Excerpts from "The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah", Alfred Edersheim

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BOOK 3 - The Ascent: From the River Jordan to the Mount of Transfiguration
BOOK 4 - The Descent: From the Mount of Transfiguration into the Valley of Humiliation and Death
BOOK 5 - The Cross and the Crown

BOOK 3 - THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION

Chapter 1 - The Temptation of Jesus
Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13

and that the King, as Representative and Founder of the Kingdom, should have encountered and defeated the representative, founder, and holder of the opposite power, 'the prince of this world' - these are thoughts which must arise in everyone who believes in any Mission of the Christ. Yet this only as, after the events, we have learned to know the character of that Mission, not as we might have preconceived it.

But that neither Moses nor Elijah was assailed by the Devil, constitutes not the only, though a vital, difference between the fast of Moses and Elijah, and that of Jesus. [...] Moses was angry against Israel; Elijah despaired of Israel; Jesus overcame for Israel.

And when Jesus conquered, it was not only as the Unfallen and Perfect Man, but as the Messiah. His Temptation and Victory have therefore a twofold aspect: the general human and the Messianic, and these two are closely connected. Hence we draw also this happy inference: in whatever Jesus overcame, we can overcome. [...] He is the perfect man; and as each temptation marks a human assault (assault on humanity), so it also marks a human victory (of humanity). But He is also the Messiah; and alike the assault and the victory were of the Messiah.

To sum up: The Second Adam, morally unfallen, though voluntarily subject to all the conditions of our Nature, was, with a peccable Human Nature, absolutely impeccable as being also the Son of God - a peccable Nature, yet an impeccable Person: the God-Man, 'tempted in regard to all (things) in like manner (as we), without (excepting) sin.'

They had been all overcome, these three temptations against submission to the Will of God, present, personal, and specifically Messianic. Yet all His life long there were echoes of them: of the first, in the suggestion of His brethren to show Himself; of the second, in the popular attempt to make Him a king, and perhaps also in what constituted the final idea of Judas Iscariot; of the third, as being most plainly Satanic, in the question of Pilate: 'Art Thou then a King?'

Chapter 2 - The Deputation from Jerusalem - The Three Sects of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes - Examination of their Distinctive Doctrines
John 1:19-24

The Sadducean objection to pouring the water of libation upon the altar on the Feast of Tabernacles, led to riot and bloody reprisals on the only occasion on which it seems to have been carried into practice.

This, however, will be marked, that, with the exception of dogmatic differences, the controversy turned on questions of 'canon-law.' [...] But to conclude from this, either that the Sadducees represented the civil and political aspect of society, and the Pharisees the religious; or, that the Sadducees were the priest-party, in opposition to the popular and democratic Pharisees, are inferences not only unsupported, but opposed to historical facts. For, not a few of the Pharisaic leaders were actually priests, while the Pharisaic ordinances make more than ample recognition of the privileges and rights of the Priesthood. This would certainly not have been the case if, as some have maintained, Sadducean and priest-party had been convertible terms. Even as regards the deputation to the Baptist of 'Priests and Levites' from Jerusalem, we are expressely told that they 'were of the Pharisees.'

On one point, at least, our inquiry into the three 'parties' can leave no doubt. The Essenes could never have been drawn either to the person, or the preaching of John the Baptist. Similarly, the Sadducees would, after they knew its real character and goal, turn contemptuously from a movement which would awaken no sympathy in them, and could only become of interest when it threatened to endanger their class by awakening popular enthusiasm, and so rousing the suspicions of the Romans. To the Pharisees there were questions of dogmatic, ritual, and even national importance involved, which made the barest possibility of what John announced a question of supreme moment. And, although we judge that the report which the earliest Pharisaic hearers of John brought to Jerusalem - no doubt, detailed and accurate - and which led to the despatch of the deputation, would entirely predispose them against the Baptist, yet it behooved them, as leaders of public opinion, to take such cognisance of it, as would not only finally determine their own relation to the movement, but enable them effectually to direct that of others also.

It was the Isaiah-picture of 'the King in His beauty,' the vision of 'the land of far distances' - to him a reality, of which Sadducee and Essene had no conception, and the Pharisee only the grossest misconception.

There is much deeper truth in the disclaimer of the Baptist. It was, indeed, true that, as foretold in the Angelic announcement, he was sent 'in the spirit and power of Elias,' that is, with the same object and the same qualifications. Similarly, it is true what, in His mournful retrospect of the result of John's mission, and in the prospect of His own end, the Saviour said of him, 'Elias is indeed come,' but 'they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.' But on this very recognition and reception of him by the Jews depended his being to them Elijah - who should 'turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,' and so 'restore all things.' Between the Elijah of Ahab's reign, and him of Messianic times, lay the wide cleft of quite another dispensation. The 'spirit and power of Elijah' could 'restore all things,' because it was the dispensation of the Old Testament, in which the result was outward, and by outward means. But 'the spirit and power' of the Elijah of the New Testament, which was to accomplish the inward restoration through penitent reception of the Kingdom of God in its reality, could only accomplish that object if 'they received it' - if 'they knew him.' And as in his own view, and looking around and forward, so also in very fact the Baptist, though Divinely such, was not really Elijah to Israel - and this is the meaning of the words of Jesus: 'And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.'

