or

The Life and Work of Jesus Christ

(1850 years ago)

EXHIBITED ANEW,

in harmony with

The Scriptures of Moses and the Prophets,

to which jesus appealed as

THE WORD OF GOD.

By Robert Roberts

PREFACE.

It is no new thing to try to exhibit Christ’s wonderful life in biographic form. Varied in times past and recent have been the efforts in this direction. That the author should add to the number of such efforts may seem either superfluous or presumptuous:—superfluous, if previous efforts have been successful; presumptuous, if it argue an opinion that they have been failures. Perhaps it is neither one nor the other. Other efforts may have been successful in a measure that still leaves the way open to something more complete.

But the author, with a sense of pain at the seeming arrogance, is impelled to go further and say that, in order to give a truthful conception of the personage whose memory is enshrined in the four gospels, something totally different is needed from any Life of Christ that has yet appeared. That this book is that something in an exhaustive form, he dares not, with a full sense of human insufficiencies, profess. But he thinks it is at least a step towards it. It has in some respects a new picture to exhibit—a new story to tell—new and not new—new as to current models, not new as to the original which it seeks to reproduce.

If most attempts at the Life of Christ have failed to exhibit this original, the author believes it is attributable to two palpably distinct causes: either they have tried to bring Christ into a merely human conception; or have tried to force him into the groove of a conventional theology to which he does not belong. If the author may have succeeded in a third line of treatment, it is because of another work that has been done in our age, of which the world has heard little, and which it esteems less—the rediscovery of the truth originally promulgated by the apostles in harmony with Moses, the prophets, and the apostles; and its extrication from obscuring association with mere ecclesiastical tradition of both Romish and Protestant complexion.

A re-investigation of the theological problems of the age, in the full light of what the Bible is in itself, compels the conviction that false views of God and man have for centuries prevailed in Europe through the influence naturally attaching to a State-supported ecclesiasticism. It is these false views that have chiefly interfered with a right apprehension of the subject in hand. Christ is built into the whole structure of the Bible; and it is essential to a right interpretation of him that the purpose of God as revealed and embodied in that structure be understood. If (as will be found to be the case) this purpose has been obscured by the theologies of all denominations of Christendom, it is the natural result that a consistent and truly rational biography of Christ should be impossible in professional theological hands, notwithstanding the great abilities brought to bear, and the abundance of the materials supplied in the writings of the apostles. If impossible in theological hands, how much more in the hands of the so-called rationalistic school.

It is the conviction thus foreshadowed that must be the author’s excuse for entering upon a work apparently overdone already, and by men, too, whose names the world accepts as unimpeachable guarantees of capacity and scientific accuracy. Eddersheim has produced a stupendous monument of what is understood by “learning,” namely: acquaintance with ancient (and mostly valueless) writers on various phases of the subject. But his subject is lost in the attenuated spinning out of such material. The simple picture of the apostolic narratives disappears in the weak and steaming vapour arising from such elaborate cookery. Farrar gives us a beautiful view of a certain sort, but it is the beauty of a highly-coloured picture in Berlin wool. It has no naturalness of outline or colour. It is gaudy and garish. It is reverent but artificial; worshipful yet derogatory to the surpassing eminence of his subject by reason of his deferences at human shrines. Renan, in another line of things, gives us a piece of elegant superficiality, which, from a divine point of view, can only be fitly characterised as a lie, pure and simple. It is significant that Carlyle, who, in the course of his voluminous writings, has exhausted the resources of universal literature in his passion for human biography, passes by on the other side when Jesus of Nazareth is in question—not in the spirit of derision, far from it. His few and brief allusions to him are those of profound reverence for the inscrutable. It was characteristic of the man not to meddle with what he did not understand. Yet to understand Christ (approximately) has been made possible in the Scriptures, and to present a clear and authentic picture of him is not an unattainable performance, as the author hopes to show in the following chapters.

In those chapters, the author goes very little outside the apostolic narrative. There and there alone are to be found the materials for a truthful presentment of the subject. Reference to other writers may have a show of learning, but can contribute little of real value to the main question. The Gospel-writers (with the exception of Luke) were “eye-witnesses” of what they narrate; and all of them were qualified for their work in a way which it is fashionable for “learning” now-a-days to ignore. The author is not afraid to avow the belief that the apostolic writers were guided by the Spirit of God in the execution of their work. This belief is unavoidable on the evidence, which is of a very varied and powerful character. It is impossible to believe in the Christ of the Gospels without believing this. Nay, the Gospels themselves are the most conclusive evidence of their divine inspiration. Both as regards the topics selected for treatment, and the mode and method of narrative and comment, the apostolic writings are as different from the turgid and puny efforts of man as the calm blue of heaven is different from the grimy walls of a human workshop. The stamp of divine wisdom is upon them to the eye that can recognise it.

It was a promise of Christ to the apostles before he left them that the Spirit of God would employ them as witnesses to testify conjointly with itself the things pertaining to Him: “The Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning” (Jno. XV. 26–27). The apostles were to be witnesses (that is, testifiers) of the “things they had seen and heard” (Acts i. 8; ii. 32; iv. 20; v. 32; xxvi. 16, &c.). Hence the qualification of an apostle was that he should have been a companion of Christ from his baptism in the Jordan till his crucifixion and resurrection (Acts i, 21–22), or at the least that he should have seen Christ after his resurrection (1 Cor. ix. 1). A witness is one who speaks from personal knowledge. The apostles, as witnesses, spoke from personal knowledge, and to this extent, their personal characteristics would affect their personal testimony, as evidenced by the authorities perceiving that the inspired and boldly-speaking Peter and John were “unlearned and ignorant men” (Acts iv. 13).

But the Spirit of God was upon them to guide them in the what to say and how to say it. Their natural endowments were employed in the work, but they were employed by the Spirit of God, and in strict subordination to the purposes aimed at by the Spirit. Even their actions were checked and guided in harmony with these, as when Paul and Silas “essayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered them not” (Acts xvi. 7), or as when John was about to write certain things that he heard, and a voice from heaven said “Write them not” (Rev. x. 4). When, therefore, we read an apostolic writing, we read a writing which, though humanly written, has been shaped by the Spirit of God for its own ends. When we peruse the apostolic testimony to the sayings and doings of Christ, we receive testimony which, though theirs, is only so much theirs in the characteristic sense, as the Spirit permits. This is a duality in the production which accounts for every feature in the case. The apostles and the Spirit both had to do with the production, but the apostles were under the strict control of the Spirit. This accounts for so much of the human peculiarity of the writer as may be visible in the productions, which is a very faint element in the case. The Spirit permitted it for its own ends. At the same time, it accounts for the superhuman tone and attitude that are their most conspicuous and striking features.

There are variations in the apostolic writings. How are we to estimate them? It is impossible to impute them to error if we allow the participation of the Spirit of God in the work. Jesus said the Spirit would guide the apostles into all truth (Jno. xvi. 13), and we must therefore recognise it as a cardinal postulate in the consideration of the question, that whatever appearance of discrepancy may exist, is not to be accounted for on the principle that there is an element of error in their writings. There are variations in the apostolic narratives, but variation is not error. Four men necessarily relate the same thing in different ways. Even the same person relating the same matter four times would narrate it differently each time. Mental operation is too subtle a thing to be held in stereotyped grooves. The apostolic variations are due to the diversity of the men employed by the Spirit of God to give testimony to Christ: but their diversities are held in strict subordination to truth. Their narrative was controlled by the Spirit. The Spirit knowing all meanings can secure the exact meaning in a diversity of forms. The diversity of form does not interfere with the presence and guidance of the Spirit in the diversity. Nay, it is rather an attribute of the Spirit, whether in creation or revelation, to delight in diversity in unity:—“Diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit … Diversities of operations, but the same God which worketh all in all … all these worketh the one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will” (1 Cor. xii. 4, 6, 11).

Hence, the variations are not inconsistent with the Spirit’s guidance. First, as to the order of events in the four narratives: it is not the same. This would be a difficulty if there were a profession in each case that the exact order of the events as they occurred was observed. There is no such profession except in Matthew. In this, each scene is linked with what goes before in a way that involves historical sequence. But in Mark and Luke, there is no such exact placing of events. Hence the frequency of such general introductions as “It came to pass on a certain day,” “And it came to pass as he went to Jerusalem,” “And it came to pass as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees,” &c., &c. They have an order but do not profess to give the order. Therefore diversity of order is not conflict. The order was immaterial, and was evidently not aimed at by Mark and Luke, except in a rough way, as a basis of what Jesus did and said

But the order of events has a certain importance. Therefore in Matthew we have a chronological basis on which the accounts of the others can be arranged. As for John, his effort was a supplemental one, with the specific object of giving the conversations and discourses of Christ that had a bearing on his relation to the Father. Here also the exact order of events is immaterial to the object, and is not professed to be given.

Then as to the words attributed to the actors in the scenes selected for narrative, there is no profession of a verbatim report. The substance of what passed is related and often in the identical words, though frequently with variations. In this there cannot be any difficulty when we realise that many words besides those reported must have been spoken in connection with each transaction. Each writer reports words spoken but does not profess to give all the words; therefore each may select different words while reporting the same matter, and the difference in the words does not mean that in either case there is a wrong report, but that a different selection is made from the words actually spoken, and that in their several places, each report is right.

The difficulty only arises when a false assumption is introduced as to what an inspired account ought to be. Those who oppose the inspiration of the Gospels tacitly contend that four inspired accounts ought to be exactly the same. In this they leave out of account the dual nature of the authorship. They forget that the apostles are used as witnesses, and that, therefore, their narratives, though shaped and guided by the Spirit, reflect, to the extent permitted, the diversities of natural spectatorship. Or, on the other hand, they wrongfully insist that if the Spirit has had anything to do with the selection of the words, the human aspect of the testimony ought not to be visible at all.

The variations are due to the plurality of minds concerned in the production of the narratives, but because all these minds were under the control of one mind, which was using them for its own purposes exclusively, the variations were so regulated as all to be consistent with truth. Even in such an apparently extreme case as the variations in the wording of the inscription over the head of Christ on the cross, it is not difficult to apply these principles. The writing was in three languages, and it is impossible to tell from which of the three the several writers made their selection. Matthew wrote in Hebrew and may have selected the Hebrew. Luke wrote with the educated world in view, and though he wrote in Greek, he may have selected his rendering of the inscription from the language of the ruling power—the Roman (Latin). John, writing for believers, after the dispersion, may have selected the Greek—the currently spoken language of the East—all making their respective selection under the guidance of the Spirit. Here would be a source of verbal variation, without the least literal inaccuracy. The idioms of the languages differ; whence a variation of language might arise.

In addition to this, there may have been an intentional difference in one inscription from another. Pilate’s draughtsman may have varied them with a view to the spectators. He might introduce “of Nazareth” into the title for the strangers who might be in the crowd, and who might need a piece of local information unnecessary in the Hebrew and Roman versions which could be read by the Jews. Who knows? There are these uncertainties in the case, and we are bound to exhaust the possibilities they yield rather than give in to the suggestion of error in the apostolic writings which so many considerations exclude.

And even if there were not these alternatives, there would be an easy escape in another way. The several gospel narrators do not profess to give us the exact wording, though John does. They simply tell us that his accusation was written over his head, and they tell us what the accusation was. They do not say: “And this was the exact warding in which the accusation was expressed.” Matthew says:—“He set up over his head his accusation written: ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.’ ” Mark:—“And the superscription of his accusation was written over him: ‘The King of the Jews.’ ” Luke:—“And the superscription was written over him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew: ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ ” Joan:—“Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was: ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ ”

There is no inconsistency in these four accounts. Only one of them professes to copy the writing. The others give the sense, and that, too, in nearly the very words. There is here only the variation of truth. There is scarcely even variation; it is only degrees of selection. There is in fact complete agreement. Mark says: “The King of the Jews.” These words were in the inscription: he does not say they were the only words. Luke says “This is the King of the Jews”—two words more: these were in the inscription. Luke does not say they were the only words. Matthew says, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews”—three words more. These were in the inscription; he does not say there were no others. They all fit into one another like different sized dishes. John adds “of Nazareth” to the words of the others, and omits the demonstrative pronoun—probably copying the exact phraseology of Pilate’s Latin. It must be obvious that these variations are but forms of truth, whose place in narratives self evidently divine compels us to include them in that supervision and sanction of the Holy Spirit from which an unskilful criticism would exclude them.

The same remark applies to other cases relied upon by those who contend for a fallible composition. Their explanation is found in the Spirit’s union with the apostles in the authorship, which imparted a liberty of variation not permissible to a merely human reporter. The Spirit was the author of all the sayings and doings recorded, and could therefore paraphrase or vary the description of His own acts or utterances, with the liberty that any author exercises in reference to his own productions. It is the failure to recognise the all-prevailing presence of the Spirit of God in the production of these writings that creates the difficulties of criticism. Rules applicable to merely human productions are applied to a class of composition which is outside the ordinary literary category altogether. There is no parallel between a human writer who puts down his own thoughts and impressions merely, and one whose mentality is fused for the time being with a guiding mind outside of his own, whose servant he is, and under whose influence he may even write things he does not understand.

The Spirit of God aimed in the apostolic narratives to present the essence of the facts recorded, and not the particular form in which those facts were presented or expressed at the time of their occurrence. The New Testament is not a newspaper, but a storehouse of spiritual power,—the power lying not in variant forms of expression, but in the things expressed. Hence, when it tells us that on a certain occasion, Jesus was publicly proclaimed the Son of God, it secures the record of the fact in a form beyond all question, but it does not give us all the details belonging to the occasion, nor tell us everything that was said. It is evident from John’s narrative, that much more passed, both as regard what John said, and as regards what the Spirit said, than what would appear in the other narratives. And if two forms of the Spirit’s words are given, “This is my beloved Son,” and “Thou art my beloved Son,”—it is just possible that both forms were employed during the transaction—one addressed to the spectators and the other to Jesus himself. The narratives are too meagre as narratives (though full of substance) to afford ground for a definite contention one way or other on a point like this. Any view is legitimate rather than the view that the Spirit of God helped the apostles and allowed them to blunder. The variations are all variations of truth; and if they were much greater than they are, they would be perfectly legitimate in the Spirit’s rendering of its own intentions in the record of its own work.

These remarks meet every case. The words recorded do not in any case profess to be all the words spoken. Many more words were spoken than are recorded. Those recorded are but a selection: and in different accounts, a different selection is made, though the difference is not great. There is nothing in this inconsistent with perfect truth.

Let the two features of the case be distinctly apprehended: the Spirit’s presence and control, and the part assigned to the apostles as witnesses, and all difficulty will vanish. The application of one or other of these to the exclusion of the others is the cause of the confusion—in the orthodox school on the one hand, and the critical school of merely human learning on the other.

Acting on these principles in the following pages, the author has endeavoured to fuse the four narratives of the New Testament into one harmonious story, embracing every particular and adjusting every apparent variation in the four evangelists. He sends forth the result with a degree of affectionate reverence for the subject that words cannot express, and with a desire unutterable that the public mind (starving on all kinds of intellectual inanity) might awake to the feast of fat things which God provided for the world 1850 years ago in the life and work of Christ; and for which he will shortly secure renewed attention in world-wide events that will cause every ear to tingle.

THE AUTHOR.

Birmingham, 12th September, 1890.

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter I.—Christ a Reality

Chapter II.—Christ’s Place in History

Chapter III.—The necessity for Christ in the Divine Scheme of History

Chapter IV.—Preparation

Chapter V.—John the Baptist’s Work

Chapter VI.—Mary at Nazareth

Chapter VII.—Bethlehem

Chapter VIII.—Childhood

Chapter IX.—From Childhood to Manhood

Chapter X.—In Preparation for Public Life

Chapter XI.—On the Banks of the Jordan and in the Wilderness

Chapter XII.—From the Wilderness to Cana of Galilee

Chapter XIII.—The first visit to Jerusalem—Nicodemus

Chapter XIV.—To Galilee—through Samaria via Jacob’s Well

Chapter XV.—From Jacob’s Well to Capernaum via Cana and Nazareth

Chapter XVI.—From Capernaum to the Scene of the Sermon on the Mount

Chapter XVII.—The “Sermon on the Mount”

Chapter XVIII.—From the Sermon on the Mount to the first tempest on the sea of Galilee

Chapter XIX.—In the Storm—Matthew called

Chapter XX.—Matthew’s Feast—Two Blind Men cured

Chapter XXI.—From the cure of the Blind Men to the call of the Apostles

Chapter XXII.—The twelve Apostles—their call, their qualifications and their instructions

Chapter XXIII.—Christ’s first Address to the twelve Apostles

Chapter XXIV.—After his Discourse to the twelve

Chapter XXV.—In Collision with the Pharisees

Chapter XXVI.—By the Lake of Gennesaret

Chapter XXVII.—The Parables

Chapter XXVIII.—The Parables (continued)

Chapter XXIX.—Ditto ditto

Chapter XXX.—Ditto ditto

Chapter XXXI.—Ditto ditto

Chapter XXXII.—Ditto ditto

Chapter XXXIII.—Ditto ditto

Chapter XXXIV.—Multiplying the Loaves and Walking on the Sea

Chapter XXXV.—In the Synagogue at Capernaum

Chapter XXXVI.—At Tyre and Decapolis—Feeds the Multitude a second time

Chapter XXXVII.—At Bethsaida—In Cæsarea Philippi—The Transfiguration

Chapter XXXVIII.—From the Mount of Transfiguration to Capernaum—His Rebuke of Ambition

Chapter XXXIX.—Pays Taxes—Forbids Vengeance—Attends the Feast of Tabernacles

Chapter XL.—Controversy in the Temple Courts—The Accused Woman

Chapter XLI.—The Blind Beggar Controversy—The Pharisees and Resurrectional Responsibility

Chapter XLII.—The Charge of Blasphemy against Christ—The Raising of Lazarus

Chapter XLIII.—Departure from Jerusalem—Interview with the Seventy

Chapter XLIV.—Martha and Mary—The Children—How to Pray—At Dinner with the Pharisee

Chapter XLV.—A Property Dispute—Covetousness and Anxiety—His Second Coming

Chapter XLVI.—The Slaughtered Galileans—The “fox” Herod—Jerusalem—A Sabbath Day Dinner and its Incidents

Chapter XLVII.—Causes of Stumblings—“Unprofitable Servants”—The Ten Lepers—The Kingdom—The Signs of His Coming

Chapter XLVIII.—Weeps over Jerusalem—Rides into the City—Blasts the Fig Tree

Chapter XLIX.—Silences the Pharisees and the Sadducees—His Open Denunciation of them as Blind Leaders

Chapter L.—The Widow’s Mite—The Olivet Prophecy—The Parable of the Sheep and Goats

Chapter LI.—Visitors: The End of His Public Labour—His Last Passover—The Breaking of Bread

Chapter LII.—At the Table

Chapter LIII.—On the way to Gethsemane

Chapter LIV.—Nearing Gethsemane

Chapter LV.—The Prayer of John xvii.

Chapter LVI.—Gethsemane—The Arrest

Chapter LVII.—Set at Naught

Chapter LVIII.—Golgotha

Chapter LIX.—Resurrection

Chapter LX.—Forty days’ Sojourn and Ascension

CHAPTER I.

———

Christ a Reality.

Whatever view may be taken of Jesus Christ, he cannot be excluded from history; He is not a legend, or a superstition or a theory that may be brushed lightly aside. He is one of those “stubborn things” that men call facts. You may ignore him, but you cannot expunge him. You may neglect him or misinterpret him; but you cannot get rid of the fact, and whatever may grow out of the fact, that he has appeared and enacted a part among men which has left an indelible impress on their condition in all civilized lands.

To the most casual observer, he towers the most conspicuous figure in the backward sweep of the eye. To the acutest mind of philosophy, he is the most palpable and indubitable problem of history. His historical verity is now conceded on every hand. An ingenious learning has abandoned the vain attempt to make him out a myth. Whatever he be, he is no myth. Every church and chapel is in some way a memento of him. Every organised Christian State in Europe is a monument to his historical memory. Hoary Ecclesiastical Rome filling the centuries, though with but the merest travesty of his doctrine, and for ages manacling the human intellect in a name that was never intended to import anything but life and liberty to the human race, is at least a guarantee to all the world that that name had a personal reality for its foundation.

We are indebted for our knowledge of him to a piece of writing which is quite extraordinary, and which may be said to be his most stupendous monument on earth, namely, the four gospels, bearing the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The antiquity and literary quality of these productions combine to impart to them a value and a significance that cannot be overstated, though familiarity interferes with perception a little. By all the ordinary rules of literary transmission, they are the indisputable productions of Christ’s friends and companions, they having been in the hands of the Christian community with that reputation ever since the beginning of Christianity. But it is their character that gives them their chief weight. They are unlike all biographical performances in this, that they make no effort to commend their subject to the reader. There is no attempt at panegyric; there is no extolling of Christ’s virtues; there is no pointing out of heroic qualities; there is none of the customary praise or commendation of his hero that is natural to a biographical writer. There is nothing even in the nature of a complimentary allusion. All we have is a plain ungarnished recital of what Christ said and of what he did—and this is in the simplest language. This is wonderful when we consider the scope there was for hero worship, and the temptation to indulge in it on the part of enthusiastic disciples. But how much more wonderful it is that this bald recital of facts conveys to the mind the impression of a personality unapproached in the whole range of human thought or writing—a character such as is never seen among men for godlike dignity, purity, beneficence and power, a figure as far above men as the heaven is above the earth. What is the explanation of this unique literary phenomenon? If we accept the view exhibited by the apostles, there is a complete explanation; that the whole case was a divine manifestation, and that the Spirit of God employed the gospel narrators in its literary exhibition. If we reject this view, we are in the presence of a fact that defies explanation, on any known principle. The New Testament is a fact: the figure it exhibits of Jesus Christ is as much a fact as any superb picture in a gallery. That the human authors were with one exception illiterate men, is a fact. If a superhuman agency were not at work, how are we to account for this superhuman performance, that without human praise or human paint of any kind, these illiterate writers have produced in the simplest language such an ideal character in Christ as transcends even the most gifted of human imaginations?

There are two ways of dealing with the subject. It can be discussed from what might be called the newspaper standpoint, as a doubtful problem on which, as judge and jury, we bring to bear what information we may possess. Or it may be stated and illustrated and argued from the New Testament writers’ point of view, with the ardour that naturally springs from appreciation and faith. If the latter course is chosen in the present case, it is because, while it surrenders none of the critical advantages that may belong to the former, it admits of a fuller statement and a more satisfactory result. The cold impartiality of the critic, however correctly applied, only leaves you at the door of the subject when you have done. When you have conciliated unbelief to the utmost; when you have gone the utmost length in your deferences to critical acumen or unfriendly bias, you have failed to do more than establish a probability, which has little influence on human motives. The better plan is to assume the historical verity of the subject in all particulars, and harmonise this view of the subject with all objections as you go along. The logic and polemics of earnest conviction take you inside the house, and set you down before the cheerful fire in the pleased society of hospitable inmates.

The wisdom of this line of treatment is forced on the mind when the nature of the subject is fully apprehended. It is not like ordinary subjects, which you may attend to or leave alone without compromising your well-being in any way. If Christ is what he is represented in the apostolic writings, it is at our hazard if we neglect him. Other subjects may be interesting, but this is of solemn and urgent moment. We may or may not attend to other things: the claims of this are imperative. The subject of Christ alone deals with personal futurity and eternity.

Astronomy appeals overpoweringly to our sense of the stupendous, the exact, the infinite: the face of the earth stirs our love of the fair and the beautiful; her rocky depths excite our curiosity as to past conditions of the globe. Agriculture supplies us with the useful: chemistry with the theoretical; history, with the actual working of things among men in their present situation. Christ alone deals with the ever-pressing problem of the meaning of existence and the destiny of human life. All other subjects are here as dumb as the stars; dark as the night; or incoherent as the roar of the storm-tossed waters on the desolate strand.

If we are to accept Christ as apostolically exhibited, there is no extravagance in the words which declare him “worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing.” It is not only as Pilate was made to record, that “there is no fault in him;” but as Paul declared, that “in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge;” that “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily.”

Men glory in men. They see and praise greatness in the successful leading of soldiers, as in Napoleon; they admire the ability that can tell a graphic story, like a Dickens; or that can clearly delineate quick-eyed discernments and impressions of men and things, as a Shakespeare; they extol the capacity that can hold the political helm in stormy weather, like a Gladstone; or that can jingle composition in measured cadences, like a Scott or a Tennyson. But what is all this excellence but the exhibition of perishing mortal faculty in picturesque relations—impressing human mentalities, tickling human fancies, flattering human vanities, but futile in the eternal issues of things? At the best, it is the exercise of creature gift—like the strength of a horse, the constructiveness of a bee, the scent of a bloodhound, the instinct of a beaver. If we are commanded not to glory in man, it is reasonable we should not. Man is but a creature—a transient blossom of eternal power—no more to be adored for his qualities than a rose for its fragrance, a peach for its bloom.

But with Christ, it is otherwise. We are not only not forbidden, we are commanded to glory in him. The very angels were ordered to do obeisance: “Let all the angels of God worship him.” And the reason which tells us it is out of place to glory in men, tells us it is fitting we should glory in the Lord. If we are to accept the New Testament exhibition of him, the Father has planted in him intrinsic excellence, life, authority, and power; and where these are, the recognition of them in praise and deference is reasonable.

Jesus, while upon earth, said, “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” These words appeal to a need most felt by those who are most alive in an intellectual sense: men who discern in the starry immensities around them the sphere of immeasurable aspiration—the potentiality of unutterable heights of faculty and glorious life—who, looking into themselves and out upon the face of the fair earth which they tread, with its multitudinous manifestation of life, with some latent intuition of the high meaning of things, have their hearts drawn out into infinite longings which nothing in human life, as it now is, can satisfy. All men experience the vanity of life as it now is upon earth, but none so keenly as these. They labour and are heavy laden: labour in the futile effort to grasp the reason of things: are heavy laden in the mental oppression which the immensity and the inscrutability of things brings upon their spirits. If Christ is what he alleged he was, there is peace for this intellectual perturbation which cannot elsewhere be found. In the light of his existence and mission, creation is delivered from the gloom in which it appears to merely natural eyes. If unbelievers say there is no gloom in creation for them, it is the mere repartee of intellectual resentment, or the utterance of a crude experience which has not yet learnt the sadness of life as it now is—the sadness that inevitably waits when the effervescence of young blood has subsided, when the poetic ardours of fresh life have expended themselves, when business has lost its aim and its interest, and when mortal energy wanes, and man is forced to recognise in the encroachments of feebleness and the disappearance of friends in the universal grave, the sad tokens of the truth that comes home at last, however long ignored in pride or silenced in the din of folly—that man is subject to vanity, and that human life is in darkness.

There are plausible theories much current and popular among even Christian professors of our time, which logically undermine the position of Christ. They either bring Christ down to men, or level men up to him, which has the same practical effect. Almost all public teachers in our day incline to this habit, which must be held an offence against reason if the Christ of the apostolic narrative is to be accepted.

The Christ of apostolic narrative differs from all so-called great men that have ever arisen among men, in that he has both dynamical relation to the universe, and an indefeasible title to possession, according to the strictest methods of legal construction. We are leaving out of account for the moment the disparity between Christ and other men as to character. Even supposing it could be made out for a moment that their characters were equal, the difference here is an immeasurable gulf.

The brightest human intellect that ever dazzled mankind is but a burning taper in the wind, or, if you will, a glowing electric light on a spire-top. It is a thing of conditions. Take away the conditions, and the light is gone: and over the conditions, the light has no control. William Shakespeare has a brain of certain organisation: this brain has to be fed with the vital force which digestion extracts from food. Properly supplied thus, it has impressions and the power of representing them in terse words. It is no more than any other human brain, except in the larger development of specific departments of the brain. He cannot control or alter the laws that govern being, either for himself or others. His friends die and he cannot help them; he himself grows old and he cannot prevent it. The power he possesses is only such as exists in the imaginations of his admirers. The Marquis of Hertford sinks; the Queen can only send a message of sympathy. The Queen would feel mocked if the Marquis were to say, “Speak the word and thy servant shall be healed.’

With Christ, how different! if we are to accept the evidence which remains un-dissipated after the utmost alchemy of “higher criticism,” or any other effort to bring Christ within the category of mere men. By the testimony of Christ and the apostles, supported by works of superhuman power, the eternal and fundamental force of the universe (the Spirit of God) is in his hand. “Power over all flesh” is the Father’s gift to him—“all power in heaven and in earth.” What he can do in the exercise of this power has been illustrated. He can stop a storm: he can produce bread from the abstract elements, without the circuitous process of agriculture. He can discern the secrets of the human mind at any distance: he can make the dead alive again. All this he did when upon earth. Greater marvels wait, as his attested promise declares.

That a subject so unutterably sublime and so imperatively practical should be treated so indifferently is one of the saddest facts of an age in many respects the saddest, though the brightest, in human annals. It has more explanations than one. One is a lack of faith in the claims of Christ, in a large measure due to a lack of acquaintance with the true facts of his wonderful case. We propose the simple exhibition of these facts, as the best corrective of unbelief, with just that amount of attention to contested points which reason demands as they arise.

CHAPTER II.

———

Christ’s Place in History.

Before entering upon biographical particulars, it seems necessary to take a general view of Christ’s position in history. It has become the habit among the fashionable thinkers of the world to regard it as “a development.” They look at the state of the world before Christ appeared, and more particularly the state of the Jews; and profess to find in these a force or bias at work which, on natural principles, brought itself to a focus in the family of Joseph, and so produced that marvel of marvels, “the man Christ Jesus.”

There is no arrogance in maintaining that this is a groundless view. The men who advance it are forced into a false position by their initial assumption that there can be no departure from the fixed and passive operations of nature as we see them. They find the Christ of the New Testament a case of continuous departure from these operations; they therefore pronounce him impossible. They find Christ a fact in history, but their principles compel them to refuse the only history that reasonably accounts for it, and so they east about for one that is in harmony with their own thoughts. They cannot remove Christ from history; they try to explain him, and, naturally, their explanations take the form of their own gratuitous thoughts. They reason gradiloquently on “tendencies.” A mechanical age produces great engineers: a military age produces great soldiers: an art-loving age, great painters. So a religious age, argue they, produced the loftiest religionist the world has ever seen. Plausible this, but fallacious, when looked into—just plausible enough to carry off superficial thinkers, but manifestly enough fallacious to protect those acquainted with and discerning of the subject from being victimised.

It is fallacious on two heads, first, as regards the nature of the age that witnessed the birth of Christ, and, second, as regards the relation between age-production and those produced. Taking the second point first: a man that really is the natural product of the age in which he lives, exhibits and exemplifies in an efficient form the principles and capacities already active before his time. He does not add to them, or go against them. The age and the man are one. The principles in the one are found in the other. A Stephenson embodies the mechanical science existing independently of him. A Napoleon expertly applies military principles universally in vogue before he was born. A Raphael reflects for you the artistic appreciations cultivated for generations before him.

But Christ—there is nothing in common between him and the age in which he was born, or any other age, before or since. Whether we take character, principles, aims, views, capacities, deportment, or achievements, he stands, not only at a measureless altitude above, but absolutely disconnected from the common ways and tendencies of men.

The best proof of this will be found in the history of his life as exhibited in the apostolic narratives in what are known as “the gospels”—of which this book aims to be but a modernised reflection. He had nothing in common with men beyond the infirmity of a mortal nature derived through his mother, from a common stock. His tastes lay where the human mind has no affinity. His intellectual interest—his mental affection—intensely centred on God, from whom man is naturally alien (Rom. viii. 7). Even at twelve years of age, he showed this powerful bias which distinguished him from all men: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business” (Luke ii. 49); and “always” it is his own testimony concerning himself, “he did those things that were pleasing to the Father” (Jno. viii. 29). His case, with reference to his own age, is only fitly classified in his own language; “Ye are from beneath: I am from above; ye are of this world: I am not of this world” (Jno. viii. 23).

See how inconsistent the facts of the case are, with the philosophic theory which would make Christ the product of a particular epoch. The age that witnessed the birth of Christ was the most unpromising of all ages, in a moral sense, of any high moral development on natural principles. The Gentile world under Roman ascendancy was sunk in the grossest immoralities of Paganism, which the revelations of Pompeii may illustrate; and as for the condition of the Jews, it was one of self-conceited barrenness and formalism, which has not been exceeded by any recorded experience of that people. The condition of the Jews is more important to be considered than the condition of the Gentile nations, as it was in the midst of the Jews that Jesus was born, and of their common race and stock in the line of David.

Christ’s own portraiture of Israel’s state is vigorous, brief and decisive. Speaking generally, he said “This is an evil generation” (Luke xi. 29). Speaking particularly, he said “In them, is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah” (Matt. xiii. 14). We turn to the prophecy and find such expressions as “heart waxed gross,” “ears dull of hearing,” “eyes closed.” In another and parallel prophecy, this is what we read: “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men, therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” Again, “they are drunken, but not with wine: they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes” (Matt. xiii. 14, 15: Isaiah xxix. 13, 14; 9, 10). This is the divine definition of Israel’s condition at the time of Christ’s appearing. The truth of the definition is reflected in the Rabbinical writings of that and subsequent times. The grave discussion of trifles, conducted illogically, and distorted with childish legend, impresses the mind with a sense of mental paralysis and nightmare. There is much boast of Hillel and Philo: it is astonishing how little ground for boast appears in the reading.

“Dry,” indeed, was “the ground” in which the root of Jesse quickened and sprang in the beginning of the first century—as Isaiah had foretold—“A root out of a dry ground” (Isa. liii. 2). If there had not been a divine planting in the dry ground, no such “tender plant” could have shot forth in the cracked and arid soil. It had been dry and barren for generations. Since the last words of inspiration by Malachi, Israel had slowly settled into that shallow half-clever state of self-conceit and disobedience in which Jesus found them—punctilious as to trifles, but reprobate to the “weightier matters of the law:” on the best of terms with themselves, yet by their insubordination towards the highest requirements of the law, piling up the divine anger in a slow-gathering, terrible storm that descended shortly afterwards and swept them all away. Even Malachi’s words show them well advanced in spiritual decomposition in his days. “Who is there among you that would shut the doors (of the temple) for nought? neither do ye kindle a fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord, neither will I accept an offering at your hand” (Mal. i. 10; see also 12, 13; ii. 8,9, 17; iii. 7, 9).

Such an “age” could have nothing to do with the production of Christ. It was much more likely to produce monsters like the John and Simon who figured so flaringly at the siege of Jerusalem. Many such monsters it did produce, as Josephus’s works attest, answering to Paul’s portraiture, “filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful” (Rom. i 29). Christ it could not produce, and did not produce. Christ was the work of God direct. He had nothing in common with “the age.” He was a man apart from that age and all other ages. The testimony of his enemies will be found, on the strictest investigation, to be absolutely correct: “Never man spake like this man.” Had the “age” produced him, there would have been more than one of him, and he would have reflected the characteristics of the age. There was only one of him, and he was as unlike the “age” as possible. There never was his like before or since. He will not classify thus. He will only fit the source he claims: “I proceeded forth and came from God” (Jno. viii. 42).

It is vain for the critics to explain him in any other way. He cannot be explained on any hypothesis but his own: and this hypothesis does not rest upon his own ipse dixit merely. It is supported and attested and proved in a variety of ways. He was careful to emphasise this. He allowed that he gave evidence on his own behalf, but pointed out that his testimony was confirmed externally. He admitted if it were not so, his self-testimony was not entitled to belief: “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me, and I know that his witness is true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth.… But I have greater witness than that of John; the works which the father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.… If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works” (Jno. vi. 31–33, 36; x. 37).

The nature of the “works” he pointedly defined when John’s wavering message came from prison: “Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?… Then Jesus answering, said unto them (John’s messengers), Go your way and tell John what things ye have seen and heard, how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised” (Luke vii. 20–22). These were “works” which certainly no man can do. Their significance, and even their truth, has been frittered out of public conviction through the sheer effect of perseverance on the part of hostile criticism. But the facts remain, after all their refinements; and the verdict of common sense is well formulated by Nicodemus: “We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him” (Jno. iii. 2). Had Nicodemus had the fact of Christ’s resurrection before him at this time, he would have felt how immeasurably beyond question his whole conclusion had been placed; for if there is one thing that all men would be agreed in allowing, it is that a dead man has no power to bring himself to life again.

The attempt to explain Christ on any principle but the one furnished in the Bible narrative must be a failure on other grounds. He is part of a history extending over thousands of years. He is not an isolated phenomenon: he is built into the Bible as a whole. The bulk of the Bible existed before he appeared, and it bears upon him in a way necessitating that view of himself which he promulgated. He is part of a structure, apart from which he cannot be understood. Though the brightest figure in Israel’s history, he is but the culmination of that history, which is the history of a work which God has been doing from the beginning; and He must be looked at in connection with that work. We can only truly ascend to the Christ of the Bible by the gradually rising level of the progressive work it records.

The modern habit of detaching him from the Old Testament scheme of things creates difficulties that do not belong to the subject itself. The theologian and the Rationalist both fall into this mistake, each in a different way. The theologian brings to the subject a philosophy that not only enables him to dispense, but necessitates his dispensing with Jewish history and hopes in the ages before Christ came, and compels him to adopt views and theories of Christ’s work that virtually transform him into another Christ than that exhibited in the Apostolic narrative. The Rationalist, on the other hand, perceiving that prophecy involves divinity, puts forth his whole strength in the endeavour to show that there has been no prophecy: that Christ was not predicted or foreseen: that he came as a happy accident, to which events and utterances that went before him were ingeniously accommodated.

Both views are inconsistent with the elementary facts of the case. The theologian we may dismiss in a word as the product of an organised corruption of apostolic truth: which began in the apostolic age (2 Thes. ii. 7; 1 Jno. ii. 18, 19), which it was predicted would obtain complete ascendancy (2 Tim. iv. 4), and which became finally triumphant in Christendom in the shape of Roman Ecclesiasticism, under whose baleful shadow the most elementary principles of revealed truth perished from the recognised orthodox Christian community. The man who regards immortality as the attribute of human nature, and who thinks it is in a disembodied state, that man becomes the subject of judicial retribution for good or evil:—such a man is not likely to find any connection with Christ in writings that deal only with bodily death and resurrection, and the future settlement of the earth on the basis of the covenants made with the fathers of the Israelitish nation, and amplified in the writings of the prophets that God sent to them.

The question introduced by the Rationalist is at once more vital and more difficult to the general run of mankind. At the same time it is more capable of a decisive settlement. The Rationalist says the Old Testament has nothing to do with Christ, because Christ has nothing to do with God except in the passive sense in which all men have to do with Him, which, practically, is no sense at all, for if God in nature is the only accessible form of God, we may as well cease to talk of God as distinct from nature. On the Rationalist hypothesis, there is nothing but nature, and, therefore, Christ had no more to do with God than tigers and elephants and worms; in which case, we have no hope: for nature gives no hope of life to come for the individual, which is exactly what is promised and pledged in Christ.

But Rationalism is not rational. It ignores facts that cannot be set aside. There is an ingredient in the situation that Rationalism does not take into account, and that is, the resurrection of Christ, which Christ himself plainly predicted, and the occurrence of which was the very essence of the testimony given by the apostles after the crucifixion. A dead man cannot raise himself, and if Christ rose, God raised him, and, therefore, endorsed him.

How much, for us moderns, depends upon this question of the resurrection of Christ. It cannot be exaggerated in its importance. Establish it, and there is an end of all dispute or doubt. Its establishment is a process of logical demonstration. In this it may seem to have a weak foundation: but it is the foundation on which the bulk of human convictions rest. A logical demonstration, if truly logical, is of immense practical power where there is a capacity to perceive it. The power to act out a conviction logically is almost universal: but the power to discern the ground of conviction is unfortunately scarce, while the force of mere feeling of all kinds is great. Hence, the demonstration of the resurrection of Christ, though obvious, commends itself only to the few. This is not the place for the demonstration. It is exhibited in some measure in The Trial, a work by the present writer, intended to exhibit the correctness of Christ’s resurrection in a popular and entertaining way. We refer to it as indicating where the citadel of faith lies. It is spending strength in vain to fight the assaults of Rationalism in the open. The citadel commands the whole position. Entrenched here, faith is impregnable. All attempts to get rid of the evidence of Christ’s resurrection have, and ever must be, complete failures when the evidence is completely marshalled.

Settle the resurrection of Christ, and you settle the question of whether the Old Testament prophecy had any reference to Christ, for the risen Christ taught that it had. After his resurrection he said, “These are the words that I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms CONCERNING ME” (Luke xxiv. 44). Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, “Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, &c.” “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures THE THINGS CONCERNING HIMSELF.” (Ib. 27).

These sayings, uttered after his resurrection, refer us back to things he had said on the same subject while yet alive, before his crucifixion. Going back to these, we find that he made frequent allusion to the fact that he was contemplated in the written utterances of the prophets from the days of Moses downwards. Reading a passage from Isaiah in the synagogue of Nazareth on one occasion, he said, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke iv. 21). Recommending the Jews to “search the Scriptures” of the Old Testament, he said “They are they that TESTIFY OF ME” (John v. 39). Communing sorrowfully with his disciples on the very eve of his sufferings, he said, “This that is written must yet be accomplished IN ME, ‘and he was reckoned amongst the transgressors’ ” (Luke xxii. 37). In his public teaching, combatting the popular idea that he was putting himself in competition with Moses and the prophets, he said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy but TO FULFIL” (Matt. v. 17). Chiding the Pharisees for putting forward Moses as a reason for their rejection of him, he said, “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for HE WROTE OF ME” (Jno. v. 46). Discussing for a moment the hypothesis of his consenting to evade the sufferings appointed for him, he said, “How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that THUS IT MUST BE” (Matt. xxvi. 54). There are other allusions of the same sort. They show that Christ’s view was that the prophets foreshadowed him; and if he rose from the dead, his view must prevail.

The matter establishes itself in another way: If Christ rose from the dead, Christ necessarily fulfilled the promise he made to his disciples,—that he should afterwards send upon them the spirit of God, who should guide them into all truth (Jno. xiv. 26 : xvi. 13), and who should put words into their mouths when brought before governors and kings (Matt. x. 19, 20). That this promise was fulfilled is a matter of record which cannot be denied (Acts ii. 1–4: v. 32). Consequently in the utterances of the disciples, we have words equally reliable to those of Christ, and on this subject, those utterances are plain beyond all ambiguity. All of them recognise that Christ was contemplated in the writings of the prophets. Take Peter, who was made the official mouthpiece of the apostolic band: “All the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days” (Acts iii. 24). In his letter (1 Pet. i. 10) he speaks of the prophets “searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of christ and the glory that should follow.” Paul, of equal or greater eminence as an apostle says, “To him (Christ) give all the prophets witness” (Acts x. 43). He also said to a Jewish audience in the provinces, in reference to the successful opposition of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem to the claims of Christ, “Because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath Day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him” (Acts xiii. 27). Zecharias, the father of John the Baptist, in celebrating the birth of Christ, said, “The Lord God of Israel … hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began” (Luke i. 70).

There are many such like expressions in the apostolic writings. The case could not be made stronger by further quotation. It is plain that if we are to be guided by Christ and the apostles, we may dismiss the doubts raised by modern criticism as merely so much elegant mystification in which the writers have involved themselves and others, through the disturbing power of initial fallacies. The question of whether we should be guided by Christ and the apostles, is settled by the fact of Christ’s resurrection and the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Therefore, we may, without reservation, accept it as an established truth, that the appearance of Christ 1800 years ago, was the fulfilment of what had been foretold by the prophets under the inspiration of the Spirit of God.

One step more, and we bring this chapter to a conclusion. In the estimation of those acquainted with the Scriptures of Moses and the prophets, it must ever be a self-evident proposition that those Scriptures foreshew the appearing of the Messiah (Hebrew) or Christ (Greek). The predictions of him are not vague or uncertain. If it merely rested on the statement made in the garden of Eden at the crisis of human transgression, there might be doubt, though even then the indication would be felt by reflective minds to be strong: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” But it does not rest on this. There are plain and positive statements that cannot by unsophisticated candour be understood in any other way than as foretelling the appearance in Israel of a God-given leader, teacher and King. Such is the statement of Moses: “The Lord said unto me … I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him” (Deut. xviii, 17, 18). Such also is the prophecy of Balaam: “I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Num. xxiv. 17). The words of Jacob cannot otherwise be reasonably understood: “The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah nor a law-giver from between his feet until Shiloh come: and unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Gen. xlix. 10).

And what else is to be understood of the covenant made with David? (2 Sam. vii). Speaking now from the hostile critic point of view, even if it referred to Solomon, it was as much a prophecy as if it referred to Christ; and if prophecy was there at all, then the obligation arises to receive every application of the covenant that the spirit of prophecy in David and in the apostles may indicate. In this way, the voice of criticism is silenced: for the Spirit of God applies this covenant to Christ, both by David and by Peter. David in his “last words” which he attributes to the Spirit of God (2 Sam. xxiii. 2) alleges the substance of this covenant to contain “all his salvation and all his desire” (see verse 5); and he associates its realisation with a just king “ruling over men,” the advent of whose day he compares to the dawn of a cloudless morning. Peter, speaking still more plainly after the promised effusion of the Holy spirit, says that David knew that God had covenanted “to raise up Christ to sit upon his throne” (Acts ii. 29). By these two, the truth is established that Christ was the king promised in the covenant that God made with David.

When we look at the other prophets—the books bound together as a prophetic collection from Isaiah to Malachi—it is like looking at a starry galaxy of glory, Christ shines in them all: not merely his light, but he himself appears in all their visions—palpably as a person—as palpably as Jesus of Nazareth appears in the apostolic narratives. A hurried sample or two from each will best illustrate this:

christ in the prophets.

In Isaiah, “A King shall reign in righteousness” (xxxii. 1). “The Spirit of God shall rest upon him … and shall make him of quick understanding … with righteousness shall he judge the poor” (xi. 1–:3, 4). “Of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and his kingdom” (ix. 7). “Behold my servant … I have put my Spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles … the isles shall wait for his law” (xlii. 1–4). But first, “he is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (liii. 3).

In Jeremiah, “a King (righteously branched from David) shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth” (xxiii. 5). “I will cause him to draw near and he shall approach unto me” (xxx. 21). “He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land,” in the days when “God shall perform the good thing promised to Israel” (xxxiii. 14, 15).

