IV LUKE'S AND JOHN'S Broadus' Harmony pages 1-2 and Luke 1:1-4; John 1:1-18. The first question that confronts us on the threshold of the text of the several histories of our Lord, is, how the historians obtained the material of their histories, and did they all obtain it in the same way? This is not altogether a question of inspiration. It is conceded that all were inspired. No matter how they obtained their material, inspiration was needed in every case in the make-up of the record of what they obtained. If Matthew obtained his genealogy from previous Jewish records (Matthew 1:1-17) and all the information concerning the infancy of our Lord from Joseph's account of it (Matthew 1:18-2:23), however handed down – and if Luke received his information of our Lord's infancy and childhood from Mary (Luke 1:26-2:52) – and if John received all the material of his apocalypse by direct revelation – still would inspiration be needed to direct them in reducing to writing this information, however required. That is to say, how much to record, what known facts to omit, how arrange this selected material according to a definite plan, looking to a distinct end, so far as the one book is concerned, and how this book should be so correlated as to fit in, with dovetail exactness, into a whole library of other sacred books, as the several bones are articulated into one skeleton, is our problem and our task. Again, our question is not one of illumination. A prophet might receive a revelation and not understand it (1 Peter 1:10-11). He might, through inspiration, record it accurately without understanding it. But these historians, frequently, and whenever necessary, interpret their facts, showing that they possessed illumination, e.g., John 11:21; John 7:39, and Matthew's application of Old Testament quotations. Revelation is a divine disclosure of hidden things. Inspiration is that gift of the Holy Spirit which enables one to select and arrange material to a definite end and inerrantly record it. Illumination, another gift of the Spirit, enables one to understand a revelation or to interpret the facts of an inspired record. The material of these several histories was obtained in three ways: (1) By eyewitness, as the gospels of Matthew and John. (2) By those who received it from eyewitnesses, as the gospels of Mark and Luke. (3) By direct revelation, as Paul's Gospel and John's Apocalypse. These observations lead up to the beginning of our interpretation of the histories. Our textbook is Dr. Broadus' Harmony of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, with only two parallels from Paul's Gospel. We will enlarge our textbook, as we proceed, by insertion of many other parallels from Paul. This chapter will be devoted to Luke's dedication and John's prologue, both supplemented from Paul. On the left of Luke's dedication put John 21:24, and on the right Galatians 1:11-12. Now compare them: John affirms that he wrote his gospel as an eyewitness, while according to the revision, Luke affirms that the matter of his gospel was delivered by them "who from the beginning were eye-witnesses" and traced out by him in careful research. But Paul affirms that his was received by revelation. It is commonly supposed that Mark wrote as Peter had taught him, but Paul says that his gospel was not after man for he did not receive it from man, nor was he taught it. He is careful to show that he preached it before he saw Peter, and when on three occasions he did meet Peter, not only was nothing imparted to him, but his full and independent authority and mission were recognized, and that it fell to his lot to correct an evil practice of Peter. So whether we consider the original twelve, with those whom they instructed, or Paul, in every case an oral gospel preceded a written gospel. This spoken gospel was authoritative before reduced to writing. It was that deposit of the faith delivered to the churches to be held inviolate and transmitted unimpaired (Luke 1:2; Acts 13:31; 1 Corinthians 11:2-23; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8; 1 Timothy 6:20; Jude 1:3; Hebrews 11:3). In it catechumens, like Theophilus, were instructed (Luke 1:4). But as the original and qualified witnesses were few, and these kept passing away and soon all would be gone, and as tradition at every remove from its original source becomes less trustworthy, you can easily understand Luke's fact "that many would undertake to reduce to written narrative what they had heard orally from the eye-witnesses." And just here Luke introduces his second thought that his own writings were from accurate knowledge in all things, in order that the reader might know the certainty of the things in which he had been orally instructed. It was this necessity that called for inspiration. For if, as Peter says, referring to oral deliverance: "Men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21), it was equally true, says Paul, after referring to the sacred writings collectively, that distributively "every one of these writings is God-inspired" (Greek, Pasa graphe theopneustos (2 Timothy 3:15-16). From Luke 1:1 and Acts 1:1, it is evident that Theophilus was not only a real person, but one of distinction, and from the word "instructed" in Luke 1:4, it is also evident that he was a catechumen, from which may be inferred that in apostolic times all new converts were diligently catechized in the elements of the faith delivered (compare Ephesians 4:11-15; Hebrews 5:12-14; 1 Peter 1:2). When Luke says, "Many have undertaken to draw up a narrative of the things fulfilled among us," it is evident that he does not refer to the gospels of Matthew and Mark. Nothing that he could write would add to the "accuracy" or "certainty" of what they wrote. Indeed, it cannot be proved that their writings were prior to his. Though the Synoptic Gospels were written about the same time, it is most probable that our present order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, is chronological. Certainly no one of the three is the norm of the others. Before leaving this classic gem, Luke's dedication, an important question must be answered: Does Luke himself, in this introduction, claim to have traced out carefully all of the facts of his history as any other painstaking historian, or does he here affirm distinctly a guiding inspiration throughout? Our English versions, particularly the revision, support the former contention. On the other hand, some distinguished scholars and Biblical interpreters, notably Lightfoot and Urquhart, support the latter contention. We find a full statement of Urquhart's argument in his New Biblical Guide, Vol. VII, pp. 337-34.8. Lightfoot's argument may be found in Pittman's edition of his works, Vol. IV, pp. 114-115. Or, if Lightfoot and Urquhart be not accessible, there may be found a very clever and elaborate restatement of the argument of both in The Young Professor, whose author is the accomplished son of the late Dr. William E. Hatcher of Richmond, Va. Whenever one reads this argument carefully, whether in Lightfoot, Urquhart, or The Young Professor, it interests him, challenges his respect, and appears to be hard to answer. One need not be more than a sophomore in Greek to understand and feel the force of the argument. The marked difference of the renderings of Luk 1:1-4 in the common and the revised versions arises from no difference in the Greek text they translate. The text is the same. Write, therefore, in three parallel columns, the Greek text, the common version, and the revised version of Luk 1:1-4. For the references keep open before you an interlinear Greek Testament, and on your table Bagster's Analytical Greek Lexicon, or Thayer's, and the Englishman's Greek Concordance. Then follow, step by step, Urquhart's argument. These directions will help a beginner in Greek, however puerile or unnecessary they may appear to expert scholars. The contention, in substance, is this: Many uninspired men, in apostolic times, undertook to write orderly narratives of the gospel history as they were orally delivered by the apostles, who were eyewitnesses. Not one of these survives because they were displaced by inspired narratives, which conveyed assurance and certainty as to the facts and teachings. This is exactly what Luke says as to the reason of his writing, expressly affirming his inspiration, with a view to this assured accuracy and certainty. The argument for this contention is based altogether on translation and usage of the words. The common version preferred to the revision, needs only one change in it. Instead of "from the very first" in that version, they render "from above." The Greek word is anothen. They rely first on the etymology of the word, then its New Testament usage, then its perfect harmony with the context. They admit some usage for "from the first," a derived meaning, but never permissible as a substitute for the primary meaning, unless the context demands it. The usage cited is: "The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top [from above] to the bottom" (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38). Except a man be born "from above" (John 3:3) ; "Ye must be born from above" (John 3:7). In both these cases, "born from above" is interpreted by our Lord as "born of the Spirit." "He that cometh from above is above all." John 3:31. Jesus says to Pilate. "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11). "Now the coat was without seam from the top [from above] throughout" (John 19:23). "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17). "This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish" (James 3:15). "But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable" (James 3:17). Then comes Luke's only use of the word, except where once he quotes Paul: "Having had perfect understanding of all things from above . . . that thou mightest know the certainty, etc." In all these instances of usage, the sum total of usage by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and James, our Greek word anothen is rendered by the italicized words from the top, referring to veil or coat, and "from above" elsewhere. They add the evident allusion of Irenaeus to Luke 1:3. "For after our Lord arose from the dead, and they were endued from above with the power of the Holy Ghost coming down upon them, they received a perfect knowledge of all things" ("Against Heresies," Luke 3:1). Luke says, "Having had perfect understanding of all things from above." Irenaeus says, "When they were endued from above, they received a perfect knowledge of all things." Compare with James: "Every perfect gift is from above." It was this enduement which enabled Luke to write "accurately" (Greek, akribos). And all this fulfilled our Lord's promise that when the Holy Spirit comes, "He shall teach you all things," "He shall guide you into all truth." Therefore the merely human histories of our Lord perished. Therefore only inspired histories could give "certainty" to the things in which we are instructed. They add that in this very brief context, when Luke would express the idea of "from the first," or "from the beginning," he uses the unmistakable Greek words, ep' arches (Luke 1:2). And that their whole rendering best agrees with the meaning of the Greek word plerophoria– "certainly believed," and not "fulfilled." And with the other Greek word, parakolo – the, which does not mean to obtain knowledge by "tracing" or investigating. To Paul's per contra usage of the word anothen they reply: he uses it only twice, (a) In his speech, reported by Luke at Acts 26:5, where the context demands the secondary meaning "from the first." (b) At Galatians 4:9 there is the modifying word palin, and the context forbids the primary meaning "again from above." My colleague, Dr. Williams, says that the whole contention depends on whether the adverb anothen in Luke 1:3 is one of locality or of time, and that it cannot be certainly determined which it is in our passage. The author prefers throughout, the common version rendering of the passage to the revision, and believes that the preponderance of the argument is with Lightfoot and Urquhart. JOHN'S We now take up the prologue of John (John 1:1-18), putting beside it Paul's contribution to the same matter. Place these references in the harmony, opposite or under John's introduction: Philippians 2:6-11; Colossians 1:15-20; Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 1:1-13; Hebrews 2:14-17; Hebrews 10:1-9; 2 Corinthians 8:9; Romans 8:3; 2 Timothy 3:16; Galatians 4:4-5. It is not our purpose to put in parallel with John's prologue any matter from Paul's Gospel except what touches our Lord's pre-existence, his nature and activities, his incarnation and its purpose. Let us first consider John. The first eighteen verses of John constitute the norm and outline of his whole book. So many propositions cannot elsewhere be found in so few words. As all mists of speculative philosophy concerning the origin of the material universe flee and fade before the sunrise of the first chapter of Genesis, so all heresies concerning our Lord and the eternal redemption of him are dispelled by the Sun of righteousness rising with healing wings in these beginnings of their gospels by John and Paul. It is far from my purpose to engage your finite minds in the impossible task of comprehending the unfathomable mystery of the tri-personality in the unity of God. It will content me if you will believe what is revealed. If we might trust for explanation to human philosophy we could not improve on the comparison of Sabellius, "God the Father is the sun, Jesus Christ is the sun's light, and the Holy Spirit is the sun's heat." Or we might regard the Trinity as only a distinction in office or manifestation. This was my own boyish attempt to explain it. My illustration was that of a teacher who was also a father and a magistrate. His own son, while at school, was guilty of a penal offense. This teacher must, therefore, deal with the delinquent in the threefold capacity of father, teacher, and magistrate, i.e., from the standpoint of the family, the school, and society. But none of these illustrations coincides with the teachings of revelation – there is one God, there are three persons, not three attributes or offices, or manifestations. Nor would I have you anticipate the more elaborate study of systematic theology. Let us barely touch it, and that only because it is here an essential part of our historic study. Therefore I compress into barest outline and simplest form this introduction of John. OF THE 1. The Logos 2. Creation by the Logos 3. In him all life 4. In him all light 5. This light is invincible by darkness 6. The Logos incarnated 7. Purpose of the incarnation 8. The supernatural birth of those receiving the incarnate Logos 9. The witness of John the Baptist to the incarnate Logos 1. The Logos. The first sentence announces a new name, "The Word" (Greek, O Logos). Whence this name? We will not waste our time in looking for its origin in the speculations of Philo, the Alexandrian Jew. His logos, mainly an energy or an attribute, and never an incarnate personality, is not the Logos of John. It serves us little better to wade through the muddy waters of Jewish traditions in any form. We have a surer word of prophecy to which we will do well to take heed. The reader is referred to our discussion on the conversion of Abraham, "Interpretation," volume on Genesis. There, for the first time in any record, we find the phrase, "The Word of the Lord." This Word, not as a voice addressed to the ear, but as a person addressed to his sight, appeared in a vision to Abraham, and as the specific object of saving faith. Before this experience Abraham had believed divine statements, had believed in a promised country, and in a promised seed, but here he believed on Jehovah himself as his shield and exceeding great reward, and it was counted to him for righteousness. "The Word of the Lord," "shield," "believed," and "imputed righteousness," a salvation group, here make their first appearance in the Bible record. The "Word of the Lord," as a Person, appears elsewhere in the Old Testament, notably in the Psalms and prophets, and is doubtless the personified wisdom of Pro 8:23-30. So that the Logos is Christ's pre-incarnate name and most aptly represents him as the revelator of the Father. In this light we understand better the abrupt and sublime formula of the first chapter of Genesis, repeated ten times, "And God said," "And God said," and following each utterance came a new creative act. These were the first ten commandments, the ten words of creation. On Sinai came the ten words of the Law. On the Galilean mountain came the Beatitudes, or the ten words of happiness. But always it is the Logos revealing the Father. Of this Logos, in one short sentence, John predicates three essential elements of divinity: (1) Absolute eternity of being, "In the beginning was the Word." (2) Distinct personality, "And the Word was with God" – two persons together. (3) The nature or essence of Deity, "And the Word was God." The absence of the article in the Greek before "God" in the third predicate clearly shows the meaning. The phrase is not, "the Word was the God," but "the Word was God," i.e., in nature or essence. The second verse sums up and emphatically repeats: "The same," i.e., this very one so described as an eternal, divine Person was in the company and fellowship of God throughout eternity. It was always so; it was so in the beginning. 2. By the Logos came the creation. Not merely the universe as a whole, but every minute part. Not matter merely to be left to develop itself, but every change and form of development. So Genesis represents it. By him everything came to be. There was no chance development. 3. In him was all life – vegetable, animal, spiritual. Not only as the start of life, but its continuance: "Thou takest away their breath, they die and return to dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created. And thou renewest the face of the ground." The nonliving can never develop into the living. But particularly does our author speak of spiritual life. Not only in him do we live and move and have our being, but from the beginning the Son of God has been the source of eternal life. 4. He is the light of the world. The only real light. There is no knowledge of God and no revelation of God except through the Son. He alone declares the Father. Man by searching cannot find out God. Cannot see him except as the Son reveals him. 5. The light is invincible: "The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness apprehended it not." It is somewhat difficult to determine the meaning of the Greek word here rendered "apprehended." The sense is either the darkness did not take possession of the light by appropriating it and becoming light, or did not hem it in, repress it, so as to conquer it. In the latter sense we make it read: "The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not." The context, particularly John 1:10-11, favors the first meaning, and the inability to appropriate the light finds vivid illustration in a parallel from Paul's Gospel: "And even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled in them that perish: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them." We may find abundant and striking illustrations of the other possible meaning. Even on the cross, in the hour of the power of darkness, when for three mortal hours the thick darkness filled and enveloped the dying one – even then the darkness overcame it not. Once in the dawn of creation darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Word said, "Let there be light!" And there was light, and the darkness overcame it not. Once in our experience we were in darkness, but God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, shone into our hearts, giving us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ. And the darkness has never been able to quench that light. Upon us also will come the darkness of death, but our Saviour Jesus Christ has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, and will transfer us to a home and condition of which it is said, there is no night there. And so the light is indestructible and the darkness cannot overcome it. 6. This Word was manifested and became flesh. It was not a mere assumption of human nature like the putting on of a garment, but the Word came to be a real man. That is a vital doctrine as the author continues to insist elsewhere: "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." "For many deceivers have gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh." 7. The purpose of the incarnation was to bring grace and truth to the fallen. He was full of grace and truth, that is, for mercy and revelation. 8. The recipients of this mercy and revelation obtained the right to become the sons of God by a supernatural birth, being born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 9. Prophecy, in its culmination in John the Baptist, recognized and identified and witnessed that this was the true light. Such, in brief, is John's prologue. Let us put beside it the beginnings of Paul's Gospel: "For there be many that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth; and there are gods many, and lords many; yet to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him" (1 Corinthians 8:5-6). "At the end of these days God hath spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds; who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. . . . Of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. . . . And thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundations of the earth . . . and when he again bringeth the first-born into the world, he saith, Let all angels of God worship him" (Hebrews 1:1-6). "The Son of his love is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all things and in him all things consist" (Colossians 1:15-17). "Christ Jesus, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of man; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of beings in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:6-11). "And without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness: He who was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Received up into glory" (1 Timothy 3:16). "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3). "But when the fulness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Galatians 4:4-5). "Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to naught him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all of them whom, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Hebrews 2:14-15). "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offerings thou wouldest not. But a body didst thou prepare for me; . . . Then said I, Lo, I am come, (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do thy will, O God" (Hebrews 10:5-7). "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). These excerpts from Paul are not exhaustive, but samples merely in his Gospel correlative with John's Prologue. They establish the absolute eternity, personality, and deity of our Lord Jesus Christ and exhibit his relations to the Father in both eternity and time, his relations to the universe and to man, and make very clear not only the incarnation, but its objects. Paul uses the term, Son, in the place of John's Logos, and "new creation" as the parallel of John's new birth, and brings in the new term "adoption" to express the legal process of becoming sons. A critic affects to find this contradiction between John's and Paul's Gospels use of the incarnation, the former to take on glory, the latter to empty himself of it or to strip off glory. There is no merit whatever in the criticism. John, as well as Paul, shows that Jesus laid aside his heavenly glory to become a man (John 17:5), and Paul, as well as John, describes the outshining of Christ's glory through the veil of the flesh and the acquiring of glory through his humiliation. Paul much more clearly and elaborately than John, expresses the various conditions, processes, purposes and beneficial effects of the incarnation. In this connection should be read the author's sermon on "The Nature, Person, Offices, and Relations of Our Lord," preached before the Southern Baptist Convention at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and published by order of that body in pamphlet form and recently reproduced in a volume of sermons published by the Fleming H. Revell Company. 1.What question confronts us at the threshold of the texts of the five histories of our Lord? 2. Show why this is not merely a question of inspiration. 3. Nor of illumination. 4. Define revelation, inspiration, illumination. 5. In what three ways did the historians obtain a knowledge of their facts? Illustrate by John 21:24; revised version of Luk 1:2; and Galatians 1:11-12. 6. What always preceded a written gospel? 7. What is the necessity for written gospels? 8. For inspired gospels, give, quoting from Peter the inspiration of the oral and from Paul the inspiration of the written. 9. What three facts do you learn from Luke 1:1-4 concerning Theophilus? 10. What custom of apostolic times may be inferred from the word "instructed," Luke 1:4? 11. When Luke refers to the many written narratives of our Lord, does he refer to Matthew or Mark? 12. In what respect does Luke consider his narrative superior to the "many narratives" to which he alludes? 13. What great question has arisen from this dedication of Luke? 14. Which of these contentions does the revision evidently support? 15. Name three authors supporting the other contention. 16. Give in substance the argument of Urquhart, and what do you think of it? 17. What one change in the common version of Luk 1:1-4 will pat it in harmony with the Urquhart view? John's Prologue. 18. What must you place opposite John's Prologue to parallel Paul's Gospel on our Lord's pro-existence, its nature and activities, his incarnation and its purposes? 19. Give in briefest form an analysis of the Prologue. 20. Show why John did not obtain tibia new name – O Logos, the Word – from Philo. 21. Where did he get it? 23. How does this enable us to understand Genesis 1? 23. Can you give the ten words of creation, the ten words of the law, the ten words of happiness? 24. What are the three essential elements of Deity predicated of the Logos in. John's first sentence? 25. The relations of the Logos to the universe? 26. Meaning of "In him was life"? 27. How is he the light of men? 28. Two possible meanings of "The darkness apprehended it not. 29. Cite a parallel from Paul of the first possible meaning. Give illustrations of second possible meaning. 30. How was the Logos manifested and what is the relative importance of the doctrine? 31. According to the Prologue, what is the purpose of the incarnation? 32. What right was conferred on those who receive the incarnate Logos and how accomplished? 33. How does the witness of John the Baptist attest the pre-existence of the incarnate Logos? 34. What was Paul's name for John's Logos? 35. What is his description of the pre-existing Son? 36. What passages from his attest the activities of the Son before his incarnation? 37. What passages the purposes of his incarnation? 38. Instead of John's "new birth," what is equivalent of Paul's? 39. His legal name for this sonship? 40. Reply to the criticism that John uses the incarnation as a means of our Lord to take on glory, and Paul as a method of emptying himself of glory. V OF MATTHEW AND LUKE Broadus' Harmony pages 5-6 and Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 1:5-80; Luke 3:23-38. We have noted in a previous chapter John's and Paul's account of the divine side of our Lord's existence, personality and activities before he became flesh. Now we consider, in Matthew, Luke, and Paul, his human side, human antecedents, human birth, and early life. We find Matthew's account in Matthew 1-2, and Luke's account in Luke 1-2 with the closing paragraph of Luke 3. Matthew's incidents are his genealogy, birth, the visit of the magi, the flight into Egypt, the massacre of the babes at Bethlehem, the return to the land of Israel, and resettlement at Nazareth in Galilee. Luke's incidents are the announcement to Zacharias of the birth of his son, John the Baptist, our Lord's forerunner; the announcement to Mary of the birth of our Lord; Mary's visit to Elisabeth; the birth of John the Baptist according to announcement; the birth of our Lord at Bethlehem; the announcement to the shepherds of that birth; the circumcision of our Lord; his presentation in the Temple with attendant circumstances ; the return to Nazareth; the development there of his childhood; the visit to the Temple when our Lord was twelve years old; the return to Nazareth and his development; into manhood; and his genealogy. On this entire section we submit several general observations: 1. Matthew's entire account is written from the viewpoint of Joseph, and for Jews. His genealogy is the genealogy of Joseph according to the legal Jewish method. Gabriel's appearance to Joseph is to explain Mary's condition. Indeed, all the four supernatural directions for the family movements come in dreams to Joseph. Every incident and every Old Testament quotation conspire to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the foretold and long-expected King of the Jews. 2. Luke's entire account is written from Mary's viewpoint and to show our Lord's broader relations to humanity. His genealogy is real, not legal. It is Mary's genealogy, not Joseph's, our Lord's relations to Joseph being only a Jewish, legal supposition. While indeed it shows that Mary was a Jewess) really descended from David and Abraham, yet her genealogy extends back to Adam, in order to prove that her Son was the second Adam, and literally fulfilled the first gospel promise, "The seed of the woman [not of the man] shall bruise the serpent's head." It is to Mary, Gabriel announces her conception of a Son, by the Holy Spirit, who because thus sired shall be holy, the Son of God. It is to Mary the angel announces the condition of Elisabeth, and thus prepares the way for Mary's visit to Elisabeth. All of Luke's other incidents are those which Mary "kept in her heart." The conjecture that Luke's genealogy is also traced through Joseph is puerile in itself, utterly gratuitous, and at war with Luke's whole plan. It is to invent a difficulty and then invite the harmonists of the two genealogies to settle it. Why should they be harmonized? They have different starting points (a legal son, a real son) and different objectives (Abraham – Adam); they are not even parallel lines, since they meet and part. 3. We here confront what Paul calls "the great mystery of Godliness" – the incarnation of our Lord. Isaiah, who had already foretold his virgin birth, in a clear prophecy concerning him, says, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). Quoting Isaiah, and because the virgin mother is with child by the Holy Ghost, Matthew says, "His name shall be called Immanuel (God with us)." In explanation of the way a virgin can become a mother, Luke's angel says to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the Holy One who is begotten of thee shall be called the Son of God." Mark says, "Jesus Christ, the Son of God." John says, "The Logos which was God, was manifested and became flesh." Paul says, "He who was the effulgence of God's glory and the very image of his substance," (Hebrews 1:3) "who existed in the form of God . . . was made in the likeness of man (Philippians 2:6-8) was born of a woman" (Galatians 4:4). Not otherwise could he escape the hereditary taint of Adam's sin (Genesis 5:3); not otherwise could he fulfil the protevangel, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head" (Genesis 3:15); not otherwise could he be the Second Adam, the second head of the race (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49). Grant this one miracle, the greatest and most inclusive, and all others naturally follow. Deny this one, and there is no need to deny or even consider others (1 John 4:1-3). 4. Only twice do we find in the Bible the phrase, "The book of the generations" applied respectively to "The first Adam" (Genesis 5:1), and to the Second Adam (Matthew 1:1). And concerning this Second Adam, well might Isaiah inquire: "Who shall declare his generation," (common version, Isaiah 53:8) especially since "His name shall be Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). 5. Nothing more commends the inspiration of the simplicity and reticence of this account of our Lord's infancy, childhood and growth to manhood, than to contrast it with the silly and incredible fables invented in the early Christian centuries to gratify a prurient curiosity concerning a long period of our Lord's life on which, beyond the few incidents recorded, our Gospels are silent. Nature, as well as grace, draws a modest veil over the period of conception, gestation, parturition, and development. Not only have these bald inventions concerning the infancy and childhood of our Lord disfigured the image in the mind naturally produced by the simple Bible story, but tradition, ever-increasing in imposture and lying, ad nauseum, has buried the few real incidents recorded under an accretion of fanciful enlargements, e.g., the incident of the magi, and even the blasphemies subverting the gospel and changing the very plan of salvation, e.g., the Mariology and Mariolatry developed from our simple gospel story of Mary by the Romanists of succeeding centuries. 6. Beyond the few incidents recorded of the first thirty years of our Lord's preparation for his public work, this is every syllable of the gospel history: Luke puts in four pregnant sentences the whole period, (a) concerning the development of his childhood, "And the child grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him" (Luke 2:40). (b) After the consciousness of his messiahship in the Temple, when he was twelve years old, "He went down with them (Mary and Joseph) and came to Nazareth; and he was subject to them" (Luke 2:51). (c) Referring back to his habit of attending the house of religious instruction at Nazareth, Luke later says, "He came to Nazareth where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read" (Luke 4:16); (d) Concerning his development to manhood: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). (e) Mark says that by occupation he was a carpenter (Luke 6:3). These are all the direct references. But we may easily gather from his subsequent history that he had studied the book of nature in its plants, flowers, fruits, birds, animals, soil and its cultivation, its crops, harvests and vintages; that he was a lover of children and close observer of their plays; that he was familiar with the customs of the family and of society; that he was well acquainted with the religious sects and political parties of his country and its relation of subjection to Rome. It is evident also from his movements that he thoroughly understood all the variations of government in the Herod family. As to literary attainments, apart from the evident religious training of a Jewish child, we know that he could read and speak fluently in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. He read and quoted at will and discerningly from both the Hebrew and the Greek versions of the Old Testament. Mark preserves and interprets many of his Aramaic expressions. 7. We should commence Matthew's genealogy thus: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, called Immanuel (God with us)." And, allowing Paul to supplement Luke's genealogy thus: "The Second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven, Jesus Christ himself (supposed son of Joseph) was the son of Heli," and so on back to the first Adam. 8. In these two accounts of our Lord's infancy are eight distinct annunciations, adapted in time, place, medium, means, and circumstances to the recipient, together with eight other supernatural events. (1) The annunciation by the angel Gabriel, in a vision, to Zacharias, ministering in the Temple, of the birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord, and of Zacharias' dumbness until the event (Luke 1:5 f). (2) Gabriel's annunciation to Mary of the birth of our Lord (Luke 1:26 f). (3) The annunciation to Elisabeth of the presence of the appointed mother of our Lord, by her unborn baby's leaping for joy (Luke 1:41 f). (4) The angel's annunciation to Joseph, in a dream, of the supernatural conception of Mary (Matthew 1:18 f). (5) The angel's annunciation, in a vision, to the shepherds near Bethlehem, of the birth of our Lord (Luke 2:8 f). (6) The Spirit's annunciation to Simeon that he should not see death until he had seen the Christ (Luke 2:26). (7) Simeon's annunciation, by prophetic inspiration, to Mary concerning her Son, and concerning the sword that would pierce her own soul (Luke 2:34-35). (8) The annunciation to the magi, in the far East, by the appearance of a star, that the foretold and long-expected King of the Jews was born (Matthew 2:1 f). The eight attending supernatural events are, – the prophetic utterances by Zacharias, Elisabeth, Mary, and Anna, the three additional dreams of Joseph and the one of the magi. Thus there are three vision – to Zacharias, Mary, and the shepherds; five dreams – four of Joseph and one of the magi; one annunciation by the Spirit to Simeon, one of Simeon to Mary by inspiration, one by a star, one by the leaping of an unborn babe, besides the prophetic inspiration of four. 9. In Luke's account of the beginnings are five famous hymns, or the foundations from which they were later developed; (1) "The Hail Mary," developed by the Romanists from a combination of the angel's salutation to Mary (Luke 1:29) and Elisabeth's salutation to Mary (Luke 1:42), with some extraneous additions. (2) "The Magnificat," or Mary's own hymn (Luke 1:46-55). (3) "The Benedictus," or the song of Zacharias (Luke 1:68-79). (4) "Gloria in Excelsis," developed from the song of the angels (Luke 2-14). 5) "Nunc Dimittis," developed from the words of Simeon (Luke 2:29-32). 10. The gospel histories teach concerning Mary, the mother of our Lord, that she was a modest, pious, but poor Jewish maiden, of the line of David, betrothed to Joseph, a just man, also of the line of David. She was endued with grace, to become the virgin mother of our Lord, and this supernatural conception was by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Consequently her Son would be God's Son, and not man's. Being God's Son, he would be born holy, unstained through hereditary taint, and as he was the only human being so born, he is called the Only Begotten Son of the Father. Because of her selection to become the mother of our Lord, all generations would call her blessed. Her marriage to Joseph before the birth of this child constituted him legally, though not really, a son of Joseph. In all these things Mary humbly submitted herself to the divine will. She piously kept in her heart all the attending prodigies, circumstances, and prophecies of his nativity and childhood. While married to Joseph, she knew him not until after the birth of her divine Son, but afterward lived with him in all marital relations, bearing four sons, whose names are given, besides daughters not named (Mark 6:3). After Joseph's death, she followed her son, Jesus, with his younger half-brothers and sisters. From the record it is evident that more than once she was not without fault. On the whole, however, the impression left on the mind by the history is most charming. A maiden, chaste, modest, pious, and meekly submissive to God's will, a true wife, a devoted, self-denying mother, patiently bearing all the sorrows attendant upon being the mother of her Saviour son. Well might Simeon say to her, "Yea, and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul," on which prophecy has been written a book of merit entitled The Sorrows of Mary. At the death of Jesus, her other sons being poor and un- believers, she was taken to the home of John the apostle, in Jerusalem. What an unspeakable pity that religious superstition has foisted upon this simple, charming, gospel story of earth's most honored woman, a monstrous Mariology of human invention, developed later into a blasphemous Mariolatry, which makes her usurp the place of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. As this hideous parasite on the gospel story of Mary roots in our lesson, we here give a summary of the invented. MERGED INTO The exaggeration of the meaning of the words: "All generations shall call me blessed." This blessedness, because a privilege, was declared by our Lord himself to be inferior to the blessings on personal obedience and service (Luke 11:27-28), and because this was a fleshly relation to our Lord, he declared it to be inferior to spiritual relations, which all may share (Mark 3:31-35). Mary was a perpetual virgin, – that is, never knowing a man, and being the mother of only one child, Jesus. This was the earliest of the doctrines in point of time, and some Protestants today, for sentimental reasons, hold to it. Mary free from actual sin. This freedom from actual sin, originally at least, was attributed to the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, supposed to be exerted either after she was conceived or before she was born, as Jeremiah and John the Baptist were supposed to be sanctified, or else at the time the Holy Spirit came upon her at the conception of Christ. Mary free from original sin. This was a late development of doctrine concerning Mary. There was no official and authoritative form of it before the sixteenth century. The Council of Trent, A. D. 1570, closed its decree on original sin with these words: "This same holy synod doth nevertheless declare that it is not its intention to include in this decree, where original sin is treated of, the blessed and immaculate Mary, the mother of God; but that the constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV, of happy memory, are to be observed, under the pains contained in the said constitutions, which it renews." This official deliverance is a positive declaration of Mary's freedom from original sin, and by the term "immaculate," would seem to declare her exempt from actual sin. The doctrine, however, culminates in positive form in the decree promulgated to the Roman Catholic world by Pope Pius IX, December 8, 1854. In this decree the Pope claims: First, that he pronounces, declares, and defines "under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost;" second, that what he sets forth is by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and in his own authority. The matter thus decreed and promulgated is as follows: "The doctrine which holds the blessed virgin Mary to have been, from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was revealed by God, and is, therefore, to be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful." The decree closes with the double anathema: First, that any who presume to even think in their hearts contrary to this deliverance stand self-condemned, have made shipwreck concerning the faith, and have fallen away from the unity of the church. Second, that they subject themselves to the penalties ordained by law, if by word or writing, or any other external means, they dare to signify what they think in their hearts. You will observe, particularly, that this decree affirms that the doctrine of Mary's freedom from original sin was revealed by God. The natural presumption is that this revelation is to be found in the Holy Scriptures. In this document the Pope does not claim that it was a special revelation to him, but that he is inspired to pronounce, declare, and define past revelations. If God revealed it in the Holy Scriptures, it is strange that we cannot find it. This doctrine of Mary's freedom from original sin, which thus culminated, historically, December 8, 1854, may be said to have crystallized July 18, 1870, when the Vatican Council thus declared the infallibility of the Pope: "It is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in the discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal church, by the divine assistance promised him in the blessed Peter, he is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his church should be endowed for defining doctrines, faith and morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the church." She is the Mediatrix between Christ and man, as Jesus Christ is the Mediator between God and man. In other words, this element of the doctrines makes Mary take the place of the Holy Spirit) that is, we must reach Christ through Mary The development of the doctrine is shown in various works of art. For example, there are paintings which represent Christ as seated, and Mary below him, then later a painting of Christ and Mary on a level; and finally a painting representing Mary above Christ, who is angry at the world, and Mary is beseeching his favor for the world. Mary, not Jesus, bruises the serpent's head, or destroys Satan. As the preceding element of this doctrine puts Mary in the place of the Holy Spirit, so this element makes her take Christ's office. Mary the queen of heaven. Mary the fountain of all grace, received by man and the only hope of salvation. This element puts her in the Father's place. Mary an object of worship. Mary's body was never allowed to see corruption, but was taken up to heaven, glorified, as the body of Christ, or that of Enoch or Elijah. This last element of the doctrine, the assumption of Mary, has not been formally put forth by Pope or Council, but is propagated and defended in the standard Romanist literature. Any thoughtful man, considering these doctrines concerning Mary, must see that they made a radical, vital, and fundamental change of the gospel as understood by all Protestants and constitute another gospel, which is not the gospel. It makes the Romanist Church the church of Mary, rather than the church of Christ. Indeed, if we add its traditions concerning the See of Rome and Peter, the name should be: The Romanist Church of the Traditions concerning Mary and Peter. It would be easy to show that each of these elements of doctrine was transferred, for reasons of expediency, from heathen mythology and worship. The question naturally arises, What scriptures do they cite for these stupendous claims? In support of the perpetual virginity of Mary they cite Ezekiel 44:1-3 : "Then he brought me back by way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. And Jehovah said unto me, This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, neither shall any man enter in by it; for Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut. As for the prince, he shall sit therein as prince to eat bread before Jehovah; he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same." They claim that this language is typical of and applicable to Mary's perpetual virginity. Some of them quote the Son 4:12, as follows: "A garden shut up is my sister, my bride; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." So far as I know, these are the only scriptures cited that seem to have a positive bearing on the doctrine. Negatively, they contend that the brothers and sisters of Jesus mentioned in Mark 6 and other places were not the children of Joseph and Mary, but of Mary's sister, hence cousins of our Lord. Some Protestants who hold to the perpetual virginity of Mary claim that these were children of Joseph by a former marriage, therefore older than our Lord. Both Romanists and Protestants who hold to this doctrine cite John 19:25-27, where Christ on the cross consigns Mary to John's are, and argue from this that Mary had no son of her own other than Christ. They forget the extreme poverty of the family of Joseph, including himself, Mary, and all of the children, and that these younger half-brothers of our Lord were not at this time believers in Christ, as is evident from John 7:5. We have already shown that John possessed wealth and a home of his own at Jerusalem, which Mary and her sons did not have. Of Mary's freedom from actual sin, they cite the Son 4:7 : "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," and also from the apocryphal book of Wis 1:4 : "For wisdom will not enter into the malicious soul nor dwell in a body subject to sins." In support of the theory that Mary mediates between man and Christ, they cite John 2:3, where Mary makes known to her Son the need of wine at the marriage of Cana of Galilee. To maintain that Mary, not Jesus, bruises the serpent's head, the Romanist Bible, both the Vulgate and their English version, makes Genesis 3:15 read: "She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel." To support the doctrine that Mary is the mother and fountain of all grace to man, they quote Luke 1:28, and render it: "Hail, full of grace!" In support of the assumption that Mary is the queen of heaven, their commentators cite Revelation 12:1, and claim that it is an allusion to "our blessed lady." In replying to these various items of Mariology and Mariolatry, it is fairly to be inferred from Matthew 1:25 that Joseph did know Mary as a husband after the birth of Christ, and it certainly best accords with the obvious meaning of Mar 6:3, and various other references, that the four brothers named are real brothers, and not cousins. That Mary was not free from actual sin is evident by our Lord's rebuke of her at Luke 2:48-49; John 2:4; Mark 3:21 connected with 31-35. There is no scriptural support at all relevant to the matter in hand of Mary's freedom from original sin. The quotations cited by Romanists are, on their face, irrelevant. The assumption that Mary is the fountain of all grace evidently misinterprets the words of the angel, "Hail, Mary, endued with grace." It is grace then and there conferred, and not original source of grace. It indeed shows that she was a daughter of grace, not its mother. That Mary's body never saw corruption is a fabrication without any foundation whatever. To make the symbolic woman of Rev 12:1 to be a real woman, whether Mary or any other woman, is a gross violation of the law of interpretation of symbols. You might just as well make the woman in purple and scarlet riding upon the seven-headed, THE MEMBERS OF THE HEROD FAMILY NAMED IN THE NEW Herod himself is "Herod the king" named in Matthew 2:3-19, ruler of the Jews at Christ's birth. He was surname' "The Great" and was really a man of great capacity in public affairs, and in diplomacy successfully overreached both Pompey and Julius Caesar, and both Anthony and Augustus Caesar and thwarted Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. But he was . monster in cruelty and as bloody a tyrant as ever sat upon throne. His father was Antipater, the Idumean or Edomite, and his mother an Ishmaelite. Thus in the person of Herod, Ishmael and Esau sat upon the throne of Isaac and Jacob. His death is recorded in Matthew 2. He had about ten wives and many children. By his last will, subject to Rome's approval, he divided his realm among three sons, disinheriting all his other children whom he had not murdered. His children. Archelaus, named in Matthew 2:22, his son by his fourth wife, was, according to Herod's will, made king of Judea and Samaria. Rome did not approve of his title of king, but allowed him to be called ethnarch for nine years, and then for good cause removed and banished him, and converted Judea and Samaria into an imperial province under procurators appointed by Caesar. Pontius Pilate, an appointee of Tiberius Caesar, was procurator during the years of our Lord's public ministry. Another son, Herod Antipas, older brother of Archelaus, by the same mother, was made tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. (See Luke 3:1.) This was the Herod that beheaded John the Baptist (Mark 6:17-29), whom Jesus called "that fox," and to whom our Lord was sent for trial by Pilate. He held his office during the whole of our Lord's life after his return from Egypt. He built the city of Tiberias on the sea of Galilee, and was the second husband of that Herodias who caused the death of John the Baptist. This marriage was a threefold sin - his own wife was yet living, the woman's husband was yet living, and she was his niece. The oldest surviving son of Herod was named Herod Philip, disinherited by his father. He lived at Rome. The New Testament makes only an indirect allusion to him as Philip the brother of Herod Antipas, and the husband of Herodias (Mark 6:17-18). Herod's son by his fifth wife was also named Herod Philip, and he is the tetrarch of the Northern part of Palestine, called in Luke 3:1 "the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis." He built the cities of Bethsaida-Julius, and Caesarea Philippi. He was the best of all the ruling sons of Herod. It must be noted how several movements of our Lord were affected by these three sons of Herod. Because of Archelaus his parents took him from Judea to Galilee. Because of the unfriendliness of Herod Antipas he more than once removed from Galilee to the tetrarchy of Herod Philip. This Herod Philip, the tetrarch, married Salome, the dancing girl, who danced off the head of John the Baptist (Mark 6:2-28). She was his niece, the daughter of his brother, Herod Philip I, named above. Herod's grandchildren. First, Herod Agrippa 1. This is Herod the king, of Acts 12:1-4, who killed the apostle James, John's brother, and imprisoned Peter, and whose awful death at Caesarea is described in Acts 12:19-23. This Herod ruled over all Palestine like his grandfather. Second, Herodias, the wicked woman who left her husband, Philip, and married his brother, Herod Antipas, and brought about the death of John the Baptist because he denounced the iniquitous marriage (Mark 6:17-28). It is said that when the head of John was brought to her by her daughter, she drove her bodkin through the faithful tongue that had dared to denounce the infamy of her marriage. Herod's great grandchildren. First, Salome, the dancing girl named in Mark 6. Second, Herod Agrippa II. This is the titular king, Agrippa, before whom Paul spoke (Acts 25:13). Third, Bernice, his sister (Acts 25:23). Fourth, Drusilla, another sister, who married Festus (Acts 24:24). Of these the last six named were descended through Herod's second wife, Mariarnne, the Maccabean princess. THE NEW AND CAESARAs in the Old Testament "Pharaoh" is a title of all the Egyptian rulers, so always in the New Testament "Caesar" is a title of the Roman ruler. In the New Testament about twenty-seven times "Caesar" is so used, without the name of the particular Caesar. Twelve Caesars ruled at Rome from the birth of Christ to the close of the canon of the New Testament, and perhaps one more, Trajan, when John the apostle died. The names of the twelve in order, and the dates of their reigns, are as follows: Augustus 31 B.C. to A.D. 14 Tiberius A.D. 14-37 Gaius A.D. 37-41 Claudius A.D. 41-54 Nero A.D. 54-68 Galba A.D. 68-69 Otho A.D. 69 Vitellius A.D. 69 Vespasian A.D. 69-79 Titus A.D. 79-81 Domitian A.D. 81-96 Nerva A.D. 96-98 Three of these are named in the New Testament: Augustus, Luke 2:1; Tiberius, Luke 3:1; Claudius, Acts 11:28; Acts 18:2. Nero is referred to but not named (Acts 25:8). 1. What sections of Matthew and Luke are devoted to our Lord's early life? 2. What are the incidents given in Matthew? 3. In Luke? 4. From whose viewpoint is written all this section of Matthew? 5. From whose viewpoint Luke's section? 6. How does this account for the apparent discrepancy between their genealogies? 7. How does Paul characterize the incarnation of our Lord? 8. What passage from Isaiah does Matthew quote and apply to the incarnation? 9. What name of the child does Matthew give as expressive of the mystery? 10. What other passage from Isaiah gives names of the child expressive of this mystery? 11. How does the angel, in Luke, explain the mystery of a virgin becoming a mother and the resultant nature of the child? 12. Give Mark's name of this wonderful child. 13. How does Paul state the matter? 14. How does such a son escape hereditary depravity? 15. How does this alone fulfil the first gospel promise in Genesis? 16. According to Paul, what is the relation of Adam to Jesus? (See last clause of Rom 5:14.) 17. Give in brief Paul's argument on this relation in Romans 5:12-21. Ans. As through one trespass (not many) of one man (not one woman) sin, condemnation and death came upon all his fleshly descendants. So through one act of righteousness (death on the cross) of one man (the vicarious Substitute) justification, unto eternal life came upon all his spiritual descendants. 18. How does Paul further contrast the first Adam and his image transmitted to his fleshly descendants with the Second Adam and his image borne by his spiritual descendants? (See 1 Corinthians 15:45-49.) 19. What then may we say of this miracle of the incarnation? 20. Give the significant Bible usage of the phrase "The book of the generation." 21. Contrast the account of our Lord's infancy and childhood, given by Matthew and Luke, with the human inventions of traditions concerning the same period. 22. What two sentences of Luke, one concerning the development of his childhood, the other concerning his development into manhood, give the record of most of our Lord's earthly life? 23. What other sentence of Luke tells the whole story of his obedience to the Fifth Commandment? 24. What phrase of Luke discloses a religious habit of all his early life? 25. What question recorded by Mark reveals his occupation in all that early life? 26. What may we gather from the history of his subsequent life, as to his studies, observation and general information? 27. As to his literary attainments, how do you prove that he knew and spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek? 28. How should you commence Matthew's genealogy (allowing him self to supplement) and Luke's (allowing Paul to supplement)? 29. In the two accounts of our Lord's birth and infancy are eight annunciations, with eight other supernatural events, adapted in time, place, medium, means, and circumstances to the several recipients: give them, in order, and then show which three came by vision, which five by dreams, which one by the Holy Spirit, which one by an unborn babe, and which four by inspiration. 30. In Luke's account alone are five historic hymns, or the foundations from which they were developed. Name them in order. 31. Give the substance of the gospel teaching concerning Mary. 32. Give the several items of the monstrous Mariology and blasphemous Mariolatry developed by Romanists from the simple Bible story of Mary, and the scriptural proof they cite for each, and your reply thereto. 33. If we add to this Mariolatry its inventions concerning the See of Rome and Peter, what should this church be called? 34. Name the member of the Herod family mentioned in the New Testament, citing the passage in each case, and the relationship to Herod the Great, and which of these were descendents of Mariamne, the Maccabean princess? 35. How does the New Testament use the term “ Caesar?” 36. How many Caesars ruled at Rome from the birth of Christ to the close of the New Testament canon? 37. Which three are named in the New Testament and where, and which other alluded to and where? 38. It is supposed that John lived to the close of the first century A.D. then what other Caesar must you add to the twelve? VI OF MATTHEW AND LUKE Scriptures same as for chapter V.MATTHEW'S Genealogy.There are three notable peculiarities in Matthew's genealogy. The first is, he commences with the rare phrase, "The book of the generation," found nowhere else except in Genesis 5:1-3, concerning the first Adam. The uniqueness of this peculiarity and the correspondence between Matthew 1:1 and Genesis 5:1, are of evident design. The proof of the design appears from Paul's discussion of the matter. First, Paul says there are two Adams, the first a figure or type of the Second (Romans 5:14). The first was created; the Second was the only begotten Son. In Romans 5 Paul adds that as through one trespass of one man (the first Adam), sin, condemnation and death came upon all his descendants, so through one act of righteousness (on the cross) of one man, the Second Adam, justification unto eternal life came upon his descendants. The parallel or contrast between the two Adams he further discusses thus: "So also it is written, the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit, that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." The second peculiarity of Matthew's genealogy consists in his division of the time from Abraham to Christ into three periods thus: From the patriarchy (or family rule in Abraham) , to the theocracy (or national rule at Sinai); second, From Abraham to David; from David to the captivity; from the captivity to Christ. Some have managed to find a difficulty in Matthew's making three sets of fourteen with only forty-one names. But Matthew does not say that there were three sets of fourteen names, but three sets of fourteen generations. The generations here, as many times elsewhere, mean time periods. It is about equivalent to saying from Abraham to the earthly monarchy, first period; from the earthly monarchy to its downfall, second period; from the downfall of the earthly monarchy to the coming of the spiritual King, third period. This period division suits Matthew's plan as the book of the King. David, the typical king, is the central figure of three periods, which terminate in the antitypical or spiritual King. Matthew does not give every name, but according to the established method of Bible genealogies, he sometimes passes over a son to the grandson. Another writer, with a different plan, might make four periods thus: From the patriarchy (or family rule in Abraham), to the theocracy (or national rule at Sinai); second, from the theocracy to the beginning of the monarchy; third, from the beginning of the monarchy to the hierarchy (or high priest rule); fourth, from the hierarchy to Jesus, the true Patnarches, Theos, basileus, hiereus. Matthew's third peculiarity is, that contrary to Jewish custom, he names four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. As they are not named in the list of fourteen's, they must be named in this connection for other reasons. Two facts suggest the probable reason for naming these women. First, three of the four at least were Gentiles, and quite possibly the fourth. Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, Ruth was a Moabite, Bathsheba, the wife of a Hittite, was a granddaughter of Ahithophel, the Gilonite, and counsellor of David, who sided with Absalom, and afterward hanged himself. It is true that Giloh, his home city, was one of the mountain cities assigned to Judah at the conquest, but that does not prove that all of its inhabitants were Jews. Ahithophel does not act as a Jew, but with many other foreigners he accepted office under David. Eliam, otherwise Ammiel, his son, and father of Bathsheba, with Uriah, another foreigner, was one of David's mighty men. Bathsheba herself does not act like a Jewess, for she married a Hittite, Uriah, the war comrade of her father. So she probably, as the other three women certainly, was a Gentile. The ending "ite," as in Gilonite, usually, not always, indicates a Gentile tribe or nation. The second fact is that only one of the four, Ruth the Moabite, was chaste in life. Tamar, in the garb of harlot, deceived her father-in-law, Judah. Rahab was an open harlot in Jericho, and Bathsheba was an adulteress. The fact of four such maternal ancestors seems to prophesy, in a way, that their coming illustrious Descendant would preach a gospel of mercy to the foreigner and to the fallen. Some writers have wasted much energy in endeavoring to reconcile Luke's genealogy with Matthew's. There is not the slightest reason to attempt it. Matthew gives our Lord's legal descent through Joseph'. Luke gives his real descent through Mary. As both Joseph and Mary were descendants of Abraham and David, they will in part coincide and in part diverge. The extent of the coincidence or the divergence is immaterial. THE TO – Luke 1:5-25 We have already seen that there were eight annunciations, as follows: To Zacharias, Mary, Joseph, Elisabeth, the shepherds, Simeon, Mary again by Simeon, and the magi. Some of these were by the angel Gabriel, some by the Holy Spirit and one by astronomical phenomenon. It is noteworthy that in every case the time, medium, place, and matter of the announcement are all adapted to the recipient and his or her circumstances. Just here we may note the contrast in the Bible between the offices of the angel Gabriel, and of the arch-angel Michael. Gabriel is sent always on missions of mercy; Michael always for the defense of God's people, for war and vengeance on their enemies. In the announcement to Zacharias the time is in the days of Herod the king, the scene is the Temple at Jerusalem, the place is the sanctuary or holy place, the hour is the time of the daily sacrifice. The circumstances of this announcement are: Zacharias, as priestly mediator, is burning the incense at the golden altar in the holy place, while the people outside are offering up the prayers represented by the incense. Twice every day, morning and evening, the people thus come to the Temple at the hour of prayer. (Compare Acts 3:1.) Being only a priest, Zacharias could not enter the most holy place; his ministrations stopped at the veil which hides the mercy seat, which is entered only once a year by the high priest on the great day of atonement (Lev. 16). The offering of the incense was the highest honor that could come to a priest, and as it was determined by lot, it might not come more than once in a lifetime to the same man. The perpetuity of these mediatorial ministrations was secured by dividing the descendants of Aaron into twenty-four courses, with fixed dates for one course to relieve another. As we see from the text, Zacharias belonged to the course of Abijah, which was the eighth. This division of the priests into courses was established by David, as we learn from I Chronicles 24. Zacharias himself had a burden. His wife was barren, and both were now old. While burning the incense which represented the prayers of the people, he himself was praying for a son. The medium of the announcement to him was the angel Gabriel, who comes with an answer to his prayer while he is yet praying, as he had come on another great occasion to Daniel (Daniel 9:20-21) The means was a vision. The matter was that not only would a son be born to him and Elisabeth, but his son would be a Nazirite, great in the sight of God, full of the Spirit from his mother's womb, the forerunner of the Messiah, to make ready a people prepared for him according to prophecy, in the spirit and power of Elijah, turning many of the children of Israel to God and turning the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the justified. This, like the honor conferred on Mary, was unique, occurring only once in the world's history. Zacharias was filled with unbelief because of the natural difficulties on account of the impotency of his age and the barrenness of his wife. Why did he not consider the similar cases of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, and the case of Hannah, the mother of Samuel? Zacharias might have known from these illustrious incidents of the past history of his people, that the supernatural can overcome the natural. Because of his hesitation to believe the words of the angel, a sign was given unto him – he should be dumb until the promise was fulfilled. THE TO MARYThe time is six months later than the annunciation to Zacharias. The place is Mary's home at Nazareth. The medium is the same angel, Gabriel. The matter is that she shall bear a Son, named Jesus, who shall also see the Son of the Most High, and who shall sit on the throne of his father David, ruling over an everlasting kingdom. The explanation of the prodigy of a birth without a human sire is, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee." Because also, God, not man, is the sire, this offspring shall be “ holy” in nature, and shall be called the Son of God. In all the human race this is "the Only begotten of the Father," and hence the only one born in the world without hereditary depravity. In this way only could be fulfilled the first gospel promise, "the seed of the woman [not of the man] shall bruise the serpent's head." Had he been the seed of the man he would have been born condemned on account of a depraved nature. He could not have saved himself, much less others. It is true "he was made under the law," but not under its condemnation on his own account. Since he was born holy by nature, and never sinned in practice, and obeyed all its requirements, the law could not condemn him except as a legal substitute for real sinners. It is this that made his death under God's law vicarious (Isaiah 53:4-12). So that one who rejects his birth of a virgin rejects the whole plan of salvation and the whole. Bible as the word of God. On this point there is not space for compromise as large as the point of a cambric needle, nor as broad as the edge of a razor. When a man says "NO" to the question, "Do you believe our Lord was born of a virgin?" you need not ask him any other question whatever. And if he says, "Yes," to this incarnation of God, the one supreme miracle, he need not quibble at any other in the gospel record. This one conceded, the others come like a conqueror, and from necessity. Luke 1:34-35 is the crux, pivot, hinge, and citadel of all controversies on the joined issue, Natural vs. Supernatural; Atheism vs. Christianity. We have already called attention to the monstrous system of Mariology fruiting in Mariolatry. The base of it all is in the angel's salutation to Mary: "Hail thou that art highly favored – thou that hast favor with God." It is a matter of translation. Shall we render "highly favored" (Greek, kecharitomene) "mother of grace," or "daughter of grace"? Does it mean "fountain of grace," or "endued with grace," i.e., grace conferred or found"? A Pope has said that Mary is the mother and fountain of all grace and our only hope of salvation. MARY’ S VISIT TO Here we note the reason of Mary's visit. The angel had informed her of Elisabeth's condition. In all the world, Elisabeth was the only being to whom the modest Mary could confide her own extraordinary condition. She needed a woman's sympathy and support. Never before and never again could two such women meet to confer concerning their unique motherhood. In all the history of the race only one woman could be the mother of the harbinger of our Lord, and only one be the mother of our Lord. The honors conferred on them were very high, and could never be repeated. As with the mothers, so with the sons. They would forever stand apart from all other men – each without a model, without a shadow, without a successor. The visit lasted three months. What the continuation of the intercommunion and holy confidences, what the mutual womanly sympathy and support in these three months we may infer from the beginning. At the salutation of Mary, -two mighty tokens of recognition came upon Elisabeth. The babe in her womb, the babe who was to be full of the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, leaped for joy. Upon her also came the power of God and she herself was full of the Holy Spirit. She was thus prepared to give the greeting her visitor most needed to confirm her faith in the embarrassing circumstances of her novel situation: "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a fulfilment of the things which have been spoken unto her from the Lord." After such greeting, the chastity and modesty of the virgin could no more be embarrassed, but upon her came a flame of inspiration that kindled that great song THE On this first Christian hymn, note: Its correspondence with the Old Testament hymn of Hannah, the mother of Samuel (1 Samuel 2:1-10). Hannah's song is the model of Mary's. The correspondence is as remarkable in the circumstances as in the matter of the song. Israel under Eli had been brought very low. The barren Hannah prayed for a child and promised that she would dedicate him to Jehovah as long as he lived. Her illustrious son was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. He reformed Israel and established the monarchy in David. What a solemn historic lesson, God's preparation of the mothers of the good and the great, and the devil's preparation of the mothers of the monsters of vice and cruelty! Compare the mothers of Augustine, Washington, Andrew Jackson, S. S. Prentiss, with the mother of Nero. To the question, Where should the education of a child commence, Oliver Wendell Holmes replied, "With his grandmother." Think of the faith of Timothy, "which was first in his grandmother, Lois, and in his mother, Eunice " Note the three divisions of Mary's hymn: First as it relates to herself (Luke 1:46-49). Second, as it relates to God's moral government of the world (Luke 1:50-53). Third, as it relates to Israel (Luke 1:54-55). The blessing on the individual Christian widens into a blessing on the people of God, and enlarges into a blessing on the world. How minute in application, how comprehensive in scope, and how correlated in all its parts, is God's moral government of the universe! Dr. Lyman Beecher, the greatest of all the Beechers, when asked, "How long were you in preparing your great sermon on 'God's Moral Government' ?" replied, "Forty years." While the hearers were astounded at the greatness of his production, he himself lamented the short time for preparation. Note the expression in Luke 1:50, "and his mercy is unto generations and generations of them that fear him," and mark its origin and import in the Old Testament, to wit: While he visits the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generation, he visits his mercy to the thousandth generation on the children of them that fear him. THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST – Luke 1:57-66 Observe the naming of a Hebrew child at his circumcision. Hence pedobaptists, contending that baptism comes in the place of circumcision, name the child at its baptism and call it "christening." The great homiletical theme: "What then shall this child be?" (Luke 1:66.) The inspired song of the father. This is called THE from the first word, "blessed." This is the second Christian hymn. It is divided into two distinct parts: First, the ascription of praise to God for his continued mercy to his covenant people, Israel, according to promise and prophecy from Abraham's day (Luke 1:68-75). This promise was messianic – "to raise up a horn of salvation in the house of David," "horn" meaning a king or kingdom of power, as in Daniel's apocalypses, and in Revelation. Daniel 8:3, the ram with two horns of unequal length, represented Persia united with Media. Daniel 8:5-9, the one "notable horn" of the he-goat was Alexander the Great, and the "four horns" his four successors. The "little horn" rising later was Antiochus Epiphanes. Daniel 7:7-8, the "ten horns" of this fourth beast were the ten kingdoms into which the fallen Roman empire was divided, and the "little horn" was the papacy. So when Zacharias says, "Thou hast raised up a horn of salvation in the house of David," it means the Messiah, David's greater Son. One of the prophecies to which Zacharias refers Isaiah 2 Samuel 7:12-13, with which compare Isaiah II. It is evident, therefore, that Zacharias speaks his benediction on God because of spiritual messianic mercies. The second part of the benediction (Luke 1:76-79) is spoken to his son, John, because of his relation to the Messiah of the first part. John was to be (1) the prophet of the Most High. (2) He was to go before the coming Messiah and prepare the way for him. (3) His ministry was to give the people "The knowledge of salvation in the remission of their sins." We shall have much use later for this last item, when we devote a special chapter to John the Baptist, defining his place in the Christian system. For the present we note that a true disciple of John was saved. He had "knowledge" of his salvation. This knowledge is experimental since it came through the remission of sins. We are not surprised, therefore, that his candidates for baptism "confessed their sins," nor that his baptism was "of repentance unto remission of sins," as Peter preached at Pentecost (Acts 2:38) and was in harmony with our Lord's great commission given in his gospel: "Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all nations beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47). "The Dayspring from on High" (Luke 1:78) is our Lord himself, the Sun of righteousness, in the dawn of his rising. 1. What is the first peculiarity of Matthew's genealogy? 2. Give proof that this correspondence with Genesis 5:1 was designed. 3. His second peculiarity? 4. Explain three sets of fourteen with only forty-one names. 5. How might another writer, with a different plan, divide the three from Abraham to Christ into four periods, and give their fulfilment in Christ in four Greek names? 6. Matthew's third peculiarity, and account for it? 7. How do you reconcile Luke's genealogy with Matthew'*? 8. Including Paul's contributions, how should Luke's genealogy com mence? Ans. Jesus himself, the Second Adam, who was the Lord from heaven (supposed son of Joseph) was the son of Heli. 9. Including a statement from Matthew himself, how should his genealogy commence? Ans. "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, called Immanuel (God with us), the son of David, the son of Abraham." 10. How many annunciations, to whom, by whom or what, and how? 11. How are all these annunciations adapted to the receivers? 12. Contrast the respective missions of Gabriel and Michael. 13. In the annunciation to Zacharias, give time, scene, place, medium, means, and circumstances. 14. Where was the golden altar of incense, the brazen altar of sacrifice, what was their relation to each other, and what was the doctrine? Ans. The brazen altar of sacrifice was in the outer court, the golden altar of incense in the holy place before the veil hiding the mercy seat in the most holy place. The relation was that expiatory sacrifice must precede offering up incense representing prayer based on expiation. First expiation of sin, then prayer. The incense was kindled by fire from the brazen altar. To kindle the incense with other fire was punished with death (see Leviticus 10:1-11; Numbers 3:4; Numbers 26:61; 1 Chronicles 24:2). The doctrine is that prayer must be offered in the name of Jesus the expiatory victim. 15. Why should the people offer their prayers through the medium of a priest? Ans. Being sinners they must approach God through a mediator. 16. Who these mediators? Ans. The sons of Aaron. 17. How was perpetuity in mediation secured and by whom established? 18. Of which course of the twenty-four was Zacharias? 19. Why could not Zacharias offer the incense in the most holy place, who alone could, and when? 20. What prayer did Zacharias offer for himself, was it answered, and how? 21. Crucial test question: Is it the design of prayer to influence God or merely to reflexively influence the petitioner? (Before you answer read Matthew 7:7-11; Luke 18:1-14; John 16:23-24; and the author's interpretation of the trumpets of Revelation 8:2-10:1. See his book on Revelation, pp. 131-159.) 22. Give time, place, medium, means, and matter of the annunciation to Mary. 23. How does the angel explain a virgin's giving birth to a child? 24. How does such a birth alone fulfill the first gospel promise? 25. How does it insure the child against hereditary depravity? 26. What three proofs must be made in order that Jesus escape condemnation on his own account? Ans. (1) He must be born holy – holy in nature. (2) He must be free from actual sin in life. (3) He must perfectly obey all the law. 27. These proofs conceded, then if he yet be condemned and die, what follows? Ans. His death was vicarious – a substitute for sinners (Isaiah 53:4-12). 28. What then is the effect of denying the virgin birth of our Lord? 29. What is the virtual relation of the incarnation to all other miracles? 30. How then must we regard Luke 1:34-35? 31. What is the base of all the Romanist Mariolatry? 32. Does the Greek word rendered "endued with grace," convey the idea that Mary was the mother of grace or a daughter of grace – in other words, that she is the fountain of all grace or the subject of grace conferred? 33. What has a Pope said of Mary? 34. Why did Mary visit Elisabeth? 35. How was it announced to Elisabeth that the mother of our Lord was present? 36. How naturally would Elisabeth's inspired response comfort and confirm the modest virgin? THE 37. What is its Old Testament model? 38. What historic lesson suggested, and illustrate. 39. Point out the three divisions of Mary's hymn. 40. Who preached a great sermon illustrating the second division? 41. What is the origin and meaning of "unto generations and generations" v.50? BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 42. On what occasion did Hebrews name their male children and why do pedobaptists in imitation christen their children? 43. What great sermon theme here? 44. Why song of Zacharias, so called? 45. What two divisions of the song? 46. What the nature of the first part and the relation of second thereto? 47. Meaning of "horn of salvation in the house of David"? Illustrate by "horn" from Daniel and cite two pertinent Old Testament messianic promises. 48. What three things in the second part of the Benedictua said of John the Baptist? 49. What does the last prove of a true disciple of John? VII OF MATTHEW AND LUKE Broadus' Harmony pages 7-8 and Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 2:1-20. THE TO JOSEPH – Matthew 1:18-25 On this paragraph of Matthew I desire to commend in the highest possible terms the critical and elaborate discussion by Dr. Broadus in his peerless Commentary on Matthew, pages 8-13. You will not be kind and fair to yourself if you fail, in this connection, to read every word of it. And having read it, you do not need any other exegesis of the passage. In the fear, however, that you may not read it now, I submit a few brief observations: While betrothal among the Jews preceded the consummation of marriage, it was an essential part of it, and just as binding as the consummation itself (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:23 f). A man might put away his betrothed for infidelity to her betrothal vows, either publicly, thereby necessitating her open condemnation under the laws cited above, or he might, at his own option, privately give her a bill of divorcement without assigning the cause. Or, as putting her away at all was not mandatory, he might forgive her and consummate the marriage. Joseph, being a righteous, not a vindictive, man when Mary's condition became obvious, was compelled to think on these things and determine his own course in the matter. Just at this juncture of his perplexity came the revelation which justified him in completing the marriage, without any necessity for forgiveness. It is easy to see why Mary needed the revelation at the beginning, while it was unnecessary for Joseph to understand until later, when he must take some step in the matter. The means of annunciation in the two cases indicate Mary's superior spiritual state, as open vision is a higher order of revelation than by dreams. In no case was Joseph endowed with open vision, but four times God directs him by dreams (Matthew 1:20; Matthew 2:13; Matthew 2:19; Matthew 2:22). The name "Jesus" means Saviour, and the salvation to be achieved by him was not political deliverance of his people from Roman rule, but salvation "from their sins." What a pity that his own disciples were so slow to understand the nature of the salvation, and how readily even Pontius Pilate acquitted him by the verdict, "I find no fault in him," when he understood that our Lord's kingdom was not of this world, and hence not a revolt against Caesar. Had the suspicious, bloody-minded old tyrant, Herod, understood, there would have been no massacre of the babes at Bethlehem. And even in our late day we need to be continually reminded of the real mission of our Lord. Let us make no mistake about this "salvation from sins." It is salvation through the vicarious expiation of sins satisfying the claims of justice. It is salvation from the guilt of sin by justification, through faith. It is salvation from the defilement of sin by the cleansing blood of Christ applied by the Holy Spirit. It is salvation from the love of sin through regeneration. It is salvation from the dominion of sin through sanctification. It is the salvation of the body through resurrection and glorification. We may not stop at salvation done for us, but must include the salvation wrought in us. Salvation has the legal aspects expressed by the appropriate words, expiation and justification. And further expressed in a commercial legal sense by redemption and ransom (1 Peter 1:18-19; Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:6). Woe to the teacher or taught who leaves them out I It has its biological aspect, expressed by birth from above, or a new creature, and life more abundant, expressed by sanctification. Woe to the teacher or taught who leaves these out or magnifies these by decrying the legal aspects! It has its human or experimental side, as expressed in contrition, repentance, faith, confession, reformation and all those fruits of the Spirit, love joy, hope, peace, as we walk in new- ness of life from grace to grace, from faith to faith, from strength to strength, perfecting ourselves in holiness, being changed more and more into the image of Christ, from glory to glory. And just as surely must we admit into this idea of salvation God's foreknowledge) election, and predestination. It is salvation from the power of Satan, the usurping de facto prince of this world. This name, "Jesus" is the same as "Joshua," who was a type of our Lord as captain general of the army of God, and as the one who would lead the people into the Promised Land of rest. This feature of the name "Jesus" is not discussed here, but is emphasized in the letter to the Hebrews and again in Revelation. Another feature of the name is brought out by Paul where, after and because of his expiation of sins on the cross, his name is exalted above every name (Philippians 2:9-11). Well might Peter say, "And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein ye must be saved" (Acts 4:12). All who heard or read it will cherish as a precious memory Dr. Winkler's great sermon before the Southern Baptist Convention on "The Name Above Every Name." We need to consider just here, in part, Matthew's application of Old Testament quotations. It is a broad and complex question extending to all other New Testament quotations from the Old Testament, as finding fulfilment in New Testament events. The case before us is an extreme one, and so if Matthew he-justified here in his construction of the quoted passage from Isaiah, the battle need not be fought over on cases not extreme. We cannot justify Matthew by an attempt to modify the obvious and natural force of his words, "Now all this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (God with us)." Matthew evidently conveys the impression that the author of the prophecy looked to the virgin birth here recorded as the fulfilling event. I say the author of the prophecy; I do not mean the prophet Isaiah. Matthew distinctly affirms that the prophecy "was spoken by the Lord." True, it was "through the prophet." But it was not necessary that Isaiah should understand. Isaiah might have seen only the child of the days of Ahaz concerning whom it is there said, "For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be forsaken." (See Isa. 7:13-8:4.) Just here comes in the much disputed double sense of prophecy. The double sense is not real, but is in the nature of an optical illusion which blends into one apparent mountain of several separate peaks which lie in one line of vision. A side view, from a different angle of vision, differentiates the peaks. The first and lowest peak in the line of vision is not really the last and highest peak. True, to the eye, looking at them afar off, they apparently blend into one. This limitation is in the nature of prophecy, which has no perspective, as in the nature of optics. New Testament interpretation is the later side view that differentiates the blended objects. For example, the Holy Spirit inspires David to speak of his great successor. David himself may understand that all of it applies to his immediate successor, Solomon. But the Spirit means his great, remote successor, Jesus. The vision does touch the foothill, Solomon, but goes on to rest on the higher peak, Christ, far beyond. There is no double sense. That is, what refers to Solomon does not mean Christ, and what refers to Christ does not mean Solomon. As seen afar off it appears to be one thing, but when the intervening distance is traversed the Solomon foothill is found to be quite a distinct and small affair compared with the mountain peak, Christ, which stood behind it and was optically blended into one view with it. Often, in the West, have I seen what appeared to be a single far-off blue mountain. But when approached nearer, and seen from a different angle of vision, as the road would turn, my one mountain became a whole range of separate, distinct peaks with intervening valleys. Mark my words: Only a very shallow truth lies in the catchword of the radical critics, ''The prophets speak to their own times." They indeed teach their own times, but they do not and cannot foretell their own times. (See 1 Peter 1:10-12.) In the very nature of the case, foretelling looks beyond the present. Two great tests apply to all foretelling in the name of Jehovah: (1) The thing foretold must come to pass (Deuteronomy 18:21-22). (2) Though it come to pass it cannot, as a sign, authenticate a violation of revealed law (Deuteronomy 13:1-3). In the light of these tests, Matthew's "fulfillments" of prophecy are all justified. He recorded his facts by inerrant inspiration. He interpreted his facts by adequate illumination. And that Matthew gets the true interpretation of the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 is evident if we look on to Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 11:1 f. Observe the last line of our paragraph: "And knew her not till she had brought forth her Son." Add to this Luke 2:7 : "And she brought forth her firstborn Son." Add yet Mark 6:3 – “ Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us?" To this add Mark 3:31-35, "And there came to him his mother and brethren; and standing without, they sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren? And looking round on them that sat about him, he saith, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." The natural, obvious import of these passages is that Mary, after the birth of Jesus, bore children to Joseph. Only strained, unnecessary, sentimental quibbling can break the obvious natural sense. We are more inclined to suspect the quibbling, when we consider the air castle superstructure erected on this foundation of quicksand. THE BIRTH OF JESUS – Luke 2:1-7 Dr. Broadus' footnote in his harmony is much to the point: "Observe how the ruler of the civilized world is unconsciously bringing it about that the Messiah, the son of David, shall be born at Bethlehem, though the mother's home was Nazareth. All the previous history of Rome and of Israel gathers about this manger." We may add, all their subsequent history also. Indeed, we may say that Jesus is the key to the philosophy of all history. Daniel's five world empires is an illustration; Revelation expands the thought to the end of time. Luke, in his Gospel and Acts, more than all the other historians, connects his story, at almost countless points of contact, with the history, geography, navigation, trade, chronology, religions, laws, customs, philosophies, literature, and games of both nations and localities, without the thought that he might be convicted of an anachronism. The most searching examination known to literature has never proved him at fault in the minutest detail of his story, by land or sea. Hasty criticism has indeed objected here and there to some detail, but has perished in the light of more elaborate research. Our short paragraph furnishes three cases in point: (1) A worldwide enrolment, by order of Augustus Caesar. It has been objected, first, that there is no historical proof of such decree, and second, that if decreed it could not apply to dependent kingdoms like Herod's. It is now conceded that Augustus did issue this decree, and according to Tacitus, the Roman historian, it did include the "Regna," or dependent kingdoms. This census was with a view to taxation. The evidence is abundant in the later history that the tax based upon the census was imposed and collected. (2) But, second, it is objected that Luke times the enrolment when Quirinius was governor of Syria, which was ten years later, and that only after Herod's death was Judea subordinate to Syria. This objection is far more plausible. See partial or possible explanation in Dr. Robertson's note (appendix to Broadus' harmony, pp. 239-240). We may add that Luke was well aware of the enrolment ten years later, for he himself discusses it in Acts 5:37. And no historian contradicts his explicit statement in our paragraph. Nor is there evidence that any heathen historian was so devoted to accuracy as Luke. No one of their histories, nor even Josephus, could bear the test of accuracy to which Luke has been subjected. (3) It is objected that a Roman census would require enrolment at the place of residence and not of personal or family nativity. The answer is every way sufficient that dependent kingdoms would be allowed to follow their own established methods. It was the settled policy of Rome to interfere as little as possible with the fixed customs of these kingdoms. Note the last clause of our paragraph: "there was no room for them in the inn." Upon this, one of the most touching gospel hymns was written, in which the line occurs, "There is room in my heart for thee, Lord Jesus." In my choir at Waco was a brilliant young lady who could out sing the birds, and especially in singing this hymn could make the stars sparkle. She was not a Christian. At a gathering of ladies in a private home she sang it with unusual power. I leaned over and whispered to her, "My child, you sing it beautifully with your lips, but is there room in your heart for the Lord Jesus?" She was instantly convicted of sin, and the following Sunday came with face illumined, as the shining of the faces of Moses and Stephen, saying with joy and tears, "I have not only given him a room in my heart, but all of it as his residence forever." Years later when, a happy wife and mother, she was dying, she took my hand and said, "He is still in my heart, and has called me to a room in his Father's house of many mansions." "No room for him in the inn" at his birth! The feeding trough of domestic animals his cradle. "With the wild beasts of the desert" in his temptation. In his life, while "the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, the Son of Man had not where to lay his head." A fish contributed his temple-tax, the gold of Gentile magi paid the expenses of his flight into Egypt, his own labor as a carpenter supported the family after Joseph's death, and sympathetic women ministered to him of their substance in his public ministry, at his death "a cross between two thieves" while his crucifiers gambled for his vesture, a borrowed tomb his place of sepulcher! Augustus Caesar, claiming divine honor, ruled the world, but his apostle John lived to see twelve "divine Caesars" come and go, with the thirteenth on the throne, and then to foreshow the downfall of them all Rome itself, like a volcano in eruption, overturned and swallowed up in the sea of nations. Very wisely the providence of God has left uncertain the exact date of his birth. We cannot determine with certainty the year or the month or the day in the terms of our era. We know that Augustus ruled at Rome, and Herod, the king of the Holy Land, was just about to pass away. The argument is very convincing that our present era, due to the Abbot Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, is at least four years too late. But we do not deem the matter of sufficient importance to attempt the reform of our calendar another time. For centuries Christmas, on December 25, new style, has been fixed in the customs and literature of all nations west of Russia and Constantinople. And if the Greek church prefers the old style, what signifies a difference of twelve days? The Christ was born, and salvation does not consist in the observance of days and festivals (Galatians 4:10 f; Colossians 2:16-23). We do know that he came in the fulness of time (Galatians 4:4), when the world was ripe for his advent, when "Great Pan" and all other heathen gods were dead and their oracles were dumb, when their philosophies had failed to alarm, comfort or save, when their civilizations had rotted, when good men despaired, when Rome united the world in government, when the hierarchy at Jerusalem and the ritual in the Temple were but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals and when the dispersion and the synagogue throughout the world were ready to supply the firstfruits of the gospel. Note very carefully that though impatient thousands had in every intervening age been shaking the hour glass of time to make its sands run faster (Luke 10:24), and confident interpreters insisted that this first advent was always imminent, that is, liable to happen any time from Eve's too hasty joy over the birth of Cain till Judas Maccabeus, God himself had fixed an unalterable day and kept narrowing the converging lines of all prophecies until they focused in one blended blaze of light on the new-born Babe in the manger at Bethlehem. From this great example, why cannot we learn that his final advent is not imminent, that is, liable to happen any day or hour, but like the first, must wait "the fulness of time" and the fixed, unalterable day, for Paul says, "Inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." THE TO THE – Luke 2:8-20 The birth of our Lord was not divinely announced to Augustus, Herod or the Sanhedrin – they would not have welcomed it – but to shepherds, who like David, watched the flocks of Bethlehem. Those who looked, longed, and waited for his first coming, were not left in the dark, nor will those like them be left in the dark at his final advent (1 Thessalonians 5:4). These shepherds of Bethlehem cared for the sacrificial flocks that were to be offered in the Temple. It was fitting, therefore, that they should know of the coming of the antitype, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. The time is the night of the very day of Christ's birth, the medium is an angel, the means – open vision. The glory of the Lord is the Shekinah or halo-symbol of the Divine Presence, well known in the tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of Solomon. Notwithstanding the awe naturally excited by this glorious visitation, they, like Zacharias and Mary, are exhorted to "fear not." The angel's mission is mercy, not wrath. The character of the message is good tidings of great joy to all the people. "To bring good tidings" means the same as to evangelize or proclaim the gospel. "The people" means strictly the Jewish people, but of course through them all other peoples. The message itself is: "There is born to you this day, in the city of David, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord." We have seen that Saviour means a Saviour from their sins. Christ is his official name and means the Anointed One. The Hebrew word is Messiah, Greek transliteration, Messias; Greek translation, Christos; English, Christ. Jesus was to be anointed to qualify him as prophet, priest, sacrifice, and King. We come to the anointing on the day he was inducted into his public ministry. (See in the author's first volume of sermons, The Anointed One.) THE SIGN OF HIS FIRST ADVENT "Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger." How appropriate the sign of him who comes disrobed of heavenly glory to enter on his life of humiliation, poverty, and sacrifice! When the apostles later ask for the sign of his final advent, in his glory, how appropriately different the sign, the appearance in world darkness of a "great white throne" of eternal judgment. (See Matthew 24:3; Matthew 24:30; Matthew 25:31; Revelation 20:11.) From the manger to the throne! HOW HEAVEN THE COMING Here we have the foundation of the third historic Christian hymn, "Gloria in Excelsis." In this hymn is a triple contrast, God – men; heaven – earth; glory – peace. This coming will make for glory to God in heaven, peace to men on earth. But the peace is not to all men – only to men in whom he is pleased. We note here how this child in his coming affects three worlds. In heaven every bell is ringing and every angel singing. Earth, in its humbler classes, is rejoicing and singing hymns. Its kings and senates' are indifferent, soon to be hostile. Hell is moved with fear and hate, stirring up the three Herods to kill – its old Herod (Matthew 2:16) ; his son, Herod (Mark 6:17-28); and his grandson, Herod (Acts 22:1-3). 1. What special comment on Matthew 1:18-25 commended? 2. Explain the relation of Jewish betrothal to marriage and what the Old Testament law on violation of betrothal vows? 3. Meaning of the word "Jesus"? 4. Full meaning of the salvation, from sin? 5. What Old Testament name is the same as "Jesus," and in what New Testament books is the relation between the two discussed? 6. Explain and justify Matthew's application of the Old Testament quotations. 7. Explain and illustrate the apparent double sense of prophecy. 8. What the two tests of prophecy? 9. Collate the two passages indicating that Mary bore children to Joseph. 10. What does Dr. Broadus ask us to observe on the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem? 11. What are the characteristics of Luke's history? 12. What are the three criticisms on his account of the birth of Christ, and your reply? 13. What is the gospel hymn written on "No room for them at the inn," and the incident given? 14. With what other expressions in his life does the "no room at the inn" correlate? 15. What can you say of the date of Christ's birth, our era and calendar? 16. Compare the first and final advent as to their alleged imminence. 17. In the message of the angels to the shepherds, what means "good tidings," "people," "Christ"? 18. What is the sign of the first advent? The second. 19. What is the triple contrast in the song of the angels? 20. Show how Christ's coming affected three worlds. VIII OF MATTHEW AND LUKE Harmony pages 8-10 and Luke 2:21-38; Matthew 2:1-12. THE OF JESUS – Luke 2:21 On this point the answers to two questions will be sufficient: Why was our Lord subject to this ordinance? and to what did it obligate him? Paul answers both questions: "He was born under the law that he might redeem them that were under the law" (Galatians 4:4-5). Circumcision made him "a debtor to do the whole law" (Galatians 5:2). To accomplish his ultimate mission of mercy to the Gentile world he must approach them through the Jews – "For I say that Christ hath been made a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God that he might confirm the promises given unto the fathers and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy" (Romans 15:8-9). So that his circumcision had a twofold purpose – to reach the Jews and through the Jews to reach the Gentiles. Being, through his mother, a lineal descendant of Abraham, it became him to magnify and make honorable the law in every minute respect. He himself said: "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy but to fulfill. . . . Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law till all things be accomplished" (Matthew 5:17-18). THE IN THE TEMPLE – Luke 2:22-38 This was the second step in the line of keeping the law. Circumcision was a family rite on the eighth day – this a Temple rite on the fortieth day. In this account we must distinguish what applied to Jesus from what applied to his mother. Two laws applied to his mother: (1) The forty days of purification required after bearing a first-born son (Leviticus 12:1-4). (2) The bringing to the sanctuary a lamb for a burnt offering and a turtle-dove or a pigeon for a sin offering. But in mercy the law provided: "If her means suffice not for a lamb, then she shall take two turtle-doves or two young pigeons – the one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean" (Leviticus 12:6-8). What a comment, then, on the family poverty when our text says she offered "a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons!" The laws applying to her Son were: (1) He belonged, as first-born, to Jehovah and must be presented to him. The historical ground of Jehovah's title to the first-born of man or beast was the salvation of Israel's first-born through the blood of the passover lamb on the night that Egypt's first-born perished (Exodus 13:2; Exodus 13:11-16). This obligated the first-born son to a consecrated service in the sanctuary. (2) But when Jehovah selected the tribe of Levi for sanctuary service in lieu of the first-born males of all the tribes, then the first-born of the other tribes were exempted from sanctuary service on payment of a redemption price of five shekels, which constituted a part of the means for supporting the tribe of Levi (Numbers 8:16; Numbers 18:15-16). So when Jesus was seven days old he was circumcised; and when forty days old was carried from Bethlehem to Jerusalem for presentation in the Temple, that the laws cited bearing on him and his mother might be fulfilled. The habit-blinded Temple officers saw nothing unusual in this observance of ordinary ritual. To them only a poor Jewish mother and her child had entered the gorgeous Temple of Herod. Like the unseeing man pilloried by Wordsworth: A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more. But this first appearance of our Lord in the Temple, as many subsequent ones, was to be signalized by mighty events. To one man and to one woman were given the seeing eye. One righteous and devout old man was looking for the coming Messiah, here called, according to prophecy, the Consolation of Israel. He had not only noted that the converging lines of type and prophecy had focused, but the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that his old eyes should not close in death until they had seen the Lord's Christ. It was like -the revelation to Enoch that his son Methuselah should live to the end of the antediluvian world, and like the revelation to Lamech that his son Noah should give rest from the flood and start a new race in the postdiluvian world. The Spirit, all the time resting on Simeon, gave him special prompting to go to the Temple at a certain hour, and there enabled him to recognize the Lord just entering in, borne by his mother. He took the child in his arms, blessing God and Joseph and Mary. Under immediate inspiration he spoke of three things: (1) Salvation, (a) It was a salvation prepared before the face of all nations. This preparation had been going on for 4,000 years. In some way the preparation had conspicuously touched every nation under heaven. The Old Testament records the story of the contact. The great world empires, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, were no more than smaller nations and tribes. The loom of God's moral government of the world was ever weaving its web. The nations, as colored threads, constituted the warp. His providence, like a shuttle, ever flying to and fro, supplied the woof. And now, at last, after 4,000 years of weaving the pattern of the web exhibits the Lord Jesus Christ as the central figure of all history. (b) It was a salvation, not only "to the glory of Israel," but as a revelation to the Gentiles. (c) After his eyes had seen the coming of this salvation earth had nothing more of honor to wait for he was permitted to depart in peace. Happy old man! What a glorious consummation of a long and faithful life! What a brilliant sunset of life, unflecked by a cloud I Well might a disobedient prophet say, Let me die the death of the righteous, And let my last end be like his. Contrast the hideous old age and exit of Herod with the old age and beatific departure of Simeon. (2) Concerning the Saviour, (a) "Behold, this child is set for the falling and rising up of many in Israel." Christ is the touchstone revealing the secret of every heart. Those who accept him rise. Those who reject him fall. He is a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. (b) He is set for a sign which is spoken against. This again depends on how he is presented or regarded. As a mere good man none spoke against him. But as God-man on the cross, expiating, as a substitute the sins of the world, voices from every class blaspheme his name and mission. (3) Concerning his mother. "Yea, and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul." Your attention has been called to a book entitled The Sorrows of Mary, based on this passage. The honor put on Mary was the highest privilege ever conferred on woman. When she thought of the honor, well might she sing: "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Saviour. . . . For he that is mighty hath done to me great things." But with this honor come many sorrows. She must see her Son pass beyond all earthly relations to become absorbed in the higher spiritual relations. She must witness his rejection, betrayal, and crucifixion. Her sympathetic maternal heart must lead her into a baptism of suffering on his account. Anna, the prophetess. Simeon, the aged man, is not alone as a witness. Here is a woman more than 100 years old. She had lived as a wife seven years, and had now been a widow eighty-four years. If she married at fourteen she would be 105 years old. She reminds us of Paul's direction concerning one "who is a widow indeed" (1 Timothy 5:5-10). After the death of her husband she devoted herself exclusively to the service of God in the Temple. Great joy comes to her old age. She, like Simeon, beholds the coming of the long-expected Saviour. Under the inspiration of the Spirit she testifies of the Christ to other waiting souls expecting the redemption. In the most degenerate days of impiety and public corruption God never leaves himself without witnesses. They are not in the high places, nor conspicuous in the congregations. They quietly wait and pray and serve. There are always more of them than men think. Elijah thought himself alone against the world. But God, even then, had reserved to himself seven thousand who had not bowed the knees to Baal. And so, says Paul, there is always "a remnant according to the election of grace." It is this remnant that constitutes the seed and nucleus of future revivals. In the dark days of Malachi, there were some faithful ones: "Then they that feared Jehovah spake one with another; and Jehovah hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him', for them that feared Jehovah, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith Jehovah of hosts, even mine own possession, in the day that I make; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not." And this "book of remembrance" will be among the "books opened at the judgment" (Revelation 20:12). THE VISIT OF THE MAGI – Matthew 2:1-12 On this notable event we submit the following observations: (1) The meaning of Magi. Nebuchadnezzar summoned all his "wise men" (Daniel 2:12) to reveal to him the dream he had forgotten and 'then to interpret it. In this case our word "magi" is made to include "magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and Chaldeans" (Daniel 2:2). The Chaldeans only of this list answer to the character of the Magi of our paragraph. They were astronomers, devoting much attention to the study of the heavenly bodies, and believing, not only that they were appointed for signs to the earth, as taught in Genesis 1:14, but had much influence for good and evil on earth's affairs, hence the question of the Almighty to Job: Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth? – Job 38:31-33 To like effect is the passage in Judges 5:20 From heaven fought the stars, From their courses they fought against Sisera, So the sun and the moon, at the bidding of Joshua, paused in their respective courses that the enemies of Israel might be utterly discomfited (Joshua 10:12-14). From astronomy, a great and proper science with the ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans, there was developed later the superstition of astrology, with its casting of horoscopes, which darkened medieval Europe. Later than Daniel's time we have another Old Testament use of the word "magi": "Then the king said to the wise men, who knew the times (for so was the king's manner toward all that knew law and judgment; and the next unto him were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media, who saw the king's face, and sat first in the kingdom)" (Esther 1:13-14). The Magi here are both princes and counselors to Ahasuerus (Xerxes the Great). It is evident from a comparison of our paragraph with the two instances quoted from the Septuagint, that Magi might be very wise and honorable men engaged in the lawful study of astronomy, and that if Jehovah made a revelation to them, it would be adapted to their line of study. (2) How would these Wise Men in the Far East be prepared to recognize a heavenly phenomenon as a sign of a coming Jewish king? Very much to the point is a prophecy under the compulsion of unwelcome inspiration, by an unworthy magian from the Far East, many centuries before the birth of our Lord. Balaam three times prophesies of a coming king of Israel who shall rule the nations. In his last prophecy concerning this king, he says, I see him but not now; I behold him but not nigh: There shall come forth a star out of Jacob And a sceptre shall rise out of Israel . . . And out of Jacob shall one have dominion. – Numbers 24:17-19 Then, in the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar this book, centuries later, was carried to the home of the Magi – Ezra on his return bringing back a copy (Ezra 7:6; Ezra 7:10; Nehemiah 8:2) and then the book of Isaiah was also shown to Cyrus, in which the prophecy, "Jehovah will arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the bright-ness of thy rising. . . . They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praises of Jehovah" (Isaiah 60:2-6). Moreover, all these holy books were kept in circulation in the land of the Magi, by resident Jews, until Christ was born. I say, then, in view of the prophecy of a magian concerning the star and the King, and of Isaiah's prophecy of Gentiles coming to his rising, naming the very gifts they would bring, and of the circulation of these books in their very midst by resident Jews up to Christ's birth, of which it was impossible for these Magi to be ignorant, it is easy to understand how these stargazers would connect the appearance of a new and brilliant luminary with the birth of the long foretold King of the Jews who would rule the world. (3) Was the star they saw the conjunction of heavenly bodies, appearing naturally at this time) or was it a miracle? You will find in Dr. Robertson's note, appendix to Broadus Harmony, a brief summary of the argument in favor of a natural phenomenon. I do not quote it, because such an explanation could not be made to fit Matthew's account, particularly, 2:9. It must be considered a miraculous appearance. (4) How many of these Wise Men, what were their names, were they kings, and what became of them? The record is silent. We had better follow the record. Of course, if you desire to follow traditional fancies, utterly worthless, you may learn from Gen. Lew Wallace's romance, Ben Hur, that they were three in number, and royal personages, and their names and countries, and how, contrary to Matthew's account, they lingered long and conspicuously, instead of returning quietly to their distant homes. Moreover, if you are given to the worship of lying relics, the next time you visit the famous cathedral at Cologne, the janitor, for a fee, will show you their bones in the shrine behind the high altar. Then will be justified the proverb: "A fool and his money are soon parted." The first time I visited New Orleans, an auctioneer of curios told me they were still selling to credulous visitors the cannon ball that killed Sir Edward Packingham in his great battle with Andrew Jackson. And I have heard that an auctioneer once tried to sell the sword with which Balaam killed his ass. When a bystander informed him that Balaam did not kill his ass, but only wished for a sword that he might kill him, the auctioneer was nothing daunted: "This," said he, "is the sword be wished for," and he sold is as an antique relic. (5) These Wise Men, quite naturally, went to Jerusalem with their question: "Where is he that is born king of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the East, and are come to do homage to him?" But it was not good tidings to Herod and Jerusalem. Both were greatly troubled – Herod, because he feared the downfall of his proposed dynasty; Jerusalem, because it dreaded political convulsions followed by bloodshed and destruction of their city. Herod summons the obsequious Sanhedrin and learns that Bethlehem, according to prophecy, was to be his birthplace. The cunning old tyrant, having gathered from the Wise Men the time of the appearance of the star, sent them to Bethlehem, with the charge to let him know if they found the child, that he also might come and worship him. (6) It seems that the Magi saw the star only twice: first, at its appearance in the East, and second, after they left Jerusalem on their way to Bethlehem, where the star led them, and then stood still over the house where Joseph and Mary lodged. (7) Observe that the first gift laid at the feet of Jesus was gold. On a great occasion, before our Texas convention, when the foreign mission cause was greatly suffering, I preached a sermon on the gold, frankincense and myrrh, the first gifts to Jesus, and as myrrh was used for both the holy ointment in the anointing of kings and prophets, and also for embalming, I made the gifts represent contribution, prayer, and unction, and that they should never be separated: We must contribute, we must pray, we must have the unction of the Spirit. A great collection followed for foreign missions. These Wise Men, having done homage to the new-born King, and warned of God in a dream not to return to Herod, went away into their own country. How dramatic their coming and their going! (8) Evidently they may be counted as the firstfruits of the Gentiles. 1. Why should Jesus be circumcised, and what was its twofold purpose in his case? 2. In the presentation of our Lord in the Temple, distinguish the laws as applied to him from those applied to his mother. 3. What two mighty events signalized this first appearance of our Lord in the Temple? 4. Is Luke 2:29 a prayer for an affirmation? 5. In the prophecy of Simeon, he speaks three things concerning salvation. What are they? 6. He speaks two things concerning the Saviour: What are they? 7. He speaks one thing concerning Mary: What is it? 8. Does "that thoughts out of many hearts be revealed," in v. 35, refer to what Simeon said to Mary, or to what he said of her Son? 9. What do you learn concerning Anna the prophetess? 10. Cite the Old Testament uses of the word "Magi," and what is its meaning? 11. What is the difference between astronomy and astrology? 12. How were these Wise Men prepared to recognize a heavenly phenomenon as a sign of the coming Jewish King? 13. Was the star they saw a junction of heavenly bodies appearing naturally, or was it a miracle? 14. How many of these Wise Men, what were their names, were they kings, what became of them? 15. What traditions concerning them are given in Gen. Lew Wallace's Ben Hur! 16. What have you to say about their bones now lying in the cathe dral at Cologne? 