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.'

Chapter 5 - The Cleansing of the Temple - 'The Sign,' Which Is Not a Sign
John 2:13-25

These Temple-Bazaars, the property, and one of the principal sources of income, of the family of Annas, were the scene of the purification of the Temple by Jesus; and in the private locale attached to these very Bazaars, where the Sanhedrin held its meetings at the time, the final condemnation of Jesus may have been planned, if not actually pronounced. All this has its deep significance. But we can now also understand why the Temple officials, to whom these Bazaars belonged, only challenged the authority of Christ in thus purging the Temple. The unpopularity of the whole traffic, if not their consciences, prevented their proceeding to actual violence. Lastly, we can also better perceive the significance, alike of Christ's action, and of His reply to their challenge, spoken as it was close to the spot where He was so soon to be condemned by them. Nor do we any longer wonder that no resistance was offered by the people to the action of Jesus, and that even the remonstrances of the priests were not direct, but in the form of a perplexing question.

For when 'the Jews,' by which here, as in so many other places, we are to understand the rulers of the people - in this instance, the Temple officials - did gather courage to come forward, they ventured not to lay hands on Him. It was not yet the time for it. In presence of that multitude they would not then have dared it, even if policy had not dictated quietness within the Temple-enclosure, when the Roman garrison so close by, in Fort Antonia, kept jealous watch for the first appearance of a tumult. Still more strangely, they did not even reprove Him for what He had done, as if it had been wrong or improper. With infinite cunning, as appealing to the multitude, they only asked for 'a sign' which would warrant such assumption of authority. But this question of challenge marked two things: the essential opposition between the Jewish authorities and Jesus, and the manner in which they would carry on the contest, which was henceforth to be waged between Him and the rulers of the people. That first action of Jesus determined their mutual positions; and with and in that first conflict its end was already involved. The action of Jesus as against the rulers must develop into a life-opposition; their first step against Him must lead on to the last in His condemnation to the Cross.

Chapter 6 - The Teacher Come from God and the Teacher from Jerusalem - Jesus and Nicodemus
John 3:1-21

If from St. John xix. 27 we might infer that St. John had 'a home' in Jerusalem itself - which, considering the simplicity of living at the time, and the cost of houses, would not necessarily imply that he was rich - the scene about to be described would have taken place under the roof of him who has given us its record. [...] There was no need for Nicodemus to pass through the house, for an outside stair led to the upper room. It was night, when Jewish superstition would keep men at home; a wild, gusty spring night, when loiterers would not be in the streets; and no one would see him as at that hour he ascended the outside steps that led up to the Aliyah.

And yet, though Christ never descended to the standpoint of Nicodemus, we must bear in mind what his views as a Jew would be, if we would understand the interview. Jesus took him straight to whence alone that 'Kingdom' could be seen. 'Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.'

This but a few who had gone to the Baptist had perceived, or indeed could perceive, because the Baptist could in his Baptism only convey the negative, not the positive, aspect of it. And it needed that positive aspect - the being born from above - in order to see the Kingdom of God. But as to the mystery of this being in order to become - hark! did he hear the sound of that wind as it swept past the Aliyah? He heard its voice; but he neither knew whence it came, nor whither it went. So was every one that was born of the Spirit. You heard the voice of the Spirit Who originated the new being, but the origination of that new being, or its further development into all that it might and would become, lay beyond man's observation.

Nicodemus now understood in some measure what entrance into the Kingdom meant; but its how seemed only involved in greater mystery. [...] He wanted to know the how of these things before he believed them. He believed them not, though they passed on earth, because he knew not their how. How then could he believe that how, of which the agency was unseen and in heaven? [...] Let the history of Moses, then, teach them! They thought they understood his teaching, but there was one symbol in his history before which tradition literally stood dumb. They had heard what Moses had taught them; they had seen 'the earthly things' of God in the Manna which had rained from heaven, and, in view and hearing of it all, they had not believed, but murmured and rebelled. Then came the judgment of the fiery serpents, and, in answer to repentant prayer, the symbol of new being, a life restored from death, as they looked on their no longer living but dead death lifted up before them. A symbol this, showing forth two elements: negatively, the putting away of the past in their dead death (the serpent no longer living, but a brazen serpent); and positively, in their look of faith and hope. [...] And here lies the true interpretation of what Jesus taught. If the uplifted serpent, as symbol, brought life to the believing look which was fixed upon the giving, pardoning love of God, then, in the truest sense, shall the uplifted Son of Man give true life to everyone that believeth, looking up in Him to the giving and forgiving love of God, which His Son came to bring, to declare, and to manifest. 'For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth should in Him have eternal life.'

Ours it is now only to 'believe,' where we cannot further know, and, looking up to the Son of Man in His perfected work, to perceive, and to receive the gift of God's love for our healing. In this teaching it is not the serpent and the Son of Man that are held side by side, though we cannot fail to see the symbolic reference of the one to the other, but the uplifting of the one and the other - the one by the sin, the other through the sin of the people: both on account of it - the forthgoing of God's pardoning mercy, the look of faith, and the higher recognition of God's love in it all.

And so the record of this interview abruptly closes. It tells all, but no more than the Church requires to know. Of Nicodemus we shall hear again in the sequel, not needlessly, nor yet to complete a biography, were it even that of Jesus; but as is necessary for the understanding of this History [He had indeed, ...], [For now another, ...]. What follows are not the words of Christ, but of St. John. In them, looking back many years afterwards in the light of completed events, the Apostle takes his stand, as becomes the circumstances, where Jesus had ended His teaching of Nicodemus - under the Cross. In the Gift, unutterable in its preciousness, he now sees the Giver and the Source of all - John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Then, following that teaching of Jesus backward, he sees how true it has proved concerning the world, that 'that which is of the flesh is flesh;' how true, also concerning the Spirit-born, and what need there is to us of 'this birth from above.'

Chapter 7 - In Judaea and Through Samaria - A Sketch of Samaritan History and Theology - Jews and Samaritans
John 4:1-4

and lastly, and most important of all, they looked for the coming of a Messiah, in Whom the promise would be fulfilled, that the Lord God would raise up a Prophet from the midst of them, like unto Moses, in Whom his words were to be, and unto Whom they should hearken (Deuteronomy 18:15,18). Thus, while, in some respects, access to them would be more difficult than to His own countrymen, yet in others Jesus would find there a soil better prepared for the Divine Seed, or, at least, less encumbered by the thistles and tares of traditionalism and Pharisaic bigotry.

Chapter 8 - Jesus at the Well of Sychar
John 4:1-42

But, from the spot which we have indicated, it is about twenty miles, across a somewhat difficult country to Jacob's Well. It would be a long and toilsome day's journey thither on a summer day, and we can understand how, at its end, Jesus would rest weary on the low parapet which enclosed the Well, while His disciples went to buy the necessary provisions in the neighbouring Sychar.

Jesus weary, and resting while the disciples go to buy food, is not an Ephesian, but a truly Evangelic presentation of the Christ in His human weakness and want.

He to her the other; she unconsciously beginning to learn, He unintendingly (for He had not even entered Sychar) beginning to teach, and that, what He could not yet teach in Judaea, scarcely even to His own disciples; then the complete change in the woman, and the misapprehension and non-reception of the disciples - and over it all the weary form of the Man Jesus, opening as the Divine Christ the well of everlasting life, the God Man satisfied with the meat of doing the Will, and finishing the Work, of Him that sent Him: such are some of the thoughts suggested by the scene.

And still others rise, as we think of the connection in the narrative of St. John of this with what preceded and with what follows. It almost seems as if that Gospel were constructed in cycles, each beginning, or at least connected, with Jerusalem, and leading up to a grand climax. Thus, the first cycle might be called that of purification: first, that of the Temple; then, inward purification by the Baptism from above; next, the symbolic Baptism of water; lastly, the real water of life given by Jesus; and the climax - Jesus the Restorer of life to them that believe. Similarly, the second cycle, beginning with the idea of water in its symbolic application to real worship and life from Jesus, would carry us a stage further; and so onward throughout the Gospel. Along with this we may note, as another peculiarity of the Fourth Gospel, that it seems arranged according to this definite plan of grouping together in each instance the work of Christ, as followed by the illustrative word of Christ. Thus the fourth would, both externally and internally, be the pre-eminently Judaean Gospel, characterised by cyclical order, illustrative conjunction of work and word, and progressively leading up to the grand climax of Christ's last discourses, and finally of His Death and Resurrection, with the teaching that flows from the one and the other.