Counting backwards from the day of the marriage in Cana, we arrive at the following results. The interview between John and the Sanhedrin-deputation took place on a Thursday. 'The next day,' Friday, Jesus returned from the wilderness of the Temptation, and John bore his first testimony to 'the Lamb of God.' The following day, when Jesus appeared a second time in view, and when the first two disciples joined Him, was the Saturday, or Jewish Sabbath. It was, therefore, only the following day, or Sunday, that Jesus returned to Galilee, calling others by the way. 'And the third day' after it - that is, on the Wednesday - was the marriage in Cana.

If we group around these days the recorded events of each, they almost seem to intensify in significance. The Friday of John's first pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, recalls that other Friday, when the full import of that testimony appeared. The Sabbath of John's last personal view and testimony to Christ is symbolic in its retrospect upon the old economy. It seems to close the ministry of John, and to open that of Jesus; it is the leave-taking of the nearest disciples of John from the old, their search after the new. And then on the first Sunday - the beginning of Christ's active ministry, the call of the first disciples, the first preaching of Jesus.

As we picture it to ourselves: in the early morning of that Sabbath John stood, with the two of his disciples who most shared his thoughts and feelings. One of them we know to have been Andrew (v. 40); the other, unnamed one, could have been no other than John himself, the beloved disciple.

It was this intense exclusiveness of fellowship with Jesus which traced on his mind that fullest picture of the God-Man, which his narrative reflects.

And so Nathanael, 'the God-given' - or, as we know him in after-history, Bartholomew, 'the son of Telamyon' - was added to the disciples.

Chapter 4 - The Marriage Feast in Cana of Galilee - The Miracle That is 'A Sign.'
John 2:1-12

At the close of His Discourse to Nathanael - His first sermon - Jesus had made use of an expression which received its symbolic fulfilment in His first deed. His first testimony about Himself had been to call Himself the 'Son of Man.' We cannot but feel that this bore reference to the confession of Nathanael: 'Thou art the Son of God; Thou art the King of Israel.' It is, as if He would have turned the disciples from thoughts of His being the Son of God and King of Israel to the voluntary humiliation of His Humanity, as being the necessary basis of His work, without knowledge of which that of His Divinity would have been a barren, speculative abstraction, and that of His Kingship a Jewish fleshly dream. But it was not only knowledge of His humiliation in His Humanity. For, as in the history of the Christ humiliation and glory are always connected, the one enwrapped in the other as the flower in the bud, so here also His humiliation as the Son of Man is the exaltation of humanity, the realisation of its ideal destiny as created in the likeness of God. It should never be forgotton, that such teaching of His exaltation and Kingship through humiliation and representation of humanity was needful. It was the teaching which was the outcome of the Temptation and of its victory, the very teaching of the whole Evangelic history. Any other real learning of Christ would, as we see it, have been impossible to the disciples - alike mentally, as regards foundation and progression, and spiritually. A Christ: God, King, and not primarily 'the Son of Man,' would not have been the Christ of Prophecy, nor the Christ of Humanity, nor the Christ of salvation, nor yet the Christ of sympathy, help, and example. A Christ, God and King, Who had suddenly risen like the fierce Eastern sun in midday brightness, would have blinded by his dazzling rays (as it did Saul on the way to Damascus), not risen 'with kindly light' to chase away darkness and mists, and with genial growing warmth to woo life and beauty into our barren world. And so, as 'it became Him,' for the carrying out of the work, 'to make the Captain of Salvation perfect through sufferings,' so it was needful for them that He should veil, even from their view who followed Him, the glory of His Divinity and the power of His Kingship, till they had learned all that the designation 'Son of Man' implied, as placed below 'Son of God' and 'King of Israel.'

BOOK 4 - THE DESCENT: FROM THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION INTO THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION AND DEATH

[Historical background, time, and the context in which Jesus spoke of the below:]
¹ John 7:37-39 37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. 39 (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
² John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

¹ Chapter 7 - 'In the Last, the Great Day of the Feast'
John 7:37-53; John 8:1-11

² Chapter 8 - Teaching in the Temple on the Octave of the Feast of Tabernacles
John 8:12-59

But it is of even more importance to notice, how the two leading thoughts of the previous day's Discourse were now again taken up and set forth in the miracle that followed. These were, that He did the Work which God had sent Him to do, and that He was the Light of the world. As its Light He could not but shine so long as He was in it. And this He presently symbolised (and is not every miracle a symbol?) in the healing of the blind.

With this He made clay, which He now used, adding to it the direction to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam, a term which literally meant 'sent.' A symbolism, this, of Him Who was the Sent of the Father. [...] Symbolical, also, were these means. Sight was restored by clay, made out of the ground with the spittle of Him, Whose breath had at the first breathed life into clay; and this was then washed away in the Pool of Siloam, from whose waters had been drawn on the Feast of Tabernacles that which symbolised the forthpouring of the new life by the Spirit.

But the truthful reasoning of that untutored man, which confounded the acuteness of the sages, shows the effect of these manifestations on all whose hearts were open to the truth.