In Ezekiel, the throne of David shall be “no more until he come whose right it is (xxi. 27). Israel shall then be one nation on the mountains of Israel, “and one King shall be King to them all” (xxxvii. 22).

In Daniel, a prophetic vision is seen in which “one like the Son of Man” appears and receives “a kingdom, glory, and dominion, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve and obey him” (vii. 13, 14). But first, Messiah, the Prince, should be cut off, and punitive desolation overwhelm Jerusalem and the temple, and overspread the Holy Land (ix. 26).

In Hosea, the children of Israel, after many days of kingless wandering among the nations, should return and have one head—even a divine head. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself: in me is thine help. I will be thy King” (xiii. 9, 10; i. 11; iii. 4, 5).

In Joel when the captivity of Judah returns, war is proclaimed against the Gentiles; Jehovah’s mighty ones descend, by whom Jehovah thereafter dwells in Zion. “Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and no stranger shall pass through her any more” (iii. 1, 9–12; 17).

In Amos, ‘I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof (which involves the re-establishment of the throne in a personal occupant) … and I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel … and I will plant them in their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land” (ix. 11–15)

In Obadiah, “Upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and saviours shall come up on Mount Zion … and the Kingdom shall be the Lord’s” (21).

In Jonah there is no direct allusion: it is the only exception.

In Micah he was to be born in Bethlehem: smitten on the cheek: Israel scattered: but at the last “this man” should be the vanquisher of the enemy, the establisher of peace, judge among the nations, and “great to the end of the earth” (v. 2, 13, 4–6; iv. 3).

In Nahum, he is saluted on the mountains as one that bringeth good things, consequent on whose appearance the enemy should be utterly cut off, and Judah resume the observance of her holy feasts (i. 15).

In Habakkuk, God goes forth for salvation with His anointed (Christ), “and the earth shall be filled, with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (iii. 13, ii. 14).

In Zephaniah, a day is exhibited when Israel shall be no more haughty, nor do iniquity. “In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, fear thou not … the King of Israel, the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more” (iii. 11, 13, 16, 15).

In Haggai, “the desire of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory … I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen” (ii. 7, 22).

In Zechariah, “I will bring forth my servant, the BRANCH … He shall sit and rule upon his throne … Thy King (O Jerusalem) cometh unto thee, just and having salvation … he shall speak peace to the heathen and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea … The Lord shall be King over all the earth” (iii. 8; vi. 13; ix. 9, 10; xiv. 9).

In Malachi, “The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant … Behold he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming?… Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness rise with healing in his beams.” (iii. 1, 2; iv. 2).

If these statements do not foretell the appearing of the Messiah, it is difficult to imagine how language could be framed to foretell it. In truth, the question is beyond controversy. It never could have been raised but for the necessity created by a false theory of Christ. The robust sense of scientific intelligence will always decide (against the artificial refinements of mercurial and invertebrate idealism—dreamy, speculative and illogical) that explain it how it may, the prophets foretold the appearing of Christ: and the same intelligence applied to the life of Christ, must necessarily come to the conclusion expressed in the words of Philip to Nathanael, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write” (Jno. i. 45).

Moses wrote of Christ in a way not yet hinted at. The whole economy of divine service established by his hand in the midst of Israel, was a prophetic allegory of him. This we have on the authority of Paul, who was guided by the Holy Spirit; and the statement which he makes is borne out by the results of the study of Moses from this point of view. The allegory is a complete and speaking one.

Let the reflecting reader consider how completely the fact of this continuous and extended prophecy of Christ, over so long a time, of itself establishes the divinity of Christ. If, in addition to this, he obtains a full view of Christ himself, as displayed in the apostolic narratives, and an adequate perception of all the evidences that prove his resurrection, he must needs feel so overpowered by conviction as to fling away all reserve, and accept the profession of the name of Christ with all the earnest ardour which such a conviction must, in the highest reason, inspire. The apologetic tone of modern professors ill befits a subject so incontestably true and so unutterably stupendous in its importance.

CHAPTER III.

———

The Necessity for Christ in the Divine Scheme of History

We speak of his appearing 1,850 years ago. Why did he appear then, and not later or sooner? The general answer is plain, leading to one not so plain, but which is pleasing in its speculative interest. The general answer is, that the time appointed had come. This is what Paul says: “When the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Gal. iv. 4). Jesus himself referred similarly to the matter: “The time is fulfilled” (Mark i. 15.) The vision shewn to Daniel necessitates this conclusion: for to him it was said by the angel who enlightened him, “From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be,” such and such a time which expired in the days of Christ

The next question would introduce a more difficult topic: “Why was such a time appointed?” We might well leave this. We might well be satisfied that the appointment of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will, must needs have its basis in perfect wisdom, even if our poor blind eyes could not see it. But it is not presumption to scan His work in the spirit of enquiring reverence. On the contrary, it is well pleasing to God that we do so: “The works of the Lord are great: sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.” Christ is His greatest work upon earth hitherto: and those who love him most will find the most pleasure in seeking out all the divine “whys and wherefores” related to him that may be attainable.

One clue we get simply, when we look back and see that 1,850 years ago the time for the ending of the Mosaic system of things had come. The ending of if, then, is beyond all controversy. Both the law-worshipping Jew and the divinity-of-Moses-denying Gentile are compelled to recognise the historical fact (whatever their interpretation of it may be) that since that time the law of Moses has ceased to be a nationally operative thing in the earth. It has had neither the land nor the nation essential to its operation. The land has been in the hands of strangers and in a state of desolation: and the race on whom alone it was enjoined, have been scattered, down-trodden, and denationalised in the lands of “the heathen,” as all Gentile nations are called in scripture.

Now, considering that the end of the system as a divinely operative system in the earth did actually, as a matter-of-fact not to be contradicted, arrive 1,850 years ago, we may easily see one reason why Christ should appear then, and not before or since. It is an apostolic declaration that Christ is “the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” on him (Rom. x. 4). It is another declaration, already quoted, that in becoming “the end of the law,” he was “made under the law.” He could not have been “made under the law,” if he had appeared after the law had passed out of operation; and he could not have become “the end of the law,” had he been born while it was in the full career of its national mission. His appearance at the exact time chosen was a necessity from this point of view.

But why, and in what sense, and how, did he become the end of the law? We will not enter largely into the field of contemplation to which these questions invite. Yet a glance at general outlines is necessary. The “why” requires us to remember that the law was of God’s appointing, and that Christ was of God’s sending, and that the one and the other were associated in God’s plan of things upon the earth. They were not disconnected. The Mission of the law could not be completed till it ended in Christ. It had to be fulfilled in him, as he said: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil,” and again, that “not one jot or tittle should pass from the law till all was fulfilled” (Matt. v. 17–18). Paul declared Christ to be substance of the things contained in the law (Col. ii. 17).

To us, the righteousness of God is manifested “without the law,” and made available by faith in Christ outside the law altogether (Rom. iii. 21); but though preached “without the law,” it was not developed “without the law.” It was generated under the law, in so far as Christ was born under the law, and obedient under the law, and died under the law. Paul denies that the faith of Christ made void the law; he contends it established it (Rom. iii. 31). The correctness of his contention we can see when we realise that the Christ who is offered for our faith is a Christ in whom all the excellence and virtue of the law became, as it were, personally incorporate. It was under it that he was “made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. i. 30). That is, he was in all things obedient while in that position, and therefore the rightful heir of whatever blessedness it was in the power of the law to confer upon those who “continued in all things written in the book of the law to do them,” which none else did but he. But this heirship was inaccessible to others so long as the law continued in force. It was needful the law should be taken out of the way, before those who were cursed by it (because of sin) could partake of the blessings secured in the sinless Christ alone. And it was taken out of the way—not arbitrarily—not in caprice; for it is not in God to change. It was taken out of the way in a manner that preserved the continuity and harmony and majesty of the divine action, while opening the way for forgiveness and favour to those believing in Christ. It was taken away by Christ dying, which placed him beyond its operation. “The law hath dominion over a man so long as he liveth” (Rom. vii. 1). When he is dead, it has no further jurisdiction. It was only ordained for living mortals. When Christ hung lifeless on the cross, it had no further hold on him. When he rose from the dead, he was a flee man. This is Paul’s argument: “Ye (who have been baptised into the risen Christ) are become dead to the law by the body of Christ (in his death) that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead” (Rom. vii. 4). It is in this connection that the force is apparent of Paul’s declaration that Christ, in his death, “blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross” (Col. ii. 14); and further, that those who are in Christ are “no longer under the law, but under grace” and are to “stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal. v. 1).

There were two purposes in the establishing of the law, that ended in Christ. Paul informs us that one was that sinful man might be manifest to himself, and that every mouth might be stopped in the conviction of his own helplessness. “The law entered that the offence might abound” (Rom. v. 20): that sin “might appear sin, work death by that which is good” (vii. 13), “that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God” (iii. 19). The other was, that what the law could not do for man left to himself, God in His love and grace might do, in sending His own Son, who should “magnify the law and make it honourable” in its complete observance, and who should then, in further and loving obedience, remove it out of the way in surrendering to the death of the cross, by which the curse of the law should come on him, for all who should come unto God by him. The law during the time it was in force completely accomplished these two things. First, Peter declared that Israel had found it a yoke which neither his generation nor their fathers were able to bear” (Acts xv. 10). Secondly, Jesus, who could challenge the Jews on the score of his perfect fulfilment of it, saying, “which of you convinceth me of sin?” (Jno. viii. 46), appeared just before it had run its course, putting away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and in rising again, laid the foundation for the salvation of all those who have faith in him as the Lamb of God.

These things bear upon the question of why Christ should have appeared before the disappearance of the Mosaic system from the land of Israel. They may not touch other enquiries that may arise. Why should the Mosaic system have disappeared 1,850 years ago? Why should it not have continued till the time for the setting up of the kingdom of God? And why should not Christ then have emerged from the tomb to ascend at once the throne of universal power and glory? We may be sure there is wisdom in the Divine plan on all these heads. We may even, with a little reflection, be able to discover it.

Israel’s transgressions required their dispersion amongst the Gentiles for double the length of time occupied by their national existence; the land had to rest unoccupied and untilled for a protracted period to make up for the years that Israel stole from the land in violation of the law that required them to let the land rest every, seventh year (Is. xl. 1; Lev. xxvi. 34nd;35). Both these evantualities were provided for in prophecy. Moses and all the prophets foretold the downtreading of the land and the scattering of the people. Both were necessities in the divine plan; and both involved the suspension of the Mosaic system. It was, therefore, impossible that that system could continue until the setting up of the kingdom under the seed promised to Abraham and the Son promised to David. A long interregnum of “many days” was inevitable, during which Israel was to be “with-out a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice, &c.,” as was specifically predicted (Hos. iii. 4).

It was impossible for other reasons. It was necessary that there should be an interval between the sufferings of Christ and his exaltation as Jehovah’s king in all the earth, in preparation for his effectual assumption of that position, both as regards the Jews and Gentiles. The Jews were not in any sense ready to receive hint at the time of his first appearing. He was a stranger to them, who interested them for a while by his extraordinary “works,” and then alienated them by his unpalatable condemnations of the national ways. All interest in him ceased with his destruction. His resurrection re-kindled that interest in the heart of a class: but had the Lord at that time ascended the throne of David, instead of departing to the Father for a season, there would have lacked the pathetic interest and the dramatic triumph that will belong to his installation in their midst after more than 18 centuries’ absence and rejection. For all that time the Jews have refused him, and cursed his name. They have not been allowed to forget him. “Bye a foolish nation I will anger you,” said God, by Moses. In the providence of God, the civilization of the Gentiles, among whom Israel has been scattered, has been inextricably blended, with the name of the crucified Jesus; and in all the countries of their dispersion they have been kept in a chronic state of anger by the exhibition of the mementoes and symbols of their crucifixion of Christ, and by the taunts, and insults, and persecutions on that head to which they have been subjected at the hands of their Christian neighbours. They have been kept face to face, in all the generations of their exile, with the crucified Nazarene. With what an interest, so far as they are concerned, does this long and bitter interval invest the introduction of Christ to them at his second appearing. “They shall look upon me, whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one who mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him” (Zech xii. 10).

Nothing in human narrative approaches in touching pathos the story of Joseph’s contact with his brethren after their sale of him into slavery, and his separation from them for over 20 years. It brings tears to the eyes of strong men who have read it many times. So nothing in history will at all come near the sublime event of the revelation of “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews,” after many centuries of scorn, to the nation whose fathers crucified him 1,850 years ago, and who in all the interval, have endorsed and justified their fathers’ act. He will interfere in their behalf before they know him, and will be identified as the Crucified only after he has manifested himself as the Victorious against their foes. Who can conceive anything more superlatively interesting than such a situation—a completer retribution, a more thrilling scene of national self-humiliation, a more eagerly willing people to serve and to glorify the man of God’s right hand? All this will result from the plan by which Christ appeared and was rejected by Israel many centuries before the time appointed for the manifestation of his kingly glory in their midst. It will be a repetition, on the largest and grandest scale, of the wisdom and beauty and thrilling interest which have attached to all the arrangements in which God has had a hand in the past. They have all been characterised by perfect ripeness of result, intensity of interest, and completeness of climax.

When we consider the bearing of the interval on the Gentile world, it is not difficult to see, if not an exactly similar, at least an equally valuable preparation for what is coming. Had Christ proceeded to “reign over the Gentiles” at his first appearing, there would have been a want of that fitness of circumstances that makes things interesting. The principal part of European territory was in a state of native wildness. The Roman world was limited in extent and crude in condition, possessing a civilization that was more of the nature of barbarism. Had Christ been introduced to the world’s notice at such a time in a political capacity, he would have found the situation in every sense unprepared. He would have been as unsuited to the situation as the situation would have been without a history and without an identity in the world’s eyes, and the world would have been without a population, or an appreciation adequate to his kingly glory and power, whereas after 1,850 years of preparation, how differently the matter stands. Introduced to them as a doctrine—“preached among the Gentiles” by apostolic and many other agencies—talked of and debated about and wondered at—fought over, warred about, loved and hated, belauded and condemned,—a problem for philosophers, a theme for believers, a stumbling block for angry Jews and atheists, his name and renown have interwoven themselves with human affairs in all civilized countries. And his influence by these very means, has been made operative. His influence has altered human ways and modified human condition in many important respects. Europe of 1890 is a very different Europe from that of a.d. 34. Though the world is all dark and ungodly, there is a state of things on which the kingdom of God will more readily graft than it would have done upon the Roman society of the first century.

Above all, the world has become acquainted with his name in a way that prepares for his entrance upon universal power at his coming. Though Christ is not intelligently or savingly known in the world at large, all have heard of him, and have formed such an estimate of his greatness and worth (however distorted by superstition) that they will be predisposed to acquiesce in his authority much more readily when he comes than if they had never heard of him at all. This is the result of Christ having appeared 1,850 years ago and remaining absent for all the period since. There is a better and more developed world to inherit, and the conditions of a readier and heartier welcome existing than there would have been if the appearing of Christ as a sacrifice had happened just before his manifestation as a king.

But the principal object accomplished by having the sufferings and the glory so far apart, is doubtless that which has reference to the Lord’s own brethren. These had to be developed in certain fixed numbers for the work of governing the nations with Christ upon the earth in the day of his glory. Many had been prepared for that work in the times of the law that went before Christ—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, and all that feared YahwehÕs name, small and great—who, having pleased God by faith and obedience in their several generations, went to “rest” like Daniel, in faith of the promised Messiah, and in waiting for “the end of days” when they should rise at his coming to “stand in their lot” or inheritance. But they were not nearly sufficient in number for the great world-wide work to be done in the day of Christ. It was therefore needful to send out for “guests” to the Gentiles “by-ways and hedges,” that the number might be made up. And the interval of 1,850 years has proved a needful interval for this work. The interval is now nearly ended and the work nearly done. But not only the time has been needed; the doctrine associated with Christ’s first appearing was a necessity in the work of their development. The brethren of Gentile times were to be developed by the preaching of the Cross in its scriptural relation to the kingdom. They were to be attracted by the offer of the forgiveness of sin through faith in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus; as of a lamb without spot, who died that they might live and reign with him. Their affections were to be drawn to him as the Purifer from sin and the Saviour from death, without whom they could do nothing. They were to be prepared to take part in the song which ascribes their deliverance “to Him who washed them from their sins in his own blood.” If Christ had not “appeared at the end of the (Mosaic) world to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself,” this could not have been done. But it has been done. The preparation had been accomplished, as it could in no other way, by the occurrence of the death of Christ 1,850 years ago, and its proclamation, in all the interval, as God’s arrangement for the reconciliation of men. Many thousands, in the apostolic age and since, have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The true greatness of the triumph will not be manifest, however, till the thrilling moment arrive when a multitude that no man can number stands before the Lord Jesus in the day of his return, in the rapturous conviction declared in song, that they owe to him the acceptance they find, and the glory, honour, and immortality in which they rejoice.

From all these considerations, it becomes evident that it was not a matter of chance that Christ appeared 1,850 years ago, or that his manifestation in kingly glory has been far separated from the day of his rejection and shame. Both are matters of divine arrangement: and both are essential to the scheme of things which God has devised for the final deliverance of the earth from its woe.

CHAPTER IV.

———

Preparation.

The “fulness of time” having arrived for the appearance of Christ “to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself,” we have to note the preparatory steps taken—divine steps; for this was to be a divine work in a sense in which no other work among men had been divine. In former cases, human instruments had been used; in this case, God himself, by the Spirit, was to do the work by a man expressly provided, in whom His glory should be manifest: as the Spirit had declared by Isaiah, “The glory of Yahweh shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (Is. xl. 5) In harmony with this character of the situation, is the opening incident.

The angel Gabriel is on the scene in the 36th year of Augustus Caesar, the first imperial head of the Roman empire, and in the last year but one of Herod, his vassal, who reigned in Judæa. We will not stay to consider these men, who figured so prominently in the age that witnessed the birth of Christ. They could contribute nothing valuable to the subject. They were men of strong individuality, but not in a good sense. They were vigorous specimens of the kind of men of whom Daniel says that God sets on high “the basest of men.” They were both able men, but bad men from a divine point of view, especially Herod, whose enormities filled the minds of men with detestation, and made his death an event of public joy. Nor shall we contemplate the situation of things among the people, either Jew or Gentile, or take any cue from the laborious and cloudy literature of their day, with which it is so fashionable for “learning” to cumber the subject. They have no more to do with the nature of the events transacted than the traditions and habits of an obscure country village of our day have to do with the aims and manners of Victoria’s Court. They were but the dung beds in which the heavenly plant was planted, by divine power, and nurtured by divine energy, contributing, by divine suction, some of the elements of growth in the case, but no more determining the character of that growth than the manure determines whether the root it environs shall grow roses or Crab apples.

We look at Gabriel, who asserted a peculiar dignity and authority in his rebuke to Zacharias for doubting his word, saying: “I am Gabriel that stand in the presence ate God” (Luke i. 19). There are myriads of angels, but here is one whose words suggest a special status in the Father’s presence—a special intimacy with the Eternal Creator. There is something fitting in such an exalted representative of the Divine Majesty being employed in the initiation of the work about to be done—the laying of the foundation of God’s house of everlasting glory upon earth. It was not Gabriel’s first appearance in the mighty transaction. Between five and six hundred years earlier, he was sent to Daniel to inform him of this very matter, viz., the appearance of the sacrificial Messiah to make an end of sins, and to bring in everlasting righteousness (Dan. ix. 24). Daniel says “While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation, and informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel:‘I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplication, the commandment came forth and I am come to shew thee,” &c. (verses 21, 23). It is very interesting to think of this angelic personage coming to Daniel by divine command to enlighten him with reference to the purpose of God m Christ; and then re-appearing on the scene, after a lapse of over five centuries, to perform acts in execution of that purpose.

The acts performed were simple but essential. Two visits had to be made; two announcements delivered; and power exerted in the accomplishment of the work in hand. This double form of Gabriel’s errand arose from the double nature of the work. Not only was the long-promised Saviour to be born, but a forerunner was to be provided also, the necessity for whom may appear in the sequel. Not only was the name of the Father to be manifested in the seed of Abraham, but as became the dignity and the moral necessities of such an event, a man was to be raised up who should fitly herald such a manifestation in going “before his face and preparing his way before him.” The two phases of the work were six months apart; and as was fit, the business of the forerunner had the first attention. Gabriel went first on this business to Zacharias, the husband of Elizabeth, who was related in cousinship to the virgin, of whom it was purposed Christ should be born. It was a suitable and happy arrangement that the forerunner of Christ should be provided from a related family. When men are allied both “in the flesh and in the Lord,” the union has double power and sweetness.

Zacharias was a priest, of the course of Abijah, the eighth of the twenty-four courses into which the Aaronic families were divided by David for purposes of service by rotation (1 Chron. xxiv). His wife Elizabeth was also “of the daughters of Aaron.” We may realise in this circumstance the unity and harmony of God’s plan in working out His purpose upon earth. Aaron’s family were chosen at the beginning to act the part of God’s representatives in the midst of Israel. For many generations they had sustained this position; and now, as a new shoot in the heart of the old growth, leading to a new flowering of the divine work in the earth, a branch of that same family (just before the Aaronic priesthood is set aside) is chosen to furnish a man to go before the face of the Lord in the new manifestation, to prepare his way before him. Both Zacharias and Elizabeth “were righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” For a lifetime they had sustained this character. Both were now old, and they were childless. Elizabeth’s barrenness had been a deep disappointment to both, and had been the subject of frequent petition on the part of Zacharias (Luke 1. 13). The prayer was now to be answered, and the barrenness end in the birth of the greatest among the prophets; on which it has to be observed as a frequent—we might almost say, a constant—feature in the work of God, that He makes the accomplishment even of His declared purposes wait upon the prayers of His people; and makes use of human incompetences for the execution of His greatest works.

Moses, in Egypt, prays earnestly at the various critical points in the progress of the work of deliverance; Israel’s various leaders and judges, the same, in times of affliction; David pours out his soul constantly in the trouble that preceded his elevation to the throne; Daniel, at the end of the seventy years, makes petition for the promised return of Jehovah’s favour to Zion.

The second point (God’s use of human weakness) stands out with equal prominence. Here a barren woman is made to provide the Lord’s forerunner; and a virgin is made the mother of the Lord himself. So a barren woman (past the time of life) gave Isaac, the child of promise: a barren woman, Joseph, the chief among the sons of Jacob: a barren woman, Samuel, leader among the prophets: a barren woman, the strongest among men, Samson. Going wider, a herd youth, despised among his brothers, is chosen as the founder of YahwehÕs royal house in the earth; a runaway flockmaster is made the deliverer of Israel and mediator of the covenant of Sinai: a nation of serfs is made use of to manifest the divine power in the face of all the earth. The principle underlying this mode of procedure is defined prophetically thus: “Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit” (Zech. iv. 6); apostolically thus: “that no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. i. 29). The principle will be found to have the sanction of the highest reason. The glory of all that man is, belongs to God from whom it springs. It is unreasonable that man should glory in himself as if he had made himself. It is not only unreasonable; it is degrading. Man’s most ennobling honour is found in recognising God as the fountain of life and wisdom and power. Man can only find his chief joy in this recognition. God’s purpose is to cause the discernment of this to be universal yet; and in prosecuting the purpose, he makes use of circumstances and conditions and instruments that exclude the possibility of man having any share in the glory or credit of the transaction.

To the husband of this barren woman, Gabriel presents himself in the temple, while Zacharias is attending to his office as priest. The angel appears “at the right side of the altar of incense.” This is the divine symbol of acceptable prayer. That the angel should appear here to announce the granting of a request, is one of those inexpressibly beautiful coincidences of literal circumstance with spiritual analogy with which the Scriptures abound. The dispensational importance of the request to be granted adds to its beauty: this importance was beyond all expectation or knowledge on the part of Zacharias, who had asked a son, probably, for his personal comfort merely. Thus God, in granting our requests, may give us—“above all that we ask or think.” When Zacharias saw the angel, he was afraid. We are all naturally startled by the appearance of a person in an unexpected place. In this instance, it was the holy place, outside the veil—a place above all others on earth protected from the likelihood of intrusion. But it was not only a visitor in a very unexpected place, it was a very unexpected visitor—an angel. This would add to Zacharias’s perturbation. In most recorded cases, fear has been the effect produced by the appearance of an angel. The reason of this, probably, lies in the aspect of an angel, which was described by Manoah’s wife (to whom an angel had announced the coming birth of Samson), as “very terrible” (Jud. xiii. 6)—a description illustrated by the statement that the angel that appeared to the woman at the sepulchre of Christ, had “a countenance like lightning” (Matt. xxviii. 3). The human aspect startles a beast; it is not wonderful that the angelic aspect should startle weak mortal man. But there is no cause for fear to the righteous. Though power greater than dynamite lies latent in the graceful and brilliant form of an angel, it is under the control of perfect and beneficent intelligence. The passenger on board an Atlantic liner, who walks on deck over the engine boilers, has much more cause for fear than the God-fearing man who stands in the presence of the thunder that sleeps in angelic hands. “Fear not,” said the angel to startled Zacharias: “thy prayer is heard; thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.… Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, … to make ready a people pre-pared for the Lord.”

Zacharias, calmed and re-assured by the angel’s kindly manner, is able to let his mind dwell for a moment on what the angel has said. He realises its extraordinary import—that he, an old man, and his wife barren, and “well stricken in years,” should have the gloom of old age lightened by the birth of a son—and a son, too, who should have a mission from the Lord “to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,” for which he should be qualified by being “filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb.” It naturally seemed to him incredible. He had been praying for it for years, and yet, when his prayer is heard, he is incredulous. How natural this is. It was so in the case of those who prayed for Peter’s release: they could not believe their senses when Peter presented himself at the door (Acts xii. 5, 13–16). It is human weakness. The saints of the nineteenth century may hope to have their own joyful experience of this shortly, when after praying for a lifetime for the Lord’s coming amid increasing human frailty, and, it may be, faltering expectation, the angel of his presence will announce that the prayer is answered to the joy of thousands, who will only find suitable vent to their feelings in tears.

Zacharias, not quite realising at the moment the guarantee contained in an angel’s word, asks, “Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.” Tiffs was casting a slight on God’s messenger, and therefore on God—an excusable error, perhaps, but still an error, and in a certain relation of things, the greatest offence a man can commit against God—to doubt His word. As faith is so pleasing to God as to be “counted for righteousness?” so distrust of His pledged word, when we know He has pledged it, is the most displeasing sin against Him a man can commit. It was visited in the case of Moses (Num. xx. 12), and it was now visited in the case of Zacharias (and these things were “written for our learning”). The mode of the visitation was gentle, adroit, and effectual: “I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. And behold thou shall be dumb, and not able to speak until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believedst not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.” Thus was Zacharias rebuked and the verity of the communication authenticated in a very tangible manner, at the same time: for when the angel had withdrawn, Zacharias found himself unable to speak in a situation which made the fact very noticeable. He was “executing the priest’s office before God in the order of his course:” and it was his business (having gone into the temple “to burn incense”) to go forth now to the people who were waiting in the court outside, to pronounce the customary blessing before their dispersal. They were waiting for this: they had to wait longer than usual; for the appearance of the angel to Zacharias had detained him; and the people who knew nothing of it, “marvelled that he tarried so long.” When he went out to them, he could not speak to them, though his natural impulse in such a position would incline him to overcome any obstacle, if it were possible. “He beckoned unto them, and remained speechless.” They understood, from his gestures, that he had seen something in the temple which had deprived him of his power of utterance. The people dispersed and Zacharias retired.

This brought to a close the opening incident in the great and glorious work about to be manifested on the earth. Zacharias, having completed his period of service for the time being, “departed from Jerusalem to his own house,” in “the hill country of Judea”—probably in the neighbourhood of Hebron if not Hebron itself, which was a priestly city, assigned to the sons of Aaron, to whose family Zacharias belonged. Here, without delay, the angel’s words were fulfilled. “Elizabeth’s full time came that she should be delivered, and she brought forth a son.” It was no natural occurrence: that is, it was not the result of nature left to itself. It was a case parallel with Sarah’s “who received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised” (Heb. xi. 11). It was the incipient fulfilment of the words of God: “Behold I will send My Messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me” (Mal. iii. 1) A man who was YahwehÕs messenger was no ordinary man: and the child who was to be this man was no ordinary child. He was produced by divine interposition, and he was “filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb,” as Gabriel declared (Luke i. 15), which is the key to John’s life and characteristics—a puzzle to the natural-man thinkers and ecclesiastical traditionists of this benighted age, but “all plain” to those who have got into the groove of Bible thought instead of standing patronisingly outside, and trying to squeeze Bible things into human moulds.

John’s birth was a glad surprise to Elizabeth’s “neighbours and cousins,” who “rejoiced with her,” in the “great mercy the Lord had shewn her” in giving her a son in her old age They did not understand the event in its true character at first. They made the usual arrangements to have the child circumcised and named. They settled among themselves that the child should be called Zacharias, after his father, who had been dumb for over nine months, and whom apparently they could not, or did not, consult on the subject. When the eighth day arrived, their arrangement was upset to their own astonishment and fear. First, Elizabeth insisted that he should be called John, not Zacharias. They were surprised at this, saying, there were none of her relations called by the name of John. They made. signs to Zacharias himself, asking what the child should be called. Zacharias called for a writing table, and wrote, “His name is John.” They had not recovered from their surprise at his decision when he surprised them still more by breaking forth in a stream of speech, all the more voluble from having been so long restrained, and from being now impelled by the Holy Spirit; for “he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and blessed God” that the time had come for the fulfilment of the longstanding promise of Christ. Then apostrophising the infant, he said: “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for though shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation to his people, for the remission of their sins; through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us; to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke i. 76–79).

No wonder that those who heard these things “laid them up in their hearts,” saying, “What manner of child shall this be?” In process of time, it became manifest “what manner of child” he was. “The hand of the Lord was with him” (Luke i. 66), which explained all. He was no chance evolution of natural force. He was no phenomenal bud on the Adamic tree. He was the workmanship of God, for the specific work of heralding His son, and preparing His way. This feature is ignored in “learned” presentments of the subject, due to the learned fable that the apostolic narratives are not infallible narratives, but merely human recitals honestly written but largely marred by the presence of exaggeration and myth to which merely human miters of that age were naturally exposed. A recognition of the inspired nature of these narratives (proved in so many ways), fences off the nebulous and derogatory views of learning on this subject, and enables us to recognise in John “a man sent from God” to “bear witness of the Light” about to be manifested to Israel; and therefore not a man to be explained on any of the philosophical hypotheses with which the wise of this world delight to amuse themselves and their readers. There is still need to listen to Paul’s advice: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy or vain deceit.” Modern science is more respectable than ancient philosophy: it is more accurate in its diagnosis of the phenomena of nature. Nevertheless, it is as powerless as ancient philosophy to explain the ways of God, and as liable to obscure and pervert them by its presumptuous applications.

“The child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the desert till the day of his shewing unto Israel.” This covers the whole interval from his birth till his appearance as a preacher on the banks of the Jordan. It tells us as much as we need to know. It does not mean that he lived no part of the time in his mother’s house, but that he remained in seclusion instead of beginning at twelve years of age, like other boys, to attend the feasts at Jerusalem regularly. He was unseen and unknown outside his own domestic circle till the hour for his public work arrived. His mother lived “in the hill country,” where desert abounded, and here he would doubtless spend much of his time in the open air, indulging in contemplation and prayer, and acquiring those habits of hardihood for which he became known to the crowds who afterwards listened to his preaching. When he introduced himself to public notice at the age of 27, “he had his raiment of camel’s hair and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.” The report was raised that he was demonaically possessed. This report was partly grounded on his eccentricity of habit, for “John came neither eating nor drinking” (Matt. xi. 18); and partly on the vehement dogmatism of his preaching, which was untinged with deference to the influential classes, and fired with a directness and intensity of denunciation against wickedness, that identified him with the prophets of whom Jesus said he was the greatest. These two peculiarities probably explain the attention of which he immediately became the object. He “did no miracle” (Jno. x. 41); yet there “went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan.” Had his preaching consisted of the incoherent rhodomontade of fanaticism, ancient or modern, this attention would soon have subsided. But instead of subsiding, it went on increasing for over three years, until the leaders of the people were themselves drawn by the popular current to listen to him, and even Herod, the king of the country, felt constrained to defer to his words (Mark vi. 20). This fact is proof of a powerful attraction in the work of John. There is no difficulty in discovering the secret of this attraction, when the nature of the times is considered in connection with the nature of his teaching. The time specified in Dan. ix. for the appearance of the Messiah was about to expire; and we learn from Josephus and Tacitus that there was a general expectancy of Messiah’s advent. This would tend to fix attention on John. As a matter of fact, Luke informs us that “the people were in expectation; all men mused in their hearts of John whether he were the Christ or not” (Luke iii. 15). John also (the other John) tells us that “the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who art thou?” To whom he answered, “I am not the Christ” (Jno. i. 19, 20). This general suspense and anticipation would dispose the people to attend to a teacher so emphatic and peculiar. The nature of his teachings would rivet the attention excited by his peculiarity. He commanded them with authority to repent: to turn from their sins; and to submit to baptism at his hands for the remission of the same. With this command, he associated two solemn intimaations—first, that judgment was impending on that generation: the axe was lying at the root of the trees, and every tree failing to bring forth good fruit would be cut down and cast into the fire; and secondly, that the coming one was among them, about to make his appearance, “whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Jno. i. 26; Matt. iii. 10–12).

It is not surprising that such teaching—delivered with the fervour and fearlessness of divine authority,—should arrest attention at a time when moral earnestness had been killed by a punctilious and hypocritical ritualism; and when the public mind was in the tension of a justly-founded expectancy. His style was an acceptable contrast to the mumbling formalisms of the scribes, who, like the clergy of the present day, were mere “intoners” of word-forms in which they had no faith. It would be pleasing to the lovers of righteousness to see him turn on the Pharisees and Sadducees as he did when they at last ventured furtively to follow the crowds in their eager attendance on John’s preaching: “O generation of vipers! who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” John anticipated their claim on the score of Abrahamic descent. “Think not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham to our father’: for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” The context supplies the explanation of John’s apparent brusqueness. He said, “Bring forth fruits meet for repentance”—implying that they were not fit subjects for the remission of sins. Remission of sins is offered only to those who confess and forsake their sins. The Pharisees and Sadducees were not in the mood to do either. They were in the state afterwards described by Jesus: “outwardly righteous,” but in their hearts and lives, as God estimates them, full of iniquity. John, as a man by whom the Spirit spoke, was able to address words which, though extremely harsh, were perfectly suitable to their state. To those who came with sincere desire to know God’s will, that they might do it, he spoke in terms of instruction. “The people asked him, What shall we do then? He answereth and said unto them, he that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none: and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came also the publicans to be baptised, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence unto no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages” (Luke iii. 10, 14).

It has been a difficulty with the “learned” why John took such an extreme and authoritative attitude, and particularly why he baptised with water. Much labour and ingenuity have been expended for the purpose of showing that baptism was Orientally practised as a religious rite before the days of John, from which it is argued that John, whose fervour is attributed by this class to his emulation of the eremite asceticism of the first century, adopted it from predecessors. There is not the least room for this idea, or for any uncertainty on the point, when men accept the apostolic account (and if that is not accepted, there is no reason for attaching value to any account: for all other literature on the subject, ancient or modern, is hazy and incoherent. But most men have a curious propensity for preferring the cloudy and bewildering vaticinations of unbelieving bookworms, to the straight, clear, and authenticated record of apostolic inspiration). The apostolic account is simple and all-sufficient. John tells us that the Pharisees sent a deputation to John, enquiring, “Why baptisest thou?” (Jno. i. 24, 25)—(the very question of the modern “literati.”) John’s answer sets the question at rest for ever. The pith of it is contained in verse 33: “He (God) … sent me to baptise with water.” With what object, John? This also is settled: “After me cometh a man who was preferred before me: (for he was before me). And I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore, am I come baptising with water” (verses 30, 31.) John’s baptism was, therefore, part of the work God gave John to do. He did it because he was sent to do it, and commanded to do it. He was commanded to do it because the word of God came to him, conveying the command as distinctly and directly as that same word came to Moses and all the prophets, “not by the will of man,” as Peter informs us, but “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” The very date of the coming of this word is exactly supplied: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar … the Word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness” (Luke iii. 1). His baptism, his burning words, and commanding manner are all explained by this. He was the Lord’s messenger, specially raised up and equipped, “filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb,” and sent forth at the ripe moment, “in the spirit and power of Elias,” to do the work of “preparing the way of the Lord.”

CHAPTER V.

———

John the Baptist’s Work.

It will be useful to know a little more about the nature, need, and upshot of John the Baptist’s work before going on to Christ’s work for which it was a preparation. We may realise the need for such a preparatory work if we consider the position of Christ before that work was accomplished. Christ was in the privacy of Nazareth—unknown and without access to the public eye or ear. To have obtained this access by his own personal effort would have involved an amount and kind of labour unsuited to the part he had to perform. Israel had to be roused from a state of spiritual dormancy. The right men to be his apostles and disciples had to be collected and prepared. They were scattered here and there in the hills and valleys of Galilee—mostly unknown to one another. A public magnet had to draw them together. Christ could not have been this magnet without prolonged and laborious efforts that would have been inconsistent with the work he had to do. And, then it was not fitting that he should introduce himself. No man can effectually introduce himself. The requirements of the case, on all points, called for a forerunner.

Such a forerunner was provided in John the Baptist; and his part was effectually performed. His teaching for over three years not only predisposed the community to submit to the requirements of righteousness, but drew public attention to the fact that the Messiah was in their midst and about to be manifested. It brought all eyes to bear expectantly on the moment and mode of his manifestation. That mode was connected with John himself. He was sent to baptise in order that that manifestation might take place. The unknown One was to come to his baptism. Upon his emergence from the water, the Holy Spirit would visibly identify him. This was revealed to John and proclaimed by him beforehand (Jno. i. 33). Such an identification was not only necessary for Israel, but for John himself; for John did not know him, as he declared (Jno. i. 31).

At first sight, it seems strange that John should not know him, considering that he was his own cousin. But the surprise lessens when we remember that they were both brought up in different parts of the country—Jesus at Nazareth, John in the neighbourhood of Hebron—about 50 or 60 miles apart, John’s secluded habits “in the desert” would prevent the intercourse between them which might have led to the recognition of the true character of his illustrious cousin. That John knew Jesus personally, though not knowing him as the Messiah, is evident from the fact that when Jesus presented himself for baptism, John objected to baptise Jesus on the ground of his spotlessness of character: “I have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me?” (Matt. iii. 14). John objected to the Pharisees being baptised, because his baptism was for repentant and reforming sinners; and he now objected to baptise Jesus because his baptism was not for righteous men: which shows personal acquaintance with Jesus. John knew Jesus enough to know that he was a righteous person: but he did not know him enough to know that he was “the one standing in their midst whose shoe-latchet he was not worthy to stoop down and unloose.” Our difficulty in understanding John’s deficient knowledge of him in this latter capacity arises mainly from the completeness of our own knowledge of what came after. We are liable, unconsciously, to take all this knowledge back with us to the privacy of John’s secluded life, and to wonder at a want of apprehension which was natural to his circumstances.

It was probably a divinely-contrived thing that John should be ignorant of the Messiah-ship of Jesus. Had he known it, he would have been certain to have proclaimed his knowledge; and thus the testimony to Christ would not have rested on that wholly divine foundation that was essential. It would have appeared to rest on a human foundation. John, as a relative, might have been suspected of the partiality of kinship; and thus, confidence in the testimony to Christ would have been imperfect at the start, where it was necessary there should be no flaw. When we realise how unspeakably important it was that the claims of Jesus, as the long-promised Messiah, should not rest on either his own testimony or on that of any man, we get a glimpse of the purpose served by John’s ignorance of him. John was as helpless as any in the crowd on the subject of who and where the Expected One was. He could not point him out. He knew he was among them. This had been revealed to him by the “word of God,” which came to him “in the wilderness of Judea.” “There standeth one among you whom ye know not … and I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptising with water.” Thus the indentification of Jesus was disconnected from all human bias or human sanction. All were alike ignorant and helpless in the matter. No one could say who the Son of God was; and it was not to be left to his own testimony. It was to be the work of God alone, to point him out and proclaim him. John’s baptism supplied but the crisis and the opportunity when this could be effectually done. John was but a “voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord: make his paths straight.” John’s work brought all eyes to a focus. He told them the Holy One would come to be baptised by him, and that when he came, the Holy Spirit would openly and visibly manifest and own him, apart from which no man knew him. At last, Jesus stepped forth from the crowd: he gave himself to John’s hands as others: no one knew that this unpretending carpenter was the one they were looking for. After a word of protest from John, he is buried in the water. He rises: and, while all eyes are upon him, a shaft of light strikes from the heavens, and converges in the bodily form of a dove upon his head. A voice then plainly proclaims, in the hearing of the assembled crowd, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

And thus John’s work came to its culminating point. Its particular object was now accomplished, Jesus, by its means, was manifested to Israel under circumstances that made the introduction effectual, and free from doubt. John, who till this time had to say, “I know him not,” was able now to speak with emphasis in the opposite sense. He “bears record” that “this is the Son of God.” On a subsequent day, he specially called the notice of his (John’s) disciples to him: “This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man who is preferred before me.

He that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit” (Jno. i. 30). Again, on another day, he directs the attention of two of his disciples to him, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.” The natural effect of this was to cause these disciples to follow Christ and attach themselves to him.

Those who listened most intelligently to John would now most readily transfer their interest to Christ, to whom John’s work was but a preparatory testimony. Many did not, but remained with John by preference. Others failing to find anything interesting in Christ, first doubted, and then denied him, notwithstanding their previous interest in John’s work. Jesus afterwards reminded them of this, and of John’s testimony to him: He said “He (John) was a burning and a shining light, and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.… Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness to the truth. But I receive not testimony from man” (that is, the testimony to Christ’s Messiahship did not rest on human authority, not even on John’s, as we have seen, but on God’s own declaration). “I have greater testimony than that of John’s: The Father himself which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me,”—both in the announcement on the banks of the Jordan, and by the works which the Father enabled him to perform, of which he said, “The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.”

John recognised that his work was done when Christ went forth as a miracle-working preacher of the kingdom of God, followed by thousands. But this was not quite obvious to all who had been attracted by John’s preaching. Some of them inquiringly mentioned the subject of Christ’s increasing popularity, as if to suggest that it was inconsistent with John’s own position. Such would be of the class that were inclined in the first instance to regard John as the Christ. They said to John, “Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold the same baptizeth, and all men come to Him.” John met the insinuation by reminding them that he had already told them that he (John) was not the Christ. “Ye yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but I am sent before him” (Jno. iii. 28). Then referring to Christ under the figure of a bridegroom, he added “The friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.“ And from that time, John did decrease. He continued for a little while to teach the people righteousness, and the people gloried in his fearless word; but the very influence of his preaching was at last the cause of its suppression. The rebukes of unrighteousness which he administered to the people, extended to the king on his throne when opportunity served. He condemned the action of Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, in taking Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. Herod, who exercised irresponsible power, could not endure this criticism at the hands of one whose words were so powerful with the people. He had him apprehended and put in prison. Herodias tried hard to get Herod to order his execution, but Herod could not be persuaded. He “feared John, knowing that he was a just man and a holy” (Mar. vi. 20): and he appears to have found pleasure in interviewing his prisoner occasionally, as Festus did Paul; and in listening to his counsels (ib.) It would have been better for John had Herodias had her way at the start: for he would then have been spared a lingering imprisonment which was very trying to him. It was probably needful for himself that he should have this trial. He had been honoured as no man had been honoured before him, in being the herald of the Son of God. For a considerable time, he had been a power with the whole Jewish nation, and a centre of righteous and purifying influence which even the rulers could not resist. His whole work had been gloriously crowned by the actual manifestation of the Messiah at his hands. And it was now probably needful for himself that he should have a taste of that affliction which prepares all the Sons of God for the due appreciation of the goodness in store for them. And so, he was “put in prison,” for doing his duty.

How long he languished here cannot be determined with certainity—probably about a year. But it was long enough to exercise him very painfully. He “heard in prison the works of Christ,” but apparently these works were not of the class he had expected. It is possible and probable that John the Baptist shared the expectation common to the disciples, that “the kingdom of God should immediately appear” (Luke xix. II). He might suppose that the Messiah would proceed to his kingly work as soon as he was manifested in the world. If so, knowing that the Messiah had in very deed been manifested, he would anticipate his early assumption of royal power, and his deposition of Herod, and his liberation of John himself from the durance vile in which he was languishing. Instead of that, he only heard of his going about preaching and healing the sick, and of his avoiding the people when “they wanted to take him by force and make him a king” (Jno. vi. 15). It was a great trial to John’s faith in the position in which he was placed. It appears to have caused him a degree of faltering. He called two of his disciples, to whom he would have access by Herod’s goodwill, and sent them to Christ with this inquiry: “Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?”

The putting of such a question by John has been a great difficulty with many. They think it inconsistent with the knowledge that John had of the true character of Christ. There does not seem any real ground for this thought, when all the facts are held in view. John was an erring mortal man, and liable to be troubled by what he did not understand. The situation was such as had become unintelligible from his point of view; and it was therefore in the highest degree natural that he should seek to re-assure himself concerning Christ by direct enquiry.

John’s messengers came to Jesus and went straight to the subject of their errand: “John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?” (Luke vii. 20). Jesus might have met the inquiry with a categorical answer. He might have said: “I am he; no one comes after me.” But his answer was more effective than that. John’s messengers standing by, “in the same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues and evil spirits, and unto many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus answering, said unto them. Go your way and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached” (Luke vii. 21, 22). There was an argument of irresistible power in these words. It was the argument reflected in the admission of Nicodemus: “No man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him” (Jno. 3:2). It was the argument of Christ’s own statement to the Jews afterwards: “The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me” (Jno. v. 37).