Nature, that in and through which, in manifold and divers colouring, He ever sees the supernatural, even as the light lies in varying hues on the mountain, or glows in changeful colouring on the edge of the horizon. A view this of all things existent, which Hellenism, even in its sublimest poetic conception of creation as the impress of heavenly archetypes, has only materialised and reserved. But to Jesus it all pointed upward, because the God of Nature was the God of Grace, the One Living and True God in Whom all matter and spirit lives, Whose world is one in design, workmanship, and purpose. And so nature was but the echo of God's heard Voice, which ever, to all and in all, speaks the same, if there be but listening ears. And so He would have it speak to men in parables, that, to them who see, it might be the Jacob's ladder leading from earth to heaven, while they, whose sight and hearing are bound in the sleep of heart-hardening, would see but not perceive, and hear but not understand.

It was with the ignorant woman of Sychar, as it had been with the learned 'Master in Israel.' As Nicodemus had seen, and yet not seen, so this Samaritaness. In the birth of which Jesus spoke, he had failed to apprehend the 'from above' and 'of the Spirit;' she now the thought suggested by the contrast between the cistern in the limerock and the well of living water. The 'How can these things be?' of Nicodemus finds its parallel in the bewilderment of the woman. Jesus had nothing wherewith to draw from the deep well. Whence, then, the 'living water'? To outward appearance there was a physical impossibility. This was one aspect of it. And yet, as Nicodemus' question not only similarly pointed to a physical impossibility, but also indicated dim searching after higher meaning and spiritual reality, so that of the woman: 'No ! art Thou greater than our father Jacob?' who, at such labour, had dug this well, finding no other means than this of supplying his own wants and those of his descendants. Nor did the answer of Jesus now differ in spirit from that which He had given to the Rabbi of Jerusalem, though it lacked the rebuke, designed to show how thoroughly the religious system, of which Nicodemus was a teacher, failed in its highest object. But to this woman His answer must be much simpler and plainer than to the Rabbi. And yet, if it be Divine teaching, it cannot be quite plain, but must contain that which will point upward, and lead to further inquiry. And so the Divine Teacher explained, not only the difference between ordinary water and that of which He had spoken, but in a manner to bring her to the threshold of still higher truth. It was not water like that of Jacob's Well which He would give, but 'living water.' In the Old Testament a perennial spring had, in figurative language, been thus designated, in significant contrast to water accumulated in a cistern. But there was more than this: it was water which for ever quenched the thirst, by meeting all the inward wants of the soul; water also, which, in him who had drunk of it, became a well, not merely quenching the thirst on this side time, but 'springing up into everlasting life.' It was not only the meeting of wants felt, but a new life, and that not essentially different, but the same as that of the future, and merging in it.

The same idea was carried perhaps even further, when, at the Feast of Tabernacles, amidst universal rejoicing, water from Siloam was poured from a golden pitcher on the altar, as emblem of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. But the saying of our Lord to the Samaritaness referred neither to His teaching, nor to the Holy Ghost, nor yet to faith, but to the gift of that new spiritual life in Him, of which faith is but the outcome.

Those who know how difficult it is to lodge any new idea in the mind of uneducated rustics in our own land, after all our advantages of civilising contact and education, will understand, how utterly at a loss this Samaritan countrywoman must have been to grasp the meaning of Jesus. But He taught, not as we teach. And thus He reached her heart in that dimly conscious longing which she expressed, though her intellect was incapable of distinguishing the new truth.

Higher or more Christlike teaching than this could not be uttered. And she who heard, thus far understood it, that in the glorious picture, which was set before her, she saw the coming of the Kingdom of the Messiah. 'I know that Messiah cometh. When He cometh, He will tell us all things.' It was then that, according to the need of that untutored woman, He told her plainly what in Judaea, and even by His disciples, would have been carnally misinterpreted and misapplied: that He was the Messiah. So true is it, that 'babes' can receive what often must remain long hidden 'from the wise and prudent.'

To correct their mistake, the Divine Teacher, as so often, and as best adapted to His hearers, chose His illustration from what was visible around. To show their meaning more clearly, we venture to reverse the order of the sentences which Jesus spoke: 'Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look [observantly] at the fields, that they are white to the harvest. [But] do ye not say (viz. in your hearts) that there are yet four months, and the harvest cometh?' The words will appear the more striking, if (with Professor Westcott) we bear in mind that, perhaps at that very moment, the Samaritans, coming to Him from Sychar, were appearing in sight.

Passing from this point, we notice how the Lord further unfolded His own lesson of present harvesting, and their inversion of what was sowing, and what reaping time. 'Already' he that reaped received wages, and gathered fruit unto eternal life (which is the real reward of the Great Reaper, the seeing of the travail of His soul), so that in this instance the sower rejoiced equally as the reaper. And, in this respect, the otherwise cynical proverb, that one was the sower, another the reaper of his sowing, found a true application. It was indeed so, that the servants of Christ were sent to reap what others had sown, and to enter into their labour. One had sowed, another would reap. And yet, as in this instance of the Samaritans, the sower would rejoice as well as the reaper; nay, both would rejoice together, in the gathered fruit unto eternal life. And so the sowing in tears is on the spiritual field often mingled with the harvest of gladness, and to the spiritual view both are really one. 'Four months' do not intervene between them; so that, although one may sow and another reap, yet the sower seeth that harvest for which the harvester gets wages, and rejoices with him in the fruit which is gathered into the eternal storehouse.

We know not what passed these two days. Apparently no miracles were wrought, but those of His Word only. It was the deepest and purest truth they learned, these simple men of simple faith, who had not learned of man, but listened to His Word only. The sower as well as the reaper rejoiced, and rejoiced together. Seed-time and harvest mingled, when for themselves they knew and confessed, that this was truly the Saviour of the world.

Chapter 9 - The Second Visit to Cana - Cure of the 'Nobleman's' Son at Capernaum
Matthew 4:12; Mark 1:14; Luke 4:14-15; John 4:43-54

Accordingly, they were now prepared to receive Him with the reverent attention which His Word claimed. We may conjecture, that it was partially for reasons such as these that He first bent His steps to Cana. The miracle, which had there been wrought, would still further prepare the people for His preaching. Besides, this was the home of Nathanael, who had probably followed Him to Jerusalem, and in whose house a gladsome homage of welcome would now await Him. It was here that the second recorded miracle of His Galilean ministry was wrought, with what effect upon the whole district, may be judged from the expectancies which the fame of it excited even in Nazareth, the city of His early upbringing.

That request argued ignorance of the real character of the Christ, as if He were either merely a Rabbi endowed with special power, or else a miracle-monger. What He intended to teach this man was, that He, Who had life in Himself, could restore life at a distance as easily as by His Presence; by the word of his Power as readily as by personal application. A lesson this of the deepest importance, as regarded the Person of Christ; a lesson, also, of the widest application to us and for all circumstances, temporal and spiritual. When the 'court-officer' had learned this lesson, he became 'obedient unto the faith,' and 'went his way,' presently to find his faith both crowned and perfected. And when both 'he and his house' had learned that lesson, they would never afterwards think of the Christ either as the Jews did, who simply witnessed His miracles, or unspiritually. It was the completion of that teaching which had first come to Nathanael, the first believer of Cana. So, also, is it when we have learned that lesson, that we come to know alike the meaning and the blessedness of believing in Jesus.

We can understand how, leaving Capernaum in the morning, the interview with Jesus and the simultaneous cure of the child would have taken place about seven o'clock of the evening. Its result was, not only the restoration of the child, but that, no longer requiring to see signs and wonders, 'the man believed the word which Jesus had spoken unto him.' In this joyous assurance, which needed no more ocular demonstration, he 'went his way,' either to the hospitable home of a friend, or to some near lodging-place on the way, to be next day met by the gladsome tidings, that it had been to him according to his faith.

Whether this 'royal officer' was Chuza, Herod's steward, whose wife, under the abiding impression of this miracle to her child, afterwards humbly, gratefully ministered to Jesus, must remain undermined on this side time.

Chapter 10 - The Synagogue at Nazareth - Synagogue-Worship and Arrangements
Luke 4:16

For the Synagogue became the cradle of the Church. Without it, as indeed without Israel's dispersion, the Church Universal would, humanely speaking, have been impossible, and the conversation of the Gentiles have required a succession of millennial miracles.

That this practice, and the absolute liberty of teaching, subject to the authority of the 'chief ruler of the Synagogue,' formed important links in the Christianisation of the world, is another evidence of that wonder working Rule of God, which brings about marvellous results through the orderly and natural succession of events - nay, orders these means with the view to their ultimate issue.