17. Why were Herod and Jerusalem troubled at the account of the Wise Men? 18. What wag the first gift ever laid at the feet of our Lord, and what providential use was made of it? 19. Tell concerning the sermon on "gold, frankincense and myrrh." IX OF MATTHEW AND LUKE Harmony pages 10-11 and Matthew 2:13-23; Luke 2:39-52 CLOSING OF MATTHEW'S – Matthew 2:13-23 In two respects the flight into Egypt is connected with the visit of the Wise Men: First a dream was sent to them not to return to Herod at Jerusalem, and another dream to Joseph to escape with the child into Egypt. Second, the Wise Men's gift of gold provided the means of paying the expense of the Egyptian trip. Before leaving the subject of the Wise Men, you will recall my warning against the unhistorical accretions to the simple story of them by Matthew. Now, as some compensation for the caution against unworthy legends, I commend with pleasure and without reserve a little book by Henry van Dyke, entitled: The Fourth Wise Man. It makes no pretension to be either history or tradition but, like a parable, has the verisimilitude of history, and is one of the most exquisite portrayals of great abstract principle and truth known to literature. If any of you are puzzled to select an appropriate gift for Christmas, New Year, a birthday or wedding, you cannot do better than to select van Dyke's little book, which contains The Fourth Wise Man, and other equally exquisite stories. Dr. Maclaren, in his extended exposition of Matthew, calls attention, with modified approval, to the contention of Delitzsch that Matthew's Gospel follows the plan of the Pentateuch, with a Genesis ending in a dreaming Joseph entering into Egypt to provide a nurturing home for Israel, Jehovah's ideal son. Then an exodus from Egypt, here fulfilled again: "Out of Egypt have I called my Son," followed by the Sermon of the Mount, which answers to the giving of the Law at Sinai; then the forty days of hunger and temptation of our Lord, answering to the forty years of -the wilderness wanderings in Numbers, etc. That there are points of striking correspondence between Matthew and the Pentateuch would naturally follow from the fact that our Lord is the ideal Son and Servant of Jehovah, of whom the national Israel was a type, and hence the history of ancient Israel is itself prophetic. The whole paragraph, Matthew 2:13-23, naturally divides itself into three parts: (1) The flight into Egypt, and the prophecy. (2) The massacre of the Bethlehem babes, and the prophecy. (3) The return to Nazareth, and the prophecy. We consider them in order: THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, AND THE This is the historic background of the symbolism in Revelation referring to a later persecution of the church and her converts. See the author's exposition of Rev 12:1-6. That passage must be interpreted as a symbol concerning future events, but it does prove that Satan, who here prompts the malice of Herod to drive Mary and her Son into Egypt, does there prompt a heathen emperor of Rome to drive the church into the wilderness and make war on her seed. The mistake to avoid is not, like Alford, to interpret the symbol so as to make it mean its historic background. One acquainted with the Old Testament history may easily observe that for ages whoever fled from persecution in Palestine quite naturally went into Egypt. It was the best of all places for Joseph to take the family while the bloody-minded Herod lived. It will be observed that from this time on it is the child, not Mary or Joseph, who occupies the chief place – "take the young child and his mother." They remain in Egypt until in another dream Jehovah notified Joseph "that those who sought the young child's life were dead," and directing him to return to the land of Israel, as Matthew says, "that the prophecy might be fulfilled, out of Egypt have I called my Son." This expression is a plain historical statement in the book of Hosea, and yet Matthew is justified in calling it a prophecy merely because the whole history of ancient Israel was prophetic. As has already been said, national Israel was Jehovah's typical son; Jesus was the ideal Israel, or the true Son of Jehovah. We observe that the latter part of Isaiah concerning "the servant of Jehovah," finds its application in the antitype, Jesus, and not in the type, Israel. THE OF THE BABES IN , AND THE On this incident in the history of Matthew, we submit the following observations. Some critics have affected to discredit the historical character of Matthew's incident because it is not mentioned in Josephus. The reply to the criticism is – The gospel historians, writing directly upon a more limited topic than Josephus, do not need any confirmation from him. The greater part of the New Testament would have to be rejected if it must be proved from Josephus. Bethlehem was merely a village, and the number of male children two years old and under would not exceed twenty. The killing of twenty babies by Herod was a small item in his bloody record, quite infinitesimal in comparison with many other of his deeds of cruelty. Josephus was not merely a Jew, but a sycophantic admirer of the Romans. He would necessarily avoid many references to our Lord. One, however, rejected by some critics as spurious, is very striking. There is also an undisputed reference to John the Baptist, and another one to James, the brother of our Lord. These several passages from Josephus will be considered later, and at greater length. First, the murder of these babies is in full accord, not merely with the general character of Herod, but particularly with his dying condition, jealous to madness of any one who would likely dispute the continuance of his dynasty, as he had arranged it in his will. Second, in every age of the world, the bloody death of these babies has attracted the attention of the poet and of the artist, and has excited sympathy for these first martyrs, more perhaps than of any other of the long line of those who died bloody deaths on account of our Lord. They are even called "Little flowers of martyrdom, roses by the whirlwind shorn." The great Augustine said, "Oh, happy little ones! just born, not yet tempted, not yet struggling, already crowned." We see in their death an anticipation of Christ's later words: "I come not to bring peace, but a sword." The powers of darkness would naturally seek to cut off his life at the beginning in order to frustrate the great purpose of his mission, and as we have already seen that the dragon, even Satan himself, was prompting Herod to take away the life of the long-promised Messiah. This much good at least resulted from the death of these children: Jerusalem, Herod, and even Satan himself, supposed that their object had been accomplished, and that the one "born King of the Jews" had perished in this massacre. Hence there is no other assault made upon him by the powers of darkness until at his baptism he is not only seen to be alive, but is declared by the Father to be his beloved Son, and at that point Satan renews the attack, but in a different form. Third, the prophecy concerning this event is a quotation from Jeremiah 31:15-17 : "Thus saith Jehovah: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentations, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children, because they are not. Thus saith Jehovah: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith Jehovah; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy latter end, saith Jehovah; and thy children shall come again to their own border." This declaration from Jehovah, by a vivid personification, represents Rachel, the mother of three tribes, rising from her tomb to bewail their captivity as they are dragged away by the Assyrian tyrant. It is not meant to teach that the departed have a personal interest in those that are left behind them, and bewail their faults and calamities. It is the purpose of Matthew to show that if Rachel could be so personified in the first great disaster to her children it would be fulfilled again in this instance, and the comforting words are much more appropriate: "Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for they shall come again from the land of the enemy." Just how long Joseph, with Mary and the child, remained in Egypt, we do not know. But the angel who guided him comes again with these words: "Arise and take the young child and his mother and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead that sought the young child's life." We cannot help recalling a similar word to Moses, when he was recalled from Midian to Egypt – "All the men are dead who sought thy life." We cannot help being impressed with the guiding providence of God in protecting and caring for the child, and in the prompt and implicit obedience of Joseph to every admonition from the Lord. This declaration, "They are dead that sought the young child's life," seems to be prophetic of all the future. Herod died in the horrors of madness, a rotting carcass. Jesus lived. In Acts 12 his grandson Herod put to death James, the brother of John the apostle. But the chapter closes with this statement: "An angel of the Lord smote him, and he was eaten of worms and gave up his spirit, but the word of God grew and multiplied." The apostate Roman emperor, Julian, who tried so hard to destroy the Christian religion and to falsify the prophecies concerning it, when he came to die is reported as saying, "Thou Galilean hast conquered." Somewhat similar reports are made concerning the death of Tom Paine. In any event, throughout all the ages of the Christian era the enemies of our Lord and of his kingdom have died and rotted, but the kingdom moved on conquering and to conquer. And so it shall be until the words of the book of Revelation shall be fulfilled: "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is to this thought that Psalms 2 speaks when it says: Why do the nations rage, And the peoples meditate a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, Against Jehovah, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds asunder, And cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh: The Lord will have them in derision. Yet I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. Those words are quoted by the apostles when they were forbidden to continue to preach in the name of Jesus. THE RETURN TO AND THE THEREONIt appears from the record that Joseph intended to return to Bethlehem, but was troubled to learn that Archelaus reigned instead of Herod over ldumea, Judea and Samaria, as ethnarch, according to the Roman confirmation of Herod's will. He was as mean and as cruel as Herod, though much inferior in capacity. When he went to Rome to have himself confirmed as king, five hundred prominent Jews followed him to protest against his kingly rule. The Romans allowed him to remain as ethnarch for about nine years, and then removed him permanently and banished him for just cause. In the meantime the angel comes again to relieve the perplexity of Joseph, and directs him to his old home in Nazareth. And here Matthew again finds a fulfilment of prophecies – "That it might be fulfilled that he should be called a Nazarene." There is no one prophecy in the Old Testament which contains those words, but there are many prophecies that speak of him as being under reproach, and the title "Nazarene" was always held by the outside world as a reproach to his claim to the messiah-ship. It was even inscribed on the headboard of his cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews." Nathanael said later, "Can any good come out of Nazareth?" And without destroying at all the sense of reproach in the name, the special prophecy to which Matthew refers might be Isaiah 11:1 : "And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit." Here only a stump seems to be left of the ancient stock of Jesse and David, and the branch or shoot from the root is called nether. It is quite probable that the word "Nazarene" is derived from the same word, and as a proof of the reproach involved in the name, we have these words in Isaiah 53:1 : "Who hath believed our message and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of the dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and is one from whom men hide their faces; he was despised and we esteemed him not." So, whether we regard the term "Nazarene" as merely one of reproach, or whether we derive it etymologically from netzer, the thought is the same, and Matthew rightly construes the prophecy which so speaks of the Messiah. Jesus lived at Nazareth and visited Jerusalem when twelve years of age (Luke 2:40-52). On this paragraph of Luke we observe: The development of the childhood of Jesus: "And the child grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him." This is a clear proof of the humanity of our Lord. It shows the development of body, mind, and spirit. The Law of Moses required all males to go up three times a year to Jerusalem to the great feasts. They did not scrupulously fulfil this law in their history, but even the Jews of the dispersion were accustomed at least to go up to the Passover Feast, and it is concerning attendance on this feast, which lasts a week, that our lesson speaks. Jesus Twelve Years Old. Under the Jewish law the -child remained under the teaching of its mother till he was five years old, and then the responsibility passed to his father until he was twelve years old; and at twelve years of age he become what is called "a son of the law." From this time forward the responsibility of his life rests upon himself more than upon his father or his mother. It was every way appropriate, therefore, that when Jesus reached this critical period of his life that he should attend the Passover Feast, there to receive instruction not from father or mother, nor from the synagogue teacher, but from the great doctors of the law who held their school in the Temple itself. There were a number of illustrious Jewish doctors at this time in Jerusalem, including the great Hillel, and Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul. While there is no evidence that Jesus and Paul ever met face to face, yet they were about the same age, and Paul went from Tarsus, where he was born, to receive this rabbinical education in the famous Jerusalem schools. He says, "I was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel." It was also about this time that the celebrated Philo, the Alexandrian Jew, was a pupil in this school of rabbis, though there is no evidence that he himself ever met Jesus face to face, Jesus being there only a short time. That you may understand the story, there were at such a time as this, from every town and village in the land, pilgrims, grouped together, who would be marching up toward Jerusalem, singing the prescribed songs of the psalter. You will find them in the book of Psalms named, "The Songs of the Going Up." It is easy to see, therefore, that when the parents started home, they would not notice the temporary absence of Jesus, supposing him to be in the great company. But when, at the end of a day's journey, they missed him, and could hear nothing of him from any of the returning pilgrims, they themselves went back to Jerusalem to find him. The record says, "And it came to pass, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions, and all that heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers." We have just noted in the first verse of this paragraph that Jesus not only grew in wisdom, but that the grace of God was upon him. Which not only means wisdom as applied to the development of the mind of ordinary persons, but a spiritual increase of wisdom through the grace of God resting on him. In a previous chapter we have noted that Christ could read and speak at least three languages, and that he, in his whole life up to this point, whether his mother, or Joseph, or the synagogue was his teacher, was learning the word of God and its meaning. The illumination given him by the Spirit would enable him to understand more than any of the great doctors who, according to their method, were catechizing him and allowing him to catechize them. The lesson teaches that one taught of God is wiser than all who are taught of men. He himself later said that while Solomon was counted the wisest man in the world, he was greater in wisdom than Solomon. This is not the first instance on record where teachers have been instructed by their more enlightened pupils. It is related of the celebrated Dr. Blair, of Scotland, that his university teacher in theology was carried away with the wisdom of his answers. On one occasion, propounding three questions in Latin, which the student must off-hand answer in Latin, the last question was, Quid est caritas? (what is charity) and the reply came like the lightning flash, Ah, magister, id est raritas (ah master, that is rare). It is to be deplored that great teachers of theology yield to a tendency to become mere professors, hair-splitting in their niceties of explanation, and gradually forgetting the spirit and power of all true theology. Never was this more noticeable than in the Sanhedrin, with its great Jewish doctors of the law. Only two of them are represented as becoming followers of Christ, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. The rest all perished in their learning. You will recall how often I have emphasized the value of the catechetical form of instruction – questions and counter questions. Nothing but my deafness has prevented me from resorting more to this method. At this amazing juncture, the child instructing the doctors, Joseph and Mary came upon the scene, which astonishes them much, and with something of reproach his mother says, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I sought thee, sorrowing." The answer of our Lord to his mother not only conveys a counter reproach, disclaiming Joseph as his father, but shows that he has reached a great epoch in his life, to whit: consciousness of his messiahship and the paramount claims of its duties over any earthly relations. His reply is "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?" When he says "my Father's" house, he disclaims the paternity of Joseph, which Mary had at least assumed, or by a marginal rendering, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" It is indeed a pregnant reply, and discloses at least the following things: (1) That at least now, if at no earlier date, there was a full consciousness in his own mind of his messianic mission. (2) It is strange that his mother should not have, from the past remarkable events of his life, which she had kept in her heart, understood this, and that from this time on the voice of God must be higher than the voice of his mother in determining his movements and actions. I know that some claim that consciousness of messiahship did not come to him until his baptism, but when we come to interpret the history of that baptism, the proof will be submitted that the consciousness preceded that occasion. This incident is named by the book, to which your attention has been called, The Sorrows of Mary, as the third sorrow of her heart – first, the words of Simeon; second, the flight into Egypt; and third, the announcement that from this time on the path of the child must be away from the family. (3) We know that his mother did not fully learn the lesson, for twice later she is rebuked by the Son who is her Lord. Once, at the marriage of Cana of Galilee, he says to her interference, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" And still later, when the family learn that he was so absorbed in teaching and healing that he would not take time to eat, but his kinsfolk counted him mad, his mother and younger brothers came to call him off from his work, as it were under a writ of lunacy, and he replies, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" and resisted their interference with his messianic work. Having thus stated the paramount law of his messiahship, the record says he went down to Nazareth with them and "was subject to them." This subjection was another step like his circumcision and his presentation in the Temple in fulfilling to perfection all of the law. It shows that he venerated and observed the Fifth Commandment. In the later history we will consider other visits of our Lord to the Temple, and every time he comes into his Father's house, his coming is signalized by mighty events. Luke closes his paragraph by showing the development of his manhood, in these words: "Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man." How few, as we have already learned, are the words of our historians concerning the greater part of the life of Christ. Let me repeat them to you again: "And the child grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him" (Luke 2:40). "He was subject to them" (Luke 2:51). "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke 2:52). "And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and he entered, as his custom was, into the Synagogue on the sabbath day" (Luke 4:16). "Is not this the carpenter?" (Mark 6:3). These, indeed, are few words, but they are mighty words. They show not only the physical, mental, and spiritual development of his childhood and his manhood, his observance of the Fifth Commandment in honoring his parents, his observance of the sabbath day in synagogue instruction, but his learning, as all Jews counted honorable, a trade. These were years of preparation – thirty years of preparation in order that he might publicly labor three years. Only prepared men accomplish great things, and the greater the preparation the less need for long time in which to do great things. But our young people of the present day count wasted the time devoted to deep and thorough preparation for lifework. They are in haste to rush out, half equipped, for the strenuous battle of life. 1. In what two respects was the flight into Egypt connected with the Wise Men? 2. What little book is specially commended? 3. What of the contention of Delitzsch, concerning the plan of Matthew's Gospel? 4. Cite some striking correspondences between Matthew and the Pentateuch. 5. What symbolism in Revelation finds its historic background in the flight into Egypt? 6. Into what new prominence in the family does the child Jesus now come? 7. What prophecy was fulfilled by the exodus from Egypt, and how do you prove that it was really prophetic? 8. Why do some critics discredit the historical character of Matthew's account of the massacre of the babes in Bethlehem and your reply to the criticism? 9. What attention has this slaughter of the few babes in Bethlehem attracted in the after ages? 10. Mention one practical good at least that resulted from the murder of these children. 11. What was the prophecy in relation to this massacre, and how do you make it out to be prophetic? 12. What assurance was given to Joseph when the angel directed him to leave Egypt, and compare this with a similar statement to Moses in Midian? 13. How does this declaration, "They are dead that sought the young child's life," seem to be prophetic, and illustrate? 14. What danger would have occurred if Joseph had returned to Bethlehem? 15. What prophecy was fulfilled in the return to Nazareth? 16. In what two ways can you show that this would be a term of reproach? 17. What has Luke to say concerning the development of the child hood of Jesus at Nazareth? 18. How often were male Jews required to go up to Jerusalem? 19. How long was a mother responsible for the spiritual instruction of her child? How long the father? and at what age did the Jewish child become a son of the law? 20. What higher instruction was given at Jerusalem for those who were the sons of the law? 21. Cite some of the great Jewish rabbis who taught these sons of the law in the Temple. 22. Name two illustrious men who were under this instruction about the same time with Jesus. 23. When the Jews from the villages and towns of the Holy Land went up to Jerusalem, what hymns of the psalter did they sing on their pilgrimage? 24. How was Jesus qualified to astound the great rabbis in the Temple? 25. How many of the Sanhedrin became Christians? 26. What were the words of Mary to Jesus when she found him in the Temple with the doctors, and his reply? 27. What makes this a great epoch in the life of Jesus? 28. What were the words of Luke to show the development of Jesus into manhood? 29. Repeat again the five short passages that constitute the only story of the greater part of the life of Christ? 30. What do they show? XII THE OF THE OF JOHN THE BAPTISTHarmony pages 12-14 and Matthew 3:1-12; Mark 1:1-8; Luke 3:1-18.In a preceding chapter we have considered somewhat the biblical material for a life of John the Baptist, and certain questions touching his position in the kingdom of our Lord. The analysis of that material will constitute the outline of all our discussion of John. We now take up the beginnings of his ministry. The time, in our era, was A.D. 29, since John had been preaching several months before he baptized Jesus, and Luke tells us that "Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years of age" (Luke 3:23). The true time would be four years earlier, A.D. 25, if we are correct in our revision of the Abbott Dyonisius Exiguus. It is characteristic of Luke to collate his date with the world movements. It was the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar who, as adopted son, succeeded Augustus, somewhat after the time that Jesus, twelve years old, became conscious of his messiahship. Since the deposition of Archelaus, Judea, ldumea, and Samaria had become an imperial province, ruled by procurators appointed by Caesar, and subordinated to Syria ruled by proconsul. About a year before Christ was baptized Tiberius had appointed Pontius Pilate the sixth procurator, and he remained in office until after Christ's death. Pontius Pilate obtained this office because he had married the vicious granddaughter of Augustus; her profligate mother, daughter of Augustus, was one of the most infamous profligates of a profligate age. Strange it is that the New Testament is the only history that speaks a good word of either Pilate or his wife. In its fidelity as history, it neither omits the blemishes of its saints, nor withholds, when due, praise to the most wicked. The military headquarters of the procurator was Caesarea, built by Herod the Great. But the turbulence of Jerusalem often required his presence in that city, particularly at the three great feasts. Pilate had already steeped Jerusalem in blood and had been forced by pressure of the Jews to withdraw the idolatrous Roman eagles from the holy city. (See Josephus, Antiquities, Book XVIII, Chapter 5, Section 1.) It was probably on this occasion that Pilate "mingled the blood of Galilean Jews with their sacrifices" in the Temple, to which our Lord later referred, at Luke 13:1-2. This Pilate, already at bitter feud with the Jews, was Roman ruler of Judea, Samaria, and ldumea, when John commenced his ministry. At the same time Herod Antipas, who later beheaded John, and mocked our Lord at his trial, was tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. At the same time Herod Philip II was tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitus, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene. At Jerusalem the infamous Annas, and his son-in-law Joseph Caiaphas, were both high priests, contrary to Jewish law, but by Roman appointment. We shall see our Lord, some three and a half years later, brought before them both. These references of Luke enable us to understand the world political and ecclesiastic conditions under which the ministries of John and our Lord commenced. The place is at the fords of the Jordan near Jericho. Later we see John at other places, higher up the Jordan, but never in the cities – always in the desert places. This fact alone demonstrates that John is not officiating as a priest of the Old Testament in either synagogue or temple, but as a reformer prophet of the new dispensation. John's dress, diet, and habits. "Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and his food was locusts and wild honey." The angel who announced his coming declared, "He shall drink no wine nor strong drink" (Luke 1:15). He fasted often, and taught his disciples to fast (Matthew 9:14; Mark 2:18; Luke 5:35). Our Lord himself said of him, "He came neither eating nor drinking," and adds, "but what went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they who are gorgeously appareled and live delicately are in kings' courts (Luke 7:25). You must understand that "the locusts" eaten by John were not fruits of the tree, "honey-locust," but migrating grasshoppers, a common enough food with many eastern people, and permitted as food by Jewish law (Leviticus 11:21-22). His enduement for service. "He was full of the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15), and like Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5) and Paul (Galatians 1:15) and his Lord (Isaiah 49:5), he was "set apart" to his office from his mother's womb. Indeed, he was the only child known to historic records who, before he was born, "leaped with joy" spiritual (Luke 1:44). His preparation. Our only record is: "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel." He was no product of the schools, either secular or rabbinical. He derived his knowledge from neither synagogue nor Temple, but was wholly taught by God. We have no information of the character of his necessarily profound meditations in his thirty years of desert life. The preparation was long, silent, and solitary. But he shook the world in his few months of public ministry. After what order was he a prophet? The record is clear. The order was as unique as the order of his Lord's priesthood. Malachi says, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of Jehovah come." This prophecy made a profound impression on the Jewish mind, as is evident from several New Testament incidents. It was a Jewish custom to place a chair for Elijah at the family feast following the circumcision of a child. If the chair was so placed when John was circumcised, they ought to have placed the baby in it, for behold, Elijah had come. Our Lord says expressly that John was the promised Elijah (Matthew 17:10-13; Mark 9:11-13). John himself disclaims being Elijah, that is, in a literal sense (John 1:21), but the announcing angel explains "He shall go before his face, in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17). Indeed, Elijah himself appears on the scene at the transfiguration of our Lord (Matthew 17:3). Elijah was by far the most dramatic of the Old Testament prophets, in his garb, in his desert life, in the abrupt entrances on the stage of life and sudden exits, in the long silences, in the great issues of reformation suddenly thrust for instant decision on the king and people. The resemblance between Elijah and John is every way striking. If Elijah had his weak Ahab and relentless Jezebel, John had his weak Herod Antipas and vindicative Herodias. If, through terror of Jezebel, Elijah flees and despairs, so John, in a dungeon, apprehensive of the "convenient day" of Herodias, falls into doubt. THE OF JOHN THE BAPTISTHis commission as Elijah. Malachi says, "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; lest I come and smite the earth with a curse" (Malachi 4:6). To this the announcing angel refers, at Luke 1:17. The question arises, what is the exact meaning of the passage? Does it imply an alienation between parents and children, which John's mission is to remove by restoring proper parental love and care toward their children and proper filial regard and reverence for parents, according to the reciprocal obligations of the Fifth Commandment, and on the line of Paul's precepts – "fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and "children, obey your parents in the Lord"? If so, it was a mighty mission, for the earth is already cursed when these reciprocal obligations are disregarded, to the moral destruction of the family. If so, the passage becomes a golden text in all Sunday school movements. In my early ministry I so used it as a text before the Sunday School Convention of Texas assembled at old Independence. In my sermon I stressed the growing evil of race suicide, the fashionable mothers depriving their children of maternal love and care in order to attend the calls of a worldly, frivolous society, and the modern absorption of fathers in business which led them to disregard the spiritual welfare of their children. But if this be the meaning, we fail to find this important matter the theme of special discussion either by Elijah or John. But, perhaps, the marginal reading of the revision conveys the true idea, "Turning the hearts of the fathers, with the hearts of the children" toward God, and not toward each other, and "turning the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." This last accords with the preaching of both Elijah and John, and lifts their commission from the fifth to the first commandment. His commission as the messenger of the Temple visitor: "Behold) I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts. But who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like the refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap; and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah offerings in righteousness." When men who remembered the glory of Solomon's Temple lamented the comparative insignificance of Zerrubbabel's Temple, the prophet Haggai assured them that the glory of the latter house should exceed the glory of the former house, because to it "The Desire of all nations should come." Now, John is the messenger who prepares the way for the Messiah to come suddenly to his Temple. That John did prepare the way for the Messiah's searching and purifying visit to his Temple is evident from John 2:13-17. His commission as the voice and the grader of the highway to God, Isaiah 40:1-11. This passage of Isaiah is the most important of the Old Testament forecasts of John, and perhaps it is the least understood in its richness. On it observe: (1) It is the beginning of the Old Testament Book of Comfort. Commencing with the fortieth chapter, the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah, treating of the Messiah's advent and mission constitute the Old Testament Book of Comfort, as John 14-17, treating of the Holy Spirit's advent and mission, constitute the New Testament Book of Comfort. Isaiah's paragraph commences: "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned." The voice of John the Baptist is the response to this command to comfort. (2) Therefore he is a preacher of the gospel, which means "good tidings" – "O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up on a high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold, your God!" (Isaiah 40:9). Hence, as soon as John's voice broke the prophetic silence of 400 years, Mark, in his first sentence drives down the corner post that establishes the starting point of the New Dispensation: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." And when our Lord comes up to Mark's corner post, he puts up this discriminating signboard: "The law and the prophets were until John, and since that time the kingdom of heaven is preached and all men press into it." What a pity that our pedobaptist brethren cannot lay aside their Old Testament colored glasses, and our Campbellite brethren lay aside their Pentecostal delusion concerning the kingdom, which mistakes the Spirit's advent for the Messiah's advent, and both of them with unveiled faces behold Mark's corner post and our Lord's signboard I (3) Observe John's grading of the King's highway of Holiness (Isaiah 40:3-5). In this connection observe also the relevance of the Septuagint rendering of Isa 35:1, "The waste places of the Jordan shall be glad," or as a great scholar puts it: "The banks of the Jordan shall rejoice because of them," i.e., because of John and Jesus. The same great chapter of Isaiah also says of John's highway: "And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; and the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for the redeemed; the wayfaring men, yea fools shall not err therein. No lion shall be there nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon; they shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of Jehovah shall return and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." His commission as friend of the bridegroom. "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom that standeth and heareth him rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is made full." The New Testament represents our Lord as the bridegroom of the church in the divine purpose (Ephesians 5:25-26) and at his first advent (Matthew 9:15; John 3:29) and at his final advent (Matthew 25:1-13; Ephesians 5:27; Revelation 19:6-9). In our context, "the friend of the bridegroom" is not what we call the "best man," or first male attendant, who attends to the business matters and arranges the details of a marriage. It has a much higher meaning, to wit: the evangelist who, through his preaching, espouses the lost sinner to his Saviour. As Paul expresses it: 'For I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2). "The friend of the bridegroom" is even more than the officiating clergyman, who merely performs a marriage rite, without having had anything to do with bringing the groom and bride into loving relations. His business is to "make ready the people prepared for the Lord." Through his preaching the sinner is convicted of sin, and then through contrition led to repentance, and then through faith, is mystically united to Christ. The idea is somewhat presented in the mission of Abraham's servant (Genesis 24), who went to Haran to seek a wife for Isaac. He faithfully negotiated the business of his mission, and brought Rebekah to Isaac. In this touching story, in which the old servant set forth in a matchless plea the worthiness of his master, Abraham, and the desirableness of his son, Isaac, so winning Rebekah to leave her father's house and to accept Isaac as a husband, Edward Eggleston, in the Circuit Rider, makes his preacher take a theme: "I have come to seek a bride for my Lord," and so happily expounds it that a brilliant but worldly young lady arose at once, laid aside all her jewels, and openly professed faith in the glorious Saviour so faithfully presented by the preacher. What, then, every evangelist does in individual cases, John the Baptist did on a large scale, introducing and uniting a lost world to a gracious Saviour. To the sinner he said, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!" How gloriously he presented the excellencies of the Saviour appears from the record, and suggests to every preacher a great lesson on how to present acceptably and savingly the Saviour to the sinner. We must not, therefore, understand John's mission as stern and sad, but full of joy. His commission to give the knowledge of salvation in the remission of sins (Luke 1:77). On many accounts we should stress this point, because a modern denomination insists that God's "law of pardon" was not announced until the first Pentecost after Christ's resurrection. It was not Peter, in Acts 2:38, who first promulgated this law of pardon. The honor belongs to John the Baptist. In my early ministry I held a debate with a preacher who affirmed that the kingdom of heaven was not set up until this day of Pentecost, and then in Acts 2:38 was the law of pardon first promulgated. I asked him these questions: (1) What did Christ give to Peter? He said, "The keys of the kingdom." (2) Did Peter have those keys on that Pentecost? He answered, "Yes." (3) Did God then and there build a kingdom to fit the keys, or were the keys made to fit the kingdom? (4) Did Peter, using the keys, open the door of the kingdom that day? He said, "Yes." (5) Did he open it from the inside or from the outside? If from the inside, was not Peter in it? If from the outside, when and how did Peter himself get in? (6) And if from the outside, when the 3,000 were added to them, did that leave them on the outside? (7) Did Peter open the Jew door that day, and what door did he open in Acts to Acts 10:43? And if Acts 10:43 was the Gentile door, why did he [that preacher] not look there for the law of pardon to Gentiles, and why did he, a Gentile, deify the Jew door, Acts 2:38? (8) And what about the door that John the Baptist opened in Luke 1:77? His commission to announce the antecedent withering work of the Spirit. "The voice of one saying, Cry, And one said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof is the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of God shall stand forever." On this text Spurgeon preached a great sermon. He said, "The command to John was to speak comfortably to Jerusalem" (Isaiah 40:1-2). And John asked, in order to speak comfortably, "What shall I cry?" And the strange answer comes: "Cry that all flesh is grass, and the grass withereth and the flower fadeth." That is, before you get to the comfort, the carnal nature must wither, then comes the spiritual nature, which abideth forever. Therefore John said to fleshly Israel: "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore) fruit worthy of repentance and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And even now the ax lieth at the root of the trees: every tree, therefore, that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matthew 3:7-10). This is John's sermon on the necessity of regeneration. This last commission of John leads up to a thorough discussion of the great staple of his preaching, "Repentance toward God on account of sin." 1. What is the time ill our era when John commenced preaching? 2. Show how Luke, in a characteristic way, collates this date with the political and ecclesiastical conditions of the world. 3. What was the place of John's first preaching? 4. Describe his dress, diet and habits. 5. What of his enduement for service? 6. What of his preparation for service? Answer negatively and positively. 7. After what order was he a prophet, and what is the parallel between John and Elijah? 8. What was John's commission as Elijah? 9. Which of the two meanings of this commission seems best to fit the work of John and Elijah? 10. What of his commission aa the messenger of the great Temple visitor? II. What was his commission as the voice and grader of the highway of God? 12. What the Old Testament book of comfort, and the New Testament book of comfort? 13. Describe how Mark and our Lord marked the beginning of the new dispensation. 14. What of the Septuagint rendering of Isa 35:1, and its application to John's ministry? 15. What of the description of the highway in that chapter, graded by John? 16. In his commission as "friend of the bridegroom," does it mean that he was only what we call "the best man," or does it mean the same as the officiating preacher, or does it mean something higher than both? If so, what, and explain. 17. Illustrate by the remarkable history in Genesis 24. 18. Describe the Methodist preacher's sermon on that chapter. 19. What of John's commission with reference to remission of sins, and why should we stress this point? 20. Give the several questions propounded in a debate, where the affirmation was made that the kingdom of heaven was set up on the day of Pentecost, and the law of pardon then and there promulgated. 21. What of his commission to announce the antecedent withering work of the Holy Spirit? 22. Describe Spurgeon's sermon on this text. XVIII THE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST Harmony pages 14-16 and Matthew 3:11-17; Mark 1:1-11; Luke 3:15-23.In several preceding chapters we have turned aside somewhat from the regular course of the narrative to consider, at length, at its first New Testament appearance, the vital and fundamental doctrine of repentance, as preached originally by John the Baptist, and continued by our Lord and all his apostles. We have seen that while John had clear conceptions of the etymology of words and of doctrines in their abstract sense, he was no mere theorist, but intensely practical, insisting on concrete truth as embodied in the daily life. To him, therefore repentance was as inseparable from fruits, worthy of it, as a tree is from its proper fruits. Hence he not only urges reformation in its positive and negative sense of "ceasing to do evil and learning to do well," but the instant and continuous responsibility to an inexorable judgment at the hands of the coming Messiah. "And even now the ax lieth at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. . . . Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor; and he will gather his wheat into his garner, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire." We now come to the comparison instituted by John between Christ and himself: "I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire." On this remarkable passage observe: First, no comparison is instituted between the water baptism of John and the water baptism administered by our Lord through his disciples. They are exactly the same in subject, act and design, as has already been shown, but the comparison is wholly between the dignity of Christ's superior person, office and power, and John's inferior person, office and power. The dignity of person John counts not himself worthy to loose the latchet of the Messiah's sandals. The Messiah is mightier than John, equaling him indeed in water baptism, but exceeding him in two other baptisms, to wit: baptism in the Holy Spirit, and baptism in fire. The controversies of the ages arise on the meaning of "He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire." The first question to be answered is: Do baptism in the Spirit and in fire mean the same thing? In other words, is "baptism in fire" epexegetical of baptism in the Spirit? If they are identical in meaning, then what is the baptism in the Holy Spirit and in fire? And when, where, how, and why first administered by our Lord? And is it continuous now as well as then? But if baptism in the Spirit and baptism in fire be two distinct things, then what is the baptism in fire, and where, when, why and by whom administered? There is more confusion of mind, and more inconsistency of interpretation on these questions than on any other New Testament problems. My own interpretation of the passage, and my answers to the questions are worth no more than the common sense and argument back of them. In general terms I refer first to three sermons in my first volume of sermons, entitled severally: (1) baptism in water; (2) baptism in the Holy Spirit; (3) baptism in fire. Second, in my interpretation of Acts 2 there is an elaborate discussion of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, where for the first time in the history of the world it ever occurred. Just here we need something, clear indeed, but far less elaborate. Here, on one point at least, and much as I deprecate it, I must utterly dissent from Dr. Alexander Maclaren, commonly regarded as the prince of Baptist expositors. In the first volume of his elaborate exposition of Matthew, he labors at great length to prove that "baptism in fire" is epexegetical of "baptism in the Holy Spirit." leaving the general impression on my mind, at least, that "baptism in fire" means cleansing or purification, about equal in force to sanctification. At other times I don't know what he means. For if baptism in the Spirit and in fire is equivalent to sanctification, then how is it there was never in the history of the world, a baptism in the Spirit before the first Pentecost after Christ's resurrection? Surely men were spiritually cleansed, sanctified before that date. My own mind is clear on the following negations: (1) Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not regeneration, nor conversion, nor sanctification, but an entirely new thing, a thing of promise, unknown to the world until the first Pentecost after our Lord's resurrection and exaltation. Whatever it is, it is wholly connected with the advent and administration of that "other Paraclete," the Holy Spirit, who as Christ's alter ego, rules the churches on earth, while Christ remains, rules, and interests in heaven. (2) The baptism in fire is not cleansing, but destructive and punitive, the exercise of sovereign judgment by our Lord, unto whom as the Son of Man, all judgment has been committed. Its punitive character as judgment takes cognizance only of one's attitude toward and treatment of Christ in his cause and people as presented by the gospel. It is exercised now on nations or cities, as Jerusalem A.D. 70, and on the souls of the wicked when they die, as Dives in the parable (Luke 16:23-24); and on the bodies of all the living wicked in the great world-fire of the final advent (Malachi 4:1-2; 2 Peter 3:7-10) and finds its highest expression, when after the final judgment, the wicked, both souls and bodies, are baptized in the lake of fire (Matthew 10:28; Revelation 20:14-15). That Dr. Maclaren is mistaken about the import of baptism in fire appears from the context. Read carefully the three verses, Matthew 3:10-12. The tenth verse closes: "Every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." The eleventh verse closes: "He will baptize you in fire." The twelfth verse closes: "But the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire." It violates every sound principle of interpretation to make "fire" in the middle verse of the context mean something radically different from the "fire" in the first and third verses. There can be no doubt of the destructive, punitive character of the fire in verses ten and twelve; there should be none of the like import in verse eleven intervening. This becomes more evident when we consider that John is interpreting Malachi 3:1-4:3. The whole context of the prophecy shows that when the Messiah comes he will discriminate between evil and good persons (not mixed evil and good in one person), and separate them one from another by diverse fates, so that there would be no difficulty in discerning between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. The refiner's fire of Mal 3:2-3 has not a different purpose from the fire that burns like an oven in 4:1. We doubt not the appropriateness of using the refiner's fire to represent the purifying work in individual character, as set forth by the hymn: "Thy dross to consume, thy gold to refine." And this would be a genuine work of sanctification. But such is not Malachi's idea, in this connection, nor that of John the Baptist, as appears not only from Malachi 3:5-6; Malachi 3:16-18; Malachi 4:1-2, but from the historical fulfilment of Mal 3:12, when he does come suddenly to his temple at the beginning and end of his ministry, John 2:13-18; Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-46. In neither of these Temple purgations was there a work of individual sanctification, but the latter is indirectly connected with the cursing of the barren fig tree, as in Matthew 3:10, the barren tree is hewn down and cast into the fire. Malachi is not considering a mixture of good and evil in one individual, the evil to be eliminated by the fire of chastisement; but he is considering a mixture of good people and evil people. God's fire will be used to separate them and make evident the difference between them. So Paul discusses the same thought: "But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire." Here Paul's use of the fire, at the last great day, is not to separate the evil from the good in individual character, but it is to separate evil people from good people, who by unwise builders have been mingled together in building a temple upon the foundation, Christ. If the builder puts on the foundation, Christ, the unregenerate, hypocrites, formalists, ritualists, then that fire will separate them, and the builder who put them on will suffer loss to the extent that his work is destroyed in the revelation of that great fire test. To find a fulfilment of the identity of the "baptism in Spirit and fire" in the "tongues of fire" at Pentecost is merely silly, since they were not tongues of fire, but “ tongues like as of fire.” A rising flame parts itself into the appearance of tongues. So the luminous appearance at Pentecost distributed itself into tongues, as fire seems to do. On our paragraph, Matthew 3:10-12, Dr. Broadus, in his commentary, ably shows that we may not interpret the "fire" in Matthew 3:11 as differing in import from the "fire" in Matthew 3:10; Matthew 3:12. To pray that we may "be baptized in fire," while not so meant, is equivalent to praying that we may be cast into hell. The baptism in fire is the punitive destruction of the wicked. A few terse sentences will enable us to discriminate: In the baptism in fire, Christ is the administrator, an in- corrigible sinner is the subject, the element is fire, the design is punitive. In the baptism in the Holy Spirit, Christ is the administrator, the Holy Spirit is the element, the subject is a Christian, the design is to accredit and empower him for service. In regeneration the Holy Spirit is the agent or administrator, the subject is a sinner, the design is to make him a Christian. In sanctification the Holy Spirit is the agent, the subject is a Christian, the design is to make him personally holy, i.e., a better Christian. Regeneration and sanctification have been wrought by the Spirit in all dispensations since Adam. The baptism in the Holy Spirit never occurred in the history of the world until the first Pentecost after Christ's exaltation. But it was prefigured twice in types. First, when Moses had completed the tabernacle, or movable house of God, the cloud, representing the divine inhabitant, came down and filled it (Exodus 40:33-38). Second, when Solomon had completed the Temple, the fixed house of God, the cloud, representing the divine inhabitant, came down and occupied it (1 Kings 7:51-8:11). So when Jesus had built his church, antitype of tabernacle and Temple, the Holy Spirit came down to accredit, empower and occupy it (Acts 2:1-33). In other words – The baptism in the Spirit was the baptism of the church – the house that Jesus built to succeed the house that Solomon built, as that had succeeded the house that Moses built. From that date the church was accredited, occupied and empowered by the other Paraclete, the Promised of the Father and the Sent of the Father and Son. Daniel, in his great prophecy, fixing the date and order of events, says, "Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy" Here "the Most Holy" is a place, a house, and not the person, Christ. His anointing came at his baptism when the Spirit came on him. As the sanctuary of both Moses and Solomon has been anointed when ready for use, so in this verse, following Messiah's advent and expiation, a new most holy place was anointed by the coming of the Holy Spirit on the new Temple. Because the old Temple had served its day, the very hour Christ said, "it is finished," referring to the expiation of sin by the true Lamb of God, "the veil of the temple was rent in twain from top to bottom." The new Temple was ready, waiting for its anointing on the day of Pentecost. Hence, I repeat, when we come to interpret Acts 2, all the words of John the Baptist and our Lord, in the Gospels, which speak of the baptism in the Spirit as a promise, and all the fulfilments, Acts 2:4; Acts 8:17; Acts 10:44-46; Acts 19:6, and Paul's great exhaustive discussion at 1 Corinthians 12-14, will be fully considered. The import of John's comparison between Jesus and himself is, therefore, that Jesus is mightier than himself. John himself was not the Messiah, but only his herald. John is but a voice soon to be silenced forever. John must decrease, as the morning star pales and fades before the increasing light of the day. John is not the true light, but only a witness to the light. John indeed baptizes -penitent believers in water, but the one who follows him will not only continue the baptism in water, but will also baptize in the Holy Spirit and in fire. THE OF JOHN'S This predetermined culmination of John's ministry was the manifestation of the Messiah to Israel. This manifestation would directly connect with his administration of the ordinance of baptism. He himself declares: "And I knew him not; but that he should be made manifest to Israel, for this cause came I baptizing in water. . . . And I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptize in water, he said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and abiding on him, the same is he that baptizeth in the Spirit" (John 1:31; John 1:33). When by this sign the as yet unknown person of the Messiah is disclosed to John himself, then must he who had hitherto spoken of the coming Messiah in general terms now identify the person, and by repeated testimony lead Israel to accept him so identified, in all his messianic offices. So that the culmination of John's ministry consists in two particulars: (1) John must baptize the Messiah, receiving for himself in the ordinance demonstrative evidence of the right person. (2) This person of the Messiah so manifested to John, must by him be identified to Israel and through his repeated witness, set forth in all his messianic offices as the object of their faith. These two things accomplished, his mission is ended forever. We can do no more in rounding out this chapter than to consider the first part of this culmination, reserving for the next chapter John's identification to Israel of the person of the Messiah and his presentation of him in all his messianic offices as the object of faith. For the present, therefore, our theme is… JOHN THE MESSIAHThe Harmony, in three parallel columns, pages 15-16, gives us the record of this momentous event, according to three historians (Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). All these historians identify the person so baptized as Jesus. Matthew says, "Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him." Mark says, "And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in the Jordan." Luke says, "Jesus also having been baptized." Thus the person of the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee. All of them give two heavenly attestations to Jesus as the Messiah; the visible descent on him of the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, and the voice of the -Father from the most excellent glory, declaring Jesus his most beloved Son in whom he is well pleased. He himself came to John and solicited baptism at his hands. The ordinance was administered in the river Jordan. According to these and correlated passages, the honorable position of this ordinance in the kingdom of God is as follows: (1) In it is the Messiah manifested. (2) In it the whole Trinity are present. The Son is being baptized, the Holy Spirit and the Father attesting the Son. Hence in our Lord's Great Commission, reaching to all nations throughout all time, those disciples must be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is indissolubly connected with baptism and is proclaimed wherever in pool, lake, river, or sea the ordinance is administered. (3) Therefore it is a confession on the part of every disciple submitting to the ordinance that he accepts Jesus as the sent of the Father, and anointed of the Spirit to be his sacrifice, prophet, priest, king, and judge. (4) Its symbolism expresses the heart, of the gospel and unites therein our Lord and all his disciples who follow his example (Romans 6:3-5; Colossians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 15:1; 1 Corinthians 15:29). A great sermon on the position of baptism has been translated into foreign languages. This was a sermon before the Southern Baptist Convention by Dr. Henry Holcombe Tucker, editor of the Christian Index. From this honorable position of the ordinance it follows that it should never be belittled or despised as a matter of small moment. The act of John in baptizing Jesus was one thing and not three things. John did not sprinkle water in Hesys (rantizo) and pour water on Jesus (cheo) and dip Jesus in water (baptizo). He did a specific thing. Whatever the specific thing John did, to which Jesus submitted, is the thing which Jesus did when he also (through his disciples) baptized. (Compare John 3:22-23; John 4:1-2.) And it follows that the specific thing which John did, to which also Jesus submitted, and which he himself did (through his disciples) is the very thing which he commanded) in Matthew 28:19, to be done unto the end of time. Apart from the clear meaning of baptizo, we may settle the question in another way. The argument of Rom 6:3 and Colossians 2:12 shows that Jesus was figuratively buried and raised in baptism, and that we who follow him are planted in the likeness of his death and also raised in the likeness of his f resurrection. Therefore baptism is indissolubly connected with the resurrection of the buried dead. Since John administered a baptism (eis metanoian) unto repentance, a baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins (eis aphesin hamartion), we have the question, why should Jesus seek baptism at John's hands, seeing he needed no repentance and no remission of sins? John himself raised this question: "But John would have hindered him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? But Jesus, answering said unto him, Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffereth him" (Matthew 3:14-15). The answer is clear, as John understood later. (See John 1:31; John 1:33.) John's baptizing had a twofold purpose.