Jesus sent to John a supplementary comment which was also very telling: “And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended (or stumbled) in me:” This was suggesting that though the appearance of things might present a cause of stumbling, true discernment would see through the appearances, or at all events hold on by the element of solid fact in the case. This element consisted of the works Jesus was able to perform, in addition to the Father’s own proclamation of him on the banks of the Jordan. No unfavourable appearance could dispose of these facts, and wise men would hold on by the facts. The unfavourable appearance was due only to the incorrect ideas of the disciples with regard to the order of his work. If those impressions had not existed, if the disciples had recognised the teaching of the prophets that Christ had first to be a teacher, and then a sacrificial sufferer, and then an absent priest in the Father’s presence, during the period of the Father’s “hiding of his face from the house of Jacob,” they would have felt no difficulty at seeing Jesus, after his baptism, take only the position of a quiet teacher, going about doing good, and avoiding all political aims and connections. But they lacked full knowledge, and were liable to be distressed and stumbled, till the Spirit comforted them with a full understanding of the things that belonged to Christ. If they had not held on to the indisputable facts of the case, the comfort of the Spirit would have come too late. They would have been among those Jews who “went back and walked no more with him.” But they could not shut their eyes to plain light, though they did not understand all. They saw the works and believed, as Jesus commanded, though not able to comprehend the programme. They endorsed Peter’s attitude when asked by Jesus if they also would go away: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” Thus it must be, and often is with ourselves, although in a different situation. We do not understand all; but we earnestly see much that cannot be doubted, and therefore we hold on to the main conclusion, enduring the unfavourable appearances there may be, in the confidence that full knowledge would dissipate all difficulties, and always remembering the words which, if applicable to John the Baptist, are specially applicable to us: “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended (or stumbled) in me.”

When John’s messengers had gone away, Jesus turned his discourse upon John in speaking to the people. It was a topic sure to find a ready ear, considering their relation to the matter. The whole population had been drawn to the preaching of John, the cessation of which by John’s imprisonment was a comparatively recent event. The people who listened to Christ would therefore be deeply interested when “He began to speak to them concerning John,” as we are told (Luke vii. 24). The question of what he was and who he was had been a matter of public speculation for a long time. Christ’s remarks would therefore touch a chord of interest: ”What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with the wind?”—that is, an objectless movement: a something arresting attention and exciting curiosity but having no meaning? An emphatic negative is the implied answer: John was no mere strange phenomenon, but an earnest and essential part of the work of God among men. “But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?”—a show? An effeminate dandy?—a gaudy personal exhibition such as children would run after? No: men of that stamp are not to be found in the desert where John did his work. “They that are gorgeously apparelled and live delicately are in king’s courts. But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face who shall prepare try way before thee. For I say unto you, among those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.”

Here we have the position of John the Baptist settled beyond dispute or doubt. We may dismiss the speculations of the learned of this world on the subject. Christ settles it for us. John was “much more than a prophet”—even the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. This was a high rank for a young man whose career was over before he was 32. Christ went further and identified him with Elijah, the promise of whom bulks more largely in the Jewish eye than even the promise of the Messiah. “If ye will receive it,” said Christ, “this is Elias, which was for to come” (Matt. 11:14). Jesus did not mean by this that John the Baptist was a substitute for the real Elijah, and that the real Elijah would consequently not come. He fenced off this interpretation by saying, “Elias truly shall first come and restore all things” (Matt. xvii. II). He meant to say that the promise of Elijah had received an incipient fulfilment in John, which appears a perfectly natural intimation in view of what Gabriel said to his father, Zacharias, at the announcement of his birth: “He (John) shall go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias” (Luke i. 17). Elias was the promised forerunner of the Messiah when he should appear to Israel in power; and here was one to act the Elias part at his coming in weakness to suffer. It was appropriate; it was beautiful. It gave John the highest position it was possible to assign him in the estimation of a Jewish congregation. It was Christ’s decisive contribution to a controversy that had engaged the minds of many since John “came into the wilderness of Judea, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” It closed the question for all who were divinely enlightened enough to see Christ in his true authority; and there has not arisen a necessity for reopening it since. John the Baptist remains for them the specially-provided and specially-qualified messenger of the Lord of Hosts, of an origin and a character that had nothing in common with the eremises and ascetics of the first century. He stands apart from human fanatics of every sort, in being the official and effectual herald of the Son of God, sent before, not only to proclaim his approach, but to cut a path for his progress in the moral wilderness that prevailed in all the land.

From a certain point of view, it is saddening to think of such a man in the hands of such creatures as Herod and his paramour; and sadder to think that his life should be sacrificed to the feminine malice created by John’s upright attitude as a teacher of righteousness. But the sadness is only for a moment. It is the lot of divine things and divine men to be under the heel of wickedness in the day of sin’s ascendancy. We can comfort ourselves with the thought that they do not come Under the heel by chance, or before the appointed time. It is part of the process by which they are prepared for, and ultimately introduced to “an eternal weight of glory.” And there is the further consolation that to the victims of the oppression, the triumph of the enemy is “but for a moment.” Death is the best thing that can happen to them. Their trials and distresses are annihilated at a stroke: and in a moment, they are face to face with the glory for which their distresses prepare them, for the simple reason that in death there is no knowledge of time, and therefore no conscious interval to the resurrection.

This reflection enables us to contemplate John’s end with composure. It came quickly and without warning, which was a kindness to him. It was the result of a court whim, connected with the cause of John’s imprisonment. Herod had convened the magnates of his realm to celebrate his birthday. In the midst of the festivities (approaching probably the character of carousals), there was a terpischorean performance that pleased Herod well—so well, that he declared to the fair young dancer he would give her anything she asked. The damsel was daughter to the woman whom John said Herod ought not to have for a wife. She did not know what use to make of the splendid opportunity suddenly placed before her. In her pleasing embarrassment she appealed to her mother privately. That woman saw and seized the opportunity of venting her spleen. She had often tried in vain to induce Herod to put John out of the way: now she had him. She told her daughter to ask for John’s head. The daughter, returning to the wine-heated company, preferred her request. Herod was momentarily stunned. Even in his revels he retained that respect for John that led him to fear him and listen to him with pleasure. He would have refused, but that he had pledged his word in the presence of his courtiers. There was no escape, according to the code of honour recognised by them. With deep reluctance, he gave the order which despatched an executioner to John’s cell. The executioner would probably share his master’s regret, but had no choice. He would announce to John the King’s order. In the weariness of his imprisonment, the announcement would probably not be unwelcome to him. He surrendered himself to God and the executioner’s hand, and knew nothing of the ghastly presentation presently made to the damsel in Herod’s brilliant banqueting hall, of a bleeding head in a silver charger.

John’s disciples, hearing of the tragic occurrence, came, and were allowed to remove John’s headless body, which they interred in a grave now unknown. They took word to Christ of what had happened. Christ appears to have been painfully moved by the occurrence. “When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart” (Matt. xiv. 13) He would naturally seek for solitude on hearing of an event which was not only calculated to distress him on every natural ground, but which would afflict him by bringing vividly before him his own approaching end. “They have done unto him,” he said, “whatsoever they listed. Likewise also shall the Son of Man suffer of them.”

Zacharias and Elizabeth, being “old and well stricken in years” at John’s birth, had probably gone to rest some years previously to his death. They would be spared this “piercing sword” in their soul, which Mary the mother of Jesus, did not escape, either as regards John or Jesus. They rejoiced at his birth, and probably did not live to sorrow at his death. Whether or not, the whole noble company of them will be embraced together in the same glorious healing that will shortly abolish every curse, and wipe tears from every godly eye.

CHAPTER VI.

———

Mary at Nazareth.

We return to Gabriel. After his visit to Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, in the temple of Jerusalem, he appears in a private house at Nazareth, about eighty miles to the north of the city.—The visit to Nazareth was not immediately after the visit to Jerusalem. There was an interval of six months. Why should there have been such an interval? Why did not Gabriel go to Nazareth immediately after he had been to the temple? We are not told; but it was obviously appropriate there should be an interval. John was to “go before” Jesus. It was fitting, therefore, that John should be born before Jesus, rather than after him, or at the same time. The interval of six months allowed of this; and farther, it illustrated the deliberativeness that characterises all divine ways.

As to where Gabriel was, between the time he showed himself in the temple “at the right side of the altar of incense,” to the time he entered the humble home at Nazareth where Mary dwelt, it is of no moment for us to speculate. He was probably in the neighbourhood of the land of Israel, watching, with a calm angel’s interest, the various complicated and busy movements of human life at a time when the cup of Israel’s sins was slowly filling to the brim. But whether or no, it concerns us not.

What does concern us much, is his appearance at Nazareth. He went there on business affecting us in a way by no means manifest at that time. It was a very small event to have such a mighty significance as it proved to have. It was but a visit and a message to a fair and godly damsel; fair we may assume her to have been by all the laws of human probability: youth, leisure, culture, and godliness are almost a guarantee of comeliness in the gentle sex. Godly, she self-evidently was, from her rejoinders to the angel and her communications to her cousin immediately after; while we could conceive of none but a godly virgin being visi#ed of God to be the mother of the Promised Deliverer. But we will not think of her as Roman Catholicism has stereotyped her. Mary has been metamorphosed by tradition into a goddess, with whose figure, sculpture and paintings have made the benighted populations of Europe as familiar as with those of Venus and Apollo. It requires not to be said that there is no more reality about the Madonna of ecclesiastical art than about the mythical gods of Greek polytheism. The portraits of Mary are as unhistorical as those of Christ. They are the gloomy fancies begotten of the doleful theology of the cloister. When we see Christ and Mary (as we shall, at the resurrection, if we are honoured with an accepted place there), we shall behold personages of a very different type from the insipid lugubrious presentments of the brush and chisel, at the hands of men who only knew the ignoble religion of the priests. It will be an endless marvel to Mary that she had been idolised for ages in such a caricature of her own clear and fervent intelligence. The “piety” of Romish superstition is a very different thing from the godliness of an ardent Israelite—man or woman. Heavy and gloomy and mawkish is the one: bright and joyful and noble is the other.

Why this visit to Mary? What she said immediately afterwards, and what Zacharias said three months afterwards, inform us. Mary said it was “in remembrance of His mercy, as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever” (Luke i. 55); Zacharias, that the Lord God of Israel might do “as he spake by lite mouth of His holy prophets who have been since the world began” (Luke i. 70). This throws us back upon “the promises made unto our fathers.” What those were, as bearing upon this matter, we have seen in a former chapter. They condense into the single sentence of Zacharias, that God would “raise up an horn of salvation in the house of His servant David.” This promise pre-supposes the need for it, which we discover in the Bible history of man. Sin separated man from God at the beginning. Sin brought Israel into evil in all their generations. God’s purpose was to effect reconciliation redemption, and deliverance on a plan that required that the deliverer be a Son of David, a Son of Abraham, a Son of Adam—as well as the Son of God. The moment had arrived to bring this deliverer on the scene. The angel Gabriel arrived with that moment to announce the event, in the right quarter—not in China—not to a Scythian or Roman woman, but in the Land of Israel to a virgin of “the house of David.”

The proof that Mary was of the house of David need not trouble us long. The promise requires it, for if Mary were not a descendant of David, then was Jesus not “of the seed of David according to the flesh,” for He had no actual human father. Then the co-existence in the apostolic narrative of the two lines of descent from David involves the certainty that one of them (Luke’s) was Mary’s; for it is not conceivable that two mutually incompatible genealogies could have found currency among believers in the first century with apostolic sanction, as these two accounts undoubtedly did. They are mutually incompatible if they are both Joseph’s: but they are not so if one of them is Mary’s: they are in that case two co-ordinate pedigrees—both correct, and both germane to the case. That Mary does not appear by name in either of them is not a difficulty when we remember that it had ceased to be a custom at the time these genealogies were drawn from the public registers, to recognise the female element in the genealogy. If the woman were an important link, she appeared either by her husband or other male relation. In this case, she appears by her father.

Heli was Mary’s father, and Heli is the first link in the chain of descent given by Luke. This is somewhat obscured by the ambiguous parenthesis with which the chain starts. The parenthesis relates to the popular impression that Joseph was the father of Jesus; but in the common version, the parenthesis is made smaller than it really is. It consists of the words, “being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph.” The common version limits the parenthesis to the words, ”as was supposed,“ and creates the obscurity. The obscurity is at an end if we read Luke as having said, “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed the son of Joseph, but in reality) of Heli, who was of Matthat, &c.” There would remain then but the simple question why Joseph’s genealogy should be given since Joseph was not the father of Jesus. This seems sufficiently answered by the reflection that there would have been legal confusion in Christ’s relation to David, if Joseph, the husband of his mother, had not also been of Davidic extraction. In the eye of the law, husband and wife are one, and if Joseph had not been of David, he would have eclipsed and marred the Davidic relation of Mary. Joseph, in his own right, as a descendant of Solomon, could have imparted “a title clear” to David’s throne: but Joseph was not to be the father of Jesus, though he was to be the husband of his mother, and the legal father only of her son. The case was totally exceptional and peculiar in all its bearings; and the difficulties and necessities of it were beautifully harmonised in Joseph and Mary being independently related to David through separate lines of descent—one (Joseph) through Solomon, and the other (Mary) through Nathan, thus uniting in themselves the royal rights of David’s house, which passed by law and blood to their wonderful Son.

The angel entered the house where Mary was. It is highly improbable that the site of this house is now known to anyone upon the earth. That it was in Nazareth we know; that the priests point out the very spot to interested visitors is no proof that it was there, for among the many distressing things in the present state of the Holy Land, there is none more marked than the prevalence of baseless legends, with regard to the localities of scriptural events. It is something to be sure about Nazareth; and quite enough for purposes of historical association. The position of the place is remarkable, whether we consider its topography or the estimate in which it was regarded. the latter point is sufficiently illustrated in Nathaniel’s question on hearing that the Messiah had been found in one belonging to Nazareth. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John i. 46). It is evident from this that it was a place of no repute—we might almost say a place of bad repute—a place at all events that could lend no human lustre to Christ. Why should such a place be chosen? Why not Jerusalem, Hebron, or Cæsarea? The answer is doubtless to be found in the principle defined by Paul, that receives such frequent illustration throughout the course of Scripture: “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty … that no flesh should glory in his presence” (I Cor. i. 27, 29). Nazareth was among the “weak things” of the age. It could give no prestige to the work that God was about to do. Therefore that work would come before men without human claims or recommendations. The glory of God alone would be seen. It pleases Him that this should be so. It is reasonable that it should be so. But whatever we may think on this head, it is worth noting how completely such a line of action proves that God is in it, for when and where do men ever act on this principle? It is in the universal disposition of men to lean towards influence and respectability in their enterprises, and to avoid everything of a damaging or even questionable association. The very word Nazareth thus becomes a symbol of the divine nature and origin of the work of Christ; and of the principle upon which divine ends are achieved. Wherein God may have a work on earth at this time, it will be found that the same principle has been adopted. America has given us the gospel which venerable and learned England was alone supposed to be possessed of learning enough to discover. And it is in the hands of the poor and the unlearned that its work is being done.

Nazareth was off the highway of human traffic. It stands in a secluded part of the Holy Land in its northern section. The seclusion is obtained by the formation of a circle of hills in the heart of the mountain range that bounds the plain of Esdraelon on its northern side. Access to this circle of hills (forming a natural amphitheatre) is obtained from the plain by a narrow pathway, which strikes through a cleft in the side of the mountain. The pathway gradually opens out into a valley, which increases in width as the traveller advances, until at last it opens out into an amphitheatre of hills, on the northern side of which lies Nazareth, well to the top of one of the hills—a straggling village now—probably greatly reduced from what it was in the days of Christ, having shared in the shrinkage that has befallen everything in the Lord’s land in this the day of its desolation. In this secluded nook there was greater quiet and simplicity of life than in the busier centres and channels of human activity, in more southerly parts of the land. It was fitting that such a quiet place should be chosen as the sphere of the Lord’s human life in probation. It was more adapted to the culture of a divine state of mind than the activity of a great city. It is one of the many defects of present civilisation that men are too much crowded together, too much occupied, too hurried in their occupation. They are blighted by their mode of life in their very attempt to live. Their minds are enfevered and distorted in the conditions which their struggle for existence imposes upon them. They cannot have that calm and deliberation which are essential to well-balanced development of the powers of body and mind. The result is seen in an endless variety of mental deformity. God will yet remedy these evils. He makes a beginning in Christ; and Christ begins in quiet Nazareth.

Gabriel, stepping into the house in this quiet village where Mary was, salutes her in a form of words that surprises and perplexes her: “Hail, highly favoured. The Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” Women are accustomed to complimentary salutations. Whether it was as much so in the first century as now may be doubted, though, as human nature is the same, it is probable that the deference shown to the gentle sex in those days would be different only in form and not in sentiment. But there was something in this salutation that made Mary feel it was no ordinary salutation. The impressive appearance of Gabriel, and the grave and loving ardour of his manner, would impress her with this feeling. She is “troubled at his saying.” While she is wondering, Gabriel tells her she is to be the mother of a son, whom she is to call Jesus. “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of David for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Mary is a sensible, self-composed Israelitish damsel. Though full of faith and the love of God, she does not swoon and go into hysterics. She does not pose or ejaculate in the tragic styles of modern effeminacy. She asks the angel how such a thing is possible with an unmarried woman. The angel’s answer is a consummate blending of literal accuracy with faultless delicacy: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: and therefore that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

The Holy Spirit—the Power of the Highest—when we have grasped the significance of these phrases, the angel’s words tell us all we need to know of the origin and nature of Jesus, the Son of God. In the scientific sense, they cannot be grasped, except in the sense of noting them as expressing what is scientifically “unknowable”—for this also has come to be a term of the modern system of correct knowledge. The higher types of intellect perceive that there is at the root of all physical phenomena, a power or energy that is unknowable as to its nature, mode of subsistence, origin, or source of initiative. They know that there is a power unknowable—an apparent contradiction in terms, yet a mathematically demonstrable proposition. Sufficient that we know the Spirit of God as this unknowable power—a power pervading the universe, in which all things subsist, and by which all things have been made; and that this Spirit is a unity with the Father in heaven whose wisdom imparts to it that differentiating organising power manifest in the diversities and marvels of heaven and earth. The fact of such a power we can know, for we see it in its effects. Its essence and mode of operation are inscrutable, but this is no bar to our recognition of its existence and work. This “power of the Highest” “overshadowing” Mary, fertilised the human ovum, and started the process of generation which gave to Israel that marvel of human history—the man Christ Jesus—the Son of Mary, the Son of God.

The theology of Rome has attached the name “the Son of God” to the invisible power that gave inception to the babe of Bethlehem. The Son of God became incarnate, according to this theology. The angel’s words affix the description, the Son of God, to the “holy thing,” “born” of Mary. The holy thing born of Mary was a babe of flesh and blood, generated from Mary’s blood during the ordinary gestatory period of nine months. It was this babe that was declared by the angel’s words to be the Son of God. This was in harmony with the whole operation. The invisible power at work was “the Holy Spirit,”—the “Power of the Highest”—the result was, the Son of God. This is what the angel said, and it is an intelligible declaration, and it must have been made to be intelligible. The idea of a pre-existing Son, incarnate or embodied in a flesh Son of Mary, has been erroneously deduced from certain enigmatical sayings of Christ, which may come under consideration in the course of future chapters—sayings that truly affirm a pre-existing divinity, but that do not stultify the angel’s words on the subject. The pre-existing divinity that became incorporate in the man Christ Jesus, was the divinity visible in the angel’s words—the divinity of the Holy Spirit, which is one with the Father, and made the Son one with the Father also, as His manifestation, and the reflex of His mind.

The process of which Mary became the subject, in accordance with the angel’s words, accomplished this splendid result; that, while on the mother’s side it gave Israel a Saviour, who was a brother in nature (sharing the same weaknesses and susceptibilities, and inheriting equally with them the woe-stricken results of Adam’s transgression; in whom, therefore, death could be destroyed in a resurrectionally-accepted sacrifice, and so open a way for our return to God through him), on the Father’s side, it gave them a man in whom God’s name was incorporate—a head and captain of divine wisdom and character—“the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of His person.” This completeness of qualification would have been unattainable in a mere son of Mary’s husband. It required both the elements exhibited in the angel’s words. The recognition of both explains all that came after. The neglect of either works confusion.

It is not probable that Mary understood anything of this at the time. She appears at various stages of the matter as “pondering these things” (Luke ii. 19) in the sense, apparently, of ineffectually trying to make them out. It was characteristic of all the early incidents of the wonderful work that “these things understood not His disciples at the first” (Jno. xii. 16). It was natural it should be so: for how could unilluminated fisherman enter into the depths and mysteries of the nature and work of Christ in which at first they took but a superficial part? That they are exhibited in a state of non-understanding in the early stage is one of many proofs of the artless truthfulness of the narrative. When Jesus was glorified and the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles to equip and comfort and enlighten them in the things of Christ, then they understood and wrote of these things, whereby we also may come to understanding.

The angel finished his communication to Mary by apprising her of the condition of her aged and barren cousin Elizabeth, afterwards mother of John the Baptist, adding, “With God nothing shall be impossible.” Mary, full of faith, had nothing but words of thankful compliance. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy word,” upon which Gabriel departed. Then here is a touch of nature: “Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste” to the city where Elizabeth lived. What woman does not feel that that is just what she would have done under similar circumstances? What livelier theme of interest among them at any time than that of motherhood, and how much deeper would this interest be between two enlightened women of Israel who had just been recipients of information connected with the realization of the hope of the promise that God made unto the fathers from the beginning? The Spirit of God was on them both: both were embraced in the brooding power that was about to manifest the glory of God in Israel. No wonder then that on Mary’s arrival at the house, and eager salutation of her kinswoman, Elizabeth by the Spirit should respond with elated voice: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe lept in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed (a hint at her husband’s dumbness inflicted for unbelief) for there shall be a performance of those things that were told her from the Lord” (Luke i. 42–45). Mary’s rejoinder is beautiful: “My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” Such a mode of communication between the two women has seemed unnatural to some; it can only seem so to such as leave out of sight the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the deep and holy excitement peculiar to the incidents that brought about their meeting. With these in view, their utterances not only seem unartificial, but inevitable and most fitting. If people under alcoholic stimulus can speak with a stateliness and an emphasis unusual with them, how much more must the presence of the Holy Spirit impart a glow and elevation of mind that can only find fit expression in the measured and holy cadences of inspiration? We are too liable to judge by the heavinesses of mortal mentality. We are liable to forget that the present position of man (cut off from intercourse and connection with God because of sin) is an abnormal position, and can afford a very insufficient conception of the mental state and personal bearing that would come with the abiding presence of the Spirit and the fulness of God’s blessing.

It is worthy of note how remarkably the foreshadowing of Mary has been fulfilled with regard to the estimate in which she should be held in succeeding generations. It is true it has been Mariolatry; still, there is the fact, that ever since the events of the first century, Mary has been recognised and blessed by the civilised millions of the earth, as a favoured woman in having been the mother of the Lord Jesus. Doubtless, her words relate more particularly to the blessedness that will attach to her in the age to come when the gathered generations of the righteous will call her blessed. Yet, here is a preliminary fulfilment of them in all generations since her day having united to recognise her privilege. Nothing was less likely as a matter of human probability at the time she uttered the words than that a private damsel of the common people, living in an obscure mountain village of Galilee, should become famous throughout the civilised world. The fact that she has become so, though in a corrupt and superstitious way, must be regarded as a proof of the spirit of prophecy—one, and not the least, of the many evidences there are that God was in the whole situation to which she stood related.

CHAPTER VII.

———

Bethlehem.

Mary remained with Elizabeth for three months. It was natural she should stay with her a considerable time. The occasion was not one of ordinary visitation. Mary and Elizabeth were relatives; but it was not the interest or the claims of relationship that brought them together as we have seen. They had been apprised of the stirring and stupendous fact that the hour had arrived for the incipient commencement of that manifestation of the glory of God to Israel, and the whole earth, which had been for so long a time the expectation of the nation; and that they two were to be used in the work. It was this that brought Mary “in haste” from Nazareth to the hill country in the neighbourhood of Hebron; and it was this that led her to stay a much longer time than ordinary circumstances would have suggested. It would naturally be the theme of much interested communication between the two; and as they busily plied the needle together in the preparations inseparable from the prospect before them, the time would go swiftly by.

At the end of the three months, John was born. Mary left her cousin just before or after that event. It is more probable she would stay to see it over than come away just before. At all events, close upon the time, she returned to Nazareth, to prepare for her own coming experience. The narrative of events relating to Mary and Jesus from this time onwards to the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan, is very meagre. There is no cause for much regret about this. The facts important to be known (those glanced at in the previous chapter) are clearly and amply set forth. The domestic incidents coming after would be interesting; but they are by no means essential, and perhaps might even hinder the right apprehension of the divine aim and intent in the work of Christ of which the early domestic phase was but the necessary preparation. We know enough, however, to sufficiently complete the picture. The materials jointly furnished by Matthew and Luke enable us to fill in with tolerable fulness the gap that would otherwise exist between Mary’s return to Nazareth and John’s advent on the banks of the Jordan. Their narratives are usually imagined to be discrepant. They seem so to unfriendly readers, and perhaps to some that are not unfriendly. But they are not really discrepant. They are at the most but variant. They exhibit different aspects of the same matter. While coinciding in the main points, they supply incidents omitted by each other, and thus appear to tell a different story, while they are but telling different parts of the same story. Those different parts admit of each other. They appear to exclude each other only on one point, viz.: as to where Joseph and Mary went with the new-born Messiah after their visit with him to Jerusalem to perform the circumcision—whether to Egypt or to Nazareth. But this also will be found capable of such a suggested adjustment as to admit of the implicit reception of both accounts without any alteration. The joint narrative shows the following sequence of events.

Mary, though unmarried, was under espousal to Joseph, her future husband. We are not informed whether she had made him acquainted with the angel’s communication to her on the subject of the coming birth of the Messiah. It is possible that maidenly modesty imposed on her an entire reserve with reference to the subject. If this were not so—if she frankly explained to him what had taken place, then Joseph did not and could not believe her, but attributed her condition to the only cause he could recognise. It was the occasion of extreme embarrassment and dismay to both Joseph and Mary. Joseph was “a just man;” he could not pass over the serious breach of behaviour that had evidently occurred. At the same time, his love inspired pity. If he must part with his intended wife, he would do it “privily.” He was “not willing to make her a public example” (Matt. i. 19). Her whole previous character would prompt him to spare her as much as possible. “While he thought on these things,” and while probably both he and Mary were deeply suffering from the peculiar situation, they were relieved of their distress in the only way possible in the circumstances. “The angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” This intimation would not only end a painful dilemma: it would serve also to strengthen the foundation upon which the knowledge of the divine sonship of Jesus rested: for now, not only Mary, but Joseph also, was made aware of the fact on the testimony of God, and no room was left for human tradition, or for a merely humanly-acquired conviction on a subject so all-important. Joseph thus enlightened and delivered from what must have been an almost killing embarrassment, “did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son.”

How long they kept loving company thus at Nazareth, is not exactly apparent. It would be several months. What is specially interesting is this, that whereas it was written in the prophets, that Christ would “come out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was” (Jno. vii. 42; Micah v. 2), here was a position of affairs that seemed to make it certain that Jesus would be born at Nazareth, and would thus be lacking the initial proof of the Messiahship. It would have been difficult at the moment to suggest how this was to be prevented. The Providence of God was at hand to prevent the threatened miscarriage. A decree was promulgated from Rome, ordering the enrolment of the population of the empire with a view to taxation. This decree took every Jew for the time being to his ancestral home. “All went to be enrolled, every one into his own city.” It thus took Joseph to Bethlehem, where lay the hereditary family connection with the soil, and where therefore, his enrolment would have to be effected. It took Mary there also, which is one of the proofs of Mary’s Davidic extraction: for had she been of another house than the house of David, there would have been no need for her to go to Bethlehem, “the city of David;” and had it been unnecessary for her to attend for the purposes of the enrolment, it is inconceivable that Joseph would have subjected her to the fatigues of Syrian travel at almost the last stage of pregnancy. He would have gone alone, leaving Mary in the quietude and repose of Nazareth, exerting himself for an expeditious accomplishment of the enrolment business at Bethlehem, and a quick return to Nazareth. But he took her “to be taxed (enrolled) with” him in “the city of David which is called Bethlehem” (Luke ii. 4, 5). He took her because it was necessary for her to go, for she also was of the house and lineage of David; and thus compliance with a legal necessity of human origin for her presence at Bethlehem at that particular time, was the providential means of bringing about conformity with that higher necessity, that the Son of God and son of David should be born at Bethlehem.

It is worth while pausing to consider this peculiar combination of circumstances. Manifestly, it was a triumph of divine supervision that secured, by the operation of natural circumstances, the presence of Mary at Bethlehem at just the short particular period during which Christ should be born in the city of David, his human ancestor. But it might seem to a certain view of the case as if it would have been a more complete and natural realisation of the divine purpose on this point if Mary had been a resident of Bethlehem, instead of a visitor; and under no need to be regulated so as to secure the right birthplace for her son. It might plausibly be argued that such an arrangement would also have been much more likely to secure attention afterwards for Jesus, at the hands of the nation, than one that threw a veil over his Bethlehem parentage, associating him with Nazareth, and thus preventing the easy recognition of the fulfilment in him of the prophecy that Christ should be born at Bethlehem. No doubt the residence of Mary in Bethlehem would have been effectual on these two points: but then, other points would have been interfered with. In our last chapter, we were able to recognise the need for Jesus being insulated from all human prestige—Jewish or Gentile. He was to be rejected of the nation: and his work was to stand upon a divine basis purely—which two things necessitated his association with an obscure Galilean village, of which no one had a good opinion. In view of this, we can see why Jesus should not be known in his lifetime in connection with the royal city. At the same time, it was a prophetic necessity he should be born there. It is here where the providential circumstance we have looked at, appears in its true character of consummate wisdom. By a public incident, which had no apparent connection with the purpose of God, the mother of Jesus was brought to Bethlehem at the right moment for the birth of Jesus, without ceasing her connection with that other city, which had been chosen as the sphere of the Lord’s mortal life till thirty years of age.

When Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, “there was no room for them in the inn.” We need not stay to dilate on the difference between a modern “Inn,” and the institution at Bethlehem designated by that name in the English version. The difference would be great in mechanical particulars; but nothing turns on that as regards the significance of the narrative. Suffice it that the inn patronised by Joseph and Mary Would be a place of public accommodation like the modern caravanserai of the east, in which the housing and providing of asses, horses and camels, is quite as prominent a feature as the lodging of travellers—a place, therefore, in which there would be very little of the comforts to which the travelling public of the nineteenth century are accustomed. But even such comforts as it had, were not accessible to Joseph and Mary. The place was full. Many people had arrived for the purposes of the enrolment from various parts of the country before Joseph and Mary, and all the places were taken: “there was no room for them in the inn.” There does not appear to have been room anywhere else. Bethlehem was “their own city.” Presumably, they might have friends and acquaintances in the place. If they had, they did not use their hospitality. Probably, the private houses would be full as well as the “inn;” and Joseph found himself very nearly in the position of the “way-faring man” from that very place about 1,400 years before, who arriving on his travels late at Gibeah of Benjamin, not far from Bethlehem, “sat him down in a street of the city: for there was no man that took him into his house to lodge,” though there was both straw and provender for the asses, and bread and wine for himself, and his wife, and man-servant who were with him. Joseph had probably straw and provender for the asses: bread and wine for his little company: but “there was no room for them in the inn.” What was to be done? They had to accept the best accommodation they could get under the circumstances. There was an unoccupied corner in the yard or enclosure where the camels and asses were stalled for the night. It was usual for this corner to have a horse or camel in it: but it was empty. It had a manger in it for which an unexpected use was found. Here, among the hay and straw, and in the midst of the close and stuffy odours of a stable, they settled themselves down for the night, in all likelihood tired out by the fatigue of the previous day’s journey. Before morning, Christ is born.

Such a lowly beginning to the life of Christ upon earth is an astounding fact. We have been so familiar with it ever since we knew the name of Christ, that it fails to strike with the force that belongs to it. A lowlier birth it would be impossible to imagine. Parents lowly, though of noble descent; and forced, for the moment, into the lowliest position in the city of their kindred, to herd with “the ox and the mule which have no understanding,” in circumstances offensive to every delicate sensibility, and repugnant to the most rudimentary sense of self-respect! What are we to think about it? It is surely easy to read the lesson. Christ, the highest, began the humblest. “God hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound the mighty.” This mode of operation will not cease to be exemplified till God’s own glorious power becomes visibly incorporate and manifest in the vessels of His choice. Who among us, then, need weary or be ashamed of the humbling circumstances meanwhile associated with the truth? It is natural to be ashamed of them: but reason forbids. Who among us can wisely seek the great and honourable things of the present world? It is natural to seek them; but wisdom says; “Be content with food and raiment. Be not conformed to the world. Pass the time of your sojourning in fear.” If Christ, from the very start of his career, was “conducted with the despised.” we may gladly suffer with him on this point during the few days we are here. The reversal that comes with his return to the earth will compensate for all. The sufferings and humiliations of this present time are but “a light affliction,” “working out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

The birth of Mary’s child, though an incident of no account among the bustling visitors to Bethlehem, and unknown to the world at large, was not an insignificant occurrence to the angels, who are “sent forth as ministering spirits for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. i. 14). Jesus afterwards said: “There is joy among the angels over one sinner that repenteth.” If their spiritual interest and susceptibility are so keen as to be made glad by the reformation of one sinner, we may understand the interest they would take in the birth of one who came into the world to save a multitude of sinners. They manifested their interest in a way that has left its mark on the language and songs of mankind. They showed themselves outside Bethlehem on the plains, underneath the star-sparkling sky, where a company of shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night. First one only appeared. “The angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.” The shepherds were thrown into great fear by the unusual spectacle. An angel in his brightness is an impressive and terror-causing sight in the light of day: how much more in the darkness of the night. Their alarm was soon quieted by the angels comforting words: “Fear not: for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.” They wonder what tidings this can be. “Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” The shepherds must have been capable of understanding this announcement, or it would not have been made to them. Had it stopped short with the intimation of the birth of a Saviour, they might have supposed it to refer to some ordinary deliverer such as had frequently been raised up in the course of Israel’s history—a deliverer from the yoke of their enemies (in this case, the Romans) for which many were sighing: but the short addition “which is Christ, the Lord,” opened out the indefinite prospect of glory connected with the promise of the Messiah. For the understanding of the significance of these words, their acquaintance with the Scriptures must have prepared them; to none but such as are prepared does the Lord’s further revelation come.

In their intense and painfully-roused attention, they gave heed to a further announcement that practically connected the angel’s glad message with things they could see and handle (all God’s genuine messages are of this realistic character). “This shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” (The angel knew about the clothes that Mary had got ready, and had put upon her babe, and when she laid the child in a rude structure never intended for a cradle, other eyes than hers had observed the act, and were now proclaiming it all unknown to Mary outside the town on the plains). The simple but pregnant message being now complete, there is a brief pause, and then—“Suddenly! there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host.” They were invisible before: that is, the eyes of the shepherds had been held from seeing them; but now the pressure being removed, they see a multitude where but one glorious being had talked with them. Not only see, but hear! The heavenly multitude burst into song. Oh, that song. The only kind of song befitting the highest gift of reason—the measures and cadences that open the heart to the highest fact—the fact of facts—the Eternal Wisdom and Power of the Universe in which all things subsist—the Eternal Father, of whom and through whom and to whom are all things: “Glory to God in the Highest! and on earth peace, and goodwill toward men.” These words have been set to gorgeous music since; but who does not feel that the highest human effort must come as far short of the angelic performance as the nature of man is lower than the angels. The shepherds heard music that has not fallen on human ear since, except in the case of John who heard, in vision in Patmos, the strains of the redeemed assisted by “an innumerable company of angels;” and perhaps Paul, who heard unutterable things when (in “visions and revelations”) caught away into Paradise. But the music will be heard again, and many times again upon earth. For the work that brought the angels to the plains of Bethlehem 1850 years ago is not arrested, but will go forward to the appointed climax when every knee will bow to the Bethlehem babe; no longer a babe, but the glorified sufferer, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. “Of his kingdom, there shall be no end”: and in his kingdom, there will be no sorrow, but songs of everlasting joy, in which the angels will take effective part.

It is interesting to reflect how much in harmony with human ways it was for the angels to communicate thus to the shepherds. How natural it is to communicate good news when you have it. The angels were full of interest at the arrival of a long-promised epoch in the purpose of God upon the earth. There is no evidence that they were commanded to tell the shepherds of the fact. They appeared to have volunteered the information in the fulness of their own joy. Should we not feel moved to do the same if we knew any one that would be deeply interested in news we had to tell? Man is in the angelic image, and reflects angelic features in a faint degree. Making people glad when you can, is God-like. The tidings the angels had to tell would not have made any one glad. It would have had no meaning to a company of Roman soldiers, for example. To Israelite shepherds who knew the Scriptures, it was the best news they could hear.

The choice the angels made in them is suggestive in another way. They did not go to Herod’s palace which was near by. They did not go to the respectable Jewish rabbi of “the city of David” where Christ had been born. They chose a company of lowly men, whose recommendation lay in this—that they were humble in their own eyes, and deeply interested in the promises of God. The fact is profitable to note, because the principle is an everlasting one, and will shortly receive another exemplification when the angels arrive to announce the return of Christ. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” will hold good to the end. Not this class will be honoured with the visits of the angels; but those to whom in all ages God’s preference has been shown: “the poor of this world, rich in faith.”

Having delivered their message, the angels “went away into heaven.” The shepherds would see them depart, mounting aloft and gradually disappearing from sight. We look with the shepherds, and get a glimpse of a higher life than we know, yet one that has a practical interest for us, because we hope to be made “equal to the angels.” The angels, glorious in nature, exhaustless in power, immortal in life and strength, have the faculty of traversing the dizzy depths and boundless fields of viewless space at will. Their number is countless; their mission, divine (Rev. v. II; Psa. ciii. 20, 21.) The contemplation of the fact impart a sublimer idea of the universe than is possible to those who suppose that “the splendid heavens a shining frame” exist for no higher end than the sustenance of the feeble orders of animal life that we know in this part of it. The universe becomes in Bible light, a peopled arcanum of glorious and noble life, whose vast æ?rial fields are but so many highways that can be traversed from world to world, as the errands of Almighty Power and wisdom may require. To the unenlightened secular mind, this revealed fact is but a pretty fable: to the higher intelligence, it is the garb of inevitable truth: for it seems a necessary induction of reason that the splendid framework of heaven and earth must have within it a use and application equal to its greatness and glory, which could not be recognisable if life, as it now is upon earth, is the only form of it throughout its measureless fields.

Having received a clue by which they might verify the extraordinary communication that had been made to them under the starlit and silent vault of heaven (while all the world was asleep), the shepherds repaired “with haste” to neighbouring Bethlehem, “to see (as they said) this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord had made known unto us.” They were not long in finding Joseph and Mary, in the virtual cattle-pen at the inn. But were was the babe? Was it nestling in it mother’s bosom? Was it snugly laid in the straw by the side of its mother? It was very likely to be so. It was improbable that the babe—especially such a babe—would be put in a place used for the feeding of beasts. But there it was: they found the “babe lying in a manger.” This was the conclusive sign to them. What more natural than that they should at once “make known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.” This is Christ the Lord. “All they that heard, wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.” It was natural it should be so. It is what would happen in any village at the present day. The people would open eyes and mouth and exclaim. The wonder would be but “a nine days’ wonder,” as it probably was at Bethlehem. Intelligence rests and feeds on wisdom: ignorance gloats on the marvellous. It was a complaint of Jesus afterwards: “except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe.” Signs and wonders are valuable in their relation to the facts required by wisdom; but not otherwise. Mary was a more attentive and thoughtful listener to the sayings of the shepherds than the people about the place. Her knowledge qualified her to be so. “She kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Her surroundings would indispose her to be communicative on the subject. Her state precluded it: and her position, amidst the bustle of a crowded inn, and amongst people mostly indifferent and unsympathetic, would not encourage her to say much on a subject of which, although she knew more than any one else at the time, she yet understood so little. “Pondering them in her heart” was the natural thing for her in all the circumstances. The shepherds were delighted. They had found things in accordance with the intimation made to them by the angels, and therefore felt the joy that was calculated to come from the confidence that this was the promised Messiah. They would look forward to the growth of the child and the manifestation of the man, with the anticipation that in a single generation at the most, the glory promised to Israel would be revealed in their midst. They returned to their flocks, “glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.”

CHAPTER VIII.

———

Childhood.

In seven days after the departure of the shepherds, the time arrived for the circumcision of the child; and circumcision was accordingly performed—probably in Bethlehem, by some official of the local synagogue. Why should “Christ the Lord” be circumcised? Because he was the seed of Abraham and of David, according to the flesh (Rom. i. 3: Matt. i. 1). But why should that be a reason for circumcision? Because it had pleased God, in carrying out His purpose towards the house of Israel (not yet fully accomplished), to proceed by covenant, and to appoint circumcision as the sign of that covenant in all their generations (Gen. xvii. 10–14; Rom. iv. 11). Any descendant of Abraham neglecting circumcision was outside the covenant, as God told Abraham, and would be cut off from Jehovah’s regard (Gen. xvii. 14). Jesus was a descendant of Abraham, and in a preeminent sense, “the seed” of Abraham (Gal. iii. 17), whose special mission it was to “confirm,” or make sure the promises made unto the fathers (Rom. xv. 8). For circumcision to have been omitted in his case, therefore, would have been for the covenant to have been broken in its most essential application. But this failure was not possible; therefore the child Jesus was circumcised.

His name was published in connection with the ceremony according to the Hebrew custom. We are not told if it caused any surprise, as in the naming of John the Baptist. There was the same reason: “There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name.” But probably Joseph and Mary’s acquaintances would be all at Nazareth; and so the family strangeness of the name would not be known in Bethlehem to the few who would be present at the performance of the rite. The fact remains in all its power that the name was not derived from the family pedigree, and that Jesus “was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” This fact is one of the many evidences of the divinity of Christ. The fact cannot be questioned, for it has been on record since the first century in writings of purity and truth, and is embedded in such surroundings as to be undetachable from the system of truth of which it forms a part. No other explanation of the name of Jesus can be given. Men may scoff and assert, but facts are not destroyed by that process. The concurrent agreement of the apostolic age cannot be disposed of. The very reason given for the bestowal of the name Jesus is sufficient to place it beyond the range of human invention; “for he shall save his people from their sins.” It is not according to the habit of men to be governed by so large and so pure an idea. Human enterprise or inventiveness runs in the channel of human sympathies and passions; “the things that be of men” are visible in all their ways and thoughts. But here is a reason that relates alone to “the things that be of God,” and is therefore self-evidently from a divine source.

It was not a new name in the sense of never having been used before: but it was new in Mary’s circle, and in her use of it to name her son, it probably received for the first time its true application, of which previous uses were the typical adumbrations. For as the least informed may be aware, it is a Hebrew name in which the Creator’s name is the leading ingredient—Joshua or Yah-shua—Jehovah shall save. Jehovah saved Israel by Joshua, the successor of Moses, and again by Joshua, who took a prominent part in the restoration from Babylon. But in these cases, the work was transitory, and performed indirectly. In the case of this newly-born child, the work was to be for ever in those for whom it should be effectual: and it was to be done in a direct manner by God himself, who was the Father of the child, and who made him what he was, and dwelt in him by the Spirit, working and speaking through him, as Jesus repeatedly testified afterwards, and as indeed was manifest from the nature of his words and works. It was most fitting, therefore, that he should be called Yah-shua or Jesus: also Emmanuel—“God with us.” He was, without much figure, “the Word made flesh”—the wisdom and power and fiat of the Father become incorporate in a man of the house of David, that sin might be taken away, and the way opened for friendship, love and life for evermore.

In a little over a month after the circumcision, the time came to present the circumcised child to the Lord, as the law enjoined. Thirty-three days were required to run for the mother’s purification and recovery (Lev. xii. 3), after which, in the case of a first-born son, it was needful to discharge the claim the law had on him under Ex. xiii. 12: Num. xviii. 15. God slew the first-born of the Egyptians on the night of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, on which event he established a memorial claim for every male first-born of Israel, to be sacrificed to him afterwards, unless redeemed in the way appointed. This claim lay on Jesus at the very start of his life on earth: and from this (being “under the law” Gal. iv 4), he had to be redeemed like every first-born male child of Israel. There were two modes of redemption—one for the well-to-do, and the other for the indigent (Lev. xii. 8). The first was by the sacrifice of a lamb; and if the mother was not able to bring a lamb, then she was to offer two turtles, or two young pigeons. From Luke ii. 24 it would seem that Mary offered the latter, from which we have an incidental clue to her position in life.

The distance from Bethlehem to Jerusalem would be seven or eight miles—a distance not inconvenient for Mary, after the lapse of 40 days. The path lay through the beautiful mountainous district lying to the south of Jerusalem. On the back of a mule or ass, accompanied by Joseph, she would perform the journey with her first-born son, all undistinguishable in appearance from other first-borns, which might arrive at Jerusalem at the same time for the same purpose. How great the difference really was, Mary knew, though it is probable her very familiarity with the child in all her motherly offices would prevent her from having a very distinct sense of the difference. Arrived at the temple, she presents her offspring to the officiating priest, with the “two turtles or two young pigeons” (either brought with her from Bethlehem, or, which was more likely, purchased at those “seats of them that sold doves,” which were afterwards so unceremoniously overturned by her babe grown to manhood). To the priest, it was an ordinary child, and he probably went through the ordinary routine with the indifference natural to official repetition. But it was not so with all. “There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon,” to whom it had been revealed “that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke ii. 25). This man was no carping theorist or idle lounger. He was “just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.” To such only does God draw near in loving and revealing confidence. “The Holy Spirit was upon him,” and on the particular day when Mary arrived at the Temple with her little charge, the Spirit had drawn him to the same place, with the intimation that one of the children to be presented that day was he upon whom the hopes of just and devout Israelites had been for ages fixed. We can understand with what interest Simeon would take up his position and watch the mothers who came to present their little ones; and when Mary, accompanied by Joseph, stepped forward with her child “to do for him after the custom of the law,” the Spirit, making known to Simeon who she was, the old man, with what must have been a cordial and emphatic movement, took up the child in his arms, to the surprise of all parties, perhaps, and said: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people: a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”

It cannot but appear most fitting that such an incident should attend the official presentation of the newly-born Messiah to the Lord. It was a new testimony from God to the divinity of Jesus—one of a series of testimonies divinely delivered at every well-marked stage of his introduction—first, at the conception: then a few months further on when Joseph was distressed: then at birth: now at the presentation: afterwards at other seasons. The reason for such a testimony will be apprehended when we realise that a foundation was being laid for faith in the most important transaction that had ever taken place among men. There was no aim to impart the kind of eclat that is associated in the popular mind with prodigies and wonders. There is a total absence of omens and auguries: no comets, swinging open of doors, or unnatural occurrences. But the divine attestation, was a necessity for the object in view, and this attestation was given at every stage, and in chaste and suitable form—in this case, by the movement of the Spirit in an old man of the divinely approved type, whose utterances, though devoid of power to impress bye-standers at the time, helped, at a suitable moment, to complete the divine endorsement of the work being done.