Chapter 11 - The First Galilean Ministry
Matthew 4:13-17; Mark 1:14-15; Luke 4:15-32

When unrolling, and holding the scroll, much more than the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah must have been within range of His eyes. On the other hand, it is quite certain that the verses quoted by the Evangelist could not have formed the whole Haphtarah. According to traditional rule, the Haphtarah ordinarily consisted of not less than twenty-one verses, though, if the passage was to be 'targumed,' or a sermon to follow, that number might be shortened to seven, five, or even three verses. Now the passage quoted by St. Luke consists really of only one verse (Isaiah 61:1), together with a clause from Isaiah 58:6, and the first clause of Isaiah 61:2. This could scarcely have formed the whole Haphtarah. There are other reasons also against this supposition. No doubt Jesus read alike the Haphtarah and the text of His discourse in Hebrew, and then 'targumed' or translated it: while St. Luke, as might be expected, quotes (with but two trifling alterations) from the rendering of the LXX. But, on investigation, it appears that one clause is omitted from Isaiah 61:1, and that between the close of Isaiah 61:1 and the clause of verse 2, which is added, a clause is inserted from the LXX. of Isaiah 58:6. This could scarcely have been done in reading the Haphtarah. But, if as we suppose, the passages quoted formed the introductory text of Christ's discourse, such quotation and combination were not only in accordance with Jewish custom, but formed part of the favourite mode of teaching - the Charaz- or stringing, like pearls, passage to passage, illustrative of each other. In the present instance, the portion of the scroll which Jesus unrolled may have exhibited in close proximity the two passages which formed the introductory text (the so-called Pethichah). But this is of comparatively small interest, since both the omission of a clause from Isaiah 61:1, and the insertion of another adapted from Isaiah 58:6, were evidently intentional. It might be presumptuous to attempt stating the reasons which may have influenced the Saviour in this, and yet some of them will instinctively occur to every thoughtful reader.

This, with the unspoken intention of crowding Him over the cliff, which there rises abruptly about forty feet out of the valley beneath. If we are correct in indicating the locality, the road here bifurcates, and we can conceive how Jesus, Who had hitherto, in the silence of sadness, allowed Himself almost mechanically to be pressed onwards by the surrounding crowd, now turned, and by that look of commanding majesty, the forthbreaking of His Divine Being, which ever and again wrought on those around miracles of subjection, constrained them to halt and give way before Him, while unharmed He passed through their midst. So did Israel of old pass through the cleft waves of the sea, which the wonder-working rod of Moses had converted into a wall of safety. Yet, although He parted from it in judgment, not thus could the Christ have finally and for ever left His own Nazareth.

Cast out of His own city, Jesus pursued His solitary way towards Capernaum. There, at least, devoted friends and believing disciples would welcome Him. There, also, a large draught of souls would fill the Gospel-net. Capernaum would be His Galilean home (Matthew 9:1). Here He would, on the Sabbath-days, preach in that Synagogue, of which the good centurion was the builder (Luke 7:5), and Jairus the chief ruler (Mark 5:22). These names, and the memories connected with them, are a sufficient comment on the effect of His preaching: that 'His word was with power.' In Capernaum, also, was the now believing and devoted household of the court-officer, whose only son the Word of Christ, spoken at a distance, had restored to life. Here also, or in the immediate neighbourhood, was the home of His earliest and closest disciples, the brothers Simon and Andrew, and of James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

Chapter 12 - At the 'Unknown' Feast in Jerusalem, and by the Pool of Bethesda
John 5

This Feast, then, was the time of critical decision. Accordingly, as involving the separation from the old state and the commencement of a new condition of things, it was immediately followed by the call of His disciples to a new Apostleship. In this view, we can also better understand the briefness of the notices of His first Galilean ministry, and how, after Christ's return from that Feast, His teaching became more full, and the display of His miraculous power more constant and public.

But, if Jesus was alone and unattended at the Feast, the question arises, whence the report was derived of what He said in reply to the challenge of the Jews? Here the answer naturally suggests itself, that the Master Himself may, at some later period of His life - perhaps during His last stay in Jerusalem - have communicated to His disciples, or else to him who stood nearest to Him, the details of what had passed on the first occasion when the Jewish authorities had sought to extinguish His Messianic claims in His blood. If that communication was made when Jesus was about to be offered up, it would also account for what otherwise might seem a difficulty: the very developed form of expression in which His relation to the Father, and His own Office and Power, are presented. We can understand how, from the very first, all this should have been laid before the teachers of Israel. But in view of the organic development of Christ's teaching, we could scarcely expect it to have been expressed in such very full terms, till near the close of His Ministry.

while rejecting the Messiah sent from God, at last become the victims of a coarse Messianic impostor (John 5:40-43).

Translate this into deed, as all His teachings have been, are, and will be, and we have the miraculous cure of the impotent man, with its attendant circumstances. Or, conversely, translate that deed, with its attendant circumstances, into words, and we have the discourse of our Lord. Moreover, all this is fundamental to the highest understanding of our Lord's history. And, therefore, we understand how, many years afterwards, the beloved disciple gave a place to this miracle, when, in the full ripeness of spiritual discernment, he chose for record in his Gospel from among those 'many signs,' which Jesus truly did (John 20:30), only five as typical, like the five porches of the great Bethesda of His help to the impotent, or like the five divisions into which the Psalter of praise was arranged. As he looked back, from the height where he stood at his journey's end, to where the sun was setting in purple and golden glory far across the intervening landscape, amidst its varying scenes this must have stood out before his sight, as what might show to us that 'Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through His Name (John 20:31).'

If there was an Israel, Prince with God, and if there was a God of the Covenant, this must not, cannot be; and Christ goes to Bethesda as Israel's Messiah, the Truth, and the Life. There was twofold suffering there, and it were difficult to know which would have stirred Him most: that of the body, or the mistaken earnestness which so trustfully looked for Heaven's relief - yet within such narrow limits as the accident or good fortune of being first pushed into the Angel-troubled waters. But this was also a true picture of His people in their misery, and in their narrow notions of God and of the conditions of His blessing. And now Israel's Messiah had at last come. What would we expect Him to have done? Surely not to preach controversial or reformatory doctrines; but to do, if it were in Him, and in doing to speak. And so in this also the Gospel-narrative proves itself true, by telling that He did, what alone would be true in a Messiah, the Son of God. It is, indeed, impossible to think of Incarnate Deity - and this, be it remembered, is the fundamental postulate of the Gospels - as brought into contact with misery, disease, and death without their being removed. That power went forth from Him always, everywhere, and to all, is absolutely necessary, if He was the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. And so the miracles, as we mistakingly term the result of the contact of God with man, of the Immanuel (God with us), are not only the golden ladder which leads up to the Miracle, God manifest in the flesh, but the steps by which He descends from His height to our lowliness.

This 'impotent' man, for thirty-eight years a hopeless sufferer, without attendant or friend among those whom misery - in this also the true outcome of sin - made so intensely selfish; and whose sickness was really the consequence of his sin, and not merely in the sense which the Jews attached to it - this now seemed the fittest object for power and grace. For, most marked in this history is the entire spontaneity of our Lord's help. It is idle to speak either of faith or of receptiveness on the man's part. The essence of the whole lies in the utter absence of both; in Christ's raising, as it were, the dead, and calling the things that are not as though they were. This, the fundamental thought concerning His Mission and power as the Christ shines forth as the historical background in Christ's subsequent, explanatory discourse. The 'Wilt thou be made whole?' with which Jesus drew the man's attention to Himself, was only to probe and lay bare his misery. And then came the word of power, or rather the power spoken forth, which made him whole every whit. Away from this pool, in which there was no healing; away - for the Son of God had come to him with the outflowing of His power and pitying help, and he was made whole. Away with his bed, not, although it was the holy Sabbath, but just because it was the Sabbath of holy rest and holy delight!

Most characteristically, it was this external infringement which they saw, and nothing else; it was the Person Who had commanded it Whom they would know, not Him Who had made whole the impotent man.

Chapter 13 - By the Sea of Galilee - The Final Call of the First Disciples, and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes
Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20; Luke 5:1-11

Such shoal of fish in one spot on the Lake of Galilee was not strange. The miraculous was, that the Lord had seen through those waters down where the multitude of fishes was, and bidden him let down for a draught. He could see through the intervening waters, right down to the bottom of that sea; He could see through him, to the very bottom of Peter's heart. He did see it - and all that Jesus had just spoken meant it, and showed him what was there. And could he then be a fisher of men, out of whose heart, after a life's night of toil, the net would come up empty, or rather only clogged with sand and torn with pebbles? This is what he meant when 'he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' And this is why Jesus comforted him: 'Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.' And so also, and so only, do we, each of us, learn the lesson of our calling, and receive the true comfort in it. Nor yet can anyone become a true fisher of men in any other than such manner.

Chapter 14 - A Sabbath in Capernaum
Matthew 8:14-17; Mark 1:21-34; Luke 4:33-41

The greater detail with which St. Mark, who wrote under the influence of St. Peter, tells these events, shows the freshness and vividness of impression on the mind of Peter of those early days of his new life.

But one point seems to have been assumed, for which there is, to say the least, no evidence, viz., that because, at least in many cases, the disease caused by the demon was permanent, therefore those who were so affected were permanently or constantly under the power of the demon. Neither the New Testament, nor even Rabbinic literature, conveys the idea of permanent demoniac indwelling, to which the later term 'possession' owes its origin. On the contrary, such accounts, as that of the scene in the Synagogue of Capernaum, convey the impression of a sudden influence, which in most cases seems occasioned by the spiritual effect of the Person or of the Words of the Christ.

