I. Jesus Who Chose
The Fishermen, Himself also useth a net, and changeth place for
place. Why? Not only that He may gain more of those who
love God by His visitation; but also, as it seems to me, that He may
hallow more places. To the Jews He becomes as a Jew that He may
gain the Jews; to them that are under the Law as under the Law, that He
may redeem them that are under the Law; to the weak as weak, that He
may save the weak. He is made all things to all men that He may
gain all. Why do I say, All things to all men? For even
that which Paul could not endure to say of himself I find that the
Saviour suffered. For He is made not only a Jew, and not only
doth He take to Himself all monstrous and vile names, but even that
which is most monstrous of all, even very sin and very curse; not that
He is such, but He is called so. For how can He be sin, Who
setteth us free from sin; and how can He be a curse, Who redeemeth us
from the curse of the Law? Gal. iii. 10, 13. But it is in
order that He may carry His display of humility even to this extent,
and form us to that humility which is the producer of exaltation.
As I said then, He is made a Fisherman; He condescendeth to all; He
casteth the net; He endureth all things, that He may draw up the fish
from the depths, that is, Man who is swimming in the unsettled and
bitter waves of life.