Not only Simeon, but Anna “a prophetess,” “of a great age,” was used for the same purpose. “She, coming in that instant,” gave thanks likewise to the Lord, and spake of him (the newly presented infant) to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. Joseph and Mary “marvelled at those things that were spoken.” They knew that the babe was “Christ, the Lord;” but they evidently had not the large views opened out in the prophetic utterances of Simeon and Anna. There was an element in Simeon’s words addressed to Mary that would perplex and trouble them in the mere rudimentary knowledge they had: “This child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against (yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also).” The expectations associated with the appearance of the Messiah were those of blessing and prosperity only. It must consequently have appeared a curious darkening in the midst of light to speak of Israel “falling,” and of gain-saying against the new born Messiah, and a sword piercing his mother’s soul. Events soon showed the meaning of these painful prophetic allusions: but for the moment they must have been of difficult significance to Joseph and Mary, and must have increased the obscurity inevitable to their partial comprehension of the transaction in which they were being instrumentally employed.

It is by no means beside the point to note how signally the prophetic foreshadowings of Simeon have been realised. It must have appeared in the highest degree improbable that the helpless carpenter’s babe which he held in his arms would affect public events in the land of Israel: or that such a child could ever have any relation to the Gentile world as a “light.” Looking back, we see how entirely the natural improbability has become historical fact. Though the world sits in darkness, we are eye-witnesses to the fact that the brightest name in Gentile estimation is the name of Jesus, and that what little alleviation of natural barbarism the nations experience in these civilized times, is traceable to him whose infant form Simeon upheld. We refer to this fulfilment of his words rather than to the “fall” of many in Israel that followed Israel’s rejection of him; or to the cruel sword which his crucifixion plunged in Mary’s heart, because the reader might feel that these events were too near the time of the prophecy for him to feel quite sure that the fulfilment came after the prophecy. There can be no such reservation on the subject of enlightening the Gentiles (though we have not yet reached the full enlightenment contemplated). Simeon’s prophecy has been on record for over 1,850 years; and the ascendancy and light-giving power of the name of Jesus is a fact before our eyes at the present moment. Whence this wonderful fulfilment of the word of Simeon? The narrative says:—“The Holy Spirit was upon him.” This is a complete explanation, and contains within it a guarantee of the divine reality of all the rest. The result of any attempts to explain it on any other principle can only show by their weakness the truth of Luke’s explanation alone.

Joseph and Mary, having “performed all things according to the law of the Lord,” “returned into Galilee to their own city Nazareth.” So Luke informs us. Matthew seems to say they went to Egypt (ii. 14). Whence this apparent inconsistency? It evidently arises from Matthew omitting notice of the matters recorded by Luke, and speaking of a later occurrence. That it is a later occurrence of which he speaks is manifest from a comparison of the leading features of the two accounts. In the case of Luke, all that is recorded happened within the first six weeks of the Lord’s life. In the case of Matthew, the period was sufficiently extended to make Herod go as high as two years for the maximum age of the children to be slain (“two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men,” Matt. ii. 16). The details require a considerably extended period. It was “when Jesus was born in Bethlehem” that wise men came from the east. Their journey must have taken some time. They did not start till they had seen the star, and the appearance of the star coincided with the birth of Jesus, as would appear from Matt. ii. 7. They enquired on their arrival at Jerusalem, “where is he that is born King of the Jews?” Their enquiry troubled all Jerusalem. This must have been a work of time; so must the summoning of the “chief priests and scribes” by Herod, to ascertain from them the locality of the birth of Christ according to the prophets; and the departure of the wise men to find the child. All these things could not have come into the six weeks elapsing from the Lord’s birth to his presentation in the temple. Therefore, they must have transpired afterwards. If it be asked, how could that be, seeing that the wise men found the child in Bethlehem when, according to Luke, it had been conveyed to Nazareth, there are two suggestions, either of which may yield the answer. Either of them would allow a place for Matthew’s incidents in the narrative of Luke, viz: either in Luke ii. 39, or between 39 and 40. The first is, that when Luke said “When they had performed all things according to the law,” he only meant “after” they had “performed all things, &c.,” without intending to indicate how soon after, and that, in fact they stayed a while, during which they received the visit of the wise men, and then went to Egypt, and then to Nazareth. On this supposition, Luke simply leaves the Egyptian episode out of the record, as having been already fully narrated by Matthew, with whose Gospel he would be acquainted before he began to write his own; giving prominence rather to details of which Matthew says nothing. The room for it, on this view, would he in Luke’s word “returned” in verse 39: they “returned” (via Egypt) on their journey to which, he deemed it superfluous to say anything.

The other suggestion is that if Luke meant that Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth immediately after the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, then they must have returned to Bethlehem sometime afterwards (possibly to complete the business of the family enrolment.) There is no record of a second visit having been made; but Matt. ii. is evidence of it, if they departed to Nazareth when Jesus was six weeks old; because it shows them in Bethlehem when he must have been an infant of months “according to the time which Herod had diligently enquired of the wise men.” One or other of these hypotheses is necessitated: either Joseph and Mary did not return to Nazareth immediately, or they came back from Nazareth to Bethlehem after having returned. A class of critics suggest a third, viz.: that Matthew’s account is an interpolated myth. But this is inadmissible every way. The mere existence of apparent difficulty does not justify it; and as for the omission of these chapters from certain early manuscripts, the circumstance is of no weight, seeing the omission was challenged as a corruption at the time of its appearance (see comments on the Ebionite and Hebrew gospels by Epiphanius and Origen in the third century). The manuscripts in which these omissions occur differ in other features from the received gospel of Matthew, and contradict Mark, Luke, and John in details with which the received gospel of Matthew agrees. If they are of no authority in the other features, they are of no authority as to the first two chapters of Matthew. The received gospel of Matthew is founded on the concurrent evidence of a great number of ancient MSS. and versions (translations) supported by quotations made by the very earliest Christian writers, as well as by the internal evidence of the chapters themselves, against which no earnest man could place one or two manuscripts which were pronounced mutilations at the time they appeared, and which bear internal evidence of interference on the part of those who compiled them for their own purposes. Those who compiled them rejected parts which they could not receive. for no other reason than their inability to reconcile them with their ideas of things. Consequently, to make the omissions in their documents a reason for omitting from ours would simply be to adopt their arbitrary prejudices against the weight of evidence. The only admissible course is to accept Matthew as much as Luke, and find a place for both in the mutual adjustment of the circumstances they narrate.

On this principle, we have to note the arrival of the wise men in Jerusalem, while Joseph and Mary remained for a short time in Bethlehem after the presentation in the Temple, or during their second temporary residence there, no longer in “the inn,” but in a “house” (Matt. ii. 11). Who these wise men or magi were need not be a subject of any concern. They may have been Israelites belonging to the deported ten tribes who were taken eastward; or they may have been Chaldean students, with a smattering knowledge of the prophets, and the hope of Israel growing out of them. In either case, they stood related to the truth. It may seem strange that a star should be mixed up with their enquiries after Christ. It looks as if they had been astrologers, but it may not have been so. The star they saw was evidently not of the ordinary heavenly bodies. It was neither a “fixed star,” a planet, nor a meteor. Its motion was local and slow and steady, and subject to an intelligent guidance, which caused it to “stand over where the young child was.” This was a phenomenon entirely outside ordinary astrological occurrences. The idea that the star they saw was an appearance caused by the brilliant conjunction of leading planets at their perihelia, cannot be maintained if we are to accept Matthew’s account (as to which we hold there can be no true question.) An appearance so caused would not travel before the eastern visitors and locate itself over a particular house. The suggestion is particularly to be objected to on account of the implication associated with it, viz., that an unusual natural appearance was misinterpreted and exaggerated by the writer of Matthew, and applied in a legendary manner to the events connected with the birth of Christ. There may have been a conjunction of leading planets about the same time. It would seem from an astronomical calculation that there was: but to call this “the star of Bethlehem” is to beg the question. There is no reason why we should not take the narrative just as it stands. Its unusual or miraculous character need be no obstacle. The whole situation of which it forms a part was miraculous. The birth of Christ by a virgin—the introduction of Emmanuel upon the scene—the announcement thereof by an angel and its celebration by a multitude of the heavenly host—the activity of the spirit of prophecy in Mary, Zacharias, Elizabeth, Simeon, &c.—surely all was miraculous: and why not a miraculous star, if to divine wisdom it seemed necessary or suitable? A cloud, which at night turned to radiance, went before Moses and the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt: why not a star in connection with the work of the prophet like unto Moses? There is nothing to be said against it except that it is strange and unusual, and apparently superfluous: but there is no weight in this against the testimony of Matthew whom the spirit guided into all truth, as Jesus promised.

These “wise men from the east” were evidently God-fearing men on the watch for the Messiah, whom many beside them in that age were expecting to appear, on the strength of Dan. ix. And this travelling star appears to have been given them as a sign. Even if it could be proved they were astrologers, this would not dispose of the attested fact that in this matter of looking for the promise, God had regard to them and communicated with them at a time when angelic communications on the subject were rife. Balaam was a soothsayer, and yet was the subject of true revelation on a certain occasion when appropriate use could be made of him. So the witch of Endor was used to make known the truth of Saul’s doom. There would have been nothing more incongruous in God employing a company of the kind of men that were popularly supposed to be learned in occult things, in garnishing the situation that witnessed the birth of his beloved Son.

CHAPTER IX.

———

From Childhood to Manhood.

We are not yet done with the circumstances of the childhood of Christ. We must follow him in his babyhood to Egypt, in his boyhood to Jerusalem, before we stand with him in his manhood on the banks of Jordan, and follow him in his fully developed divine teacherhood, through the land of Israel for three years and-a half.

The enquiry of the wise men, on their arrival in Jerusalem, was, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? However strange such an enquiry appears in modern ears, after the long ascendancy of the artificial ideas of Christ that have become prevalent through ecclesiastical influences, it had no uncertain or inappropriate sound in Jerusalem, where the prophets were read every Sabbath day (Acts xiii. 27). The one foretold by the prophets, and of whose appearing many were now expectant, was to be “a king” (Jer. xviii. 5) sitting on the throne of David (Isaiah ix. 7) governing and dispensing justice from Jerusalem as a centre of universal law (Micah iv. 1–7), binding all nations in the bond of that political and social unity which all thinking men see to be so desirable, but to which none can suggest a practical attainment. The arrival of a band of men in Jerusalem with enquiry as to the whereabouts of this coming one, and the implied intimation that he had been actually born, was calculated to produce the agitation that followed their question. When it became generally known, all Jerusalem was troubled. The report came to Herod’s ears. It particularly affected him. He was the actual king of the Jews for the time being; his jealousy was excited by the reported birth of one long looked for by the nation as their heaven-sent head and king, destined to rid the earth of all rivals. His natural impulse was to get hold of the new-born King if he could, for the purpose of his destruction. But how could he get hold of him? No one knew where he was. The enquiry of the wise men excited universal curiosity and surmise, but could find no answer. The wise men could only tell of the star which for the time had disappeared. They knew nothing of the locality where the mighty personage was, to whom it pointed. In the dilemma, Herod had recourse “to the chief priests and scribes of the people.” He “demanded of them where Christ should be born.” Why should he expect them to know? Because in their custody were the holy oracles which had been “committed” to Israel, and in which was “shewn beforehand the coming of the just one” (Acts vii. 52). Herod must have been aware of this, in a dim and traditionary way, before he would have applied to them for the information wanted. He would hear of it from time to time from his courtiers, or in his dealings with the people in various relations. It might be supposed that Herod’s recognition of the prophetic character of the newly-born child would have withheld him from the attempt he made to destroy it. It would have had this effect on a fully informed and tractable mind. But this was not Herod’s case. He was an enlightened and headstrong tyrant who would class Hebrew prophecy with Greek or Roman augury which could sometimes be circumvented.

“The chief priests and scribes of the people” were able to supply the information desired by Herod. The categorical question “where Christ should be born?” they met with the categorical answer, “In Bethlehem of Judæa.” They did so on the strength of Micah’s prophecy: “Out of thee (Bethlehem in the land of Judah) shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel.” It is interesting to note this frank and ready application of the words of the prophets. It is in strong contrast to the cloudy and bewildering exegetics of modern commentators of the Jewish school, who inherit the demoralising effects of centuries of Rabbinical efforts to divert the indications of prophecy from Jesus of Nazareth. It is also a condemnation of the so-called “Christian” treatment of the prophets, which equally with the Jewish treatment, though in another way, nullifies of makes them void, by artificial and false canons of interpretation. Had Herod’s question come before either the Jewish Rabbis or the Gentile ecclesiastics of the 19th century, it would have received no such direct and explicit answer. The said authorities would have peered critically at the etymology of the terms, and finding that Bethlehem meant “house of bread,’ would doubtless have suggested, in long-drawn elegant sentences, that the term contained no geographical indication, but pointed to heaven as the great source of all life-sustenance, and, therefore, of the Messiah as the bread of life sent down from heaven; that, in fact, no one could tell where Christ was to be born, or, for the matter of that, that he was to be literally born at all, as the prophecy might be taken as the fore-shadowing, in a personified form, of the Messianic age, to have its origin from heaven. Had “the chief priests and scribes of the people” treated Herod’s question in this way, they might have been in danger of being treated as Nebuchadnezzar’s astrologers and magicians were treated when they professed their readiness to interpret the king’s forgotten dream, but their inability to supply a knowledge of it. But they had not yet become so sophisticated. They boldly answered that, according to the prophets, the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem—which, as we have seen, he was—a fact that supplies a clue for the reading of the prophets in matters not yet fulfilled.

Having obtained this information, Herod called for the wise men privately, and ordered them to go to Bethlehem, and “search diligently for the young child,” and bring him word when they had found him. To veil the dark purpose that he had formed, he told them his reason for wanting to get at the child was that he might “worship him.” The wise men, believing in their simplicity that Herod’s statement was sincere, set out with all alacrity towards Bethlehem to find the object of their search. But how, after all, were they to get at it? They could easily enquire their way to Bethlehem, but how were they to identify one particular unknown child among hundreds, perhaps thousands, in Bethlehem? They might hear the report of it when they arrived; but they might not: and if they did, report might be conflicting. Their uncertainties were soon at an end. As they went along the road “lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them.” We may understand why, on seeing this, “they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.” They would now be able to identify the newly-born “King of the Jews” without any doubt. It may seem as if it were not necessary they should be able to do so. It might even seem as if it were expedient they should not be able to find him out, seeing that the aim of Herod, on whose business they came, was to destroy the child. A reconsideration may suggest other thoughts. In the wisdom of God, it was evidently necessary for the wise men themselves that they should discover Christ; and their homage, at his cradle, was a part of the situation that it pleased Him should attend the introduction of his Beloved into the world. Consequently, to have concealed Christ, would have marred His plan on these two points, and it would not, after all, have screened Christ from Herod’s designs, as the wholesale slaughter of the sequel shows. Therefore “the star went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was.” They entered the house indicated by the stoppage of the star; and “there they saw the young child and Mary his mother.” They not only saw;they gave vent to the feelings which the sight was calculated to stir in them: “they fell down and worshipped him.” They also unpacked the treasure they had brought with them, and “presented unto him gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

To this, some demur as a sentimental extravagance out of keeping with the fact that Mary’s child, though the son of God, was also the son of Adam, of a like nature with the rest of Adam’s children. How little reason there is in this demur must appear on reflection. God said, centuries before, by Isaiah, “I have sworn by myself; the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto Me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear” (Is. xlv. 23). Now we learn from the Spirit in Paul that this homage was to be received by proxy, that is, in and through the son of His love, who is the image of the invisible God, the express image of His person: “At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow … and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. ii. 10, 11). Hence also, in the Apocalypse, they are conjoined in the ascription joyfully offered by the company of the glorified saints, “To him that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.” Now, was it not fitting that at the very commencement of the life of him who was to be the Father’s representative and manifestation, there should be a recognition of the kingly majesty veiled and involved? The angels celebrated the event of his birth: and here we have the representatives of what was esteemed in that age the most honourable order of men upon earth, prostrating themselves in the presence of the child, and offering costly gifts. It is fitting; it is beautiful. The impulse of all hearts in genuine sympathy with the work of God, will be that if they had been there, they would have taken joyful part with the wise men’s adoration of the babe in whom was fulfilled the heart-stirring prophecy, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called wonderful, counsellor, &c.”

Meditating a return to Herod, they are “warned of God in a dream” not to do so, but to depart unto their own country another way. They hasten to comply, and are well on their road, when another message comes to Joseph, ordering him to leave Bethlehem at once, with “the young child and his mother, and to flee into Egypt,” and to remain there till fresh word came to him. The reason of this became quickly apparent. When Herod had waited long enough to be sure that the wise men had no intention of returning, he issued an edict for the destruction of the entire babyhood of Bethlehem, under two years, in the hope of being able thus to compass the death of the object of his jealously. This barbarous edict was thoroughly carried out by the willing instruments always at the disposal of a despotic government. Thereupon arose a wail rarely heard upon earth—the wail of a multitude of bereaved mothers. It is impossible to conceive acuter natural agony than that inflicted on the mothers of Bethlehem. As no human affection is stronger than that of a mother for her child, so no suffering could be greater than that caused by this cruel slaughter. Many have been the efforts of the pencil to depict the scene—various the success—tragic enough, all, but doubtless none of them coming up to the reality. It is one of the most harrowing episodes in the story of human suffering—a long, dark, dreadful story. Then was indeed fulfilled, in its most literal and striking manner, that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying “In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping and great mourning.” The primary application of this prophecy was to the removal of Israel in captivity from the land, but the richness and depth of the mind of God are often seen in two or more analogous coming events being covered in the same prophecy. Had Joseph and Mary and “the young child” been in Bethlehem at the time, nothing short of a miracle would have saved the child from Herod’s executioners. A miracle, no doubt, would in that case have been performed; but God does not work miracles unless they are absolutely necessary. He shielded His Son from harm by having him removed beforehand. He has other sons who may hope for similar providential favour; for all His sons are precious to Him.

But another purpose seems to have been served by the descent into Egypt. It had been written in the prophets: “Out of Egypt have I called my Son.” On the face of them, these words seem to be a historical reference (exclusively) to the exodus of Israel under Moses; but by Matthew, we are instructed in a deeper additional meaning. He says that Christ’s residence in Egypt occurred “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, Out of Egypt have I called my Son.” At first sight, it is difficult to understand how a historical allusion to the exodus can be a prophecy with reference to Christ. So difficult is this felt to be, that many Bible students have, in all ages, refused to receive it; and, indeed, have made it a reason, along with others, for refusing to believe that Matthew wrote the chapter where the statement occurs. But we have seen that this mode of solving the difficulty is inadmissible. Matthew wrote the words undoubtedly, and that, too, by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, which rested on and guided all the apostles to the end, as Christ promised. The question is, on what principle can two meanings be conveyed in one form of words? It is not a question of two opposite meanings, or two dissimilar meanings, but of two cognate and related meanings in the terms employed by inspiration. There is a first and proximate meaning to all the facts and statements recorded in Moses and the Prophets, but was there not a secondary meaning, congruous to the first—not apparent at the time of the first meaning, but latent and left for future elucidation? However repugnant such an idea may be to limited human intellect, it is impossible to deny that such is the teaching of the New Testament concerning the writings of inspiration. That teaching is not confined to isolated instances like the quotation about the exodus. It runs throughout the apostolic writings.

It is peculiarly a New Testament revelation that there was in the scope of Old Testament events, institutions, and statements, a meaning not obvious to those who stood immediately related to them. Of family incidents in the life of Abraham, Paul says, “which things are an allegory” (Gal. iv. 24.) We should not have known this otherwise. He tells us that in the law of Moses existed “the form of knowledge and of the truth” (Rom. ii. 18); that it was “a shadow of good things to come, whose substance was of Christ” (Col. ii. 16. 17.) We should not have known this had we listened only to Moses. Christ speaks in the same way. He says that not one jot or tittle could pass from the law till all was fulfilled (Matt. v. 18; Luke xvi. 17.) He said he had come to fulfil it, and that “all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses … concerning him” (Luke xxiv. 44). We should not have known there was anything in the law of Moses to fulfil if Christ had not spoken thus, and Paul after him. There need be no difficulty about the fact when the fact is obvious. It is characteristic of high mentality even in its human manifestation, to delight in analogies and involved meanings: to hit off two significances in the same expression. That this should prove to be an attribute of the Eternal mind, not only need be no difficulty, but it is both to be expected and will excite admiration. Analogy and type and double entendre run through the whole history of divine doings upon earth. Thus “the seed of Abraham” covers the kernel of the seed—Christ. Thus Israel, first-born nation, covers the first-born son (Jesus); and a prophecy of the one is often a prophecy of the other, e.g., Isaiah xlix., and others that will readily occur). Thus, also, in Moses, Joshua, David, and Solomon, we deal with foreshadowings of Christ, and read a prophecy of him in them.

That Matthew should seem to strain prophecy is only an appearance. It is impossible to sympathise with those who would strive to remove this appearance by saying that Matthew did not write it, or that in writing it, Matthew was not inspired. The Spirit of God’s own way is the best; and although its ways are often hard to see through, they improve with acquaintance, and, become more lucid and beautiful as we master them.

Israel was the Son of God, as Moses was commanded to say to Pharaoh: “Israel is my son, even my first-born.… let my son go that he may serve me” (Ex. iv. 22, 23). By this, Israel was a prophecy of Christ, as the plant is a prophecy of the flower. The two were connected. The one came out of the other. Israel became the son of God for the working out of God’s purpose in Christ, the ultimate and real son; and one pattern running through the whole work made it possible to foreshadow the one in the other, and make the one a prophecy of the other. In calling the one out of Egypt, the fact became, and was intended to be, a prophecy of the other, coming out of Egypt as well; for the one was the other drawn to a focus as it were.

The principle receives several illustrations. Topographical coincidences run through the whole plan. The offering of Isaac on Moriah required that Jesus should be offered there also. The birth of David at Bethlehem required the same thing of Jesus. David’s flight up the face of the Mount of Olives from the presence of Israel’s rebellion seems to find a counterpart in Christ’s ascent from that Mount from a nation that said “We will not have this man to reign over us;” and David’s return via that Mount, a counterpart in Christ’s coming back to the Mount of Olives before his enthronement in Jerusalem. Israel’s scattering among the nations finds Christ so scattered in his body during all the times of the Gentiles. The holy portion of the land in the age of glory covers the place of Abraham’s sojourn in the land as a stranger, and David’s flight among the rocks of Engedi; and Christ’s trial, mockery, condemnation and death. The divine plan is full of such interesting and fitting coincidences, among which, we are bound to place the fact that not only the national but the personal Messiah, came out of Egypt in the beginning of his existence upon the earth.

Herod’s death opened the way for that event. “The angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, arise, and take the young child and his mother and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead that sought the young child’s life.” In obedience to which, the little band return ed from Egypt and made for Judæa. Why Joseph should purpose going to Judæa, we are not told: it would probably be connected with the circumstances and acquaintances arising out of his previous visit to Bethlehem in connection with the family enrolment. At all events, on arriving in Judæa, he found his way barred. Herod’s son, Archelaus, was in power, and fearing that the son might retain the feelings of the father in reference to “the young child,” he went northwards, and “turned aside” to Nazareth, “that it might be fulfilled,” says Matthew, “which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene.” There is no prophecy in these terms to be found in any of the prophets. It is evident from the way it is introduced that it was not intended as a citation of express words. It is introduced as something “spoken by the prophets;” this is not the way an exact prophecy would be referred to. It is a way of alluding to some general sense of what the prophets have said. What have they said that would connect his name with Nazareth? This depends upon the meaning attached to Nazareth.

There are two meanings, both of which would yield some analogy to what is predicted of Christ “by the prophets.” The first is that which is yielded by the Hebrew root of the name Nazareth, netzer. Though its primary meaning is to reserve, preserve, it comes by derivation, as a noun, to signify “a plant, sucker, or young tree springing from the old root and reserved or preserved when the tree is cut down,” therefore, a branch, as translated in Is. xi. 1, and other places: “a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Scholars suggest that the reason of Nazareth being called by a name having this meaning was the exuberance of its foliage. However this may be, there was a fitness in the man who was to be known as the Branch of David, being brought up in a city having that idea in its name, however derived. It would in that case be one of the many correspondences with which divine ways and things abound as we have seen; and Christ’s transference to a place with such a name would be an incipient commencement of the fulfilment of the prediction that his name would be the Branch.

The second meaning would be found in the unfavourable impression conveyed to the popular mind in Matthew’s day, by a man being known as one brought up at Nazareth. This sense is expressed in the question put by Nathaniel when he heard that the Messiah had been found in Jesus of Nazareth: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth was in poor repute; it was a despised place. To be a Nazarene was to be a despised man. Now this is what was “spoken by the prophets” that Jesus was to be—a man despised and rejected—a Nazarene in the sense attachable to the epithet at the time of Christ’s birth.

There is a third meaning for which there is something to be said, though its fitness is not so apparently complete as in the other two cases, viz., the possible correspondence of the name of Nazareth with the Nazarite law which prefigured Christ as much as all other parts of the law which have their “substance” in him. He was to be a separated and holy one unto God after the type of the Nazarite; and this general prophecy may have been taken as corresponding with the name of the city where he was to be brought up; or, indeed, as required by the law of correspondences already glanced at, that he should be brought up in a city so named.

Finally, it is possible that in the far-reaching and richly involved operations of divine wisdom in the arrangement of these matters, the whole three meanings were intended to converge in the name of that particular spot upon earth which was to be honoured as the mortal home of Earth’s Immortal Lord and Owner.

CHAPTER X.

———

In Preparation for Public Life.

The last chapter brought us to Nazareth. Very little is disclosed of Christ’s life there during the time that elapsed to the day of his introduction to the nation of Israel. We have just one or two glimpses. First, we have a general view of the years of his childhood presented in these words: “The child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.” (Luke ii. 40). This shows us a thriving healthy child, and a child of well marked character from the first; quiet, probably, and grave; but of clear, decided, and original mind. It must have been so in the childhood of a man like Jesus. It is said “the child is the father of the man.” This is a universal truth, even in cases that may seem to be exceptions. The man is but the expansion and development of the germ existing in childhood. The pattern of “the man Christ Jesus” was latent in the child born of Mary. That pattern was the impress of the Spirit—the impress of God—“the power of the Highest” overshadowing her. The Spirit took this part that it might do this work; for it was in order that there might be such an one as Jesus, that the Spirit departed from natural methods, and operated directly in the begettal of a child who was not the son of Joseph, except in family relation. It was “of God,” that Jesus “was made unto us righteousness, sanctification, wisdom and redemption” (1 Cor. i. 30). With such an inception to his being, it was in a sense natural that his developing childhood should exhibit the “strength of spirit,” and “fulness of wisdom” recorded by Luke.

Till the age of twelve, there are no practical illustrations recorded of these mental characteristics. There was no need that there should be. The brief and chaste declaration of Luke sufficiently describes early years which chiefly became interesting from the manhood that followed. Curiosity might have been gratified by personal details: but the mere gratification of curiosity never comes within the design of the Spirit of God’s communications. What we are told is enough to illustrate its work in Christ. What uninspired men would have done with the narrative is shewn by every biography that issues from the press; and most strikingly of all, by those apocryphal gospels which profess to give us particulars of the childhood of Christ. It is well for us to know that these productions have been repudiated by those having knowledge from the day they appeared. But this fact would almost have been unnecessary for us to be certain of their spurious character. The reading of them is sufficient to bring this conviction. The style of composition is weak and undignified, and the matters narrated, puerile and absurd. For example:—

“When the Lady St. Mary had washed the swaddling clothes of the Lord Christ and hanged them out to dry upon a post, the boy possessed with the devil took down one of them and put it upon his head. And presently the devils began to come out of his mouth and fly away in the shape of crows and serpents.… Then the Lord Jesus (while a baby) answered and said to his mother, when thirty years are expired, O mother, the Jews will crucify me at Jerusalem. They went on to a city of idols (in Egypt), which, as soon as they came near to it, was turned into hills of sand.… There was a leprous woman who went to the Lady St. Mary, mother of Jesus, and said, O my lady, help me.… St. Mary replied to her, Wait a little till have washed my son Jesus and put him to bed. The woman waited as she was commanded, and Mary, when she had put Jesus in bed, giving her the water with which she had washed his body, said, Take some of the water and pour it upon thy body, which when she done, she instantly became clean.… And when the Lord Jesus was seven years of age, he was on a certain day with other boys, his companions about the same age, who when they were at play, made clay in several shapes, namely, asses, oxes, birds and other figures, each boasting of his work and endeavouring to exceed the rest. Then the Lord Jesus said to the boys, I will command these figures which I have made, to walk. And immediately they moved.… And Joseph, whensoever he went in the city, took the Lord Jesus with him, where he was sent for to work to make gates, or milk pails, or sieves, or boxes. The Lord Jesus was with him wheresoever he went. And as often as Joseph had anything in his work to make longer or shorter or wider or narrower, the Lord Jesus would stretch his hand toward it, and presently it became as Joseph would have it, so that he had no need to finish anything with his own hands, for he was not very skilful at his carpenter’s trade.”

In complete contrast to this foolishness, is the brief, pure, and comprehensive statement of Luke, that “the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.” The incident of his thirteenth year shews us this process of growth far advanced. “His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.” Whether Jesus accompanied them on those occasions before he was twelve years old, may be doubtful. The prevalent opinion is that he did not. This may or may not be a correct opinion. Probably it is incorrect. The law of Moses required every male to be present at the yearly passover “in the place which the Lord shall choose,” and all the members of the household besides; “thy son and thy daughter, thy man-servant and thy maidservant” (Deut. xvi. 14.) It is more likely that Joseph and Mary would act literally on this command than that they should yield a partial obedience. In that case, Jesus went with them every year from his earliest infancy. If on the other hand the reduced state of the Jewish nation under the Roman yoke, was made a reason for a curtailed compliance with Mosaic requirements, then they did not take their household with them, but contented themselves with their own personal attendance—leaving Jesus and the other members of the household at home. However, this may be, “when he was twelve years of age,” they took him with them to Jerusalem to keep the feast; and it was on this occasion that we have the first recorded exhibition of the deeply marked character of Jesus in his earliest years.

According to the custom, a considerable “company” of “kinsfolk and acquaintances” journeyed together from Nazareth and neighbourhood to Jerusalem. Other companies from other districts would repair to the Holy City for the same purpose. The various roads through the country would be alive with joyous travelling companies converging upon Jerusalem for a six days’ holiday observance of the feast of unleavened bread, concluding on the seventh day with “a solemn assembly.” Israel in their dispersion may be seen in our great cities striving to give some effect to this beautiful appointment of the annual feasts. They may be seen on particular days of the year streaming towards their synagogues. Alas! when they get there, it is only to go through a liturgy, and listen to sermons about as vapid and lifeless as those of their Gentile episcopalian neighbours. It is all that is left meantime of the glorious institutions of the past. In the days of Jesus, though the shadows of night were hovering on the horizon, the day had not quite departed. The beautiful land of promise sustained a numerous and stirring Jewish population, who (enjoying a quasi-national independence under Roman ascendancy) were at liberty to repair annually to Jerusalem to keep the feasts of the Lord, as appointed. When he was twelve years of age (in the spring of a.d. 16, true era) he might have been found a grave and thoughtful boy in one of the companies passing along the road leading through the plain of Esdraelon and past Mounts Ebal and Gerizim towards Jerusalem. Beyond his quietness and reserve there would be nothing to distinguish him, in the eyes of a passing observer, from other lads. “Subject to his parents,” he would help in this and that practical little matter as need arose on the road. Arrived in the holy city, the company would settle in quarters arranged beforehand, and duly proceed next day with the exercises of the feast, in which the boy Jesus would take a more lively interest than was ever taken by boy before; for he had a deeper sympathy with God than all that went before him or came after, and would enter with a deeper penetration and keener relish into the various associations of the passover, both as to the history it brought to mind, and as to the foreshadowing it contained of the more glorious deliverance that the Father purposed to effect by himself. The remark he presently made warrants us in believing as much as this.

The feast was finished: the concluding solemn assembly was held on the seventh day, and all preparations were then made for departure, by the various companies that had come from all parts of the country. The things brought for use at the feast would be got together: baskets would be packed: bundles tied up: clothes and utensils put into convenient form for transport on the backs of animals. All being ready, the company to which Jesus belonged started on its northward journey homewards. Jesus did not accompany it. He “tarried behind in Jerusalem.” He “tarried behind” because of attractions. It was not the attraction of the “shows” that are usually to be found at all feasts and fairs, and which probably would be present in some form on those annual occasions at Jerusalem. It was not the attraction of games or sight-seeing. It was the attraction of matters above the understanding, and far beyond the sympathies of ordinary boys—matters appealing to the interest only of the grey-headed rabbis of the temple and doctors of the law, matters connected with the work and will of God with man. He had got into contact with the heads of Israel with whom he could converse on such topics; and he “tarried behind,” while the procession of his “kinsfolk” and acquaintance moved forward on the road. His absence was not at first observed. The company was numerous; and Joseph and Mary would have enough to engage their immediate attention: perhaps younger children to look after. They supposed he was in the company somewhere. When they had been a day on the road, not noticing him, they asked after him, but could not find that any one had seen him. They went through the whole company, but “found him not.” They then began to be alarmed. Leaving the company to go forward, they returned to Jerusalem to seek him “sorrowing.” Most parents have at some time or other experienced the pang of discovery that a child is lost, and will therefore be able to enter into the feelings of Joseph and Mary, as they vainly sought to get tidings of such a boy as this. For several days they were a prey to the agony of bootless search. They could hear nothing of him. They probably indulged in self-recrimination at not having made sure of his presence in the company at the time of starting. At last, “after three days,” they found him. “They found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors!” They found him “both hearing them and asking them questions.” A boy of twelve, listening to grey-headed men on subjects having no interest for boys in general, and asking questions in reference to them; and not only so, but answering questions put by these same grey-headed men to him, and answering them with an intelligence that filled all who heard him with “astonishment at his understanding!” Extraordinary as the incident may seem, is it not in perfect keeping with the whole surroundings? Does it not seem perfectly natural that such a man as Jesus (so entirely beyond the range of all men) should have a boyhood differing from all ordinary boyhood? and that a babe begotten by the direct action of the Spirit of God should develop into a boy with a super-human sympathy with divine things? The unnaturalness would have been in any other state of things.

When Joseph and Mary saw him in this situation, “they were amazed.” The “doctors of the law” were in reverence with all the people, and Joseph and Mary doubtless shared the feeling, and would therefore experience a mixture of astonishment and fear at finding their boy right in their midst, in free and fearless converse. Their joy at finding him would be for a moment checked. It was quickly known who they were. We can imagine the relaxing of the strained attention of which Jesus had been the object, and the turning of the enquiry of the learned doctors to the agitated parents: “Is this your boy?” Mary, with a mother’s impulse, was the first to respond. Addressing herself directly to Jesus (probably laying her hands on him), she said, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” This is the language of reproof. The distress that was the uppermost feeling while as yet he was lost, had given way to a sense of annoyance at having been put to so much trouble by his neglect to be in his place. Is not this true to nature everywhere? The boy answered with such a fascinating mixture of innocence, beauty and depth: “How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” Apparently, he did not or could not enter into a distressed parent’s point of view. Another view, invisible to most men, absorbed his eye. His Father and his Father’s business filled his field of vision. The circumstances and exigencies of this ephemeral existence, which are all-controlling with merely natural men, were of small consequence in his estimation. Nothing is more prominent in his after life and teaching than this state of sentiment. It is a sentiment having reason as its basis, and that at last more or less infects and affects all true disciples of Christ, with the result of their being mis-appreciated by the people of the present world.

However, the time had not come for the complete assertion of his character and mission in this respect; and so, surrendering to the eager affection of his sorrowing and reproachful parents, “he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.” The next eighteen years of his life are shrouded in obscurity nearly amounting to total darkness. There are one or two dim rays of light. The first of these consists of the words “and was subject unto them.” This brings before the mind the daily routine of domestic life, with its quietness and simplicity, as the sphere of the boy Christ’s upbringing, instead of in the stirring and ceremonious surroundings usually provided for those who are in training for a throne. Part of that quiet routine would consist of work at the bench when he was old enough. We may gather this from the questions of neighbours afterwards, “Is not this the carpenter?” He learnt his father’s trade while “subject to his parents at Nazareth.’ We all know this, but how feebly the fact impresses us, except when we happen to get a glimpse of it in its right connection. It is best seen from the point of view of Christ’s exaltation. An unexciting lowly life of private manual labour was chosen by God as the right school for the training of His beloved son, for “the heirship of all things.” How comforting this must be to Christ’s lowly brethren of the poor of all ages, who have to earn their bread by the labour of horny hands. Rightly viewed, it will reconcile them to their present lot as the best adapted to develop true human character at its best when other conditions are favourable; and as the best preparation for the exaltation to which all men are invited who accept His Son. To think of the coming king of all the earth having been a working man! What curious thoughts it suggests. Working men are looked down upon by the children of plenty; and lo, a working man is destined to divest them of their wealth and send them empty away. The life of a working man means the full development of manhood’s strength, a strong frame, a firm and kindly muscular hand, a simple and independent character, combined with humility of deportment. If to these we add the clearness of a divine intellect, the fire of a godly zeal, and the tenderness of true kindness and compassion, we get an approximation to the carpenter of Nazareth, in whom God was working out the archetype to which his family will be conformed. Such a training would give personal strength and plainness of appearance. The word of prophecy had said, “When we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him;” and probably, had we seen Christ in the days of his flesh, we should have seen such a man as the children of this world would not be likely to fancy,—plain, grave, absorbed,noble withal, but the nobility of earnestness and purity, and conscious communion with God—not the showy nobility that makes a man popular—not delicate and refined, but manly and strong. That he had great strength of constitution was shewn by his endurance of the incessant fatigues of a three years and a half daily ministry. He would be a Jew of the best type, with a Jewish look (the woman at Jacob’s well recognised him as a Jew). The portraits of Christ that have become current are all fanciful. Most of them are after Gentile models. Some of them may resemble him on some points, but it is more likely that we shall find him a totally different looking man to anything represented by them. We shall be more than satisfied we know, and there we may rest. It is not the person of Christ, in the artistic sense, that has been presented for our love, though that will be lovely enough: it is his character, and the great things that centre in him as the truth. Still, it is well, in the exercise of a little common sense, to get rid of the conventional fogs in which the subject has become obscured.

Another ray of light shines from the remark of townsmen about Christ’s relations. He was in Nazareth on one occasion, after he had commenced his public work. We are told “they were offended at him;” that is, they stumbled at his pretensions, on account of their familiar knowledge of him: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses, of Juda and of Simeon, and are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark vi. 2). It is no great exercise of imagination, in the light of this piece of local knowledge, to picture Jesus, between 12 and 30, mixing in a busy family circle, and, as the eldest brother of the family, taking a prominent part in various domestic matters common to them all, yet differing from them in the intensity of his character, and the gravity and earnestness of his demeanour. This difference would not be apparent to them. A stranger would have distinguished him from the rest by his reserve and seriousness, amounting to sadness: but we know that daily contact familiarizes the mind with even the extremest peculiarities. And, therefore, as a member of the Nazareth community, Christ would simply be known as the quiet pensive son of Joseph, without challenging recognition as “the greater than Solomon.” The time was coming for his manifestation: but till 30, he was simply one of the inhabitants of Nazareth.

The last reliable clue that we have to his life in Nazareth is contained in a single but significant expression. We are informed that after his baptism, “he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” From this we gather that he was a regular attendant at the synagogue, and took part in the exercises conducted there, especially that one exercise of which his whole life was a glorification—the reading of the Scriptures of Moses and the Prophets. It was “his custom” to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath Day, working the six days with his father (though there is a tradition that his father died while he was young and that the business and family affairs had to be carried on by him). He rested the seventh day according to the commandment, “not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words,” “but calling the Sabbath a delight,—holy of the Lord, honourable.” We are not to infer from this that Jesus paid no attention to the words of God on the other days of the week. On the contrary, he was obedient in all things, and therefore carried out the other instruction of Moses to Israel, to treasure the words of God “in their heart,” talking of them “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, binding them as a sign upon thine hand and as a frontlet between thine eyes, writing them upon the posts of thy house and upon thy gates.” Jesus would have “the fear of God before his eyes all the day long.” He would therefore “in everything give thanks.” At his daily meals, God would thus be recognised, as well as when he came to feed a multitude and to institute the breaking of bread. Could we have followed him in his business transactions, we should have found them conducted with gravity and sincerity, and “sound speech that cannot be condemned.” And in his social intercourse, we should have found no “jesting and foolish talking, which are not convenient.” We should in everything have found him an example. He is the ideal to hold up before us. The ideal is blurred and defaced by popular thoughts. We get back to the original by the Scriptures, and not by the disquisitions of the schools.

“Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” God’s favour never left him, but man’s favour did—not, however, while he was a private resident of Nazareth. He was liked so long as he was a passive, guileless, and obliging neighbour: but when he began to point out in public teaching that the ways of the people were wrong, aversion took the place of favour, and he became an object of positive hatred. This was not till a considerable time after “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar.” In that year, John “came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” This was the commencement of the opening up of the way for Christ’s entrance into public life, for which at thirty years of age he was ready, and for which John the Baptist was expressly sent, as we have seen in a former chapter, that he might prepare his way.

CHAPTER XI.

———

On the Banks of the Jordan and in the Wilderness.

The work of John the Baptist had been some time in progress when Jesus “cometh from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptised of him.” The nature, object, and upshot of that work we considered fully in chapters iv. and v. We now note the fact of Christ’s entrance upon his public work, and his introduction to the nation of Israel occurring in connection with that work. Christ is first seen in the act of submitting to the ordinance of baptism at the hands of John the Baptist.

Many have wondered why he should have been baptised, in view of the association of baptism with repentance and the remission of sins. There is no real occasion for quandary. There was a need for some circumstance or situation as the occasion for Christ’s “manifestation” to Israel: and John’s institution of baptism (first made an object of public attention in the way exhibited in chapters iv. and v.) was provided for this purpose. Secondly, there was a fitness in Christ’s submission to that ordinance, in view of the work he had come to do. Nay, we may go further and say there was a necessity. The work he had come to do was first of all a work of obedience in himself. [“By one man’s obedience, shall many be made righteous”—(Rom, v. 19). “He learnt obedience by (or in) the things that he suffered” (Heb. v. 8).] Now, John’s baptism was a matter of divine command. We have seen in the chapters referred to that it was no adaptation by John of a previously practised ceremony, but an institution of direct divine appointment. Consequently, submission to it was obligatory on every faithful Israelite. Its observance was part of the “obedience” which Christ rendered. He had to be obedient in many things: for he was “made under the law,” which imposed many duties, to all of which he had to conform in the process of extricating the faithful from the dominion of the law. He had to be obedient even unto death. But he had to be obedient also at the hands of John. Without this submission, the “righteousness” he wrought out for repentant sinners would have been incomplete. Hence it is easy to understand his response to John’s demur to baptise him. “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” Whatever God appoints to be done is righteousness in the doing of it. For this reason, Christ’s baptism in the Jordan was part of the righteousness he developed.

But why, it has been asked, should he who was sinless be called upon to submit to an institution which was for the remission of sin? We need not ask this question. It is sufficient if God required him to submit to it. But the question will be asked, rejoins the curious; and there ought to be an answer. Well, and there is an answer. Although Jesus was not a transgressor by his own action he was partaker, for the time being, of a sin-constitution of things. He was born into a state that was evil because of sin: and he partook of all the evil of that state, even unto death itself, working in the nature he bore as the son of Mary. It was to open a way out of that evil state for man that he was “made of a woman, under the law.” The way had to be opened conformably with the divine principles involved. A beginning had to be made with himself, as the foundation on which other men could build. In the first instance, as “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” he was as much subject to the reign of death, established in Adam’s race by sin, as any of those he came to redeem. His mission was to break into this reign of death by obedience, death and resurrection, illustrating and establishing God’s righteousness in all its bearings. For his sake, men’s sins were to be forgiven. Therefore, he was “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” In view of all this, it was not incongruous—on the contrary, it was in beautiful harmony with his work, that, on the threshold of the public phase of it, he should be called upon to submit to a ritual act which symbolised the putting away of sin.

After his baptism, Jesus was impelled by the Spirit into a neighbouring wilderness—one of the many wild and untilled spots with which the mountainous country of Judæa abounded. We are not informed which of them it was. It matters nothing at all which; but curiosity has naturally speculated, and is probably not far wrong in fixing on the precipitous bluffs standing in the midst of scorched and arid desolation to the south west of Jericho, overlooking the Dead Sea. This is a little to the south of the spot where John’s baptismal operations are believed to have been conducted, and would be a fitting locality for the purpose of Christ’s spirit-enforced seclusion. The purpose was that he might be “tempted of the devil.” Paul says “he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. iv. 15). His temptation in the wilderness must, therefore, come into the category of our experiences. This at once excludes the popular idea that it was the supernatural personal devil of popular theology that tempted Jesus. No man is ever tempted in this way, but always by the incitements of the flesh, either operating spontaneously within, or presented to us in an objective manner by the suggestions of a person external to ourselves. The whole narrative of the temptation shows it was a temptation of the latter sort—a temptation brought to bear by an external tempter—a person—but not the popular Satan, who exists only in the Papalised imaginations of such as derive their theological ideas from inherited tradition, and not from the study of the scriptures. The Bible devil and the pulpit devil are two different things. The Bible devil, with many shapes, has a common derivation—the insubordination of flesh and blood to divine law. This devil exists in his largest form in the present political constitution of things upon the earth. In detail, he presents himself in our own feelings, and in the persons of those who, on any pretext whatsoever, would draw us away from divine ways and thoughts. Who he specifically was in the case of Jesus, we are not informed, and do not know: but his generic identity is unquestionable.