If we believe that the Son of God came to destroy the works of the Devil, we can understand the developed enmity of the kingdom of darkness; and if we regard Christ as Very God, taking, in manner to us mysterious, Humanity, we can also perceive how the Prince of Darkness might, in counterfeit, seek through the demonised a temporary dwelling in Humanity for purposes of injury and destruction, as Christ for healing and salvation. [...] In the mysterious connection between the sensuous and supersensuous, spirit and matter, there are many things which the vulgar 'bread-and-butter philosophy' fails rightly to apportion, or satisfactorily to explain. That, without the intervention of sensuous media, mind can, may, and does affect mind; that even animals, in proportion to their sensitiveness, or in special circumstances, are affected by that which is not, or else not yet, seen, and this quite independently of man; that, in short, there are not a few phenomena 'in heaven and earth' of which our philosophy dreams not - these are considerations which, however the superficial sciolist may smile at them, no earnest inquirer would care to dismiss with peremptory denial. And superstition only begins when we look for them, or else when we attempt to account for and explain them, not in the admission of their possibility.

In one respect those who were 'demonised' exhibited the same phenomenon. They all owned the Power of Jesus. It was not otherwise in the Synagogue at Capernaum on that Sabbath-morning. What Jesus had spoken produced an immediate effect on the demonised, though one which could scarcely have been anticipated. For, there is authority for inserting the word 'straightway' immediately after the account of Jesus' preaching. Yet, as we think of it, we cannot imagine that the demon would have continued silent nor yet that he could have spoken other than the truth in the Presence of the God-Man. There must be, and yet there cannot be, resistance. The very Presence of the Christ meant the destruction of this work of the Devil. Involuntarily, in his confessed inability of disguise or resistance, he owns defeat, even before the contest. 'What have we to do with Thee, Jesus of Nazareth? Thou art come to destroy us! I know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God.' And yet there seems in these words already an emergence of the consciousness of the demonised, at least in so far that there is no longer confusion between him and his tormenter, and the latter speaks in his own name. One stronger than the demon had affected the higher part in the demonised. It was the Holy One of God, in Whose Presence the powers of moral destruction cannot be silent, but must speak, and own their subjection and doom. The Christ needs not to contend: that He is the Christ, is itself victory.

But this was not all. He had come not only to destroy the works of the Devil. His Incarnation meant this - and more: to set the prisoners free. By a word of command He gagged the confessions of the demon, unwilling made, and even so with hostile intent. It was not by such voices that He would have His Messiahship ever proclaimed. Such testimony was wholly unfitting and incongruous; it would have been a strange discord on the witness of the Baptist and the Voice Which had proclaimed Him from heaven. And, truly, had it been admitted, it would have strangely jarred in a Life which needed not, and asked not even the witness of men, but appealed straightway to God Himself. Nor can we fail to perceive how, had it been allowed, it would have given a true ground to what the Pharisees sought to assign as the interpretation of His Power, that by the Prince of Demons He cast out demons. And thus there is here also deep accord with the fundamental idea which was the outcome of His Temptation: that not the seemingly shortest, but the Divine way must lead Him to the goal, and that goal not Royal proclamation, but the Resurrection.

It was the first Diaconate of woman in the Church - might we not almost say, in the world? - a Diaconate to Christ, and to those that were His; the Diaconate of one healed by Christ; a Diaconate immediately following such healing. The first, this, of a long course of woman's Diaconate to Christ, in which, for the first time, woman attained her true position. And what a Sabbath-meal it must have been, after that scene in the Synagogue and after that healing in the house, when Jesus was the Guest, they who had witnessed it all sat at meat with Him, and she who had been healed was the Deaconess. Would that such were ever our Christian festive meals!

It was evening. The sun was setting, and the Sabbath past. All that day it had been told from home to home what had been done in the Synagogue; it had been whispered what had taken place in the house of their neighbour Simon. This one conviction had been borne in upon them all, that 'with authority' He spake, with authority and power He commanded even the unclean spirits, and they obeyed. No scene more characteristic of the Christ than that on this autumn evening at Capernaum. One by one the stars had shone out over the tranquil Lake and the festive city, lighting up earth's darkness with heaven's soft brilliancy, as if they stood there witnesses, that God had fulfilled His good promise to Abraham (Genesis 22:17-18). [...] From all parts they bring them: mothers, widows, wives, fathers, children, husbands - their loved ones, the treasures they had almost lost; and the whole city throngs - a hushed, solemnised, overawed multitude - expectant, waiting at the door of Simon's dwelling. There they laid them, along the street up to the market-place, on their beds; or brought them, with beseeching look and word. What a symbol of this world's misery, need, and hope; what a symbol, also, of what the Christ really is as the Consoler in the world's manifold woe! Never, surely, was He more truly the Christ; nor is He in symbol more truly such to us and to all time, than when, in the stillness of that evening, under the starlit sky, He went through that suffering throng, laying His hands in the blessing of healing on every one of them, and casting out many devils. [...] Never was prophecy more truly fulfilled than, on that evening, this of Isaiah: 'Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.' [...] The most real fulfilment this, that can be conceived, of Isaiah's rapt vision of Who and what the Messiah was to be, and to do; not, indeed, what is sometimes called fulfilment, or expected as such, in a literal and verbal correspondence with the prediction. An utterly mechanical, external, and unspiritual view this of prophecy, in which, in quite Jewish literalism, the spirit is crushed by the letter. But, viewed in its real bearing on mankind with its wants, Christ, on that evening, was the real, though as yet only initial, fulfilment of the world's great hope, to which, centuries before, the God-directed hand of the prophet had pointed.

Chapter 15 - Second Journey through Galilee - The Healing of the Leper
Matthew 4:23; 8:2-4; Mark 1:35-45; Luke 4:42-44; 5:12-16

'blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed' - such are the utterances of Him Who sighed when He opened the ears of the deaf, and bade His Apostles look for higher and better things than power over all diseases or even over evil spirits (Luke 10:17-20; 1 Corinthians 12:31, 13:1). So would not the Messiah of Jewish legend have spoken or done; nor would they who invented such miracles have so referred to them.

And Jesus, touched with compassion, willed it. It almost seems, as if it were in the very exuberance of power that Jesus, acting in so direct contravention of Jewish usage, touched the leper. It was fitting that Elisha should disappoint Naaman's expectancy, that the prophet would heal his leprosy by the touch of his hand [2 Kings 5:8-11]. It was even more fitting that Jesus should surprise the Jewish leper by touching, ere by His Word He cleansed him.

Chapter 16 - The Return to Capernaum - Concerning the Forgiveness of Sins - The Healing of the Paralysed
Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26

Thirdly, the words which Jesus spake to the paralytic: 'Rise, take up thy bed, and walk,' are to the very letter the same which are recorded as used by Him when He healed the impotent man at the Pool of Bethesda.

It was this deepest, though, perhaps, as yet only partially conscious, want of the sufferer before Him, which Jesus met when, in words of tenderest kindness, He spoke forgiveness to his soul, and that not as something to come, but as an act already past: 'Child, thy sins have been forgiven.' We should almost say, that He needed first to speak these words, before He gave healing: needed, in the psychological order of things; needed, also, if the inward sickness was to be healed, and because the inward stroke, or paralysis, in the consciousness of guilt, must be removed, before the outward could be taken away.

Let us recall, that Jesus was in the presence of those in whom the Scribes would feign have wrought disbelief, not of His power to cure disease - which was patent to all - but in His Person and authority; that, perhaps, such doubts had already been excited. And here it deserves special notice, that, by first speaking forgiveness, Christ not only presented the deeper moral aspect of His miracles, as against their ascription to magic or Satanic agency, but also established that very claim, as regarded His Person and authority, which it was sought to invalidate. In this forgiveness of sins He presented His Person and authority as Divine, and He proved it such by the miracle of healing which immediately followed. Had the two been inverted, there would have been evidence, indeed, of His power, but not of His Divine Personality, nor of His having authority to forgive sins; and this, not the doing of miracles, was the object of His Teaching and Mission, of which the miracles were only secondary evidence.

Chapter 17 - The Call of Matthew - The Saviour's Welcome to Sinners - Rabbinic Theology as Regards the Doctrine of Forgiveness in Contrast to the Gospel of Christ - The call of the Twelve Apostles
Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32; Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:12-19

It is in the light of what we have just learned concerning the Rabbinic views of forgiveness and repentance that the call of Levi-Matthew must be read, if we would perceive its full meaning. There is no need to suppose that it took place immediately on the cure of the paralytic. On the contrary, the more circumstantial account of St. Mark implies, that some time had intervened. If our suggestion be correct, that it was winter when the paralytic was healed at Capernaum, we may suppose it to have been the early spring-time of that favoured district, when Jesus 'went forth again by the seaside.' And with this, as we shall see, best agrees the succession of afterevents.