(l) as related to penitent believers, (2) as to the Messiah himself. In no other way could John complete his ministry. Out of this comes another question, How harmonize John’ s protest (Matthew 3:14) with his subsequent declaration, "I knew him not, at John 1:31; John 1:33? John could not know the person of the Messiah until he saw the appointed sign, the visible descent of the Spirit upon him, but he could be impressed in mind, in other ways, that Jesus was not a sinner needing repentance. One of the most remarkable things about Jesus was a presence that at times filled friend and foe with awe and amazement. A glory of irresistible power radiated from him. I cite five instances of the radiating power of this presence on his enemies: Twice when he alone purged the Temple, driving all his panic-stricken enemies before him (John 2:13-16; Matthew 21:12 f; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45 f); the overawing of the Nazarenes when they rejected and sought to kill him (Luke 4:29-30); the prostration of those who sought to arrest him (John 18:6) ; the outcry of the demons when brought into his presence (Matthew 8:29 f; Mark 5; Luke 8.) Not only John the Baptist felt the radiating power of this sinless, awful presence, but Christ's own disciples many times later. For example, Peter, at the miraculous draught of the fishes (Luke 5:8); Peter and others at the stilling of the tempest (Mark 4:41); at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:6-7); all the disciples on the last journey to Jerusalem (Mark 10:32). We thus understand how John the Baptist (Matthew 3:14) could be impressed with the sinlessness of Jesus, and yet not really know he was the Messiah until the sign came. Now we have seen why Jesus should be baptized of John, but why baptized at all, that is, why to his own mind? The reasons are as follows: (1) As he foreknew, in connection with this ordinance, it would be his own inauguration as Messiah. Therefore he overcame John's scruples. Therefore, when baptized, he prayed for his spiritual anointing and the attestation of his Father. His prayer was not vague and indefinite. He knew he must be anointed as prophet, priest, and king, and sealed as the sacrifice for sin. He knew he must be endued for service as Messiah by the Holy Spirit. He must be equipped to resist and overcome the devil. All this appears as follows: Anointing as Prophet: Read Isaiah 11:1-5; Isaiah 42:1-2, which describe his spiritual equipment for service. He prayed for that. The fulfilment is, "God gave not the Spirit to him by measure," but immeasurably (John 3:34). Read Isaiah 61:1 f and his declaration, Luke 4:16-21. He was anointed to do this very preaching. Sealed for Sacrifice: Referring to this descent of the Spirit our Lord says, "Him hath God, the Father, sealed" (John 6:27). On receipt of this enduement of the Spirit: He went at once to meet the temptation of Satan, as the Second Adam (Matthew 4:1 f; Mark 1:12 f; Luke 4:1 f). So, also, the descent of the Spirit: Was his anointing as King and Priest. (2) He was baptized to set forth in symbol the great truths of his gospel – his death, burial, resurrection (Romans 6:1 f; Colossians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 15:1; 1 Corinthians 15:29). (3) As an example for all his followers (see same scriptures). However, he had the messianic consciousness before his baptism. He sought the baptism; he overcame John's scruples; he prayed for the anointing and attestation before he received them. The meaning of his reply to John, "Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness" is that neither he nor John must stop at only one of the purposes of John's baptism, but meet all the other purposes of that baptism. And evidently, as set forth in 2 above) this baptism would memorialize all righteousness, which comes by vicarious expiation, burial and resurrection. It would be a pictorial gospel. 1. What comparison did John institute between Christ and himself? 2. Was this a comparison between John's baptism in water and Christ's baptism in water? If not, what is the point of comparison? 3. On what phrase of this comparison arise the controversies of the ages, and what two questions are involved in the controversies? 4. From what great Baptist expositor does this interpretation dissent, and what is the point of the dissension? 5. What negations express the dissent from Dr. Maclaren? 6. How is the baptism in fire exercised? 7. Give the argument to show that Dr. Maclaren is mistaken about the baptism in fire. 8. Reply to the contention that tongues of fire at the first Pentecost after the resurrection, prove the identity of baptism in the Spirit and fire. 9. Analyze, in a few terse sentences, the baptism in fire, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, regeneration, and sanctification. 10. Show how the baptism in the Holy Spirit was twice prefigured. 11. Explain the baptism in the Holy Spirit from the passage in Daniel 9. 12. What of the predetermined culmination of John's ministry, and what were his own words to show that it connected with his baptism in water? 13. It what two things, then, does the culmination of John's ministry consist? 14. Who are the historians that give an account of John's baptism of the Messiah? 15. In whom, as a person, do all these historians identify him? 16. What two attestations of Jesus as the Messiah do all the historians give? 17. According to these and correlated passages, what of the honorable position of this ordinance in the kingdom of God? 18. What great sermon on the position of baptism has been translated into foreign languages? 19. What follows from this honorable position of the ordinance? 20. What was the act of John in baptizing Jesus? 21. Apart from the clear meaning of baptize, how otherwise may we settle the question? 22. Why should Jesus seek baptism at John's hands, seeing he needed no repentance and no remission of sins? 23. How may we harmonize John's protest (Matthew 3:14) with his subsequent declaration, "I knew him not," (John 1:31; John 1:33)? 24. But why should Jesus be baptized at all? 25. How does it appear that he had the messianic consciousness before his baptism? 26. What, then, is the meaning of his reply to John, "Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness"? V OF MATTHEW AND LUKE Broadus' Harmony pages 5-6 and Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 1:5-80; Luke 3:23-38. We have noted in a previous chapter John's and Paul's account of the divine side of our Lord's existence, personality and activities before he became flesh. Now we consider, in Matthew, Luke, and Paul, his human side, human antecedents, human birth, and early life. We find Matthew's account in Matthew 1-2, and Luke's account in Luke 1-2 with the closing paragraph of Luke 3. Matthew's incidents are his genealogy, birth, the visit of the magi, the flight into Egypt, the massacre of the babes at Bethlehem, the return to the land of Israel, and resettlement at Nazareth in Galilee. Luke's incidents are the announcement to Zacharias of the birth of his son, John the Baptist, our Lord's forerunner; the announcement to Mary of the birth of our Lord; Mary's visit to Elisabeth; the birth of John the Baptist according to announcement; the birth of our Lord at Bethlehem; the announcement to the shepherds of that birth; the circumcision of our Lord; his presentation in the Temple with attendant circumstances ; the return to Nazareth; the development there of his childhood; the visit to the Temple when our Lord was twelve years old; the return to Nazareth and his development; into manhood; and his genealogy. On this entire section we submit several general observations: 1. Matthew's entire account is written from the viewpoint of Joseph, and for Jews. His genealogy is the genealogy of Joseph according to the legal Jewish method. Gabriel's appearance to Joseph is to explain Mary's condition. Indeed, all the four supernatural directions for the family movements come in dreams to Joseph. Every incident and every Old Testament quotation conspire to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the foretold and long-expected King of the Jews. 2. Luke's entire account is written from Mary's viewpoint and to show our Lord's broader relations to humanity. His genealogy is real, not legal. It is Mary's genealogy, not Joseph's, our Lord's relations to Joseph being only a Jewish, legal supposition. While indeed it shows that Mary was a Jewess) really descended from David and Abraham, yet her genealogy extends back to Adam, in order to prove that her Son was the second Adam, and literally fulfilled the first gospel promise, "The seed of the woman [not of the man] shall bruise the serpent's head." It is to Mary, Gabriel announces her conception of a Son, by the Holy Spirit, who because thus sired shall be holy, the Son of God. It is to Mary the angel announces the condition of Elisabeth, and thus prepares the way for Mary's visit to Elisabeth. All of Luke's other incidents are those which Mary "kept in her heart." The conjecture that Luke's genealogy is also traced through Joseph is puerile in itself, utterly gratuitous, and at war with Luke's whole plan. It is to invent a difficulty and then invite the harmonists of the two genealogies to settle it. Why should they be harmonized? They have different starting points (a legal son, a real son) and different objectives (Abraham – Adam); they are not even parallel lines, since they meet and part. 3. We here confront what Paul calls "the great mystery of Godliness" – the incarnation of our Lord. Isaiah, who had already foretold his virgin birth, in a clear prophecy concerning him, says, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). Quoting Isaiah, and because the virgin mother is with child by the Holy Ghost, Matthew says, "His name shall be called Immanuel (God with us)." In explanation of the way a virgin can become a mother, Luke's angel says to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the Holy One who is begotten of thee shall be called the Son of God." Mark says, "Jesus Christ, the Son of God." John says, "The Logos which was God, was manifested and became flesh." Paul says, "He who was the effulgence of God's glory and the very image of his substance," (Hebrews 1:3) "who existed in the form of God . . . was made in the likeness of man (Philippians 2:6-8) was born of a woman" (Galatians 4:4). Not otherwise could he escape the hereditary taint of Adam's sin (Genesis 5:3); not otherwise could he fulfil the protevangel, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head" (Genesis 3:15); not otherwise could he be the Second Adam, the second head of the race (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49). Grant this one miracle, the greatest and most inclusive, and all others naturally follow. Deny this one, and there is no need to deny or even consider others (1 John 4:1-3). 4. Only twice do we find in the Bible the phrase, "The book of the generations" applied respectively to "The first Adam" (Genesis 5:1), and to the Second Adam (Matthew 1:1). And concerning this Second Adam, well might Isaiah inquire: "Who shall declare his generation," (common version, Isaiah 53:8) especially since "His name shall be Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). 5. Nothing more commends the inspiration of the simplicity and reticence of this account of our Lord's infancy, childhood and growth to manhood, than to contrast it with the silly and incredible fables invented in the early Christian centuries to gratify a prurient curiosity concerning a long period of our Lord's life on which, beyond the few incidents recorded, our Gospels are silent. Nature, as well as grace, draws a modest veil over the period of conception, gestation, parturition, and development. Not only have these bald inventions concerning the infancy and childhood of our Lord disfigured the image in the mind naturally produced by the simple Bible story, but tradition, ever-increasing in imposture and lying, ad nauseum, has buried the few real incidents recorded under an accretion of fanciful enlargements, e.g., the incident of the magi, and even the blasphemies subverting the gospel and changing the very plan of salvation, e.g., the Mariology and Mariolatry developed from our simple gospel story of Mary by the Romanists of succeeding centuries. 6. Beyond the few incidents recorded of the first thirty years of our Lord's preparation for his public work, this is every syllable of the gospel history: Luke puts in four pregnant sentences the whole period, (a) concerning the development of his childhood, "And the child grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him" (Luke 2:40). (b) After the consciousness of his messiahship in the Temple, when he was twelve years old, "He went down with them (Mary and Joseph) and came to Nazareth; and he was subject to them" (Luke 2:51). (c) Referring back to his habit of attending the house of religious instruction at Nazareth, Luke later says, "He came to Nazareth where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read" (Luke 4:16); (d) Concerning his development to manhood: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke 2:52). (e) Mark says that by occupation he was a carpenter (Luke 6:3). These are all the direct references. But we may easily gather from his subsequent history that he had studied the book of nature in its plants, flowers, fruits, birds, animals, soil and its cultivation, its crops, harvests and vintages; that he was a lover of children and close observer of their plays; that he was familiar with the customs of the family and of society; that he was well acquainted with the religious sects and political parties of his country and its relation of subjection to Rome. It is evident also from his movements that he thoroughly understood all the variations of government in the Herod family. As to literary attainments, apart from the evident religious training of a Jewish child, we know that he could read and speak fluently in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. He read and quoted at will and discerningly from both the Hebrew and the Greek versions of the Old Testament. Mark preserves and interprets many of his Aramaic expressions. 7. We should commence Matthew's genealogy thus: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, called Immanuel (God with us)." And, allowing Paul to supplement Luke's genealogy thus: "The Second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven, Jesus Christ himself (supposed son of Joseph) was the son of Heli," and so on back to the first Adam. 8. In these two accounts of our Lord's infancy are eight distinct annunciations, adapted in time, place, medium, means, and circumstances to the recipient, together with eight other supernatural events. (1) The annunciation by the angel Gabriel, in a vision, to Zacharias, ministering in the Temple, of the birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord, and of Zacharias' dumbness until the event (Luke 1:5 f). (2) Gabriel's annunciation to Mary of the birth of our Lord (Luke 1:26 f). (3) The annunciation to Elisabeth of the presence of the appointed mother of our Lord, by her unborn baby's leaping for joy (Luke 1:41 f). (4) The angel's annunciation to Joseph, in a dream, of the supernatural conception of Mary (Matthew 1:18 f). (5) The angel's annunciation, in a vision, to the shepherds near Bethlehem, of the birth of our Lord (Luke 2:8 f). (6) The Spirit's annunciation to Simeon that he should not see death until he had seen the Christ (Luke 2:26). (7) Simeon's annunciation, by prophetic inspiration, to Mary concerning her Son, and concerning the sword that would pierce her own soul (Luke 2:34-35). (8) The annunciation to the magi, in the far East, by the appearance of a star, that the foretold and long-expected King of the Jews was born (Matthew 2:1 f). The eight attending supernatural events are, – the prophetic utterances by Zacharias, Elisabeth, Mary, and Anna, the three additional dreams of Joseph and the one of the magi. Thus there are three vision – to Zacharias, Mary, and the shepherds; five dreams – four of Joseph and one of the magi; one annunciation by the Spirit to Simeon, one of Simeon to Mary by inspiration, one by a star, one by the leaping of an unborn babe, besides the prophetic inspiration of four. 9. In Luke's account of the beginnings are five famous hymns, or the foundations from which they were later developed; (1) "The Hail Mary," developed by the Romanists from a combination of the angel's salutation to Mary (Luke 1:29) and Elisabeth's salutation to Mary (Luke 1:42), with some extraneous additions. (2) "The Magnificat," or Mary's own hymn (Luke 1:46-55). (3) "The Benedictus," or the song of Zacharias (Luke 1:68-79). (4) "Gloria in Excelsis," developed from the song of the angels (Luke 2-14). 5) "Nunc Dimittis," developed from the words of Simeon (Luke 2:29-32). 10. The gospel histories teach concerning Mary, the mother of our Lord, that she was a modest, pious, but poor Jewish maiden, of the line of David, betrothed to Joseph, a just man, also of the line of David. She was endued with grace, to become the virgin mother of our Lord, and this supernatural conception was by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Consequently her Son would be God's Son, and not man's. Being God's Son, he would be born holy, unstained through hereditary taint, and as he was the only human being so born, he is called the Only Begotten Son of the Father. Because of her selection to become the mother of our Lord, all generations would call her blessed. Her marriage to Joseph before the birth of this child constituted him legally, though not really, a son of Joseph. In all these things Mary humbly submitted herself to the divine will. She piously kept in her heart all the attending prodigies, circumstances, and prophecies of his nativity and childhood. While married to Joseph, she knew him not until after the birth of her divine Son, but afterward lived with him in all marital relations, bearing four sons, whose names are given, besides daughters not named (Mark 6:3). After Joseph's death, she followed her son, Jesus, with his younger half-brothers and sisters. From the record it is evident that more than once she was not without fault. On the whole, however, the impression left on the mind by the history is most charming. A maiden, chaste, modest, pious, and meekly submissive to God's will, a true wife, a devoted, self-denying mother, patiently bearing all the sorrows attendant upon being the mother of her Saviour son. Well might Simeon say to her, "Yea, and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul," on which prophecy has been written a book of merit entitled The Sorrows of Mary. At the death of Jesus, her other sons being poor and un- believers, she was taken to the home of John the apostle, in Jerusalem. What an unspeakable pity that religious superstition has foisted upon this simple, charming, gospel story of earth's most honored woman, a monstrous Mariology of human invention, developed later into a blasphemous Mariolatry, which makes her usurp the place of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. As this hideous parasite on the gospel story of Mary roots in our lesson, we here give a summary of the invented. MERGED INTO The exaggeration of the meaning of the words: "All generations shall call me blessed." This blessedness, because a privilege, was declared by our Lord himself to be inferior to the blessings on personal obedience and service (Luke 11:27-28), and because this was a fleshly relation to our Lord, he declared it to be inferior to spiritual relations, which all may share (Mark 3:31-35). Mary was a perpetual virgin, – that is, never knowing a man, and being the mother of only one child, Jesus. This was the earliest of the doctrines in point of time, and some Protestants today, for sentimental reasons, hold to it. Mary free from actual sin. This freedom from actual sin, originally at least, was attributed to the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, supposed to be exerted either after she was conceived or before she was born, as Jeremiah and John the Baptist were supposed to be sanctified, or else at the time the Holy Spirit came upon her at the conception of Christ. Mary free from original sin. This was a late development of doctrine concerning Mary. There was no official and authoritative form of it before the sixteenth century. The Council of Trent, A. D. 1570, closed its decree on original sin with these words: "This same holy synod doth nevertheless declare that it is not its intention to include in this decree, where original sin is treated of, the blessed and immaculate Mary, the mother of God; but that the constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV, of happy memory, are to be observed, under the pains contained in the said constitutions, which it renews." This official deliverance is a positive declaration of Mary's freedom from original sin, and by the term "immaculate," would seem to declare her exempt from actual sin. The doctrine, however, culminates in positive form in the decree promulgated to the Roman Catholic world by Pope Pius IX, December 8, 1854. In this decree the Pope claims: First, that he pronounces, declares, and defines "under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost;" second, that what he sets forth is by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and in his own authority. The matter thus decreed and promulgated is as follows: "The doctrine which holds the blessed virgin Mary to have been, from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was revealed by God, and is, therefore, to be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful." The decree closes with the double anathema: First, that any who presume to even think in their hearts contrary to this deliverance stand self-condemned, have made shipwreck concerning the faith, and have fallen away from the unity of the church. Second, that they subject themselves to the penalties ordained by law, if by word or writing, or any other external means, they dare to signify what they think in their hearts. You will observe, particularly, that this decree affirms that the doctrine of Mary's freedom from original sin was revealed by God. The natural presumption is that this revelation is to be found in the Holy Scriptures. In this document the Pope does not claim that it was a special revelation to him, but that he is inspired to pronounce, declare, and define past revelations. If God revealed it in the Holy Scriptures, it is strange that we cannot find it. This doctrine of Mary's freedom from original sin, which thus culminated, historically, December 8, 1854, may be said to have crystallized July 18, 1870, when the Vatican Council thus declared the infallibility of the Pope: "It is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in the discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal church, by the divine assistance promised him in the blessed Peter, he is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his church should be endowed for defining doctrines, faith and morals; and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the church." She is the Mediatrix between Christ and man, as Jesus Christ is the Mediator between God and man. In other words, this element of the doctrines makes Mary take the place of the Holy Spirit) that is, we must reach Christ through Mary The development of the doctrine is shown in various works of art. For example, there are paintings which represent Christ as seated, and Mary below him, then later a painting of Christ and Mary on a level; and finally a painting representing Mary above Christ, who is angry at the world, and Mary is beseeching his favor for the world. Mary, not Jesus, bruises the serpent's head, or destroys Satan. As the preceding element of this doctrine puts Mary in the place of the Holy Spirit, so this element makes her take Christ's office. Mary the queen of heaven. Mary the fountain of all grace, received by man and the only hope of salvation. This element puts her in the Father's place. Mary an object of worship. Mary's body was never allowed to see corruption, but was taken up to heaven, glorified, as the body of Christ, or that of Enoch or Elijah. This last element of the doctrine, the assumption of Mary, has not been formally put forth by Pope or Council, but is propagated and defended in the standard Romanist literature. Any thoughtful man, considering these doctrines concerning Mary, must see that they made a radical, vital, and fundamental change of the gospel as understood by all Protestants and constitute another gospel, which is not the gospel. It makes the Romanist Church the church of Mary, rather than the church of Christ. Indeed, if we add its traditions concerning the See of Rome and Peter, the name should be: The Romanist Church of the Traditions concerning Mary and Peter. It would be easy to show that each of these elements of doctrine was transferred, for reasons of expediency, from heathen mythology and worship. The question naturally arises, What scriptures do they cite for these stupendous claims? In support of the perpetual virginity of Mary they cite Ezekiel 44:1-3 : "Then he brought me back by way of the outer gate of the sanctuary, which looketh toward the east; and it was shut. And Jehovah said unto me, This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, neither shall any man enter in by it; for Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it; therefore it shall be shut. As for the prince, he shall sit therein as prince to eat bread before Jehovah; he shall enter by the way of the porch of the gate, and shall go out by the way of the same." They claim that this language is typical of and applicable to Mary's perpetual virginity. Some of them quote the Son 4:12, as follows: "A garden shut up is my sister, my bride; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." So far as I know, these are the only scriptures cited that seem to have a positive bearing on the doctrine. Negatively, they contend that the brothers and sisters of Jesus mentioned in Mark 6 and other places were not the children of Joseph and Mary, but of Mary's sister, hence cousins of our Lord. Some Protestants who hold to the perpetual virginity of Mary claim that these were children of Joseph by a former marriage, therefore older than our Lord. Both Romanists and Protestants who hold to this doctrine cite John 19:25-27, where Christ on the cross consigns Mary to John's are, and argue from this that Mary had no son of her own other than Christ. They forget the extreme poverty of the family of Joseph, including himself, Mary, and all of the children, and that these younger half-brothers of our Lord were not at this time believers in Christ, as is evident from John 7:5. We have already shown that John possessed wealth and a home of his own at Jerusalem, which Mary and her sons did not have. Of Mary's freedom from actual sin, they cite the Son 4:7 : "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," and also from the apocryphal book of Wis 1:4 : "For wisdom will not enter into the malicious soul nor dwell in a body subject to sins." In support of the theory that Mary mediates between man and Christ, they cite John 2:3, where Mary makes known to her Son the need of wine at the marriage of Cana of Galilee. To maintain that Mary, not Jesus, bruises the serpent's head, the Romanist Bible, both the Vulgate and their English version, makes Genesis 3:15 read: "She shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel." To support the doctrine that Mary is the mother and fountain of all grace to man, they quote Luke 1:28, and render it: "Hail, full of grace!" In support of the assumption that Mary is the queen of heaven, their commentators cite Revelation 12:1, and claim that it is an allusion to "our blessed lady." In replying to these various items of Mariology and Mariolatry, it is fairly to be inferred from Matthew 1:25 that Joseph did know Mary as a husband after the birth of Christ, and it certainly best accords with the obvious meaning of Mar 6:3, and various other references, that the four brothers named are real brothers, and not cousins. That Mary was not free from actual sin is evident by our Lord's rebuke of her at Luke 2:48-49; John 2:4; Mark 3:21 connected with 31-35. There is no scriptural support at all relevant to the matter in hand of Mary's freedom from original sin. The quotations cited by Romanists are, on their face, irrelevant. The assumption that Mary is the fountain of all grace evidently misinterprets the words of the angel, "Hail, Mary, endued with grace." It is grace then and there conferred, and not original source of grace. It indeed shows that she was a daughter of grace, not its mother. That Mary's body never saw corruption is a fabrication without any foundation whatever. To make the symbolic woman of Rev 12:1 to be a real woman, whether Mary or any other woman, is a gross violation of the law of interpretation of symbols. You might just as well make the woman in purple and scarlet riding upon the seven-headed, THE MEMBERS OF THE HEROD FAMILY NAMED IN THE NEW Herod himself is "Herod the king" named in Matthew 2:3-19, ruler of the Jews at Christ's birth. He was surname' "The Great" and was really a man of great capacity in public affairs, and in diplomacy successfully overreached both Pompey and Julius Caesar, and both Anthony and Augustus Caesar and thwarted Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. But he was . monster in cruelty and as bloody a tyrant as ever sat upon throne. His father was Antipater, the Idumean or Edomite, and his mother an Ishmaelite. Thus in the person of Herod, Ishmael and Esau sat upon the throne of Isaac and Jacob. His death is recorded in Matthew 2. He had about ten wives and many children. By his last will, subject to Rome's approval, he divided his realm among three sons, disinheriting all his other children whom he had not murdered. His children. Archelaus, named in Matthew 2:22, his son by his fourth wife, was, according to Herod's will, made king of Judea and Samaria. Rome did not approve of his title of king, but allowed him to be called ethnarch for nine years, and then for good cause removed and banished him, and converted Judea and Samaria into an imperial province under procurators appointed by Caesar. Pontius Pilate, an appointee of Tiberius Caesar, was procurator during the years of our Lord's public ministry. Another son, Herod Antipas, older brother of Archelaus, by the same mother, was made tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. (See Luke 3:1.) This was the Herod that beheaded John the Baptist (Mark 6:17-29), whom Jesus called "that fox," and to whom our Lord was sent for trial by Pilate. He held his office during the whole of our Lord's life after his return from Egypt. He built the city of Tiberias on the sea of Galilee, and was the second husband of that Herodias who caused the death of John the Baptist. This marriage was a threefold sin - his own wife was yet living, the woman's husband was yet living, and she was his niece. The oldest surviving son of Herod was named Herod Philip, disinherited by his father. He lived at Rome. The New Testament makes only an indirect allusion to him as Philip the brother of Herod Antipas, and the husband of Herodias (Mark 6:17-18). Herod's son by his fifth wife was also named Herod Philip, and he is the tetrarch of the Northern part of Palestine, called in Luke 3:1 "the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis." He built the cities of Bethsaida-Julius, and Caesarea Philippi. He was the best of all the ruling sons of Herod. It must be noted how several movements of our Lord were affected by these three sons of Herod. Because of Archelaus his parents took him from Judea to Galilee. Because of the unfriendliness of Herod Antipas he more than once removed from Galilee to the tetrarchy of Herod Philip. This Herod Philip, the tetrarch, married Salome, the dancing girl, who danced off the head of John the Baptist (Mark 6:2-28). She was his niece, the daughter of his brother, Herod Philip I, named above. Herod's grandchildren. First, Herod Agrippa 1. This is Herod the king, of Acts 12:1-4, who killed the apostle James, John's brother, and imprisoned Peter, and whose awful death at Caesarea is described in Acts 12:19-23. This Herod ruled over all Palestine like his grandfather. Second, Herodias, the wicked woman who left her husband, Philip, and married his brother, Herod Antipas, and brought about the death of John the Baptist because he denounced the iniquitous marriage (Mark 6:17-28). It is said that when the head of John was brought to her by her daughter, she drove her bodkin through the faithful tongue that had dared to denounce the infamy of her marriage. Herod's great grandchildren. First, Salome, the dancing girl named in Mark 6. Second, Herod Agrippa II. This is the titular king, Agrippa, before whom Paul spoke (Acts 25:13). Third, Bernice, his sister (Acts 25:23). Fourth, Drusilla, another sister, who married Festus (Acts 24:24). Of these the last six named were descended through Herod's second wife, Mariarnne, the Maccabean princess. THE NEW AND CAESARAs in the Old Testament "Pharaoh" is a title of all the Egyptian rulers, so always in the New Testament "Caesar" is a title of the Roman ruler. In the New Testament about twenty-seven times "Caesar" is so used, without the name of the particular Caesar. Twelve Caesars ruled at Rome from the birth of Christ to the close of the canon of the New Testament, and perhaps one more, Trajan, when John the apostle died. The names of the twelve in order, and the dates of their reigns, are as follows: Augustus 31 B.C. to A.D. 14 Tiberius A.D. 14-37 Gaius A.D. 37-41 Claudius A.D. 41-54 Nero A.D. 54-68 Galba A.D. 68-69 Otho A.D. 69 Vitellius A.D. 69 Vespasian A.D. 69-79 Titus A.D. 79-81 Domitian A.D. 81-96 Nerva A.D. 96-98 Three of these are named in the New Testament: Augustus, Luke 2:1; Tiberius, Luke 3:1; Claudius, Acts 11:28; Acts 18:2. Nero is referred to but not named (Acts 25:8). 1. What sections of Matthew and Luke are devoted to our Lord's early life? 2. What are the incidents given in Matthew? 3. In Luke? 4. From whose viewpoint is written all this section of Matthew? 5. From whose viewpoint Luke's section? 6. How does this account for the apparent discrepancy between their genealogies? 7. How does Paul characterize the incarnation of our Lord? 8. What passage from Isaiah does Matthew quote and apply to the incarnation? 9. What name of the child does Matthew give as expressive of the mystery? 10. What other passage from Isaiah gives names of the child expressive of this mystery? 11. How does the angel, in Luke, explain the mystery of a virgin becoming a mother and the resultant nature of the child? 12. Give Mark's name of this wonderful child. 13. How does Paul state the matter? 14. How does such a son escape hereditary depravity? 15. How does this alone fulfil the first gospel promise in Genesis? 16. According to Paul, what is the relation of Adam to Jesus? (See last clause of Rom 5:14.) 17. Give in brief Paul's argument on this relation in Romans 5:12-21. Ans. As through one trespass (not many) of one man (not one woman) sin, condemnation and death came upon all his fleshly descendants. So through one act of righteousness (death on the cross) of one man (the vicarious Substitute) justification, unto eternal life came upon all his spiritual descendants. 18. How does Paul further contrast the first Adam and his image transmitted to his fleshly descendants with the Second Adam and his image borne by his spiritual descendants? (See 1 Corinthians 15:45-49.) 19. What then may we say of this miracle of the incarnation? 20. Give the significant Bible usage of the phrase "The book of the generation." 21. Contrast the account of our Lord's infancy and childhood, given by Matthew and Luke, with the human inventions of traditions concerning the same period. 22. What two sentences of Luke, one concerning the development of his childhood, the other concerning his development into manhood, give the record of most of our Lord's earthly life? 23. What other sentence of Luke tells the whole story of his obedience to the Fifth Commandment? 24. What phrase of Luke discloses a religious habit of all his early life? 25. What question recorded by Mark reveals his occupation in all that early life? 26. What may we gather from the history of his subsequent life, as to his studies, observation and general information? 27. As to his literary attainments, how do you prove that he knew and spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek? 28. How should you commence Matthew's genealogy (allowing him self to supplement) and Luke's (allowing Paul to supplement)? 29. In the two accounts of our Lord's birth and infancy are eight annunciations, with eight other supernatural events, adapted in time, place, medium, means, and circumstances to the several recipients: give them, in order, and then show which three came by vision, which five by dreams, which one by the Holy Spirit, which one by an unborn babe, and which four by inspiration. 30. In Luke's account alone are five historic hymns, or the foundations from which they were developed. Name them in order. 31. Give the substance of the gospel teaching concerning Mary. 32. Give the several items of the monstrous Mariology and blasphemous Mariolatry developed by Romanists from the simple Bible story of Mary, and the scriptural proof they cite for each, and your reply thereto. 33. If we add to this Mariolatry its inventions concerning the See of Rome and Peter, what should this church be called? 34. Name the member of the Herod family mentioned in the New Testament, citing the passage in each case, and the relationship to Herod the Great, and which of these were descendents of Mariamne, the Maccabean princess? 35. How does the New Testament use the term “ Caesar?” 36. How many Caesars ruled at Rome from the birth of Christ to the close of the New Testament canon? 37. Which three are named in the New Testament and where, and which other alluded to and where? 38. It is supposed that John lived to the close of the first century A.D. then what other Caesar must you add to the twelve? VI OF MATTHEW AND LUKE Scriptures same as for chapter V.MATTHEW'S Genealogy.There are three notable peculiarities in Matthew's genealogy. The first is, he commences with the rare phrase, "The book of the generation," found nowhere else except in Genesis 5:1-3, concerning the first Adam. The uniqueness of this peculiarity and the correspondence between Matthew 1:1 and Genesis 5:1, are of evident design. The proof of the design appears from Paul's discussion of the matter. First, Paul says there are two Adams, the first a figure or type of the Second (Romans 5:14). The first was created; the Second was the only begotten Son. In Romans 5 Paul adds that as through one trespass of one man (the first Adam), sin, condemnation and death came upon all his descendants, so through one act of righteousness (on the cross) of one man, the Second Adam, justification unto eternal life came upon his descendants. The parallel or contrast between the two Adams he further discusses thus: "So also it is written, the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit, that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." The second peculiarity of Matthew's genealogy consists in his division of the time from Abraham to Christ into three periods thus: From the patriarchy (or family rule in Abraham) , to the theocracy (or national rule at Sinai); second, From Abraham to David; from David to the captivity; from the captivity to Christ. Some have managed to find a difficulty in Matthew's making three sets of fourteen with only forty-one names. But Matthew does not say that there were three sets of fourteen names, but three sets of fourteen generations. The generations here, as many times elsewhere, mean time periods. It is about equivalent to saying from Abraham to the earthly monarchy, first period; from the earthly monarchy to its downfall, second period; from the downfall of the earthly monarchy to the coming of the spiritual King, third period. This period division suits Matthew's plan as the book of the King. David, the typical king, is the central figure of three periods, which terminate in the antitypical or spiritual King. Matthew does not give every name, but according to the established method of Bible genealogies, he sometimes passes over a son to the grandson. Another writer, with a different plan, might make four periods thus: From the patriarchy (or family rule in Abraham), to the theocracy (or national rule at Sinai); second, from the theocracy to the beginning of the monarchy; third, from the beginning of the monarchy to the hierarchy (or high priest rule); fourth, from the hierarchy to Jesus, the true Patnarches, Theos, basileus, hiereus. Matthew's third peculiarity is, that contrary to Jewish custom, he names four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. As they are not named in the list of fourteen's, they must be named in this connection for other reasons. Two facts suggest the probable reason for naming these women. First, three of the four at least were Gentiles, and quite possibly the fourth. Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, Ruth was a Moabite, Bathsheba, the wife of a Hittite, was a granddaughter of Ahithophel, the Gilonite, and counsellor of David, who sided with Absalom, and afterward hanged himself. It is true that Giloh, his home city, was one of the mountain cities assigned to Judah at the conquest, but that does not prove that all of its inhabitants were Jews. Ahithophel does not act as a Jew, but with many other foreigners he accepted office under David. Eliam, otherwise Ammiel, his son, and father of Bathsheba, with Uriah, another foreigner, was one of David's mighty men. Bathsheba herself does not act like a Jewess, for she married a Hittite, Uriah, the war comrade of her father. So she probably, as the other three women certainly, was a Gentile. The ending "ite," as in Gilonite, usually, not always, indicates a Gentile tribe or nation. The second fact is that only one of the four, Ruth the Moabite, was chaste in life. Tamar, in the garb of harlot, deceived her father-in-law, Judah. Rahab was an open harlot in Jericho, and Bathsheba was an adulteress. The fact of four such maternal ancestors seems to prophesy, in a way, that their coming illustrious Descendant would preach a gospel of mercy to the foreigner and to the fallen. Some writers have wasted much energy in endeavoring to reconcile Luke's genealogy with Matthew's. There is not the slightest reason to attempt it. Matthew gives our Lord's legal descent through Joseph'. Luke gives his real descent through Mary. As both Joseph and Mary were descendants of Abraham and David, they will in part coincide and in part diverge. The extent of the coincidence or the divergence is immaterial. THE TO – Luke 1:5-25 We have already seen that there were eight annunciations, as follows: To Zacharias, Mary, Joseph, Elisabeth, the shepherds, Simeon, Mary again by Simeon, and the magi. Some of these were by the angel Gabriel, some by the Holy Spirit and one by astronomical phenomenon. It is noteworthy that in every case the time, medium, place, and matter of the announcement are all adapted to the recipient and his or her circumstances. Just here we may note the contrast in the Bible between the offices of the angel Gabriel, and of the arch-angel Michael. Gabriel is sent always on missions of mercy; Michael always for the defense of God's people, for war and vengeance on their enemies. In the announcement to Zacharias the time is in the days of Herod the king, the scene is the Temple at Jerusalem, the place is the sanctuary or holy place, the hour is the time of the daily sacrifice. The circumstances of this announcement are: Zacharias, as priestly mediator, is burning the incense at the golden altar in the holy place, while the people outside are offering up the prayers represented by the incense. Twice every day, morning and evening, the people thus come to the Temple at the hour of prayer. (Compare Acts 3:1.) Being only a priest, Zacharias could not enter the most holy place; his ministrations stopped at the veil which hides the mercy seat, which is entered only once a year by the high priest on the great day of atonement (Lev. 16). The offering of the incense was the highest honor that could come to a priest, and as it was determined by lot, it might not come more than once in a lifetime to the same man. The perpetuity of these mediatorial ministrations was secured by dividing the descendants of Aaron into twenty-four courses, with fixed dates for one course to relieve another. As we see from the text, Zacharias belonged to the course of Abijah, which was the eighth. This division of the priests into courses was established by David, as we learn from I Chronicles 24. Zacharias himself had a burden. His wife was barren, and both were now old. While burning the incense which represented the prayers of the people, he himself was praying for a son. The medium of the announcement to him was the angel Gabriel, who comes with an answer to his prayer while he is yet praying, as he had come on another great occasion to Daniel (Daniel 9:20-21) The means was a vision. The matter was that not only would a son be born to him and Elisabeth, but his son would be a Nazirite, great in the sight of God, full of the Spirit from his mother's womb, the forerunner of the Messiah, to make ready a people prepared for him according to prophecy, in the spirit and power of Elijah, turning many of the children of Israel to God and turning the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the justified. This, like the honor conferred on Mary, was unique, occurring only once in the world's history. Zacharias was filled with unbelief because of the natural difficulties on account of the impotency of his age and the barrenness of his wife. Why did he not consider the similar cases of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, and the case of Hannah, the mother of Samuel? Zacharias might have known from these illustrious incidents of the past history of his people, that the supernatural can overcome the natural. Because of his hesitation to believe the words of the angel, a sign was given unto him – he should be dumb until the promise was fulfilled. THE TO MARYThe time is six months later than the annunciation to Zacharias. The place is Mary's home at Nazareth. The medium is the same angel, Gabriel. The matter is that she shall bear a Son, named Jesus, who shall also see the Son of the Most High, and who shall sit on the throne of his father David, ruling over an everlasting kingdom. The explanation of the prodigy of a birth without a human sire is, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee." Because also, God, not man, is the sire, this offspring shall be “ holy” in nature, and shall be called the Son of God. In all the human race this is "the Only begotten of the Father," and hence the only one born in the world without hereditary depravity. In this way only could be fulfilled the first gospel promise, "the seed of the woman [not of the man] shall bruise the serpent's head." Had he been the seed of the man he would have been born condemned on account of a depraved nature. He could not have saved himself, much less others. It is true "he was made under the law," but not under its condemnation on his own account. Since he was born holy by nature, and never sinned in practice, and obeyed all its requirements, the law could not condemn him except as a legal substitute for real sinners. It is this that made his death under God's law vicarious (Isaiah 53:4-12). So that one who rejects his birth of a virgin rejects the whole plan of salvation and the whole. Bible as the word of God. On this point there is not space for compromise as large as the point of a cambric needle, nor as broad as the edge of a razor. When a man says "NO" to the question, "Do you believe our Lord was born of a virgin?" you need not ask him any other question whatever. And if he says, "Yes," to this incarnation of God, the one supreme miracle, he need not quibble at any other in the gospel record. This one conceded, the others come like a conqueror, and from necessity. Luke 1:34-35 is the crux, pivot, hinge, and citadel of all controversies on the joined issue, Natural vs. Supernatural; Atheism vs. Christianity. We have already called attention to the monstrous system of Mariology fruiting in Mariolatry. The base of it all is in the angel's salutation to Mary: "Hail thou that art highly favored – thou that hast favor with God." It is a matter of translation. Shall we render "highly favored" (Greek, kecharitomene) "mother of grace," or "daughter of grace"? Does it mean "fountain of grace," or "endued with grace," i.e., grace conferred or found"? A Pope has said that Mary is the mother and fountain of all grace and our only hope of salvation. MARY’ S VISIT TO Here we note the reason of Mary's visit. The angel had informed her of Elisabeth's condition. In all the world, Elisabeth was the only being to whom the modest Mary could confide her own extraordinary condition. She needed a woman's sympathy and support. Never before and never again could two such women meet to confer concerning their unique motherhood. In all the history of the race only one woman could be the mother of the harbinger of our Lord, and only one be the mother of our Lord. The honors conferred on them were very high, and could never be repeated. As with the mothers, so with the sons. They would forever stand apart from all other men – each without a model, without a shadow, without a successor. The visit lasted three months. What the continuation of the intercommunion and holy confidences, what the mutual womanly sympathy and support in these three months we may infer from the beginning. At the salutation of Mary, -two mighty tokens of recognition came upon Elisabeth. The babe in her womb, the babe who was to be full of the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, leaped for joy. Upon her also came the power of God and she herself was full of the Holy Spirit. She was thus prepared to give the greeting her visitor most needed to confirm her faith in the embarrassing circumstances of her novel situation: "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a fulfilment of the things which have been spoken unto her from the Lord." After such greeting, the chastity and modesty of the virgin could no more be embarrassed, but upon her came a flame of inspiration that kindled that great song THE On this first Christian hymn, note: Its correspondence with the Old Testament hymn of Hannah, the mother of Samuel (1 Samuel 2:1-10). Hannah's song is the model of Mary's. The correspondence is as remarkable in the circumstances as in the matter of the song. Israel under Eli had been brought very low. The barren Hannah prayed for a child and promised that she would dedicate him to Jehovah as long as he lived. Her illustrious son was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. He reformed Israel and established the monarchy in David. What a solemn historic lesson, God's preparation of the mothers of the good and the great, and the devil's preparation of the mothers of the monsters of vice and cruelty! Compare the mothers of Augustine, Washington, Andrew Jackson, S. S. Prentiss, with the mother of Nero. To the question, Where should the education of a child commence, Oliver Wendell Holmes replied, "With his grandmother." Think of the faith of Timothy, "which was first in his grandmother, Lois, and in his mother, Eunice " Note the three divisions of Mary's hymn: First as it relates to herself (Luke 1:46-49). Second, as it relates to God's moral government of the world (Luke 1:50-53). Third, as it relates to Israel (Luke 1:54-55). The blessing on the individual Christian widens into a blessing on the people of God, and enlarges into a blessing on the world. How minute in application, how comprehensive in scope, and how correlated in all its parts, is God's moral government of the universe! Dr. Lyman Beecher, the greatest of all the Beechers, when asked, "How long were you in preparing your great sermon on 'God's Moral Government' ?" replied, "Forty years." While the hearers were astounded at the greatness of his production, he himself lamented the short time for preparation. Note the expression in Luke 1:50, "and his mercy is unto generations and generations of them that fear him," and mark its origin and import in the Old Testament, to wit: While he visits the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generation, he visits his mercy to the thousandth generation on the children of them that fear him. THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST – Luke 1:57-66 Observe the naming of a Hebrew child at his circumcision. Hence pedobaptists, contending that baptism comes in the place of circumcision, name the child at its baptism and call it "christening." The great homiletical theme: "What then shall this child be?" (Luke 1:66.) The inspired song of the father. This is called THE from the first word, "blessed." This is the second Christian hymn. It is divided into two distinct parts: First, the ascription of praise to God for his continued mercy to his covenant people, Israel, according to promise and prophecy from Abraham's day (Luke 1:68-75). This promise was messianic – "to raise up a horn of salvation in the house of David," "horn" meaning a king or kingdom of power, as in Daniel's apocalypses, and in Revelation. Daniel 8:3, the ram with two horns of unequal length, represented Persia united with Media. Daniel 8:5-9, the one "notable horn" of the he-goat was Alexander the Great, and the "four horns" his four successors. The "little horn" rising later was Antiochus Epiphanes. Daniel 7:7-8, the "ten horns" of this fourth beast were the ten kingdoms into which the fallen Roman empire was divided, and the "little horn" was the papacy. So when Zacharias says, "Thou hast raised up a horn of salvation in the house of David," it means the Messiah, David's greater Son. One of the prophecies to which Zacharias refers Isaiah 2 Samuel 7:12-13, with which compare Isaiah II. It is evident, therefore, that Zacharias speaks his benediction on God because of spiritual messianic mercies. The second part of the benediction (Luke 1:76-79) is spoken to his son, John, because of his relation to the Messiah of the first part. John was to be (1) the prophet of the Most High. (2) He was to go before the coming Messiah and prepare the way for him. (3) His ministry was to give the people "The knowledge of salvation in the remission of their sins." We shall have much use later for this last item, when we devote a special chapter to John the Baptist, defining his place in the Christian system. For the present we note that a true disciple of John was saved. He had "knowledge" of his salvation. This knowledge is experimental since it came through the remission of sins. We are not surprised, therefore, that his candidates for baptism "confessed their sins," nor that his baptism was "of repentance unto remission of sins," as Peter preached at Pentecost (Acts 2:38) and was in harmony with our Lord's great commission given in his gospel: "Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all nations beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47). "The Dayspring from on High" (Luke 1:78) is our Lord himself, the Sun of righteousness, in the dawn of his rising. 1. What is the first peculiarity of Matthew's genealogy? 2. Give proof that this correspondence with Genesis 5:1 was designed. 3. His second peculiarity? 4. Explain three sets of fourteen with only forty-one names. 5. How might another writer, with a different plan, divide the three from Abraham to Christ into four periods, and give their fulfilment in Christ in four Greek names? 6. Matthew's third peculiarity, and account for it? 7. How do you reconcile Luke's genealogy with Matthew'*? 8. Including Paul's contributions, how should Luke's genealogy com mence? Ans. Jesus himself, the Second Adam, who was the Lord from heaven (supposed son of Joseph) was the son of Heli. 9. Including a statement from Matthew himself, how should his genealogy commence? Ans. "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, called Immanuel (God with us), the son of David, the son of Abraham." 10. How many annunciations, to whom, by whom or what, and how? 11. How are all these annunciations adapted to the receivers? 12. Contrast the respective missions of Gabriel and Michael. 13. In the annunciation to Zacharias, give time, scene, place, medium, means, and circumstances. 14. Where was the golden altar of incense, the brazen altar of sacrifice, what was their relation to each other, and what was the doctrine? Ans. The brazen altar of sacrifice was in the outer court, the golden altar of incense in the holy place before the veil hiding the mercy seat in the most holy place. The relation was that expiatory sacrifice must precede offering up incense representing prayer based on expiation. First expiation of sin, then prayer. The incense was kindled by fire from the brazen altar. To kindle the incense with other fire was punished with death (see Leviticus 10:1-11; Numbers 3:4; Numbers 26:61; 1 Chronicles 24:2). The doctrine is that prayer must be offered in the name of Jesus the expiatory victim. 15. Why should the people offer their prayers through the medium of a priest? Ans. Being sinners they must approach God through a mediator. 16. Who these mediators? Ans. The sons of Aaron. 17. How was perpetuity in mediation secured and by whom established? 18. Of which course of the twenty-four was Zacharias? 19. Why could not Zacharias offer the incense in the most holy place, who alone could, and when? 20. What prayer did Zacharias offer for himself, was it answered, and how? 21. Crucial test question: Is it the design of prayer to influence God or merely to reflexively influence the petitioner? (Before you answer read Matthew 7:7-11; Luke 18:1-14; John 16:23-24; and the author's interpretation of the trumpets of Revelation 8:2-10:1. See his book on Revelation, pp. 131-159.) 22. Give time, place, medium, means, and matter of the annunciation to Mary. 23. How does the angel explain a virgin's giving birth to a child? 24. How does such a birth alone fulfill the first gospel promise? 25. How does it insure the child against hereditary depravity? 26. What three proofs must be made in order that Jesus escape condemnation on his own account? Ans. (1) He must be born holy – holy in nature. (2) He must be free from actual sin in life. (3) He must perfectly obey all the law. 27. These proofs conceded, then if he yet be condemned and die, what follows? Ans. His death was vicarious – a substitute for sinners (Isaiah 53:4-12). 28. What then is the effect of denying the virgin birth of our Lord? 29. What is the virtual relation of the incarnation to all other miracles? 30. How then must we regard Luke 1:34-35? 31. What is the base of all the Romanist Mariolatry? 32. Does the Greek word rendered "endued with grace," convey the idea that Mary was the mother of grace or a daughter of grace – in other words, that she is the fountain of all grace or the subject of grace conferred? 33. What has a Pope said of Mary? 34. Why did Mary visit Elisabeth? 35. How was it announced to Elisabeth that the mother of our Lord was present? 36. How naturally would Elisabeth's inspired response comfort and confirm the modest virgin? THE 37. What is its Old Testament model? 38. What historic lesson suggested, and illustrate. 39. Point out the three divisions of Mary's hymn. 40. Who preached a great sermon illustrating the second division? 41. What is the origin and meaning of "unto generations and generations" v.50? BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 42. On what occasion did Hebrews name their male children and why do pedobaptists in imitation christen their children? 43. What great sermon theme here? 44. Why song of Zacharias, so called? 45. What two divisions of the song? 46. What the nature of the first part and the relation of second thereto? 47. Meaning of "horn of salvation in the house of David"? Illustrate by "horn" from Daniel and cite two pertinent Old Testament messianic promises. 48. What three things in the second part of the Benedictua said of John the Baptist? 