but takes its color from the circumstances where it acts. It is the same divinely-given principle, whether seen in the glory of Solomon's dedication of the temple, or in the simple trust and confidence of Daniel and his companions, or amid the vexatious opposition experienced by those who were building the temple. But how different in its aspect! Take the prayer of Solomon. (2 Chron. 6) It is the voice of praise and thanksgiving, mingled with the appeal of faith, to God's mercy, if Israel turned aside. There is no confession of sin, no weeping through present distress; the glory of Jehovah fills the consecrated temple, and it overpowers the priests. It is like the beginning of a new era in their history, of which the first event is Jehovah taking possession of His house, and manifesting His presence by a glory too great, too bright, for human eye. But His presence there was the full answer to Solomon's dedicatory prayer, and contained the promise of unlimited blessing, of might and power in the earth, if obedient-yea, of restoration, if they repented when in the land of their captivity. (Ver. 37.) And so we see Solomon's faith, as it were, linked on to Daniel's faith, for Daniel is in the circumstances about which Solomon prayed. The form of prayer-is changed; here is confession, owning the righteousness of God in thus judging them, bowing in humility under His rod; yet faith counts the days of their captivity. There is the extremest difference between the circumstances of Solomon and of Daniel, but their faith in God is the same, save that with Daniel the darkness of the time made his faith shine more brightly.
But if the energy of faith in the returnee captives shines not with so great luster, there are not wanting instances where all that nature holds dear is given up in obedience to the law of God. Among the names given we find (Ezra 10) those who had married strange wives. In faithfulness to God they broke with the tenderest ties, wife and children being given up; and their names are recorded in the book of God. Honorable mention is made of them, for they preferred the service of Jehovah to the endearments of home. This may be but a sample of a much greater act of obedience when all Israel shall be brought home to their land. Much more does it speak to believers now. For if they as Israelites were to be separate from Gentiles, so ought, in a far higher sense, the church of God to be separate from the world. The obedience of faith wrought in them, and the same principle operates now, and ought to be more manifest, seeing that the world is now openly the enemy of Christ, and has definitely taken that position since the cross, To give up all in entire separation to God is not only a privilege, but our “reasonable service.” (Rom. 12:11I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1).) But God will be no man's debtor, and the Lord Jesus says of those who now give up all for His name's sake, “There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or lands for my sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, end mothers, and children, and lands [will it not be so literally in the millennium?] with persecution [the special portion of the church now], and in the world to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29, 3029And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, 30But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. (Mark 10:29‑30).)
The sphere of faith was not so clear then as now, for we find Nehemiah saying, “Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people.” It is not the language of Christian faith to pray for blessing because we have done good. The truth enunciated by the Lord that, when we have done all, we are unprofitable servants, was not then known, much less the deeper truth that in us (that is, in our flesh) there dwelleth no good thing, and that we only can do anything acceptable to God through the strength of another, even Christ. Until the true Light came, man did think of his own doings-it was characteristic as being under law. Now, under grace, we feel how unworthy such thoughts and feelings are in presence of what Christ has done for us.
But faith, whether in a higher or lower degree, and whatever the truth presented, is always the gift of God. Where it is not found, the outward semblance of repentance and humility soon fades away. So, after Ezra and Nehemiah had passed away, we see that, whether as a free nation or under Gentile bondage, their natural evil is quickly manifested. The sense of what they had lost, and of their present degradation, does not lead them to true and lasting repentance. They ceased to be idolaters, and became hypocrites. The house was swept and garnished; but it is only a preparation for the return of the old spirit of idolatry, and then with seven other spirits more wicked than himself. When the Lord Jesus came, hypocrisy was at its height. Then we see a nation, boasting of privilege and claiming to be God's people, despising others yet guilty of the greatest sin of all-even while fretting under the iron yoke of Rome, boasting that they were never in bondage to any man.