Chapter 21 - The Death and the Raising of Lazarus - The Question of Miracles and of This Miracle of Miracles - Views of Negative Criticism on This History - Jewish Burying-Rites and Sepulchres
John 11:1-54

For, we confidently assert and challenge experiment of it, that disbelief in a God, or Materialism, involves infinitely more difficulties, and that at every step and in regard to all things, than the faith of the Christian.

If Christ at that time occupied such a central station, we can the more readily understand how some of His Galilean disciples may, for a brief space, have been absent at their Galilean homes when the tidings about Lazarus arrived. Their absence may explain the prominent position taken by Thomas; perhaps, also, in part, the omission of this narrative from the Synoptic Gospels.

BOOK 5 - THE CROSS AND THE CROWN

Chapter 1 - The First Day in Passion-Week - Palm-Sunday - The Royal Entry into Jerusalem
Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44; John 12:12-19

It was a bright day in early spring of the year 29, when the festive procession set out from the home at Bethany.

Nor need we wonder at their ignorance at first of the meaning of that, in which themselves were chief actors. We are too apt to judge them from our standpoint, eighteen centuries later, and after full apprehension of the significance of the event.

He had been silent hitherto - alone unmoved, or only deeply moved inwardly - amidst this enthusiastic crowd. He could be silent no longer - but, with a touch of quick and righteous indignation, pointed to the rocks and stones, telling those leaders of Israel, that, if the people held their peace, the very stones would cry out. The expression: stones bearing witness when sin has been committed, is not uncommon in Jewish writings.

Chapter 2 - The Second Day in Passion-Week - The Barren Fig-Tree - The Cleansing of the Temple - The Hosanna of the Children
Matthew 21:12-22; Mark 11:15-26; Luke 19:45-48

And as those traffickers were driven from the Temple, and He spake, there flocked in from porches and Temple-Mount the poor sufferers - the blind and the lame - to get healing to body and soul. It was truly spring-time in that Temple, and the boys that gathered about their fathers and looked in turn from their faces of rapt wonderment and enthusiasm to the Godlike Face of the Christ, and then on those healed sufferers, took up the echoes of the welcome at His entrance into Jerusalem - in their simplicity understanding and applying them better - as they burst into 'Hosanna to the Son of David.'

It rang through the courts and porches of the Temple, this Children's Hosanna. They heard it, whom the wonders He had spoken and done, so far from leading to repentance and faith, had only filled with indignation. Once more in their impotent anger they sought, as the Pharisees had done on the day of His Entry, by a hypocritical appeal to His reverence for God, not only to mislead, and so to use His very love of the truth against the truth, but to betray Him into silencing those Children's Voices. But the undimmed mirror of His soul only reflected the light. These Children's Voices were Angels' Echoes, echoes of the faroff praises of heaven, which children's souls had caught and children's lips welled forth. Not from the great, the wise, nor the learned, but 'out of the mouth of babes and sucklings' has He 'perfected praise.' And this, also, is the Music of the Gospel.

She held in her hand only the smallest coins, 'two Perutahs,' and it should be known that it was not lawful to contribute a less amount.

As we see these 'Greeks' approaching, the beginning of Christ's History seems reenacted at its close. Not now in the stable of Bethlehem, but in the Temple, are 'the wise men,' the representatives of the Gentile world, offering their homage to the Messiah. But the life which had then begun was now all behind Him - and yet, in a sense, before Him. The hour of decision was about to strike. Not merely as the Messiah of Israel, but in His world-wide bearing as 'the Son of Man,' was He about to be glorified by receiving the homage of the Gentile world, of which the symbol and the firstfruits were now before Him. But only in one way could He thus be glorified: by dying for the salvation of the world, and so opening the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. On a thousand hills was the glorious harvest to tremble in the golden sunlight; but the corn of wheat falling into the ground, must, as it falls, die, burst its envelope, and so spring into a very manifoldedness of life. Otherwise would it have remained alone. This is the great paradox of the Kingdom of God - a paradox which has its symbol and analogon in nature, and which has also almost become the law of progress in history: that life which has not sprung of death abideth alone, and is really death, and that death is life. A paradox this, which has its ultimate reason in this, that sin has entered into the world.

And as to the Master, the Prince of Life, so to the disciples, as bearing forth the life. If, in this world of sin, He must fall as the seed-corn into the ground and die, that many may spring of Him, so must they also hate their life, that they may keep it unto life eternal. Thus serving, they must follow Him, that where He is they may also be, for the Father will honour them that honour the Son.

It is now sufficiently clear to us, that our Lord spake primarily to these Greeks, and secondarily to His disciples, of the meaning of His impending Death, of the necessity of faithfulness to Him in it, and of the blessing attaching thereto.

Chapter 4 - The Third Day in Passion-Week - The Last Controversies and Discourses - The Sadducees and the Resurrection - The Scribe and the Great Commandment - Question to the Pharisees About David's Son and Lord - Final Warning to the People: The Eight 'woes' - Farewell
Matthew 22:23-33; Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-39; Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; Matthew 22:41-46; Mark 12:35-40; Luke 20:40-47; Matthew 23

To this day such appeals to rough and ready common-sense are the main stock-in-trade of that coarse infidelity, which, ignoring alike the demands of higher thinking and the facts of history, appeals - so often, alas! effectually - to the untrained intellect of the multitude, and - shall we not say it? - to the coarse and lower in us all.