49. What does the last prove of a true disciple of John? XXI SATAN'S THREE SPECIAL OF OUR LORD Harmony pages 16-17 and Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-18. In the preceding chapter we have submitted some general observations on the wilderness temptation of Jesus, and its continuance throughout the forty days' fast by mental suggestion from Satan, himself invisible. We are now to consider the three special temptations at the conclusion of the long fast, when to Jesus, exhausted and faint with hunger, Satan visibly appears and urges on him in rapid succession the consummation of his assault. We follow the better and more logical order of Matthew's history. THE FIRST – IN THE "If thou art the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." Here, first of all, it is important to note that the mood, "if thou art," is indicative, not subjunctive. We must not let the "if" mislead us. So the word "Son" is emphatic in the Greek. In some way Satan had learned that at the baptism the Father in heaven audibly proclaimed, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Therefore it does not fall in with his plan of temptation to commence with an express doubt of the Sonship of Jesus, as the subjunctive mood, "If thou be," would have certainly implied. The phrase means, "Since," or "seeing thou art the Son of God" – Son emphatic. In other words, his first temptation assumes the Sonship, with all power to work miracles: "Being God's Son in the highest sense, able to do wonders, being faint with hunger after a long fast, far from any food supply, convert this stone into a loaf of bread and satisfy thy hunger." The temptation was very subtle. Our Lord replies at once with a scripture magnifying the written word as the standard of human life, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 : "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," which means, "I am here and hungering under divine appointment. The Spirit led me here. In the way he appointed I must wait on his word and trust him to supply my needs. To resort to miracle to supply my need would show under confidence in God." He might have truly said, "I will never work a miracle in my own behalf. The miracle-working power I possess is for the benefit of others." Or, as truly, "I will never do a wonder at the demand of others, particularly of my enemies, nor to gratify curiosity, nor for self-display. Or, he might have said, "If I, at the first difficulty after my inauguration, extricate myself as selfish miracle, bow can my people in their trials find in my course an example?" The passage in Deuteronomy clearly shows that God often placed his people in trying circumstances, "to humble them, to prove them, to know what was in their hearts," in order to see if they would trust him and obey him. Life is not a matter of food and clothes and shelter, but of fearing God and keeping his commandments. The thirty-seventh Psalm expresses our Lord's attitude: Trust in Jehovah, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on his faithfulness. Delight thyself also in Jehovah; And he will give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit thy way unto Jehovah; Trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass. And he will make thy righteousness to go forth as the light, And thy justice as the noonday. Rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently for him: They shall not be put to shame in the time of evil; And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. A man's goings are established of Jehovah; And he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, be shall not be utterly cast down; For Jehovah upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his seed begging bread. The law of his God is in his heart; None of his steps shall slide. – Psalms 37:3-7; Psalms 37:19; Psalms 37:23-25; Psalms 37:31 I cite a simple, practical illustration: In my early pastorate at Waco, I found one of my members keeping a retail dramshop. He was much confused at seeing me, and said: "Well, parson, a man must live." "Not necessarily," I replied; "it may be best for him to die. But it is necessary, while he lives, to live in God's ways and to trust him. You cannot serve God in this business." Another case I recall, while holding a meeting at Chappel Hill, Texas. Through the unswerving faith, labors, and prayers of a Christian wife, a hard, bad man was brought to accept Christ. Just as he was about to be baptized, I put my hand on him and said: "Isn't there something you ought to say to these people before you are baptized?" He knew that I knew his sole business was the keeping of a low liquor house with a gambling adjunct. "You mean about my business?" "Yes." "Parson, everything I have in the world is in that business; what ought I say?" "Don't ask me. You are now the Lord's man; ask him." He put his hand in his pocket and drew out a key, passing it to a deacon, and said: "There's the key to my liquor shop. Don't sell my stock. Pour it out. Lock the door. I will never enter it again while I live." Then, with face illuminated, he was baptized. The bread and meat question can never be answered right, apart from our higher relations with God and confidence in his care. Well did our Lord say later, "Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?" THE – IN THE HOLY CITY"Then the devil taketh him into the holy city; and he set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, if thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and, on their hands they shall bear thee up, lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, Again it is written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God." What a change of scene! We have left the wilderness. This is Jerusalem. This is the Temple. The transition is rapid. There is no delay. On a wing of the Temple our Lord looks down from his dizzy height into the deep chasm far below. Satan is with him. Having failed on the line of "under-confidence" in God, he resorts to the other extreme, "over-confidence," or presumption. It is as if he had said, "You did well to trust God for food. It is that trust to which I now appeal. You did well to cite the Holy Scriptures. To the Scriptures I now appeal. Trust God, believe this scripture, and cast thyself down this precipice." And what a scripture he cites! Psalms 91 is the loftiest hymn of confidence in God and the highest expression of the security of one trusting in God in the whole Bible and in all the literature of the world. It commences: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of Jehovah, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust." Let the reader read all of it over again, and imagine that he sees Satan's finger pointing to the angel passage, and hears him say, "It is written." Our Lord's reply comes like a double bolt of lightning, "Again it is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." What a light on biblical interpretation – "Again it is written!" Scripture must interpret scripture. We may not draw a vital conclusion from a single detached passage, severed from its context, and dislocated from the unity of truth. What a lesson to text heretics and faddists going off on a tangent from the circle of truth! That very psalm illustrates the power of the reply of Jesus: "For he will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler" (Psalms 91-93). The devil and infidels are never harmonists. They try to make one passage contradict and fight another. They misapply. They put the finger on David's sin with Uriah's wife, and then say, "It is written that David was a man after God's own heart." "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." We have already shown that the word "tempt" may have a good or bad sense according to the object or method. We may test or prove God by implicit obedience when he commands, and by absolute trust in his promises when we are in his appointed way. Hear Jehovah's own words: "Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10). "Prove me now herewith." It would have been presumption for Israel to have rushed into the Red Sea on their own initiative, but it was the sublime audacity of faith after God said, "Go forward" It was the devil, not Jehovah, who said, "Cast thyself down." The psalm passage cited would have been pertinent if Jehovah had said, "Cast thyself down." We may not claim God's promise in obeying the Devil. We may not invent or create situations of difficulty in order to prove God's protecting care. Let us stick to the King's highway and we will find no lion there. It is said that when one of the fathers rebuked a demon for taking possession of a Christian, the demon replied: "I never went to the church after him; but when he came to the drinking and gambling hells, on my territory, I occupied him." To whom the father replied, "To be perfectly fair, even to the devil, I must admit that you make out your case as to occupying him when found in your territory, but as he now comes penitently home, you can't stay in him. So get out. But, by the way, you may roar at any other Christian, sojourning in your territory." THIRD – ON THE HIGH There is a last change of scene. So far, there is no reason to suppose a miracle in the shifting of the scenes. Jesus went in a natural way to Jerusalem as he had gone to the wilderness, and as he now ascends the mountain. But there is something above the natural in the way Satan, "in one moment of time" exhibits and Jesus sees the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. We may not crudely suppose that from any mountain, however high, the whole world would be visible to the natural eye, nor even if the world were flat instead of a globe, that any natural eye would have the keenness of vision to sweep discerningly so vast a horizon, nor especially to master and weigh its complicated details in a moment of time. But the inner eye may see things invisible. Satan, the high intellectual spirit, in addressing the higher intellectual spirit of Jesus could exhibit the world kingdoms and their glory in one great cyclorama. One may ask, Why then ascend a mountain for a viewpoint? The answer is not difficult when we consider that all these temptations are addressed to Jesus, the man. It will help us to get at the reason if we recall the history of Balaam (Numbers 22:24) where by changing the place of divination a new effort was made to curse Israel (Numbers 23:13). Or by recalling Grant's assaults on General Lee: if he failed at one point, he rapidly shifted the scene of the battle to another point, calling for new and swift readjustment. It is human nature for an army to fight better when it knows and has tried a battlefield, and to be subject to disorder and panic when called suddenly to a new and untried field, necessitating rapid movement of troops, new plans of defense, and new lines of battle. Jesus was a man. As a man he was subject to all the sensations attending the rapid shiftings of the scenes of conflict, particularly in the faintness of hunger called to make long marches. As has been said, the temptations are on the line of "under-confidence, over-confidence, and other confidence." This last temptation touches the very mission of Jesus. He came to fulfil man's original commission to "subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it." He came to set up a world kingdom. Satan exhibits the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Then hear him: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me" (Matthew 4:9). "To thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them: for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it. If thou, therefore, wilt worship before me it shall all be thine." First of all, let us consider the veracity of Satan's claim to world empire, and his power to bestow it. Commentators generally allege that Satan lied outright. If their contention be true, there was no temptation at all. On the other hand, he became de facto prince of this world when he defeated the first man, God's son by creation. He confirmed his title by defeating Israel, God's national son. The world empires, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome were largely raised to power by him and derived their systems of idolatry from him. The Scriptures call him the prince of this world and add that through his domination "the whole world lieth in wickedness." He is the author of "the course of this world." Through "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," he reigns over all his usurped territory. He had "the power of death, and through the fear of death kept the people in bondage." As mammon he rules the business world and supplies its maxims of greed. Through national jealousies and ambitions and godless politics he keeps up the burdensome armaments of rival nations. It is true that Satan's power is never supreme – that God's providence overrules all – that limitations tether Satan to a stake, no matter how long the rope. Yet we must concede much of Satan's high claim. Our next thought is that Satan's temptation is on the line of Jewish desire expectation. They wanted a world kingdom with the Jews on top. They were ready at any time to make Jesus king if only he would free them from Roman domination and make Jerusalem the capital of the world. A million Jews would have leaped to arms in a day to follow such a leader. But look at the Scriptures. God, by prophecy, had said to Jesus, "Ask of me and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession." This, however, was to follow the cross and the resurrection. Satan says, "Worship me, and I will give thee the kingdoms of the world without the cross." This daring impious proposition of Satan to turn God out of his world stirred our Lord into a flame of righteous indignation. He tore all the masks off the tempter. He dragged him into the open light in all his loathsome serpentine length. He uttered the prophetic sentence of final eviction: "Get thee hence, Satan," and struck a conquering blow with the sword of the Spirit: "It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt -thou serve" (Matthew 4:10). So the first battle ended. It was a presage of the victory in all succeeding battles. It became the slogan of the saints: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." "Whom resist stedfast in the faith." At the close of this chapter we may raise another question: Judging from the silence of the Scriptures, our Lord had not been assaulted by Satan since through his agent, Herod, he sought to take the young child's life in the massacre of the innocents at Bethlehem. The question is, Why did Satan permit him to grow to manhood without further effort to defeat his mission, till this great occasion? My own judgment is that as Satan is neither omnipresent nor omniscient, he must have supposed that Herod had succeeded in destroying the One concerning whom the Wise Men asked, "Where is he that is king of the Jews?" The flight into Egypt, and the seclusion at Nazareth, Satan does not seem to have known or understood. What startled him from his long inactivity was the inauguration of Christ at his baptism: that voice of the Father; that descent of the Spirit. God kept him in quiet until he had grown in wisdom, until he had been endued with power, until he was ready to undertake his great mission of saving the world. 1. Whose order of the three special temptations is the logical one? 2. What was the scene of the first temptation? 3. Does the phrase, "if thou art the Son of God," imply a doubt of his being the Son of God? If not, explain the "if." 4. What were the words of the first temptation? 5. In his replies to all the temptations, what does our Lord make the standard of human life? 6. From what book of the Pentateuch are all of our Lord's quotations taken? 7. Give the meaning of our Lord's use of the quotation, "Man shall not live my bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." 8. What other things might he have truly said? 9. What words of Psalm 37 express the Lord's attitude? 10. Give the substance of the two practical illustrations. 11. In what way alone can the bread and meat question ever be answered right? 12. In the Sermon on the Mount, what pertinent words did our Lord afterward use? 13. What was the scene of the second temptation? 14. In what three words does a writer express the three temptations? 15. Show the process of Satan's proceeding from the line of under confidence to overconfidence. 16. From what marvelous psalm does Satan quote? 17. From our Lord's reply, "Again it is written," what lesson of interpretation may be drawn? 18. In the second part of his reply, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God," prove that the word "tempt" when applied to God on the part of man, may be lawful and unlawful, and illustrate. 19. Relate the legend of one of the fathers and a demon. 20. What was the scene of the third temptation? 21. Is there necessarily any miracle in shifting the scenes from the wilderness to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to the top of the mountain? 22. Show, however, that there must have been something above the natural in Satan's exhibiting and Christ's seeing the kingdoms of the world and their glory in a moment of time, and yet how could this be done? 23. Explain why the ascent of the mountain was not for the purpose of a viewpoint, and the reason of Satan's shifting the scene. 24. This last and crowning temptation touches what.? 25. Give the words of this last temptation. 26. How much of truth is there in Satan's claim to the sovereignty of the world kingdoms and his authority to give them to whom he will, and yet what the limitations of Satan's governing the world? 27. How was Satan's last temptation on a line with Jewish desire and expectation? 28. Prove from a prophetic scripture that God calls upon the Son to ask of him for this world empire, and at what point in the life of Christ to the words of the psalm touch it? 29. When Satan, therefore, tempted Christ to worship him, and receive from him the kingdoms of the world, what the daring and impiety of his proposal? 30. What was the effect on our Lord of this final temptation of Satan's, and how does he reply? 31. How may we account for Satan's letting Jesus alone from the time that he sought his death through Herod until this series of temptations? XXVI OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEEPart I Harmony pages 85-39 and Matthew 4:17-25; Matthew 8:2-17; Matthew 9:2-26; Mark 1:14-2:22; Mark 5:22-43; Luke 4:14-5:39; Luke 8:41-56; John 4:46-54.We now come to our Lord's great ministry m Galilee. We will take a sort of preview of this whole division and then follow it up with more detailed discussions. The general theme of this division of the Harmony is "The kingdom of heaven." We are prone at times to fall into errors of interpretation concerning the kingdom similar to those which led ancient Israel so far and so harmfully astray concerning the advent of the Messiah. Either we so fill our minds with the sublimity of world redemption, as applied to the race, in the outcome, so satisfy our hearts with rhetorical splendor in the glowing description of universal dominion that we lose sight of its application to individuals in our day, and the responsibilities arising from the salvation of one man, or we so concentrate our fancy upon the consummation that we forget the progressive element in the development of the kingdom and the required use of means in carrying on that progress. The former error breeds unprofitable dreamers – the latter promotes skeptics. The preacher is more liable to be led astray by the one, the average church member by the other. Perhaps the most unprofitable of all sermons is the one full of human eloquence and glowing description excited by the great generalities of salvation, and perhaps the most stubborn of all skepticism is that resulting from disappointment as not witnessing and receiving at once the very climax of salvation, both as to the individual and the race. Such a spirit of disappointment finds expression in words like these: "The prophecies here of the kingdom are about 1,900 years old. Nineteen centuries have elapsed since the Child was born. Wars have not ceased. The poor are still oppressed. Justice, equity, and righteousness do not prevail. Sorrow, sin, and death still reign. And I am worried and burdened and perplexed. My soul is cast down and disquieted within me." In such case we need to consider the false principles of interpretation which have misled us, and inquire: Have we been fair to the Book and its promise? Here I submit certain carefully considered statements: (1) The consummation of the Messiah's kingdom was never promised as an instantaneous result of the birth of the Child. (2) The era of universal peace must follow the utter and eternal removal of things and persons that offend. This will be the harvest of the world. (3) Again, this consummation was never promised as an immediate result, i.e., without the use of means to be employed by Christ's people. (4) Yet again, this aggregate consummation approaches only by individual reception of the kingdom and individual progress in sanctification. (5) It is safe to say that the promises have been faithfully fulfilled to just the extent that individuals have received the light, walked in the light and discharged the obligations imposed by the gift of the light. These receptive and obedient ones in every age have experienced life, liberty, peace, and joy, and have contributed their part to the ultimate glorious outcome. (6) And this experience in individuals reliably forecasts the ultimate race and world result, and inspires rational hope of its coming. This is a common sense interpretation. In the light of it our duty is obvious. Our concern should be with our day and our lot and our own case as at present environed. The instances of fulfilment cited by the New Testament illustrate and verify this interpretation, particularly that recorded by Matthew as a fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah 4-13 inclusive, of his gospel. What dispassionate mind can read these ten chapters of Matthew, with the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, without conceding fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecies uttered seven centuries before? Here is the shining of a great light, brighter than all of the material luminaries in the heavens which declare the glory of God and show his handiwork. This is, indeed, the clean, sure and perfect law of the Lord, converting the soul, making wise the simple, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes, enduring forever, more desirable than gold and sweet "r than honey in the honeycomb. Here are judgments true and righteous altogether. Here in sermon and similitude the incomparable Teacher discloses the principles and characteristics of a kingdom that, unlike anything earth-born, must be from heaven. Here is a fixed, faultless, supreme, and universal standard of morality. The Teacher not only speaks with authority and wisdom, but evidences divinity by supernatural miracles, signs, and wonders. But there is here more than a teacher and wonder worker. He is a Saviour, a Liberator, a Healer, conferring life, liberty, health, peace, and joy. To John's question – John in prison and in doubt – the answer was conclusive that this, indeed, was the one foreshown by the prophets and there was no need to look for another: "Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And whosoever shall find no occasion for stumbling in me, blessed is he" (Matthew 11:1-4). The special matter here most worthy of our consideration is that the kingdom of heaven was not expanded by instantaneous diffusion over a community, a nation, or the world, regardless of human personality, activity, and responsibility ill receiving and propagating it, but it took hold of each receptive individual's heart and worked out on that line toward the consummation. To as many as received him to them he gave the power to become the sons of God. Those only who walked in the light realized the blessings of progressive sanctification. To the sons of peace, peace came as a thrilling reality. From those who preferred darkness to light) who judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, the proffered peace departed, returning to the evangelists who offered it. The poor woman whom Satan had bound for eighteen years experienced no imaginary or figurative release from her bonds (Luke 11:10-16). That other woman, who had sinned much, and who, in grateful humility, washed his feet with her tears – was not forgiveness real and sweet to her? That blind Bartimeus who kept crying, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me" – did he not receive real sight? That publican, who stood afar off and beat upon his breast, crying, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner" – was he not justified? And when the Galilean disciples went forth in poverty and weakness preaching his gospel, did they not experience the Joy of the harvest on beholding the ingathering of souls? And when they saw even demons subject to them through the name of Jesus, was not that the joy of victory as when conquerors divide the spoil? When the stronger than the strong man armed came upon him and bound him, might not our Lord justly say, "As lightning falls from heaven, I saw Satan fall before you"? And just so in our own time. Every conversion brings life, liberty, peace, and joy to the redeemed soul. Every advance in a higher and better life attests that rest is found at every upward step in the growth of grace. Every talent or pound rightly employed gains 100 per cent for the capital invested, and so the individual Christian who looks persistently into the perfect law of liberty, being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the Word, is blessed in every deed. Willing to do the will of God, and following on to know the Lord, he not only knows the doctrine to be of God, but experimentally goes on from strength to strength, from grace to grace, and is changed into the divine image from glory to glory. In the light of these personal experiences he understands how the kingdom of God is invincible, and doubts not the certain coming of the glorious consummation foreshown in prophecy and graciously extended, in the hand of promise. His faith, staggering not through unbelief, takes hold of the invisible, and his hope leaps forward to the final recompense of the reward. The opening incident of the Galilean ministry is the healing of the nobleman's son, the second miracle of our Lord in Galilee, and a most remarkable one. The nobleman was Herod's steward, maybe Chuza, as many suppose, but that is uncertain. The nobleman manifested great faith and it was amply rewarded. This is an illustration of the tenderness with which Jesus ministered to the temporal needs of the people, thus reaching their souls through their bodies. The effect of this miracle was like that of the first: "He himself believed, and his whole house." The next section (Luke 4:16-31) gives the incident of his rejection at Nazareth. The account runs thus: "And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read." How solemn, how sad in its immediate result – how pathetic that scene in Nazareth when the Redeemer announced his mission and issued his proclamation of deliverance: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to publish good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim deliverance to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To send crushed ones away free, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Oh! what a day when this scripture was fulfilled in the hearing of the captives I But the Spirit on him was not on them. As Jewish widows in Elijah's day, perished of famine, through unbelief, and left to Sarepta's far-off widow in a foreign land to believe and be blessed with unfailing meal and oil, as Jewish lepers, through unbelief, in Elisha's day died in uncleanness and loathsomeness while touching elbows with One having power to heal, leaving to a Syrian stranger to wash in Jordan and be clean, so here where Jesus "had been brought up," the people of Nazareth shut their eyes, bugged their chains and died in darkness and under the power of Satan – died unabsolved from sin, died unsanctified and disinherited, and so yet are dying and shall forever die. The Year of Jubilee came to them in vain. In vain its silver trumpets pealed forth the notes of liberty. They had no ear to hear, and so by consent became slaves of the Terrible One forever. This brings us to church responsibility and ministerial agency in the perpetuation of this proclamation of mercy. As Paul went forth to far-off shores, announcing in tears, yet with faith and hope and courage, the terms of eternal redemption, so now the churches find in the same mission their warrant for existence, and so now are we sent forth as witnesses to stand before every prison house where souls are immured, commissioned "to open the eyes of the prisoners that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Christ." Ours to blow the silver trumpets and proclaim to captives the year of jubilee. Ours is the evangel of liberty – ours to make known that "if the Son of God make men free, they shall be free indeed." Leaving Nazareth, Jesus went to Capernaum, where he made his residence from which he radiates in his ministry in Galilee, teaching and healing on a large scale. His work here in Zebulun and Naphtali is a distinct fulfilment of Isa 9:1-2, in which he is represented as a great light shining in the darkness. By the sea of Galilee near Capernaum he calls four fishermen to be his partners – Peter, Andrew, James, and John, two sets of brothers. Here he announces his purpose for their lives – to be fishers of men. What a lesson! These men were skilled in their occupation and now Jesus takes that skill and turns it into another direction, toward a greater end, "fishers of men." Here he gives them a sign of his authority and messiahship in the incident of the great draught of fishes. The effect on Peter was marvelous. He was conscious of Christ's divinity and of his own sinfulness. Thus he makes his confession, Luke 5:8 : "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” But our Lord replied to Peter: "Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men." Later (John 21), when Peter and his comrades went back to their old occupation, the risen Lord appeared to them and renewed their call, performing a miracle of a similar draught of fishes. In Section 28 (Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:31-37;) we have his first case of healing a demoniac. What is the meaning of the word "demoniac"? It means demon-possessed, and illustrates the fact of the impact of spirit on spirit, many instances of which we have in the Bible. Here the demons recognized him, which accords with Paul's statement that he was seen of angels. They believed and trembled as James says, but they knew no conversion. The lesson there is one of faith. The effect of this miracle was amazement at his authority over the demons. In Section 29 (Matthew 8:14-17; Mark 1:29-34; Luke 4:38-41) we have an account of the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, which incident gives us light on the social relations of the disciples. Peter was married, the Romanist position to the contrary notwithstanding. Further scriptural evidence of his marriage is found in 2 Corinthians 8:5. It is interesting to compare the parallel accounts of this incident in the Harmony and see how much more graphic is Mark's account than those of Matthew and Luke. There is a fine lesson here on the relation between the mother-in-law and the son-in-law. Peter is a fine example of such relation. Immediately following the healing of Peter's wife's mother those that had sick ones brought them to Jesus and he healed them, thus fulfilling a prophecy of Isaiah, that he should take our infirmities and bear our diseases. Our Lord not only healed their sick ones, but he cast out the demons from many, upon which they recognized him. But he would not let them speak because they knew that he was the Christ. The effect of our Lord's great work as described in Section 29 was that Peter tried to work a corner on salvation and dam it up in Capernaum. This is indicated in the account of the interview of Peter with our Lord as described in Section 30 (Matthew 4:23-25; Mark 1:35-39; Luke 4:42-44). Here it is said that Jesus, a great while before day, went out into a desert place to pray, and while out there Peter came to him and complained that they were wanting him everywhere. To this our Lord responded that it was to this end that he had come into the world. So Jesus at once launched out and made three great journeys about Galilee. His first journey included a great mass of teaching and healing, of which we have a few specimens in Sections 31-36, which apparently occurred at Capernaum, his headquarters. A second journey is recorded by Luke in Section 47 (Luke 8:1-3) and a third journey is found in Section 55. (For Broadus' statement of these tours, see Harmony, p. 31.) Here we have the occasion of one of the special prayers of Jesus. There are four such occasions in his ministry: (1) At his baptism he prayed for the anointing of the Holy Spirit; (2) here he prayed because of the effort to dam up his work of salvation in Capernaum; (3) the popularity caused by the healing of a leper (Sec. 31 – Matthew 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16) drove him to prayer; (4) the fourth occasion was the ordination of the twelve apostles. The immense labors of Jesus are indicated in Matthew 4:23-24. These labors gave him great popularity beyond the borders of Palestine and caused the multitudes from every quarter to flock to him. Attention has already been called to the popularity caused by the healing of the leper (Sec. 31) and Jesus' prayer as the result. In the incident of the healing of the paralytic we have a most graphic account by the synoptics and several lessons: (1) That disease may be the result of sin, as “ thy sin be forgiven thee” ; (2) that of intelligent cooperation; (3) that of persistent effort; (4) that of conquering faith. These are lessons worthy of emulation upon the part of all Christians today. Out of this incident comes the first issue between our Lord and the Pharisees, respecting the authority to forgive sins. This was only a thought of their hearts, but he perceived their thought and rebuked their sin. From this time on they become more bold in their opposition, which finally culminated in his crucifixion. Let the reader note the development of this hatred from section to section of the Harmony. In Section 33 (Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32) we have the account of the call of Matthew, his instant response and his entertainment of his fellow publicans. Here arose the second issue between Christ and the Pharisees, respecting his receiving publicans and sinners and eating with them. This was contrary to their idea in their self-righteousness, but Jesus replied that his mission was to call sinners rather than the righteous. This issue was greatly enlarged later, in Luke 15, to which he replied with three parables showing his justification and his mission. In this instance (Matthew 9:13) he refutes their contention with a quotation from Hosea which aptly fitted this case: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." Then came to him the disciples of John and made inquiry about fasting, to which he replied with the parable of the sons of the bride chamber, the interpretation of which is that we should let our joy or sorrow fit the occasion, or set fasting ments and old bottles, the interpretation of which is to let the form fit the life; beware of shrinking and expansion. In Section 35 (Matthew 9:18-25; Mark 5:22-43; Luke 8:41-56) we have the account of his healing of Jairus' daughter and the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. Usually in the miracles of Christ, and in all preceding miracles, there was the touch of some kind between the healer and the healed. We are informed that great multitudes of people came to Jesus with this confidence, "If I but touch him I shall be healed." Accordingly we find that Christ put his fingers on the eyes of the blind, on the ears of the deaf, or took hold of the hand of the dead. In some way usually there was either presence or contact. We will now consider the special miracle connected with the fringe of the garment of Jesus which the Romanists cite to justify the usage concerning the relics of the saints. In Numbers 15:38 we have a statute: "Thou shalt put fringes on the wings or ends of the outer garment," and this fringe had in it a cord or ribbon of blue, and the object of it was to remind the wearer of the commandments of God. The outer garment was an oblong piece of cloth, one solid piece of cloth, say, a foot and a half wide and four feet long. The edge was fringed on all the four sides, and in the fringe was run a blue thread, and the object of the fringe and of the blue thread also was to make them remember the commandments of God. The statute is repeated in Deuteronomy 22. Again in Deuteronomy 6 is the additional law of phylacteries, or frontlets – little pieces of leather worn between the eyes – on which were inscribed the commandments of God. The people were taught to instruct their children in the commandments of God: "And they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt put them upon thy door posts, and when thou goest out and when thou comest in, and when thou sittest down and when thou gettest up, and when thou liest down, thou shalt at all times teach thy children the Word of God.” Now, because of these statutes a superstitious veneration began to attach to the fringe and to the phylacteries. So we learn in Matthew 23, as stated by our Saviour, that the Pharisees made broad the phylacteries between their eyes and enlarged the fringe of the outer garment. They made the fringe or tassel very large. They did it to be seen of men. The law prescribed that when the wearer should see this fringe on his garment he should remember the commandments of the Lord his God. But these Pharisees put it on that others might see it, and that it might be an external token to outsiders of their peculiar sanctity and piety. What was intended to be a sign to the man himself was converted by superstition into a sign for other people. Hence this woman said within herself, "If I but touch that sacred fringe – the border of his garment." She could not go up and touch the phylactery between his eyes, in case he wore one, but he did wear the Jewish costume with the fringe or border on his outer garment, and she could reach that from behind. She would not have to go in front of him. She argued: "Now, if I can in the throng get up so that I can reach out and just touch that fringe, I shall be saved." We see how near her thought connected the healing with the fringe of the garment, because by the double statute of God it was required on the Jewish garment to signify their devotion to his Word – the matchless Word of Jehovah. Mark tells us that she was not the only woman, not the only person healed by touching the border of his garment (Mark 6:56). Her sentiment was not an isolated one. It was shared by the people at large. Multitudes of people came to touch the fringe of his garment that they might be healed. The question arises, Why should Christ select that through contact with the fringe on his outer garment healing power should be bestowed? He did do it. The question is, why? There shall be no god introduced unless there be a necessity for a god. There shall be no special miracle unless the case demands it. Why? Let us see if we cannot get a reason. I do not announce the reason dogmatically, but as one that seems sufficient to my own mind. Christ was among the people speaking as never man spake, doing works that no man had done. He was awakening public attention. He was the cynosure of every eye. They came to him from every direction. They thronged him. And right here at this juncture Jairus had said, "Master, my little girl, twelve years old, is even now dead. Go and lay thy hand upon her that she may live." He arose and started, the crowd surging around him and following him, and all at once he stopped and said, "Who touched me?" "Master, behold the crowd presseth thee on every side, and thou sayest, who touched me?" Here was a miracle necessary to discriminate between the touches of the people. "Who touched me?" Hundreds sin sick touched him and were not saved. Hundreds that had diseases touched him and were unhealed. Hundreds that were under the dominion of Satan looked in his face and heard his words and were not healed. It was touch and not touch. They touched, but there was no real contact. They rubbed up against salvation and were not saved. Salvation walked through their streets and talked to them face to face. The stream of life flowed right before their doors and they died of thirst. Health came with rosy color and bright eye and glowing cheek and with buoyant step walked through their plague district) and they died of sickness. But some touched him. Some reached forth the hand and laid hold upon the might of his power. This woman did. Poor woman! What probably was her thought? "I heard that ruler tell him that he had a little girl twelve years old that was just dead, and he asked him to go and heal her, she twelve years old, and for twelve years I have been dead. For twelve years worse than death has had hold on me and I have spent all my money; have consulted many physicians. I have not been benefited by earthly remedies, but rendered worse. Twelve years has death been on me, and if he can heal that, girl that died at twelve years of age, maybe he can heal me twelve years dead. If that ruler says, 'If you will but go and lay your hand upon her even now she will revive,' what can I do? In my timidity, in the ceremonial uncleanness of my condition, in my shame, I dare not speak. I cannot in this crowd, for if they knew that I were here they would cast me out; for if any of them touch me they are unclean in the eyes of the law. I cannot go and kneel down before him, and say, 'Master, have mercy on me.' The ceremonial law of uncleanness forbids my showing my face, and if I come in contact with his power it must be with a touch upon the garment. And I beg for that. I say within myself, that if I but touch the fringe with its blue thread in it that reminds him of God's commands, I shall be healed." There was the association of her healing with the memento of the Word of God. There was the touch of her faith, that came into contact with that Word of God and with him. So her faith reasoned, and virtue going out from him responded to her faith. And she felt in herself that she was healed. Well, he healed her and there it stands out one of the most beautiful lessons in the Word of God. Oh, what a lesson! Some will say at the judgment, "Lord Jesus, thou hast taught in our streets and we have done many wonders in thy name," and he will say, "I never knew you." "You were close to the Saviour. You did not touch him. You were his neighbor. You did not touch him." There were many lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha, the prophet – lepers that could have been healed of leprosy by an appeal to the power of God in Elisha. They died in leprosy, but Naaman came from afar and touched the healing power of the prophet and was healed. There were many widows in Israel whose staff of life was gone, whose barrel of meal was empty, whose cruse of oil had failed, and here was the prophet of God, who by a word could supply that empty barrel, that failing cruse, but they did not touch him. They did not reach out in faith and come in contact with that power. The widow of Sarepta did, and her barrel of meal never failed, and her cruse of oil never wasted. Now, the special miracle: It was designed to show that if there be a putting forth of faith, even one finger of faith, and that one finger of faith touches but the fringe, the outskirts of salvation – only let there be a touch, though that touch covers no more space than the point of a cambric needle – "let there be the touch of faith and thou art saved." In the midst of this stir about the woman the news of the death of Jairus' daughter burst forth upon them with the request to trouble not the Master any further. But that did not stop our Lord. He proceeded immediately to the house to find a tumult and many weeping and wailing, for which he gently rebuked them. This brought forth their scorn, but taking Peter, James, and John, he went in and raised the child to life and his praise went forth into all that land. 1. What is the general theme of this division of the Harmony? 2. What common errors of interpretation of the kingdom? Illustrate. 3. What was the offspring of these errors respectively and who the most liable to each? 4. What, perhaps, was the most unprofitable sermon and what was the most stubborn skepticism? 5. How does such disappointment find expression? 6. Give the author's statements relative to the kingdom, 7. Where do we find the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecies relative to the kingdom? 8. What specific prophecy in Isaiah fulfilled in Matthew? 9. Where do we find the principles of the kingdom disclosed? 10. What great office did our Lord fill besides teacher and wonder worker and what proof did he submit to John the Baptist? 11. What thing most worthy of special consideration in connection with the kingdom? 12. What the opening incident of the Galilean ministry, what its importance, what its great lesson and what its effect? 13. Give an account of our Lord's rejection at Nazareth. 14. Why was he thus rejected? 15. By what incidents in the lives of the prophets does he illustrate the folly of their unbelief? 16. What is the church responsibility and ministerial agency in the proclamation of mercy? 17. Where does Jesus make his home after his rejection at Nazareth and what his first work in this region? 18. Recite the incident of the call of the four fishermen and its lessons. 19. What was Christ's first case of healing a demoniac and what the meaning of the term "demoniac"? Illustrate. 20. What was the lesson of this miracle and what was its effect? 21. Recite the incident of the healing of Peter's mother-in-law and give its lessons. 22. What were the great results of this miracle and why would not Christ allow the demons to speak? 23. How did Peter try to work a "corner" on salvation and how did our Lord defeat the plan? 24. How many and what journeys did Jesus make about Galilee? 25. Give the four special prayers of Jesus here cited and the occasion of each. 26. Describe the incident of the healing of the paralytic and its les sons. 27. What issue arises here between our Lord and the Pharisees and what was the final culmination? 28. Give an account of the call of Matthew, his entertainment, the second issue between our Lord and the Pharisees and how Jesus met it. 29. What question here arises, how was it brought up, how did our Lord reply and what the meaning of his parables here? 30. What double miracle follows and what was the usual method of miracles? 31. What was the law of fringes and phylacteries and what were their real purpose? 32. Why should Christ select that through contact with the fringe on his outer garment healing power should be bestowed? 33. What, probably, was the thought of this woman as she contemplated this venture of faith? 34. What was the great lesson of this incident of her healing? 35. Describe the miracle of raising Jairus' daughter and its effect. XXVII OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEEPart II Harmony -pages 89-45 and Matthew 9:27-34; John 5:1-47; Matthew 12:1-21; Mark 2:23-3:19; Luke 6:1-16.This is a continuation of the great ministry of our Lord in Galilee and the next incident is the healing of the two blind men and the dumb demoniac. It will be noted that our Lord here tested the faith of the blind men in his ability to heal them, and when they were healed he forbade their publishing this to the people, but they went forth and told it and spread his fame in all the land. It was "too good to keep." Immediately after this they brought to him one possessed with a demon and dumb, and he cast out the demon. This produced wonder among the common people, but brought forth another issue between our Lord and the Pharisees. Tins is the third issue with them, the first being the authority to forgive sins at the healing of the paralytic; the second, the eating with publicans and sinners at the feast of Matthew; the third, the casting out of demons by the prince of demons, which culminated later in the unpardonable sin. The next incident in our Lord's ministry is his visit to Jerusalem to the Feast of the Passover (see note in Harmony, p. 39), at which he healed a man on the sabbath and defended his action in the great discourse that followed. In this discussion of our Lord the central text is John 5:25 and there are three things to be considered in this connection. THE The scriptural story of the circumstances which preceded and called forth these utterances of our Saviour is very familiar, very simple, and very touching. A great multitude of impotent folk, blind, halt, withered, were lying in Bethesda's porches, waiting for the moving of the waters. It is a graphic picture of the afflictions and infirmities incident to human life; the sadness of ill-health; the unutterable longing of the sick to be well; the marvelous power of an advertised cure to attract to its portals and hold in its cold waiting rooms earth's despairing sufferers, so grouped as to sicken contemplation by the varieties and contrasts of all the ills that flesh is heir to. Blindness groping its way trying to see with its fingers; deafness vainly and painfully listening for a voice it cannot hear – listening with its eyes; lameness limping along on nerveless, wooden feet; blistered, swollen tongues, dumb and senseless, appealing to fingers for speech and to nostrils for taste; the pitiful whining of mendicancy and vagabondage and raga timidly dodging from an expected blow while begging alms; the hideousness of deformity, either shrinking from exposure or glorifying to make conspicuous its repulsiveness, while a side-light reveals, crouched in the misty background, Sin, the fruitful mother of all this progeny of woe. Ah I Bethesda, Bethesda, thy porches are the archives of unwritten tragedies! If the hieroglyphics inscribed by suffering on thy cold stone pavements could be deciphered, the translations age by age, would be but a repetition of sorrow's one prayer to pitying heaven: Oh heaven! have compassion on us! Oh heaven I send a healer to us. It was a sad sight. Now, among the number gathered about that pool was a man who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. His infirmity was impotence – lack of power. His physical and his mental powers were prostrated, paralyzed. His affliction was so great that it prevented him from availing himself of any chance of being cured in this pool, and he was tantalized by lying in sight of the cure, continually seeing cures performed on others, and never being able to reach it himself. Such a case attracted the attention of Jesus. He came to this man and propounded an important question: "Do you want to be healed? Are you in earnest? Do you really wish to be made whole?" The man explains the circumstances that seemed to militate against his having a desire to be made whole: "I have not continued in this condition thirty-eight years because I did not try to help myself. I would be cured if I could be, but I cannot get down there into that water in time. Somebody always gets ahead of me. There is nobody to put me into the pool. My lying here so long and suffering so long, does not argue that I do not wish to be healed." Now, here is the key of the passage. Without employing the curative powers of the water, without resorting to any medical application whatever, by a word of authority, Jesus commanded him to rise up: "Be healed and walk." Now, do not forget that it was by a simple command, an authoritative voice, that that cure was consummated. The time was the sabbath. There were certain bigots and hypocrites who imagined that they were the conservators of religion, and the only authoritative interpreters and expounders of the obligations of the Fourth Commandment: "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." They preferred two charges against the Lord Jesus Christ. The first charge was that he had violated the sabbath in performing that cure on the sabbath day. He worked on the sabbath day, whereas the commandment said that there should be a cessation from work on that day. And the second count in the charge was that he had caused another to work on that day, in that he made this man take up his bed and walk. Now, that is the first controversy. It is a controversy with reference to the violation of the Fourth Commandment. Jesus defended himself: "My Father worketh on the sabbath day. You misunderstand that commandment. It does not say, 'Do no work,' but that commandment says, 'Do no secular and selfish work.' It does not gay, 'Do no work of mercy.' It does not say, 'Do no work of necessity.' And as a proof of it, God, who rested upon the day originally and thereby hallowed it, himself has worked ever since. True, he rested from the work of creation, but my Father worketh hitherto and I work." His defense was this: That they misunderstood the import of the commandment, and that what he did had this justification – that is was following the example of the Father himself. Now comes the second controversy. Instantly they prefer a new charge against him, growing out of the defense that he had made. The charge now is a violation of the First Commandment, in that he claimed God as his father, his own father, and thereby made himself equal with God, which was blasphemy. The keynote grows out of his defense against this second charge – not the charge about the violation of the sabbath day, but the charge suggested by his defense – the charge that he made himself equal with God. His defense is this: "I admit the fact. I do make myself equal with God. There is no dispute about the fact. But I deny the criminality of it. I deny that it furnishes any basis for your accusation." And then he goes on to show why. He says, "As Son of man, in my humanity I do not do anything of myself. I do not put humanity up against God. As Son of man I never do anything unless I first see my Father do it. Then, if my Father doeth it, I do it. In the next place, everything that the Father doeth I see. He shows it to me." What infinite knowledge; what intimacy with the Father! Why does he show it? "He shows it to me because he loves me. Why else does he? He shows it to me in order that he may induce all men to honor me as they honor him, and therefore he does not himself execute judgment upon anybody. He hath committed all judgment to me. He hath conferred upon me all authority and all power. And whoever hears my voice and believeth in me hath eternal life and shall not come unto condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." Thus he claims omniscience – that he sees everything that the Father does. He claims omnipotence – that he does everything that his Father does. He claims supreme authority – that he exercises all the judgment that is exercised upon this earth and in the courts of heaven and in the realms of woe. He claims that he does this because, like the Father, he hath life in himself – underived life, self-existence. Now, that brings us to the key verse: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." Hence the theme of this passage is "The Voice and the Life." Everyone that hears the voice of the Son of God, from the moment that he hears it, is alive forevermore; is exempt from the death penalty; is possessed of eternal life and shall not receive the sting of the second death and shall stand at the right hand of the Father, happy, saved forever! THE The meaning of this passage is easily determined. We have only to compare this verse with a statement of the context. Let us place them side by side: "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming [not "now is,"] in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." Here are two things set over against each other. One present, the other future. Two kinds of dead people: Those who are alive and yet dead, and those who are dead and in their tombs. The dead who are alive may now hear and live. The dead in their graves cannot hear until the resurrection. It follows that the first is spiritual death and the second physical death. The dead soul may now hear and live; the dead body not now, but hereafter. As there are two deaths, there are two resurrections. Spiritual resurrection is now – resurrection of the body is not now. And the meaning is that the death in each case is broken by the voice. The voice gives life now to those "dead in trespasses and sins." "You hath he quickened." The voice raises the dead in the tombs at the second coming. I have already called attention to this fact, that that impotent man was healed, not by the application of any medicine; that he was healed by a word of authority. He spoke and it was done. The thought that runs all through this passage, that indeed is the essence and marrow of it, is that the voice which confers life is a voice of command, is a voice of authority, is a divine voice, speaking from the standpoint of sovereignty and of omniscience and of power, and commanding life, and life coming in a moment, at the word. That is the thought of it. The dead shall hear his voice. The dead shall hear his voice when he says, "Live," and, hearing, shall live. I want to impress that idea of the voice being a voice of command, a voice of authority and of irresistible power. Let me illustrate: John, in the apocalyptic vision, sees the Son of God, and I shall not stop to describe his hair, his voice, his girdle, his feet, or his manner. He is represented as opening his lips and a sword coming out of his mouth – a sword! The word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. The command that issues from the lips of Jesus Christ is irresistible. No defensive armor can blunt the point of that sword. No ice can quench the fire that is in it. No covering can protect from it. It reaches into the joints and into the marrow, and it touches the most secret things that have been hidden even from the eyes of angels. Let me illustrate again: Once there was chaos, and chaos was blackness – wave after wave of gloom intermingled with gloom. Suddenly a voice spoke, "Let there be light," and light was. What means were employed? No means. Only the voice. He spake and it stood fast. It was the voice of authority. It was the voice of God. It was the voice of commandment, and nature obeyed her God. Read Psalms 28. A mountain is described in that psalm – a mountain covered with tall cedar trees – and then it says God spoke and the mountain trembled and the cedar trees snapped in twain and skipped like lambs, carried away, not on the breath of the wind, but on the voice of God. Take but this case: Job had some ideas about salvation. God spoke to him and after asking how much knowledge he had, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? What do you know about the heavenly bodies? What do you know about the giving of color, and the father of the rain, and in what womb the hoar frost and the ice are gendered? What do you know? Then what power have you? Can you feed the young lions when they lack? Can you drag out Leviathan with a hook? Can you pierce Behemoth with a spear when he churneth the deep and maketh it hoary?" Now comes the climax: "Have you a voice like God? If you think you have, rise up and speak; and speak to all the proud, and by your voice cast the proud down and bind their faces in secret. Then I will confess that your right hand can save you. But if you have no such knowledge; if your knowledge is not infinite; if your power is not infinite; if you cannot bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion; if you cannot abase the proud by a word, then do not attempt to say you save yourself." Notice again: A man had one of his senses locked up – the sense of hearing. He had an ear, but it could not hear, and be came to Jesus. There he is, the deaf man. Jesus spoke one word, Ephphatha. What does it mean? "Be open." And the ear opened. Occasionally now for the benefit of the gullible and the credulous some man will claim to have such vast powers as that he shall put his hand upon the sick and they shall be made whole – for two dollars a visit! But the whole of it is a fraud. Here is one who spoke to an ear whose power of hearing was destroyed, and to give hearing to that ear meant creative power, and he simply said, "Be open," and it was open. Take another case: A centurion comes upon the recommendation of the Jews to Jesus. He says, "Lord, I have a servant very dear to me and he is very sick. He is at the point of death. But I am not worthy that you should come to my house. You just speak the word and my servant shall be healed. I understand this; I am a man of authority myself. I have soldiers under me and I say to this one, Do that, and he doeth it. And I say to another, Do this, and he doeth it. Now you have authority. You need not come. You need not go through any movements of incantation. Speak the word and my servant will be healed." Jesus says, "He is healed." Take another case: In Capernaum was a nobleman. He had one child, just one, a little girl twelve years old and she died. His only child is dead, and he comes to Jesus, and Jesus follows him, comes into the house, pushes people aside that are weeping there and wailing, walks into the room of death, takes hold of that dead girl's hand, and he says, "Talitha Cumi – damsel, arise." And at the word of the Son of God, the dead girl rose up and was well. Take another. He is approaching a city. There comes out a procession, a funeral procession. Following it is a brokenhearted widow. On the bier is her son – her only son. The bier approaches Jesus. He commands them to stop. They put it down. He looks into the cold, immobile, rigid face of death, and he speaks: "Young man, I say unto thee, arise." And at the voice of the Son of God he rises. Take another. In Bethany was a household of three, but death came and claimed one of the three, and the sisters mourned for the brother that was gone. And he was buried four days; he had been buried, and decay and putridity had come. Loathesomeness infested that charnel house, and the Son of God stands before that grave, and he says, "Take away that stone." And there is the presence, not of recent death, as in the case of that girl on whose cheek something of the flush of life yet lingered; not like the young man of Nain, who had not been buried. But here was hideous death. Here was death in all of its horror and loathesomeness. The worms are here. And into that decayed face the Son of God looked and spoke, "Lazarus, come forth!" And he rose up and came forth. He heard the voice of the Son of God, and he lived. Take yet another, Ezekiel 37. There is a valley. That valley is full of bones – dead men's bones – dead longer than Lazarus – dead until all flesh is gone, and there is nothing there but just the dry, white bones. And the question arises, "Can these dry bones live?" And there comes a voice, “ O breath, breathe on these slain." And at the voice they lived. That is why I said that the voice of this passage is the voice of authority. It is a voice of power. It is an irresistible voice. And whoever hears it is alive forevermore. It is winter, and winter has shrouded the world in white and locked the flow of rivers and pulsation of lakes; stilled the tides which neither ebb nor flow, and there comes a voice, the voice of a sunbeam shining, the voice of a raindrop falling, the voice of a south wind blowing, and winter relaxes his hold. Cold winter is gone and the waters flow, and the juices rise, and the flowers bud and bloom, and fruit ripens and the earth is recreated. That represents the voice of God. THE Now, what is the doctrine? The doctrine of this passage is that Jesus Christ is God Almighty manifest in the flesh – the self-existent, eternal, immutable, all-powerful God. That his word is authoritative; that his word conveys life; and that he speaks that word when, where, bow, and to whom he wills. He is the sovereign. If there are many lepers in Israel he may speak to Naaman, the Syrian, only, "Be thou clean." If there are many widows in Israel he may speak to the widow of Sarepta alone, "Be thou saved from famine." If there are a multitude lying impotent around this pool he may speak to this one only and say, "Rise up and walk." He is a sovereign. The election is his. I can no more tell to whom he will speak than I can count the stars, or the leaves, or the grains of sand. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. I know to whom I speak. I do not know to whom Jesus shall speak. But I can tell the evidences from which we may conclude that he has spoken when he does speak, and that is the great point here. It is the ringing trumpet note of the Eternal God. How may we know that we hear him? Paul says in his letter to the Thessalonians, "This gospel came unto you, not in word only, but in power." In power I If, then, we hear the voice of Jesus, there will be energy in it. There will be vitality in it. There will be life in it. It will not be mere sound, but Bound embodying life. And how is that power manifested? It is manifested in this, that if we hear him we feel that we are singled out from all the people around us. We feel that we are cut out from the crowd. We feel that his eye is on us. We feel that we stand before God in our individuality alone. If we hear his voice, it discovers our heart to us. It shows us what we are. And not only that, but if we hear his voice there is a revelation to us of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What says the Scripture? "If our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the god of this world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not, but God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts, revealing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Now look back to that first scripture, "Let there be light, and light was." God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, hath shined into our hearts, into the chaos and gloom and blackness of our hearts, and by that shining he has revealed to us his glory. Where? In the face of his incarnate Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Continuing his discourse, Jesus refers to John as a witness and he says that his witness was greater than that of John, because his works bear witness of him. He then asserts that they had never heard God's voice nor did they have his Word abiding in them; that they were destitute of the love of God; that they sought not the glory of God; that they were convicted by the law of Moses because it testified of him and they received not its testimony. This he said was the reason that they would not believe his words. The reader will note how tactfully our Lord here treats his relation to the Father in view of the growing hatred for him on the part of the authorities at Jerusalem (see note in Harmony, p. 41). On his way back from Jerusalem to Galilee he and his disciples were passing through the fields of grain and the disciples, growing hungry, plucked the heads of grain and rubbed them in their hands, which they were allowed to do by the Mosaic law. But the Pharisees, in their additions to and expositions of the law, had so distorted its true meaning that they thought they had ground for another charge against him. But he replies by an appeal (1) to history, the case of David, (2) to the law, the work of the priests, (3) to the prophets, and (4) to his own authority over the sabbath. This fourth issue with the Pharisees is carried over into the next incident where he heals the man with a withered hand on the sabbath day. Here he replied with an appeal to their own acts of mercy to lower animals, showing the superior value of man and the greater reason for showing mercy to him. Here again they plot to kill him. When Jesus perceived that they had plotted to kill him, he withdrew to the sea of Galilee and a great multitude followed him, insomuch that he had to take a boat and push away from the shore because of the press of the crowd. Many were press- ing upon him because of their plagues, but he healed them all. This is cited as a fulfilment of Isa 42:1-4, which contains the following items of analysis: (1) The announcement of the servant of Jehovah, who was the Messiah; (2) his anointing and its purpose, i. e., to declare judgment to the Gentiles; (3) his character – lowly; (4) his tenderness with the feeble and wounded; (5) his name the hope of the Gentiles. After the great events on the sea of Galilee our Lord stole away into the mountain and spent the whole night in prayer looking to the call and ordination of the twelve apostles. Then he chose the twelve and named them, apostles, whom both Mark and Luke here name. (For a comparison of the four lists of the twelve apostles see Broadus' Harmony, p. 244.) 1. How did our Lord test the faith of the two blind men whom he healed? 2. What was our Lord's request to them and why, and what was the result and why? 3. What was the result of his healing the dumb demoniac and what the culmination of the issue raised by the Pharisees? 4. What were the great events of our Lord's visit to Jerusalem to the Passover (John 6:1)? 5. What was the occasion of his great discourse while there? 6. Describe the scene at the pool of Bethesda. 7. What was the time of this incident and the issue precipitated with the Pharisees? 8. How did Jesus defend himself? 9. What was new charge growing out of this defense and what our Lord's defense against this charge? 10. How does Jesus here claim omniscience, omnipotence, and all authority? 11. What was the bearing of this upon the key verse (John 5:25) of this passage? 12. Give the exegesis of Joh 5:25-29. 13. What was the main thought running all through this passage? Illustrate by several examples. 14. What was the doctrine here expressed and how does the author illustrate it? 15. What were the evidences of the voice of the Son of God? 16. How does Jesus proceed to convict them of their gross sin and what the charges which he prefers against them? 17. Show how tactfully Jesus treated his relation to the Father and why. 18. State the case of the charge of violating the sabbath law in the cornfields and Jesus' defense. 19. How does he reply to the same charge in the incident of the man with a withered hand and what the result? 20. Describe the scene that followed this by the sea of Galilee. 21. What prophecy is here fulfilled and what was the analysis of it? 22. What the occasion here of all-night prayer by our Lord? 23. What the order of names in the four lists of the twelve apostles as given by Mark, Luke, and Acts? XXVIII OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEEPart III THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT Harmony pages 45-82 and Matthew 5:1-7:29; Luke 6:17-49.The historians of the Sermon on the Mount are Matthew and Luke, mainly Matthew. The scene of that sermon was a level place upon the mountains of the northwestern shore of the sea of Galilee. The audience consisted of the twelve disciples whom he had just appointed and of a large number of other disciples who had been instructed somewhat in the principles of his kingdom, and of a vast multitude of people from Judea and Samaria and Phoenicia. It was an immense audience. Luke says, "The company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon." It was such an audience as one could not put in a house – any kind of a house. And it is a noticeable fact that whenever a great reformation commences, I mean a movement that has life and fire in it – then the reformers take to field preaching. They quit the houses; they go into the streets or fields or out in the open somewhere, for only such places as have the skies for a ceiling and the horizon for a boundary can hold the crowds of people that will always gather when a deep and fiery movement of the Christian religion is in progress. So with this audience of Jesus. The occasion of the Sermon on the Mount was this: He had Just selected twelve men, commencing the organization of his movement. These twelve men were to share with him the burden of responsibility and labor, and it was quite important that they should be thoroughly instructed in the first principles of the kingdom which he announced. It was equally necessary that the larger body of his disciples should understand those fundamental principles, and that the miscellaneous and ever-shifting crowd, drawn together by their expectations of a king, and looking to the establishment of an earthly monarchy which would overturn Roman supremacy and give to Judea the sovereignty of the universe – that this mixed rabble should have their misconceptions concerning the nature of the kingdom of Jesus Christ removed, and forever. The setting or background of the sermon must never be overlooked. The multitudes, incited mainly by desires of relief from physical, temporal, and external woes – even the better informed and more spiritually minded but dimly recognizing the greater spiritual needs – these constituted the occasion of the Sermon on the Mount. The design of it has been partly suggested by the occasion, but we need to erect just here a pillar of caution. The design has a negative as well as a positive aspect. First, then, negatively: It was not intended to be, as some have supposed and claimed, an epitome of doctrine and morals, neither of the one nor of the other. It falls very short of being a full synopsis of the doctrines of Jesus Christ. There is not a word in it directly of regeneration. There is nothing in it concerning the doctrine of the vicarious atonement and justification by faith, so elaborately set forth by the Saviour himself and his apostles. So there are some departments of morals not here inculcated. Hence, one makes a very great mistake when he counts the Sermon on the Mount as a complete standard of life. We hear people say sometimes: “ If I live by the Sermon on the Mount that will do." I say that this sermon is not all of the standard. Positively, then, what was the design of it? The design of it was introductory – an opening or rudimental discourse setting forth the foundation principles of the messianic kingdom, showing that these principles are internal, spiritual, practical and not external, ritualistic, theoretic; setting forth first the characteristics, privileges, and happiness of the messianic subjects in the Beatitudes. Showing next the importance, influence and responsibility of the messianic subjects, comparing them to the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Then follows a discussion of the relations of the messianic kingdom. Relations to what? Relations to the Jewish law, whether ceremonial, civil or moral; to the prophets; to rabbinical traditions ; to the world; to practical life, and to destiny. Such was the design of the Sermon on the Mount, intending afterward, as in fact he did, to unfold, to develop other doctrines related to these, and letting his whole life's teaching present the fulness of his doctrine and of his morality. So the Sermon on the Mount is not a disconcerted jumble of fine sayings, but exhibits remarkable unity as a discourse, as will be observed when I briefly state the outline and analysis of it. Indeed, I much question if any speech has ever been delivered more remarkable for unity than the Sermon on the Mount. Next, the matter of this sermon is every bit every-day matter, but while every-day matter, it is as deep and as important as human life and destiny. One makes a great mistake in supposing that great teaching touches only the strange, exceptional, and startling. The best and sublimest teaching upon the earth concerns the every-day life, and such is the matter of this sermon. The following adjectives will convey a description of the style: It is simple, familiar, direct, sententious, paradoxical, startling, illustrative, conversational, practical, and authoritative. It is a simple talk. I mean that every one in that audience could understand it. There was no attempt at big words; the language of the common people, as they spoke it and as they understood it, was used by our Saviour. It was familiar in that it was as homely in its phrases as if he were sitting by the fireside or out on the housetop in the cool of the evening or on the curbing of the street and talking with the passing people. It was not an oration, for there is an utter absence of declamatory, theoretical elocution, and rhetoric, as there must be in all great teachers. I mean to say that there is not an indication of a single strained mental effort after rounded phraseology, euphonious diction, rhetorical effect, dramatic gesticulation. It is direct. I mean to say that it does not intend to reach things by cannoning, hitting here and intending by glancing shot to strike out yonder. He moves right straight forward to the accomplishment of his object. The style is paradoxical. A paradox is something which seems to be contradictory and is not contradictory, as, for instance, "happy are the unhappy" – that is, "Blessed are they that mourn." That is a paradox, but there is nothing contradictory about it. There is a comparison between present unhappiness and future happiness. As Luke keeps bringing it out, "Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled hereafter." "Woe unto you that are rich now, for ye shall be poor hereafter." Yes, it is intensely paradoxical. It is illustrative. The illustrations do not have to be explained, as some men's illustrations. They illustrate. They preach a sermon by themselves – that is, they carry in their familiar imagery their own application. He selects objects that are perfectly well known to the people and so thoroughly familiar that when used as an illustration there can be no misconception as to the meaning. Sometimes he illustrates by a hen and chickens, sometimes by a lily, other times by rocks and thorns and sheep and birds. It is conversational in its style, and unquestionably the greatest preachers are preachers who adopt the easy, off-hand, conversational style, like Dr. Broadus. But the distinguishing characteristic in style is that which most impressed his audience, because of its intrinsic power and of its marked dissimilarity to the methods of their ordinary religious teachers. He taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes and Pharisees. The style then was authoritative. Just look at the difference. A rabbi would get up before the people and with his eyes cast down would begin to say, "Rabbi Ben Israel says in the Talmud that Rabbi Joseph said that Rabbi Amos said that maybe such is the interpretation of the passage, but Rabbi Issachar quotes Rabbi Ephraim as saying that Rabbi Eleazer thought it might mean a different thing." It was all indeterminate, uncertain; it did not take any positive shape. The pupil was perplexed by a balancing of conflicting probabilities. One leader doubtfully said, "Lo, here," while another distrustfully said, "Maybe, yonder." But Jesus spoke with authority – authority vested in himself. He leaned on no human buttresses – did not attempt to defend his doctrine, nor to vindicate it. He spoke as God speaks, and without stopping to give an explanation of his manner – and so ought men always to speak who speak for God. Let him speak as the oracles of God. Now as to the rank of this Sermon. Daniel Webster says that no mere man could have produced the Sermon on the Mount. Old age and wisdom bow before the simplicity and sublimity of this incomparable teaching. Little children sweetly imbibe its spirit as if it were milk, and aged saints draw from it the strong meat which supplies their sinews of strength. Babes in Christ by it take their first step in the practical walk of Christian life while the men or women in Christ Jesus by it soar on eagles' wings into the anticipations of the heavenly world. It is peerless, matchless, divine. To show the unity of the Sermon on the Mount, I will give an outline of it that consists of only three great heads. First, the characteristics, privileges, and happiness of the messianic subjects as set forth in the beatitudes. Second, the importance, influence, and responsibility of the messianic subjects, as set forth in the images of salt and light. And third, the relations of the messianic kingdom or doctrines – that is, its relations to the Jewish law, whether ceremonial) civil or moral; its relations to the rabbinical traditions; its relations to the prophecies; its relations to the outside world in its spirit and maxims and chief good; its relations to human destiny, closing with "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them," he shall be like the man who built his house upon a rock, and when the floods came and the storms buried, that house stood, for it was founded upon a rock. All through it, in all of its great divisions and subdivisions, is brought out in clearest light that the principles of the Christian religion are internal, spiritual and practical. It is not, "Do this that you may be seen of men." It is not to wash the outside of the cup or platter. It is not a painted sepulcher, holding inside rottenness and dead men's bones. It consists not in meat and drink, not in observances of days and months and seasons. It has not ten thousand ordinances that touch our dress and our manner. Oh, the mass of stuff that has been imposed upon the Christian religion which, in its foundation principles, was all spiritual and not ritualistic. All through it is practical. I mean to say, as opposed to theoretic or speculative. There is not a single part of it that is presented to the curious human mind as something calculated to entertain an idle person – not a thing. The whole of it is designed to be not abstract, but concrete – to be incarnated, to be embodied – practical, all of it. Having presented that outline of this Sermon, I want to illustrate it by considering briefly the first two divisions. First, the characteristics, privileges, and happiness of the messianic subjects, as set forth in what are called the beatitudes, commencing with a few general remarks. There are ten of these characteristics, with ten corresponding privileges or ten alternative woes. Every one of the privileges is based on character, and every one of the particular measures of happiness is based on a privilege, showing the relation between character and happiness – a fixed relation, an indissoluble bond. If a man possess the kingdom of God; if a man is allowed to see God and live with him; if a man receives a reward from God at the last great day, these privileges are the springs of his happi-ness, but every privilege is predicated upon character in the man, upon the inside state of the man's soul. As Burns expresses it: It is no' in titles, nor in rank; It is no' in wealth like London bank, To purchase peace and rest; If happiness have not her seat And center in the breast We may be wiser or rich or great But never can be blest. This sermon explains why Paul, covered with wounds and in prison, at midnight, and with death awaiting him in the morning, could sing praises to God. It explains how it is, as recorded in Hebrews 11, that the ancient martyrs took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and who, while flames wrapped them about, shouted, "Hallelujah to God"; who leaped for joy that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ's sake. The Beatitudes express the only great philosophy as contrasted with Epicureanism and Stoicism. The Epicurean taught: "You have appetites; if you would be happy, gratify them. Eat, drink, and be merry." The Stoic said, "You have appetites; if you would be happy, extirpate them – dig them up by the roots." This sermon says, "You have appetites; if you would be happy, regulate them. Neither gratify them immoderately nor suppress them, but divert them from improper channels and fix them upon worthy objects. You want to be rich; that is right, only what kind of riches? You want to live? Yes, but when – now or hereafter? You want great substance? That is all right, but what kind – evanescent or that which endures? You would treasure up – yes, but where? Where neither moth nor rust corrupt, nor thieves dig through and steal." It will be observed that these Beatitudes are all double. I mean that they have a probable sense and an absolute sense. Take this one. Luke says, "Blessed are ye poor." Matthew says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The probable sense is always this, that comparing the two estates of poverty and riches, it is more probable that a poor man will get to heaven than that a rich man will. I mean to say that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. If one's rent roll is $100,000 a year, then one's chances of heaven are very slim, but that is not the absolute sense. The absolute sense is, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Again, "Blessed are they that mourn." The probable sense is that it is a rule better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting; that as a rule afflicted people are more apt to seek the kingdom of heaven than people who are not afflicted, but its meaning in its absolute sense is not merely to be a mourner, but to mourn in spirit for spiritual things. We next note, generally, that each Beatitude has a corresponding woe, either expressed or implied. Luke mentions four of them. For instance, when he says, "Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven," he then adds the alternative, "But woe unto you rich, for you have had your consolation." So with all the others, the corresponding woe is either expressed or implied. After these general references to all the Beatitudes, let us examine somewhat particularly the first two. Take the first, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." What does that mean? I believe in close analysis and clear definition. Now here is the way I would read that: "Happy is the man who in his inner, higher nature [that is, in his spirit I consciously feels his poverty or need of spiritual good from God." There is poverty – yes, but it is that poverty in spirit which we consciously feel and not that which we have but do not know that we have it. Compare two scriptures for proof: Isaiah 66:2 "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." Revelation 3:17 "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable and poor, and blind and naked." Evidently the blessing is promised, not to the poverty, but to the sense of the poverty – the consciousness of the need. It is quite important to observe this distinction. Now in the case of these Laodiceans there was actual poverty in the sphere of the spirit, but there was no recognition of the poverty. On the contrary, they thought themselves to be rich and that they needed nothing. The two states of mind are clearly represented in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican who went up into the Temple to pray. The Pharisee had spirit need enough, but he had no consciousness of that need. The publican had the same need and he deeply felt it. He smote his heart and said, "God be merciful to me the sinner." Blessed are the poor in spirit. The prodigal son illustrates both phases of the subject. When he left his father's house, however much he might have in external things (for he was richly endowed), in his inner nature, in his spirit, he was actually poor, but he did not know it. He thought he was rich and great, and was correspondingly proud, but there came a time when he began to be in want; when the need of his soul broke in upon his mind; when he said, "I have sinned; I will arise and go to my father and say to him, Father, I am not worthy to be called thy son. Let me be a servant. I have sinned." Blessed are the poor in spirit. That means, happy is the man who in the sphere of the spirit (or inner or higher nature) feels his need of good from God – no less, no more. "I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord." Oh, bow sweet that hymn is! Poor in spirit. Oh, I have so few spiritual goods. I need patience, I need strength, I need clearer views of heaven, I need more of the spirit of my Master. Poor, yea, blessed are the poor in spirit. But do not forget the contrast in the now and the hereafter. What do you need, O Dives, at the banquet? "Not a thing in the world. I have a million dollars; have the finest table in the country; every time I walk out on the streets people fawn upon me and say, 'There goes a millionaire. Look at him I ' Why, I do not need a thing in the world. You never did see such eating as I have on my table; I am rich." Rich, purse proud, feeding upon external things and starving the soul. That is the now. But let me show him in the hereafter. We will have to look a long way down into the depths of hell. Did he take any money with him? Not a cent. Is he thirsty? Hear him: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my parched tongue; for I am tormented in this flame" (Luke 16:24). See that chasm that separates him from God. Mark his apprehension that his brethren will come where he is. Mark the play of his memory. "But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and you are tormented" (Luke 16:25). Oh, sublime Teacher, thou Teacher of the relation of time and eternity! "Blessed are they that mourn." I would rather go to the house of mourning than to the house of laughing. But it refers to the sphere of the spirit. Do we mourn on account of sin? Do we mourn on account of our lack of conformity to the image of Jesus Christ? Do we mourn because of the low state of piety in the land? Like Jeremiah, is the cause of our grief the fact that the health of the daughter of God's people is not recovered? "Blessed are they that mourn." Oh, you mourners in Zion, I say to you, you shall be comforted, and when your ashes are turned to beauty and your heaviness to the garments of praise, and your anguish to the thrilling joys of heaven, then will your consolation be deep and high and broad, with an "immeasurable" attached to every one of the adjectives. How sweet the song of Tom Moore: Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish; Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel; Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish, Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal, “ Blessed are they that mourn." Oh, mourners, hear the blessed Saviour: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19). We reach the fulness of the promise in heaven, for there are no tears in heaven, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain, nor death. Hear the precise words of our Lord: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:4). Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those that mourn on account of sin. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness – personal, practical righteousness, mark you, and not imputed righteousness. It means absolute, sinless perfection. Such will come after awhile. Blessed are the pure in heart; that means the fulness of sanctification, in absolute deliverance from the corruption that is in the world through lust. It, too, will come after a while. It is not all attainable now. But we may move toward it and we will be filled; we will ultimately see God. All these Beatitudes have a special meaning and each one very sweet. Let us now consider somewhat the importance and influence and responsibility of the people who are poor in spirit and mourn, and are meek, and who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and who are merciful, and who are peacemakers, and who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. What is their importance? What their influence? What their responsibility? Jesus, in just one verse, answers all of these questions: "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men" (Matthew 5:13). The importance or value of Messiah's subjects is determined by the emphasis on the pronoun "ye." The verb ending would in ordinary cases determine the pronoun nominative, so it would not have to be expressed. But if, in the Greek, one desires to throw emphasis on the pronoun, it must be expressed. The Greek verb este by itself means "ye are," that is, without emphasis. But to have it "YE are," capitalizing and emphasizing the pronoun, it must be written humeis este. How then can I give the emphasis, the deep stress our Saviour placed on that pronoun? YE – YE – YE are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Thus we see that he meant to deny such importance and influence and responsibility to anything else or to anybody else. First, there is a contrast when he says "ye." The emphasis is on the "ye." Ye are the light of the world. Ye are the salt of the earth. It is as if he had said, "If this world is preserved from moral corruption, if this world is wrested from the realms of darkness and bathed in light, ye will have to do it. Ye are the important ones." O think of it, you mourners, you poor in spirit, you merciful ones, you that hunger and thirst after righteousness, you are more important in the sight of God and ten thousand times more valuable than all the rich, ungodly men that ever trod the face of the earth. I say unto you that not the philosophers (lightning bugs trying to outshine the sun), not the police, shall keep the world from corrupting and rotting; not the public school, as the politicians would have you believe. No, you can have good public schools right over the mouth of the pit. But ye are the light of the world; those whose characteristics are internal, spiritual, practical; followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. I say if the whole earth is not cracked open today it is because of you. If the cloud does not burst and the bolt fall to smite it with universal flame, it is solely because of that "ye." Ye poor in spirit; ye Christians that are scattered about on the face of the earth – ye and ye alone. Ah, me, if you were taken off the earth it would rot and stink until heaven would be compelled to burn it. I would like to know whenever philosophy or secular education or commerce or riches or secular science ever kept a community from morally rotting. I say today, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that but for the humble, God-fearing men and women in any state, in any county, in any town, it would rot. They are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. As the value and importance of God's people are determined by the emphatic "Ye," so the character of their influence is determined by the figures "salt and light." Salt preserves – keeps pure. Light dispels darkness. Heat expels cold. The salt of the sea is the shore's barrier against universal disease and death. Without the light and its accompanying heat there could be no life. No plant would germinate. Darkness that could be felt would shroud the earth. More than Arctic cold would ensue. All liquids would solidify and petrify. The rivers – earth's arteries – would stiffen into blocks of ice. The veins of blood would become like steel wire, harder than man's bones. What, therefore, salt and light are to the natural world, even that are Christians to the spiritual world. And as the emphatic "ye" expresses who are earth's important ones, and as the "salt and light" express the kind and character of their value, so their responsibility is expressed by "putting the candle on the candlestick." "Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:15-16). Mark the emphasis on the "so." It is commonly misunderstood. As the candle once lighted must be put on the candlestick in order to be sufficiently visible, even so when God shines into the heart the conversion must be so positioned as to be visible. It is to position and consequent visibility that "even so" refers. I say that our responsibility is all involved in putting the candle in the right place. God himself does the lighting. Our part is not to so misplace the light as to hide it. It therefore becomes a supreme question: How do you put it on the candlestick? First then let the divine oracles speak. Hear the Word of God: "I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation; I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great congregation" (Psalms 40:10). "Come and hear all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul" (Psalms 66:16). "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven." "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33). "The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks that thou sawest are the seven churches" (Revelation 1:20). What then do these scriptures mean? That we must not hide God's righteousness in our hearts. That we must tell it. Let God's people hear our Christian experience. Let the whole world know just where we stand. Unite with the church. On every issue between righteousness and unrighteousness, between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial, take an unmistakable position on the Lord's side. Do not try to be a secret partner of Jesus Christ, a Nicodemus who comes to see him by night. Come out and take a stand. Let the world know your alignment. Put the candle on the candlestick and let the marksman of hell try to snuff it out. To put it on the candlestick is unquestionably to join the church. Where do we get that? Why, in the book of Revelation Jesus moves among the candlesticks, and what are the candlesticks? They are the churches. The seven candlesticks are the seven churches. Why put the light there? Because the Lord Jesus Christ has made the church the pillar and ground of the truth. That is his institution. Man can organize something, but Jesus organized the church. That is an institution which has the promise of this life and that which is to come. Yea, she it is that looketh forth as the morning, clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners. Oh, but one says that means the invisible church. How on earth, if it is invisible, is it putting a candle on a candlestick? An invisible candlestick? He is not referring to invisibility. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. God lighted the light and it is eternal, but God says make it conspicuous, visible. Put it on the candlestick that everybody can see it shine. Unquestionably. Well, if it gets in the church, it shines. How? It will help the church publish the principles of the messianic kingdom. It will be in the church and shine, and the waves of light radiating from the church will go out into the darkened heathen land upon wings of every sermon and prayer and song. It will help advertise the truth of Jesus. In every sermon preached and prayer offered and song sung, let it be as if upon a ladder of promises, it had gone up to the ceiling of the skies and placarded their whole scope with the promises of eternal life. That is the way we shine. We shine in our mission work. We shine in our example at home, in the school. And now let me say, if our religion is worth a snap of the finger, let us take it into politics. Do not misunderstand me; I do not mean to have a religious political party, separate from every other, but I do mean, that whatever religion we have, we should let it be as potent in determining a political question as any other question. Let me give a sublime illustration: William E. Gladstone was England's prime minister. To be prime minister of England means a vast deal more than to be president of the United States, for under the present British constitution the prime minister is the sovereign – the government of England. The queen has nothing more to do with it than I have, but the prime minister of England is the lord of England and her empire. The British cabinet is not like the cabinet that we have over here in our country – merely advisers. Now he was prime minister of England, and had attained his premiership by combining the liberal element of the political party in England and Scotland with the Irish element. The Irish element was led by Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell was the king and chief of the Irish contingent, and he and Gladstone stood like two brothers, working together for the accomplishment of good for the whole empire. Right in the midst of their great victory an awful thing developed. A divorce suit was instituted against Mrs. O'Shea by her husband and making Parnell co-respondent, and the fact brought out a moral depravity of heart in the case of Parnell – oh, such a sickening state of facts that Gladstone said: "If it costs me the prime minister's place I will not stand by the side of Charles Stewart Parnell. I will let the political party go; I am a Christian; I love God. I love God more than I love a political party. I will not give this man the hand of fellowship. Ireland must select another leader." Parnell refused to yield leadership. It divided the Irish vote and lost Gladstone's working majority in Parliament. He had to resign, and he is the only man I know that actually preferred to be right than to be prime minister. The time sometimes comes when instead of showing we are Christians by being willing to shake hands with everybody, we must show our Christianity by refusing to take a bad man's hand, even though he poses as a Christian. It may be that we cannot reach him by church discipline. It becomes necessary that he may be made to feel the force of a righteous public opinion. I repeat it that there are degrees to which a church member may go in slandering his brethren, in breeding strife, in opposing or clogging the wheels of Christian progress, when to give him Christian recognition is a sin. Such a man becomes a curse instead of a blessing. What, though a man be a Baptist, and what though some church retain him in fellowship, yet he may so go astray in doctrine that this scripture applies: "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God-speed: for he that biddeth him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds" (2 John 1:10-11). "Others note and have no company with them that they may be ashamed" (2 Thessalonians 3:14). Paul thus urgently entreats and exhorts the Romans: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly: and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple" (Romans 16:17-18). He also thus enjoins the Corinthians: "I wrote to you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no, not to eat" (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). He also urges Timothy "to turn away from" another class (2 Timothy 3:5). Indeed, there are men so adroit in the use of the forms and technicalities of the law they can, so far as human courts extend, violate with impunity the spirit of the whole moral law. Such men are to be shunned, avoided, turned from. Let no good man receive them as friends. They are incorrigible. And particularly is this true of a fomenter and breeder of strife among brethren, or one who, like Satan, is a slanderer of his brethren. If he is a man that is called a brother, if he claims to be a Christian, and does certain things, turn from him and let the whole world know that you do not claim fellowship with him. Says the apostle, "Avoid him." If he can make us come up and stand beside him, so that he can say, "We two," and all the time proceed in infamy, all the time reap immoral rottenness, that is all he wants. He will spread the mantle of our Christianity over his vileness. Aaron Burr, for political reasons and from very slight causes, none such as are regarded sufficiently weighty to justify a challenge, forced a duel on Alexander Hamilton, although he knew Hamilton would never fire a shot at him, and he murdered Hamilton. Now, it was a sign that the United States was not absolutely rotting when the public sentiment spoke out as to the crime of dueling, when Burr, though he had been a leading spirit in one of the great political parties of this Union, was not socially recognized. Good people by whom he would sit down would get up and move away somewhere else. Should we take the hand of a Benedict Arnold or Judas Iscariot? To a certain extent the public denunciation that thundered over the head of Breckenridge of Kentucky was very godlike; but, I confess, when he stood up, and without extenuation, without denying the facts, but openly confessing them – confessing his sin and asking forgiveness – confess then there ought to have been more mercy shown him. If the principles of the Christian religion are not carried into society, if they are not carried into business, if they are not carried into politics, if we do not let the light shine, then the salt has lost the savour and the light is put under a bushel. We are the light of the world and the salt of the earth, says the great Teacher. My own conclusions are never child's play. They are always reached after profound investigation of a subject. I would rather stand up by the side of half a dozen who were occupying the platform of that Sermon on the Mount than to be one of a million on the opposing side. Oh, put the light on the candlestick! The third division of this Sermon consists of several items, some of which need to be elaborated somewhat, others having been sufficiently discussed in preceding chapters. The first point under this division is the relation of the messianic teaching to the law and the current teaching. It is a fulfilment, i. e., a filling out, of the law and not destructive of the law. It is also a correction of the current teaching of our Lord's time on many points respecting the law. The second item of this division is murder in its germ, which is anger. This is discussed by our Lord in Matthew 5:21-26. The third item is adultery in its germ, Matthew 5:27-31. The fourth item is unlawful divorce, Matthew 5:32. The fifth item is swearing, Matthew 5:33-37. The sixth item is the law of lex talionis, or the law of revenge, Matthew 5:38-42. The seventh item is the relation of the children of the kingdom to their enemies, expressed in one word – love. Then follows a prohibition of ostentatious works: alms-giving, prayer and fasting, and the inculcation of singlehearted devotion to God in laying up treasures in heaven and in leaving off vain anxieties. The question under discussion by our Saviour was this: He saw men bowed down with anxieties on the bread and meat question, the duty of providing for their families. "O, what shall we eat, and what shall we drink and wherewithal shall we be clothed?" He saw them trying to settle that question – and a good question it is to settle. What was the matter then? They were settling it at the wrong time and place. They were trying to settle a subordinate relation in advance of the settlement of a higher and paramount relation. What does he say? Does he say that the food is not good, that clothing is not good, that providing for the family is not good? On the contrary, this very passage offers these things: "All these things shall be added unto you." God knows we are hungry and should be fed. He knows we need clothing and shelter. The Lord knows that provision should be made against a famine. All our wants are known unto him, and not against them does this text speak, but for them. But this – let us settle this question, the biggest thing first, the fundamental thing, the vital thing. What is it? "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." That prepares one to live now, here in this world; that prepares one for death, for both worlds. "Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is and of the life to come." Let us look yet more carefully at this passage. What is meant here by the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven? It means what it means in the third chapter of Matthew, where John the Baptist said, "Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"; it means the reign or government of God through Jesus Christ in the heart and life here on the earth. That is to say, in preparing to live, I must seek first an entrance into that kingdom and a title to its privileges and its joys, and when my relations to that kingdom are settled, which are my relations to God, then these other things in the order of their importance require due attention. Well, let us put it in yet other words in order to get the thought still more clearly. What do we mean by seeking first the kingdom of heaven? Seeking; that means any effort upon our part during the time which God has appointed for that purpose, to obtain reconciliation with him; that means any effort on our part toward regeneration, any effort that we may put forth to become a child of God, a subject of Jesus Christ. That is seeking the kingdom of heaven. What is meant by righteousness? "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." Evidently from the connection the reference here is not to the imputed righteousness of Christ; that is abundantly set forth in other scriptures, and that, too is obtained in entering into the kingdom of heaven. That belongs to the initial process and is involved in regeneration. The righteousness here referred to is the personal righteousness of the subject of the kingdom, practical holiness, practical obedience to God's command. Now mark the order. Suppose I try to be righteous and sanctified before I am converted, surely I will fall – must seek God first. "I will cultivate morality. I will pay my debts. I will tell the truth. I will be good." How good without being reconciled to God, how good without regeneration, how good without the motive of love of God in the heart? The thing can't be done. Next, what is meant then by "shall be added to you?" It means this, that God's care in providing for the temporal necessities of his people in this life is just as efficient as his care for the salvation of their souls. I say that if we will first settle our relation to God by becoming a Christian, and then from the basis of regeneration, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, being now saved, we follow on into good works and into holy living, then the Bible promise is that all these other things shall be added. Let me now show what the Bible says about this life, and how these things shall be added. Let us take a passage from Psalms 37; it has never been falsified; it holds true in every age of the world: "Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." What is the anxiety here? "I was afraid I would not have a place among men in the land. I was afraid I would not have provision." "Trust, in the Lord and do good and verily thou shalt be fed." "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." Again: "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Again: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday," the very righteousness of this passage. "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him." Yet again: "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall he shall not be utterly cast down." "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away and lo, he was not. But mark the perfect man, consider the upright – the end of that man is peace." Peace here, peace at the end. "O, that I might die the death of the righteous and that my last end might be like his." That same psalm says, "I have been young and now am old, and yet never have I seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread." Take this one: "The Lord God is a sun and a shield. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Take this scripture: "All things work together for good to them that love God; to them that are the called according to his purpose." And it means all things above, here, below, night, day, moon, stars, breezes, storms, calms, afflictions, and bright days of prosperity, enemies – . Even hell shall work for our good if we love God. For example and by way of illustration, consider the things that to an outsider seem to be the hardest things on this earth to do, nor can he understand how a Christian does them, First, giving money. I have had men to look at me as if I were crazy and they seemed to be sorry for me that I should feel constrained to give so liberally to the cause of Christ. They don't know anything about it. Take giving then as an illustration and let me show that if first we have given ourselves to God (mark that for we do not give money to obtain salvation, but if first we have entered the kingdom of God,) and, moved with a love of God, we freely give, then for w God brightens earth and the grave and heaven. How is that? Does it help in this life? Our Saviour said, "Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over." That is in this life; that is here. I do say it, and the Lord beareth me witness that I lie not, that for the protection of my family in the matter of support I have never had one single anxiety since the day that my wife and I, without a dollar in the world, covenanted with God and settled the question of our financial relation to him, and I never more expect to have any. I say that it is the truth that not one wave of anxiety or trouble as to how I am to be fed and clothed, has ever rolled over my mind since that eventful day twenty-seven years ago, I determined to settle that question, and it was settled from top to bottom. Well, now, suppose the question was asked me: "Has God taken care of you? Has he been good to you? Has he kept you? Has he clothed you? Has he kept you out of debt? Has he enabled you not only to have, but to have in order to give?" Why, I would have to say, "Lord, it has been good measure; it has been pressed down; it has been shaken together, and it runs over all the time in this life." And never on the earth was anything truer than that. Now let us take the life to come on this question. Listen to the Saviour: "Whosoever shall give a cup of cold water to a disciple in the name of a disciple, shall receive a disciple's reward." Hear him again when he says, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness that when it shall fail they [the friends that you have made by it] shall receive you into everlasting habitations." Listen again, and I want to show that such is the life to come. The charge of Paul, the charge to rich men: "Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded nor trust to uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us all things to enjoy. Charge them that they do good; that they be rich in good works; that they be ready to distribute and willing to contribute, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life." I take one other scripture only. I will take it from a scene that ought to touch every heart. It is from the judgment day. Graves have opened, death and hell have given up their dead and all nations are standing before God, and I see them separate right and left, and I hear the words of the Lord: "Come ye blessed of my Father; enter into the kingdom of heaven prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was sick and ye visited me. I was hungry and ye fed me. I was naked and ye clothed me." Lord, when? When did we do this? "Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of my disciples you did it unto me." Here, then, is giving – the giving of a converted, of a saved man, brightening the hearthstone of every one who thus lives, and bringing blessings on a dark, lonely traveler on the mountain's height; brightening the shadows of death and the realms beyond; brightening the home that is on high. Our Saviour follows this with several other items of interest, such as the prohibition of censorious judgments, the privilege of a messianic subject to come to God as a child comes to an earthly parent, the exhortation to enter the straight gate, the unchangeable law that the tree is known by its fruits, and last, the principle that discipleship is manifested, not by profession but by obedience. There are several items here that need to be emphasized, but they are brought out in the interpretation of other passages. Therefore I will only mention them, citing where may be found my discussion on these subjects. First, the question of offending members, here raised in Matthew 5:29-31, is discussed in connection with Mark 9:47 in this volume. Second, the divorce question, here raised in Matthew 5:32, is discussed in connection with Matthew 19:1-12 in The Four Gospels, Part II of "The Interpretation." Third, the question of oaths here raised in Matthew 5:33-37, is discussed in Exodus-Levitictis of "The Interpretation." Fourth, the comment of our Lord on the model prayer relative to forgiveness, is discussed in connection with the subject of repentance, in chapter XV of this volume. Fifth, the question of the "few saved" of Matthew 8:13-14, is discussed in connection with Luke 13:23, in Part II of The Four Gospels. This Sermon on the Mount closes with a vivid description of the two builders, showing the beauty and permanency of a life founded upon the teachings of our Lord and the awful crash of life structure built on any other foundation than Christ, the Rock of Ages. One is here reminded of the modern song, "On Christ the Solid Rock," which, like this passage, shows the necessity of building on the rock, as 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 shows the necessity of the right sort of material to be placed in the building on the rock. "All other ground is sinking sand"; all combustible material will be consumed. But whatever the material, if on the sand, it must fall and "great will be the fall thereof." 1. Who were the historians of the Sermon on the Mount? 2. What was the scene of this sermon? 3. What the occasion of it? 4. What was the design of it, negatively and positively? 5. What can you say of the matter of this sermon? 6. What of its style? 7. Explain the terms used to describe the style. 8. What can you say of the rank of this sermon? 9. What is the evidence of divine authorship in this sermon? 10. What are the three great heads of the outline of this sermon? 11. What relations are expressed under the third great head? 12. What are the characteristics of the principles of the Christian religion as brought out in this sermon? Illustrate. 13. How many Beatitudes here? Repeat them from memory. 14. What is revealed in each of these Beatitudes? Quote Bums in point and illustrate by New Testament examples, 15. How do these Beatitudes correspond with the teaching of Epicureanism and Stoicism? 16. Show how these Beatitudes are double. 17. Give the woe of each Beatitude, either expressed or implied. 18. What, more particularly, the interpretation of the First Beatitude? Illustrate by New Testament parables. 19. For what do the blessed here in the Second Beatitude mourn? 20. How is this thought expressed by Tom Moore? 21. How does Jesus express the comfort of this thought elsewhere and where do we reach the fulness of the promise here? 22. Give briefly the import of all the other Beatitudes. 23. What is the responsibility of the subjects of the kingdom, how is it expressed and how is the importance of it shown? Illustrate. 24. Show the value and importance of God's people from the figures used. 25. How is our responsibility in the matter expressed, and what is the general application? 26. What should be the application of this principle to politics? Illustrate. 27. What is it’ s application to Christian and church fellowship? Give scriptural proof. 28. What are the points in the Aaron Burr and Breckenridge cases, respectively? 29. What several subjects are treated in the third main division of this sermon? 30. What, in detail, is the interpretation of Mat 6:33, what are the several scriptures cited to corroborate this interpretation, and what is the application? 