It is an idle question that has been raised by theologians, whether Christ was “peccable” or “impeccable,” in view of the fact that he was driven into the wilderness expressly for the purpose of being tempted of the devil. If he was not capable of sinning, he was not capable of being tempted. A popular writer has well said: “Some, in a zeal, at once intemperate and ignorant, have claimed for him (Christ), not only an actual sinlessness, but a nature to which sin was divinely and miraculously impossible. What then? If his great conflict were a mere deceptive phantasmagoria, how can the narrative of it profit us? If we have to fight the battle, clad in that armour of human free will which has been hacked and riven about the bosom of our forefathers by so many a cruel blow, what comfort is it to us if our great captain fought not only victoriously, but without real danger? not only uninjured, but without even the possibility of wound?” It is facts, and not the metaphysical theories of facts, that wise men concern themselves with. Metaphysics land a man in the inconceivable. We have no faculty for dealing with the abstract. We cannot follow God, as it were, in the process by which He has concreted His eternal spirit into the forms and functions of created life. It is the practical relations of the latter that concern us. On this principle, it is sufficient to note that Christ was tempted, without enquiring whether or not it was possible he could yield to temptation. The speculation only becomes material, and that in a bad sense, when it is made to interfere with that free volition of Christ, which was essential to the righteousness he came to fulfil, the very nature of which consists in the willing and witting subordination of the human will to the divine: (“not my will but thine be done”).

The time at which the temptation occurred is suggestive in several ways. It was just when Jesus had been openly acknowledged by the Father as His beloved Son, and when the Spirit of the Father had visibly, and without measure, come upon him, with that endowment of power and wisdom which qualified him to perform those works and speak those words beyond the power of man, which, for three-and a-half subsequent years, filled Judæa and Galilee with his fame. Why, at such a time, and not before, or later in his career, was he “driven of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil?” Jesus himself afterwards proclaimed it as a principle of divine action, that to whom much is given, of them much is required. This seems to supply the answer. Jesus, endowed with a special measure of the Father’s fayour, was sent forth to be put to a proof equal to the new greatness conferred upon him. He had been, during a thirty years’ private life at Nazareth, subjected to the temptations common to men. Anointed now “with the Holy Spirit and with power,” it was meet he should be subjected to a correspondingly increased test of faithfulness before going forth in the plenitude of this power to bear the Father’s name before Israel.

He was tempted in three particulars only, but it will be found that they comprise, in principle, all the temptations to which we can be exposed. First, there was the proposal that Jesus should illegitimately minister to his own need in the matter of food. The temptation on this point was made as keen as it was possible to be. It was not brought to bear when Christ had eaten. It would have been no temptation had the proposal not coincided with a strong desire in the direction proposed. It came to him after a fast of forty days; when the Spirit having sustained him all that time with a supply of the vital energy ordinarily derived from the alimentive process, permitted him to hunger. As the proverb has it, “Hunger will break through stone walls.” Even lawlessness committed from the force of hunger is leniently viewed by men in general, as it is written, “Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.” The hunger of Christ, therefore, made the temptation a very strong one. But the temptation was made still stronger by the way the tempter put it: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” This was as much as to say that the proof of his Messiahship required him to do what was proposed, and that if he failed to do it, he would give his tempter ground for doubting the proclamation that had just been made on the banks of the Jordan. Thus Christ’s desire to testify the truth was cunningly brought to the help of his hunger to incline him to provide himself with food. But the power to make bread at will, which Christ possessed, as afterwards shown by his feeding a multitude with five loaves and two fishes, was not given to him to provide his own natural wants, but to exhibit his Father’s name to Israel. Consequently, though he had the power which the tempter challenged, he was not at liberty to put it forth at the time and for the purpose proposed. It would have been sin in him to comply with the suggestion. He repelled the suggestion by a quotation from the Scriptures, which involved the assertion of those facts: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

The power of this rejoinder may not at first sight be manifest; because, so far as appearance went, the proposal was not to discard the Word of God, but merely to provide the bread which the answer recognised as an element, though not alone, in the process of living. If we understood, however, that the proposed mode of providing it was wrong, the strength of it appears. “Bread alone” will finally land a man in the grave, because bread cannot bestow immortality. Bread, with the Word of God believed and obeyed, will be a stepping-stone to life that will never end (and it is in this sense that the Scriptures speak of men “living”). In fact, in this connection, bread becomes part of the pathway to eternal life, for without the bread first to develope and sustain the natural man, the Word of God could not have the ground to work on which leads to everlasting life (first that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual). But bread, with the word of God disobeyed, is “bread alone,” so far as life-giving power is concerned; for the word of God confers no everlasting life on the disobedient. Consequently for a man to obtain bread on terms that involve his non submission to the word of God (and this was the tempter’s proposal) is to take his stand on “bread alone.” To such a case, the Scripture quoted by Jesus has obviously a most forcible application. The rejoinder was unanswerable.

“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” Here we have a different class of temptation. In the first, he was invited, for two powerful reasons, to make a forbidden use of power entrusted to his hands. In this the tempter goes to the other extreme, and invites Jesus to throw himself ostentatiously on the promises of God. This, perhaps, was more difficult to meet than the other. It was as if the tempter said, “Thou art the Messiah, art thou not?”—“Yes.” “It is written, is it not, that He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, and they shall bear thee up?”—“It is so written.” “Cast thyself down, then; how canst thou expect me to believe if thou dost not?” How was this to be met? By the assertion of a principle ignored in the tempter’s application of scripture—a principle which all divine promises pre suppose, and which would have been violated by compliance with the tempter’s challenge; viz., that there must be no familiarity or presumption towards God: that we must make a wise and full use of all that He has put in our power, and that divine help is only for the need that remains after there has been a humble, wise, and loving employment of the means already in our hand. This principle Jesus asserted by quoting Scripture: “Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God.” Had he thrown himself down, as the tempter proposed, he would have done what the Scriptures thus forbid, and would have forfeited his claim to the promise to which the tempter so sophistically appealed. The protection promised in that promise was protection from evil beyond control, and not from evil rashly and presumptiously incurred.

“Again, the devil taketh him up to an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and saith unto him, All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Here the temptation takes a different direction. Having failed to induce Jesus to illegitimately gratify the cravings of the flesh or to transgress in the direction of presumption towards God, the tempter tries the effect of present honour, wealth and exaltation offered on the simple condition of doing homage to the offerer, as the kings and governors of the Roman earth were in the habit of doing to Cæsar for their position and dignities. Jesus utterly repels the suggestion, reminding the tempter that the Scriptures command one service only. “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”

The temptation of Christ is a remarkable episode in a remarkable history. It deserves more attention than it receives, as regards the lessons it conveys. There is no temptation that can come to us but what was in principle involved in the specific temptation to which he was subjected in the wilderness after his baptism. The consideration of his resistance to the suggestions of the tempter, will help us in all our exposures to similar trial. Is it proposed to us to gratify some craving of the flesh in a forbidden direction? to make a vain-glorious or presumptuous use of spiritual privileges? to obtain temporal advantage by paying court to the enemies of God in any form? Let us cast our eyes to the wilderness of Judea, and remember the principles asserted by the Lord in Scripture quotations, in answer to similar proposals.

It is also a remarkable feature of the temptation of Christ, that he employed the Scriptures in repelling the suggestions of the tempter. This is a feature worth noting in a day like ours, when the universal tendency is to give the Scriptures a less and less commanding place. With Christ, the fact of a thing being “written” was a sufficent reason for making it a rule of conduct, which is becoming less and less the case in a day when more and more the theory finds favour that the Scriptures are partly or wholly the product of human thought, and subject to human judgment and conscience as to the obligation of its precepts. The implication is obvious that we only stand with Christ fully when we recognize that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” and therefore, as he said, “cannot be broken” in its truth or authority. Corollary to this line of thought is the view which the temptation affords of Christ’s acquaintance with the Scriptures. His ready responses to the tempter show both acquaintance with them, and that memory of their practical instructions that was able to apply them in the hour of need. If Jesus thus knew the Scriptures, it was because “his custom was” to frequent the synagogue and read the Scriptures (Luke iv. 16). His being God manifest in the flesh would lead to a powerful proneness in a scriptural direction; but it did not make him independent of the testimony which the Spirit in David says was his study all the day, and the understanding of which made him wiser than his teachers (Psa. cxix. 97–104). In Christ, therefore, we have an example of that endeavour to become familiar with the Scriptures in daily reading, which is the characteristic of the modern revival of the truth. We have also, in his treatment of them, a justification for regarding the Scriptures as the unerring source of information in matters pertaining to God.

Jesus was in the wilderness forty days, at the end of which the temptation occurred. We are not informed in what manner the Lord was occupied during that time, or for what purpose he was so long a time secluded “with the wild beasts.” We can scarcely escape the thought that it was for preparation. He had come straight from the home associations of Nazareth to John’s baptism, and it would scarcely have been fitting that he should at once have passed from those associations into the wide public work which he had to accomplish before his death. We all know the need for pause in changing from one occupation to another. How much more must he have felt it who stepped from a carpenter’s bench to the position of a nation’s instructor with the power of God upon him, and the work before him of “taking away the sin of the world.” Doubtless, he had a strength in himself that made such a transition easier for him than for ordinary men. Still, as “touched with the feeling of our infirmity,” he must have felt the effects of village life sufficiently to make it needful that he should have a season of majestic and heart-enlarging solitude before entering upon his journey through the multitudes of Israel as the name-bearer of Jehovah. Tile length of the period brings to mind many similar periods in the work of God. In years, we have Moses in exile forty years; Israel in the wilderness forty years; the land in frequent rest from affliction forty years; David’s reign forty years; Solomon’s reign forty years, &c., &c. In days, we have the flood descending forty days, Moses in Mount Sinai forty days, the spies searching the land, forty days; the Philistine defied Israel forty days; Elijah in the wilderness forty days; Jesus forty days with his disciples after his resurrection. The recurrence of this number suggests that it enters into the plan upon which the purpose of God with the earth is being worked out. Forty days were at all events a sufficiently long time to prepare the heart of Jesus for the work upon which he was about to enter.

When the temptation was ended, Jesus “came into Galilee.” The enemies of the Bible make a great deal of the apparent discrepancy on this point between John and the other gospel narrators. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all speak of the temptation as occurring immediately after Christ’s baptism in the Jordan, while John not only omits the temptation altogether, but appears to represent Jesus as remaining in the neighbourhood of the Jordan several days after his baptism, and departing thence to Galilee. The explanation of this is to be found in the nature of John’s account as distinguished from the others. It is not a chronological biography, but a report of special sayings and discourses of Christ, for which there is only so much of circumstantial narrative introduced as is needful for a frame-work. There is no doubt some truth in the tradition that John’s gospel was written last, and, not only last, but long after the others had been in circulation among believers. Its existence is doubtless due to the perception which John had of the necessity there was for a fuller exhibition of the sayings of Christ, in confutation of the erroneous ideas about him that had sprung into activity with the course of time. So much as was already well known, he would naturally think it superflous to write (and the Spirit was with him to guide and direct). Therefore, the temptation (three times already recorded) he would omit, equally with the particulars of his birth. But, says the caviller, “he ought not to have contradicted the other accounts. He ought not to have represented Christ as in the neighbourhood of the Jordan, and departing to Galilee during the forty days he was in the wilderness.” The answer is, John does not do so. He only appears to do so on a rough reading. He does not record the baptism of Jesus. He only records the Baptist’s remarks about it, and these remarks were made some time after it had occurred, for they are des. criptive of its having occurred. How long after, does not appear. It may have been some weeks. It may have been long enough to give time for Christ’s forty days’ absence in the wilderness. True, it speaks of Jesus coming to John the same day; but may not this have been after the return of Jesus from the wilderness? If the place of temptation were, as believed, to the south of the place of baptism, it would be natural that Jesus on his way to Galilee, which lay to the north, should repass the scene of his baptism where the Baptist was still at work with the multitude; and what more natural in that case than that the Baptist, on seeing him again, should say (as John represents him saying), “Behold the Lamb of God.… I saw the Spirit descending from heaven, and it abode upon him?” It is evident that Christ’s baptism had happened some time before: in which case, there is no discrepancy at all between John and the other recorders, but merely a different order of narrative.

CHAPTER XII.

———

From the Wilderness to Cana of Galilee.

We now go forth with Jesus to behold his wonderful works and hear his wonderful words for the next three years and a half. We are not of those who say they can do without his miracles. On the contrary, they are indispensable. It is his miracles that tell us he is from the Father. As he said: “The works that I do in my Father’s name, the same bear witnesss of me that the Father hath sent me” (Jno. v. 36; x. 25). The absence of miracles would be the absence of proof that he is Christ, the Saviour of the world. Jesus admitted that, in the absence of miracle, the Jews would have been without sin in rejecting him: “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin” (Jno. xv. 24).

But say some, “Christ is so beautiful in himself; his teaching is so exalted above all men’s, before or since,—that miracle cannot add to his excellence.” What shall we say in answer? That his beauty can be improved? That his excellence can be added to? No. But is beauty enough? Is excellence all that we need in one who offers himself as our hope? Need we not a guarantee that with the beauty and the excellence, there is power? Need we not assurance that the beauty is not that of the transient rainbow or the golden sunset, or the blooming garden, or the flowery lea? The questions suggest the answer. Those who set light by the miracles—especially those who would dispense with them (especially the greatest of them, Christ’s own resurrection), would give us a Christ whom we might admire, but could not trust; a Christ whom we might copy as a beautiful model, but to whom we could not look as one having authority, and power to save all who come unto God by him.

Christ’s reply to John’s messengers remains full of the power there was in it when uttered in the presence of those who had seen his miracles: “Go tell John what things ye have seen and heard: how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me” (Luke vii. 22, 23). The men who saw such things could carry back but one answer to John’s question, “Art thou he that should come?” And we who authentically hear of them can have no other. They bring with them the conviction uttered by Nicodemus, “No man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him;” and the wonder expressed by the cured blind man to the Jews who sceptically interrogated him concerning Jesus: “Why, herein is a marvellous thing that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.” True, it is, that Jesus seemed to disparage the miracles sometimes, as when he said “Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe” (Jno. iv. 48). But this was in rebuke of the mere sight-seeing curiosity, whose appetite is for the marvellous rather than for the meaning of it. This is in no way inconsistent with the place he assigns to miracle, as the evidence that God had sent him.

Jesus having successfully come through the trial of the wilderness, returns “in the power of the Spirit” to Galilee. On the way, he revisits John, whose labours continued on the banks of the Jordan till his imprisonment. John sees him approach, and salutes him in the hearing of those standing by, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. This is he of whom I said, &c.” (and he proceeds to relate what occurred at his baptism, concluding with the words, “and I saw and bare record this was the Son of God”). How long Jesus stayed with John that day is not stated—probably a short time—perhaps half-an-hour. At the end of that time, he would retire either to the open country or to the house in which he would stay while in the neighbourhood. At all events, next day he was near John again: and “John, looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God.” Here we seem to see Jesus in the act of walking, We naturally clutch at everything that helps us to realise him in the dark days of our widowhood: “whom having not seen, we love.” But we shall see him yet, walking, and sitting, and talking and eating, and performing all the acts of life, with all the grace of noble innocence, love and power.

Two of John’s disciples, who had evidently pondered what they heard John say on the previous day, hearing him now again call attention to Jesus as he passed, walked after Jesus. When they had done so for a little time, Jesus turned, and asked them what they wanted. They scarcely knew what to say, but they asked him where he was staying. Jesus did not tell them where, but asked them to “Come and see,” probably because the house where he was staying would not be capable of description in the way of address. It would be one of the many temporary booths erected without much plan or order all round the place where John was baptising, and let to visitors from a distance. A dwelling place among such structures could only be got at by the help of a guide. This guide was Jesus himself, with whom “they came and saw where he dwelt,” and not only saw, but “abode with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour,” that is, four o’clock in the afternoon. What an honour for these two young men (Andrew and John): Christ’s guests under Christ’s own roof (even if only a hired one), for one night! What would we not give for such an opportunity now? He is away, and we are out in the dark—loving, and longing, and seeking, but unable to find our beloved in all the city. We are like Solomon’s sister-spouse: Yea, we are she (or constituents of her): “My beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone; my soul failed while he spake. I sought him, but I could not find him. I called him back, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen that went about the city found me. They smote me: they wounded me. The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him I am sick of love. What is thy beloved more than another beloved?” (Song v. 6–9). Well, our opportunity is coming and is not very far off. If we are accepted, Christ will actually be the host of the great house into which we shall be invited, as he himself has promised: “Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching. Verily. I say unto you that he shall gird himself and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them” (Luke xii. 37).

What passed between Jesus and these two during the evening, night, and morning they were together (the first of the disciples to be called to his side) would be interesting to know. But we are not informed. Whatever it was, the words and deportment of Christ, and everything connected with him, were sufficient to confirm the conviction created in their minds by John’s testimony, that he was indeed “The Lamb of God.” This is shown by what they did the very first thing next day. Andrew “first findeth his own brother Simon (Peter), and saith unto him, We have found the Messias.” Peter lent a willing ear, and allowed himself to be taken by Andrew into Christ’s presence. This is Peter’s first appearance upon the scene, from which his name was never afterwards to disappear. We are informed that “Jesus beheld him” and addressed him. This suggests a fastening of Christ’s eyes on Peter in a penetrative contemplative manner. Jesus had before him the disciple to whom he was to entrust the keys of the kingdom, and who was to be a foremost figure in the work of planting the name of Christ in the earth, and who was to glorify God in a specially agonising death—like his master. Jesus knew all this: for, as John takes pains to tell us in his second chapter (verse 24), “he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.” He knew that this ardent impetuous Simon, faithful but infirm, was first of the twelve foundations upon which the holy city was to be built. That he should fasten his eyes on him, when first introduced to him, was natural, and also that he should address him in words few, but full of meaning, with regard to Peter’s future: “Thou art Simon, the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas” (a stone or rock). Christ’s words were always few, but pregnant. He could deliver a long discourse, but in colloquy, his words were brief and terse. Solomon says, “A fool is known by the multitude of his words.” The reverse was illustrated in Christ. He did not apostrophise Peter in long-winded obscurities, after the manner of pretenders in all ages: but fixed his place in one word. This was the third day after his return from the temptation.

The next day (the fourth) Jesus desired to depart from Galilee, about 80 miles to the north of the scene of John’s labours, where he had begun to gather the disciples prepared for him by John. Before making a start, he wished to call one or two others to his side who were still in that neighbourhood. He went forth, and without much search, found Philip, who was evidently in attendance upon John’s teaching. To him he simply said, “Follow me.” The words would be said in a way to mean much. By look and tone they would be made to say, “I am he to whom John bare testimony, as ye know: I am he whom ye seek: I am he whom God hath sent. I am the Messiah. The Messiah has need of you. Come.” Philip had evidently been in such a prepared state of mind that it needed not another word. Philip was a fellow-townsman of Andrew and Peter, who both belonged to Bethsaida, a fishing town on the north-eastern shore of the Lake of Gennesaret. With them he would be acquainted. With them he had evidently kept company in submission to John’s baptism. He would all the more readily respond to the command of Christ, that Peter and Andrew were before him with their allegiance. His obedience was prompt and his conviction ripe. The first thing he did was to communicate his discovery of Christ to Nathanael of Cana, who was also in the throng of attendants upon John the Baptist. Cana of Galilee was not far from Bethsaida; and the probability is that Philip and Nathanael were acquainted. That he should go straight to Nathanael would prove this. The communication he made was indicative of the acquaintance they all had with the Scriptures of Moses and the prophets, and of the expectation of the Messiah’s appearance, which they entertained in common as the result of their readings of them. “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write,” that is, the promised seed of Abraham, the prophet like unto Moses, the son covenanted to David, the Messiah foreshown by all the prophets. It was good news that Philip made known to Nathanael, but Philip made an addition that excited his incredulity: “Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph” (not that he was really the son of Joseph, but this was his social status in the town and neighbourhood where he lived—the reputed eldest son of Joseph). It was the town that staggered Nathanael. He knew Nazareth (it was not many miles from Cana), and he knew it was a poor place every way—secluded among the hills and having very little of that intercourse with the outer world which is necessary to sharpen village people. “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” he said. Philip, as a young fisherman living at Bethsaida on the sea, probably did not know so much about it as Nathanael, and could not debate the affair with him in the abstract, but as regarded Jesus, he could give the best of all answers: “Come and see.” Whatever might be the case with regard to Nazareth and Nazarenes in general, he was quite sure that, in Jesus, the best thing that had ever come out of anywhere for man had come out of Nazareth. He invited Nathanael to satisfy himself by personal inspection—the very best advice that can be given on this subject ever since. Though Christ is not on the earth to be looked at as Nathanael could look at him, there are monuments and mementoes of him extant which make the examination of him possible—notably the Scriptures. Any man who will to the extent of his opportunity, do what Philip told Nathanael to do, must, if he have an open eye and a loving heart, come to the conclusion that Philip announced.

Nathanael was a man of this stamp. He went with Philip to see Jesus. Jesus made the way very plain for Nathanael, because he was a childlike man, desiring only to know the truth (probably, Jesus does the same yet, though in a different way of working, as his different relation to things on earth requires). Jesus seeing Nathanael approach, and knowing all about him as he did about Peter, opens the way for him by saluting him—not with a compliment, as some think, but with a simple declaration of truth: “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.” Nathanael did not know Jesus, and supposed that Jesus could not know him. He therefore, in surprise at his salutation, asks him how he knew him. Christ’s answer spoke volumes to Nathanael: “Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.” In view of all that had gone before—the arrival of the time for the Messiah to appear—of John the Baptist’s declaration that the Messiah was in their midst,—of the divine identification of Jesus in the act of baptism six weeks previously, of which Nathanael would hear if he did not witness it,—and of Philip’s information, this incident was irresistible. Nathanael could not avoid the conviction which he immediately expressed: “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God: thou art the King of Israel.” Jesus then volunteered a gracious comment: “Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? Thou shalt see greater things than these … Hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

Much that is sublimely interesting is suggested by this whole incident. Jesus saw Nathanael at a distance and through natural obstructions, which a man possessing merely natural power could not have done. This power of the Spirit of God to extend natural faculty is illustrated more than once in the history of God’s work upon earth. The King of Syria, perplexed by the baffling of his plans against Israel through the oozing out of secret information, was informed by his servants to whom he at least appealed for the discovery of the traitors, “Elisha the prophet that is in Israel telleth the King of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber” (2 Kings vi. 12). On Jesus, the Spirit of God, after his baptism, rested without measure. He was therefore able to see as God sees, who says “Can any hide himself in secret places that I should not see him?” (Jer. xxiii. 24.) Nathanael recognised in this an evidence of his Messiahship; but Jesus overwhelmed his faith, as we might say, by telling him of coming manifestations of a far higher order. Seeing Nathanael under the fig tree was a case of Jesus seeing, but Jesus told Nathanael of what Nathanael would see in the day of God’s finished purpose in Christ—heaven open and the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. This is suggestive of very great things. We are. accustomed to conceive of the universe and its possibilities from the standpoint of our mortal faculties. Are these the highest faculties? What man of Ordinary intellectual prudence and information would be guilty of affirming such a thing? Are the powers and faculties of mortal man upon the earth the utmost development that is possible of the senses of seeing and hearing? The question suggests its own answer. There are higher things in heaven and earth than mortal man dreams of. Jesus touches some of these in his answer to Nathanael. We have occasional glimpses in other parts of the Scripture: “Lord I pray thee open his eyes that he may see,” said Elisha, concerning his alarmed servitor, when a Syrian host besieged them at Dothan, “And the Lord opened the young man’s eyes and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha” (2 Kings vi. 17). “They that be with us,” said Elisha, “are more than they that be with them.” When “heaven” is “open” in the sense of Christ’s intimation to Nathanael—that is, when our eyes are open to an enlarged vision of things, the universe will not seem the yawning empty abyss it looks to mortal eye and heart. “In the spirit” which fills all space, we shall feel one with all and at home everywhere, and in connection with the busy angelic multitude who are meanwhile hid from our eyes. The earth in open communion with heaven, through the visible commerce of angels,—converging upon Christ as the “one head” under whom all things are to be confederate—is the vision shewn to us in the words of Jesus to the guileless believing Nathanaels of every age.

Jesus now departs to Galilee—whether accompanied or not by the five who had just become persuaded of his Messiahship, and who were afterwards appointed Apostles—(Andrew, John, Simon, Philip, and Nathanael)—does not appear. If they accompanied him, it would be as fellow travellers homeward; for we afterwards find them in their several places of stay, and Jesus at Nazareth. Jesus was not long home from his six or eight weeks’ absence, when he received an invitation to attend a marriage at Cana, a village a few miles to the north of Nazareth. His mother and such disciples as had already attached themselves to him (probably during the few years’ private tuition preceding his baptism by John) were included in the invitation. He went. It was probably the marriage of some near relation—and being a semi-public occasion, he chose to take occasion of it to make a beginning of the miracles which were to “manifest forth his glory” to the nation at large. Being all assembled, the company, which was probably larger than anticipated, ran short of wine Mary, who had “pondered all things in her heart” concerning her first-born from the very beginning, appears, with a woman’s quick intuition, to have formed the conclusion that Jesus was now possessed of power to do all things. She told him suggestively, “they have no wine.” Jesus answers abruptly, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.” There must have been a reason for this apparent, impatience. We are probably not far wrong in attributing it to the difference between the view that Jesus would have in putting forth miraculous power, and that which would be entertained by those who wished and saw and admired it. Christ would realise that this exercise of miraculous power was a condescension on the part of God, for the purpose of manifesting and establishing His Anointed One, with a view to His own great purpose towards man—a purpose of love and salvation truly, but first of exalting and hallowing His own great name, and condemning the universal insubordination of man. Miraculous power would therefore be in Christ’s estimation an implement of holiness; but Mary’s view for the moment appears to have been that it would be a human convenience, and likely enough there was mixed up with this view a little of a mother’s pride in the greatness of her Son. Christ had proposed to supply the wine, but he would not do it at human call or to gratify human complaisance. He therefore answered his mother in a way that in modern times would be considered equivalent to a snub. Mr. Gladstone says he does not understand Christ’s deportment in this instance. This shows that Mr. Gladstone is a mere Greek. To an Israelite indeed (with whom God is all in all and man an earthen vessel of divine fabrication), there can be none of the difficulties that beset the whole subject of Christ for minds imbued with the prevalent idea that man is of immortal status in the universe; and the fountain of intellectual and moral excellence.

Mary gathered from Christ’s manner, notwithstanding, that he intended to supply the wine. So she said to the servants, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” The servants, all alacrity, hear him tell them by-and-bye to fill with water the six stone water-pots that were set near the door, “after the manner of the purifying of the Jews.” They do so at once, “to the brim,” and doubtless wait with fixed attention for the next direction: “Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast.” “And they bare.” The ruler of the feast finds that what the servants have brought is the very best wine. He is ignorant of its origin, but it is so good that he feels impelled to remark that the custom was to bring out the good wine first: but here, the good had come last. It must have been prime liquor to have evoked such a tribute from a connoisseur who had partaken freely of other wine during the evening. His verdict is a confutation of the extreme teetotal suggestion that the wine Jesus made was the unfermented juice of the grape. An unfermented vegetable juice would have been the reverse of appreciated by men who had “well drunk” of ordinary wines. What Jesus made was wine, and that, the very best. Vegetable juice is not wine. It must undergo vinous fermentation before it can be so designated. This, however, is merely aside.

The marvel consisted of the instantaneous transformation of common water into rich wine. The nature of the marvel has been discussed in The Visible Hand of God. Jesus tells us how it was done. “I cast out demons by the Spirit of God” (Matt. xii. 28). It was not magic. It was the exercise of the power by which all things have been made, and in which they subsist. This power is in all the universe, for the Spirit fills immensity. But no man can use it except he to whom God gives the power, for the power is His and in Him. He gave this power to Jesus (Acts x. 38), and the works done by him were, therefore, the Father’s works, as Jesus said. They were “miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of Israel” (Acts ii. 22).

“This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him” (Jno. ii. 11). Before this, the few disciples that had begun to gather round Jesus had only the testimony of John the Baptist to rest on, strengthened by such arguments from Moses and the prophets as Jesus might bring to bear on them. But now they saw with their own eyes the manifestation of the power that was latent within him as the anointed of God: and which afterwards blazed forth as a great light in all the coasts of Israel, drawing multitudes after him and filling the land, and, at the last, the world, with his fame.

CHAPTER XIII.

———

The First Visit to Jerusalem.—Nicodemus.

From Cana of Galilee, where the first miracle had been performed, in the turning of water into wine, Jesus, his mother, his brethren, and his disciples, “went to Capernaum” instead of returning to Nazareth. Capernaum was situate on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, near its northern end; and from the description left us by Josephus, was a busy and thriving place, in a most pleasant and salubrious situation. Here, we are informed (Jno. ii. 12), Jesus and his company “continued not many days, but went up to the passover at Jerusalem.” But why did they come to Capernaum, instead of returning to Nazareth? Probably because the time to attend the feast was too near to make it worth while to go back to the seclusion of Nazareth, from which they would so soon have to re-emerge. At Capernaum, they were on the highway of public traffic, on which so many travelling companies would soon set out to the Holy City. With these they would journey along the valley of the Jordan, reaching Jerusalem in two or three days.

Arrived there, Jesus performed an act which many have been unable to understand. Finding the approaches and outer court of the temple occupied by traders of various descriptions, he “made a scourge of small cords,” and “drove them all out,” overthrowing the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold doves, and clearing out droves of sheep and oxen. The apparent harshness of this procedure shows in a strong light, when we recollect how such intruders came to be there. Sheep and oxen were required for the offerings of those who attended the feast; doves, likewise, for the poorer of the community, who were not able to offer an expensive animal. Many of these, coming from long distances, would be unable to bring the sacrificial animals with them, but would come provided with money (as the law of Moses prescribed) to buy, offer and eat on the spot. The provision of these animals for sale in the neighbourhood of the temple would therefore be a great public convenience. So with the money-changing. Many would come to the feast unprovided with money current in Jerusalem, and eligible for the tribute payable by every son of Abraham to the priests for the maintenance of the temple service. They would have money, but money belonging to a distant province, and not “taken” in the Holy City. How were such to obtain suitable coin without the money-changer? It would seem on the face of things as if it were not only an unobjectionable, but an indispensable and praiseworthy institution that the dealers in all these things should offer their wares to the frequenters of the temple.

The words which Jesus addressed to these dealers, as he broke into and upset their arrangements, indicate another view of the situation, and one which probably none but himself entertained. “Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.” The action and the words would savour of intemperate zeal in the eyes of merely natural thinkers. Zeal there certainly was. “The disciples remembered that it was written of him, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” Intemperate zeal there was not: zeal founded on a reasonable appreciation of things is not intemperate, however strong. Men universally recognize zeal in a good cause to be a beautiful thing They do not universally discern the cause of the zeal in this case to be good.—“The zeal of thine house,” This kind of zeal does not appeal to most men. The nature and source of it Jesus made manifest on a later occasion. When acting a similar part, he called attention to a statement in the prophets: “Is it not written, my house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Jesus recognised something inconsistent with the true object of the temple service in the eager turning of the supply of its physical requirements into an occasion for making money. He would have had men come with supplies in the spirit of service—not with the object of gain. There is a time for everything. His sympathy was with the praying, not with the trading. His sympathy amounted to zeal—a zeal so intense as to be an eating up zeal—an executive zeal—a zeal impelling to action. He flourished a whip of small cords about the ears of the chaffering rabble. He glanced scorching rebuke at them as he overturned their tables and scattered their money, and with imperative gesture, ordered them all out. He apostrophised them in terms that would be considered by the majority of educated men in our day, transcendent rhodomontade: but which reveal a glimpse of highest wisdom. It is a side of Christ’s character entirely overlooked in popular presentments of him. It is one that has a useful place. Christ is the model for his people. “Imitators of Christ” is one of the Revised-version definitions of true disciples. The imitation ought not to be confined to one phase. He is to be imitated in his zeal for God as well as in his compassion for man: not that we have his authority or his opportunity, but that we must have his spirit, which, in a day like ours, will find scope in an earnest contention for Divine faith and appointments against the countless corruptions of a community which owns his name, but is reprobate to all his requirements.

It is a singular thing to contemplate that this, at this time, unknown young mechanic (for he was only 30), in the garb and dialect of a provincial Galilean, should be able to overawe and coerce a crowd of Jerusalem Jews, in the face of the temple authorities, and actually expel them from the precincts of the temple, with the loss of their money probably in many cases. Some artificial suggestions have been made about the power of moral influence over guilty consciences. We may be quite sure that this had nothing to do with Christ’s ascendancy over a crowd of huckstering traders who are notoriously insensible to moral influences of any kind, and who in this case, were the lowest class in a whole nation of whom it is declared that their hearts had become gross, and their eyes closed and their ears dull of hearing. We must look higher than to human susceptibility to find the explanation of this heroic situation. We must look to the holder of the “whip of small cords” and not to the cowering crew who betook themselves, abashed, from his presence. There is no lack of explanation here. God was in him in the immeasurable abiding presence of the Spirit. This power, directed indignantly, was irresistible. It paralysed the hands of his enemies on more occasions than one. He was enabled to make a lane through their ranks on the brow of the Nazareth heights; and to arrest their stone-filled hands in Jerusalem when his cutting words had goaded them to deadly intent; and to throw a whole band of soldiers on their faces when they came to arrest him. The power of God which was often “present to heal,” was always present to protect His anointed, until his hour had come. “In the shadow of His hand hath He hid me” is the prophetic description which explains all. The fire of God’s indignation streamed from his eyes upon the profane multitude that were defiling His courts, and therefore they were powerless to raise a finger against a young man whom otherwise they would not only have disregarded, but overpowered; whose interference they would have resented as intolerable presumption.

When they had recovered themselves a little, they asked a token of his authority to do such things. His answered combined obscurity and pointedness in a remarkable manner—“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The obscurity lay in his apparently referring to the literal temple whose holiness he was vindicating; the pointedness lay in the fact that his resurrection in three days after they should put him to death, would be the unanswerable demonstration of his authority to do everything. Some have asked, Why should his answer have been obscure at all? Even the disciples were impressed on this point: “Why speakest thou to them in parables?” Such was their question on a subsequent occasion. His answer may not seem much of an explanation to some: “That seeing, they may see and not perceive, and hearing, they may hear and not understand, test at any time they should be converted, &c.” (Mark iv. 12). Why should the teaching of Jesus have been couched in a form calculated to obstruct the light? The answer may be learnt from the prophets. For a long season Israel had turned a deaf ear to God’s expostulations. There is a limit to the Divine patience. Therefore we read, “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouths and with their lips do honour me but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men, therefore behold I will proceed to do a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.” “The Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes” (Is. xxix. 13, 14, 10).

When Jesus appeared in Israel, their spiritual reprobateness had reached a climax. His mission was in harmony with the time. “His fan is in his hand,” said John the Baptist, “and he shall thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. iii. 12). The prophet Malachi had said (iii. 2, 3, 5) “He is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap. He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.… I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages.” It was partly in execution of this mission that he expelled the traders from the Temple, and that he systematically veiled his meaning in parabolic discourse. It was a time of retribution, which culminated in 40 years in the fiery overthrow of the State, and the destruction of the people.

They imagined he meant that he could rebuild Herod’s Temple in three days if it were to be destroyed. “Forty and six years,” said they, “was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?” “But he spake of the temple of his body.” Jesus knew his work from the beginning. No part of it was an afterthought. His death was before him as a known appointment of the Father’s; and his resurrection the end, of which he never lost sight. He steadily pressed forward towards it in the midst of all the blindness and confusion and misunderstanding that prevailed around him, deflecting not in the least from the path he was called upon in his faith to follow. In this he hath “left us an example that we should follow in his steps.” We are not told what rejoinder Jesus made to the incredulous enquiry of the Jews. Probably he observed silence—often the best answer. His words—not understood—remained with some who heard them, for they were made the pretext of an accusation against him, when at the last he was led as a lamb to the slaughter. They were for this purpose perverted. He was accused of having said that he would destroy the temple. A slight change in words makes a wonderful difference to the meaning sometimes; and enmity never hesitates at changes that are even not slight. The words were not understood by his disciples any more than by his enemies. The words even passed from their memory. They came back afterwards: “when he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them.” They remembered because they were helped to remember. Jesus had promised that when he was glorified, he would send the Holy Spirit to them, “who should bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever he had spoken unto them” (John xiv. 26), “and guide them into all truth” (xvi. 13). This promise was fulfilled, so that the Apostles were able to speak and write unerringly concerning the wonderful words and works of the Son of God.

Jesus remained in Jerusalem some little time after the temple incident. We find him working miracles in the presence of the crowds who were present during the days of the Feast of the Passover (John ii. 23). We are not informed what the miracles were. They were probably of the same character as those he afterwards performed in Galilee, of which we read that “he healed all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people” (Matthew iv. 23). Whatever they were, they produced the effect they were calculated to produce and designed to produce: “Many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did.” They were mostly the common people of whom this is testified. Had Jesus been of the character imagined by some who, wishing to get rid of his divinity, invent theories that bring him into the category of human aims and errors, he would have laid eager hold of the popular faith thus created by his miracles, and would have fanned and encouraged it. Instead of that “Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men. And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man” (John ii. 24). He knew that the newly-born faith of the “many” referred to was a mere effervesence of sensationalism—the admiration of the marvellous and the excitement of novelty, and not the appreciation of the divine aims with which the miracles were wrought: an empty, ugly thing compared with the fear, faith, and obedience of God in righteousness, holiness, and love, which it was the aim of Jesus to induce in the people who were to be taken out for his name. He therefore stood irresponsively apart from the popular enthusiasm, aiming merely to do the work God had given him to do in the laying of the foundation of the coming glory of God on the earth.

The ruling class stood aloof altogether. But there were some among them who could not close their eyes to the extraordinary things that were being enacted before them. Though not convinced that this man, introduced by John the Baptist, was “the very Christ,” they could not help thinking the hand of God was in the matter in some way. Among these was Nicodemus, “a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews.” His earnest curiosity desired a closer view, but not in public. He did not wish to compromise himself with an affair of which he was in doubt, and which was odiously regarded by his class. He came to Jesus “by night.” By what means he obtained an introduction, and where the interview took place, we are not informed: and it is not important. Such particulars, bulking large in human narratives, are kept in their true insignificant place in a divinely written record. We may be sure that a man of Nicodemus’s position would have no difficulty in finding his way to the presence of a carpenter. Seated before him, by the light of a flickering Eastern lamp, Nicodemus, probably after some unrecorded preliminaries, unburdens the leading feeling of his mind: “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.” It is presumable that Nicodemus imagined that this was a great concession on his part. He might even—probably did—think it would be acceptable to Christ as an important patronage of his cause at the hands of a ruler of the Jews,—opening the way perhaps to that establishment of the kingly power of the Messiah which they were all looking for, and which all thought in common “would immediately appear” (Luke xix. 11). The presence of this complacent and purely human view of the situation would account for the abrupt and apparently otherwise irrelevant rejoinder of Christ: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus was hoping to see the Kingdom of God, as a Jew according to the flesh, and perhaps as a result of lending his official influence to the Messiah, if this were he. Christ’s declaration was therefore of a very pointed application. But Nicodemus did not understand it. He thought he was speaking literally: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus explains that this is not what he means, but that nevertheless there is a second birth of which a man must indispensably be the subject before he can inherit the kingdom. “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” If we suppose Nicodemus here asking, “Why?” we may see the point of his next observation. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” But again, a question: Why is this fact (that that which is born of the flesh is flesh) a reason going to show the necessity for being born again? It is as if Jesus had said, “No wonder you must be born again, seeing that having only been born of the flesh, ye are only flesh, which cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.” Paul, indeed, uses these latter words: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” (1 Cor. xv. 50). If we ask, why? he answers, “Corruption doth not inherit corruption.” If we ask, Is man corruption? we do not require to wait for an answer: we know it. If we ask, “Is the Kingdom of God incorruption?” though we have to wait the answer, the answer is equally clear and certain. The prophets tell us that the Kingdom which the God of heaven will set up on earth when human kingdoms have run their course, is to be given to “the saints of the Most High” (Dan. vii. 27)—and that it is not to be left to other people (Dan. ii. 44)—but will last for ever; shall not pass away. “Of his kingdom, there shall be no end” (Dan. vii. 14; Luke i. 32). Consequently, a man to inherit the Kingdom must be immortal. Jesus says its inheritors will be so, in saying “They shall not die any more” (Luke xx. 36). Now, a man merely born of the flesh is mortal and corruptible, as we all know. He has no element of immortality in him. Therefore, he must be the subject of a great change before he is fit to enter the Kingdom, which requires a man to be immortal in order to inherit it.

This great change Jesus describes as a being “born of water and of the Spirit.” Why he should so characterise it becomes apparent only when certain first principles of the truth are understood. It is one of those first principles that men are not born children of God, but children of Adam and heirs of the death that came by him (Rom. v. 12–19; Eph. ii. 3, 12). It is another, that God purposes to generate from among this death-doomed race, a family for Himself whom He will glorify with salvation (Acts xv. 14; 1 Pet. ii. 9; 1 Thess. v. 9). It is another, that the mode He has chosen in the development of this family is to present the gospel for acceptance, and to require the assumption of the name of Christ in baptism (1 Cor. i. 21; Acts x. 48; Rom. vi. 3, 4; Gal. iii. 27). It is another, that those submitting to faith in Christ Jesus are considered as having entered the new family for the first time (2 Cor. vi. 17, 18; Gal. iii. 26; Eph. ii. 13; Peter ii. 10). Begotten by the Word brought to bear upon their mind, they have, in baptism, been “born of water,” but are not yet finally incorporate in the family of God. At this stage, they may perish, as Paul recognises (1 Cor. viii. 11). At the return of Christ, they have to appear before him for judgment, to be dealt with according to the state of the account they will be called upon to render (2 Cor. v. 10; Rom. xiv. 12).—If this is not acceptable, they are rejected and depart to death. If it be such as the Lord can approve, they become the subject of that change which Paul calls “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Rom. viii. 23). As the result of this physical change, which is effected by the Spirit “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” they become finally and unalterably sons of God. “They are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke xx. 36). This consummation of their adoption is figuratively compared to a birth, as in the case of baptism. Baptism is not a literal birth, but as it is the act by which a man not a child of God becomes such, it is a natural figure which speaks of it as a birth of water. So the operation of the Spirit of God upon the mortal nature of the accepted saints (Rom. viii. 11; 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52; Phil. iii. 21) is not a literal birth, but as it is the act by which a son of the earth becomes a son of heaven (Cor. xv. 49), so it is natural to speak of it as a birth—a being born of the Spirit.

Without this divine birth in two stages, it is impossible that any man can enter upon the possession of the kingdom which the Lord will establish at his coming. The administration of that kingdom will require powers that do not belong to mortal man. It will require such a knowledge of the thoughts of men as Jesus evinced, and such a capability of eluding human observation and control as he manifested after his resurrection. The rulers of the age to come must be as independent of man as the wind. As Jesus added: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (Jno. iii. 8).

With the ideas that Nicodemus had of a kingdom of God to be administered by mortal men, it is not wonderful that he was surprised at such doctrine. “How can these things be?” said he. Christ answered as if he had said “how can they not be?” “Art thou a master of Israel and knowest not these things?” As much as to say, that as a man in Israel whose position presumed an acquaintance with the scriptures of Moses and the Prophets, he ought to have known these things. There is much more in Moses and the prophets than people are aware of. It requires close and constant reading to become acquainted with all that they reveal. The majority of people read them scarcely at all; and those who do read them, mostly do so without discernment. Nicodemus, from his position, must have been a reader, but evidently, he was in the position of those rulers of Jerusalem described by Paul when he said that “they knew not the voices of the prophets which were read in their synagogues every Sabbath day” (Acts xiii. 27). Jesus found the resurrection proved in part of Moses where the priests could not discern it, viz., in God’s declaration that he was the God of three men who were at the time dead (Luke xx. 37). By the same process of reasoning, the spiritual and immortal nature of the rulers of the future age is deducible from many parts of the prophets. Had Nicodemus been an enlightened student of them, he would have “known these things,” and would have at once recognised and endorsed Christ’s sayings as the truth.

CHAPTER XIV.

———

To Galilee, Through Samaria, via Jacob’s Well.

There was no further “conversation” between Jesus and Nicodemus after the point reached at the end of the last chapter. What followed was in the nature of a discourse by Christ uninterrupted by any questions or remarks by Nicodemus, who was probably silenced by the authoritative manner of his interlocutor, and by the rebuke his ignorance had just suffered. Christ, besides appealing by implication to the prophets for proof of the necessity for spiritbirth, proceeds to allege his own authority and the tangible ground of it. “We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen, and ye receive not our witness” (verse 11). This is a characteristic of Bible revelation. It is a matter of knowing, as men know anything; and of having seen, as men see anything. It is not an affair of what is called “subjective” experience, as when a man dreams. When a man dreams, the sensation is subjective to himself: it is not open and obvious to any one present at the same time. But in the case of revelation, the things revealed were things palpable and open to view. Bible revelation is not a matter of opinion, founded either upon personal speculation or upon arguments presented by others; nor of conviction founded upon evidence. It is an affair of personal knowledge, as when a man sees and hears and has experience, as of his own business or family affairs, for example. Jesus and John (for presumably they were the “we” whose testimony was known to Jerusalem and not believed)—were personally acquainted with the matters they spoke of: they had not received them from hearsay or persuasion. The Word of the Lord had come as actually to John as the word of a man comes to his neighbour: John had seen the Spirit descend upon Jesus as really as a man sees the lightning on the day of thunder. It had happened in accordance with previous notice as practically and really as an eclipse follows an almanac date. He had heard the words of the divine proclamation as really as any man ever hears words uttered in his hearing. Jesus had himself also seen and heard all these things and much more besides—behind all which was the actual voice of the Spirit audible to him in the inner temple of his being. It was knowledge and experience that John and Jesus testified to unbelieving Israel.