It was not a break in the Discourse, rather an intensification of it, when Christ now turned to make final denunication of Pharisaism in its sin and hypocrisy. Corresponding to the eight Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount with which His public Ministry began, He now closed it with eight denunciations of woe.

And so would they become heirs of all the blood of martyred saints, from that of him whom Scripture records as the first one murdered, down to that last martyr of Jewish unbelief of whom tradition spoke in such terms - Zechariah, stoned by the king's command in the Court of the Temple, whose blood, as legend had it, did not dry up those two centuries and a half, but still bubbled on the pavement, when Nebuzar-adan entered the Temple, and at last avenged it.

Fain and often would Jesus have given to Israel, His people, that shelter, rest, protection, and blessing - but they would not. Looking around on those Temple-buildings - that House, it shall be left to them desolate! And He quitted its courts with these words, that they of Israel should not see Him again till, the night of their unbelief past, they would welcome His return with a better Hosanna than that which greeted His Royal Entry three days before. And this was the 'Farewell' and the parting of Israel's Messiah from Israel and its temple. Yet a Farewell which promised a coming again; and a parting which implied a welcome in the future from a believing people to a gracious, pardoning King!

Chapter 5 - The Third Day in Pasion-Week - The Last Series of Parables: to the Pharisees and to the People - On the Way to Jerusalem: the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard - In the Temple: the Parable of the 'No' and 'Yes' of the Two Sons - The Parable of the Evil Husbandmen Evilly Destroyed - The Parable of the Marriage of the King's Son and of the Wedding Garment
Matthew 19:30, 20:16; Matthew 21:28-32; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-19; Matthew 22:1-14

And this want of true sympathy, this constant contending with the moral dulness even of those nearest to Him, must have been part of His great humiliation and sorrow, one element in the terrible solitariness of His Life, which made Him feel that, in the truest sense, 'the Son of Man had not where to lay His Head.' And yet we also mark the wondrous Divine generosity which, even in moments of such sore disappointment, would not let Him take for nought what should have been freely offered in the gladsome service of grateful love. Only there was here deep danger to the disciples: danger of lapsing into feelings kindred to those with which the Pharisees viewed the pardoned Publicans, or the elder son in the Parable his younger brother; danger of misunderstanding the right relations, and with it the very character of the Kingdom, and of work in and for it. It is to this that the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard refers.

Spiritual pride and self-assertion can only be the outcome either of misunderstanding God's relation to us, or else of a wrong state of mind towards others; - that is, it betokens mental or moral unfitness.

Of this the Parable of the Labourers is an illustration. It teaches nothing beyond this.

We think here of those 'last,' the Gentiles from the east, west, north, and south; of the converted publicans and sinners; of those, a great part of whose lives has, alas! been spent somewhere else, and who have only come at a late hour into the market-place; nay, of them also whose opportunities, capacity, strength, or time have been very limited - and we thank God for the teaching of this Parable.

And now it is even. The time for working is past, and the Lord of the vineyard bids His Steward [here the Christ] pay His labourers. But here the first surprise awaits them. The order of payment is the inverse of that of labour: 'beginning from the last unto the first.' This is almost a necessary part of the Parable.

Such a Master could not have given less to those who had come when called, trusting to His goodness, and not in their deserts. The reward was now reckoned, not of work nor of debt, but of grace.

Chapter 6 - The Evening of the Third Day in Passion-Week - On the Mount of Olives: Discoures to the Disciples Concerning the Last Things
Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21:5-38; 12:35-48

As regards the persecutions in prospect, full Divine aid is promised to Christians - alike to individuals and to the Church. Thus all care and fear may be dismissed: their testimony shall neither be silenced, nor shall the Church be suppressed or extinguished; but inward joyousness, outward perseverance, and final triumph, are secured by the Presence of the Risen Saviour with, and the felt indwelling of the Holy Ghost in His Church. And, as for the other and equally consoling fact: despite the persecution of Jews and Gentiles, before the End cometh 'this the Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the inhabited earth for a testimony to all the nations.' This, then, is really the only sign of 'the End' of the present 'Age.'

As for Jerusalem, the prophetic vision initially fulfilled in the days of Antiochus would once more, and now fully, become reality, and the abomination of desolation stand in the Holy Place. This, together with tribulation to Israel, unparalleled in the terrible past of its history, and unequalled even in its bloody future. Nay, so dreadful would be the persecution, that, if Divine mercy had not interposed for the sake of the followers of Christ, the whole Jewish race that inhabited the land would have been swept away. But on the morrow of that day no new Maccabee would arise, no Christ come, as Israel fondly hoped; but over that carcase would the vultures gather; and so through all the Age of the Gentiles, till converted Israel should raise the welcoming shout: 'Blessed be He that cometh in the Name of the Lord!'

Hitherto the Lord had, in His Discourse, dwelt in detail only on those events which would be fulfilled before this generation should pass. It had been for admonition and warning that He had spoken, not for the gratification of curiosity. It had been prediction of the immediate future for practical purposes, with such dim and general indication of the more distant future of the Church as was absolutely necessary to mark her position in the world as one of persecution, with promise, however, of His Presence and Help; with indication also of her work in the world, to its terminus ad quem - the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom to all nations on earth.