When the Lord was among them, their trial was hastening to its close. For, though the captivity had so materially changed their circumstances, they were no less responsible than when as a nation their power was highest-nay, more responsible than at any other time, for all past privilege and greatness, which ought to have bound them in obedience to God, was as nothing to the presence of Christ. In the parable, the owner of the vineyard sent his son, saying, They will reverence my son. God had a perfect right, from the human responsibility side, to expect reverence. The divine counsels in no way remove man's responsibility. The Son came to His own things, and to His own people; but what a reception!-cast out from His vineyard, and slain. This necessarily closed the trial; indeed it closes the history of man as a moral creature before God: up to that time a probationer, but ever since a condemned criminal, save as taken out of that condition through faith in Christ. Still, during that time, when man reached the climax of wickedness, God, in sovereign grace, maintained a thin bright line of witnesses, a shining thread in the tangled web of evil, and a few names are given of those who rejoiced when they saw the salvation of God. But outside the little circle of Simeon, Anna, Zacharias, Elizabeth, Mary, what a scene of hypocrisy and hatred did the Son of God gaze upon They both saw and hated both Him and His Father. And how much more fearful is their rejection of Christ-God's King-than their rejection of God as King in Samuel's day? Then it was to be like other nations, and their excuse was that Samuel's sons did not walk in the steps of their father. But the Lord Jesus could say, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” How patiently He waited upon them, expostulating-” Come, now, let us reason together.” How the Lord condescends to reason with the Jew, in John 5-10, and how divine and blessed. How graciously He taught among them, even when compelled to expose their hypocrisy. (See Luke 20; John 8) How gloriously He showed forth His divine power in healing and feeding them. How lovingly He invited all to come to Him and be saved. But they would not hear, neither would they be persuaded. They rejected and crucified the Holy One and the Just. The Lord's sojourn among them was not only the last, but the most momentous, phase of man's trial: short, compared with the previous periods, except the nearly equally brief time when the prophet Samuel judged. And there is this analogy between these two times: then they rejected God as King, and chose to have a man; now they reject Christ, and choose Caesar; in each case, not mere failure, but deliberate rejection. Christ being refused, no further test would be righteous: for all is made manifest. The supreme love and grace of God is nowhere seen but in the cross-there, too, is man's horrible hatred, and his irremediable evil-irremediable, save by that one thing that shows it most. There meet infinite grace, inflexible justice, man's extremest evil, Satan's utmost rage: God's best, and man's worst-these two make the cross. Yet this was God's purpose, for it was, it is, the only foundation on which He can be declared a Savior-God.
While God was thus dealing with Israel and the Jew, the nations were, up to the time of the captivity, left comparatively to themselves, without God, and without hope. Yet not absolutely without a witness of His grace. Though not many, yet in the world here and there are traces of individuals, not of Abraham's race, but Gentiles, who worshipped the true God, or even the special objects of His mercy. Melchisedec is king and priest of the most High God, and blesses victorious Abraham. Jethro was a priest of Midian, but he confessed the supremacy of God when he saw His goodness to Israel. Rahab, a most touching and prominent instance of God's richest mercy to a degraded Gentile. The widow of Zarephath, Naaman-these all were evidence that God would not be confined within the limits of Israel, although His special dealing was there. He was then showing, what Peter declares afterward (Acts 10:3535But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. (Acts 10:35)), that in every nation, he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him.
But these instances of mercy and grace to the Gentile were only exceptional, and in no way changed their condition as a whole; they were, as scripture declares, without hope, and without God. That is, as in contrast with Israel, who had a hope, and the presence of God. But when the Jew rejected God in the Person of the Son, when he had shown himself no better, but rather worse, than the Gentile, then the word of grace went out to all, and the command to repent went out to all men everywhere. This universal aspect of grace could not be before the Jew had had his final testing. The cross was his final test, and it makes grace to be righteousness; so now the invitation is unto all.
Matthew's third period closed with the birth of Christ, viewing the family period as distinct from the wilderness history, that is, from Abraham to the exodus, distinct from the exodus to David, the presentation of Christ to the Jew, make the fifth phase of their history, and Matthew gives it, chapters 2-12. It was soon abundantly plain that the Jew had no heart for Christ. The Baptist heralded the kingdom, and proclaimed the King. All seemed to obey the call, great was the gathering that met on the banks of the Jordan. It looked well. But their idea of the kingdom which was heralded by the Baptist was not righteousness. And when the King came who is to reign in righteousness, they were totally unprepared, and would not have Him. There was a large following at first; not only all Galilee had Him teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, but His fame went throughout all Syria, and great multitudes followed “from Galilee, and Decapolis, and Jerusalem, and beyond Jordan.” (Matt. 4:23-2523And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. 24And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. 25And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. (Matthew 4:23‑25).) But these crowds were astonished at the doctrine of the kingdom. (Chap. 7:28.) Not authority and dominion as yet for the heirs, but contempt and persecution, though this was joined to a blessedness which no prosperity in the world could give. It lets us into the secret, that, notwithstanding their alacrity in responding to the call of the Baptist, there was unreadiness, which ripened into personal dislike and hatred of the Lord Jesus. The multitudes dwindle away. It is but a little flock to whom it is the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom. Fruits meet for repentance were not found in the mass, and the kingdom in full display of power and glory had to be deferred. The hypocrisy of those who would not submit to the righteousness of the kingdom is brought to the surface, and with it the hatred of all that was truly good. And the evil of man, his opposition to truth, ended when alone it could end when unrestrained. The works of grace and love, the miracles of power, were ascribed to the agency of Beelzebub. What a proof here of human blindness and unreason, and also of Satanic malignity and craft! But at this point the purpose for which God sent His Son into the world is seen, and the dawn of a new dispensation begins to break. The word, as good seed, is sown, the separating ordinances between Jew and Gentile begin to disappear, and Christ, apart from law, is alone presented to man as the one Object of faith. No longer by types and shadows, as under law-and necessarily so-but now in His own blessed Person-the Savior of the world.