Sitting before his custom-house, as on that day when Jesus called him, Matthew must have frequently heard Him as He taught by the sea-shore. For this would be the best, and therefore often chosen, place for the purpose. Thither not only the multitude from Capernaum could easily follow; but here was the landing-place for the many ships which traversed the Lake, or coasted from town to town. And this not only for them who had business in Capernaum or that neighbourhood, but also for those who would then strike the great road of Eastern commerce, which led from Damascus to the harbours of the West. Touching the Lake in that very neighbourhood, it turned thence, northwards and westwards, to join what was termed the Upper Galilean road.

What has been described in such detail, will cast a peculiar light on the call of Matthew by the Saviour of sinners. For, we remember that Levi-Matthew was not only a 'publican,' but of the worst kind: a 'Mokhes' or douanier; a 'little Mokhes,' who himself stood at his custom-house; one of the class to whom, as we are told, repentance offered special difficulties. And, of all such officials, those who had to take toll from ships were perhaps the worst, if we are to judge by the proverb: 'Woe to the ship which sails without having paid the dues.' And yet, after all, Matthew may have been only one of that numerous class to whom religion is merely a matter quite outside of, and in another region from life, and who, having first gone astray through ignorance, feel themselves ever farther repelled, or rather shut out, by the narrow, harsh uncharitableness of those whom they look upon as the religious and pious.

And so Matthew sat before his custom-house, and hearkened and hoped. Those white-sailed ships would bring crowds of listeners; the busy caravan on that highway would stop, and its wayfarers turn aside to join the eager multitude - to hear the Word or see the Word. Surely, it was not 'a time for buying and selling,' and Levi would have little work, and less heart for it at his custom-house. Perhaps he may have witnessed the call of the first Apostles; he certainly must have known the fishermen and shipowners of Capernaum. And now it appeared, as if Jesus had been brought still nearer to Matthew. For, the great ones of Israel, 'the Scribes of the Pharisees,' and their pietest followers, had combined against Him, and would exclude Him, not on account of sin, but on account of the sinners. And so, we take it, long before that eventful day which for ever decided his life, Matthew had, in heart, become the disciple of Jesus. Only he dared not, could not, have hoped for personal recognition - far less for call to discipleship. But when it came, and Jesus fixed on him that look of love which searched the inmost deep of the soul, and made Him the true Fisher of men, it needed not a moment's thought or consideration. When he spake it, 'Follow Me,' the past seemed all swallowed up in the present heaven of bliss. He said not a word, for his soul was in the speechless surprise of unexpected love and grace; but he rose up, left the custom-house, and followed Him. That was a gain that day, not of Matthew alone, but of all the poor and needy in Israel - nay, of all sinners from among men, to whom the door of heaven was opened. And, verily, by the side of Peter, as the stone, we place Levi-Matthew, as typical of those rafters laid on the great foundation, and on which is placed the flooring of that habitation of the Lord, which is His Church.

And this also is a fundamental principle of the Old Testament, as spiritually understood; and, being such a fundamental principle, He afterwards again applied this saying of the prophet (Hosea 6:6 ) to His own mode of viewing and treating the Sabbath-question.

The introduction of the words 'to repentance' in some manuscripts of St. Matthew and St. Mark shows, how early the full meaning of Christ's words was misinterpreted by prosaic apologetic attempts, that failed to fathom their depth. For, Christ called sinners to better and higher than repentance, even to Himself and His Kingdom; and to 'emendate' the original record by introducing these words from another Gospel marks a purpose, indicative of retrogression. And this saying of Christ concerning the purpose of His Incarnation and Work: 'to call not righteous men, but sinners,' also marks the standpoint of the Christ, and the relation which each of us, according to his view of self, of righteousness, and of sin - personally, voluntarily, and deliberately - occupies towards the Kingdom and the Christ.

These three were, in a sense, cousins of Christ, since, according to Hegesippus, Clopas was the brother of Joseph, while the sons of Zebedee were real cousins, their mother Salome being a sister of the Virgin. Lastly, we have Judas Iscariot, or Ish Kerioth, 'a man of Kerioth,' a town in Judah. Thus the betrayer alone would be of Judaean origin, the others all of Galilean; and this may throw light on not a little in his after-history.

No further reference than this briefest sketch seems necessary, although on comparison it is clear that the Apostolic Catalogues in the Gospels are ranged in three groups, each of them beginning with respectively the same name (Simon, Philip, and James the son of Alphaeus). This, however, we may remark - how narrow, after all, was the Apostolic circle, and how closely connected most of its members. And yet, as we remember the history of their calling, or those notices attached to their names which afford a glimpse into their history, it was a circle, thoroughly representative of those who would gather around the Christ. Most marked and most solemn of all, it was after a night of solitary prayer on the mountain-side, that Jesus at early dawn 'called His disciples, and of them He chose twelve, whom also He named Apostles,' 'that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach, and to have power to heal sickness and to cast out devils.'

Chapter 18 - The Sermon on the Mount - The Kingdom of Christ and Rabbinic Teaching
Matthew 5, 6, 7

The new teaching, to be historically true, must have employed the old forms and spoken the old language. But the ideas underlying terms equally employed by Jesus and the teachers of Israel are, in everything that concerns the relation of souls to God, so absolutely different as not to bear comparison. Whence otherwise the enmity and opposition to Jesus from the first, and not only after His Divine claim had been pronounced?

Christ came to found a Kingdom, not a School; to institute a fellowship, not to propound a system. To the first disciples all doctrinal teaching sprang out of fellowship with Him. They saw Him, and therefore believed; they believed, and therefore learned the truths connected with Him, and springing out of Him. So to speak, the seed of truth which fell on their hearts was carried thither from the flower of His Person and Life.

It is not because a man is poor in spirit that his is the Kingdom of Heaven, in the sense that the one state will grow into the other, or be its result; still less is the one the reward of the other. The connecting link - so to speak, the theological copula between the 'state' and the promise- is in each case Christ Himself: because He stands between our present and our future, and 'has opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.' Thus the promise represents the gift of grace by Christ in the new Kingdom, as adapted to each case.

the upward look and self-dedication to God, the seeking first after the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, that man, and self, and life may be baptized in it. Such are the real alms, the real prayers, the real fasts of the Kingdom of God.

The expression in verse 34 seems to be a Rabbinic proverb. Thus, we read: 'Care not for the morrow, for ye know not what a day may bring forth. Perhaps he may not be on the morrow, and so have cared for a world that does not exist for him.' Only here, also, we mark that Christ significantly says not as the Rabbis, but, 'the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.'

But what, even more than all else, must have filled them with wonderment and awe was, that He Who so taught also claimed to be the God-appointed final Judge of all, whose fate would be decided not merely by professed discipleship, but by their real relation to Him (Matthew 7:21-23). And so we can understand it, that, alike in regard to what He taught and what He claimed, 'The people were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as One having authority - and not as the Scribes.'

Chapter 19 - The Return to Capernaum - Healing of the Centurion's Servant
Matthew 8:1, 5-15; Mark 3:20-21; Luke 7:1-10

But as yet Capernaum was still 'exalted up to heaven.' Here was the home of that believing Court-official, whose child Jesus had healed. Here also was the household of Peter; and here the paralytic had found, together with forgiveness of his sins, health of body. Its streets, with their outlook on the deep blue Lake, had been thronged by eager multitudes in search of life to body and soul. Here Matthew-Levi had heard and followed the call of Jesus; and here the good Centurion had in stillness learned to love Israel, and serve Israel's King, and built with no niggard hand that Synagogue, most splendid of those yet exhumed in Galilee, which had been consecrated by the Presence and Teaching of Jesus, and by prayers, of which the conversion of Jairus, its chief ruler, seems the blessed answer. And now, from the Mount of Beatitudes, it was again to His temporary home at Capernaum that Jesus retired. Yet not either to solitude or to rest. For, of that multitude which had hung entranced on His Words many followed Him, and there was now such constant pressure around Him, that, in the zeal of their attendance upon the wants and demands of those who hungered after the Bread of Life, alike Master and disciples found not leisure so much as for the necessary sustenance of the body.

If we keep in view the historical object of St. Matthew, as primarily addressing himself to Jewish, while St. Luke wrote more especially for Gentile readers, we arrive, at least, at one remarkable outcome of the variations in their narratives. Strange to say, the Judaean Gospel gives the pro-Gentile, the Gentile narrative the pro-Jewish, presentation of the event. Thus, in St. Matthew the history is throughout sketched as personal and direct dealing with the heathen Centurion on the part of Christ, while in the Gentile narrative of St. Luke the dealing with the heathen is throughout indirect, by the intervention of Jews, and on the ground of the Centurion's spiritual sympathy with Israel. Again, St. Matthew quotes the saying of the Lord which holds out to the faith of Gentiles a blessed equality with Israel in the great hope of the future, while it puts aside the mere claim of Israel after the flesh, and dooms Israel to certain judgment. On the other hand, St. Luke omits all this. A strange inversion it might seem, that the Judaean Gospel should contain what the Gentile account omits, except for this, that St. Matthew argues with his countrymen the real standing of the Gentiles, while St. Luke pleads with the Gentiles for sympathy and love with Jewish modes of thinking. The one is not only an exposition, but a justification, of the event as against Israel; the other an Eirenicon, as well as a touching representation of the plea of the younger with his elder brother at the door of the Father's House.