He had expressly declared to lie beyond their ken. The 'when' - the day and the hour of His Coming - was to remain hidden from men and Angels. Nay, even the Son Himself - as they viewed Him and as He spake to them - knew it not. It formed no part of His present Messianic Mission, nor subject for His Messianic Teaching. Had it done so, all the teaching that follows concerning the need of constant watchfulness, and the pressing duty of working for Christ in faith, hope, and love - with purity, self-denial, and endurance - would have been lost.

And what the Church of the New Testament has been, and is, that her Lord and Master made her, and by no agency more effectually than by leaving undetermined the precise time of His return. To the world this would indeed become the occasion for utter carelessness and practical disbelief of the coming Judgment. As in the days of Noah the long delay of threatened judgment had led to absorption in the ordinary engagements of life, to the entire disbelief of what Noah had preached, so would it be in the future. But that day would come certainly and unexpectedly, to the sudden seperation of those who were engaged in the same daily business of life, of whom one might be taken up ('received'), the other left to the destruction of the coming Judgment.

Chapter 7 - Evening of the Third Day in Passion-Week-On the Mount of Olives-Last Parables: to the Disciples Concerning the Last Things-The Parable of the Ten Virgins-The parable of the Talents-Supplementary Parable of the Minas and the King's Reckoning with His Servants and His Rebellious Citizens
Matthew 25:1-13; Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-28

Professing to be bridesmaids, they had not been in the bridal procession, and so, in truth and righteousness, He could only answer from within: 'Verily I say unto you, I know you not.' This, not only in punishment, but in the right order of things.

Chapter 8 - The Fourth Day in Passion-Week-Jesus in His Last Sabbatic Rest Before His Agony, and the Sanhedrists in their Unrest-The Betrayal-Judas: His Character, Apostasy, and End
Matthew 26:1-5, 14-16; Mark 14:1-2, 10-11; Luke 22:1-6

Yet none the less do we mark the deep symbolic significance of it all, in that the Lord was, so to speak, paid for out of the Temple-money which was destined for the purchase of sacrifices, and that He, Who took on Him the form of a servant, was sold and bought at the legal price of a slave.

Chapter 9 - The Fifth Day in Passion-Week - 'Make Ready the Passover!'
Matthew 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:7-13; John 13:1

To us at least it seems most likely, that it was the house of Mark's father (then still alive) - a large one, as we gather from Acts xii. 13. For, the most obvious explanation of the introduction by St. Mark alone of such an incident as that about the young man who was accompanying Christ as He was led away captive, and who, on fleeing from those that would have laid hold on him, left in their hands the inner garment which he had loosely cast about him, as, roused from sleep, he had rushed into Gethsemane, is, that he was none other than St. Mark himself.

Chapter 10 - The Paschal Supper - The Institution of the Lord's Supper
Matthew 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:7-13; John 13:1; Matthew 26:20; Mark 14:17; Luke 22:14-16; Luke 22:24-30; Luke 22:17-18; John 13:2-20; Matthew 26:21-24; Mark 14:18-21; Luke 22:21-23; John 13:21-26; Matthew 26:25; John 13:26-38; Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19-20

The word 'that' - 'that the Scripture may be fulfilled,' does not mean 'in order that,' or 'for the purpose of;' it never means this in that connection; and it would be altogether irrational to suppose that an event happened in order that a special prediction might be fulfilled. Rather does it indicate the higher internal connection in the succession of events, when an event had taken place in the free determination of its agents, by which, all unknown to them and unthought of by others, that unexpectedly came to pass which had been Divinely foretold. And herein appears the Divine character of prophecy, which is always at the same time announcement and forewarning, that is, has besides its predictive a moral element: that, while man is left to act freely, each development tends to the goal Divinely foreseen and foreordained. Thus the word 'that' marks not the connection between causation and effect, but between the Divine antecedent and the human subsequent.

There is, indeed, behind this a much deeper question, to which brief reference has already formerly been made. Did Christ know from the beginning that Judas would betray Him, and yet, so knowing, did He choose him to be one of the Twelve? Here we can only answer by indicating this as a canon in studying the Life on earth of the God-Man, that it was part of His Self-exinanition - of that emptying Himself, and taking upon Him the form of a Servant - voluntarily to forego His Divine knowledge in the choice of His Human actions. So only could He, as perfect Man, have perfectly obeyed the Divine Law. For, if the Divine had determined Him in the choice of His Actions, there could have been no merit attaching to His Obedience, nor could He be said to have, as perfect Man, taken our place, and to have obeyed the Law in our stead and as our Representative, nor yet be our Ensample. But if His Divine knowledge did not guide Him in the choice of His actions, we can see, and have already indicated, reasons why the discipleship and service of Judas should have been accepted, if it had been only as that of a Judaean, a man in many respects well fitted for such an office, and the representative of one of the various directions which tended towards the reception of the Messiah.