Jesus now pressed this home upon Nicodemus, and at the same time; emphasised another thought. The testimony in question had related to things and incidents on earth: but there was a day coming when Jesus would tell of a higher class of things—of things related to the heaven to which he should ascend. If Nicodemus and his class were incredulous of divine things in their first stage, how would they be able to believe in those things testified of in their second stage in the day of “heaven open” spoken of to Nathanael? He anticipates the question how any man on earth could know of things in heaven. He adds, no man had been to heaven to learn. At the same time he foreshadowed his own coming ascent thither. He did so in language a little obscure. It reads in the C. V. thus: “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven” (Jno. iii. 13). The obscurity is increased by the present participle wn (being) having been turned in translation into the present indicative—is. “The Son of Man being in the heaven” gives us the point of view of the “coming down.” He is not in heaven till he ascends: and he cannot descend till he ascends. The idea is more easy to catch when freely paraphrased thus: “It will not be affirmable that any man has ascended up to heaven until the Son of Man having ascended thither, and being there for a while, descends to the earth again.” He will then be able to say, “I have been to heaven, and the only man who has ever been there: for though Enoch and Elijah have been away from the earth, they have not been to the presence of the Father, and cannot testify of the things that are there.” Jesus, when on earth, said to his disciples, “I go to him that sent me.” When he returns, he will be able to say, “I have been to him that sent me.” We who now live in the interval of his absence, can see the bearing of this. He is “gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God, angels and principalities and powers being made subject unto him” (I Pet. iii. 22). At his return, he will be able to tells us unutterable things. The wide universe and its movements are a great mystery to created intelligence: still more, the residence and surroundings of the Personal Father-Deity, the fountain and source of all power and being. What may we not expect in the way of enlightenment on these stupendous themes from him who not only has power to bestow such capacity of understanding in the change from the mortal to the immortal, but who has been basking for 18 centuries in the inner sunshine of the Father’s glory, and who intimately knows the highest things?

The other matters glanced at in Christ’s discourse to Nicodemus belong to first principles, and present no feature of difficulty. Jesus appears to have closed the interview with a mild rebuke of Nicodemus for coming to him by night: “He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.” The open courageous course expressed by the English word “straightforward,” is doubtless the one that most commends itself to God and man. The timid patronage of truth that shrinks from human knowledge is of little value to anyone. It is best that a man’s conviction be known. It is demoralising to seek concealment. It is best to confess Christ before men. The only excuse for carefulness would be uncertainty. A man thinking a hated thing to be the truth, but not being sure, would naturally and justifiably avoid an open connection (or what might be construed to be such) until investigation had satisfied him. This was doubtless partly the case with Nicodemus. His brethren in the priesthood held or professed that Jesus was a deceiver. This would make Nicodemus feel, in a degree, uncertain. At the same time, the miracles of Jesus convinced him that God was with him for some purpose or other. He therefore looked closer, and apparently at last with decisive results; for we find him afterwards taking part with the people in favour of Christ (Jno. vii. 50, 51) and at last, no more by night, but openly identifying himself with him at a moment when the death of Christ seemed to confute all his claims (xix. 39).

Retiring from Jerusalem after the interview with Nicodemus, Jesus, accompanied by a few of his disciples, repairs to the neighbourhood of Jordan, and there remains some time. He teaches; and baptizes those who submit to his teaching. He did not personally immerse believers. The act of immersion was performed by his disciples: but done by his direction and authority, it was considered as done by him. (Jno. iii. 22: iv. 2). The non-performance of baptism by Christ’s actual hands is an intimation at the very start that its virtue depends in no way upon the administrator. Sacramentalism is outside the scope of the system of Christ. The spirit of his doctrine is this, that we must believe what God says, with the simplicity of little children, and perform what He commands in the same humble spirit. The idea of baptism or any other institution owing its efficacy to the ministration of a particular operator belongs to the system of spiritual sorcery that has since taken such deep root in the world—as foretold.

When Christ (to whom John gave testimony) appeared in the same capacity as John himself, viz.:—as a teacher and a baptizer, the people naturally turned in greater numbers to Jesus than to John. This was no distress to John, though his attention was called to it (John iii. 26). It simply led him to re-affirm his testimony to Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” But the fact was noticed by the Pharisees, who, from that day forth, observed the progress of Jesus with jealous eyes. They feared the influence he was gaining with the people. Had they known, they need not have feared, for Jesus had no disposition to use or encourage the favour of the populace. On several occasions he distinctly declined their advances, knowing that not then, or by them, would his Kingdom be established, but “after a long time” and when suffering had prepared the way. But this they did not understand, and consequently they began to watch him with unfriendly eyes. Jesus, knowing their state of mind, went away from the neighbourhood of their power. “He left Judea,” and started on his return to Galilee (John iv. 3). Why should the feelings of enemies affect the movements of one who had the power of God upon him, and who could not be touched till his “hour had come?” It was but a preferring of circumstances favourable for his work. The work he had to do was designed to influence a suitable class who were to become his disciples, and this work was best to be done in peace. He chose peace when he could have it. The time came when he could no longer have it: but then his work was nearly done. At the moment in question, he was but entering upon it, and, therefore, he preferred to get away from the heat and the excitement, and the sense of insecurity caused to the multitude by the opposition of the Scribes and Pharisees.

To get to Galilee, it was necessary to pass through the province of Samaria, which lay between Judea and Galilee. On the way through Samaria, an interesting incident occurred, in the narration of which, by John, we get closer views of Jesus than in some parts of the apostolic narrative. We find him on the road, “wearied with his journey.” This in passing tells us interestingly more things than one. It not only tells us of one “touched with the feeling of our infirmity” (Heb. iv. 15), but it shows us that the Spirit of God, though resting on him without measure, was not available for his personal needs during “the days of his flesh.” The Pharisees embittered his dying moments by shouting, “He saved others: himself he cannot save.” Their cruel taunt carried a certain truth with it concerning his whole career. He gave strength to the weak; he healed the diseased; he raised the dead. But his own personal needs and sorrows he endured in the weakness of mortal flesh, supported by that faith in the Father, which he possessed in a measure transcending that of all his disciples. The power of God placed at his disposal was for the manifestation of the name of God, and not for the supply of his personal needs. So here we have him toiling along the road in a burning Syrian sun, footsore and weary, and sitting down to rest in the neighbourhood of Sychar or Sychem, where Jacob dwelt, “in the land of promise as in a strange country,” some 1,700 years before. He sits down by a well—a well that Jacob had made in those far-off days, and which had retained his name during the long interval. His disciples go away into the city to replenish the exhausted commissariat.

The well exists to this day. It is in a valley, and in full view of Mounts Ebal and Gerrizim, which stand north and south of Shechem. The surrounding scenery is impressive, and has witnessed many events in Israel’s history. Chief among them was the muster of the tribes here when Joshua brought them into the land. An imposing array, they stood, six of the tribes on one of these hills and six on the other, while the priests, standing between, recite the principal points in the law, to each of which the people shouted a hearty “Amen” (Deut. xxvii, 11–26; Josh. viii. 30). That was very different from the scene now before us: a solitary man sitting tired at the well in the midst of the quietness and solitude of the picturesque valley, overlooked by two majestic hills. The two scenes were not unconnected, however; they were parts, though widely separate, in the one great work which God, through Israel, is working upon earth for the realisation of His own object in the creation of it. In the one case, He was instructing and developing the nation for the work before it; in the other, He was “last of all” speaking to them by His son, the heir of all things, preparatory to the long reign of desolation about to be established in the land, in punishment of all their sins.

While Jesus “sat thus on the well,” a woman from the town approaches to draw water. The woman is “a woman of Samaria”—a descendant of those Assyrian colonists whom Shalmaneser settled in Samaria when the ten tribes had been taken away nearly nine hundred years before. She is one of those therefore, with whom the Jews would have no dealings, though the Samaritans adopted the traditions of the land and claimed kinship. This fact supplies the key to the conversation that ensued. Jesus, being thirsty, asks the woman for a drink of water. The woman expresses surprise that a Jew should ask a drink from a Samaritan. (We note, by the way, that the woman recognised in Jesus a Jew. He must, therefore, have looked like one, for the woman had no other guide. He was, therefore, unlike the current portraits of him, which nearly all give him an English aspect.) Jesus did not, as most other Jews would have done under the circumstances, proceed to justify the Jewish objection to the claims of the Samaritans. He might justly have done so: but this would have been low ground. It belonged to a state of things which was nearly past and spent. The time had nearly come to give the work of God a wider extension: and Jesus was come expressly as the instrument of that extension. He therefore draws attention to himself. “If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” This was probably said in a tone of kindly dignity that would encourage the woman. She naturally did not see through the figure of his speech. She understood him literally. “Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep, Whence then hast thou that living water?” It then occurs to her that the stranger is perhaps claiming some especial gift in the case. She continues, during a momentary pause which Jesus does not offer to occupy: “Art thou greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well?” (Though a Samaritan woman, she claims Jacob as “father,” after the manner of the Samaritans). Jesus does not disparage Jacob. He speaks of things as they are. It is the well that is in question: Whoever drinks of this will thirst again, but he that drinks of the water Jesus can give will never thirst. The water so given will be in him a perennial spring. Jesus was speaking in figure of the immortal life he should bestow; but the woman could not understand this. She supposes he is speaking of literal water which by some medication or virtue, would, in one draught, permanently satiate the thirst of the drinker. She would like to get a drink of such water, and so be saved the trouble of coming constantly to the well. She asks him to give her some of this water.

The superhuman dialectical skill of Christ, so often manifested in collision with his foes, is here apparent in a delicate dilemma. The woman had taken him at his word, and in child-like simplicity, asks him for the superior water he had said he could give. To have said to the woman that she did not understand him, would simply have blocked her path. To have explained that he was speaking in figure would have embarrassed her understanding, and assumed an inconvenient onus of exegesis. He therefore adroitly throws the subject into a channel suited to her capacity, and which relieves it of the necessity for explanation which she was not prepared to receive. He says, “Go, call thy husband.” The woman says, “I have no husband.” Jesus knew that she had no husband. Why, then, did he ask her to call him? To give him the opportunity of displaying a superhuman knowledge which the woman would herself recognise as an indication of his true character. The opportunity he instantly seizes: “Thou hast well said, I have no husband; for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband; in that saidst thou truly.” The effect is instantly as Jesus anticipated and intended. The woman’s attention is arrested as it could not have been by the most lucid explanations of the meaning of his figurative language. “Sir, I perceive thou art a prophet.”

And here there must have been a pause—a brief pause—during which (the woman’s eyes wonderingly and enquiringly fixed on Christ) reflections would occur to her, filling up the apparent gap between the remark that he was a prophet, and the allusion she proceeded to make to the long-standing controversy between the Samaritans and the Jews. She was evidently quick witted and well-informed according to the standard of her day. Discerning the evidence of the power of God with this Jew, her mind opens to the possibility of the Jews being right in their objection to the Samaritan worship. She is, at all events, drawn toward the topic with a disposition to handle it enquiringly. “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye (Jews) say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Again Jesus avoids the discussion of the Samaritan issue in its narrow sense. He admits that the Samaritans worshipped ignorantly, and that enlightenment in this matter was with the Jews, to whom salvation appertained. But, knowing as he did, that the moment was at hand when worship of every kind would be suspended in the land by the judgment of God overhanging the nation, and when worship would be transferred by the gospel to individual hearts in all parts of the world, he addressed himself to the personal and practical bearing of the question: “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father … the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Here was an enlarging of the subject that must have been new and welcome to a Samaritan; though at the same time conveying a rebuke. Christ’s words soared away from the question of locality, which was the vexed question between Samaritan and Jew. They obliterated it altogether—“neither in this mountain (Gerrizim), nor yet at Jerusalem.” Where then? Anywhere and everywhere—wherever there were true worshippers—people knowing God as revealed to Moses and the prophets, and to whom in their conscious hearts, God was a reality, and who in their sincere and loving spirits adored Him. “The Father seeketh such to worship Him,” rather than the genuflecting formalists with whom the Samaritan woman would be familiar, and with whom worship was a matter of performance, rather than of heart. That the Father should seek the worship of men, and find pleasure in it, is a great revelation, on which we may constantly rest with consolation; but it is not this simple fact that Jesus presses on the woman’s attention so much as to point out the sort of worshippers who were acceptable, in contrast to the formalist multitude that then filled the land—both Judæa and Samaria. Men of light and love would henceforward approach the Father acceptably everywhere, without having to come to a certain place to offer their worship.

This must have been a pleasing view to a sincere woman such as she with whom Jesus was conversing. But a rebuke would be contained in the words, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” To the Samaritans, God was—well, as Jesus said they “knew not what.” The ten tribes worshipped Jeroboam’s calves at Dan and Bethel, and Baal and other gods of the Canaanites besides. The people who were put in their place “served their own gods” (2 Kings xvii. 29–31) variously named Succoth-benoth, Nergal, Ashima, Nibhaz, Tartak, Adrammelech, Annamlech, &c., mere idols of wood and stone. How much of this idol worship was retained by their descendants, the Samaritans, we have no means of knowing exactly; but the probability is that much of it remained, with the result of preventing them from having any idea of the true nature of God, or acceptable worship. Jesus now rebukes the Samaritan idea which led them to insist so strenuously on a particular place. It is as if he had said—“God is not ‘like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art and man’s device’: God is not a man; He is not even as one of the imagined deities of the Greeks or Romans. He is spirit—“immortal, invisible, the only wise God.” We cannot go from His presence. He is everywhere present. He is an indivisible unit, filling heaven and earth, though having His personal nucleus in heaven. Nothing is hid from His sight. The thoughts of the heart are naked before Him. Consequently, worship can be tendered to Him at any place and at any moment. The essential thing is that it be true worship—the actual adoration of a man’s spirit—the homage of felt sincerity and truth.”

The woman knew enough of Moses and the prophets to associate this enlarged knowledge with what the Messiah would do for them at his coming. “I know that Messias cometh,” she said … “when he is come, he will tell us all things.” Now was the time for the topstone of the discourse. “I that speak unto thee am he.” After all that had passed, this declaration went home to the woman’s conviction. She felt it must be so, and in the intensity of her feeling, the disciples having returned, she left further discourse course, and leaving her water pot, went straight back to the city to divulge the great discovery. While she was away, the disciples brought of the food they had procured, and asked Christ to eat. He was evidently too much absorbed with the incident that had just occurred, and with all the great ideas it would awake in his mind, to do so. The proposal of his disciples was probably made in a callous matter-of-fact way, entirely out of harmony with the spirit he was in. He answered in a way that seemed to rebuff their kindly ministrations. “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” Probably, as in almost all cases among people to-day, the manner of the disciples would seem to unduly magnify the importance of the secular affairs in hand, or to convey a disparagement of “those things that be of God.” The disciples, in their unenlightened simplicity, took him up literally. They said among themselves, “Hath any man brought him ought to eat?” They probably supposed the woman whom they found him talking with had brought him something. He meets their surmisings in words that have probably done more than any other to create a right and adequate idea among disciples in every age, of the kind and degree of earnestness with which the things of God should be held and followed: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.” It was for the sake of their influence that the words were uttered and recorded. “For your sakes,” is the explanation of much—nearly all that Christ said and did. “I am glad for your sakes I was not there.” “For their sakes I sanctify myself.” “I have given you an example.” These are illustrations of a fact that requires to be kept in view. Men who read the sayings of Christ without this fact in view, will often mistake the assertions of lofty truth for petty self-vindication.

When the woman arrived at Samaria, she said to her townsmen, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?” by which she probably meant that the super-human knowledge of her affairs displayed by Jesus was proof that he was what he had asserted himself to be—the Christ. They were not slow to respond to her words, and soon Christ had a large audience round the well. What he said to them is not recorded. But the favourable impression made upon the woman was evidently extended to them, and was strengthened by what they heard for themselves; for at the end of their interview, they pressed him to break his journey and stay with them a little. He yielded to their request, and stayed with them two days. Their intercourse with him during that time led them finally to the conviction which they expressed before he left, that “This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.” It is probable that when a few years afterwards, “Samaria received the Word of God,” at the hands of the Apostles, Sychem would be among the places visited by Peter (Acts viii. 14–25). If so, the recollections of the Sychemites, going back to this visit of Jesus himself, would be very striking and useful. Some have had a difficulty in reconciling Christ’s action on this occasion with the direction he shortly afterwards gave to his disciples, to “go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any cities of the Samaritans enter ye not.” There need be no difficulty. Christ did not visit the Samaritan district on this occasion in what we might call an official capacity. He was passing through it on his way to Galilee. What happened was in the way of a private incident and a personal condescension. It was a little before the time in a dispensational sense. If he forbade his disciples to include Samaria in the scope of their evangelistic labours, this was no reason why he should not, in the exercise of his prerogative as the Master, himself, in passing, accept the hospitality of these privileged Sychemites, and speak to them of the great things of God.

CHAPTER XV.

———

From Jacob’s Well to Capernaum, via Cana and Nazareth.

Bidding farewell to the Samaritans of Sychem, Jesus, resuming his journey, passes from the shadow of Mount Gerizim, into the open hill-environed country to the north of that mount, traversing which, with his (at this time) very small band of disciples, he enters the gorge at the southeastern extremity of the Carmel range, and emerges upon the plain of Esdraelon, and shortly afterwards enters Galilee. He and his little company of fellow-travellers would be seen by many an indifferent eye as they moved along the dusty toilsome road northwards. Little would the casual on-looker in field and vineyard suspect the greatness of the ordinary-looking band of men that for a moment was visible on the road, and then disappeared as other passers-by. There would be nothing in their outward mien to distinguish them from the ordinary Jewish foot passengers, who traversed the land in great numbers, about the time of the feasts, to and from the Holy City. Jesus had to be seen in the act of teaching before the difference between him and other men was apparent. And even then, at this stage of his work, he would but appear as an unusually grave, dignified, and earnest Jew. It required subsequent events to manifest the true greatness of him in whom at first Israel saw no beauty that they should desire him.

Arrived in Galilee, Jesus made straight for Cana, where he had wrought his first miracle. He had not been long there when the news got abroad that he had returned from Jerusalem. The news reached Capernaum, where the son of an eminent citizen, styled “a nobleman,” and said to be one of Herod’s officers, lay at the point of death. This man, hearing of it, went to Cana where Jesus was, to ask Jesus to come and heal his son. Why should he suppose Jesus could do this? He must have heard of the miracles of healing he had performed at Jerusalem. He had probably made the acquaintance of Jesus during his first visit to Capernaum already referred to, and acquired some idea of who he was. He would doubtless be aware of John’s ministry, on which he would probably be an attendant; and would not be ignorant of the testimony borne to Jesus as the Messiah. For some or all of these reasons, he had confidence in Christ’s ability to disperse the shadow that lay on his house; for his son “was at the point of death.” He “besought Jesus that he would come down and heal his son.” But Jesus did not meet the nobleman’s request with the ready and sympathetic compliance he showed on other occasions. He rather held the man off with something of a chiding manner. “Except,” said he, “ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” There must have been a reason for this. Probably the nobleman’s importunity was too much of the self-interested order, like the push of a crowd for some advantage. Possibly, also, there was an unacceptable element of challenge in it, as much as to say to Jesus that if he were the Messiah, he was bound to do this. Likely also, with many others, he showed more interest in the signs than in the thing indicated by them. So Jesus uttered a reproof which, however, did not check the natural ardour of the man. “Sir, come down ere my child die.” He expected Jesus would have to go down to Capernaum. It was literally a going down, for Capernaum lay on the margin of the sea of Galilee in the Jordan valley, while Cana was among the hills to the west. Perhaps Jesus would have gone down (as he did in other cases) had the man’s attitude been such as to command his entire approval, but he did not do so. He granted his request without going. His power was greater than the nobleman knew. “Go thy way; thy son liveth.” The nobleman’s faith in Christ was strong enough to place the most implicit faith in this brief word. He started at once for home, twenty miles off. His mind being at rest, he probably rested for the night at one of the wayside inns; for it was next day when he reached the neighbourhood of Capernaum. He was met outside the town by his servants with the good but not surprising news that his son was all right. He asked them when the improvement began. They told him the hour—“Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The father recognised this as the very hour at which Jesus spoke the words of healing, “and himself believed with his whole house.” How could it be otherwise?

Was ever such power seen on earth before ? It was power superhuman that turned water into wine on the spot at Cana, and that cured the sick people brought to his presence at Jerusalem, of which the Galilean people had been witnesses (Jno. iv. 45); but here was healing performed at a distance of 20 miles with the rapidity of lightning—simply by the utterance of a word. Peter afterwards spoke of “miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know” (Acts ii. 22). This is the all-sufficient and only explanation of the marvel. God alone has command of the universal, invisible, inscrutable energy of creation, in which all things subsist, out of which they have been made by His contriving power and commanding word. To Him distance and locality are no impediment. The impulse of His will is equal to the instantaneous accomplishment of anything, anywhere. He places His power at the disposal of His servants when His work and wisdom require—sometimes angels—sometimes men. To manifest His existence and power to Israel and the Egyptians, He placed His power in the angel that appeared to Moses, who exercised it at the prayer and signal of Moses by appointment. To establish Jesus as His Name-bearer in the midst of Israel, He placed His power in him by His presence. Jesus, as the Son of David, did not the works, as he said, “The Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.” It was needful that the works he did should be such as should truly bear witness of him—that is, that they should be works beyond the range of human accomplishment. For had they been such as man, by any contrivance, could do, they would not have constituted the proof that was necessary; the way would have been open for men to think that perhaps Jesus did them as a man of contrivance, and that, therefore, God was not with him. It was needful that the foundation of faith in him, as the Saviour, should be laid in a manner admitting of no doubt. It was, therefore, necessary that he should do works beyond all human possibility. It is his doing of such works that leaves men no excuse for not believing in him. Jesus would have no fault to find with men for not believing in him if he had only done ordinary things. This is what he said: “If I had not done among them works which none other man did, they had not had sin” (Jno. xv. 24). That he did such works will be realised by all who give attention to them. There have been manypretenders of one kind or another; and they have done wonderful things in their way: healing, and demon-out-casting, and sign-working of a certain sort, Jesus admitted to be on the list of their accomplishments (Mark xiii. 22; Matt. xii. 27). But which of their achievements will compare with those of Jesus and his apostles, who with a word could even raise the dead at any distance?

After remaining a short time at Cana, Jesus makes what would appear to be a farewell visit to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and where he was well known to all the townspeople, only as such could know him—that is superficially, as a person with whose face and figure they were familiar, whose family and affairs they knew, but whose inner man they could no more know or fathom than they could plumb the dizzy depths of the universe. As the proclamation of the gospel was afterwards by his orders to “begin at Jerusalem,” so his own part in the work was to “begin at Nazareth.” “As his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” There was a good attendance. It was no strange or striking thing for them to see Jesus rise to read. They were to hear strange and striking things before they dispersed. They had heard strange and striking rumours about him and his doings at Cana, Jerusalem, and Capernaum: but the effect was only to fill them with disgust and envy at his presumption. “They were offended at him.” Their state of mind was indicated by the question, “Is not this Jesus, whose father and mother we know? and are not his sisters here with us?” True, O small-minded people of Nazareth, who have kindred in all the earth in every age. This was the Jesus of your acquaintance, but not of your knowledge: you did not and could not know him. You could know the colour of his eyes, the shape of his face, the contour of his person, the sound of his voice; but you could not enter into his mind or understand or sympathise with his loves and aims. You could but know the outside, and even this not accurately. His father and mother you knew: yet his father you did not know: for as Jesus afterwards said, ‘Had ye known me, ye would have known my Father also.’ Ye thought that he, Jesus, was the mere son of Joseph—a mere Jew like yourselves: ye knew not that he was ‘the Word made flesh,’ the son of the everliving and only true God.”

And so when he stood up to read in their synagogue, they were very little in a mood to receive what he had to say. People whose self-esteem is overshadowed and hurt are liable to be incapable of discerning greatness when it is before them. They were privileged to hear the Son of God read a portion from the prophet Isaiah; but it was no music in their ears to hear these words: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound: to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” He would read this with impressive deliberation and significant intonation, he read no more. He closed the book or roll, and handed it back to the officiating rabbi and sat down,—with gravity and dignity. Doubtless all eyes were now upon him. His manner, coupled with the rumours that were afloat, accentuated their attention. What would he say or do next? He spoke. His words were brief, but not ambiguous. “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” There could be no mistaking the meaning of this. It was plainly to say “I am he to whom Isaiah refers.” Most of the audience saw this, and were for the moment impressed with his words;but their prejudiced feelings soon began to get the upper hand. “Is not this Joseph’s son?” As much as to say, how can a man who is Joseph’s son, whom we know, be the Christ, whose origin when he comes no man will know? (for this was the tradition—John vii. 27). A hum of sceptical conversation passed around. They began to suggest “surely he will shew us some miracles.” Jesus anticipates and answers their line of thought. “Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do here in thy country.” Well, what had he to say to this apparently unanswerable challenge? Only this, that the gift of God is not for all, in this state of sin: that He doeth as it pleaseth Him: working all things after the counsel of His own will. But He does not put the fact in this naked form, which would have had no force with them. He does it by reference to the Scripture history in which they trusted: “Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet, and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian” (Luke iv. 25–27). The inference arising from this citation was obvious enough to sting severely. A greater than Elijah or Elisha was before them, but it did not follow that the power of God which was with him would be put forth on their behalf. Israel’s disobedience in the days of Elijah and Elisha had withheld from them the good that might have come: and the same cause might produce a like effect now.

Why did Jesus adopt this austere attitude towards them? We are told that, as a matter off act, Jesus “could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matt. xiii. 58); not that their unbelief disabled him for the performance of anything he might choose to do, but that their negative state put it out of the question that he should do works which he never performed except good was to be done by it. No good is to be done with some people; and this was the case with the inhabitants of Nazareth, who had been too familiar with Jesus from his infancy to admit of their estimating him truly. It was an illustration of a rule that is almost universal. As Jesus told them, “No prophet is accepted in his own country.” The current mediocre mind is incapable of distinguishing between appearances and realities. The first, local and limited impressions take shape as the permanent truth of a thing or person, and from this they never can emancipate themselves, or open their minds to discern the true and actual worth of a man whom they have known from the beginning. On the other hand, this same class of mind, from a similar incompetence acting in another way, is easily impressed and even captivated by the pretensions of a stranger, who may be an empty wind-bag of pomposities, or plausibilities. Loud-sounding humbug is liable to succeed in this shallow world, especially if bedecked with the meretricious attractions of title and fame. On this principle, false Christs have succeeded where the true was crucified. The true Christ was modest, and glorified his Father; the false were arrogant and self-assertive. Hence the popularity of Barchochebas, where Jesus was hated. As Jesus said beforehand, “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not. If another come in his own name, him ye will receive.”

The words of Christ had the reverse of a soothing effect on the audience in the Nazareth synagogue. To soothe and please, you must put people on good terms with themselves; and to do this, you must flatter—that is, say undeserved good things to or of them. This was what Jesus did not—could not do. His words had an exasperating effect. The people, “when they heard these things were filled with wrath,” and their wrath was not noisy harmless wrath—noisy enough very likely, but not harmless. With the excitability and impetuosity of the Jews, “they rose up” en masse and laid hold of Jesus and turned him out of the building, and tumultously led him to the edge of the steep hill on which Nazareth was built, and which is to be seen, as travellers tell us, to this day. There their purpose was to throw him down headlong, and so destroy him; but they strangely failed in their purpose. When they reached the spot, their resolution or their skill forsook them. Jesus, releasing himself from their hands, simply made his way through them, and no man felt able or disposed to stop him. They opened the way for him, and he went his way down the upper slope of the hill in the direction of Capernaum, 20 miles off, to which he repaired. The fact is, he was under a protection which, though invisible, was invincible; and through that protection no man could break till permission was given. As it is written on another occasion, “His hour was not yet come;” and until that hour had come, he was under the shadow of Jehovah’s hand, hid in which he was as safe in the midst of the threatening, surging multitude as in the solitude of the mountain top to which he of times resorted for prayer.

In Capernaum, to which he now removed, Jesus was no stranger, and here he spent quite a considerable time before departing on the extensive journey which he afterwards undertook. His plan was to get at the public ear of Capernaum through the synagogues. This was easy for him to do. The synagogues were open to all Jews, but especially to a Jew of whom such strange reports were in circulation, and of whom such high expectations were beginning to be entertained by many. The Jews assembled in the synagogues for reading and exhortation out of the law and the prophets every sabbath day, and Jesus availed himself of this opportunity, taking several synagogues by turn, sabbath by sabbath. Large audiences listened to him every sabbath. “They were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power” (Luke iv. 32). The sense in which “his word was with power” is explained by the statement of Matthew, that “he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” The scribes would be like our modern clergy—the mechanical rehearsers of dead formulas, without the snap and ardour that come with intelligent conviction. Jesus taught with emphasis and fire—quiet and grave, but with the animation and pointedness of tone and gesture that result from certainty and knowledge. He likewise taught with a simplicity that enabled him to say much in little, and to be easily understood. “The common people,” we are told, “heard him gladly.” They will never hear his like again till Christ send forth a host of similar teachers in the happy day of his kingdom. But it was his miracles that imparted the principal zest to what he had to say. The people never knew what he might do. At every little interval, some great work of power would be performed, and that, too, of a kind that conferred benefit on the subjects of it.

He had not been long in Capernaum, when, on a certain sabbath, in one of the synagogues in which he was discoursing, the quiet of the assembly was broken by the shout of a madman in the audience. “Let us alone,” said he, under the excitement produced in a disordered mind by the impressive words of Christ: “What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us ? I know thee who thou art: the Holy one of God.” We can imagine the momentary tumult that would be produced in the audience by this outburst. It was soon stopped by Christ. The man’s madness is described as having been “a spirit of an unclean demon.” To this the words of Christ were addressed as distinguished from the helpless sufferer from the dementing disorder: “Hold thy peace, and come out of him.” On this the man leaped forward into the midst of the synagogue, and after a momentary paroxysm, in which the disordering spirit worked its way out of his organism, he was seen to be quite himself, cured of his madness. The people present were naturally amazed at such an exhibition of power. “What a word is this?” exclaimed they among themselves, “for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out.”

The belief was almost universal in the days of Jesus, that mental malady of every kind was due to the presence of a demon, which had taken up its abode in the man, perverting his faculties. What a demon was, according to this belief, is only to be learnt from the writings of the Pagans (Greek and Roman), but even these do not give us any clear conception, beyond this, that demons were invisible, intelligent, immaterial beings, inhabiting the air, and fulfilling a sort of mediatorial function between the gods and men—working in the latter the will of the former—for good or evil, but mostly evil. Of their origin, they have nothing beyond the suggestion that many of them were once men. The whole conception is, of course, a thoroughly heathenish one, and foreign to the scheme of things exhibited in Moses and the prophets. Jesus took no pains to confute the idea. His mission was to show the power of God, and not to demolish heathen theories of human woes. He took things as he found them, and spoke of popular things in the popular style without committing himself to popular views. Beelzebub was the prince of the demons, according to popular thought, and by league with him, it was supposed Jesus exorcised the demonised. But there was no Beelzebub in reality. He was one of the imaginary gods of the Philistines. Yet Jesus argued as if Beelzebub were a reality, saying:—“If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your children cast them out?” So in the curing of madness in its various forms, he spoke as the people spoke, without meaning to endorse their foolish thought. In a sense, he could do so without impropriety. When a man is in a state of lunacy, there is literally an unclean spirit in him—that is, a diseased electric virus, the extraction of which restores him to soundness. It applies to other things besides madness. In various kinds of diseases, an evil spirit or influence exists, and can be taken out and transferred from one to another. Cure by mesmeric application has made us familiar with this. I remember curing a person of an acute rheumatic pain which lodged itself in me the moment the person lost it, and remained with me several days. Jesus brought all kinds of unclean spirits out of people by a word. He could, therefore, use the language of the time, as in a rough way expressing a fact, without, however, meaning to sanction the heathenish idea in which it had its origin. In all cases, the afflicted were the speakers of the things imputed to the demons. It is a diseased man that is before us. The incidents and the utterances are all within the boundary line of a medical explanation. The one or two cases that may seem an exception to this we shall have under our notice as we proceed. In the case before us, a madman is in the audience. Madmen were to be met with frequently in those days—not that madmen were more numerous than now, but that no system had been adopted of collecting and having them in asylums. They would be under private restraint here and there, but mild cases would be allowed at large, and easily might a harmless lunatic obtain admission to a synagogue where Christ was to be heard. Christ’s preaching had a powerful effect upon his weak and deranged intellect; but the principal part of this effect would be due to the prevalent excitement caused by the report circulated everywhere that the Messiah had appeared. Of this excitement, a weak-minded man would have more than his share. The Messiah’s appearance, it was well known would not be an unmixed blessing. John the Baptist had declared that “his fan was in his hand and that he would thoroughly purge his floor, and burn up the chaff with fire unquenchable.” There would, therefore, be a strong ingredient of apprehension in the public anticipation that existed. A sense as of impending judgment would rest on many. This explains the madman’s ejaculations. He went with many others to hear one who was said to be the Messiah. He listened to him in a crowded and heated synagogue. He instinctively felt as he listened to one who “spake as one having authority,” that this was indeed the Christ. His fear grew to excitement. His ungovernable feelings boiled over. It was the natural language of such a state of mind for him, speaking as one of the audience, to say, “Leave us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.”

CHAPTER XVI.

———

From Capernaum to the Scene of the “Sermon on the Moung.”

It was inevitable that the cure of the demented man in the presence of a crowded congregation in one of the synagogues of Capernaum should make a deep impression. The congregation dispersing would carry the tidings far and wide. “The fame of him went out into every place of the country round about.” The result was soon seen in the crowd that gathered—“all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them.” None were sent away uncured. There was no form of disease that Jesus could not handle. He was not like the race of empirics or quacks who have partial success in a few cases of superficial ailments, and nothing but failures and pretentious apologies for serious maladies. Nor was he like pretenders to miraculous power who affect concealments and impose conditions, and do nothing but what is in the power of any man ordinarily endowed with the vis medicatrix of nature. Jesus restored sight to the blind as easily as he banished a fever or removed a palsy. He raised the dead with no greater effort and as much success as he made the lepers whole. His achievements were beyond the power of nature as known to man. The secret lay in the power employed: “The power of the Lord was present to heal.”

The Lord of nature can do anything with nature: all nature is in Him, and subject to His control: His spirit embraces and sustains it all: and His will is omnipotent in the manipulation of all its forces. Disease is due to the absence of organic power. Supply this, and cure is the necessary result; but who but He can supply it? The medical art consists in helping nature to supply it by the application of artificial stimuli: but it can do nothing where nature is too far gone to be acted upon. The power of God can supply the absent tone or the absent power of nature to generate it. It was by the application of this power that Jesus was enabled to “heal all manner of disease among the people.” No other power in heaven or earth was equal to it. The power of magicians, soothsayers, astrologers, familiar spirits, &c., was merely natural power employed with the pretence that it was divine power. It was natural power drawn either from themselves in the shape of animal magnetism, or from nature in the unknown form of mechanical electricity. It could accomplish things that seemed divine to the ignorant, but which were nevertheless strictly within the limits of natural power, and not due to divine volition at all. Their offensiveness to God lay in claiming His power and authority on the strength of natural gift. The works of Christ were all beyond what man could accomplish by any power within natural control. They were “by the finger of God” (Luke xi. 20). The blasphemy of the Pharisees consisted in their attributing them to Beelzebub (Mark iii. 22–30).

Amongst the cures effected, we have the casting out of demons from “many” besides the man in the synagogue. It is unfortunate they should be called “devils” because this diverts attention from their real nature. The word is not diabaloi but daimonia. “Devil” is a divine conception, whereas “demon” is a Pagan thought. “Devil” defines the real nature of sin and sinners from a divine point of view, as expressing the idea of false opposition. But demon is the invention of the heathen mind, giving body to the idea barbarians had formed of the cause of mental aberration. By preserving the difference in the terms employed, the difference of the things is kept in view. In the Revised Version of the New Testament, “demons” is supplied in the margin: it ought to have appeared in the text, and “devils” discarded altogether. It would have been so if the American revisers had had their way. Presumably the English revisers thought the adoption of “demons” would have raised a dangerous, and, in their thought, a needless controversy. With Miltonic predispositions, they recognised in the New Testament “demons” the associates of “Satan.” Believing in the personal devil of popular theology, they naturally considered it immaterial whether “his angels” were called “devils” or “demons.” From their point of view, the retention of “devils” is intelligible enough; but it is none the less a corruption in the translation which serves to conceal the true idea of the original.

“Devils came out of many, crying out and saying, Thou art Christ, the Son of God, and he rebuking them, suffered them not to speak; for they knew that he was Christ” (Luke iv. 41). This reads entirely in harmony with the Greek idea. It could not have been otherwise expressed to be intelligible from the point of view of the first-century spectator. But it is not out of harmony with the fact that what is recorded is the simple curing of demented people. That which the Greek Pagans called “demons,” and which, through the prevalence of the Greek lanaguge and Greek philosophy, was universally spoken of as demons, came out. There was a real coming out. The deranging and obstructing influence—the real physical virus that impeded and confused the action of the brain—came out, as indicated in the last chapter: so that in that sense, the language is literally accurate. But the thing that came out was not the Greek “demon,” but the demon of the disease. The crying out was, of course, the act of the persons deranged. The words cable out of their throats. It was not sound emitted by the impalable influence expelled from them, but sounds formed by the larynchial apparatus of the persons acted on by Christ. In the same way, the statement that they knew that he was Christ is affirmable of the persons possessed, and not of the abstract influenc epossessing them. “He suffered them not to speak, for they knew that he was Christ.” The influence could not speak: the deranged persons could. Therefore it was the mouths of mad men and women that were stopped, and not of the imaginary intelligences which the Greeks taught possessed mad people. Yet their utterances were due to their madness; therefore those utterances could justly enough, be accredited to the influence causing the madness, as when it is said of a drunken man, “It is the drink that is speaking.” People out their minds, and wandering at large in a country where there were no lunatic asylums, would naturally catch up the prevalent excitement about Christ, and “rave” about it. Jesus did not permit even his disciples to speak of his Messiahship, for reasons we may afterwards see. Therefore, it is no wonder he put a gag on the excited lunatics that were brought into his presence for healing.

During his stay in Capernaum, if not indeed immediately on his arrival in the neighbourhood, walking one day by the inland sea on which Capernaum stands, Jesus saw Peter and Andrew busy in a boat. They were fishermen. He had seen them before. They had, in fact, accompanied him from the place of the Baptist’s labours on the banks of the Jordan, on his journey through Samaria into Galilee, and had become believers in his Messiahship under the circumstances already narrated; and in that sense, disciples, or learners. But Jesus had not till now invited them to close association in his own work. They were now prepared to receive such an invitation. All that had gone before, had thoroughly persuaded them that Jesus was the Christ. Hearing him, therefore, now say to them from the shore, as they were in the act of casting a net for the catching of fish (for they were fishermen) “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men,” it was natural that they should, without hesitation, comply with his command. Their action was not so abrupt as it seems, when “straightway they forsook their nets and followed him.” A little way further on, he saw James and John engaged in the same way, with their father Zebedee. They also had been the subjects of a like preparation. To them also he addressed the like brief but pregnant words of call, and received a like prompt response, for, “they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.” Thenceforward, they accompanied him wherever he went, till the day when he ascended to heaven out of their sight on the summit of the Mount of Olives.

The object of the works of cure wrought by Christ was not exclusively philanthropic. In fact, it was so only in secondary degree. The main purpose was to show the power of God in Christ, as the foundation and proof of his claim upon the obedience of men as the Lord’s anointed. There were multitudes of diseased people whom He could have cured with a word as easily as the nobleman’s son at 20 or 30 miles distance, and yet who re mained unbenefited. Had his object merely been “doing good” in the sense understood by modern philanthropy, he would have swept the land by his healing power, and left not a soul attaint with evil. Instead of that, his power was put forth only in connection with cases brought under his immediate notice. It is important to have this limitation, and its meaning in view. He worked for God first, man next when subject to God, which explains a good deal in connection with his work that might otherwise be hard to understand; such as his austere bearing toward the multitude on many occasions, his disparagement of human claims and affinities, his discouragement of popular applause, his depreciation of the desire on the part of the people to see signs and wonders, &c. Sometimes his power was put forth with private benefit though serving the purpose of his miracles. Thus we find him curing Peter’s mother-in-law, whom, on entering Peter’s house at Capernaum, he found “taken with a great fever.” Those around her, seeing the miracles of healing Jesus was performing among the multitudes on the street, had besought him on her behalf. “He stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she arose and ministered unto them” (Luke iv. 39). From an invalid requiring to be waited on, she became the hale and hearty housekeeper waiting on all.

When Capernaum became crowded with the people drawn by his miracles, he wanted to get away from them. He did not appreciate the importunate attention of which he was the object. It was not the sort he cared for. It was the eager and hustling self-assertion to be seen in any crowd when there is any good to be got by a scramble. He could not get away from it in the daytime without being seen and followed, and his object frustrated. He therefore “rose up a great while before day, and went out and departed to a solitary place.” We follow him in spirit through the clear bracing morning air, and watch him tread his solitary way along the mountain footpath till he reachesa secluded spot. What do we see him do there? “He there prayed” (Mark i. 25). There is no need for awe-struck hand-upliftings and transcendental exclamations at this spectacle. It is the most natural in the world. A mind open to God naturally gravitates to Him at every such suitable opportunity. The mind realising that “God is not far from every one of us”—that every point of space is in touch with the universal energy of His presence, through which all occurrences are as quickly—more quickly—signalled to the Father’s notice than the movements of the needle through the wire of man’s invention, or the vibrations of sound through the telephone to the ear of a listening friend at a distance—a mind enlightened towards God and reconciled to him, and realising this great and glorious fact, naturally turns to God with every opportunity of leisure and hour of need.

If this is true of ordinary men instructed in godliness, how much more true of Christ, who was in perfect harmony with the Father, where we can only attain to partial harmony. He had been for some days in contact with the carnally-minded crowd. With spirit jaded and thirsting as in a dry land for the great and glorious Father of Wisdom, “as the hart panteth after the water brooks,” he seizes this favourable opportunity of refreshing and strength, by retiring to the lone mountain side, and opening his heart to Him who, “afar off,” can see and understand the inmost motions of the human spirit upon earth. In this, we have both an example for the brethren of Christ to follow, and an illustration of what must be every righteous man’s experience. It is a necessity in an evil world like this, for the friend of God to occasionally get away from the depressing and demoralising influences at work everywhere. A man can never see things as they are without a good share of solitude, and the unhampered communion with God which solitude admits of. In human company (unless the godliest) human views and thoughts inevitably press themselves upon us. We do not see things as they are, but as they appear. We are pressed with views of the moment, of the locality, of the personal exigencies of the hour—all mere elements of a picture as transient as the gold-tipped clouds of evening. We want to see God, and His eternal purpose, and human thought and action as related to these: and to do this, we require to get away much and to pray much.

Christ’s solitude was not long undisturbed. The disciples, early astir, discovered that Christ’s couch was empty, and that he was nowhere about. The crowds, temporarily accommodated in Capernaum, also began to move about at an early hour, and to make enquiries for Christ. The tidings passed round: “He is gone!” There was a great stir and much application to the disciples. The disciples could give no information. At last they resolve to try and find him. They suspected he had retired for quietness to the mountains, and they went there in search of him, under Peter’s leadership, and probably at his suggestion. By-and-bye, they find him. They feel they have done a thing to be apologised for, in breaking into his privacy. So they say, “All men seek for Thee:” as much as to say, “We would not have come if it had merely been ourselves.” They evidently expected he would go back with them. But no. “Let us go into the next towns.” He wanted to be passing on. Capernaum was merely a part of his work He must visit other places, “that I may preach there also. Therefore came I forth.” Preaching the truth was his work: the working of miracles was merely to strengthen that work It was therefore secondary. But with the people, it was first; many liked the miracles who did not care for the preaching. It is so in the different circumstances of our time. Plenty of people like the people and the circumstances associated with the truth, but care little for the truth itself—which is a grief of mind to every true friend of Christ.

Christ and the disciples had not made a start to “go into the next towns” when the people themselves began to arrive from Capernaum. News had got abroad that Christ was found: and they streamed out to him. On arriving, they discovered that Jesus was meditating departure, and they implored him to remain. “They stayed him that he should not depart from them.” But Jesus did not comply with their wishes: “He said unto them, I must preach the Kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent” (Luke iv. 43). The people would judgefrom his manner that it was no use pressing him; so, after hanging about till Jesus and the disciples had taken their departure, they dispersed. They were, however, to see him back again several times. Jesus then proceeded to make a circuit of the towns and villages of Galilee, working on the plan commenced in Capernaum; that is, beginning at the synagogues on the Sabbath, and having secured the attention of the people, teaching and working among them in detail as occasion offered. He could not at this time secure the comparative privacy of his initial efforts. “There followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from Decapolis, and even from Jerusalem and from Judæa and from beyond Jordan” (i-.e, from the land of Gilead). It was no wonder. It was, in fact, inevitable. It is what would happen again. Who could withhold the populace from the steps of a teacher, not only speaking as man never spake, but dispensing with a word those bounties of blessing which all men most appreciate?

It was during this tour that some of the most notable incidents recorded by the evangelists occurred.

“The Sermon on the Mount,” as it is called, belongs to this stage of his movements. Jesus delivered multitudes of addresses of which we have no record. John, by a hyperbole, tells us that the world itself would not contain the books that would be written if every word were recorded. It must have been so. The sayings of three years and a half must have been voluminous if all had been recorded—unprofitably so, for such a cumbrous writing would have failed as a means of general enlightenment. What was proposed was not a report in the modern newspaper sense, or even a biography as the 19th century understands. The object was to make such a selection out of the materials of three years and a half as should exhibit a picture of the whole, sufficiently complete for the purpose in view. The doing of this with such conciseness and perspicuity and grace as is done in the gospel narratives is itself evidence that it is a work of God and not of (though by) man, for man never writes with this gift.