But the fundamental truth in both accounts is the same; nor is it just to say that in the narrative the Gentiles are preferred before Israel. So far from this, their faith is only put on an equality with that of believing Israel. It is not Israel, but Israel's fleshly claims and unbelief, that are rejected; and Gentile faith occupies, not a new position outside Israel, but shares with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the fulfilment of the promise made to their faith. Thus we have here the widest Jewish universalism, the true interpretation of Israel's hope; and this, even by the admission of our opponents, not as a later addition, but as forming part of Christ's original teaching. But if so, it revives, only in accentuated manner, the question: Whence this essential difference between the teaching of Christ on this subject, and that of contemporary Rabbinism.

The Centurion was simply one who had learned to love Israel and to reverence Israel's God; one who, not only in his official position, but from love and reverence, had built that Synagogue, of which, strangely enough, now after eighteen centuries, the remains, in their rich and elaborate carvings of cornices and entablatures, of capitals and niches, show with what liberal hand he had dealt his votive offerings.

In the place where the son of his fellow official at the Court of Herod had been healed by the Word of Jesus, spoken at a distance, in the Capernaum which was the home of Jesus and the scene of so many miracles, it was only what we might expect, that in such case he should turn to Jesus and ask His help. Quiet consistent with his character is the straightforwardness of his expectancy, characteristically illustrated by his military experience - what Bengel designates as the wisdom of his faith beautifully shining out in the bluffness of the soldier. When he had learned to own Israel's God, and to believe in the absolute unlimited power of Jesus, no such difficulties would come to him, nor, assuredly, such cavils rise, as in the minds of the Scribes, or even of the Jewish laity. Nor is it even necessary to suppose that, in his unlimited faith in Jesus, the Centurion had distinct apprehension of His essential Divinity.

In view of these facts, the question with the Centurion would be: not, Could Jesus heal his servant, but, Would He do so? And again, this other specifically: Since, so far as he knew, no application from any in Israel, be it even publican or sinner, had been doomed to disappointment, would he, as a Gentile, be barred from share in this blessing? was he 'un worthy,' or, rather, 'unfit' for it? Thus this history presents a crucial question, not only as regarded the character of Christ's work, but the relation to it of the Gentile world. Quiet consist with this - nay, its necessary outcome - were the scruples of the Centurion to make direct, personal application to Jesus. In measure as he reverenced Jesus, would these scruples, from his own standpoint, increase. As the houses of Gentiles were 'unclean,' entrance into them, and still more familiar fellowship, would 'defile.' The Centurion must have known this; and the higher he placed Jesus on the pinnacle of Judaism, the more natural was it for him to communicate with Christ through the elders of the Jews, and not to expect the Personal Presence of the Master, even if the application to him were attended with success. And here it is important (for the criticism of this history) to mark that, alike in the view of the Centurion, and even in that of the Jewish elders who under-took his commission, Jesus as yet occupied the purely Jewish stand-point.

But in his self-acknowledged 'unfitness' lay the real 'fitness' of this good soldier for membership with the true Israel; and his deep-felt 'unworthiness' the real 'worthiness' (the ejusdem ponderis) for 'the Kingdom' and its blessings. It was this utter disclaimer of all claim, outward or inward, which prompted that absoluteness of trust which deemed all things possible with Jesus, and marked the real faith of the true Israel. Here was one, who was in the state described in the first clauses of the 'Beatitudes,' and to whom came the promise of the second clauses; because Christ is the connecting link between the two, and because He consciously was such to the Centurion, and, indeed, the only possible connecting link between them.

And so we mark it, in what must be regarded as the high-point in this history, so far as its teaching to us all, and therefore the reason of its record in the New Testament, is concerned: that participation in the blessedness of the kingdom is not connected with any outward relationship towards it, nor belongs to our inward consciousness in regard to it; but is granted by the King to that faith which in deepest simplicity realises, and holds fast by Him. And yet, although discarding every Jewish claim to them - or, it may be, in our days, everything that is merely outwardly Christian - these blessings are not outside, still less beyond, what was the hope of the Old Testament, nor in our days the expectancy of the Church, but are literally its fulfilment; the sitting down 'with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven.' Higher than, and beyond this not even Christ's provision can take us.

And so this history of the believing Centurion is at the same time an application of the 'Sermon on the Mount'- in this also aptly following the order of its record - and a further carrying out of its teaching. Negatively, it differentiated the Kingdom from Israel; while, positively, it placed the hope of Israel, and fellowship with its promises, within reach of all faith, whether of Jew or Gentile.

And surely also, He, Who could so bring spiritual life to the dead, could have no difficulty by the same word, 'in the self-same hour,' to restore life and health to the servant of him, whose faith had inherited the Kingdom. The first grafted tree of heathendom that had so blossomed could not shake off unripe fruit. If the teaching of Christ was new and was true, so must His work have been. And in this lies the highest vindication of this miracle - that He is the Miracle.

Chapter 20 - The Raising of the Young Man of Nain - The Meeting of Life and Death
Luke 7:11-17

THAT early spring-tide in Galilee was surely the truest realisation of the picture in the Song of Solomon, when earth clad herself in garments of beauty, and the air was melodious with songs of new life. It seemed as if each day marked a widening circle of deepest sympathy and largest power on the part of Jesus; as if each day also brought fresh surprise, new gladness; opened hitherto unthought-of possibilities, and pointed Israel far beyond the horizon of their narrow expectancy. Yesterday it was the sorrow of the heathen Centurion which woke an echo in the heart of the Supreme Commander of life and death; faith called out, owned, and placed on the high platform of Israel's worthies. To-day it is the same sorrow of a Jewish mother, which touches the heart of the Son of Mary, and appeals to where denial is unthinkable. In that Presence grief and death cannot continue. As the defilement of a heathen house could not attach to Him, Whose contact changed the Gentile stranger into a true Israelite, so could the touch of death not render unclean Him, Whose Presence vanquished and changed it into life. Jesus could not enter Nain, and its people pass Him to carry one dead to the burying.

On the path leading to it the Lord of Life for the first time burst open the gates of death.

Immediately before the dead came the women, this being peculiar to Galilee, the Midrash giving this reason of it, that woman had introduced death into the world.

He dreaded not the greatest of all defilements - that of contact with the dead, which Rabbinism, in its elaboration of the letter of the Law, had surrounded with endless terrors. His was other separation than of the Pharisees: not that of submission to ordinances, but of conquest of what made them necessary.

The simplicity and absence of all extravagant details; the Divine calmness and majesty on the part of the Christ, so different from the manner in which legend would have coloured the scene, even from the intense agitation which characterised the conduct of an Elijah, an Elisha, or a Peter, in somewhat similar circumstances; and, lastly, the beauteous harmony where all is in accord, from the first touch of compassion till when, forgetful of the bystanders, heedless of 'effect,' He gives the son back to his mother - are not all these worthy of the event, and evidential of the truth of the narrative?

Be it, moreover, remembered, that not only one Gospel, but all, relate some story of raising the dead - whether that of this youth, of Jairus' daughter, or of Lazarus. They also all relate the Resurrection of the Christ, which really underlies those other miracles.

Nor should we forget that, in one of the earliest apologies addressed to the Roman Emperor, Quadratus appealed to the fact, that, of those who had been healed or raised from the dead by Christ, some were still alive, and all were well known.

But they who believe, see in this history, how the Divine Conqueror, in His accidental meeting with Death, with mighty arm rolled back the tide, and how through the portals of heaven which He opened stole in upon our world the first beam of the new day. Yet another - in some sense lower, in another, practically higher - lesson do we learn. For, this meeting of the two processions outside the gate of Nain was accidental, yet not in the conventional sense. Neither the arrival of Jesus at that place and time, nor that of the funeral procession from Nain, nor their meeting, was either designed or else miraculous. Both happened in the natural course of natural events, but their concurrence [The term 'chance' (St. Luke x. 31), means literally, the coming together, the meeting, A.V. 'chance' (St. Luke x. 31), means literally, the coming together, the meeting, or concurrence of events.] was designed, and directly God-caused. In this God-caused, designed concurrence of events, in themselves ordinary and natural, lies the mystery of special Providences, which, to whomsoever they happen, he may and should regard them as miracles and answer to prayer. And this principle extends much farther: to the prayer for, and provision of, daily bread, nay, to mostly all things, so that, to those who have ears to hear, all things around speak in parables of the kingdom of Heaven.