Chapter 12 - Gethsemane
Matthew 26:30-56; Mark 14:26-52; Luke 22:31-53; John 18:1-11

It may have belonged to Mark's father. But if otherwise, Jesus had loving disciples even in Jerusalem, and, we rejoice to think, not only a home at Bethany, and an Upper Chamber furnished in the City, but a quiet retreat and trysting-place for His own under the bosom of Olivet, in the shadow of the garden of 'the Oil-press.'

But what, we may reverently ask, was the cause of this sorrow unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ? Not fear, either of bodily or mental suffering: but Death. Man's nature, created of God immortal, shrinks (by the law of its nature) from the dissolution of the bond that binds body to soul. Yet to fallen man Death is not by any means fully Death, for he is born with the taste of it in his soul. Not so Christ. It was the Unfallen Man dying; it was He, Who had no experience of it, tasting Death, and that not for Himself but for every man, emptying the cup to its bitter dregs. It was the Christ undergoing Death by man and for man; the Incarnate God, the God-Man, submitting Himself vicariously to the deepest humiliation, and paying the utmost penalty: Death - all Death. No one as He could know what Death was (not dying, which men dread, but Christ dreaded not); no one could taste its bitterness as He. His going into Death was His final conflict with Satan for man, and on his behalf. By submitting to it He took away the power of Death; He disarmed Death by burying his shaft in His own Heart.

The Saviour submitted to the indignity, not stopping, but only saying as He passed on: 'Friend, that for which thou art here;' and then, perhaps in answer to his questioning gesture: 'Judas, with a kiss deliverest thou up the Son of Man?' If Judas had wished, by thus going in advance of the band and saluting the Master with a kiss, even now to act the hypocrite and deceive Jesus and the disciples, as if he had not come with the armed men, perhaps only to warn Him of their approach, what the Lord said must have reached his inmost being.

But there was one there who joined not in the flight, but remained, a deeply interested onlooker. When the soldiers had come to seek Jesus in the Upper Chamber of his home, Mark, roused from sleep, had hastily cast about him the loose linen garment or wrapper that lay by his bedside, and followed the armed band to see what would come of it. He now lingered in the rear, and followed as they led away Jesus, never imagining that they would attempt to lay hold on him, since he had not been with the disciples nor yet in the Garden. But they, perhaps the Jewish servants of the High-Priest, had noticed him. They attempted to lay hold on him, when, disengaging himself from their grasp, he left his upper garment in their hands, and fled.

Chapter 13 - Thursday Night - Before Annas and Caiaphas - Peter and Jesus
John 18:12-14; Matthew 26:57-58; Mark 14:53-54; Luke 22:54-55; John 18:24, 15-18; John 18:19-23; Matthew 26:69-70; Mark 14:66-68; Luke 22:56-57; John 18:17-18; Matthew 26:71-72; Mark 14:69-70; Luke 22:58; John 18:25; Matthew 26:59-68; Mark 14:55-65; Luke 22:67-71, 63-65; Matthew 26:73-75; Mark 14:70-72; Luke 22:59-62; John 18:26-27

And to this result the majestic calm of Christ's silence must have greatly contributed. On directly false and contradictory testimony it must be best not to cross-examine at all, not to interpose, but to leave the false witness to destroy itself.

At last they were weary of insult and smiting, and the Sufferer was left alone, perhaps in the covered gallery, or at one of the windows that overlooked the court below.

He now remembered the words of warning prediction which the Lord had spoken. He looked up; and as he looked, he saw, how up there, just at that moment; the Lord turned round and looked upon him - yes, in all that assembly, upon Peter!

Chapter 14 - The Morning of Good Friday
Matthew 27:1-2, 11-14; Mark 15:1-5; Luke 23:1-5; John 18:28-38; Luke 23:6-12; Matthew 27:3-10; Matthew 27:15-18; Mark 15:6-10; Luke 23:13-17; John 18:39-40; Matthew 27:19; Matthew 27:20-31; Mark 15:11-20; Luke 23:18-25; John 19:1-16

Out of all that the Sanhedrists had said, Pilate took only this, that Jesus claimed to be a King. Christ, Who had not heard the charge of His accusers, now ignored it, in His desire to stretch out salvation even to a Pilate.

but such conduct on the part of a Pilate appears so utterly unusual, as, indeed, his whole bearing towards Christ, that we can only account for it by the deep impression which Jesus had made upon him. All the more terrible would be the guilt of Jewish resistance. There is something overawing in Pilate's, 'See ye to it' - a reply to the Sanhedrists' 'See thou to it,' to Judas, and in the same words. It almost seems, as if the scene of mutual imputation of guilt in the Garden of Eden were being reenacted.

And Pilate felt it - the more keenly, for his cynicism and disbelief of all that was higher.

It had been the Friday in Passover-week, and between six and seven of the morning.

Chapter 15 - 'Crucified, Dead, and Buried'
Matthew 27:31-43; Mark 15:20-32a; Luke 23:26-38; John 19:16-24; Matthew 27:44; Mark 15:32b; Luke 23:39-43; John 19:25-27; Matthew 27:45-56; Mark 15:33-41; Luke 23:44-49; John 19:28-30; John 19:31-37; Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42; Matthew 27:62-66

Only about two hours and a half had passed since the time that He had first stood before Pilate (about half-past six), when the melancholy procession reached Golgotha (at nine o'clock a.m.).

