If we meditate on that portion from the 9th verse of chapter 18 down to the 10th verse of chapter 19, we have the mind of the Lord delivered on various detached subjects. It is a blessed thing to hear the mind of Christ on any single matter. His verdict entitles me to say I know how God thinks in such a case. This is a wonderful privilege. There is a difference between the gospels and epistles. The gospels introduce your heart to Christ, to find in Him its satisfaction; the epistles introduce the conscience to Christ, to find in Him its peace.
We find here the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. The Lord describes the condition of soul in both of these. The mind of the Pharisee was a mind of religious pride and self-satisfaction. The mind of the publican was the mind of a poor brokenhearted one that could not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven. Having these two objects before Him, the Lord lets us know His thoughts about them; and when He gives forth His mind, does it not make you happy to know that He approved the publican and not the Pharisee? It is a comfort to know that the mind of the Lord thus suits itself to your mind. I could not say that the publican was the expression of a fully justified man. He was justified "rather" than the other. He would not, if fully justified, have cried out, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Is that the proper condition of a believer? No. "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2:20. That is not a poor publican, howling about his misery. He does not utter, again I say, the language of a consciously justified sinner. No doubt he was on the way to it, for "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Still there is comfort for us in this, when we see that the Lord values these first tremblings of the poor publican. Paul may have penetrated the innermost part of the sanctuary, and the poor publican be only at the brazen altar; but all these differences are very sweet to us who are conscious of our feebleness.
The next case is that of those who brought to Him young children, that He might touch them; "But when His disciples saw it, they rebuked them." Here we have to determine between the strangers and the disciples. Now do we not know that oftentimes those who are more familiar with the things of Christ, are less intimate? I think we see it here. These strangers had a better understanding of the Lord's mind than the disciples. They said, Stand by. No, said the Lord. Would you like the Lord to have approved the disciples rather than the strangers? I will answer for it, you would not. Now, am I not right in saying that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have done a worthy and wondrous work for us in introducing our hearts to Christ? When the heart is satisfied and the conscience is at peace, you are close upon heaven. You are pleased with the judgment of the Lord in this case. Some say, The Lord is better to us than our fears. A poor thought! He is better to us than our expectations. The strangers had said, Touch them; but He took them into His arms and pressed them to His bosom (Mark 10:16). How He exceeds all our thoughts!
Next, we have the case of the rich young ruler. He brought an uneasy conscience, and said, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He saw that the Lord was a good man, as we speak; and, uneasy, he saw the life of the Lord Jesus and watched it, and had no doubt that He had the secret of peace; so he came and put the question which the Lord beautifully answers by another, "Why callest thou Me good?"—because you have no right to call even Jesus "good" if He is not "God over all." This man did not apprehend His glory, so the Lord would not accept the title from him. He knew how to answer every man. He did not say He was not good, but "Why callest thou Me good?" You have no title to call Me good. You know the commandments. Well, says the young man, All these things have I kept; what lack I yet? "Yet lackest thou one thing," said the Lord; "Sell all that thou hast,... and come, follow Me." What is the meaning of that? Why, that if I will put myself in the track of Christ, I must be like Christ. The Lord gave up everything and came down as an emptied man to serve others. Now, if you will be perfect, go and do likewise. And, when he heard this, he was very sorrowful, for he could not comply. How would you like the kingdom of God characterized? by selfishness or by unstinted benevolence? Oh, you will say, let selfishness perish here.
The young man could not give up everything, so the Lord says that is a condition unfit for the kingdom. You may be ashamed of your own wretched, selfish heart every day, but I will answer for it, you will justify the Lord's answer. Worldliness and selfishness have no power to breathe the atmosphere of the kingdom of God. Do not all these things please you? You have to carry on a warfare with the same mind in you as was in the Pharisee, the disciples, and the young ruler. Conflict is your perfection here, as sinlessness will be in your glorified body. What a different Christ you would have had if He had approved the Pharisee rather than the publican, kept the little children at a distance, or allowed the selfishness of the young ruler! I do not doubt that the young man was struggling after the kingdom, or that he got into it by-and-by. I do not doubt that there was a laboring of soul that was given of God.
In the 31St verse the Lord turns to speak of His going up to Jerusalem, and of all that He must suffer there; but "they understood none of these things." No, they were very ignorant. We may observe that the Lord never speaks of His death without speaking also of His resurrection; in the same manner the prophets of the Old Testament never spoke of the judgments coming on their nation without speaking of the glories that should follow. So it should be with you and me. We may talk of death at times, but resurrection and glory should come in rapidly on our thoughts.