Chapter 21 - The Woman Which Was a Sinner
Luke 7:36-50

The first impression on our minds is, that the history itself is but a fragment. We must try to learn from its structure, where and how it was broken off. We understand the infinite delicacy that left her unnamed, the record of whose 'much forgiveness' and great love had to be joined to that of her much sin. And we mark, in contrast, the coarse clumsiness which, without any reason for the assertion, to meet the cravings of morbid curiosity, or for saint-worship, has associated her history with the name of Mary Magdalene. Another, and perhaps even more painful, mistake is the attempt of certain critics to identify this history with the much later anointing of Christ at Bethany, and to determine which of the two is the simpler, and which the more ornate - which the truer of the accounts, and whence, or why each case there was a 'Simon' - perhaps the commonest of Jewish names; a woman who anointed; and that Christ, and those who were present, spoke and acted in accordance with other passages in the Gospel-history: that is, true to their respective histories. But, such twofold anointing - the first, at the beginning of His works of mercy, of the Feet by a forgiven, loving sinner on whom the Sun had just risen; the second, of His Head, by a loving disciple, when the full-orbed Sun was setting in blood, at the close of His Ministry - is, as in the twofold purgation of the Temple at the beginning and close of His Work, only like the completing of the circle of His Life.

The question in Simon's mind was, whether He was more than 'Teacher' - even 'Prophet;' and that such question rose within him indicates, not only that Christ openly claimed a position different from that of Rabbi, and that His followers regarded Him at least as a prophet, but also, within the breast of Simon, a struggle in which strong Jewish prejudice was bearing down the mighty impression of Christ's Presence.

She had, no doubt, heard His words that day. What He had said would be, in substance, if not in words: 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest .... Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart..... Ye shall find rest unto your souls.....' This was to her the Prophet sent from God with the good news that opened even to her the Kingdom of Heaven, and laid its yoke upon her, not bearing her down to very hell, but easy of wear and light of burden. She knew that it was all as He said, in regard to the heavy load of her past; and, as she listened to those Words, and looked on that Presence, she learned to believe that it was all as He had promised to the heavy burdened. And she had watched, and followed Him afar off to the Pharisee's house. Or, perhaps, if it be thought that she had not that day heard for herself, still, the sound of that message must have reached her, and wakened the echoes of her heart. And still it was: Come to Me; learn of Me; I will give rest. What mattered all else to her in the hunger of her soul, which had just tasted of that Heavenly Bread?

To convince Simon of the error of his conclusion, that, if the life of that woman had been known, the prophet must have forbidden her touch of love, Jesus entered into the Pharisee's own modes of reasoning. Of two debtors, one of whom owned ten times as much as the other, who would best love the creditor who had freely forgiven them? Though to both the debt might have been equally impossible of discharge, and both might love equally, yet a Rabbi would, according to his Jewish notions, say, that he would love most to whom most had been forgiven. If this was the undoubted outcome of Jewish theology - the so much for so much - let it be applied to the present case. If there were much benefit, there would be much love; if little benefit, little love. And conversely: in such case much love would argue much benefit; little love, small benefit. [...] But, in a twofold climax of which the intensity can only be indicated, the Saviour now proceeds to show, how different it had been with her, to whom, for the first time, He now turned! On Simon's own reasoning, then, he must have received but little, she much benefit. Or, to apply the former illustration, and now to reality: 'Forgiven have been her sins, the many' - not in ignorance, but with knowledge of their being 'many.'

He said in explanation and application of it all: 'Thy faith has saved thee: go into peace.' Our logical dogmatics would have had it: 'go in peace;' more truly He, 'into peace.' And so she, the first who had come to Him for spiritual healing the, first of an unnumbered host, went out into the better light, into peace of heart, peace of faith, peace of rest, and into the eternal peace of the Kingdom of Heaven, and of the Heaven of the kingdom hereafter and for ever.

Chapter 22 - The Ministry of Love, the Blasphemy of Hatred, and the Mistakes of Earthly Affection - The Return to Capernaum - Healing of the Demonised Dumb - Pharisaic Charge Against Christ - The Visit of Christ's Mother and Brethren
Luke 8:1-3; Matthew 9:32-35; Mark 3:22 ff.; Matthew 12:46-50 and parallels

HOWEVER interesting and important to follow the steps of our Lord on His journey through Galilee, and to group in their order the notices of it in the Gospels, the task seems almost hopeless. In truth, since none of the Evangelists attempted - should we not say, ventured - to write a 'Life' of the Christ, any strictly historical arrangement lay outside their purpose. Their point of view was that of the internal, rather than the external development of this history. And so events, kindred in purpose, discourses bearing on the same subject, or parables pointing to the same stretch of truth, were grouped together; or, as in the present instance, the unfolding teaching of Christ and the growing opposition of His enemies exhibited by joining together notices which, perhaps, belong to different periods. And the lesson to us is, that, just as the Old Testament gives neither the national history of Israel, nor the biography of its heroes, but a history of the Kingdom of God in its progressive development, so the Gospels present not a 'Life of Christ,' but the history of the Kingdom of God in its progressive manifestation.

And they 'ministered to Him of their substance.' So early did eternal riches appear in the grab of poverty; so soon did love to Christ find its treasure in consecrating it to His Ministry. And ever since has this been the law of His Kingdom, to our great humiliation and yet greater exaltation in fellowship with Him.

He elected to do the Will of His Father rather than neglect it by attending to the wishes of the Virgin-Mother. As Bengel aptly puts it: He contemns not the Mother, but He places the Father first. And this is ever the right relationship in the Kingdom of Heaven!

Chapter 23 - New Teaching 'In Parables' - The Parables to the People by the Lake of Galilee, and Those to the Disciples in Capernaum
Matthew 13:1-52; Mark 4:1-34; Luke 8:4-18

Such pictures, familiar to the popular mind, are in the Parable connected with corresponding spiritual realities. Yet, here also, there is that which distinguishes the Parable from the mere illustration. The latter conveys no more than - perhaps not so much as - that which was to be illustrated; while the Parable conveys this and a great deal beyond it to those, who can follow up its shadows to the light by which they have been cast. In truth, Parables are the outlined shadows - large, perhaps, and dim - as the light of heavenly things falls on well-known scenes, which correspond to, and have their higher counterpart in spiritual realities. For, earth and heaven are twin-parts of His works. And, as the same law, so the same order, prevails in them; and they form a grand unity in their relation to the Living God Who reigneth. And, just as there is ultimately but one Law, one Force, one Life, which, variously working, effects and affects all the Phenomenal in the material universe, however diverse it may seem, so is there but one Law and Life as regards the intellectual, moral - nay, and the spiritual. One Law, Force, and Life, binding the earthly and the heavenly into a Grand Unity - the outcome of the Divine Unity, of which it is the manifestation. Thus things in earth and heaven are kindred, and the one may become to us Parables of the other. And so, if the place of our resting be Bethel, they become Jacob's ladder, by which those from heaven come down to earth, and those from earth ascend to heaven [Genesis 28:10-19 ].

But, as shown in the Parable of the seed growing secretly, it is not necessary that the Parable should always contain some narrative, provided that not only one feature, but the whole thing related, have its spiritual application.

It must separate the two classes, leading the one to clearer understanding of the mysteries of the Kingdom - of what not only seems, but to our limited thinking really is, mysterious; while the other class of hearers would now regard these mysteries as wholly unintelligible, incredible, and to be rejected. And the ground of this lay in the respective positions of these two classes towards the Kingdom. 'Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.' And the mysterious manner in which they were presented in Parables was alike suited to, and corresponded with, the character of these 'mysteries of the Kingdom,' now set forth, not for initial instruction, but for final decision. As the light from heaven falls on earthly objects, the shadows are cast. But our perception of them, and its mode, depend on the position which we occupy relatively to that Light.

His outward activity on earth was in the sowing, and it will be in the harvesting. What lies between them is of that other Dispensation of the Spirit, till He again send forth His reapers into His field. But all this must have been to those 'without' a great mystery, in no wise compatible with Jewish notions; while to them 'within' it proved a yet greater, and very needful unfolding of the mysteries of the Kingdom, with very wide application of them.

Whether in legend or symbol, Rabbinism has it that even the ground had been guilty of fornication before the judgment of the Flood, so that when wheat was sown tares sprang up.

Chapter 24 - Christ Stills the Storm on the Lake of Galilee
Matthew 8:8, 23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25

What more, or, indeed, what else, could He have said to those to whom He had all that morning spoken in Parables, which hearing they had not heard nor understood? It was this, rather than weariness after a long day's working, which led to the resolve to pass to the other side. To merely physical weariness Jesus never subordinated his work.