Alas! the more distinct the Object of faith, the more opposed is man. Faith as a means is despised by the great, because it affords no scope for the display of those qualities which make up a great man; on the contrary, it places all upon one indiscriminate level, and that the lowest. Much more is faith despised because the Object of faith-Jesus crucified-was lowly and scorned. The path of the Lord Jesus through this world was one of increasing hatred. At the beginning multitudes followed to receive from Him healing, though astonished at His teaching; at the end the whole city shouted, Crucify Him, and led Him to the cross. In this downward path, where each step widens the distance between the humbled One and the proud teachers of a soulless religion, the priests of a God-discarded ritual, in this path which from the first pointed to the cross, and openly so when Jesus was rejected, faith keeps pace with Him, and learns to love the place of contempt, since He is there. Always cleaving to Him, whether He, in the majesty of divine power, be raising the dead, or retiring from the murderous hatred of His enemies. And while cleaving to Him-yea, because of it-faith takes its form from Him; that is, when the Lord Jesus was presented as Messiah, the King of the Jews, it was a different form of faith to believing in Him when He was, as Son of man, ostensibly on the road to the cross.
Nothing but divine power and grace could give faith strong enough to bear the strain put on it at that time; for it was the setting aside of their cherished hopes. If the Messiah were going to die, what becomes of them, what of their temple and ordinances (for the godly in Jerusalem were not freed yet from the old thing)? It is this which gives significance to the Lord's doing most of His recorded works on the sabbath-day. If the Lord of the sabbath was rejected, its observance was only mockery, and only made bare their hypocrisy. Every other institution fell with it. It was the knell of all they boasted in-it reduced them to the level of the Gentiles-it made their temple no longer the house of God, ordinances and sacrifices were annulled, their whole service, though originally ordained of God, became worse than worthless through rejecting Christ. Henceforth, so long as the Lord was here, He forbade them to tell any that He was Christ-though, when faith confessed Him as such, He always responded. Faith meets Him in this path of sorrow, and anoints Him with precious ointment for His burial. Not all who loved Him had this faith; it was seen in a woman. But Peter, who felt that if his Master was rejected, he also was, and who naturally clung to the Messiah-glory of the Lord, when told by Jesus Himself that He was going to Jerusalem to die, said, “This be far from thee, Lord,” and was sharply rebuked, and called Satan.
Even when the great work was done, and victory achieved over the grave by resurrection, when faith could raise its head, and sing the triumphs of the Lord, not at first could all the disciples realize the victorious aspect given to faith. The two sad disciples going to Emmaus could only say, “We trusted that it had been he that should have delivered Israel.” They were slow of heart to believe the prophets. There was like slowness in Peter and John; the fact of the resurrection was plain when they entered the vacant tomb. The folded napkin, and the careful order of the linen clothes, showed that it was no surreptitious taking away of the body of Jesus, but that by His own power He had risen. No doubt they were amazed, but they went to their own home-there was no corresponding action on their part to the immense fact of the resurrection. Why? Because as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise from the dead. Scripture is now the resting-place for faith. No matter what the external evidence, there is no true faith apart from the written word. The disciples had known neither His word, nor the written word.
Faith in Christ was tested every step of the way, but never left to stand alone; there was always a divine warrant for every new demand made upon it. The immediate result of the Jews' hatred is, that the kingdom is put in abeyance with His rights and title as Messiah. The Lord calls Himself the Son of man, and this implies suffering and death. The first mention of the name is in connection with “not where to lay his head,” and soon with death. But it is after taking this name that the Lord shell's His power over death. No one was raised from the dead before He was ostensibly in the path to death, thus showing that He was no unwilling captive, but voluntarily submitted to death while holding power over it, of which He gave proof when He left the grave. It was impossible that He should be holden of death.