The variations in these narratives, at which the undiscerning stumble, are not at all inconsistent with the fact that they are the work of the Spirit of God. We must consider that the same things would be said many times in the life of Christ, and with these variations in the form of expressing them in which intelligence always delights to indulge. Only crystallised mediocrity repeats itself. Out of all these variations, the Holy Spirit makes its own selections in writing an abridged account of them by four men, used in harmony with the. four square organisation of the commonwealth of Israel, that in the mouths of several witnesses, the matter might be established in accommodation to human infirmity. It gives the substance, and rarely the ipsissima verba of the conversations occurring, and where a conversation as reported by one historian differs from that by another, it is not that either are wrong, but that both versions of it occurred in the conversation. The Holy Spirit was the speaker of the words by Christ, and in writing an account of the work, the Holy Spirit by the Apostles could and did use that freedom of paraphrase which any author does in reporting his own sayings and opinions—a principle that also explains the verbal variations of the Holy Spirit in quoting itself in the New Testament from the Old.

The “Sermon on the Mount,” reported by Matthew, was an earlier utterance than that recorded by Luke, and spoken in a different place; which accounts for the difference between the one and the other, on which unbelief lays such stress, and also for the circumstance that while Matthew says Jesus “went up into a mountain” to speak on the occasion, Luke says “he came down and stood in the plain.” A superficial resemblance has led unbelievers to the conclusion that they are an identical speech differently reported by two (untrustworthy) historians. It has not occurred to them, or, at all events, they have not recognised, that in speaking in so many different localities, Jesus would sometimes say in one place things somewhat resembling what he had said in another.

It is difficult for people living, as we do, so long after the work of Christ, and in an age when his words are familiar as household words, to adequately estimate the extraordinary character and bold originality of this “sermon on the mount.” We require to go back to the day of its delivery and to take our stand among the multitude that heard it; taking with us, too, a little more intelligence and discrimination than that multitude would possess—knowing something of of the ways and principles of men as exemplified in the history and literature of Greece and Rome—perhaps, also, of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, before them. With this acquaintance with the moral barrenness, the ethical harshnesses, and the intellectual frivolity of mankind, we should be prepared to listen with the right appreciation, and to share in the general “astonishment” with which the teaching of Christ was received

“Seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain.” The people had come from all parts, as we have seen, and were too numerous to be addressed successfully on the level ground. He therefore sought the elevation of a hill side on which he selecled a convenient spot: “And when he was set, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them.” It is evident from this that what he said was addressed to his disciples, not the twelve, who were not yet appointed, but to all who believed in him, who at this time were a large number. They would form the inner ring of the numerous assemblage convened before him; outside would be the common populace, embracing sightseers and hangers-on of all sorts. The scene stands out like a brightly coloured picture—the clear, deep blue of a Syrian sky overhead; in the background, a hill side, brown and furze clad; Jesus, the central figure, seated on a convenient terrace a little way above the level; gathered thickly around him, and seated in all postures, and clad in garments of every bright hue, like the Orientals of today, the company of admiring disciples; while outside of them, on all sides, posted on the hill above and behind, and standing in a mass below, the common crowd. The word would pass round that Jesus was about to speak, and silence would be made. After a few minutes of attentive expectation, a clear, strong voice of musical timbre would break upon the air:—

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

“Blessed!”—The very first word was something new—comfortingly new in an age when the chilling philosophy of Greece and Rome held the mind of the world in blight and check—not new in Israel, but new in the foreign national life that had come in like a flood, and had for several centuries submerged even the glories of Moses and the prophets. There was kindness and hope in the word “blessed.” Blessed in the sense of being happy in the possession of God’s favour and assured good to come. The word was like dew on the arid ground; like daybreak on the gloomy night.

And for whom did Jesus with musical voice pronounce the blessedness? Not for the rich and the great and the powerful and the learned, but for a class hitherto beneath recognition or consideration. “The poor in spirit:” “they that mourn;” “the meek:” “they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.” This is the sort that were not only left out of account, but that were avoided, as at this day—because of their sorrow, their dullness, their lowness. Men seek the prosperous, the high-spirited, the gay—who are not burdened with regrets or scruples of any kind. Blessedness is associated in human thought with the very opposite class to those on whom Jesus pronounced his benediction:—The proud spirited, the independent, the stoical, the gay, the happygo-lucky, who taste life’s glad moments, with eyes avert from darkness; the manly, the plucky, the self-defenders; those who trouble not their heads about impracticable questions of religion and morality, but take things rough, ready, and jolly in a rough-and-ready world.

Such would be pronounced blessed by the wisdom of this world; but the wisdom of the world is not wisdom truly: but folly. It is a philosophy based upon a transient view of things, and, therefore, false and fatal in results. No man is wise who looks at a matter partially. It must be seen all round, and in all its issues, before a just estimate can be formed. Worldly philosophy may work well for a while, but only for a little while. Time is against it, and washes it away at last with a dark and angry flood. Christ is the wisdom of God. His voice, heard amid the mountains of Syra 1,850 years ago, and preserved in wonderful writing to our late and passing day, was the voice of wisdom: and its benediction will be realised by the class on whom they were bestowed—the believers in him, who have in all ages mainly consisted of the afflicted and the sorrowful. Christ gives the reason, and as we listen, it shines out in as strong a light as the fact of the blessedness. “Their’s is the kingdom of heaven … they shall be comforted … they shall inherit the earth … they shall be filled.”

We look in vain to human philosophy for assurance of this kind. Such “great and precious promises” cannot come from man. There is no “promise” in human directions. Speculation enough, you may have—opinion, theory, principle, &c.; but a pledge of good to come, who can give this but God alone? Some turn to nature: but apart from God, nature mocks knowledge and hope of futurity. Who can receive information from the forest, the mountains, the rocks, the oceans, the vast over-arching heavens, or the countless stars that revolve in space? They are silent on the hope of man; irresponsive, mechanical, remorseless, reflecting a wisdom they cannot teach, and a purpose they cannot utter. Only God can promise, and by the mouth of Christ he has done it, confirming the promise by “many infallible proofs” of its divinity and truth.

Ye poor and mournful, ye meek and hungry, of God’s enlightened and obedient family, who, to the world are of no account, take courage and look forward with joy: for God has declared his regard for you by the mouth of his beloved Son, and has promised you such good things as it has not entered into the heart of the natural man to conceive. The Kingdom of Heaven is yours,—the Kingdom that is coming from heaven in contradistinction to that which now prevails upon earth: the former, the Kingdom of God, this, the kingdom of men. It has long been promised by the God of heaven that He will supplant and destroy this latter by setting up His own glorious kingdom in all the earth (Dan. ii. 44; vii. 15). When this kingdom comes, it will be yours to reign therein, to ride upon the high places thereof, to luxuriate in the glory, honour, wealth, and gladness thereof, rejoicing most of all in the blessedness of which you will be medium for “all families of the earth” (Psa. cxlix. 5–9; Dan. vii. 27; Isaiah lxi. 6–11; lviii, 14; lxvi. 10–14; Psa. lxxii; Rev. ii. 21; v. 10; xx. 4; Micah iv. 1–4). Then, indeed, ye shall know what it is to be “comforted,” to “inherit the earth,” to be “filled.”

CHAPTER XVII.

———

The “Sermon on the Mount.”

The last chapter introduced this subject. The “blessedness” pronounced on the “poor in spirit,” the “mournful,” the “meek,” and those who “hunger and thirst after righteousness,” is also proclaimed by Jesus, on behalf of “the merciful,” “the pure in heart,” “the peacemakers,” and “the persecuted,” implying characteristics of kin with those already noticed. It was something new to extol such qualities; and their glorification by Christ has done much to disseminate them, even in the present chaotic phase of the work of God upon the earth. The manners and practices of civilised mankind are much milder and more humane since these words of Christ were uttered and recorded. The sentiment of mercy was comparatively unknown in the times of Greek and Roman paganism. Purity, peace, and submission to maltreatment have been practiced only where Christ’s doctrine has been influential. The eulogy of them and the declaration of a blessing on those who practice them, implies that without them, saivation will not be attained. And this is indeed what is taught expressly in other parts of the apostolic writings, such as “He shall have judgment without mercy that hath shown no mercy” (Jas. ii. 13), “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. xii. 14), “Woe unto you when all men speak well of you” (Luke iv. 26).

But if the eulogy of mercy, purity, and peace distinguished Jesus from all who went before him, how much more was he marked off as a new and revolutionary teacher by his command to “Resist not evil,” to “love those who hate,” and submit to the compulsions of evil men, yea, even go beyond their desires in our compliances. Such precepts were opposed to the radical impulses of flesh and blood. The injunction of them is one of the strongest proofs of what Christ asserted when he said to the Pharisees: “Ye are from beneath. I am pore above. Ye are of of this world, I am not of this world, I proceeded forth and came from God: neither came I of myself, but he sent me … He that sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things that I heard of him.”—(Jno. viii. 23, 42, 26). Had Jesus been a natural thinker, he would have taught in harmony with nature’s impressions and instincts, as do the “philosophers,” so-called, of every age and country. He would, therefore, have inculcated self-defence, and would have glorified the virtues of “patriotism” as appreciated and applauded by flesh and blood everywhere. He would have scouted principles and practices which, apart from their special objects, are pusillanimous, cowardly, and contemptible. But he did none of these. He deprecated the class of character in highest repute among the Greeks and Romans, and Britons too; and enjoined that which is with them convertible with poltroonery. And he did so, not as the result of a moral philosophy he had embraced or conceived. He did not enjoin the maxim of non resistance on the ground of its tendency to conciliate a foe or develop control. It was simply a matter of command resting on authority. “These things I command you” (Jno. xv. 17). And the authority of the command rested with the Father. “The Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say” (Jno. xii. 49). And the commandment simply called for obedience and left no room for anything else. “Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you” (Jno. xv. 14). “When ye have done all say, Behold we are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do” (Luke xvii. 10). In this, we learn the object of the command—the performance of duty: and on this hangs the question of acceptance. “He that doeth the will of my Father shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven” (Matt. vii. 21). “He that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, shall be likened unto a man that built his house upon a rock” (Matt. vii. 24).

When this is apprehended, all mystery and difficulty vanish from “the Sermon on the Mount.” The commandments it contains were not uttered as moral maxims best fitted for the regulation of the world, but for the test of obedience, and for the restraint and discipline of the natural man in those who are called to share and reflect the glory of God in a future state of existence (on the earth by resurrection). Their inconvenience and their hardness, instead of being enigmatical, become transparent in the wisdom of their adaptation to the object in view. How is a man tested but by a difficult feat? How is he trained but by difficult exercises? When God would prove Abraham, did he ask him to make a feast for his servants? No; he asked him to “offer up his only son Isaac whom he loved.” When God would prove men in advance for the unspeakable exaltation of His kingdom, should it be by exercises that leave pride and wilfulness untouched, or by those which test obedience to the utmost, and give opportunity for that humbling of ourselves as little children, without which Jesus said we shall in no case enter into the kingdom? Reason cannot falter in the answer, and the answer justifies to the utmost those very features in “The Sermon on the Mount,” which are stumbling blocks to the wise of this world. It is all a question of faith in the declared purpose of God. Will God set up a kingdom? (Dan. ii. 44). Is Jesus the appointed king? (Acts xvii. 7). Has Jesus “called” for associates from among the world ? (Rev. xvii. 14; Jno. xv. 16–21). Does he, in the choosing of them, adopt a process of “purifying them unto himself a peculiar people?” (Tit. ii. 14; Rev. iii. 19). When a man is sufficiently enlightened to give a bold “Yes” in answer to these questions, he will have no difficulty in recognizing the perfection of wisdom in those commandments in “The Sermon on the Mount,” which, with nearly all men, are impossible rules of life, but which with Christ in view, become habitual principles of action.

The superhuman character of the discourse is manifest from other features. Who, for example, as a matter of mere moral philosophy, would have thought of addressing disciples as “the salt of the earth,” and “the light of the world?” (Matt. v. 13, 14). Mere moral philosophy—alias, the speculations of mortal flesh as to the ways of God—places all men on a level in the operation of its laws and principles. But here is a declaration which assumes that all men outside the narrow circle addressed are in corruption and darkness. This, indeed, is the express teaching of the Spirit of Christ elsewhere—that without him there is no hope (Jno. vi. 53–57, Eph. ii. 12): that the way is narrow and the gate strait that leads to life, and the finders of the way few (Matt. vii. 14). It is this exclusive claim that is at once the stumbling-block of the naturally-minded, and the evidence of the divinity of the work of Christ. It is not in man to put forth such claims, except in madness; and even when occasionally put forth by madmen, it is the aberrated refraction of Christ in a distempered mind. It is not original, as in the case of Christ: nor has it the dignity and self-evident truth that it has in the case of Christ. There are not in any case the proofs that there are in the case of Christ. No man can maintain that Christ was mad in view of his teaching, his miracles, and his resurrection. Not being mad, such claims are in themselves evidence of the truth of what he said—that God was in him, and that God sent him, and that his words were the words of God (Jno. xiv. 10; xii. 49; viii. 42).

His disciples—i.e., those who fully receive and faithfully re-echo his teaching, which is the truth as nothing else is—are “the light of the world” in so far as they reflect his light; for, primarily, it is he who is “the light of the world,” as he said (Jno. viii. 12), and away from the truth, all is the darkness of nature. Jesus therefore commands them to let their light shine that men may see it. Hence it is their duty to let it be manifest to those among whom they are situated, that they are children of the light—believers, lovers, and performers of the truth. This is done when the hope is professed according to seasonable opportunity, and its invitation pressed upon attention, and its power shown in the effect it has upon action. This attitude is intensely odious to those who are not disciples of Christ. It is the attitude of obedience and wisdom for all that, and will be acknowledged and rewarded openly at a time when the mightiest of natural men will be glad to stoop at the feet of the meanest of Christ’s accepted disciples.

Jesus supplies the key to his mission in the next statement. People were supposing that he had come to set up “a new religion”—disjoined from all that God had done and said to Israel by Moses and the prophets. He gives the death blow to this misconception in the words: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfil” (Matt. v. 17). The Christ of the New Testament as distinguished from Christ of modern theology and philosophy is—Christ the Fulfilment of Moses and the Prophets. This puts “the Old Testament” in its right place, and brings to bear the true light in which Jesus is to be regarded. If we cannot understand Jesus in harmony with Moses and the prophets, we have not got hold of the scriptural Jesus, but “another Jesus” than that preached by the apostles. This is indeed the position of the professing Christian world. They hold and promulgate a conception of Jesus which either compels them to put aside Moses and the prophets, or at least renders that preponderating section of the Holy Scriptures utterly useless to them. Hence, all classes of so-called “Christians” deal very loosely with the Old Testament Scriptures, and in many cases surrender them altogether. Jesus declares that not “one jot or one tittle” of them should remain unfulfilled. It was his mission to fulfil them, and to fulfil them all. He has already done much in their fulfilment. In what he has done, he laid the basis of a complete fulfilment. The complete fulfilment awaits his second coming, when, as he afterwards caused to be proclaimed by John in Patmos to all his disciples throughout the ages, “The mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to His servants’ prophets (Rev. x. 7).

He next exhibits an aspect of his teaching which is exactly nullified by the “evangelical” and other preachings of the day: “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. v. 20). “Only believe,” is the cry of preachers of all kinds. It is an easy, pleasant doctrine, but false. Believing on Christ will commend us to God, but it will not secure salvation unless it is accompanied by obedience of what God by Christ commands. Jesus says so in this very discourse: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. vii. 2). The will of the Father is expressed in the commandments of the Son; and the righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees is the righteousness that consists of doing those commandments. The seed of the woman are defined as those who “keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. xii. 17). As Jesus says, “Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you” (Jno. IV. 14). It is in view of this that the commandments in “The Sermon on the Mount” become so important.

He proceeds to rehearse them: the chief of them we have already glanced at. He goes on to prohibit unjust anger, contemptuous epithets, the nursing of wrath, lustful contemplations, swearing, the resistance of encroachment, the refusal of alms. He enjoins merciful liberality, the returning of good for evil, anonymousness of almsgiving, secrecy and brevity of prayer, the cheerful and unmurmuring endurance of affliction, abstinence from hoarding (in connection with which he makes the pointed declaration: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”) He deprecates anxiety as to livelihood, positively forbidding the questions, “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed?” “After all these things,” says he, “the Gentiles seek. Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of those things. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” He condemns the hypercriticism that hunts after blemishes in a neighbour’s character; forbids the “judgment” which is his prerogative alone; (as Paul says, “Judge nothing before the time until The Lord come, who will make manifest the hidden things of darkness”—I Cor. iv. 5); recommends care in the exhibition of holy things; boldness in prayer, and a sympathetic regard for our neighbour’s point of view in all transactions—doing unto him as we would that he should do to us. Reminding disciples of the difficulty of being saved, he warns them against false prophets, who always teach an easy way for the pleasing of men. He tells them that such are to be discerned by their anti-scriptural characteristics. He assures them that a nominal or theoretical acknowledgment of his lordship will be of no value to any man at last: that only those are acceptable who do what he has required, and that many at last will claim his favour on the score of preaching and prophesying, and even miracle working, whom he will reject as in reality workers of iniquity. He concludes with the well-known house-building illustration of the folly of admiring his teaching without acting it out: the house built on the sand comes down on the day of flood.

Of the immense audience who listened to him, we are told, they were “astounded at his doctrine”—not so much at the matter as the manner; “for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” The scribes were uncertain, timid, and formal: Jesus was earnest, clear, unhesitating, authoritative. The scribes feared and taught by a human standard—the tradition of the elders. They taught thus, not as a matter of individual conviction, but as the accepted rule with which it was convenient to comply: Jesus taught with the emphasis of knowledge, divinely derived, and with the ardour of a pure love, and the clearness and dignity of a noble purpose. Jesus knew what he was about: the others did not. Solomon says, “knowledge causeth a man’s face to shine.”

There is a great difference between imitators and men that speak from the heart: between such as aim to please men and those who seek to please God: between conventional garnishers of accepted principles, and those who draw truth as living water from the hidden primeval rocks. Such was the difference between Jesus and the scribes—a difference which the people could see in his manner.

The situation is somewhat reversed now. It is in writing and not in speaking that we have to make the acquaintance of the words of Christ—by reading, not by hearing. It is the matter rather than the manner by which we have to judge, and a right judgment on this head will engender the same astonishment that the listener felt at his manner. The matter is truly sublime. The difficulty of estimating it aright, arises from familiarity. The “Sermon on the Mount” has been so long before the world as to have become an obsolete and worn out form of speech with the fastidious Athenians whose taste is always itching for a new sensation. It requires an effort of the understanding—(an effort which repetition will reward with success)—to disentangle it from the smothering associations of modern life, and go back and see it as it appeared when it came from his lips on that picturesque day in the open air on the mountain side. It came forth then as a constellation of electric brightness against the dark sky of human sterility and insignificance. And it shines still with glory undiminished for the eyes of those who can see. The smoke of a bonfire will hide the stars from the people heaping on the fagots: but the stars shine all the same, and reveal their stupendous form and splendour to a telescope in the next street. The people are all engaged in bonfires of one kind and another, and they cannot see the glory of the “Sermon on the Mount” for the smoke they make: but it is all there for those who will apply the instruments of spiritual eyesight.

Here is no uncertain human philosophy, bewildering with its cloudy vagueness, and fatiguing the mind with futile abstractions. Here we have an authoritative rule of life—simple as the alphabet, and reliable as the guidance of the pole star to ships at sea:—a straight, definite, dogmaticenunciation of duty in the practical relations of this mortal life,—authoritative because divine—and bringing with it the most beautifying moral results whether as character seen by the observer, or mental state as experienced by the man who obeys. Its excellency will be seen in the beautiful results necessarily developed where it is accepted and practised as the rule of life,—especially when these results are compared with the moral and intellectual stolidity of Greek and Roman paganism.

What, for example, can exceed the beauty or the comfort of the anticipation of ineffable good created in the mind of the believer by the assurance of “blessedness” as the upshot of a course of mercy, meekness, purity, and righteousness, pursued even in sorrow or persecution? What can induce a greater sense of circumspection than the information that Christ regards us as the light of the world and the salt of the earth? What can tend more powerfully to elevate and purify tile character than the intimation that righteousness only will secure an entrance into the Kingdom of God? What can more powerfully modify the harshness, or mollify the asperity of the natural character than the declaration that even anger is sin, and the use of terms of personal reproach an offence endangering salvation? What more conducive to chastity than the reprobation of impurity even in thought? Consider, also, the chasteness of speech engendered by the command to “Swear not at all:” the gentleness of character calculated to result from the command to resist not evil: the kindness and urbanity necessarily springing from the effort to give in to importunities, even of unreason, and even to return benefits for the harm done by those who hate us; the modesty and genuineness certain to result from the enjoined habit of doing good unseen and unknown, and praying in secret. How noble, also, the recommended cheerfulness that endures grief without parading it: and the industry that is busy without avarice; and the stewardship that is faithful without anxiety.

Such a model of perfect character was never conceived before the days of Christ. “Virtue” had been philosophically lauded, but the thing meant by that term was a nebulous abstraction, or else a quality attaching to only one or two limited excellencies. The “virtue” of pagan morality was as unlike the “new man” outlined in the precepts of Christ, as the works of man are unlike the works of nature. If there was courage in it, there was no compassion. If there was hardihood, there was no tenderness. If there was endurance, there was none of the patience that puts up with evil that can be dispensed with. If there was valour or friendship, there was none of the magnanimity that can pass over an injury or benefit a foe. Ambition, and not the love of God, was the ruling motive: to get gain, and not to do duty, was the recognised policy: to vanquish foes and not to relieve the afflicted, was the crowning glory. Truth was always held in subservience to interest.

There have been disparagements of “the Sermon on the Mount” that are not consistent with it as a whole. Cynical criticism has seized on isolated features, and exaggerated them to the exclusion or eclipse of other parts which give them symmetry of beauty. Enlarging on the pronounced blessedness of “the poor in spirit,” or on the obligation to “resist not evil,” or on the command to “take no thought for to-morrow,” enmity has sought to represent the whole discourse as an emasculating and contemptible rule of life. Such tactics are very old, and will only be successful with those whose predispositions are in harmony with them. They Cannot prevail with those who exercise moral discernment on the word of Christ themselves.

Such discernment perceives a counterpoise operating in all parts of the discourse, with the result of preventing any of the moral imperfections that would spring from an isolated precept acting by itself. A perfect equilibrium comes from the action of the whole, and it was never intended that any part should be left out. A man of meekness, resisting not evil, and taking no thought for the morrow, will not degenerate into effeminacy and sloth, when he is called upon also to let his light shine before men, to exceed the Pharisees in righteous deeds, to be prompt in seeking reconciliation with the offended, to do good to those who hate him, and at the same time to have a quick eye for spiritual imposture. All this would indicate and foster an executiveness of character quite equal to that required in the affairs of the children of this world: only it would be executiveness tempered and mollified by the law that makes gentleness and non-resentfulness a matter of obligation. The sinners have the vigour and the executiveness without the oil of moral repression. Consequently, there is an undercurrent of harshness in their moral composition which is ready to flame into anger and destructiveness against any interference with their rights They know nothing about doing good and suffering for it and taking it patiently; because they lack that faith in God which is the inner light and inspiration of the whole “Sermon on the Mount.” The “Sermon on the Mount” pre-supposes the recognition of “the Father who seeth in secret” (Matt. vi. 4), and who “knoweth that ye have need of all these things” (32). Take this away, and the discourse would fall shrunk and lustreless as a dead fish. In fact, the discourse would cease to exist if this element were withdrawn. Allusion to the bearing of the Father’s recognition and power on actions commanded, runs throughout (not taking into account “The Lord’s Prayer,” in which it comes to brilliant focus). No true judgment of the discourse can be formed if this is left out of view. It is the beautiful underglow of the whole. A man who sees God, as this discourse requires: who loves him as the discourser did: who has the faith in Him that He commands, would be the last man on earth to be spiritless or vapid or slothful. There probably lives not the man whose conformity to it has been perfect in all particulars; but there are measures of attainment in the case: and it will remain an incontrovertible truth to the end of the world, that those who come most nearly to the commandments of Christ in the sermon on the mount, are the most interesting and lovable of the human race.

CHAPTER XVIII.

———

From the “Sermon on the Mount” to the First Tempest on the Sea of Galilee.

The “Sermon on the Mount” being concluded, the people looked at each other and exchanged expressions of surprise and admiration. They had never heard such a teacher before—bold, grave, emphatic, ardent, lucid, independent, authoritative. They would all agree with the verdict of the officers sent to apprehend him on another occasion, and returning without doing “their duty:” “Never man spoke like this man.” None had presumed, as he had done, to place his authority above Moses. Several times he had said, “It was said unto them of old time … thus and so; but I say unto you, thus and so.” It was something new for a public teacher to say “Behold a greater than Solomon—a greater than Jonas—is here”—“In this place is one greater than the temple”—“Lord even of the Sabbath day” (Matt. xii. 6–8; Luke xi. 31, 32).

The pleasure his teaching gave them was not very deep. It charmed them by the novel sensation it imparted to them: it impressed them with its benevolent positiveness and its grave and righteous emphasis. Except as regards a few, its true nature was not discerned. Had they known that “the Spirit of the Lord God was upon him” (Is. lxi. 1), filling him with wisdom and understanding (Is. xi. 2), making his mouth a sharp sword and a polished shaft (Is. xlix. 2), and pouring grace upon his lips, and rendering him fairer than the children of men (Psa. xlv. 2)—had they known that in very deed, the God of Abraham dwelt in this human form in the abiding fulness of His presence, and addressed them through the earnest eyes of this Galilean mechanic, they would have listened with the reverent and rapt attention that will be the universal habit in the day when every knee shall bow to him, and every tongue confess, to the glory of God the Father. Though they did not “behold his glory” as the disciples did (Jno. i. 14), they were attracted by the charm of his teaching and the wonderful nature of his works.

When he came down from the mountain, they followed him. A long straggling procession might have been seen as he moved away from the place. Jesus excused the people: he pitied them, realising, as he did, that “they were as sheep having no shepherd.” They had no one to look after them with the needful wisdom, kindness, and power Men require looking after. They cannot manage themselves so as to live to any true purpose. They do not look after one another, but destroy one another. It has been the case in every age and country since Adam was sent out of Eden to shift for himself. When, therefore, a great leader like Christ presents himself with a clear and certain voice, and power to bestow the blessings to which he points, it is inevitable that the people should follow him. Jesus understood it, and allowed a measure of it, at the same time knowing that it could be to no practical purpose as yet. He knew the Father’s plan he had come to execute. He knew that the work before him was a brief teaching work of three years and a half, to be closed in that laying down of his life for the world, which excluded all idea of present triumph, and to be followed by a long absence during an appointed interval of darkness and silence. This knowledge would intensify the compassion with which he would tolerate the attendance of the shepherdless crowd, while leading him also to that non-committal attitude of which John speaks (Jno. ii. 24).

Arrived by “the lake of Gennesaret” (or Sea of Galilee), he evidently rested a few days—probably at Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. We may infer this from the incident that happened by the shore “The people pressed upon him to hear the Word of God.” The thronging was inconvenient. A crowd can be managed when there are barricades and police; but here were no such helps, but only the moral influence of a defenceless man and his friends in the presence of a mass of people whose interest had been aroused to the point of obtrusiveness. To escape the embarrassment of the situation, Jesus got into one of the empty boats standing close to the shore, which turned out to be Peter’s, in which in fact he had been fishing the previous night, while Jesus was resting. Peter’s boat would not be likely to be moored after a night’s fishing, at any other place than his own. Peter might have a house at Capernaum and carry on the fishing business at Bethsaida, which was not far distant. Jesus “prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land.” Peter complied with alacrity, and, the boat having been moored, Jesus “taught the people out of the ship,” a striking situation certainly,—the shore lined with spectators to the water’s edge, and Jesus addressing them from the boat, perhaps fifty yards off. We may be sure the people would be very attentive. They would all hear, for a smooth water surface is a capital conductor of sound. What was said is not recorded. We must judge from his utterances on other occasions. In the state of mind generated by the truth, we naturally wish that every word had been preserved—every speech reported. But we may be sure we have enough for the purpose for which any record at all was made. We are greatly privileged in having so much. It might easily have been that we had known nothing of “the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.” Some may think that a fuller report wonld have been more influential with the common run of men. As to that, there are various reflections. If we say, “perhaps it would,” we have also to say that the purpose of God does not require more than is secured by the actual means employed; for the means and the end are always in the divine work exactly adjusted. But it is permissible to say “Perhaps not.” What Jesus says about Moses and the prophets applies here. He said that men who did not believe Moses and the prophets, would be unconvinced by the rising of a dead man from the grave. If men are faithless and uninterested in Christ while having the apostolic narrative, we may be almost sure their attitude would have been no wiser had we had a verbatim and newspaper account of all he said and did.

Having finished his discourse, Jesus suggested to Peter to set out on a fishing cruise. He probably thought that sailing away from the spot would be the best way of escaping the lingering crowd on shore. Peter had been out fishing all the previous night, and had caught nothing. (No wonder: the constant fishing of a small sea like the Sea of Galilee by the large fleet of boats which Josephus gives account of being on it, must have kept the stock of fish low and difficult to get.) Having fished a whole night without result, Peter was not much inclined to go out again. “Nevertheless,” said he, “at thy word I will let down the net.” And having set sail, he let down the net—with a result that surprised him greatly. The net was instantly filled with a struggling mass of fish, so numerous that a single boat was unable to deal with them. They could not pull the haul aboard. Besides, the net was breaking with the weight of the catch. They beckoned to the other boat which had accompanied them. The boat drew near, and the fish were gradually got out of the net, into both the boats, which were then so heavily laden that the gunwales were dangerously level with the water. Peter was overpowered by the event, in view of his own futile efforts the night before. He attributed it all to Christ. He recognised it as his work, and an evidence of his divinity. Prostrating himself before Jesus as he sat in the boat, he said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” These were the only words in which he could express his sense of the greatness of Christ as thus evidenced. They seemed fitting enough words, notwithstanding the difficulty of some to understand them. They express the profound sense that Peter had of his unworthiness to be the companion of one who could show such power. Such a sense is a qualification for such a companionship. Jesus gives us to understand that there will be many on excellent terms with themselves who will claim his friendship in the day of his glory, whom he will promptly reject and dismiss from his presence.

As to the miracle, we need not discuss whether Jesus made the fish, as he afterwards made bread to feed over 5,000 people; or whether he drew them by his power from other parts of the lake. He could do either. The great object was to show to the men of whom he was to make choice as Apostles, the evidence of his having come from the Father, in exercising power that belonged only to the Father. It had the intended effect, as evidenced by Peter’s words, and Jesus instantly seized upon those words to apply the purpose of the miracle. “Fear not,” said he (in the hearing of James and John, and others, in the two boats), “from henceforth thou shalt catch men.”

As with the incident of Jesus clearing the temple of money changers, so with this of “the miraculous draught of fishes:” because a similar incident occurred afterwards, the enemy, who so easily snatch at the least unfavourable appearance, have jumped to the conclusion that one of the Gospel narrators has blundered, placing after the resurrection an occurrence that happened before it, or vice versa, and so discrediting both. The suggestion is absolutely gratuitous. It has nothing to rest upon but a superficial resemblance. It does not occur to them to allow the possibility of the same thing (substantially) happening twice. They do not reflect that if Christ rose from the dead, he fulfilled his promise that he would send them the Holy Spirit to abide with them to witness for him, and to guide them into all truth, and that, therefore, their testimony (oral and written) was the joint work of themselves and the Holy Spirit, and, therefore, not liable to the error that befals the mere work of man.

Having secured their extraordinary haul of fish, the two boats made for the land. arrived at which, the disciples, who had made up their minds to “forsakeall and follow Christ,” handed over the craft with their contents and belongings to the charge of the servants. Thenceforward, till the day of his crucifixion, they were to be found only in his service.

While Jesus and the disciples were out in the same neighbourhood a few days afterwards (followed, as had now become usual, by a crowd while journeying along), a leper—“a man full of leprosy”—who, by the law of the country, ought to have been in rigid seclusion, managed to edge his way through the crowd, and to get close enough to Jesus to present himself at the next halt, right before him, kneeling to him and saying, “Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean.” As before remarked, Jesus had not come as a disease-healer in the philanthropic sense, else would he have sent his healing power throughout all the country without waiting for personal contact with the afflicted. He had come to show the great power of God in proof of his identity as the appointed way of approach to the Father. But blended with this there wrought that noble element of loving-kindness which gives grace and beauty to every gift. Jesus was “moved with compassion” at the suppliant form before him. The man took the acceptable attitude. He did not demand to be healed. He did not claim the exercise of Christ’s power. He acknowledged the existence of the power, and Christ’s right to refrain from putting it forth. Jesus “put forth his hand and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.” How simple! how graceful! how beautiful! “Truly this man was the Son of God,” is the exclamation which his every look and word and action compel.

The man cured of his leprosy was very likely so perfectly satisfied that he did not desire any further exercise. But Moses had commanded something in such a case. A leper cured of his distemper was to bring “two he-lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three-tenth deals of fine flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil” (Lev. xiv. 10); and the priest was to present the man before the Lord, and make an atonement in the way which is elaborately prescribed. Was this to be ignored by him who had come to fulfil the law and the prophets? Some might have argued that as Jesus had come to “blot out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us … nailing it to his cross” (Col. ii. 14), he might appropriately have embraced this opportunity of ignoring it. Such an argument would show an incomplete apprehension of the ways of God. Though it was part of the work of Jesus, concerning the Mosaic law, to “take it out of the way,” the performance of this work required that he should be “made under the law,” and be obedient to all its requirements (Gal. iv. 4). While laying down a new law, he was submissive to the old till the hour should arrive for the abolition of the old in his death under its curse (Gal. iii. 13). To everything there is a time and a season. The law of Moses was an absolutely divine institution, established for a purpose (Rom. v. 20). While it was in force, Jesus conformed to it. and under it, was aiming, by obedience, to develop the righteousness by which he was to abolish it in the sense of superseding it by realising the end of it. The leaders of Israel could not understand this, but supposed he set himself against the law as a thing he wished to overturn: and against Moses as one whom they were not to follow. He sought to correct their misapprehension: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” The case of the cured leper presented an opportunity of illustrating his true attitude. He embraces it. “Go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.”

Jesus told the man not to say anything about the miracle of his cure to anybody else. We may understand why he did this, when we recollect that Jesus knew that his time was short, and that his end was rejection and death. He spoke of this several times to his disciples, and in a way that showed that it lay burdensomely on his spirit. On one occasion, he said, “I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.” This state of mind explains why he was desirous of suppressing all useless public sensation and excitement about himself. It would only have been in his way. It is not, therefore, so surprising as it seems, that he should say to the cured leper, “See thou say nothing to any man.” But the man could not enter into Christ’s thought on the subject. He disobeyed him—probably out of gratitude. “He went out and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places” (Mar. i. 45).

After a time, Jesus directed his steps to Capernaum again, when an unusually instructive incident occurred. A Roman centurion having heard of the Lord’s wonderful power to heal, sent influential Jews to him to tell him of a servant at his house, who was “grievously tormented” with the palsy. Jesus said he would come and heal him, and started to go with them. The centurion, who seems to have been deeply impressed with the greatness of Christ, objected to Christ coming to his house. He sent messengers to stop him, saying, “I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof; speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.” Jesus could not but be pleased with such implicit faith—a faith greater, as he said, than any he had yet found in Israel; especially it was backed up by an illustration which showed the centurion’s absolute and unbounded confidence in Christ’s authority, and his understanding of the origin of Christ’s power. “I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.” This was as much as to say to Christ, “You have received authority from the Highest, to control the forces of heaven and earth. You have, therefore, but to speak the word, and they will obey you.”

Whence had this pagan soldier derived so clear a conception of Christ’s relation to the Father? We are not informed, but we may infer something from what we are told. He was stationed in Galilee, among the Jews, and was in daily contact with them, and had every opportunity of becoming acquainted with their institutions, their ways, and their scriptures. That he profited by this opportunity, is manifest from what the Jews said to Christ about him: “He loveth our nation and hath built us a synagogue.” A military man would not have built a synagogue unless he had been more than ordinarily interested in Israelitish affairs. Consequently, we may conclude that he knew the scriptures, and recognised in Christ the Messiah promised in them. It was the case of a Gentile being more intelligent in, and more in love with, Israel’s great matters than Israel themselves, as is often the case in the present day. Jesus yielded to the centurion’s argument; and said to the centurion himself, who appears to have come on behind the friends he sent, “Go thy way, as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee,” upon which the servant was instantly cured without Jesus seeing him or entering the house. Jesus then said to those around, “I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Here was a looking forward to something of deep interest to us Gentiles: and what was more particularly expounded afterwards by the apostle whom he sent forth to declare “the mystery which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men … that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (Eph. iii. 5). The time had not come for the promulgation of this purpose; but Jesus knew it was at hand, and it was most appropriate that he should seize this incident of the centurion’s manifested faith to tell the on-lookers, that when the time should arrive for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s resurrection and appearance in the Holy Land as the heirs of the kingdom, “many” of the centurion’s stamp—obedient Gentiles full of faith—would muster from the ends of the earth to share with them the glory of the kingdom of God. It was a very unwelcome doctrine to the Jews. It was a doctrine frequently reflected in his teaching,—such as in the parable of the king’s marriage, and his remark, “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold,” and his statement to the apostles, “Ye shall be my witnesses to the uttermost parts of the earth,”&c., &c. It was the doctrine for which Paul was detested above all others by the Jews, because he was “the apostle of the Gentiles.” It is a doctrine rooted in all the Scriptures. The very earliest promise ensures the ultimate extension of the blessing of Abraham to “all the families of the earth.” (Gen. xii. 3). It is one of the fables of the learned world that the preaching of Christ to the Gentiles was an after-thought of Paul’s.

But the doctrine has to be received with the qualifications which the Scriptures themselves impose. It is nowhere taught that the Gentiles as Gentiles are to be fellow-heirs. The conditions of heirship are strictly defined: “If children, then heirs” (Rom. viii. 17). How to become children? This also is plainly answered. “Ye (the believers who had been baptised on the reception of the Gospel) are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus: for as many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. iii. 26, 27) Jesus did not mean to say that the Gentiles who would come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham in the Kingdom, would be unenlighted or disobedient or carnally-minded Gentiles; but that among those who should inherit the Kingdom, would be Gentiles, enlightened, reconciled and adopted, through submission to the requirements of the Gospel, when multitudes of the faithless Jews according to the flesh (the natural “children of the Kingdom”) would be cast out, to their great dismay.

Next day, Jesus paid a visit to Nain. On the way, he was accompanied by much people. As they approached the place, a funeral, as we call it in western countries, emerged from the gate. There were unusual manifestations of grief amongst the people forming the procession, on account of the nature of the bereavement that had taken place. A young man had died who was the only son and support of a widow mother; and he was now being carried to his grave amid the lamentations of his mother and a large crowd who sympathised with her. The people who followed Jesus formed one procession; the funeral cortege another. The two processions, likely to come into collision, came to a mutual halt. Those with Jesus were disposed, sympathetically, to make way for the funeral. The widow’s lamentations touched every one—none more than Jesus. He was “moved with compassion.” He addressed himself to the agonised woman: he was able to do so to some purpose. “Weep not,” said he. There was sympathy in the words: there would be sympathy in the tone in which they were uttered; and the weeping woman would be comforted. But he did more than speak comforting words. He stepped forward to the bier on which the dead was being carried. The bearers, noticing the action, stopped: a hush of expectation fell on the company as all gathered round. “Young man, l say unto thee arise”: few words, but words of power. “He that was dead sat up and began to speak.” Jesus directing the widow’s attention to him, handed him over to her. The overjoyed woman could scarcely believe her senses. The crowd were thunderstruck. Never had a funeral had such an ending. “Fear came on all.” The extraordinary character of Jesus of Nazareth was recognised. In various exclamations, the crowd gave expression to their feelings: “A great prophet is risen among us.” “God hath visited his people.”

The same day Jesus appears to have returned to Capernaum. An incident like the cure of a public functionary’s servant, and the restoration of a dead man to life, did not tend to decrease the public interest in the work of Christ. The people collected from every quarter. He did not refuse to receive them. “He healed all that were sick” (Matt. viii. 16). At the same time, desiring a little seclusion, “he gave commandment to depart to the other side (of the sea).” His disciples proceeded to get ready the boat. While preparation was being made, admirers in the crowd seized the opportunity of making private communications to him. A scribe (a man of position and influence with the people) said, “Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” Jesus gave him a discouraging answer: “The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.” From this we may gather that the scribe’s decision was due to a calculation of chances. If this were the Messiah (and the miracles made him think he must be), the Kingdom of God was immediately about to appear, and an espousal of his cause would secure a good place in a temporal sense. The answer of Jesus was calculated to extinguish false zeal, or sorely put to the test the true. How it acted in the scribe’s case, we shall not learn till the day of the muster with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.—To another looking earnestly on, Jesus said, “Follow me”: he answered, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.” Was not this a reasonable request? It might have been reasonable under ordinary circumstances, but not when the Son of God commands. Divine obligations are imperative. This is the lesson.

The answer was apparently unfeeling: “Let the dead bury their dead.” It will not seem unfeeling to those who have learnt to estimate things as Jesus estimated them—and that is according to the standard of eternal truth. The whole race of man without God are “the dead,” in a sense easy to understand when the supposition of human immortality is dismissed, and the Bible doctrine of the reign of death by sin accepted. The whole race is under sentence of death. Death is only a question of time. A hundred years will see something like two generations disappear from the land of the living into the grave. Now, where men have no connection with God, it is impossible that this death-state of theirs can be changed. Continuing in alienation from Him, they are “the dead” in contrast to that section of them who have “the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. i. 1). Their burial is, therefore, from Christ’s point of view, a very insignificant affair, and not to be allowed to come at all into collision with affairs connected with the great and stirring hope and work of life which he, and he alone, has in hand.

Where men see human life as Christ saw it, they will think and act in it as he did—and with a like appearance of harshness and a like certainty of being misunderstood by the children of the flesh—with whom the affairs of the flesh are everything, and the affairs of Christ of secondary practical moment. Another said, “Lord, I will follow thee, but let me first go and bid them farewell which are at home at my house.” This receives no more consideration at the hands of Christ than the plea about the funeral. It would, of course, be lauded by every class of natural writer as altogether a praiseworthy concern on the part of the young man; and, under ordinary circumstances, it is legitimate enough to consider the natural claims of those to whom we may be domestically related—but not when Christ calls. Christ required the young man at once. Had the young man sufficiently understood the proffered honour, he would have given an immediate and obedient response. But he hesitated under the power of natural feelings. The answer, apparently rough, was just in the circumstances. “No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke ix. 62). This is “written for our instruction.” We cannot receive a personal call in our day such as was addressed to the young man; but a call has come to all who have ears and eyes, and there are often times and situations when funerals and friends at home (who rank so highly as important affairs with the mere children of nature), will at the hands of children of God, receive that altogether secondary regard which Jesus sanctions in the few words uttered while the boat was getting ready.

Luke appears to place these incidents later on: but the fact is, he does not “place” them in a fixed sense at all. He says “it came to pass” that these men said these things—a form of speech admitting of their occurring at any time. Luke was not an eye-witness, but a reporter of the testimony of eye-witnesses; and though, in this, he was used and guided by the Spirit of God as much as the eye-witnesses were, his narrative is that of a collector of information, and not that of a spectator. When the action of inspiration is understood, there is no difficulty in this. Inspiration uses and limits (or as we may say “revises”) the natural when it employs it, but does not obliterate it. It keeps it in such form and in such channels as are suitable to its own purpose, but it does not interfere with the nature of the agent it employs. It does not change a reporter of what other men saw and heard into an eye-witness, though subscribing every jot and tittle of his report.

CHAPTER XIX.

———

In the Storm—Matthew Called.

The boat being ready, Jesus entered, and several of his disciples. It was the work of a few minutes to unfurl the sail, lift the anchor, and make for the open, steering straight for “the other side.” Jesus, wearied with his recent efforts, laid himself down on some cushion-work in the hinder part of the boat, and was soon fast asleep. Gaily the little craft sped over the glistening waters, kissing the freshening breeze, and sending the spray right and left as she cut her way through the dancing waves. But suddenly, there came a change, as is the wont with storms on the same lake to this day. The sky overcast, the wind rose, and the water roughened into a heavy swell. Rapidly the wind increased to a gale, and the sea, quickly responding, rose in great white-crested waves that tossed the vessel about like a plaything, and broke around and over it in a very threatening manner. The disciples exerted themselves to the utmost to avoid the waves—probably by running her before the wind; but the strength of the storm was too much for them. They could not prevent the breakers boarding her, and nearly filling her with water. The peril was great. Christ was yet asleep. They did not wish to disturb him; but every minute the danger was increasing. The vessel rocked, and plunged and creaked and shipped water in a style that threatened to send them all to the bottom in little time. She was now nearly filled with water. At last they awoke Christ. “Master! master!” exclaimed they, “we perish. Lord save us. Carest thou not that we perish?” That they supposed he could help them in some way is probable: that they thought he could check the storm is disproved by what happened. Awaking, Christ said, “Why are ye fearful?” This was as much as to say there was no cause for fear. Well, there was not, as it turned out, but to mere human perception, there was every cause for fear.

There never is or can be such apparent just cause for apprehension to men as when they are in a storm at sea in a frail vessel that is being overwhelmed by the waves. Men never fear more than in such circumstances. That Jesus felt differently was due to the power he possessed. That he expected the disciples to share his feelings on the subject was due to the evidence he had previously given them of his possession of that power. “O ye of little faith!’ It was the smallness of their faith he rebuked. Faith is trust on the ground of evidence. He had given them the evidence; and on this, faith ought to have worked with the effect of inspiring confidence in all circumstances. But man is weak, and their faith failed them in the presence of unfavourable appearances.—Having uttered these few quiet words of rebuke, he rose and addressing himself to the elements, said “Peace: be still!” The effect was instantaneous. The rush of the wind was arrested; the tumult of the waves stopped. The water ceased its convulsions and immediately settled to a quiet level. The storm was gone, and the ship, dripping, glistening with the water that had covered it, was riding in calmness and safety. In the presence of this great and sudden change, Jesus again looked at his disciples, and said, “Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?” questions far more telling, under the circumstances, than the most fervid effort of rhetoric.