In the stern of the ship, on the low bench where the steersman sometimes takes rest, was pillowed the Head of Jesus. Weariness, faintness, hunger, exhaustion, asserted their mastery over His true humanity. He, Whom earliest Apostolic testimony proclaimed to have been in 'the form of God,' slept. Even this evidences the truth of the whole narrative. If Apostolic tradition had devised this narrative to exhibit His Divine Power, why represent Him as faint and asleep in the ship; and, if it would portray Him as deeply sleeping for very weariness, how could it ascribe to Him the power of stilling the storm by His rebuke? Each of these by themselves, but not the two in their combination, would be as legends are written. Their coincidence is due to the incidence of truth. Indeed, it is characteristic of the History of the Christ, and all the more evidential that it is so evidently undesigned in the structure of the narrative, that every deepest manifestation of His Humanity is immediately attended by highest display of His Divinity, and each special display of His Divine Power followed by some marks of His true Humanity. Assuredly, no narrative could be more consistent with the fundamental assumption that He is the God-Man.

But the danger is increasing - 'so that the ship was now filling.' They who watched it, might be tempted to regard the peaceful rest of Jesus, not as indicative of Divine Majesty - as it were, sublime consciousness of absolute safety - because they did not fully realize Who He was. In that case it would, therefore, rather mean absolute weakness in not being able, even at such a time, to overcome the demands of our lower nature; real indifference, also, to their fate - not from want of sympathy, but of power. In short, it might lead up to the inference that the Christ was a no-Christ, and the Kingdom of which he had spoken in Parables, not His, in the sense of being identified with His Person.

Further teaching comes to us from the details of the narrative which follows. It has been asked, with which of the words recorded by the Synoptists the disciples had wakened the Lord: with those of entreaty to save them, or with those of impatience, perhaps uttered by Peter himself? But why may not both accounts represent what had passed? Similarly, it has been asked, which came first - the Lord's rebuke of the disciples, and after it that of the wind and sea, or the converse? But, may it not be that each recorded that first which had most impressed itself on his mind? - St. Matthew, who had been in the ship that night, the needful rebuke to the disciples; St. Mark and St. Luke, who had heard it from others, the help first, and then the rebuke?

A belief this, which also accounts for the co-existing, not of disbelief, nor even of unbelief, but of inability of apprehension, which, as we have seen, characterised the bearing of the Virgin-Mother. And it equally characterised that of the disciples up to the Resurrection-morning, bringing them to the empty tomb, and filling them with unbelieving wonder that the tomb was empty.

And so the grand question, which the enmity of the Pharisees had raised, and which, in part, had been answered in the Parables of teaching, was still more fully and practically met in what, not only to the disciples, but to all time, was a Parable of help. And Jesus also did wonder, but at that which alone could call forth His wonder - the unreachingness of their faith: where was it? and how was it, they had no faith?

Absolute historical demonstration of the event is, of course, in the nature of things impossible. But, besides the congruousness to the Parabolic teaching which had preceded this Parabolic miracle, and the accord of the Saviour's rebuke with His mode of silencing the hostile elements on other occasions, some further considerations in evidence may be offered to the thoughtful reader.

And here St. Paul so far stands on the same ground as Jewish theology, which also teaches that 'although all things were created in their perfectness, yet when the first Adam sinned, they were corrupted.' Christ's dominion over the sea was, therefore, only the Second and Unfallen Adam's real dominion over creation, and the pledge of its restoration, and of our dominion in the future. And this seems also to throw fresh light on Christ's rebuke, whether of storm, disease, or demoniac possession. Thus there is a grand consistency in this narrative, as regards the Scriptural presentation of the Christ.

And as we enter on this field of contemplation, many views open to us. The true Humanity of the Saviour, by the side of His Divine Power; the sleeping Jesus and the Almighty Word of rebuke and command to the elements, which lay them down obedient at His feet: this sharp-edged contrast resolved into a higher unity - how true is it to the fundamental thought of the Gospel-History! Then this other contrast of the failure of faith, and then the excitement of the disciples; and of the calm of the sleeping, and then the Majesty of the wakening Christ. And, lastly, yet this third contrast of the helplessness and despondency of the disciples and the Divine certitude of conscious Omnipotence.

We perceive only difficulties and the seemingly impossible, as we compare what may be before us with that which we consciously possess. He also makes this outlook: but only to know and show, that with Him there can be no difficulty, since all is His - and all may be ours, since He has come for our help and is in the ship. One thing only He wonders at - the shortcomings of our faith; and one thing only makes it impossible for Him to help - our unbelief.

Chapter 25 - At Gerasa - The Healing of the Demonised
Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39

THAT day of wonders was not yet ended. Most writers have, indeed, suggested, that the healing of the demonised on the other side took place at early dawn of the day following the storm on the Lake.

Christ, Who had been charged by the Pharisees with being the embodiment and messenger of Satan, is here face to face with the extreme manifestation of demoniac power and influence. It is once more, then, a Miracle in Parable which is about to take place. The question, which had been raised by the enemies, is about to be brought to the issue of a practical demonstration. We do not deny that the contest and the victory, this miracle, nay, the whole series of miracles of which it forms part, are extraordinary, even in the series of Christ's miracles. Our explanation proceeds on the very ground that such was, and must have been, the case. The teaching by Parables, and the parabolic miracles which follow, form, so to speak, an ascending climax, in contrast to the terrible charge which by-and-by would assume the proportions of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and issue in the betrayal and judicial murder of Jesus. There are critical epochs in the history of the Kingdom of God, when the power of evil, standing out in sharpest contrast, challenges that overwhelming manifestation of the Divine, as such, to bear down and crush that which opposes it. Periods of that kind are characterised by miraculous interposition of power, unique even in Bible history. Such a period was, under the Old Testament, that of Elijah and Elisha, with its altogether exceptional series of miracles; and, under the New Testament, that after the first formulated charge of the Pharisees against the Christ.

As always also, the demons knew Jesus, and His Presence seemed to constrain their confession of themselves - and therefore of Him. As in nature the introduction of a dominant element sometimes reveals the hidden presence of others, which are either attracted or repelled by it, so the Presence of Christ obliged the manifestation, and, in the case of these evil spirits, the self-confession, of the powers of evil. In some measure it is the same still. The introduction of grace brings to light and experience sin hitherto unknown, and the new life brings consciousness of, and provokes contest with, evil within, of which the very existence had previously been unsuspected.

It may be conjectured, that it was partly in order to break this identification, or rather to show the demonised that it was not real, and only the consequence of the control which the demons had over him, that the Lord asked his name. To this the man made answer, still in the dual consciousness, 'My name is Legion: for we are many.' Such might be the subjective motive for Christ's question. Its objective reason may have been to show the power of the demoniac possession in the present instance, thus marking it as an altogether extreme case. The remembrance, that the answer is once more in the forms of Jewish thinking, enables us to avoid the strange notion (whether it express the opinion of some, or the difficulties of others), that the word 'Legion' conveys the idea of six thousand armed and strong warriors of evil. For, it was a common Jewish idea, that, under certain circumstances, 'a legion of hurtful spirits' (of course not in the sense of a Roman legion) 'were on the watch for men, saying: When shall he fall into the hands of one of these things, and be taken?'

up that cliff, therefore, is 'into the swine;' and this also agrees with Jewish thoughts concerning uncleanness. The rendering of our Authorised Version, that, in reply to the demoniac entreaty, 'forthwith Jesus gave them leave,' has led to misunderstanding. The distinction here to be made is, though narrow, yet real and important. The verb, which is the same in all the three Gospels, would be better rendered by 'suffered' than by 'gave them leave.' With the latter we associate positive permission. None such was either asked or given. The Lord suffered it - that is, He did not actually hinder it. He only 'said unto them, Go!'

Is He not then the Very Son of God? Viewing this miracle, as an historical fact, viewing it as a Parabolic Miracle, viewing it also as symbolic of what has happened in all ages - is He not the Son of the Most High God? And is there not now, on His part, in the morning-light the same calmness and majesty of conscious Almighty Power as on the evening before, when He rebuked the storm and calmed the sea?

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:]
¹John 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.)
²John 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.

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

²Chapter 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

He had, indeed, before that, sought gradually to prepare them for what was to happen on the morrow's night. He had pointed to it in dim figure at the very opening of His Ministry, on the first occasion that he had taught in the Temple (John 2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.), as well as to Nicodemus (John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:).

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?).

For now another, kindered to Joseph in spirit, history, and position, had come. The same spiritual Law, which had brought Joseph to open confession, also constrained the profession of that other Sanhedrist, Nicodemus. We remember, how at the first he had, from fear of detection, come to Jesus by night, and with what bated breath he had pleaded with his colleagues not so much the cause of Christ, as on His behalf that of law and justice (John 7:50). He now came, bringing 'a roll' of myrrh and aloes, in the fragrant mixture well known to the Jews for purposes of anointing or burying.

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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