The Lord is still on the way, and I invite you again to look at the mind of Christ. Here is a collision between a blind beggar and the multitude, and the Lord comes in to decide between the two. Are you pleased with the decision He makes? I am sure you are. You would have had a very different Christ if He had joined the multitude in telling the blind man to hold his peace. Every stroke of the Evangelist's pen is full of the beauty and perfection of Jesus. The blind man asked who passed by, hearing the multitude, and they answered, "Jesus of Nazareth." Is that all you know of Him? "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me." What acquaintance, tell me, had this man with Christ? He knew Him (and so must you and I) in His personal glory and in the boundlessness of His grace. He called Him, "Son of David," and when they told him to hold his peace, he cried "so much the more." That is how you and I must know Him. If He be not the Person He is, all He has done is worth nothing. If He be not man, as one with the children (Heb. 2), and God as alone sufficient to put away sin by Himself, it is all in vain. If we do not recognize the glory of His Person, the grace of His work is worth nothing. We must connect His grace and His glory. The confession of the blind beggar showed an apprehension of these two things. He did not take up their word, but called Him Son of David; and when they rebuked him, he "cried so much the more." But how did the Lord decide? What is it that you want?
His dignity is beautiful as He stops on His way at the bidding of a poor blind beggar. Joshua once bade the sun and moon to stand still in the heavens, but here the Lord of the sun, and the moon, and the heavens, stands still at the bidding of a blind beggar! That is the gospel—the glorious, gracious One dispensing the grace of eternal healings to meet our degradation. We often admire Jacob, laying hold on the divine Stranger, but look at Bartimaeus! He would not hold his tongue, but cried out till Jesus stood and said, "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" "Lord, that I may receive my sight." Take it, said Jesus.
Now look at Zacchaeus. He saw the Lord pass, and went through the crowd to get up into the sycamore tree. In the narratives of the four gospels there are two cases that distinguish themselves from each other—one is an exercised faith, as in Bartimaeus; the other is a quickening of spirit. This was Zacchaeus. In John, the second class of these prevails most, as in Andrew, Nathanael, Philip, and the Samaritan woman. These are all cases of quickening. In the two cases before us, we get samples of what I mean. Bartimaeus was exercising faith; Zacchaeus was getting life. It is a very simple story. He had a desire to see Christ. Who gave the desire? The life-giving Spirit of Christ. How beautiful to see eternal life beginning in such a seed! The power that clothed the desire is strongly manifested. Pressing through crowds to climb up trees was not the habit of this rich citizen. He made himself one of the rabble to gratify this commanding desire, and got up into a tree. The Lord called him down. He not only knew that there was a man in the tree, but He knew who he was; "Zacchaeus,... come down." Is there intimacy in all this? Are you pleased with it? I will answer for it, you are. So we have the Lord delivering judgment in detached cases, and such a judgment as contributes to make us happy.
You can easily conceive with what haste Zacchaeus came down. They spent the rest of the day together, and what is the fruit of their communion? "Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." His heart instinctively uttered itself—a very different thing from the boastfulness of a self-righteous mind. The simple force of communion with his Lord enabled Zacchaeus thus to speak. There was power when he pressed through the crowd, and there was power when he closed that day which had given him communion with Jesus.
Chapters 19 and 20
We will now read from verse 11 of chapter 19 to verse 18 of chapter 20. We are putting those parts together which seem to belong to each other, though the chapters may separate them. We have here another instance of the way in which the Lord applies His mind to the correction of the moral scene around Him. The human mind is historic; the divine mind is moral. Here they were near the city, so they thought: a little advance, and the kingdom must appear. This was taking a simply historic view, and we are never right unless we are taking a moral view of everything. The mind of Christ was a moral mind.
The Lord addresses Himself to the thought of the multitude in the parable of the nobleman. The Lord gets His title to a kingdom sealed in heaven—but where is He to administer it? Not in heaven; He comes back to earth first. That is dispensational truth. He has, it is true, a kingdom now—"The kingdom of God is... righteousness, and peace, and joy." But I speak here of His royal glory, hereafter to be displayed on the earth. He goes on in this strikingly fine parable to tell us of a certain nobleman, going into a far country, who called his servants and delivered them ten pounds; but his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. Here are three parties—the departed nobleman hid in a distant country for a time—the servants who were to occupy till his return -and the citizens. This is graphic of the moment in which you live. The Lord has gone to the distant heavens to transact many things. One of these is to receive for Himself a kingdom. In Dan. 7 you see the nobleman in the distant country, but this parable only tells you that He has gone there. It is beautiful to see the prophet and the Apostle thus mingling their lights together.
The citizens were at that moment the Jewish people, but the enmity of the Jew is now the enmity of the world at large, which has let the Lord Jesus know it will not have Him for king. That is the relationship the world bears to Christ. The servants are those who profess to serve Him while He is absent. There is a moral secret embosomed in this part of the parable. I am never really in the spirit of service if I do not remember that He is an absent and a rejected Lord. If I serve Him as king, I do not do it, to say the least, in dispensational wisdom. I am not now a subject to a king, but a servant who has to recognize the sorrowful fact that his master has been rejected and insulted here. Is it not a tender thought, that the very sorrows and insults which have been heaped upon Him here are so many fresh claims on our affection? Service, to be in the right character, should be in the recollection that it is rendered to One who has been cast out and refused. You might do but little, but that little would have a precious quality if rendered in the affection of one who owns the insults the Lord has received.