Not only the location, but even the name of that which appeals so strongly to every Christian heart, is matter of controversy. The name cannot have been derived from the skulls which lay about, since such exposure would have been unlawful, and hence must have been due to the skull-like shape and appearance of the place. Accordingly, the name is commonly explained as the Greek form of the Aramaean Gulgalta, or the Hebrew Gulgoleth, which means a skull.

No man could take His Life from Him; He had power to lay it down, and to take it up again. Nor would He here yield to the ordinary weakness of our human nature; nor suffer and die as if it had been a necessity, not a voluntary self-surrender. He would meet Death, even in his sternest and fiercest mood, and conquer by submitting to the full. A lesson this also, though one difficult, to the Christian sufferer.

There, on that Cross, hung He, Who at least embodied that grand hope of the nation; Who, even on their own showing, suffered to the extreme for that idea, and yet renounced it not, but clung fast to it in unshaken confidence; One, to Whose Life or even Teaching no objection could be offered, save that of this grand idea.

For, their jeers cast contempt on the four great facts in the Life and Work of Jesus, which were also the underlying ideas of the Messianic Kingdom: the new relationship to Israel's religion and the Temple ('Thou that destroyest the Temple, and buildest it in three days'); the new relationship to the Father through the Messiah, the Son of God ('if Thou be the Son of God'); the new all-sufficient help brought to body and soul in salvation ('He saved others'); and, finally, the new relationship to Israel in the fulfilment and perfecting of its Mission through its King ('if He be the King of Israel').

And this all the more, in the peculiar circumstances. They were all three sufferers; but they two justly, while He Whom he insulted had done nothing amiss. From this basis of fact, the penitent rapidly rose to the height of faith.

But, once the mind was opened to perceive all these facts, the progress would be rapid. In hours of extremity a man may deceive himself and fatally mistake fear for the fear of God, and the remembrance of certain external knowledge for spiritual experience. But, if a man really learns in such seasons, the teaching of years may be compressed into moments, and the dying thief on the Cross might outdistance the knowledge gained by Apostles in their years of following Christ.

This man did feel the 'fear' of God, who now learned the new lesson in which the fear of God was truly the beginning of wisdom.

Rapidly he now passed into the light, and onwards and upwards: 'Lord, remember me, when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom!'

The 'penitent' had spoken of the future, Christ spoke of 'to-day'; the penitent had prayed about that Messianic Kingdom which was to come, Christ assured him in regard to the state of the disembodied spirits, and conveyed to him the promise that he would be there in the abode of the blessed - 'Paradise' - and that through means of Himself as the Messiah: 'Amen, I say unto thee - To-day with Me shalt thou be in the Paradise.' Thus did Christ give him that spiritual knowledge which he did not yet possess - the teaching concerning the 'to-day,' the need of gracious admission into Paradise, and that with and through Himself - in other words, concerning the forgiveness of sins and the opening of the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. This, as the first and foundation-creed of the soul, was the first and foundation-fact concerning the Messiah.

Alone, of all the disciples, he is there - not afraid to be near Christ, in the Palace of the High-Priest, before Pilate, and now under the Cross.

Thus Salome, the wife of Zebedee and St. John's mother, was the sister of the Virgin, and the beloved disciple the cousin (on the mother's side) of Jesus, and the nephew of the Virgin. This also helps to explain why the care of the Mother had been entrusted to him.

And so we notice among the twelve Apostles five cousins of the Lord: the two sons of Salome and Zebedee, and the three sons of Alphaeus or Clopas and Mary: James, Judas surnamed Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus, and Simon surnamed Zelotes or Cananaean.

It seems as if St. John, having perhaps just returned to the scene, and standing with the women 'afar off,' beholding these things, had hastened forward on the cry from Psalm xxii., and heard Him express the feeling of thirst, which immediately followed. And so St. John alone supplies the link between that cry and the movement on the part of the soldiers, which St. Matthew and St. Mark, as well as St. John, report. For, it would be impossible to understand why, on what the soldiers regarded as a call for Elijah, one of them should have hastened to relieve His thirst, but for the Utterance recorded in the Fourth Gospel. But we can quite understand it, if the Utterance, 'I thirst,' followed immediately on the previous cry.

And in 'the Spirit' which He had committed to God did He now descend into Hades, 'and preached unto the spirits in prison.' But behind this great mystery have closed the two-leaved gates of brass, which only the Hand of the Conqueror could burst open.

The Veils before the Most Holy Place were 40 cubits (60 feet) long, and 20 (30 feet) wide, of the thickness of the palm of the hand, and wrought in 72 squares, which were joined together; and these Veils were so heavy, that, in the exaggerated language of the time, it needed 3000 priests to manipulate each.

As we compute, it may just have been the time when, at the Evening Sacrifice, the officiating Priesthood entered the Holy Place, either to burn the incense or to do other sacred service there. [...] And they all must have understood, that it meant that God's Own Hand had rent the Veil, and for ever deserted and thrown open that Most Holy Place where He had so long dwelt in the mysterious gloom, only lit up once a year by the glow of the censer of him, who made atonement for the sins of the people. May this phenomenon account for the early conversion of so many priests recorded in Acts vi. 7?