It would be impossible to imagine a situation in which the power of Christ could be more impressively shewn, or more stringently and convincingly tested. Never is man so powerless as in the presence of the elements in their raging power. A pretender may do something with appliances and protected platforms and dark rooms. But place him on the storm-swept deck of a reeling vessel in a gale, and he is as helpless as the struggling cattle that are washed overboard. It does not even want a storm to show the impotence of man in dealing with nature. The quiet side of a mountain, the expanse of primitive moorland, the depths of the forest, or the face of the smiling ocean at any time in the finest weather, overwhelm a man with a sense of mortal littleness and helplessness. We have all heard in history of the vanity of monarchs or the extravagant loyalty of subjects that has sometimes claimed dominion over nature, and that has received its quiet but effectual confutation from nature itself. We have heard of the Persian Xerxes vainly apostrophising a mountain that he wanted out of the way, and whipping the waters of the Bosphorous for presuming to sweep away his bridge of boats. We have heard of Canute planting his throne by the edge of the sea, and vainly commanding the rising tide to stop its advance. But here is a man who says, “Peace be still,” and at whose word the rage of the tempest itself stops, and the sea becomes smooth. What more appropriate comment can be made than the one the disciples passed one to another: “What manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?” What manner of man, indeed!

Most momentous question, which many are content to leave unsettled, or to settle in a most superficial and absurd manner. The question cannot be burked or ignored. The question is there. Christ did all these wonderful things. The New Testament is the evidence of it. The New Testament has been in the hands of the world all these ages. It was written by the men who were his companions: whose competence as witnesses is shewn by the writing; whose integrity is proved by the fact that they had and could have no object in the writing but the testimony of truth, since that testimony brought them nothing but evil; the truth of whose narrative is proved by the narrative itself. The question is constantly ringing in the air for those who have ears to hear: “what manner of man is this?” The answer is a glorious one, though mankind in their woe may be sick of hearing it. It is the only answer that solves the whole wonderful problem. “God was in Christ.” God, who made all things, can control all things, whether it be the physiological conditions of the body, or the momentum of the atmosphere, caused by the mechanical action of the laws of heat. It is in His power to radically change the one, or put a brake on the other. It is a question of the object and opportunity. There is a time to show the power, and a time to conceal it. One time to show it was when Jesus, the Son of God, was on earth to declare the Father’s name, and open and shew the way of life and love in the ministry of reconciliation. It was shewn in such a variety of ways as to exclude the possibility of doubt as to its being the power of God: and one of the most impressive certainly, was the demonstration that even the wind and the sea were subject to the will of Christ

The storm having ceased, the boat resumed her eastward course, and shortly arrived at the other side. They landed “in the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.” The district lies on the eastern margin of the sea of Galilee, towards the southern end, where the land rises abruptly, forming that “steep place” which was signalised by an incident now about to happen—of which the three apostolic narratives, read together, furnish the following particulars.

When Jesus had landed, a man at a long distance off was seen running towards him at the top of his speed, accompanied by another man who did not figure prominently in the transactions that followed. The men were madmen, who lived, not in the city, but among the tombs in the neighbourhood of the city. They were naked, and possessed of abnormal strength. They had been the terror of the neighbourhood for a long time—particularly the first man, who, night and day, at spasmodic intervals, made the air ring with his maniac shouts, as he cut himself with stones and cried out. Many attempts had been made to put him under restraint, but all in vain. Chains and fetters had been successfully put upon him several times, but each time, with the strength of Samson, when left to himself, he snapped them asunder in the paroxysms of his madness. He now ran towards Christ, whom, from a distance, he had seen landing. The fame of Christ had “spread into all the regions round about.” Consequently, this madman had heard something of him, and ran to worship him. Jesus saw him coming. It is probable that the disciples also would apprehensively direct his attention to the approach of a madman. Jesus knew the state of the man, and before he had come quite close, he sought to disarm him by cure. He said, “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.” The man, mistaking Christ’s adjuration for an imprecation of judgment upon himself, fell on his knees and responded in a voice of terror, “What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most High God? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not.” Jesus then speaks kindly to him: “What is thy name?” The man said, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” This was the man’s hallucination. Jesus had recognised but one unclean spirit (that is, the deranging influence that obstructed his faculties), saying to him, “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.” But the man imagined himself inhabited by a multitude of demons. The lunatic asylums to-day will furnish instances of a similar delusion: the difference is, they are not at large, and there is no living Christ going about, for their aberrated faculties to act on. The man proceeded to earnestly implore Christ not to send him (that is, “them”: for the man and the demons were identical to the man’s deranged mind)—not to send him out of the country. It was a revealed work of the Messiah, that he would “cause the unclean spirit to pass out of the land” (Zech. xiii. 2). John the Baptist had spoken of him “standing in the midst” of Israel while he spake, and of having the “fan in his hand” with which he would “thoroughly purge his floor” (Matt. iii. 12; Jno. i. 26). This phase of the Messiah’s work is the one that would most readily be apprehended by the populace. It would easily and naturally diffuse itself as a panic which the madmen of the country would catch up and reflect in an aberrated form. Consequently, we may understand this madman’s anxiety as he kneels imploring Christ to spare him the banishment which he feared at his hands, and suggesting to him that he would, instead, allow him to go among the swine that were feeding in multitudes on the hill brow overlooking the sea. Of course, it was mixed up with the hallucination that he was a legion of demons; and the suggestion took that form. “Suffer us to enter into the swine.” Jesus acted on the suggestion. The culture of the pig was a breach of the law of Moses. It was part of the disobedience which he was about to revenge on the nation in a baptism of fire (effected 40 years later). It was therefore a fitting thing to mark with his displeasure in the way now suggested. He said, “Go,” and at his word the maddening influence which had so long possessed the man was transferred from him to the 2,000 swine, and transformed into a judicial impulse which projected them in a general stampede down the brow of the hill into the water, where they were all drowned—as intended.

The idea that the “demons” in the case were intelligent beings is precluded by the way they are treated in the narrative. They are, both by Jesus and the narrator (Luke), treated as “an unclean spirit”—a spirit of madness. Their existence in the man is the man’s own theory of himself, propounded in answer to Christ’s kindly question, “What is thy name?” and merely adopted in some parts of the narrative in accommodation to this introduced aspect. Had they been intelligences literally seeking transfer to the swine, as a more congenial sheathing or dwelling, they would not have instantly frustrated their own wishes by destroying the swine in the sea. The whole of the circumstances adapt themselves to the view that Christ in benevolently curing a violent madman, judicially transferred the madness to a herd of swine that had no business in the land of Israel. The narrative is necessarily tinged with the notion universal in the world at the time, that madness was due to the presence of malignant beings: tinged with it, that is, in the sense of its being taken into account just as we take into account the views of children or lunatics, when we talk to them about their affairs: but not tinged in the sense of its being accepted as true: only in the sense in which the doctrine of Beelzebub tinged the discourse of Christ when he seemed to assume the existence of that mythical deity, in his conversation with those who believed in it (Matt. xii. 27). It is one of the evidences of the divinity of the Gospel narratives, that while necessarily dealing extensively and minutely with the heathen theory of demonology in its record of the cure by Jesus of mental disorders of all kinds, it steers clear of an endorsement of the theory as such.

The people who were in charge of the immense herd of swine were thrown into consternation at the inexplicable frenzy which impelled the swine to destruction in the waters of the Galilean lake. They ran into the town in hot haste, and reported what had happened. The people instantly flocked out to the hill to behold the evidence of the truth of the report in the hundreds of pigcarcases floating ashore. While wondering at the occurrence, their attention was drawn to the group on the plain. Jesus and his disciples were there: and the crowd streamed towards them. There they found their formidable neighbour—the incurable maniac—“sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind.” (No doubt the disciples furnished clothing among them for the man, when he was cured). The people quickly understood the situation: Jesus had transferred the madness from the man to the swine, and caused their destruction. This filled them with a superstitious fear of him. They were afraid of further calamities. They implored him to get away from them; and he went. Poor misguided people! How many millions there have been since, who would gladly at any time have given all that they had for one hour of the company which these Gadarenes put away from them. There have been many, also, who like the Gadarenes, have put Christ away, because of the temporal inconveniences.

Jesus walked back to the ship—the cured madman accompanying him to the water’s edge. When he had got aboard with his disciples, the man implored Jesus to allow him to go with him. But Jesus would not consent. To one he said, “Follow me;” to this, “Follow me not.” “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the sun.” The cured madman was not fit to be a companion of Christ, and not suitable for an apostle. Jesus “knew all men,” and knew this man, and therefore “suffered him not” to have his wishes gratified. There. was, however, a sphere of service for him. “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” As the boat drew off, we can imagine the poor man looking after it with longing eyes as he stood among the other people who, with a very different mind, watched the departure. He would watch its receding form till no longer able to discern the forms of its occupants; and then, with the dispersing multitude, many of whom would gather round him and talk with him, glad at his change, though vexed at the loss of their grunting property, he would at last go away. He did not and could not forget what had been done for him. “He departed and began to publish in Decapolis (the ten cities) how great things Jesus had done for him; and all men did marvel” (Luke v. 20).

Arrived at Capernaum (which he had made “his own city” by removal from Nazareth) Jesus found the town crowded. “Great multitudes had come together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities.” Among the crowd were “Pharisees and doctors of the law out of every town of Galilee and Judæa and Jerusalem” (Luke v. 17). These had heard reports of his wonderful doings and sayings, and had come to study him. At first, Jesus retired before the crowded state of the town, and again “withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed.” But again rallying himself to the work “after some days” “he entered into Capernaum” (Mar. ii. 1). It was soon reported that he had arrived and was in the house where he made his stay when in the place. “Straightway many were gathered together, insomuch as there was no room to receive them, no not so much as about the door.” While thus clustered thickly together in and about the house, “he preached the word unto them.”

Our exclusive acquaintance with western houses interferes with our understanding of such a scene as this—as regards its mechanical adjuncts. If the house was like the eastern houses which travellers describe to us, it would be a flat-roofed building of one storey, with a wide door opening to a paved court in front. Jesus would be seated inside some distance from the door, with the people standing and sitting all about him, filling the room and overflowing through the doorway into the court yard. The “doctors of the law” had secured a place in the inner circle. Jesus discoursed to the assembly in terms not recorded. The Pharisees and lawyers were sitting with ears attent. They were in the keenly observant mood of a perplexed scepticism which desired to find a flaw, but could not resist the wisdom of his speech or deny the wonder of his works. While he was speaking, a noise in the roof attracted attention. Slabs were being removed, and in a little time a large space had been cleared over the heads of the assembly—large enough to admit the entrance of a couch containing a palsied man, which the operators proceed to lower into the presence of Christ. No doubt people in the house would expostulate with the intruders, and endeavour to persuade them to withdraw the strange burden, and restore the roof. If so, it was all in vain. They were terribly in earnest, and would take no denial. There were four of them. The palsied man was probably a relative. They had heard of Christ’s wonderful works of healing, and had probably brought him from a distance to be cured; but on arriving they had found the house blocked with people, and no way of getting at him, but by breaking the roof Their earnest stratagem, however objectionable to the company assembled in the house, was not displeasing to Christ. He “saw their faith,” and anticipating their object, said to the palsied man, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” These words startled the aforesaid “Pharisees and lawyers.” They looked at each other and whispered, as much as to say, “Ha! did you hear that? We have got something now.” Their actual words (under their breath) were, “Why doth this man thus speak blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God only?” Jesus perceived the movement, and knew their thoughts. Turning to them instantly, he said, “Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed and walk?” He places the two things on a par in point of power and authority. If he could do the one, was it not evidence of ability to do the other? Who could cure the palsy with a word but God only? and if God gave the Son of Man power on earth to cure the palsy and do many other works that no man could do, why should he not confer upon him the power to forgive sin also, which was neither more difficult nor more easy? Pressing home this argument, he said to them, “That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sin—(then turning to the palsied man) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed and go thy way unto thine house.” All eyes were now upon the man, who arose with the ease and strength of a man in perfect health, packed up his couch, and lifted it on his shoulder. A passage being made for him among the people, he carried it out before them all. Everyone was simply amazed and struck with admiration, “We never saw anything like this before.” They “marvelled that God had given such power unto men” (Matt. ix. 8). The Pharisees could only be silent. Jesus then motioned to pass out, and a way being made for him, “he went forth again by the seaside, and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them.” “The common people heard him gladly.” The uncommon people did not. On the contrary, they heard him, first with curious interest, then with suspicious dislike, then with open hostility, and lastly with implacable hatred and determination to compass his destruction. But things did not reach this pass all at once. As yet they were in the studious mood. The common people were intent on hearing him; and the leaders were obliged to follow in their train.

Returning from the seaside, Jesus passed the tax-collector’s office (for Capernaum) in which an official was seated who had been keeping an open and interested eye on the movements of Christ, and on whom Christ now had his eye. This was “Matthew, the publican,” who belonged to a class that was not in good savour with the higher ranks of society in Israel at this time. He was a Jew, but a servant of the Romans, and was therefore looked down upon as an unpatriotic and defiled Israelite. Besides this, the publicans as a class were extortioners. They paid a stipulated sum to the government as the taxes accruing from the district over which they were appointed, and collected as much more as they could, by pressure and extortion, thereby enriching themselves at the expense of the community. It is the system of farming the taxes which is in vogue in Turkey at the present day. The publicans were, therefore, as a class, in great odium. But in all classes, there are men better than their class. And Matthew was not an unjust man, though a publican. He was a man fit in Christ’s estimation to be an ambassador of Christ; and the time had come to call him. Jesus therefore stopped before the office, and fixing his eyes on Matthew, simply said, “Follow me.” For this summons, Matthew had evidently been previously prepared; for, without any hesitation or delay, “he arose and followed him.”

CHAPTER XX.

———

Matthew’s Feast—Two Blind Men Cured.

Matthew, as a publican, was a man in good circumstances. He was consequently able to do what his affection for Christ inclined him to do on accepting his invitation to become his follower and companion: “He made him a great feast in his own house,” to which he invited “a great company of publicans and others.” The great company included “many publicans and sinners” who came and sat down with Christ and his disciples—a company, not of the select order—not such as would suit a punctilious “respectability” in that or any other age:—a company made up of the lower class, the toiling class, and such even as were not irreproachable on the score of principle or behaviour. The Pharisees, keenly watching every movement, were shocked or professed to be shocked that Christ should keep such company. They took the first opportunity of attacking the disciples on the subject—afraid apparently of addressing themselves direct to Christ. “Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners?” Why not with the righteous of the nation? This cate-chetical insinuation was very telling: It was much more effective than a direct imputation. A thing hinted at is always felt more keenly than a thing plainly said. The disciples no doubt were embarrassed by the question, and did not know what to say. They reported the question to Christ. His rejoinder was one of the many master strokes that at last made the Pharisees afraid to encounter him. There was no rudeness in it; on the contrary, it was gentle and grave. But it was the simple assertion of unquestionable truth, and made the question of the Pharisees recoil with withering force on themselves. “They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” What could they say? The company to which they objected, if sinners, were the sick: why were not the Pharisees (the professional healers of the people) attending to them? How could they find fault with him for doing it? There was no answer. It was a mouth-shutter. It bore another way. The Pharisees were the righteous in their own estimation. Therefore, on their own premises, it was needless to look after them. He followed up his delightfully powerful answer with an adjuration only a little less severe to men who professed to be teachers: “Go and learn what that meaneth; I will have mercy and not sacrifice.”

The Scribes and Pharisees laid great stress on the divine obligation of the sacrifices, which were profitable to them. Jesus now reminds them that God, who had appointed the sacrifices, had also declared that those very sacrifices were not acceptable to Him, and even an abomination to Him, when offered without that sentiment of merciful kindness in which the institution had its very origin (Amos V. 21–24; Is. i. 11–17). Against this attitude of mercy to the poor and the needy, they were now placing themselves in objecting to Christ’s familiar association with the common people; and they had their answer, which had no tendency to mollify them, but the reverse. It made them more and more bitter and inclined to put the worst construction upon all he did.

They took advantage of his very eating to raise an evil report. They did it gently at first. They did it by way of question, and they made use of other people, though at last they spurted it out in the directness and heat of inflamed animosity: “Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber—the friend of publicans and sinners.” If the action of the Son of God could be thus misrepresented, what can his friends expect, who can never attain his perfection? The Pharisees approached the subject at first through John’s disciples. Some of John’s disciples had a difficulty about the difference between John’s ways and Christ’s. John was abstemious and given to periodical fasting, which he also enjoined upon his disciples, as befitting the exigencies of the spiritual reformation he had come to effect in preparation for Christ. But Christ was a free eater, and laid no obligation of fasting upon his disciples. The Pharisees, putting them forward, and taking part with them, asked Christ on the subject: “Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft; but thy disciples fast not?” Christ’s answer was an effective question turning upon a custom of the country, which is more or less a custom of all countries—viz., to make a wedding a time of festivity: “Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” Fasting is a concomitant of mourning, and would be out of place in a joyful situation. This was the argument of his question, which assumed that he was the bridegroom, and that it was a happy circumstance for them to have him with them. So it was. He said so plainly. “Me ye have not always” (Mar. xiv. 7). “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (Jno. ix. 5.) “Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you” (xii. 35). The fact thus affirmed would be patent to all the people, though it might be denied by the Scribes and Pharisees; and therefore his words had great force: “as long as they (the disciples) have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.” No, indeed! He was the light of their eyes, and the joy of their heart, and the strength of their ways. His presence excluded the very idea of fasting. It would have been as much out of place in their circumstances as a new piece of cloth in a rotten garment, or new wine in decayed wine-skins. But there was shortly to be a change. He would not always be with them. The fact was sorrowfully before his mind, and he now gives it utterance in prophetic words affecting ourselves in so far as we painfully participate in their fulfilment: “The days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them: and then shall they fast in those days” (Mar. ii. 20). These days did come; and they have long prevailed—so long that some men say he was never here, and many others, that though he was once here he will never be here again. They are sorrowful days, in which faith has much hard work to resist the blighting effect of the darkness and the cold. But they will come to an end. Christ, whose words are proved true by the very darkness of the time, has said, “If I go away, I will come again, and your heart shall rejoice.”

We are not told at what time of the day Matthew’s dedicatory feast, at which this keen passage of arms occurred, was held. It was probably a mid-day gathering. The incident with which it concluded could not well have happened at night. The principal rabbi at one of the synagogues, Jairus by name, came forward into the presence of Christ in a state of mental agony. He had only one daughter, about twelve years of age, and the child lay at the point of death. In fact, the distracted father was sure she was “now dead.” He prostrated himself before Christ, and earnestly besought him to come to her, expressing the confidence that if he would lay his hand on her, she would live. Jesus respected the man’s faith, and rose from his place at the board. The father led the way out of the house, and Jesus followed him, accompanied by his disciples. In addition to the disciples, a great crowd followed. The company in Matthew’s house had witnessed the rabbi’s petition, and as Jesus passed out, word would quickly pass among the people outside that he was going to bring a dead child to life. They eagerly went after him, and “thronged him,” jostling against him, as is the manner of crowds.

On the way, he stopped, and the crowd gathered round. He asked them who had touched him. No one answered. He repeated his question; still all were silent. Pressing his question, the multitude, wondering what could be the meaning of it, began to say to one another, “Not I: not I.” Jesus said, “Some one hath touched me, for I perceive that virtue has gone out of me.” Peter suggested that a good many had touched Christ, and that the question scarcely seemed called for: “Thou seest the multitude thronging thee: and sayest thou, ‘who touched me?’ ” Jesus had a reason for his question. He had been touched in a way that was not mechanical. He was conscious of healing virtue having passed out of him in response to a touch that was a touch of faith. He knew who had done it. It was not for information that he asked the question, but to call attention to one of the many “works” by which God was manifested and glorified in him. He looked round on the crowd, and fixed his eyes on a woman. She cowered beneath his calm searching gaze. She knew what had happened, and she now felt that he knew, and that it was no use concealing the matter. “Fearing and trembling and knowing what was done in her,” she came forward, “and fell down before him and told him all the truth.” What was the truth? That she had for twelve years suffered from a debilitating flux, for which she had in vain and at much expense, consulted every likely doctor. Hearing of Christ, she had come to the conclusion that if she could only get near enough to him to touch the hem of his robe, she would be healed; and she had that day seized upon her first opportunity with the anticipated result. She now felt in herself that she was cured, but she was in that state of mind that leads a person to feel they must most humbly apologise for having taken a great and unwarrantable liberty. Christ’s object was realised in the eliciting from the woman this statement of the facts. He soon calmed her fears. “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace, and continue whole of thy plague.”

In this we have an insight into what might be called the physical aspect of Christ’s miracles, and of all miracles. Though above nature, they are operations of real power acting upon and in nature. They are not magical. There was material “virtue” in the person of Christ, with which his very clothes became charged, so that in the performance of works of healing, “there went virtue out of him and healed them all” (Lu. vi. 19). The same thing is observable in the case of Paul afterwards, who was filled with the same spirit: “God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them” (Acts ix. 11, 12). In the case of Peter also, we read that “they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might over-shadow some of them … and they were healed every one” (Acts v. 15, 16). This was the fulfilment of Christ’s promise: “The works that I do, ye (the apostles) shall do also, and greater works than these shall ye do because I go unto my Father” The works in both cases were done by the same power. “The power of the Lord was present to heal” (Lu. v. 17). The power of the Lord is real power. It is the power out of which all things have been made. It is what modern philosophers have conceived to themselves as “force.” It is a reality, though a reality out of human control. When this is clearly apprehended, there will be no liability to fall into the mistake of those who class the miracles of Christ and his apostles with the achievement of mesmerists and so-called “faith-healers.” They are not in the same category at all, though related to the same power. Human beings have life-power, which they can in certain conditions irradiate from themselves by the action of the will, and by the means of it can produce certain effects. But the power is weak. It is strictly within the organic limits assigned to the human organization in the constitution imparted by the will of the Creator, and can accomplish nothing beyond those limits. Streaming from the eye, it may deflect a needle suspended by a silk thread, but it cannot stop a storm. It may stimulate secretions in the living body, but it cannot produce bread on the spot to feed thousands. It may impart a momentary vigour to a debilitated organ, but it cannot make a dead man alive. There is a certain faint resemblance between its mode of action and the miraculous operations of Jesus and the apostles; but there is no more parallel than between the working of a machine and the motions of the heavenly bodies. The one is the power of nature, as forming part of the constitution of nature, and strictly bounded by the laws of nature; the other is the working of the energy that produced nature, and can therefore control nature so absolutely that “nothing is impossible with God.” The one is the power of man, the other the power of God, between which the gulf is unfathomable and immeasurable. This is shown in any comparison that may be made between the works of all who ever went before or came after Christ.

Having comforted the cured but disturbed woman, Jesus was about to resume his journey to the house of Jairus, when messengers arrived, and addressing themselves to Jairus, said there was no need to trouble Jesus further; that all was over: his daughter had just expired. We can imagine the effect which such an announcement would produce on the fond and distracted father. Jesus had seen the arrival of the messengers, and had heard their message, and had noticed its effect, and he turned to the father and said: “Fear not; only believe, and she shall be made whole.” From the mouth of an ordinary physician, such words would have been mockery. How could the little girl be “made whole” when she was actually dead? But Jairus and others had seen and heard enough of this man to dispose them to rest with indefinite expectancy on anything he might say. Probably, therefore, Jairus was comforted by his words. He would probably find it easy to conform to the adjuration, “Only believe.” It is remarkable how constantly this condition is required in connection with the miracles of Jesus and the apostles. We have seen it in connection with the woman who stole a cure, as it were, while Jesus was on his way to Jairus. Christ told her her faith had saved her. To another he said, “Thy faith hath made thee whole” (Luke xvii. 19). To another, “Receive thy sight. Thy faith hath saved thee” (Luke xviii. 42). Still more emphatic, he said to another, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark ix. 23); and one of his miracles he prefaced by the inquiry, “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” (Mark ix. 28). It is recorded of Paul in the cure of an afflicted man at Lystra, that he “perceived that he had faith to be healed” (Acts xiv. 9).

This prominence of faith as an accompaniment of these works of healing has given rise to evil surmise, and led to some imposture. Some have imagined that the effects called miracles were not the results of God’s power at all, but of credulousness in the subjects operated upon. Others, like the Mormons, have assumed the ability to work miracles, but allege the want of faith on the part of their hearers to be the cause of their inability to show them. Both ideas spring from an incomplete apprehension of the facts. Though faith was a desired and suitable accessory to miraculous operation, it was not indispensable to the exercise of that power on the part of either Christ or his apostles. Walking on the sea, stilling the storm, the multiplication of five loaves to feed thousands of people, and the raising of the dead—were all operations that could have no assistance of faith from the subjects operated upon. So in the case of the apostles; it required no faith in Ananias and Sapphira to be struck dead, or in the prison doors for them to open. The power of God is irresistible, and “needs not help from man.” But there is nothing in this inconsistent with the requirement that men who are to be benefited by the exercise of that power should honour God by putting faith in the operation. No doubt the exercise of faith predisposes for its effectual working; but it has no more power to produce the effects than favourable soil has to bring forth choice plants without seed or planting. Men have only to try to produce the miracles of Christ by faith to see how incapable faith is without the co-operation of the power of God. And as for those who say they could work miracles if people only had faith, let them try their hand on their own lame, blind, and dead, and their mistake will be apparent. Though Christ asked for faith and esteemed it highly, he did not have to wait for it in order to be able to show forth the power of God.

Having asked Jairus to have faith, Jesus quickly went forward to his house where the dead child lay. He appears to have forbidden the crowd to follow, and to have allowed only Peter and James and John to accompany him, with the father of the damsel. Arrived at the house, he found the professional mourners in full work. This is a feature peculiar to Oriental life, especially in the days of Jesus, as all are aware. When a death occurs, these people will do any amount of demonstrative mourning for a consideration. They can “weep and wail” to order, and “make a great ado.” They had in this case doubtless heard the little girl was dying, and were early in attendance for the job. When Jesus arrived, he found them “making a great tumult.” He asked them to stop: “Why make ye this ado and weep?” Why? Didn’t he know? A chief man’s nice little daughter of twelve just dead? Oh yes, he knew. He knew more than they did. The girl was dead and not dead. “The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.” But the professional mourners—a callous and melancholy set—knew not the speaker. They heard his words, and interpreting them by their poor light, they saw only cause of mirth in them. “They laughed him to scorn.” We can almost hear their “ha, ha’s” as they twisted and grinned under the absurdity of the statement that the girl who lay a corpse in the house was “not dead.”

Why did Jesus say the damsel was not dead when she was really dead? For a reason that we may easily apprehend if we can imagine ourselves possessed as he was of the power of restoring a dead person. Such a person we would naturally think of as in a state of suspended animation merely. Even in natural relations, we only recognize a person as dead when he is beyond the action of restorative agency. He may be to all intents and purposes dead, as when in a drowning case, he has been in the water for twenty minutes or half an hour before he is taken out; or when he has swooned off into a pulseless state of unconsciousness, through the stoppage of the action of the heart: we do not consider him dead if we possess the means of removing the cause that has suspended vitality for the time being, though left as he is, decomposition will certainly commence. In the case of Christ, he had the power to remove the conditions that had stopped the life of Jairus’ child, and because he intended to use that power, he could not recognise the child as dead—in the state, namely, in which the cause of death was beyond the power of removal. To him, she was but in a sleep, though for the time being really dead. We see the same thing in the case of Lazarus, whom Jesus was intending to raise: he said, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.” The disciples thought he spoke literally. “Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead” (Jno. ix. 14). It was the relation of ideas that led him to speak of “sleep” in both cases. Jesus, beckoning to the father, got the house cleared of the noisy heartless “wailers,” and with the father and mother of the damsel, and the three apostles mentioned, he entered the chamber where the dead child lay. He at once took the child by the hand and said, “Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise.” Immediately the vital energy of the spirit entered and transfused and healed the lifeless frame: the child opened her eyes, and rose, and stood on the floor, as the natural impulse of the returned sensibilities of health would incline, in the presence of strangers. Jesus handed the child to her parents, to their inexpressible astonishment, and advised them to give her something to eat. The child, wasted by fever and now restored to healthy life, would be in need of nourishment. Gladly, we may imagine, would the parents comply with his direction. But they could not get over the surprise of their child’s restoration, and were evidently in a mood to speak emphatically on the subject. Jesus advised them to say nothing about it to anyone, for the reason that led him in previous cases to avoid public sensation. But he could not prevent the inevitable. “The fame thereof went abroad through all that land.”

Leaving the house of Jairus, he was accosted by two blind men who learnt from the hum and talk of the crowd that Jesus was passing. He took no notice of them at first. They followed him, calling aloud as they went, “Thou Son of David, have mercy upon us.” The people knew that the Messiah was to be the son of David. They were disposed to regard this man as the Messiah because of his mighty works. Therefore it was the popular mood to speak of him as the son of David, though they probably knew little or nothing of his family extraction. Jesus allowed the men to continue their invocation without attending to them, and walked on till he came to the house where he abode in Capernaum, which he entered, and sat down, the crowd probably lingering outside. The blind men persevered, and found their way at last into the presence of Christ in the house. They renewed their entreaty to be cured of their blindness. The Lord dealt with the matter in a much more interesting manner than by at once granting their request, as unskilful kindness would have done. He said, “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” They at once answered affirmatively, upon which Jesus said, “According to your faith be it unto you,” and, touching their eyes, restored their sight. The men were delighted: but Jesus told them to enjoy the gift of God in quietness, and say nothing of it to any man—a commandment which they did not and could not possibly obey: “When they were departed, they spread abroad the fame in all the country.” In all this there is a perfect life picture. There is nothing artificial or manufactured in it. How sadly noble the desire of Jesus to avoid public ovation while showing forth the glory and power of the Father in the performance of miracles: it is in harmony even with the poor specimens of worth and modest manhood we are sometimes permitted to know even now. How unlike the impostor or charlatan to entreat the subjects of his benefaction to keep the matter secret! How like human nature, for the blind men to disregard Christ’s request, and blaze the matter abroad to the utmost. How godlike for Christ to let them persevere in their request before granting it: to even interpose an obstacle to put their earnestness to the test: and to extort a confession of their faith before imparting the coveted benefit.

CHAPTER XXI.

———

From the Cure of the Blind Men to the Call of the Apostles.

As the two cured blind men passed out of the house (at Capernaum), a dumb man was brought in. With no more difficulty than he could open the eyes of the blind, Jesus could loose the tongue of the dumb. A word sufficed to expel what was supposed to be the demon causing the dumbness. The supposed demon, though a myth theologically, was a reality physiologically, as we have before had occasion to notice. The dumbness was caused by a real disturbing presence, and the popular name for this was “demon” in the days of Jesus. In removing this, Jesus removed what was universally known as the demon. It mattered nothing that the notion in which that name originated was a heathenish notion, and an untrue one. It was facts and not their names with which Jesus dealt. He cured the dumb man with a word, as he had cured the blind men. The bystanders were amazed at the power evinced in such performances. “It was never so seen in Israel,” said they. The implication contained in this exclamation (that Jesus was from God) was offensive to the leaders of the people—the Pharisees. Many of the Pharisees were privately of the same opinion; but, as a body, they highly resented it. If the numerous and incessant and unprecedented miracles of Christ seemed to compel the conviction which they refused, they found their escape in the “theory” of the matter they had formed for themselves. They said “He casteth out demons through the prince of the demons.” They did not question the miracles, but they tried to explain them away by a theory which they propounded on more than one occasion, and with increasing emphasis and distinctness as the fame of Christ’s miracles grew more prevailing. “This fellow,” said they, “hath Beelzebub, the prince of the demons; and by the prince of the demons casteth he out demons” (Matt. xii. 24; Mar. iii. 22). How foolish this theory was, Jesus showed in a sentence; and how wicked, he presently declared in words which are not exceeded by any of his utterances for terrible solemnity. On the first point, he argued that if Beelzebub were a prince of the invisible realms, it was not likely he would use his power (through Jesus or in any other way) to pull down his own kingdom. It must be a power adverse to Beelzebub that was dislodging his minions right and left as Jesus was doing. He appealed to their own doings in the case. Exorcism was an art practised among their disciples. Their theory of the art was that God gave them power to expel demons. They never imagined that Satan used his power to cast himself out. Now, said Jesus, “If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges.” In all this, Jesus took for granted me reality of Beelzebub, the heathen divinity whom Israel in their darkness had come to regard as a reality; and the reality also of the demons Beelzebub was supposed to have under his control. The question was not as to them, but as to the nature of the works of Christ. There was no answer to Christ’s question on the Pharisean theory of these things. His works could not be of diabolical origin on their own theory of diabolical operation. But the Pharisees were of the class of theorists who are inaccessible to reason, and on whom he could only “look round about with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts” (Mar. iii. 5). Nevertheless, for the sake of others who were to be reached by his recorded words for ages afterwards, he finished his argument, and uttered words of heavy moment. “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you. … All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men. Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come” (Matt. xii. 28–32). Mark adds “Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit” (Mar. iii. 30). It needs not this addition to shew the meaning of Christ’s words about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The whole connection shews it. It was the crime of the Pharisees that was in view. The unforgiveable blasphemy of the Holy Spirit of which they were guilty consisted in attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to another agency.

That the offence should be unpardonable was, in the circumstances, just. It was both against reason, and against the evidence of their senses. It was therefore on a par with the “presumptuous sin” for which there was no forgiveness under the law (Num. xv. 30). The spirit in both cases was the same—a spirit of wilful, wanton, presumptuous rebellion against the light—a spirit which in any case makes the difference between that “sin unto death,” and that sin which is not unto death of which John speaks (1 Jno. v. 16). It is this which gives character to the declaration of Paul in Hebrews that “it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come (a description applicable only to those who were the subjects of the miraculous gifts of the apostolic age)—if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance” (Heb. vi. 4–6); and also the statement that “if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversary” (x. 26).

Much mental torment that might have been spared has been endured in connection with this subject of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Sensitive persons have feared they may have been guilty of the offence without being aware of it. An enlightened apprehension of the subject will shew them that such a case as sinning against the Holy Spirit without being aware of it is not possible; and further, that it is doubtful if the offence is possible at all in our age when the Spirit does not visibly assert itself. The ground of the special responsibility existing in the apostolic age was the evidence. “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin” (Jno. xv. 24). In our day, the evidence has become obscure and difficult of apprehension for the common run of minds. The Bible is truly the work of the Spirit of God, and the man who says it is human literally commits the sin which Jesus says will never be forgiven. But the circumstances are different, and it is questionable if in the circumstances of an era like this, when God’s face is hidden, such an offence would be estimated so heinously as in a day when the voice and hand of God were visibly displayed in attestation of His truth.

Before Jesus left the subject, he made a declaration much deserving to be pondered by all who recognise the voice of God in him. It bears seriously upon a habit of irreverence and thoughtlessness of speech which is more prevalent in modern than in ancient times. He said “I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment: for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt. xii. 36). This solemn statement was evoked by the rash sayings of the Pharisees that his miracles were the work of Beelzebub; but it is evident that Jesus intended it to have a very wide application to “every idle word.” The saying of the Pharisees gives us to understand what is meant by an “idle” word—not an idle word in the literal English sense of a meaningless word said in an idle purposeless mood, but a word spoken unwisely and with a meaning detrimental to the honour or truth or majesty of God. Such may be spoken through ignorance or “of malice aforethought.” In either case it is an offence, though more an offence in the latter case than the former. It is an offence to which men are peculiarly liable in this age. The misapplied constructions of science have nearly dissolved all sense of responsibility, and extinguished all sentiment of reverence. Human consequences are a check upon action, but in speech, unbounded license is the order of the day. The language of the psalm expresses the common feeling: “Our tongues are our own: who is Lord over us?” It is one of the many symptoms of the deep disorder that prevails in the world. It is a time for David’s prayer, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: keep the door of my lips;” protect us from the flood of irreverent speech that passes on every hand—the impure, frivolous, reckless, foolish chatter that undermines wisdom in every heart, turning reverence to scorn, and love to a theme for jest. The words of Christ will act as a wholesome antidote in the hearts of those who give heed. “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”

Reverence is the highest and the noblest faculty in the human constitution. Like all other faculties, knowledge opens the way for its exercise. The profundities and infinities and inimitable contrivances of the universe tell us of power and wisdom that inspire adoration; the revelation that God has made of himself through Moses and the prophets discloses to us the source and nature of those exquisite powers, and supplies the mind with a perfect fulcrum for the action of that faculty of reverence which finds adequate expression in the act of worship alone. Worship in the true sense is the highest function of created intelligence. It is the one that is most under a blight in the present state of things upon the earth. It is either allied with darkness, and amounts to nothing more than a superstition; or it is burnt away to nothing in the flaming light of mechanical intellect applied to mercenary use. Christ is the type of the few who will be selected from the chaos for the new cosmos of the coming time—men of light and reverence. The development of this type is a work of great difficulty in the barbaric environment of modern life. But the Word of God makes it possible; and one of its moulding influences lies in the recollection that the irreverent and foolish use of the God-like faculty of speech will be brought into question in the great day of account.

After the cure of the dumb man, Jesus left Capernaum for a local circuit among “the cities and villages” of the district, “teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” This prominence of “the Gospel of the Kingdom” calls for notice (Matt. iv. 23; ix. 35; xxiv. 14; Mark i. 14; Luke iv. 43; viii. 1; ix., 2, 11; Acts viii. 12; xx. 25; xxviii. 31.) The kingdom was a constant feature, whether in his formal discourses or in his private and conversational contacts with the people and their leaders. It is impossible to understand his teaching without an understanding of the kingdom. The understanding of this has become difficult only on the assumptions of popular theology, which are inconsistent with the truth. When these are dismissed with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul out of which they grow, the difficult subject becomes easy, and a key is obtained which fits every part of his teaching—whether his parables, his public discourses or his preceptive allusions. Jesus never defined in an elementary or formal way what the kingdom was. He assumed that it was understood by his hearers,—which it was. Nevertheless, we may gather a clear idea of the subject from his allusions; and the idea so to be gathered is exactly what is to be derived from Moses and the prophets, as we should expect from one who said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” This is a very different idea from that of popular sentiment. The most favourite form of that sentiment in our day is that which thinks of the Kingdom of God as the relation of divine ideas to the human mind, individually applied. The whole realm of divine ideas is thought of as the kingdom, and our connection with the kingdom an affair of sympathetic contact with that realm, so that a man is conceived of as in the kingdom who is in subjection to divine ideas. That this was not the conception governing the language of Christ becomes evident from almost any attempt to harmonise that language with it.

When he speaks of his coming, he says, “Ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, and many shall come from the east and from the west … and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God” (Luke xiii. 28). This is the language of locality and futurity, and is used of men who were already (historically viewed) in the state of mind popularly understood by the Kingdom of God.

Again, when he speaks of public events as signs of the time, he says: “When ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand” (xxi. 31). The same remark applies: futurity is intimated for “the kingdom” of this statement, and it is regarded as a thing of political and social relations.

Again, at the last passover celebrated by himself and his disciples, when referring to the future bearings of the scheme of things that bound him and his disciples together, his words were “I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God … I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God shall came” (xxii. 16–18).

Such language could not be harmonised with a view which regards the Kingdom of God as a mental realm or state having constantly immanent relation to every man. It is only intelligible in view of the Jewish idea of an actual kingdom to be established in the Holy Land in the age of the Messiahs glorified presence. That this was the idea before the mind of Christ is evident from three things:—

1. That the earth is recognized in his teaching as the scene of the kingdom when established.

2. That the Jewish constitution of things, involving land, institutions and people, is always in view as the basis of that kingdom.

3. That the recompense of his servants is always linked in his parables and otherwise, with his second coming to enter into possession of the kingdom.

The proof of these three points is capable of an easy and brief establishment; and their establishment will not be out of place, in view of the key they furnish to the mass of his teaching, which we have yet to pass in view in the further consideration of the life of Christú

The first point is illustrated by such a statement as “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. v. 5.) The “shall” of this promise shows futurity, and experience shows it has no fulfilment in the present. Take this inheriting of the earth in connection with the invitation to the righteous on the day of judgment, “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom” (Matt. xxv. 34), and we see the earth and the kingdom associated. The well-known petition in “the Lord’s prayer” shews the same association: “Thy kingdom come: thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Consider also the assurance, “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” in connection with the revealed consummation of the work of Christ as exhibited to John in Patmos: “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.”

The second point (the Jewish basis of the kingdom) is established first by his relation to David, the king of Israel, to which the angel gave political emphasis in the preliminary announcement of his birth: “The Lord God shall give him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke i. 32); secondly, by his claim to be the king of the Jews (Jno. xix. 21), which was the ground of accusation that led to his crucifixion (verse 19); thirdly, by the promise to his disciples that in the day of his glory, they would be enthroned with him in kingly supremacy over the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30); and fourthly, by the apostolic anticipation that he would “restore again the kingdom to Israel” (Acts i. 6) at his re-appearing at the time spoken of by all the prophets (Acts iii. 20). The third point (the connection which he always makes between judicial recompense and his second appearing) is one of the most conspicuous features of the case, whether we regard formal declaration or the involved implications of discourse. “The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works” (Matt. xvi. 27). “The Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.… What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch” (Mar. xiii. 34). “And it came to pass that having received the kingdom, and having returned” (Luke xix. 12). “Blessed are those servants whom their lord when he cometh shall find watching” (Matt. xxiv. 46). “Take heed … lest that day come upon you unawares” (Luke xxi. 34). “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself” (John xiv. 2).

This must suffice as an illustration of the evidence afforded by the direct utterances of Christ, of the real and political and Jewish character of the Kingdom of God, which was the subject of the gospel he preached. The evidence in the same direction to be found in the promises made to the fathers, the covenant made with David, and the many statements of the prophets—those “holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit,” it would be out of place to set forth here. The cases cited give ample indication of the nature of the “gospel of the kingdom” which he preached in the synagogues of Galdee in connection with the works of healing which he performed. That the tidings of the approach of a kingdom in which mankind will be governed and managed on the principles of heaven, should be considered good news (as the term gospel imports), will appear natural to everyone who realises how much human well-being depends upon the material and educational conditions to which men are subjected. But how much greater do the good news appear when they come to us in the form of an invitation to possess the glory and honour and immortality of the kingdom—to become fellow, heirs with Christ of his throne (Rev. ii. 26). Those who may be disposed to think of such a conception of the kingdom as gross, and low, and sinister, have only to think the subject out to discover their mistake. The Kingdom of God, foretold by the prophets, and preached by Jesus, is exactly suited to all the needs of this afflicted world—whether we consider the relations of man to himself, man to man, or man to God. There is no desire of any reformer; there is no sentiment of any idealist; there is no yearning of any philanthropic heart; there is no aspiration of any divinely thirsting mind, but what the Kingdom of God provides for the realisation of in the most effectual form—all the more effectual because political. To be effectual, it must be political. A remedy that was not political would leave untouched and unaffected the most vital conditions of human weal. It is a false philosophy of human nature that has obscured the glorious character of the kingdom of God as the remedy exactly fitted to meet all the wants of the afflicted state of things now prevailing upon the earth.

It is part of the unapproachable completeness and greatness of Christ, that while inculcating the noblest principles of present action ever conceived by man, he should ally them with the highest motives of which the human heart is capable, by proclaiming the approach of an age and a government in which human life should be taken in hand by God, and so regulated as to yield the beauty and the joy of which it is capable, but which, under the conditions now prevailing, are unattainable.

The multitudes drawn by the teaching and the miracles of Christ during the circuit through Galilee now under consideration, excited his pity. “He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted (or, as the margin reads, ‘they were tired and lay down’), and were scattered about as sheep having no shepherd” (Matt. ix. 36). They had-come from great distances, and persistently kept him company from day to day, and began to show signs of the fatigue inseparable from the irregularities of unsettled life. What led them to subject themselves to this privation? It was doubtless the hope and expectation of something good at the hands of Christ. They sought good in vain in all ordinary quarters. As sheep without a shepherd, they had no one to look after them, and made poor shift for themselves as they best could—nibbling pasture when there was an opportunity, but more often fleeing in apprehension from the approach of the marauding stranger. In Jesus, they thought they had found one who would provide what they needed, and they flocked after him, and he pitied them. His compassion for them was something to which the people were unaccustomed. It was something pleasant to them, as compassion is to all human beings—a something absent from all ordinary human leaderships.

It was something, however, with a painful side to it. His compassion, though active, was powerless for any effectual purpose, such as the people eagerly looked to him for. Had they made a mistake in looking to him as “the good shepherd” who “careth for the sheep?” Oh, no: but the circumstances were not such as admitted of the putting forth of his tending, protecting ministering power. They did not know this, and he did. “They thought the Kingdom of God would immediately appear,” and he knew that the days of vengeance were at hand, long-gathering over Israel, and about to burst in unparalleled tribulation on the heads of that generation, who, notwithstanding the companies following him, were busy filling up the measure of their fathers’ iniquities, in approving and imitating their God-neglecting deeds. Forty years afterwards, the storm descended, and swept them all away. There was a deep meaning to Christ’s compassion. No wonder that he often “sighed deeply.” No wonder that he wept, when on a later occasion he beheld Jerusalem in her pomp and glitter. No wonder he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. He wished the people who followed him the very best from the bottom of his heart, but he knew it could not be. The laws of God are inflexible; the people were such as could not prosper in accordance with their operation. Sin and evil are inseparable. Sin submerged the land like a flood, and it was not possible that the blessings which the people longed for could be allowed. Yet they sought after those blessings, and followed him because they thought he could bestow them. They thought not wrongly of him, but they discerned not the impregnable barriers that stood in the way, requiring even his own soon coming death. Therefore, the compassion that stirred his bosom was a painful compassion—a compassion that would bless and could not, and yet could—a compassion that could only yearn and weep and wait. How much a similar conflict belongs to the present state of things on the earth those can testify who have learnt to look on things with the light, while with the love, of God.

Jesus said to his disciples, looking on the multitude around him, that the harvest was great, if the labourers were few. He meant the harvest in a limited sense, for the true “harvest,” as he afterwards said, in explanation of one of his parables, “is the end of the world” (aion). He had gone forth sowing the seed of the word, and the result had been multitudes of listeners everywhere, which he spoke of as a harvest which there was a lack of harvestmen to gather in. He was, in fact, almost the only one there was to look after it. He had disciples, but they took no part sep