Then He returns and gives the rewards. There is such a secret as rewards. When the kingdom comes to be parceled out, I have not a bit of doubt that there will be rewards. But there was one that hid his talent; and now, mark the Lord's reply for your comfort. "Wherefore... gavest not thou my money into the bank?" He did not say, Why have you not traded with it? I may not have the energy and activity of my brother, but the Lord would say here, Well, do not be afraid, if you have not energy to go out and serve Me; at any rate own Me, and put My money into the bank. But this man had no spirit of service; he did not know grace; he feared. As far as we have a legal mind, we are serving ourselves. That is this man. The best thought he had was to serve himself—to come off free in the day of reckoning. So he was cut off as one that had no link with Christ. I love that "bank." If I have not the energy of my brother in service, at least let me own that I am not my own, but bought with a price. Let us cultivate in our souls the hidden spirit that says, Though I may be feeble, yet one thing, I will cleave to Christ—I am His and not my own.
How beautifully He links the next scene with what had g ore before! There were two missions on which He sent His disciples; the first was to get the ass—the second, to get the guest chamber. But the ass must precede the guest chamber. Do you see the beauty of that? You must distinguish His dispensational actings—His rejection before His return. The mission to get the ass was that He might offer Himself to the daughter of Zion in glory. He was rejected and, as it were, asked to descend from off the ass—so He must be a guest in this world and pass on to His cross.
Here we get the Lord in royal glory, seated on the ass, descending the Mount of Olives, and about to enter the city. The multitudes follow, with palm branches and exultation, and the King is seen in full beauty. God is taking the thing into His own hands. "The earth is the LORD'S, and the fullness thereof." Jesus took the place of Jehovah-Creator in Psalm 24. He had a richer title to the ass than the owner of it had. The cattle on a thousand hills are His. The owner bows to His claim, and in He goes, in the midst of the acclamations of His people. But now the Pharisees say, "Master, rebuke Thy disciples." That was the heart of, the nation exposing itself in the representatives of the people. The mind of the nation stood out in that saying, "Master, rebuke Thy disciples." That was rejection. "We will not have this man to reign, over us."
The Lord then laments over the city. Instead of being the city of peace, Jerusalem would have to go through another history altogether. Jerusalem is but a sample of the world in general, and because of the rejection of Christ, the world will have to go through a very different history than if it had been prepared for Him. The world has forced the blessed Lord up to heaven through His cross, and now it must go to the kingdom through its judgment. He went to display His beauty to the daughter of Zion, but the daughter of Zion was not prepared for Him, so He weeps over her and announces the judgment she brought upon herself. The world is not prepared for Him, and the earth must pass to its rest through the judgments that will purge it of its defilements.
Now they suggested a bit of subtlety. But there was not a bit of subtlety in the Lord's mind as He answered them. He did not lay a snare for them, though it acted as a trap. His purpose was divine. John the Baptist being rejected, it followed that Christ Himself would be rejected. It was as much as to say, I will let God answer you. In John you have God's answer to your question. It was God's way to reach Messiah through John, and as he was rejected, so would Christ Himself be.
Now look a little at the next parable. Here is another "far country." "A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time." When was that? In the days of Joshua the Lord planted a goodly vineyard and left it in the hands of Israel and told them to till it. I need not tell you how judge after judge, prophet after prophet was raised up, and all in vain. Then said the lord of the vineyard, "What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves." Ah! BEWARE or REASONING. "SO they cast him out of the vineyard. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?" This brings us just where the parable of the departed noble brought us—to judgment. "He shall come and destroy those husbandmen." If you put these two parables together, you will get a beautiful sketch of God's dealings from the days of Joshua till the Lord's return in glory. The laborers in the vineyard give us God's dealings with Israel till the rejection of Christ, the heir of the vineyard. The parable of the "ten pounds" carries us through the present age, up to the second coming, or the kingdom of Christ. He has now gone into the distant country, not to send back servants to seek for fruit, but to receive for Himself a kingdom, and to return and execute judgment. I will just ask one thing: Is it the case that the Lord is seated in heaven till His enemies are made His footstool? You know it is. That thought in the 110th Psalm links itself with both these parables. There He is expecting till His enemies are made His footstool, and here His enemies are made His footstool. These are the beautiful luminous fragments that Scripture throws in here and there, and tells you to go over the field and gather them up, and when you have filled your basket, to bring them home and feed upon them.