Chapter 16 - On the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead

If the story of His Birth be true, we can believe that of His Resurrection; if that of His Resurrection be true, we can believe that of His Birth. In the nature of things, the latter was incapable of strict historical proof; and, in the nature of things, His Resurrection demanded and was capable of the fullest historical evidence. If such exists, the keystone is given to the arch; the miraculous Birth becomes almost a necessary postulate, and Jesus is the Christ in the full sense of the Gospels.

Nor can we wonder at this, since He had, ever since the Transfiguration, laboured, against all their resistance and reluctance, to impress on them the act of His Betrayal and Death. He had, indeed - although by no means so frequently or clearly - also referred to His Resurrection. But of this they might, according to their Jewish ideas, form a very different conception from that of a literal Resurrection of that Crucified Body in a glorified state, and yet capable of such terrestial intercourse as the Risen Christ held with them. And if it be objected that, in such case, Christ must have clearly taught them all this, it is sufficient to answer, that there was no need for such clear teaching on the point at that time; that the event itself would soon and best teach them; [...] The fact itself would be quite foreign to Jewish ideas, which embraced the continuance of the soul after death and the final resurrection of the body, but not a state of spiritual corporeity, far less, under conditions such as those described in the Gospels. Elijah, who is so constantly introduced in Jewish tradition, is never represented as sharing in meals or offering his body for touch; nay, the Angels who visited Abraham are represented as only making show of, not really, eating. Clearly, the Apostles had not learned the Resurrection of Christ either from the Scriptures - and this proves that the narrative of it was not intended as a fulfilment of previous expectancy - nor yet from the predictions of Christ to that effect; although without the one, and especially without the other, the empty grave would scarcely have wrought in them the assured conviction of the Resurrection of Christ.

Chapter 17 - 'On the Third Day He Rose Again from the Dead; He Ascended into Heaven'
Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-11; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-18; Matthew 28:11-15; Mark 16:12-13; Luke 24:13-35; 1 Corinthians 15:5; Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25; John 20:26-29; Matthew 28:16; John 21:1-24; Matthew 28:17-20; Mark 16:15-18; 1 Corinthians 15:6; Luke 24:44-53; Mark 16:19-20; Acts 1:3-12

The narrative leaves the impression that the Sabbath's rest had delayed their visit to the Tomb; but it is at least a curious coincidence that the relatives and friends of the deceased were in the habit of going to the grave up to the third day (when presumably corruption was supposed to begin), so as to make sure that those laid there were really dead. Commenting on this, that Abraham described Mount Moriah on the third day, the Rabbis insist on the importance of 'the third day' in various events connected with Israel, and specially speak of it in connection with the resurrection of the dead, referring in proof to Hos. vi. 2.

But the main reason, and that which explains the otherwise strange, almost exclusive, prominence given at such a moment to the direction to meet Him in Galilee, has already been indicated in a previous chapter. With the scattering of the Eleven in Gethsemane on the night of Christ's betrayal, the Apostolic College was temporarily broken up. They continued, indeed, still to meet together as individual disciples, but the bond of the Apostolate was for the moment, dissolved. And the Apostolic circle was to be reformed, and the Apostolic Commission renewed and enlarged, in Galilee; not, indeed, by its Lake, where only seven of the Eleven seem to have been present, but on the mountain where He had directed them to meet Him. Thus was the end to be like the beginning. Where He had first called, and directed them for their work, there would He again call them, give fullest directions, and bestow new and amplest powers.

It was not the belief previously derived from Scripture, that the Christ was to rise from the Dead, which led to expectancy of it, but the evidence that He had risen which led them to the knowledge of what Scripture taught on the subject.

Thus, the fullest teaching of the past, the clearest manifestation of the present, and the brightest teaching of the future - all as gathered up in the Resurrection - came to the Apostles through the mouth of love of her out of whom He had cast seven devils.

Of the two, who on that early spring afternoon left the City in company, we know that one bore the name of Cleopas. The other, unnamed, has for that very reason, and because the narrative of that work bears in its vividness the character of personal recollection, been identified with St. Luke himself.

And as they knew Him, He vanished from their view - for, that which He had come to do had been done. They were unspeakably rich and happy now. But, amidst it all, one thing forced itself ever anew upon them, that, even while their eyes had yet been holden, their hearts had burned within them, while He spake to them and opened to them the Scriptures. So, then, they had learned to full the Resurrection-lesson - not only that He was risen indeed, but that it needed not His seen Bodily Presence, if only He opened up to the heart and mind all the Scriptures concerning Himself. And this, concerning those other words about 'holding' and 'touching' Him - about having converse and fellowship with Him as the Risen One, had been also the lesson taught the Magdalene, when He would not suffer her loving, worshipful touch, pointing her to the Ascension before Him. This is the great lesson concerning the Risen One, which the Church fully learned in the Day of Pentecost.

But this threefold denial still, stood, as it were, uncancelled before the other disciples, nay, before Peter himself. It was to this that the threefold question to the Risen Lord now referred.

And on that last day - the day of His Ascension - He led them forth to the well-remembered Bethany. From where He had made His last triumphal Entry into Jersualem before His Crucifixion, would He make His truimphant Entry visibly into Heaven.

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