31. What other subjects here need to be emphasized and where may be found a discussion of each? 32. How does our Lord close the Sermon on the Mount? XXIX OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEEPart IV The Centurion's Servant Healed, the Widow's Son Raised, The Sin Against the Holy Spirit Harmony -pages 52-59 and Matthew 8:1; Matthew 8:5-13; Matthew 11:2-30; Matthew 12:22-37; Mark 3:1-30; Luke 7:1-8:3.When Jesus, who spoke with authority, had finished the Sermon on the Mount, he returned to Capernaum where he acted with authority in performing some noted miracles. Here he was met by a deputation from a centurion, a heathen, beseeching him to heal his servant who was at the point of death. This Jewish deputation entered the plea for the centurion that he had favored the Jews greatly and had built for them a synagogue. Jesus set out at once to go to the house of the centurion, but was met by a second deputation, saying to Jesus that he not trouble himself but just speak the word and the work would be done. The centurion referred in this message to his own authority over his soldiers, reasoning that Christ's authority was greater and therefore he could speak the word and his servant should be healed. This called forth from our Lord the highest commendation of his faith. No Jew up to this time had manifested such faith as this Roman centurion. Then our Lord draws the picture of the Gentiles coming from the east, west, north, and south to feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven while the Jews, the sons of the kingdom, were cast out. Jesus then granted the petition of the centurion according to his faith. The second great miracle of Jesus in this region was the raising of the widow's son at Nain, which was a great blessing to the widow and caused very much comment upon the work of our Lord, so that his fame spread over all Judea and the region roundabout. His fame as a miracle worker and "a great prophet, “ reached John the Baptist and brought forth his message of inquiry. This inquiry of John, which reflects the state of discouragement, and also the testimony of Jesus concerning John, is discussed in John 10 of this volume (which see), but there are some points in this incident not brought out in that discussion which also need to be emphasized. First, what is the meaning of "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence" (Matthew 11:12)? The image is not precisely that of taking a city by storm, but of an eager, invading host, each trying to be first, pressing and jostling each other, as when gold was discovered in California, or at the settlement of the Oklahoma strip. It means impassioned earnestness and indomitable resolution in the entrance upon and pursuit of a Christian life, making religion the chief concern and salvation the foremost thing as expressed in the precepts: "Seek first the kingdom, etc.," "Agonize to enter in at the strait gate." It rightly expresses the absorbing interest and enthusiasm of a revival. "Thus Christianity was born in a revival and all its mighty advances have come from revivals which are yet the hope of the world." This thought is illustrated in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, pp. 47-49. Following this is the contrast between the publicans and scribes, the one justifying God and the other rejecting for themselves the counsel of God. Then he likens them unto children in the market, playing funeral. One side piped but the other side did not dance; then they wailed but the others did not weep. So, John was an ascetic and that did not suit them; Jesus ate and drank and that did not suit them. So it has ever been with the faultfinders. But in spite of that, wisdom is justified of her works (or children), i.e., wisdom is evidenced by her children, whether in the conduct of John or Jesus. But this statement does not justify the liquor business as the defendants of it claim. There is no evidence that Jesus either made or drank intoxicating wine Then began Jesus to upbraid the cities wherein were done these mighty works, including Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, because they had not repented. This shows that light brings with it the obligation to repent, and that this will be the governing principle of the judgment. Men shall be judged according to the light they have. Then follows the announcement of a great principle of revelation. God makes it to babes rather than to the worldly-wise man, and that Jesus himself is the medium of the revelation from God to man, but only the humble in spirit and contrite in heart can receive it. Because he is the medium of the blessing, the God-man, his compassion here finds expression in this great, broad invitation: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for am I meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Note the two kinds of rest here: First, the given rest, which is accepted by grace, and second, the found rest, which is attained in service. The next incident is the anointing of our Saviour’ s feet by a woman who was a sinner. This incident occurred in Galilee – just where I do not know – possibly, but not probably, in Nain. It is recorded by Luke alone, who, following a custom of the historians of mentioning only one incident of a special kind, omits the narrative of a later anointing. Two preceding things seem to be implied by the story: (a) That the host had been a beneficiary in some way of Christ's healing power over the body; (b) That the woman had been a beneficiary" of his saving power. It is quite probable that her weary and sin-burdened soul had heard and accepted the gracious invitation: "Come unto me, etc.," just given by the Saviour. At any rate her case is an incarnate illustration of the power of that text and is a living exposition of it. It is far more beautiful and impressive in the Greek than any translation can make it. Several customs prevalent then but obsolete now, constitute the setting of the story, and must be understood in order to appreciate its full meaning. (1) The Oriental courtesies of hospitality usually extended to an honored guest. The footwear of the times – open sandals – and the dust of travel in so dry a country, necessitated the washing of the feet of an incoming guest the first act of hospitality. See Abraham's example (Genesis 18:4) and Lot's (Genesis 19:2) and Laban's (Genesis 24:32) and the old Benjaminite (Judges 19:20-21) and Abigail (1 Samuel 25:41). See as later instances (John 13) our Lord's washing the feet of his disciples and the Christian customs (1 Timothy 5:10). This office was usually performed by servants, but was a mark of great respect and honor to a guest if performed by the host himself. (2) The custom of saluting a guest with a kiss. See case of Moses (Exodus 18:7) and of David (2 Samuel 19:39). To observe this mode of showing affectionate respect is frequently enjoined in the New Testament epistles. As employed by Absalom for purposes of demagogy (2 Samuel 15:5), and as employed toward Amasa by Joab when murder was in his heart (2 Samuel 20:9-10), and by Judas to our Lord when treachery was in his heart, rendered their crimes the more heinous. To this Patrick Henry refers: "Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss." (3) The custom of anointing the head at meals (Ecclesiastes 9:7-8; Psalms 23:5). Hence for the Pharisee to omit these marks of courteous hospitality was to show his light esteem for his guest. It proves that the invitation was not very hearty. (4) The custom of reclining at meals (Amos 6:4-6). This explains "sat at meat" and "behind at his feet." With these items of background we are prepared to understand and appreciate that wonderful story of the compassion of Jesus. His lesson on forgiveness and proportionate love as illustrated in the case of this wicked woman has been the sweet consolation of thousands. The announcement to the woman that her faith had saved her throws light on the question, "What must I do to be saved?" There are here also the usual contrasts where the work of salvation is going on. The woman was overflowing with love and praise while others were questioning in their hearts and abounding in hate and censure. This scene has been re-enacted many a time since, as Christianity has held out the hand of compassion to the outcasts and Satan has questioned and jeered at her beautiful offers of mercy. In Section 47 (Luke 8:1-3) of the Harmony we have a further account of our Lord's ministry in Galilee with the twelve, and certain women who had been the beneficiaries of his ministry, who also ministered to him of their substance. This is the first Ladies' Aid Society of which we have any record and they were of the right sort. We now take up the discussion of the sin against -the Holy Spirit found in Section 48 (Matthew 12:22-37; Mark 3:19-30). Before opening the discussion of it, allow me to group certain passages of both Testaments bearing on this question: Psalms 19:13 : "Innocent of the great transgression." Mark 3:29 : "Guilty of an eternal sin." Numbers 15:28-31 : "If any soul sin through ignorance, the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before the Lord, to make an atonement for him and it shall be forgiven him. But the soul that doeth presumptuously, born in the land of a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him." Hebrews 10:26-29 : "For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries. A man that hath set at naught Moses' law, dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?" Jeremiah 15:1 : "Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth." 1 John 5:16 : "If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request." Ezekiel 14:13-14 : "Son of man, when a land sinneth against me, by committing a trespass, and I stretch out mine hand upon it, and break the staff of the bread thereof, and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast; though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God." The scriptures just cited have excited profound interest in every age of the world since they were recorded. In all the intervening centuries they have so stirred the hearts of those affected by them as to strip life of enjoyment. They have driven many to despair. In every community there are guilty and awakened consciences as spellbound by these scriptures as was Belshazzar when with pallid lips and shaking knees he confronted the mysterious handwriting on the wall, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. In almost every community we can find some troubled soul, tortured with the apprehension that he has committed the unpardonable sin. Sympathetic and kindly-disposed expositors in every age have tried in vain to break the natural force or soften in some way the prima facie import of these divine utterances. Some have denied that there ever was, or ever could be an unpardonable sin. Others conceded that such sin might have been committed in the days of Christ's earthly ministry, but the hazard passed away with the cessation of miracles. All the power of great scholarship has been brought to bear with microscopic inspection of words and phrases to establish one or the other of these propositions. And, indeed, if great names could avail in such cases, this slough of despond would have been safely bridged. But no such explanation ever satisfies a guilty conscience or removes from the hearts of the masses of plain people, the solemn conviction that the Bible teaches two things: First, that in every age of the past, men were liable to commit the unpardonable sin and that as a matter of fact, some did commit it. Second, that there is now not only the same liability, but that some do now actually commit it. There is something in man which tells him that these scriptures possess for him an awful admonition whose truth is eternal. Whether all the scriptures just cited admit of one classification matters nothing, so far as the prevalent conviction is concerned. Where one of the group may be successfully detached by exegesis another rises up to take its place. The interest in the doctrine founded on them is a never-dying interest. Because of this interest, it is purposed now to examine somewhat carefully, the principal passages bearing on this momentous theme. Most humbly, self-distrustingly and reverently will the awful subject be approached. It is deemed best to approach it by considering specially the case recorded by Matthew and Mark. The words are spoken by our Lord himself. The antecedent facts which occasioned their utterance may be briefly stated thus: (1) Jesus had just delivered a miserable demoniac by casting out the demon who possessed him. (2) It was a daylight affair, a public transaction, all the circumstances so open and visible, and the fact so incontrovertible and stupendous that many recognized the divine power and presence. (3) But certain Pharisees who had been pursuing him with hostile intent, who had been obstructing his work in every possible way, finding themselves unable to dispute the fact of the miracle, sought to break its force by attributing its origin to Beelzebub, the prince of demons, charging Jesus with collusion with Satan. (4) The issue raised was specific. This issue rested on three indisputable facts conceded by all parties. It is important to note these facts carefully and to impress our minds with the thought that as conceded facts, they underlie the issue. The facts are, first, that an evil and unwilling demon had been forcibly ejected from his much desired stronghold and dispossessed of his ill-gotten spoils. It was no good spirit. It was no willing spirit. It was a violent ejectment. It was a despoiling ejectment. Second, the one who so summarily ejected the demon and despoiled him was Jesus of Nazareth. Third fact, the ejectment was by supernatural miraculous power – by some spirit mightier than the outcast demon. Evidently Jesus had, by some spirit, wrought a notable miracle. He claimed that he did it by the Holy Spirit of God resting on him and dwelling in him. The Pharisees alleged that he did it by an unclean spirit, even Satan himself. The contrast is between "unclean-spirit" and "Holy Spirit." An awful sin was committed by one or the other. Somebody was guilty of blasphemy. If Jesus was in collusion with Satan – if he attributed the devil's work by him to the Holy Spirit, he was guilty of blasphemy. If the Pharisees, on the other hand, attributed the work of the Holy Spirit to an unclean spirit, this was slandering God. They were guilty of blasphemy. (5) Jesus answers the charge against himself by three arguments: First, as the demon cast out belonged to Satan's kingdom and was doing Satan's work, evidently he was not cast out by Satan's power, for a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, and none could justly accuse Satan of the folly of undermining his own kingdom. Second, the demon could not have been despoiled and cast out unless first overpowered by some stronger spirit than himself, who, if not Satan, must be the Holy Spirit, Satan's antagonist and master. Third, as the Pharisees themselves claimed to be exorcists of demons, it became them to consider how their argument against Jesus might be applied to their own exorcisms. Then he in turn became the accuser. In grief and indignation he said, "Therefore I say unto you, every sin and blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in that which is to come." Or as Mark expresses it, "Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin; because they said, He hath an unclean spirit." Having the case now before us, let us next define or explain certain terms expressed or implied in the record. Unpardonable. – Pardonable means not that which is or must be pardoned, but which may be pardoned on compliance with proper conditions – that while any sin unrepented of, leads ultimately to death, yet as long as the sinner lives, a way of escape is offered to him. But an unpardonable sin is one which from the moment of its committal is forever without a possible remedy. Though such a sinner may be permitted to live many years, yet the very door of hope is closed against him. It is an eternal sin. It hath never forgiveness. Sermons, prayers, songs, and exhortations avail nothing in his case. The next expression needing explanation is, "Neither in this world, nor in the world to come." Construed by itself this language might imply one of two things: First, that God will pardon some sins in the next world, i.e., there may be for many, though not all, a probation after death. So Romanists teach. On such interpretation is purgatory founded. Second, or it may imply that God puts away some sins so far as the next world is concerned, but yet does not remit chastisement for them in this world. Where the meaning of a given passage is doubtful, then we apply the analogy of the faith. That is, we compare the doubtful with the certain. The application of this rule necessitates discarding the first possible meaning assigned. It is utterly repugnant to the tenor of the Scriptures. Men are judged and their destiny decided by the deeds done in the body, not out of it. If they die unjust they are raised unjust. There is no probation after death. It remains to inquire if the second possible implication agrees with the tenor of the Scriptures. Here we find no difficulty whatever. The general Bible teaching is in harmony with the second meaning. The Scriptures abundantly show three things: First, some sins are remitted both for time and eternity. That is, when they are pardoned for eternity, even chastisement on earth is also remitted. Second, much graver sins are, on repentance, put away as to eternity, but very sore chastisement is inflicted in time. As when God said to David after Nathan visited him: "The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die." The Lord also announced to him that "the sword should never depart from his house" because he had caused the death of Uriah (see 2 Samuel 12:7-14). Here is one unmistakable case out of many that could be cited where sin was forgiven as to the next world, but not as to this world. The thought is that God, in fatherly discipline, chastises all Christians in this world. To be without chastisement in this world proves we are not God's children. An awful token of utter alienation from God is to be deprived of correction here, when we sin. To be sinners and yet to prosper. To die sinners and yet have no "bands in our death." So that the expression "hath never forgiveness, neither in this world nor in the world to come," implies nothing about a probation after death, but refers to God's method of withholding correction in this world, from some sinners, but never withholding punishment of this class in the next, and to his method of correcting Christians in this world, but never punishing them in the next world. Third, the expression teaches that in the case of those who sin against the Holy Spirit, God's method of dealing is different from both the foregoing methods. In the case of the unpardonable sin, punishment commences now and continues forever. There is no remission of either temporal or eternal penalties. They have the pleasures of neither world. To illustrate: Lazarus had the next world, but not this; Dives had this world, but not the next. But the man who commits the unpardonable sin has neither world, as Judas Iscariot, Ananias, and others. To further illustrate, by earthly things, we might say that Benedict Arnold committed the unpardonable sin as to nations. He lost the United States and did not gain England. Hated here; despised yonder. The price of his treason could not be enjoyed. He had never forgiveness, neither on this side the ocean nor on the other side. Another term needing explanation is the word, Blasphemy. – This is strictly a compound Greek word Anglicized. It is transferred bodily to our language. In Greek literature it is quite familiar and often used. Its meaning is thoroughly established. According to strict etymology, it is an offense of speech, i.e., of spoken words. Literally, as a verb, it means to speak ill or injuriously of any one, to revile or defame. As a noun, it means detraction or slander. I say it means to defame any one whether man or God. Even in the Bible usage of both the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament, the word is generally applied to both man and God. When Paul says he was "slanderously reported," as saying a certain thing, and when Peter says "speak evil of no man," they both correctly employ the Greek word "blaspheme." Even this passage refers to other blasphemies than those against God, "all manner of blasphemies except the blasphemies against the Holy Spirit." In both English and American law, blasphemy has ever been an indictable offense, whether against man or God. Later usages, however, restrict the term "blasphemy" to an offense against God, while the term "slander" is applied to the same offense against men. According to strict derivation, it is an offense of spoken words. To this our Saviour refers in the context when he says, "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." But one is quite mistaken who limits the meaning of the term to strict etymology. In both human and divine law, the offense of "blasphemy" may be committed by writing the words, or publishing them, as well as by speaking them. We may blaspheme by either printing, painting, or pantomime. Any overt, provable action which intentionally conveys a false and injurious impression against any one comes within the scope of the offense. Under the more spiritual, divine law, the offense may be committed in the mind, whether ever spoken aloud. Our context says, "Jesus knowing their thoughts." Indeed, the very essence of the offense is in the heart – the intent – the idea. Words are matters of judgment, solely because they are signs of ideas and expressions of the heart. This our context abundantly shows. Our Saviour says, "Either make the tree good and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by its fruit. Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The good man out of his good treasure, bringeth forth good things: and the evil man out of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." From this exhibition of the meaning of the word "blasphemy," we can easily see that either Jesus or the Pharisees were guilty of the offense. Both could not be innocent. If Jesus, while claiming to act by the Holy Spirit, was but the organ of "an unclean spirit," then he blasphemed or slandered the Holy Spirit. If his work was wrought by the Holy Spirit, then the Pharisees, by attributing that work to an "unclean spirit," blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Having clearly before us the meaning of "blasphemy," let us advance to another explanation. The character of any code or government is revealed by its capital offenses; the grade of any nation's civilization is registered by its penal code. If capital punishment, or the extreme limit of punishment is inflicted for many and slight offenses, the government is called barbarian. If for only a few extraordinary and very heinous crimes, the government is called civilized. For instance, under the English law of long ago, a man might be legally put to death for snaring a bird or rabbit. The extreme limit of punishment was visited upon many who now would be pronounced guilty of only misdemeanors or petit larceny. It was a bloody code. The enlightened mind intuitively revolts against undue severity. Modern civilization has reduced capital offense to a minimum. Even in these few cases three things at least must always be proved: (1) That the offender had arrived at the age of discretion, and possessed a sound mind. A mere child, a lunatic or idiot cannot commit a capital offense. (2) Premeditation. The crime must be deliberately committed. (3) Malice. The evil intent must be proved. The higher benevolence of the divine law will appear from the fact that there is but one unpardonable offense, and that even more must be proved against one accused of this offense than the age of discretion, a sound mind, premeditation, and malice. Indeed, the sin against the Holy Spirit must outrank all others in intrinsic heinousness. This will abundantly appear when we reach the Bible definition and analysis of the sin against the Holy Spirit. We are not ready even yet, however, to enter upon the discussion of the sin itself. Two other preliminary explanations are needed. Why must the one unpardonable sin be necessarily against the Holy Spirit? What is the philosophy or rationale of this necessity? This question and the answer to it cannot be understood unless we give due weight, both separately and collectively, to the following correlated proposition: There is one law giver, God. His law is the one supreme standard which defines right and wrong – prescribing the right, proscribing the wrong. God himself is the sole, authoritative interpreter of his law. The scope of its obligations cannot be limited by finite knowledge, or human conscience. Any failure whatever at conformity thereto, or any deflection therefrom, to the right or left, however slight, and from whatever cause, is unrighteousness. All unrighteousness is sin. The wages of sin is death. All men are sinners by nature and practice. Therefore, by the deeds of the law can no man be justified in the sight of God. The law condemns every man. It also follows: First, that any possible salvation must flow from God's free grace. Second, that not even grace can provide a way of escape for the condemned inconsistent with God's Justice and holiness. That is, any possible scheme of salvation for sinners must both satisfy the law penalty, thereby appeasing justice, and provide for the personal holiness of the forgiven sinner. To put it in yet other words, the plan of salvation, to be feasible, must secure for every sinner to be saved, three things at least: (a) justification, (b) regeneration, (c) sanctification, which are equivalent to deliverance from the law penalty, a new nature, and personal holiness. I say that these three things are absolutely requisite. I cite just now only three scriptural proofs, one under each head: Romans 3:23-26 declares that a propitiation must be made for sin in order that God might be just in justifying the sinner. John 3:3-7 sets forth the absolute necessity of the new birth the imparting of a new nature. Hebrews 12:14 declares that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." To admit into heaven even one unjustified man, one man in his carnal nature, one unholy man, would necessarily dethrone God, while inflicting worse than the tortures of hell on the one so admitted. No fish out of water, no wolf or owl in the daylight, could be so unutterably wretched as such a man. He would be utterly out of harmony with his surroundings. I think he would prefer hell. The gates of the holy city stand open day and night, which means that no saint would go out, and no sinner would go in. After the judgment as well as now, the sinner loves darkness rather than light. It therefore naturally, philosophically and necessarily follows that salvation must have limitations. A careful study of these limitations will disclose to us the rationale of the unpardonable sin. What, then, are these limitations? (1) Outside of grace, no salvation. (2) Outside of Christ, no grace. (3) Outside of the Spirit, no Christ. In other words, Christ alone reveals the Father, and the Spirit alone reveals Christ; or no man can reach the Father except through Christ – Christ is the door – and no man can find that door except through the Spirit. It necessarily follows that an unpardonable sin is a sin against the Spirit. This would necessarily follow from the order of the manifestations of the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. From the order of the dispensations: First, the Father's dispensation of law; second, the Son's dispensation of atonement; third, the Spirit's dispensation of applying the atonement. The Spirit is heaven's ultimatum – heaven's last overture. If we sin against the Father directly, the Son remains. We may reach him through the Son. If we sin directly against the Son, the Spirit remains. We may reach him through the Spirit. If we sin against the Spirit, nothing remains. Therefore that sin is without remedy. So argues our Saviour: "Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come. He is guilty of an eternal sin." Our last preliminary explanation answers this question: Are men now liable to commit this sin? If not liable, the reasons for discussing the matter at all are much reduced. If liable, the reasons for discussion are infinitely enhanced. It is of infinitely greater moment to point out to the unwary of a possible immediate danger, than to relieve the mind from the fear of an unreal danger, however great and torturing may be that fear. It is claimed by many intelligent expositors that this sin cannot be committed apart from an age of miracles, nor apart from the specific miracle of casting out demons, nor apart from attributing the supernatural, miraculous power of the Holy Spirit in said miracle to Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Very deep love have I for the great and good men who take this position, as, I believe, led away by sentiment, sympathy, and amiability on the one hand, and horrified on the other hand with the recklessness which characterizes many sensational discussions of this grave matter by tyros, unlearned, and immature expositors. Very deep love have I for the men, but far less respect for their argument. I submit, just now, only a few out of many grave reasons for rejecting this interpretation. (1) Such restriction of meaning is too narrow and mechanical. The Bible could not be to us a book of principles, if the exact circumstances must be duplicated in order to obtain a law. From the study of every historical incident in the Bible we deduce principles of action. (2) The Scriptures clearly grade miracles wrought by the Spirit below other works of the Spirit. This is evident from many passages and connections. Writing the names of the saved in the book of life was greater than casting out devils (Luke 10:20). Fourth only in the gifts of the Spirit does miracle-working power rank (1 Corinthians 12:28). Far inferior are any of these gifts to the abiding graces of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 13:1-13; 1 Corinthians 14:1-33). How, then, in reason and common sense, can it be a more heinous blasphemy to attribute an inferior work of the Spirit to the devil than a superior work? Will any man seriously maintain that this is so, because a miracle is more demonstrable – its proof more vivid and cognizable by the natural senses? This would be to affirm the contrary of scriptural teaching on many points. We may know more things about spirit than we can know about matter. This knowledge is more vivid and impressive than the other. Spiritual demonstration to the inner man is always a profounder demonstration than any whatever to the outer man. (3) Such a restriction of meaning to the days of Christ in the flesh is out of harmony with Old Testament teaching on the same subject. (4) It fails to harmonize with many other passages in later New Testament time, which will not admit of a different classification without contradicting the text itself, since thereby more than one kind of unpardonable sins would be established. (5) The utter failure of this exposition to convince the judgment of plain people everywhere, and its greater failure to relieve troubled consciences everywhere, is a strong presumptive argument against its soundness. Because, therefore, I believe that the sin against the Holy Spirit may now be committed – because I believe that some men in nearly every Christian community have committed it – because I believe that the liability is imminent and the penalty, when incurred, utterly without remedy, and because I feel pressed in spirit to warn the imperiled of so great condemnation, therefore I preach on the subject – preach earnestly – preach in tears – preach with melted heart. 1. How did Jesus vindicate his authority apart from his claims and teaching? 2. What are the details in the incident of healing the centurions servant, how do you reconcile the accounts of Matthew and Luke, and what the lessons of this incident? 3. Describe the incident of the raising of the widow's son at Nain and its lesson. 4. What inquiry from John the Baptist brought forth by this fame of Jesus and what was Jesus' reply? 5. What is the meaning of "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence? 6. What reproof of the Pharisees by our Lord called forth by this? 7. What cities here upbraided by our Lord and what principle enunciated in this connection? 8. What principle of revelation announced here also? 9. What great invitation here announced by our Lord and what is its great teaching? 10. Relate the story of the anointing of the feet of Jesus by the wicked woman. 11. What two things seem to be implied by the story? 12. What Oriental customs constitute the setting of this story and what is the explanation of each? 13. What are the lessons and contrasts of this incident? 14. Give an account of the first Ladies' Aid Society. 15. What scriptures of both Testaments bearing on the sin against the Holy Spirit? 16. What can you say of the impression made by these scriptures? 17. What efforts of sympathetic expositors to soften the import of these scriptures? 18. What two solemn convictions yet remain? 19. What were the antecedent facts which occasioned the statements of our Lord in Section 48 of the Harmony? 20. What is the meaning of "unpardonable"? 21. What is the meaning of "neither in this world, nor in the world to come"? 22. What is the meaning of "blasphemy"? 23. Show that either Jesus or the Pharisees were guilty of blasphemy on this occasion. 24. How is the character of a code of laws determined? Illustrate. 25. What three things must be proved in the case of capital offenses against our laws? 26. How does the higher benevolence of the divine law appear? 27. What correlated proposition must be duly considered in order to understand the sin against the Holy Spirit? 28. What two things also follow from this? 29. What three things must the plan of salvation secure for every sinner who shall be saved, and what the proof? 30. What are the limitations which determine the rationale of the sin against the Holy Spirit? Explain. 31. What are the claims of some expositors with respect to this sin and what the reasons for rejecting them? XXXI OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEEPart VI THE FIRST GREAT GROUP OF Harmony pages 60-66 and Matthew 13:1-53; Mark 4:1-34; Luke 8:4-18.We come now to our Lord's first great group of parables and it will be necessary for us to dwell here somewhat at length in order to get certain definitions and principles fixed in our minds before we try to expound this great section. First, what is a parable? There are two words used in the Greek for parable – one by John and the other by the Synoptics. The word used by John is paroimia, which means, literally, "something by the way " Secondarily, it means a figura- tive discourse, or dark saying, suggesting more than meets the ear. The word used by the Synoptics is parebole,which, Anglicized, gives us our word "parable." The verb of this word means to throw, or to place, side by side, for purposes of comparison. The noun means an utterance involving a comparison, as "the kingdom of heaven is like, etc." which is a similitude. In the wider sense it means (a) an adage or proverb.(Luke 4:23), (b) a dark saving Matthew 15:15), (c.) pithy instruction in the form of an aphorism (Luke 14:7). In the more restricted sense it is a story of a scene in human life, or a process in nature, true in its character, though it may be fictitious in fact, suggesting a spiritual lesson. As the child gave it when asked to define a parable, “ It is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning." The ideas in the word are these: (1) To place two things side by side for comparison; (2) veil ing the truth in a story, but with the veil so thin that the spiritually minded may easily apprehend it. Second, there are several other words of similar, or kindred meaning, which should claim our attention here for purposes of distinction, such as proverb, simile, similitude, metaphor, allegory, fable, and myth, the definitions of which will follow in their order. A parable, as we have already defined, is a narrative true to nature or life, used for the purpose of conveying spiritual truth. A proverb is a short pithy saving and may contain a condensed parable. A simile is a simple comparison in which one thing is likened to another in, some of its aspects. A similitude is more comprehensive than a simile and borders on the realm of the parable, as in Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual World. A metaphor ig a simile without the comparative word, as "that man is a fox." instead of "that man is like a fox," which is a simile. An allegory is an expanded metaphor, or the description of one thing under the imagery of another, as Pilgrims Progress. A fable is a story in which inanimate objects or lower animals are represented as acting in the capacity of human beings, the purpose of which is to instruct or to impress some moral lesson. It differs from a parable in that it is not true to nature or to life. A myth is a tale of some extraordinary personage or country, formed purely by the imagination.. It is fictitious and usually has an element of the supernatural in it. In the Bible we find an example of the proverb, the simile, the similitude, the metaphor, the allegory, the fable, and the parable (let the reader search out examples of each), but there is no myth in the Bible. But why did our Lord use parables in his teachings? (1) To get the attention of the people. There is nothing more interesting than a good story well told. (2) To reveal conduct and character without being too direct. Thus our Lord often revealed the very heart and life of the enemy without becoming too offensive and by so doing precipitating a clash with his foes. (3) To enforce truth by way of illustration. This principle of teaching is too evident to need comment. (4) To stimulate inquiry. This we find to be the effect so often in his ministry: "What is the meaning of the parable of the tares?" (5) To fasten truth in the mind and aid the memory. This, too, is self-evident and needs no comment. Here I append a list of the parables of Jesus, showing the pages of the Harmony where found, the references to the scriptures containing them and the leading thought of each. This will enable a Bible student, at a glance, to locate each parable in the Harmony, to find its setting in the Scripture and to give its interpretation in a nutshell. They are arranged in chronological order and therefore a careful study of them will reveal to the student of the Bible the occasion and frequency of Christ's use of parables as well as to furnish a convenience of interpretation. It will be observed that quite a number of these parables are very short and might be called similes or proverbs. The first great group commences with number 31, the parable of the sower, the second great group with number 68, the parable of the lost sheep, and the third great group with number 83, the parable of the two sons. All the parables of the first group are "kingdom parables," and relate to some phase of the kingdom, and that leads me to say that there are two general classes of parables, viz: "kingdom parables" and "homiletical parables." In interpreting a parable one should first deter mine its class, then its central truth, or point of illustration and then let all the details conform to this central point deducing no doctrine from the parable that cannot be found elsewhere in the Bible in unparabolic language. Also we must be careful not to try to spiritualize all the points. Much o the parable is often mere drapery, designed only to round out an Oriental story. Here let the reader study closely and compare the points of the two parables which Christ interpreted himself, viz: the parable of the sower and the parable of the tares. These suggestions are brief, but they will serve as timely cautions in interpreting the many parables of our Lord. The three great groups of parables in the Gospels are as follows: First, there is the group here, Matthew 13:3-23; second, the five great parables in Luke 15-16; third, the three parables of his last day in the Temple. (Let the reader search out each of these groups and name the parables in each group.) We will now look at the first great group of parables and take a general view of them in their relation to each other. Our Lord had made many disciples since his baptism, who followed him from place to place, growing in knowledge and grace as they heard his words, witnessed his deeds and imbibed his Spirit. After long companionship of this kind he purposed to select from the many a few as authorized teachers of his doctrine. Accordingly, after spending a whole night in prayer, he chose from the multitude of the disciples twelve men whom he ordained as apostles, to be with him and that he might send them forth to preach and to have authority over demons; but that they might know and understand what to preach before they went out alone, he, in their hearing on one occasion, expounded the principles and relations of his kingdom in the matchless Sermon on the Mount; and soon after that, on another occasion, he delivered a great group of very striking parables, illustrating the same principles. All of these many parables, as Mark tells us, he expounded privately to the twelve apostles; not just two of them, but all of them. Of the great number of parables delivered on this one occasion, only eight are recorded by the gospel historians, and the exposition of only two is recorded. The scene is Galilee, the Sea of Galilee. The pulpit is a boat. The preacher is sitting in a boat. The congregation are all gathered on the shore, and from that boat he delivers the parables. When the parables are spoken and he enters the house, he privately expounds them to his immediate disciples. The eight parables recorded are, the sower, the seed growing of itself, the tares, the mustard seed, the leaven, the hid treasure, the pearl of great price and the net. The two whose expositions are recorded are the sower and the tares. But in connection with the eight are also given two subsidiary parables, making ten in all. These two parables, the lighted lamp and the householder's treasure, are called subsidiary, because they were given to show the disciples what to do with the knowledge contained in the eight. As the reader will readily infer, the object of one discussion covering so much ground, cannot be to expound in detail all of the eight parables. Therefore, let us generalize, if we can find a single thread of thought on which to string, like beads of pearl, the eight parables, making one necklace to be worn around memory's neck as an ornament of beauty and value. It may not be done quite as fast as stringing beads, but it need not take much time, as only prominent and general meanings from one standpoint will be given. The thread of thought that unites all the eight parables into one is this: The discouragements and encouragements to religious teachers suggested by the eight parables. And just here, instead of quoting these parables, I would like to cause to pass before the reader a panorama of eight pictures. Look at the first: It is a plowed field. The plowed surface looks all alike. If there be underlying rock or buried seeds thorns they do not appear. It has been sowed down wit seed. There is the sower. We see him. He is the religion teacher. The only thing in sight, birds flying away. That all. We look at that picture until that plowed field turn green, carpeted with the upspringing grain; but we see in certain parts of the field the stalks turn yellow and die – a rock under them. We see in the beaten path no grain coming up. Those birds explain. We see in another part thorns and briers choking the grain that we plant. Discouragements. It seems that three parts of what I sow is lost. Three parts gone. It discourages me. The devil took some of the seed. A superficial nature in the hearers prevented others from bringing forth fruit to maturity. The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the exactions of society choke to death other seeds that I planted. It is discouraging. But brother, look where some did fall in good ground and yielded thirty-fold and sixty-fold and one hundredfold of fruit. Think of that. Slide that picture out of sight. I see another, and there is a field again, plowed, and sowed with good seed. There is a sower. He is asleep, but in the night anxiety awakes him. Watch him get up and go out in the field and dig down in the dirt and take the seed up to see if it has sprouted; see him in the day anxiously look for clouds that promise rain. See his fear of cold, blighting seasons and his desire for a warm, sunshiny day. See him trying to mark even a day's development. See him trying to comprehend the inscrutable. He rises up night and day. What is the difficulty? He is anxious for seed-sprouting and seed growing and seed-maturing and rain falling and sunshine, and with all of it he has nothing under heaven to do. As far as that discouragement is concerned it is all pure gratuity. We borrow every bit of that. Why will not a man let God's part alone? We cannot make the seed. Here in this Book is the seed ready made. We do not have to make them. Nor can we make them sprout. The Spirit of God does that. That is regeneration. We cannot make them grow and mature. That is sanctification. We cannot bring the gentle dews and the rains and sunshine. Those are the showers or manifestations of grace. We do not have to puzzle our minds over the inscrutable mystery of the Spirit's work in regeneration and sanctification. Let our anxieties stop with our responsibilities. What is the encouragement? Well, while I cannot make seed, God can, and there is plenty of it. While I cannot give an increase, God can, and he does it. While I cannot regenerate men, he can. I cannot sanctify, he can. I cannot tell how it sprouts nor how it grows. There is a mystery, an inscrutable mystery, in the work of the Spirit of God. I have nothing to do with that. We see another picture. It is a field – a plowed field, a field that has been sowed down with good grain, and there is the sower. He is asleep. He has done his work and night has come and he has gone to bed; but lo! while he sleeps there creeps up a shadowy figure from the pit and sows other seeds all over that field. The seeds of the day sower and of the night sower come up together and look much alike until the fruit discriminates – the one nutritious food, the other a deadly poison. What is the lesson? Well, we understand that the darnell, the tare, is so nearly like wheat that the wheat planter can hardly tell the difference until it heads for fruit. Here then is a difficulty not in the mind of the hearer as in the first parable. There is here no beaten path, no underlying rock, no difference in the soil; this soil is all good; no thorns in it; it is not poisoned with briers; the field is all good. What is the difficulty? The difficulty here is that an enemy has sowed something so like wheat that one cannot tell it from wheat until it begins to fruit. It is the difficulty of the hypocrite – the counterfeit Christian. We see the devil come in again. He took away the good seed in the first parable lest it might lead a man to conversion. He does not take away any of these seeds; he cannot get at them; they have gone down into the good and honest heart and he cannot take them away. But what can he do? Why, he will bring that religion into disrepute by passing counterfeits on it. That bank's reputation is high. He will flood the country with counterfeit bills. Surely that is a great discouragement. Men will point to the counterfeit as an example of religion, and will tell us that it is a fruit of our preaching. No, sir, I did not sow those seeds – never. Those seeds did not come from God; the devil sowed them, and the hypocrite is the son of the devil and not a son of God. But where is the encouragement? The encouragement is twofold: Every time we look at a hypocrite we see a compliment to religion. As the counterfeit proves the value of the genuine, so his masking in the garb of piety shows that piety passes current among men. What other encouragement? We see the time coming when God's angels shall gather the hypocrites out of the world – for the field is the world, not the church; there is no church in this – the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom of God and the tares are the children of the evil one. In the world there are hypocrites that bring discredit upon religion and that discourages the religious teacher, but God says, "Wait! You cannot persecute him, you cannot hang him because he is a hypocrite. You cannot put him in jail because he is a hypocrite. You may not tear up and destroy that darnell lest you destroy wheat. You may not persecute him for religion's sake. Wait. The angels will get him. They will take him and bind him and his fellows in bundles and burn them." Now, that is an encouragement. And now let that picture pass by. We see that sower again and he has a seed in his hand, and we have to look close or we cannot see it. It is a very tiny, seed. It is not bigger than a mustard seed. How distrustfully he looks at it. What is the matter with it? He is discouraged; discouraged about what? Oh, it is such a little thing. Ah, me, if I could only plant a seed as big as a house! If I could do some great thing! Brother, let not the smallness of the seed discourage thee, but be encouraged by this thought, that while the seed is small there is no limit to its expansiveness. As that mustard seed grew into a plant and spread out its branches and attracted the birds of heaven, so is the kingdom of God. Do not despise the day of small things. God calls upon us to attempt great things and to expect great things, but he does not tell us to expect them at the beginning – never. Replace that picture by another. This time we see a woman with a bread tray in her hand! What a great batch of dough in it, and such dough! Now, if she makes this up into biscuit, they will be flat and hard. Ah, me, the inbred corruption of the human heart; that discourages the religious teacher. Why, if I lead this man to Christ, even after conversion, he will find a law in his members warring against the law of his mind and bringing his soul into captivity. He will cry out: “ O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" If, when I lead a soul to God, that soul could stand in the maturity of Christian manhood, and never make a mistake and never stumble and never fall, I would like to be a teacher. But brother, stop. Look back at the woman putting a little leaven in the dough. So for us there is a little leaven. It is spiritual leaven. Consider the woman, putting a little leaven in her dough – just a pinch of it. Does she say, "Why cannot I wave my hand over that batch of dough and say, 'Rise at once?' " And why should we kneel down and pray, "O, Lord God, in answer to my prayer, sanctify me, body, soul and spirit, in a minute." That is not God's way. He put in the leaven and it will work. It works little by little, but it works. It works out and enlarges, and, blessed be God, ultimately it leavens the whole lump, and then sanctification is complete. But I would be silly if I were to kneel down and pray for it to all come at once. Behold next, a double picture. See a field with a mine in it, a recently discovered gold mine – a hidden treasure; and then in another part of the picture a pearl, a valuable pearl. What about the difficulty here, the discouragement? Well, here it is: One cannot get that mine unless he sell everything he has. Nor that pearl at the same price. What are you discouraged about, brother? I am discouraged about the cost. Just look at those doleful scriptures: "No man can be my disciple unless he will deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me." "Except a man hate father and mother and brother and sister, he cannot be my disciple." "Go and sell all that you have and come and follow me." Well, that is discouraging, from one standpoint. But there is a standpoint that reveals encouragement. Frankly admit all the costs. Never deny or abate that. Never dilute it. Tell the people plainly that it means absolute and total surrender. It means that in the whole realm of the soul there shall not be a reserved spot as big as the point of a cambric needle that denies the sovereignty of God. The surrender must be complete. Don't disguise that. But while it costs all we have, yet what we get for it is infinitely better and more valuable. The hidden treasure is worth more than what we surrender. The pearl is worth more than what we give for it. If we would put matters on a business footing, let me ask, "What will it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? And what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" Religion is no child's play. It reduces itself to this great alternative: Everything for Christ, or everything for the devil and hell. And mark this: Whoever sees the value of the kingdom of heaven will not whine about the cost. He asks for no pity because of his sacrifices. But one must be born from above to see the kingdom. Then, like Moses (Hebrews 11), and like Paul (Phil.), he will gladly pay the price. So we come to the last picture. What do we see now? We see an ocean and a great net let down into its waters that sweeps it from end to end. Is the net the church? Why, the church does not enter even the parable of the tares, where there is at least a nominal profession and outward form of religion in the hypocrite – even there the field was the world, not the church. But those bad fish in the net are not even called hypocrites. It is simply good fish and bad fish. That net is the providence of God, that drags over all the ocean of time and lands all its people on the shore of eternity. What is there here then for discouragement? Just this: Here in time, there are so many bad people mixed with the good. We go down the street, thinking about good things, and lo I there is a saloon. We cannot help it; there it is. We hear the ribald jest, we see the bloated face and the blotched eye and the pimpled skin and the haggard visage of the drunkard. We hear the rattle of the dice. We know that behind that screen the gambler, a beast of prey, is lurking for an unsuspecting victim. In this world, too, our world, are liars, thieves, murderers, adulterers, blasphemers. "Oh," says one, "it discourages me. Lord God, I would like to preach if thou wouldst put me in a world where there were only good people." What need to preach in such a world? Be not foolish, thou scribe of God. The contiguity of bad men belongs to the present condition. There is no escape from them yet. They vexed Lot's righteous soul and mocked at the preaching of Noah. They tried Abraham sorely and worried Paul. Our Lord himself – our great exemplar – patiently endured their contradiction and gainsaying. Tares will appear in the wheat field till Satan is bound, and bad fish in the sea of time with the good till the net of Providence shall strand all alike on eternity's shore and the angels shall sort them. Let us now inquire somewhat into the import of the two parables which tell what to do with the eight. They read: "No man when he hath lighted a lamp covereth it with a vessel or putteth it under a bed, but putteth it on a stand that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is veiled that shall not be unveiled, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light. If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear. Give heed, therefore, to what you hear and take heed how you hear it. With what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you, and more shall be given unto you. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away that which he thinketh he hath," or, as the margin expresses it, "He seemeth to have." "Have ye understood all these things? They said unto him, yea. And he said unto them: Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven [or every teacher who has been instructed in the principles of the kingdom of heaven], is like a householder who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." Let us briefly expound the more important words of this passage. First, the word "scribe." Originally a scribe was merely a copyist of the law; that is, one skilled in making careful manuscript copies of the books of the Old Testament. And then, from his familiarity with the text, coming from frequent transcription of it, he naturally became an expounder of that text, and the latter meaning, "an expounder," gradually became the greater meaning, so that in our text today the word "scribe" means "teacher." "Every teacher instructed in the principles of the kingdom of heaven." The next word of the passage that needs explanation is "hid" or "veiled." "For whatsoever is hid shall be made manifest." This reference is to the nature of parabolic teaching. A parable is a dark or veiled saying, and yet the veil is designedly thin and semitransparent, instead of opaque. It was not intended by it to hide the truth from the devout and thoughtful searcher after truth, but only from the idle and careless and hardhearted. So it is declared. "For nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest." "I speak to these people in parables. A parable veils my teaching, but there is nothing veiled in these parables that shall not be made manifest to you. I lift the veil. I let you see what it means." The next word that needs explanation is, "The lighted lamp." The lighted lamp represents the disciple who heard the exposition of the parable. Mark you, when he used the parable of the lighted lamp, he did not use it in connection with the delivery of a parable; he used it in connection with the exposition of a parable. The exposition is the light. The understanding hearer is the lighted lamp. Merely to hear the parables does not make one a lighted lamp, but to know the meaning of the parables makes one a lighted lamp. The sense of it, the spiritual import of it, as expounded by the Spirit of God – that is the light. The next word is this: "Putteth it not under a vessel, but on a stand." This means that one who hears and understands the exposition must not keep it to himself. It was given him for others, that they who enter in may see the light. "Let your light so shine before men." Hence the caution. "Give close attention to this exposition. Take heed to what you hear. Take heed how you hear." This is the light. The parable was veiled. The exposition lifts the veil; therefore notice closely, give attention. The light comes with the exposition. Thus it was in the days of Ezra, for the Scripture says, "So they read in the books, in the law of God, and read distinctly and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." Truly that was a wonderful scene. All the people were gathered together, the men, the women and the children, every child, as the text says, "that had sense enough to understand" – the whole of them. Thousands of them were gathered together, and Ezra stood on a pulpit of wood, and he first read the text of the law distinctly so that they got the words. Then they gave the sense, so as to cause the people to understand the meaning of the words, and the light came with the meaning; and no light comes from memorizing words of a scripture which we do not understand. It is about the same as speaking in an unknown tongue, which profits nobody unless it is interpreted. "Understandest thou what thou readest?" said Philip to the eunuch, and hence our Saviour's question following his exposition of the parables: "Have ye understood all these things?" The emphasis is not on the "all"; it is on "these things," as indicated by the order in which they come in the Greek, "Have ye understood these things all?" Not, "Have you heard the words?" Have you understood? Do you know what they mean? The Bible is not a precious book to those who do not understand it, but the entrance of God's Word into the understanding giveth light. A teacher must himself understand before he can give the sense to others. A preacher who does not know the meaning of Gods Word is an unlighted lamp. How can he shine? He is a blind guide leading the blind. He may know everything else in the world, but if he be ignorant of the meaning of God's Word he has no ministerial education, and he cannot preach. He is worse than an ignoramus, though he have diplomas from every college in the world. He teaches falsehoods instead of truths, and wrecks the souls of men. We would not allow a man ignorant of medicine to doctor our bodies, nor entrust a case of property or of honor or of life to a pettifogger ignorant of law, but we count it a little thing to trust our immortal spirits and our eternal interests to preachers who cannot call off the names of the books of the Bible, who perhaps never read all of the Bible, or have not diligently and prayerfully studied even one of its books, and could not stand a creditable examination upon the text, much less the spirit of one chapter. Oh, we are guilty along this line, preachers and people! I repeat, I make no reference whatever to ministerial education in other things, but surely a preacher ought to have profoundly and prayerfully studied the One Book. Our Saviour prescribed no educational test in mathematics, or the sciences, in rhetoric or elocution for his preachers, but he sent out no man to preach until he had carefully instructed him in what to preach. When then I say ministerial education, I mean Bible education – education in the Bible. How long a time he kept these men right with him, hearing his words, witnessing his deeds, imbibing his spirit, expounding the principles of his kingdom to them, precept by precept and line upon line, and now illustrating by striking and vivid images, in parables those same principles, and all before he sends them out to preach God's Word! An educated preacher is a scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of God; that is, he is a teacher who hath been instructed in the principles of the kingdom of heaven. That alone is an educated preacher. That leads to the next thing that needs explanation, "the householder's treasure." Here the figure changes. Before the exposition was "light"; now it is "treasure." "Have you understood all of these things? Yes. Then I say unto you that every scribe instructed in the principles of the kingdom of heaven, is like a householder who bringeth forth out of his treasures things new and old." Not the treasure of a traveler, but of a householder who has stored away the accretions and accumulations of years. A rolling stone gathers no moss. A boarder, or a man always moving, accumulates no property. "Three moves are equal to a fire." A householder has old things that are precious, which have been proved as to their value in many times of trial. They are sacred with memories. He has new things also, but recently acquired, and he brings out on fitting occasions both new and old. What does this mean? What is the spiritual import of this parable? I see its meaning. It stands embodied before me. The householder is a religious teacher, rich in the knowledge of the meaning of God's Word. He has devoutly studied it for years. It is the one living oracle whose utterances settle all of bis perplexities. In the time of spiritual drought and scorching heat, that book has been to him what the well with the old oaken bucket was to Woodworth. And now, when we call him out of life's problems and experiences, he brings forth from his treasure things new and old. Yes, some of them are old. Some of them came to him when his heart was first given to Jesus, when God for Christ's sake forgave his sins. He opens the book, the sacred volume, and points out the very passage in God's Word whose sense or meaning brought to him peace and rest, long, long ago. And he never forgets it. He opens it again and brings forth another treasure. It came to him perhaps when his first baby died. How well I recollect when my first child died, and out in the old cemetery, when the preacher who kindly conducted the funeral services of that child, Brother Richard Burleson, with that reverence so peculiar to him, opened the Book of God, and his voice rings in my ears today, "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord." I never see him in my memory but I hear him saying that, and that day that scripture, in the spirit of it and in the sense of it, so entered my soul that I can never forget. He turns to yet another passage. It came to him in connection with his anxieties concerning a revival of religion, and one day when feeling lonely beyond expression, his eye fell upon this passage, "I am with you," and the actual presence and power of the eternal Spirit of God came upon him as never before. Mark you, that the light comes with the exposition and experimental realization of the Scriptures, and a scribe who has been instructed in the principles of the kingdom of God, bringeth forth from his treasures things new and old. He turns to some that came last year. (Last year I got into the heart of this passage.) He turns to one that came last month, one that came yesterday, one that came today, and these are the new, and all of them are treasures – priceless treasures – the spiritual interpretation of the Word of God. He does not keep his face to the past and dwell on memories of treasures found long ago, for where we do not acquire new treasures we lose the old. But we retain the old if we can say, "This manna fell last night; it is fresh from God; it has the dew on it. It came straight from a present, not a historic God; it came not to one who was, but who is, his disciple and his child. It is not the cold, stale food left over from last year's banquet, but fresh and hot from the kitchen of heaven it is served to him hungry now." I say that this Book is an ocean without shores; that to its interpretation there is no ultima thule. We never do get to its outer boundary and say, "I have compassed it all." We might look at it and apostrophize it: “ O thou precious Bible, thou exhaustless mine of gold and silver and diamonds, who has found thy last treasure? Thou shoreless ocean, who has brought up from thy depth the last tinted shell or beautiful coral or pearl of ray serene? Thou range of mountains, whose tops touch the stars and kiss the skies and come in touch with God; the climber who reaches thy summit looks out upon ever-increasing landscapes of beauty, and there burst upon his vision prospects of future glory never yet dreamed of, until at last he gets so high that he looks out and finds no horizon." That is heaven I New and old I Old as creation and new as God! Now the last word to explain in this passage: "What measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you, and more shall be given unto you. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and whosoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that which he thinketh he hath." What does it mean? What does it mean in this connection? Will you please recall a point made just now, that the lamp was lighted for the benefit of others? The Saviour expounded to one that he might tell that exposition to another. Said he, "It is given to you to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God. I whisper in your ear the meaning of the parables. You publish it on the housetops. If you dispense what I give you, if you measure out what I give you, I give you more. As you measure so I mete." Oh, what a significance! Hear a secret, ye misers, who would hoard the gold of truth: Knowledge not imparted to others dies to the man who has it. So long as one teaches mathematics he remembers mathematics. So long as one teaches Latin or Greek these things are easy to him, but let him cease the imparting and his treasure at once begins to shrink in bulk, to get lighter in weight, to diminish in value. "There is that withholdeth and it tendeth to poverty. There is that scattereth abroad and it maketh rich." Oh, young convert, when God has given the sense of just one precious scripture to you – it may be this: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest;" it may be this: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son" – but whatever it is, young convert, when God lights that lamp let it shine, and be eager to say in the language of David, "Come all ye that fear God and I will tell you what great things he hath done for my soul;" hide not the righteousness of God in your heart. Oh, preacher, if you have found the exposition of a passage of God's Word, if Jesus has whispered an interpretation into your ear, give it out, let the world have it, let others use it. Raise no whining cry of plagiarism on God-given interpretations. Do not jealously guard your little stock of cast iron sermons. Preach them, and get new ones fresh with the dew of heaven and alive with the breath of the Spirit of God. Give out and God will give to you. Look at Spurgeon. What cared he for his old sermons? Not a thing in the world. For thirty years he published a sermon every week, and the more he published the more he had to publish. Why, I can well recollect with what shrinking and horrible dread I heard Brother Cranfill's proposition calling upon me to let him publish a sermon of mine every week. I supposed it would bankrupt all the material I had in six months, and how foolish I was I I never did in my life, freely, lovingly, and tenderly, give out one exposition that Jesus had given to me but he gave me another. I never did empty my bucket of water upon the thirsty lips of the famished but I could the more readily let it down into the well of salvation and draw it up filled again to the brim, fresh-dripping and glowing from the cool and living fountain, inexhaustible. Impart! Give out! Scatter abroad! It will come back to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over into your bosom and into your soul. A scribe, then, is a religious teacher. Ministerial education, then, is having the meaning of the Bible. The lamp is the preacher. Exposition from God lights the lamp. The lamp being lighted should shine. As it radiates the light given, more light comes. The householder is a preacher. His treasure is the accumulation of scriptural meanings, passages which he has understood, passages upon which he has experimentally fed and nourished his soul. Unless he acquire new treasure he loses the old. If he faces the past only, that past becomes ever dimmer to him, until it will at last seem to be only a dream of a flickering, vague and uncertain fancy, without reality. Now, these are two subsidiary parables, the parable of the lighted lamp and the parable of the householder's treasure, and they tell what to do with the eight. 1. Where do we find our Lord's first great group of parables? 2. What two words are used in the Gospels for "parable" and what the meaning of each in both the narrower and the wider senses? 3. Give a good definition of "parable." 4. Distinguish between parable, proverb, simile, similitude, metaphor, allegory, fable, and myth. 5. Give a biblical example of each of these except myth, and give an example also of a myth. 6. Why did our Lord use parables in his teaching? 7. From the table of "the parables of our Lord" give the interpretation of each parable as there indicated. 8. What can you say in a general way of this list of parables and what the two great classes of parables? 9. What brief rules here given for interpreting parables? 10. Compare the two parables which Christ interpreted himself with their interpretation, and note the points in each not interpreted, 11. What three great groups of our Lord's parables and what parables in each group? 12. Give a general survey of our Lord's ministry up to this point. 13. What is the scene, the pulpit, and the congregation of this first group of parables? 14. What two subsidiary parables in connection with this group and why so called? 15. What is the thread of thought that unites all these eight parables into one necklace? 16. What is the first parable here, what is its details and what is its lesson? 17. Give the details of the parable of the good seed growing of it self, and its lesson. 18. Relate the story of the parable of the tares, and show its lesson. 19. Give the parable of the mustard seed and its lesson. 20. Give the parable of the leaven and its lesson. 21. Give the double picture in the parable of the hid treasure and the pearl of great price, and their lessons. 22. Recite the parable of the dragnet and its lesson. 23. What is the import of the parable of the lighted lamp and what is the meaning and application of the terms used therein? 24. What is the import of the parable of the householder's treasure and what is the meaning and application of the terms used in it? XXX OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEEPart V THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT (Continued) Harmony pages 59-60, same as for the preceding chapter and Matthew 12:38-50; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21. We are now ready to consider the unpardonable sin itself. Here, at the outset we meet a difficulty that needs to be removed. It is a question concerning the true text of the latter clause of Mar 3:29. Our common version reads: "But is in danger of eternal damnation," while the revised version reads: "But is guilty of an eternal sin." Evidently these two renderings cannot be differences in translating the same Greek words. It is unnecessary to cite all the variations of the text in the several manuscripts on this short clause. For our present purpose we need to note only one. The revised version, on the authority of older and more reliable manuscripts than were before the King James translators, recognized as the true text hamartematos instead of kriseos. The former is rendered "sin," the latter "damnation." But the difficulty is not yet entirely explained. All the texts have the same Greek word enochos, which the common version renders "in danger of." The question arises: How can there be such vast difference in rendering this one word? The difference is great and obvious since "in danger of" expresses a mere liability which may be averted, while "guilty of" expresses a positive, settled transaction. This difficulty is grammatical, and not textual so far as the word enochos is concerned, but is textual when we look at the case of the noun connected with it. If the noun in the true text is in one case, say the dative, then "in danger of," "liable to" or " exposed to" would fairly translate enochos. But if the noun with which it is connected is in a different case, say the genitive, then "guilty of" is the better translation. Well, it so happens that in the true text – that is, the one so regarded by such scholars as Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, and others, and the one so accepted by both the English and American companies of the revisers of the new version – in this text the noun hamartematos,rendered "sin," is in the genitive case, hence enochos hamartematos with its modifying words is rightly translated "guilty of an eternal sin," while enochos kriseos with the same modifying words might well be rendered "in danger of eternal judgment." So that in the true text we find not only a different word meaning "sin," instead of "damnation" or "judgment," but we find that word in a case which will necessarily give color to the meaning of another word connected with it, about which there is no textual difficulty. We accept, then, the text and rendering of the revised version. We hold it as the word of God, that whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit is at once, not liable to, but guilty of an eternal sin." What, then, is an eternal sin? Does it mean an "eternal sinning"? That is, does the perpetuity refer to the committing? Evidently not. Doubtless one who has blasphemed the Holy Spirit will, as a matter of fact, continue to sin, but the language under consideration refers not to such fact. An eternal sin, as here intended, is an act already completed, whose guilt and judgment have already been incurred. It is called an eternal sin because its penalty can never be blotted out. Any sin would be eternal in this sense, if there were no possible way to escape its punishment. A sin becomes eternal, then, when all gracious means of forgiveness are withdrawn. For example: David committed a great sin. Its penalties, or chastisements, lasted to the border of this world. But it was not an eternal sin, because those penalties had an end. They did not continue forever. Grace stopped them with this life and blotted them out forever. What is blotted out has no existence. But the sin against the Holy Spirit is eternal, because thereby the sinner at once puts himself beyond the only means of pardon. Remember the principles already stated: Outside of grace no salvation; outside of Christ no grace; outside of the Spirit no Christ. Or without regeneration, justification, and sanctification, no salvation; and apart from the Spirit no regeneration, justification, and sanctification. We have seen that as human governments become more civilized very few offenses are made capital, and these must be very heinous in character. Moreover, the conditions under which such crimes are possible are very stringent, to wit: discretionary age, sanity, premeditation, and malice. Not only so, but the accused is additionally hedged about by a liberal construction of all provocation and of the right of self-defense, and of the amount and character of the evidence necessary to conviction. Now since this benevolent modification of hitherto rigorous human law has been brought about by the influence of the Bible, we would naturally expect to find in that good book that the only unpardonable offense against divine law calls for a rare degree of heinousness, and such extraordinary conditions under which the sin could be possible, as would on their face vindicate the divine procedure from all appearances of harshness, with all right thinking intelligences. This high degree of heinousness and these extraordinary conditions are just what we do find. It is not a sin to be committed by a thoughtless child – immature youth – nor by one of feeble mind, nor by the ignorant. It must be knowingly done, wilfully done, maliciously done, presumptuously done. The whole matter may be made more forcible by stating clearly and considering separately the constituent elements or conditions of the unpardonable sin: It is a sin of character crystallized in opposition to God. By this is meant such a confirmed state of heart, and such fixedness of evil character, such a blunting or searing of moral perceptions as mark the incorrigibly wicked. Indeed, this reflection embodies the essence of the sin. It is no impulsive, no hasty act, but proceeds from such a state of heart, such a character, such a servitude to evil habits, such a violent distortion or utter perversion of moral vision, such an insensibility to spiritual impressions as would indicate the hopelessness of benefit in the continuance of remedial appliances, since there is a point beyond which we cannot go without destroying individuality and moral agency. The case in point is abundantly illustrative. Let us carefully examine each step of our way just here. Let us be sure we are right before we go ahead. Milton not inaptly represents the crystallization of Satan's character in five words: "Evil, be thou my good." Isaiah, in rapt, prophetic vision, forecasts the very characters fitted to commit the unpardonable sin. He denounces six woes which may well be compared to the eight woes denounced by our Lord (Isaiah 5:8-23; Matthew 23:13-36). They all refer to character incorrigibly evil, such as (a) inordinate covetousness and selfishness that join house to house and field to field until there is no place for other people to have a home; (b) inveterate and confirmed drunkards that rise early and sit up late to inflame themselves with strong wines until they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands; (c) incorrigible sinners that draw iniquity with cords of vanity and defy the judgments of God; (d) moral perverts that justify the wicked and take away the righteousness of the righteous; (e) inveterate vanity and self-conceit; (f) but especially this one: "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" Now this answers to Milton's devil: "Evil, be thou my good." And it was this very distortion and perversion of moral vision of which the Pharisees of this passage were guilty, and which constituted the essence of their blasphemy or slander of God. They called the Holy Spirit an unclean spirit. Upon this point the testimony of Mark is explicit. They are expressly declared to be guilty of an eternal sin, "Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit." But the words were significant only because they were symptoms of expressions of a state of heart – a heart of overflowing, implacable hate and malice. So, in the context, our Saviour declares: "How can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." It is therefore evidently out of harmony with the Bible concept of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, that thoughtless boys and girls, who sometimes in revival meetings manifest an irreverent spirit, do thereby commit the unpardonable sin. I have myself conversed with a now genuinely good and converted mother, who, when young, once conspired with nine or ten other girls to practice on the credulity of a conceited young preacher by joining the church in a body and by being baptized, when the whole procedure was meant for a practical Joke. Some of these parties are now living and one of them is the exemplary wife of a Baptist preacher. The irreverence and impiety of the act were not realized until afterward. This was no blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. They were immature, ill taught girls, without malicious intent against God, and some others of them, as I have since learned, afterward most cordially repented of their great sin and received the gracious forgiveness of the Heavenly Father whose institutions and ordinances had been outraged by their folly. If we compare with this incident the act of Ananias and Sapphira, we may readily perceive the difference in degree of guilt. It is an old proverb: "Nature has no leaps." Character is a result of long working forces tending to permanency of type. We have thus reached a view of the first and most important element in this awful sin – an element of character resulting from cumulative forces and habits. It is a sin against spiritual knowledge. Far, far from us, however, be the thought that every sin against light or knowledge is unpardonable. Do allow me to make this very clear and very emphatic, because a host of good people have tortured themselves needlessly just here by misapprehension. They are conscious of having sinned, and of having sinned when they knew beforehand that what they were tempted to do and did was wrong. Misapplying the Scripture they have said to themselves: "The unpardonable sin is a sin against knowledge. I have sinned against knowledge. Have I not committed the unpardonable sin?" Here again let us step carefully. Let us be sure we are right before we go ahead. Look closely at a little catechism – mark the emphatic words: The unpardonable sin is a sin against what knowledge? Against what degree of that knowledge? Is every sin against even that particular kind of knowledge necessarily unpardonable? Note the emphasis on the discriminating word in this second constituent element of the unpardonable sin. It is a sin against spiritual knowledge. How else could it be a sin against the Holy Spirit as specially distinguished from and contrasted with a sin against the Father or the Son? Let us illustrate by the case of Paul. (a) According to his own testimony he was, before his conversion, "a blasphemer, and a persecutor and injurious" (1 Timothy 1:13). (b) By persecution and torture he "compelled others to blaspheme" (Acts 26:11). (c) Yet he says, "I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief" (1 Timothy 1:13). What are the salient points of this case? We find here first an indisputable case of blasphemy, but it is blasphemy against the Son, which this passage declares to be pardonable. Next we find a case of ignorance which again makes the sin pardonable. This second finding is most pertinent to the matter in hand. It furnishes the clue, which properly followed leads us safely out of the maze of discussion on the unpardonable sin. What was Paul's ignorance? We cannot deny that he had the Old Testament with all its shadows, symbols and prophecies pointing to the Messiah. We cannot deny that he had knowledge of the historical and argumentative proofs, certifying Jesus to be that Messiah. Wherein then was he ignorant? In this material point: Light from the Holy Spirit had not convinced him that Jesus was the Messiah. He had not spiritual knowledge and hence had not sinned against the Holy Spirit. In his soul he thought Jesus was an imposter. He "verily thought within himself he was doing God's service" in warring against Jesus. His conscience was void of offense. Compare this with the demons: "We know thee, who thou art, thou Holy One of God." Paul hated Jesus from an utter misconception of him, and loved him when the misconception was removed. The demons hated him the more, that they did not misconceive his mission and character. Because they knew he was the Messiah and because they painfully felt the presence of his holiness as a wolf is shamed or an owl is pained by the light; therefore they hated him. Just here we approach a borderland whose precise boundary line has never been fixed by theological controversy. And yet in this narrow strip lies the unpardonable sin. Where the great have stumbled let guides of less degree walk humbly, circumspectedly, and prayerfully. I trust, at least, to make myself intelligible here. Some hyper-Calvinists hold that all subjects of influence from the Holy Spirit are necessarily saved, basing their arguments on such scriptures as, "Being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). From which they argue that the Holy Spirit never really touches any man except those pre-ordained to salvation. I hold unswervingly to the doctrine that in every case of genuine conversion the good work thus commenced will be graciously completed. But, in my judgment, the Bible is very far from teaching that the lost never had any spiritual light – never were subject to any impressions made by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it would seem impossible otherwise to commit the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. With all light comes responsibility to accept it and walk in it. With all light comes liability. As said the Saviour, "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not the sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin" (John 15:22). Unquestionable the degree of both guilt and penalty is measured by the degree of light against which one sins. This sentiment readily finds universal acceptance. It accords with our instinctive and intuitive ideas of justice. Certainly the Bible, at least, is very clear on this point. On what other principle could our Lord declare the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, more tolerable in the day of judgment than the punishment of the cities which rejected him and his servants (Matthew 10:15; Matthew 11:20-24; Mark 6:11; Luke 10:12-14) ? How else account for the difference in penalty between "a few stripes" and "many stripes" when the act of offense is precisely the same in both cases (Luke 12:47-48) ? How otherwise account for David's distinction between "secret sins and presumptuous sins"? How otherwise could Paul represent God as "winking at" [i. e. a mercifully overlooking] "times of ignorance" (Acts 17:30) ? How else could the men of Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba condemn at the judgment the generation that rejected Jesus (Matthew 12:41-42)? Now mark the application of this argument to the matter under consideration. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, and Jerusalem were guiltier than Sodom and Tyre, because a greater light, in a greater person than Lot, Solomon or Jonah, was in their midst. But our Saviour himself teaches that the light is brighter still when the Holy Spirit works. And hence a sin against the Son of man may be pardonable while a sin against the Holy Spirit is unpardonable. But as Lot, Jonah, Solomon, and Jesus, the light-bearers, were all personally present in a way to be known and felt, so it must follow that the Holy Spirit, as bearer of a brighter light, must be personally present in a way to be known and impressively felt. Therefore none can commit this unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit unless he has known and felt his presence as a light-bearer. I say the presence of the Holy Spirit must be known and felt. The mind must be convinced of his presence, and the heart must feel it, and the inmost judgment of conscience must acknowledge it. This is precisely why the unpardonable sin is oftenest committed in great revivals. It is a sin against light – spiritual light – light known and felt, light so painfully, gloriously bright that a man must run from it, blaspheme or be converted. What miracle affecting only the physical man can equal the Spirit's display of power over mind and soul in a great revival? When he fills a house or a whole city; when he is demonstrably convicting and converting on the right and left; when strong men are broken down; when hard hearts are melted; when long-sealed fountains of tears are opened; when hardened sinners fall as oak trees before a sweeping tempest; when all around the guilty confess their sins; when the saved rise up with love-lighted eyes and glorified faces to joyfully declare that God for Christ's sake has forgiven their sins – ah I the power – the felt Presence! Then some sinner, seeing and knowing and feeling the truth of it all, pierced through and through with the arrows of conviction, riven to the marrow with the bolt of demonstration, trembling like Belshazzar before the mysterious, awful, but certain Presence, overwhelmed by memory of a thousand sins, yet so knowing, so feeling, clings with death-grip to some besetting sin and to justify rejection of Jesus, so witnessed by the Holy Spirit, lies unto God as to his real motives of rejection, reviles the Holy One, turns away and dies forever. Yes, a soul dies! As I have been impressed with the presence of physical death, so, only far more vividly, have I felt the presence of spiritual death. Once during a great meeting I felt it; I felt a soul had died – that I was in the presence of the hopelessly lost. It must be a sin of malice. In the special case before us the presence of malice is most evident. One expression of our Lord sufficiently tells the whole story: "Ye offspring of vipers I" See the snake in his coil! Mark his cold, steely eye of hate! Behold the lightning play of his forked tongue! See the needle fang and the venom of secreted poison! That snake means death to his innocent victim. So Satan's devotee, about to commit the unpardonable sin. Hear him: "I hate this light. It exposes my secret sins. It strips me of my mask of self-respect. It humiliates me. This light shows how sensual, how groveling, how beastly, how devilish I really am. It exposes my chains. It advertises my bondage to pride, lust, and money. It makes me loathesome to myself. I hate this painful light, this awful purity. 0, prince of darkness, restore my self-esteem, re-establish my respectability!" Hear Satan's rejoinder: "You must away from that light. You cannot put it out. It is the unquenchable shining of immaculate holiness. Here is your only expedient: Lock all the doors of your soul. Close the blinds of every window. Pull down every curtain. Now call that light '& superstition.' Call your rejection of it 'superior intelligence,' or 'science,' or 'higher criticism,' or 'progress,' or 'broadmindedness,' or whatever you will. Put evil for good and good for evil. Blaspheme. And that light will never disturb you any more." Ah, no! Never more. "The die is cast. The Rubicon is crossed – that soul is free no more." In his case is fulfilled the scripture: "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." He has joined that outlawed host to whom this scripture applies: "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit." Here is genuine striving and genuine resisting. The Spirit strives – the man resists. The gnashing upon Stephen with their teeth expresses desperate malice. It was malice proceeding from deep conviction that Stephen was right and they were wrong. It followed "being cut to the heart." The sin must be wilful. This involves the double idea of premeditation and decision. The mind has not only deliberated – it has chosen. The love of pleasure, or of money, or of power, is deliberately preferred to the love of God. The "will" settles the matter. However long the time, complex the forces, or inscrutable the processes which determine the resultant character which makes the decision, that decision itself is one definite act of the will. The preparation of mind and heart which fitted the man to make such awful choice may indeed have extended over a period of years, the man meanwhile waxing worse and worse, the heart indurating, the soul petrifying. Yet, in one moment, at last, the border of possible salvation is crossed over forever. The "will" steps across the line. "I will not to do the will of God." "I will not go to Jesus. I will not have this Man to reign over me." It is a sin of presumption. It is not difficult to get a clear idea of the meaning of this word. An irreverent, overweening, daring confidence for which there are no just grounds. Presumption draws false conclusions from God's forbearance. Because sentence against an evil deed is not speedily executed the presumptuous heart is fully set to do evil. God suspended judgment that the man might repent. The sinner concludes that God does not mark iniquity. So many times has he trifled with the overtures of mercy) he presumes that he may continue to trifle with impunity. God's patience, erroneously construed, has made him irreverent and daring. He can recall, and despise as he recalls, the number of times he has been touched somewhat in other meetings. He presumes that what has been will be again, in case it becomes necessary to revise his decision. Time enough for that if one chooses to turn back later on. Nothing tells him that this is the last time. He presumes as if he had a lease on life and as if the sovereign and eternal Spirit of God must come to his call. Just here I desire to quote a scripture which some high human authorities affirm to be applicable to the subject under consideration. I very greatly respect them and very readily concede my own fallibility of judgment. But where my convictions are strong I speak. Here is the scripture: "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace" (Hebrews 10:26-29). My present brief comment on the passage is: There appears to be a manifest reference, in some sort, to apostasy. I mean by apostasy the final loss of all that is accomplished by regeneration and justification. It clearly teaches, and for obvious reasons, that in case of such a loss, renewal would be impossible. The remedial resources of grace in such case being completely exhausted, there would be nothing more to draw upon for recovery. But the reference is not to such calamity as objectively possible. The context and all the letter to the Hebrews as unequivocally teach the final perseverance of all the saints as does the letter to the Romans, or any other scripture. And to my mind the Bible teaches no doctrine more clearly than the ultimate salvation of all the elect. The reference then is to apostasy as hypothetically and even, perhaps, subjectively possible. If then the reference is to apostasy, though not hypothetically and not really possible, how can it be applicable to the sin under discussion? This pertinent question I will now answer. While only a hypothesis concerning one thing, it yet contains an argument fairly applicable to another thing. It discusses wilful sin after enlightenment. The greater the enlightenment, the greater the sin. In the hypothetical, but actually impossible case of apostasy, there would be no more sacrifice for sin. The blood of Christ, and the Spirit power, beyond which grace has nothing to offer, would have been found inefficacious after fair trial. Now apply this same principle of argument to an unregenerate man. To him the Father's love is offered and rejected. To him Christ as the highest expression of that love is offered and rejected. To him, the Spirit's testimony to Christ is offered in such a way that he knows and feels that Spirit's presence and power, and in such a way that his conscience recognizes and confesses the truth of the testimony. But from love of sin and hatred of known truth he blasphemes that Holy Spirit. Then in his case it would be true that "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin," not because he had experimentally tried its efficacy and used up all its power to save, but that from his rejection of such sacrifice in the blaze of spiritual light demonstrating its efficacy, such efficacy is no longer available to him. On this passage Dr. Kendrick says: "If others fall away who have reached a very high grade of spiritual enlightenment, who have experienced all of the divine influence but regeneration, their recovery is morally impossible. God will not bless the efforts for their renewal but, like the field that has answered the rains and sunshine only with thorns and thistles, will give them over to the burning." (See American Commentary – Hebrews.) Now our theory of the unpardonable sin necessarily supposes spiritual light to make it a sin against the Spirit, and a very high degree of spiritual light to make it so heinous as to constitute it the only unpardonable sin. That there is shed forth such spiritual light, that there is put forth such spiritual influence – light which may be seen and influence which may be felt, and yet light and influence which, through the sinner's fault, do not eventuate in salvation – is the clear and abundant teaching of the Bible. I know of no great theologian in the Baptist ranks who denies it. I refer to such acknowledged teachers of systematic theology as Gill, Boyce, Strong, Dagg, Hovey, Pendleton, and Robinson, and among the Presbyterians such authors as Calvin, Hodge, and Shedd – all of whose books I have studied on this specific point. We may here, I think, conclude the analysis of this sin. Its conditions are clearly before us: The age of discretion, a sound mind, a high degree of spiritual light, a character fixed in opposition to God, a life under the dominion of confirmed evil habits. Its constituent elements are: Premeditation, or deliberation, a decisive choice, presumption and malice. We come now to consider the state of one guilty of this eternal sin. This is an important phase of the subject. Such a state surely evidences itself in some way. The marks which distinguish it from other states ought, one would naturally suppose, to be sufficiently visible for recognition. As an introduction to my discussion of these marks it is thought appropriate to give the most remarkable poem on the subject in all literature. It is Alexander's hymn: There is a time, we know not when, A point, we know not where, That marks the destiny of men, To glory or despair. There is a line by un unseen, That crosses every path, The hidden boundary between God's patience and His wrath. To pass that limit is to die – To die as if by stealth; It does not quench the beaming eye, Nor pale the glow of health. The conscience may be still at ease, The spirit light and gay; That which is pleasing still may please, And care be thrust away. But on that forehead God hath set Indelibly a mark, Unseen by man, for man as yet Is blind and in the dark. And yet the doomed man's path below, Like Eden may have bloomed; He did not, does not, will not know Or feel that he is doomed. He knows, be feels that all is well, And every fear is calmed; He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell, Not only doomed, but damned. Oh I where is this mysterious bourne, By which our path is crossed? Beyond which God himself hath sworn, That he who goes is lost? How far may we go on in sin? How long will God forbear? Where does hope end, and where begin The confines of despair? An answer from the skies is sent; Ye that from God depart, While it is called to-day, repent, And harden not your heart. Confining my own diagnosis strictly to the Scriptures I would say that the state of one who has committed the unpardonable sin is one of awful deprivation. We say "Darkness is deprivation of light; death deprivation of life." The deprivation in this case is: Of the Holy Spirit whom he has reviled and despised. To that Spirit God has said, "Let him alone; he is wedded to his idols." This insures his death. This makes his sin eternal. He cannot now ever find Christ, the door. Without the Spirit he can never repent, believe, be regenerated, be justified, or sanctified. "There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin," that is, to him there is no Christ. I think that there are such men today, from whom the Holy Spirit has taken his everlasting flight. It is a deprivation of the prayers of God's people. God who said to his Spirit, "Let him alone," now says to his people who would pray for such a man, "Let me alone." Awful words: Let him alone – let me alone! The friends of Job had sinned, but not beyond the reach of prayer (Job 42:7-10). Paul had sinned by persecution and blasphemy of Jesus, but not beyond the reach of Stephen's dying prayer: "Lord Jesus, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:60). The crucifiers of Jesus had sinned, but not all of them beyond the reach of his dying prayer: "Father forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). But God's people cannot pray acceptably without the Spirit's prompting (Romans 8:26-27). The Spirit never prompts one to pray against the will of God. Hear the word of God (1 John 5:16): "If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it." (Jeremiah 15:1): "Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth." It is a deprivation of the protection usually afforded to the wicked by the presence of the righteous. The presence of ten righteous men would have protected Sodom and Gomorrah from overthrow (Genesis 18:23-32). The righteous are the salt of the earth. Their presence preserves it from immediate destruction. Paul and Christ taught that when the righteous are garnered off the earth then comes the deluge of fire. But one who has committed the unpardonable sin, at once is deprived of all protection arising from the contiguity of the righteous. To repeat a scripture: "Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the city, as I live saith the Lord they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness" (Ezekiel 14:20). No Spirit, no prayers) no protection. It is a deprivation of spiritual sensations. What is meant here? Speaking naturally, our sensations are from our five senses. One who is blind loses the sensations that come from sight; one who is deaf, those from hearing. So with taste, and smell, and touch or feeling. A body that cannot see, hear, feel, taste or smell is dead to the world around it. So with the senses of the inner man. When the spiritual or moral perceptive faculties are so paralyzed that they cannot take hold of God, that soul is dead to God, however much it may be alive to the devil. Having eyes it sees not. Having ears it hears not. Having a heart it feels not. The conscience is seared as with a hot iron. They are past feeling (Ephesians 4:18-19) : "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who being past feeling having given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." Old soldiers recall that when mortification took place in a wounded limb there was no longer any pain. The wounded man felt unusually well. It was the prelude of death. In his book, Over the Teacups, Oliver Wendell Holmes says: "Our old doctors used to give an opiate which they called 'the black drop.' It was stronger than laudanum, and, in fact, a dangerously powerful narcotic. Something like this is that potent drug in Nature's pharmacopeia which she reserves for the time of need, the later stages of life. She commonly begins administering it at about the time of the 'grand climacteric,' the ninth septennial period, the sixty-third year. More and more freely she gives it, as the years go on, to her gray-haired children, until, if they last long enough, every faculty is benumbed, and they drop off quietly into sleep under its benign influence. Time, the inexorable, does not threaten them with the scythe so often as with the sandbag. He does not cut, but he stuns and stupefies." But the "black drop" administered by Satan, when, at any age, the unpardonable sin is committed, has no such kindly intent. It puts one past feeling as to heaven, but full of sensation as to hell. There are no kindlings to repentance, however keen may be the biting and sting of remorse. It is quite possible that one who is past feeling to spiritual impressions may dream as Shakespeare's Macbeth and Richard III, or Scott's "Glossin" in Guy Mannering. And so to such a one there may remain nothing "but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries." What time these apprehensions last they are the foretaste of hell. It is not only a state of deprivation, but of positive infliction. When "the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him" (1 Samuel 16:14). To the man who closes his eyes to the Spirit's testimony, God sends judicial blindness and hardness of heart. Not only so, when the Lord refused to answer Saul, "neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets," he allowed him to return to spiritualism and "inquire of one who had a familiar spirit" (1 Samuel 2:5-7). God chooses the delusions of the hopelessly lost. He sends them a strong delusion that they may believe a lie and be damned (Isaiah 66:4; 2 Thessalonians 2:11). This delusion may be spiritualism, or science, or philosophy, or anything else. Whatever it is, for the time being it fills the vision and the heart. It points out a path "whose steps take hold on death and hell," and though the end thereof is death, it seems right to him. Such, I think, is the Bible teaching concerning the unpardonable sin. It is a sin of today as well as yesterday. The liability of its commission is greatly increased during revivals of religion. That hazard is unspeakably awful when men know and feel God's presence and power, and though convicted and trembling, turn away with a lie on their lips and hatred of holiness in their hearts. To younger people would I urgently say: Beware of those insidious beginnings which tend to the formation of an evil character. Cultivate most assiduously such tenderness of heart, such susceptibility to religious impressions as you now have. Follow every prompting toward heaven. Transmute every spiritual emotion to action. Beware of becoming hardened. Beware of dominant passions, such as the love of pleasure, the pride of opinion, the pride of life, the love of money. Distrust as an enemy, anything or anybody, whose influence keeps you apart from the use of the means of salvation. Shun, as you would a tiger's Jungle, all associations that corrupt good manners. Beware of all people who make a mock at sin and speak irreverently of holy things. Oh, the beginnings! The beginnings I These are the battlegrounds of hope. Hear today, turn today, escape for thy life today. For when once under the dominion of pleasure, or lust, or wine, or pride, or especially the love of money, that root of all kinds of evil, then – O then – how easily, how unconsciously you may commit the unpardonable sin. And then, though the world were full of Bibles to the stars, and Christians more numerous than the sands and forest leaves, and every church ablaze with revivals – for you there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. You are now and forever lost. In response to this discussion of our Lord upon the sin against the Holy Spirit the Pharisees demanded of him a sign, to which he replied that no sign should be given them except the sign of Jonah, i. e., his burial and resurrection. This test of his messiahship he submitted time and again both to his enemies and to his disciples. Here he again announces a principle of the judgment, viz: that men will be judged according to the light they have here. The Ninevites and the queen of the south will stand up in the judgment and condemn the Jews of his day because with less light than these Jews had they responded to God's call while that generation rejected their light. Then he closes that discussion with a comparison of the Jewish nation to a man whom the evil spirit volunteered to leave and re-enter at pleasure with the assurance that every time he returned, after a leave of absence, the last state was worse than the first. It is necessary to add a word of comment on Section 50 (Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21) of the Harmony. Here on the same day and on this same occasion the mother of Jesus and his brothers come to him for an interview, ostensibly to arrest him from so great a zeal. Perhaps they thought he ought to stop and eat, but he, knowing their purpose toward him, announced the principle of spiritual relation above the earthly relation – that whosoever would do the will of God was nearer to him than earthly relations. What a lesson for us! 1. What is the difficulty of Mar 3:29 and what is its solution? 2. What is the meaning of "eternal sin"? 3. By whom and how must this sin be committed? 4. What is the first constituent element, or condition, of the unpardonable sin? Give biblical illustrations and proof. 5. What is the second constituent element? Explain and illustrate by the case of Paul. 6. What theological controversy here and what is the author's position? 7. What principle of judgment here involved and what is the biblical proof? 8. Describe the spiritual conditions under which a soul may commit the unpardonable sin. 9. What is the third element and what is the proof? Recite the struggle of a soul on the verge of this awful sin and Satan's rejoinder. 10. What is the fourth element and what is involved in it? 11. What is the fifth element and what its meaning? Illustrate. 12. What passage of Scripture here introduced, what is the author's points of interpretation, and how does this passage apply to the subject under discussion? 13. What is the state of one who is guilty of the unpardonable sin and what poem quoted on this point? Quote it. 14. What are the items of deprivation which constitute the state of such a soul? Explain each. 15. In response to our Lord's discussion of this sin against the Holy Spirit what demand did the Pharisees make, what was our Lord s reply and what does he mean? 16. How does our Lord here characterize these Jewish people? 17. What was the incident of Section 50 of the Harmony and what is its lesson for us? XXXII OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEE Part VII THE TEMPEST, THE TWO , SECOND AT , SENDING FORTH THE TWELVE, AND HEROD'S Harmony -pages 66-75 and Matthew 8:18-23; Matthew 11:1; Matthew 13:54-58; Matthew 14:1-12; Mark 4:34-5:20; Mark 6:1-29; Luke 8:22-40; Luke 9:1-9.When Jesus had finished his discourse on the kingdom, as illustrated in the first great group of parables, he crossed over the Sea of Galilee to avoid the multitudes. While on the bosom of the sea a storm swept down upon them, as indicated by Luke, but our Lord had fallen asleep. So the disciples awoke him with their cry of distress and he, like a God, spoke to the winds and the sea, and they obeyed him. Such is the simple story of this incident, the lesson of which is the strengthening of their faith in his divinity. Upon their approach to the shore – the country of the Gadarenes – occurred the thrilling incident of the two Gadarene demoniacs. The story is graphically told here by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and does not need to be repeated in this interpretation, but there are certain points in the story which need to be explained. First, there are some difficulties: (1) The apparent discrepancy of long standing, relating to the place, is cleared up by Dr. Broadus in his note at the bottom of page 67 (see his explanation of this difficulty); The long famous instance of "discrepancy" as to the place in this narrative has been cleared up in recent years by the decision of textual critics that the correct text in Luke is Gerasenes, as well as in Mark, and by Dr. Thomson's discovery of a ruin on the lake shore, named Khersa (Gerasa). If this village was included (a very natural supposition) in the district belonging to the city of Gadara, some miles south-eastward, then the locality could be described as either in the country of the Gadarenes, or in the country of the Gerasenes (2) Matthew mentions two demoniacs, while Mark and Luke mention but one. This is easily explained by saying that the one mentioned by Mark and Luke was probably the prominent and leading one, and that they do not say there was only one. Second) there are some important lessons in this incident for us: (1) We see from this incident that evil spirits, or demons, not only might possess human beings by impact of spirit upon spirit, but they also could and did possess lower animals. (2) We see here also that these evil spirits could not do what they would without permission, and thus we find an illustration of the limitations placed upon the Devil and his agencies. (3) There is here a recognition of the divinity of Jesus by these demoniacs and that he is the dispenser of their torment. (4) There is here also an illustration of the divine power of Jesus Christ over the multitude of demons, and from this incident we may infer that they are never too numerous for him. (5) The man when healed is said to have been in his right mind, indicating the insanity of sin. (6) The new convert was not allowed to go with Jesus, but was made a missionary to his own people) to tell them of the great things the Lord had done for him. (7) The Gadarenes besought him to leave their borders. Matthew Henry says that these people thought more of their hogs than they did of the Lord Jesus Christ. Alas I this tribe is by far too numerous now. Following the Harmony, we find that after crossing back to the other shore Jesus revisits Nazareth and teaches in their synagogue. Here he was rejected as at first. He did some works there, but was limited by their unbelief. Their questions as to his origin indicate their great stupidity and throw light on the question of "the perpetual virginity" of Mary, showing that the Romanist contention here is utterly groundless. Before leaving them Jesus announced a fact which has been experienced by many a man since that time, viz: that a man is often least appreciated by his own people. In Section 55 (Matthew 10:1-42; Mark 6:7-13; Luke 9:1-6) we have the first commission of the twelve apostles. The immediate occasion is expressed in Matthew 9:36. (See the author's sermon on "Christ's Compassion Excited by a Sight of the Multitude.") These apostles had received the training of the mighty hand of the Master ever since their conversion and call to the ministry, and now he thrusts them out to put into action what they had received from him. The place they were to go, or the limit of their commission, is found in Matthew 10:5-6. This limitation to go to the Jews and not to the Gentiles seems to have been in line with the teaching elsewhere that salvation came first to the Jews and that the time of the Gentiles had not yet come in, but this commission was not absolute, because we find our Lord later commissioning them to go to all the world. What they were to preach is found in Matthew 10:7 and what they were to do in Matthew 10:8. The price they were to ask is found in the last clause of Mat 10:8. How they were to be supported, negatively and positively, together with the principle of their support, is found in Matthew 10:9-11. The principle of ministerial support is found also, very much elaborated, in 1 Corinthians 9:4-13, and is referred to in 1 Corinthians 9:14 as an ordinance of our Lord. The manner of making this operative on entering a city is found in Matthew 10:11-12. The rewards of receiving and rejecting them are found in Matthew 10:13, while the method of testimony against the rejectors is expressed in Matthew 10:14-15. The characteristics of these disciples are given in Matthew 10:16 : "Wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." If they should have had the characteristic of the dove alone they would have been silly; if the serpent alone, they would have been tricky. But with both they had prudence and simplicity. In this commission we find also that they were to be subject to certain hazards, recorded in Matthew 10:18. Their defense is also promised in Matthew 10:19-20. The extent of their persecutions is expressed in Matthew 10:21-22. Their perseverance is indicated in the last clause of Mat 10:22. In Matthew 10:23 we have the promise that the Son of man would come to them before they had gone through all the cities of Israel. What does that mean? There are five theories about it, all of which are amply discussed by Broadus (see his Commentary in loco). The consolations offered these disciples, in view of their prospective persecutions, are as follows (Matthew 10:24-31): (1) So they treated the Lord, (2) all things hidden shall be made known, (3) the work of their persecutors is limited to the body, but God's wrath is greater than man's and touches both soul and body, and (4) the Father's providential care. The condition of such blessings in persecution, and vice versa, are expressed in Matthew 10:32-33. From this we see that they were to go forth without fear or anxiety and in faith. The great issue which the disciples were to force is found in Matthew 10:34-39. This does not mean that Christ's work has in it the purpose of stirring up strife, but that the disturbance will arise from the side of the enemy in their opposition to the gospel and its principles, whose purpose means peace. So there will arise family troubles, as some yield to the call of the gospel while others of the same family reject it. Some will always be lacking in the spirit of religious tolerance, which is not the spirit of Christ. In this connection our Lord announces the principle of loyalty to him as essential to discipleship, with an added encouragement, viz., that of finding and losing the life. In Matthew 10:40-42 we have the identity of Christ with the Father which shows his divinity and also his identity with his people in his work. Then follows the blessed encouragement of the promise of rewards. When Jesus had thus finished his charge to his disciples, he made a circuit of the villages of Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom. From this incident come three important lessons for us: First, we have here the origin and development of a call to the ministry as follows: (1) Christ's compassion for the perishing and leaderless, (2) prayer to God that he would send forth laborers, and (3) a positive conviction that we should go. Second, there is also suggested here the dangers of the care for fine preaching: (1) If it has its source in anxiety and selfishness it restrains spirituality; (2) it manifests itself in excitement and excess which adulterates spirituality; (3) it leads to weariness or self-seeking and thus destroys spirituality. Third, we have here several encouragements to the preacher: (1) The cause is honorable; (2) the example is illustrious; (3) the success is certain; (4) care is guaranteed; (5) the reward is glorious; (6) the trials become triumphs; (7) the identification with Christ. The account of the miracles wrought by the disciples of Jesus on this preaching tour impressed Herod Antipas, as well as those wrought by Jesus himself, the impression of which was so great that he thought that John the Baptist was risen from the dead. The account in the Harmony throws light on the impression that was made by the ministry of John. Some were saying that Jesus was Elijah or one of the other prophets, but Herod's conscience and superstition caused him to think it was John the Baptist, for he remembered his former relation to John. Then follows here the story of how John had rebuked Herod which angered his wife, Herodias, and eventually led to John's death at the band of the executioner. Josephus gives testimony relative to this incident. (See chapter X of this "Interpretation.") There are some lessons to be learned from this incident. First, we are impressed with the courage and daring of the first Christian martyr, a man who was not afraid to speak his convictions in the face of the demons of the pit. Second, the life must leave its impress, but that impress will be variously interpreted according to the antecedents and temperaments of the interpreters. Third, the influence of a wicked woman, often making the weak and drunken husband a mere tool to an awful wicked end. Fourth, the occasion of sin and crime is often the time of feasting and frivolity. Just such a crime as this has often been approached by means of the dance and strong drink. Fifth, we have here an example of a man who was too weak to follow his conviction of the right because he had promised and had taken an oath. He had more respect for his oath than he had for right. Sixth, there is here also an example of the wickedness of vengeance. It is a tradition that when the daughter brought in the head of John and gave it to Herodias, her mother, she took a bodkin and stuck it through the tongue of John, saying, "You will never say again, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." 1. Give the time, place, circumstances, and lesson of Jesus stilling the tempest. 2. Tell the story of the two Gadarene demoniacs. 3. What two difficulties here, and how is each explained? 4. What seven important lessons for us in this incident? 5. Give the story of the second rejection of Jesus at Nazareth and its several lessons. 6. What was the immediate occasion of sending forth the twelve apostles on their first mission? 7. What preparation had they received? 8. Where were they to go, or what was the limit of this commission? 9. Why was it limited, and was it absolute? 10. What were they to preach, and what were they to do? 11. What price were they to ask? 12. How were they to be supported, negatively and positively, and how do you harmonize the Synoptics here? 13. What was the principle of their support and where do we find this principle very much elaborated? 14. How is this principle referred to in 1 Corinthians 9:14? 15. What was the manner of making it operative on entering a city? 16. What rewards attached to receiving and rejecting them? 17. What was the method of testimony against those who rejected? 18. What was to be the characteristics of these disciples? 19. To what hazards were they subject? 20. What was to be their defense? 21. What was to be the extent of their persecution? 22. What was text on the perseverance of the saints, and what was its immediate application to these apostles? 23. Explain "till the Son of man be come." 24. What were the consolations offered these disciples? 25. What was the condition of such blessings? 26. In what spirit were they to go forth? 27. What great issue must they force? Explain. 28. What principle of discipleship here announced? 29. What proof here of the divinity of Jesus Christ? 30. What promise here of rewards? 31. What did Jesus do immediately after finishing his charge here 32. What lessons here on the origin and development of a call to the ministry? 33. What dangers of the care for fine preaching? 34. What seven encouragements from this incident to the preacher of today? 35. How was Herod and others impressed by the miracles of Jesus and his disciples? 36. What several conjectures of Herod and others? 37. What part was played in this drama by John? by Herod? by Herodias and by Salome, the daughter of Herodias? 38. What testimony of Josephus on this incident? 39. What lessons of this incident? XXVI OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEEPart I Harmony pages 85-39 and Matthew 4:17-25; Matthew 8:2-17; Matthew 9:2-26; Mark 1:14-2:22; Mark 5:22-43; Luke 4:14-5:39; Luke 8:41-56; John 4:46-54.We now come to our Lord's great ministry m Galilee. We will take a sort of preview of this whole division and then follow it up with more detailed discussions. The general theme of this division of the Harmony is "The kingdom of heaven." We are prone at times to fall into errors of interpretation concerning the kingdom similar to those which led ancient Israel so far and so harmfully astray concerning the advent of the Messiah. Either we so fill our minds with the sublimity of world redemption, as applied to the race, in the outcome, so satisfy our hearts with rhetorical splendor in the glowing description of universal dominion that we lose sight of its application to individuals in our day, and the responsibilities arising from the salvation of one man, or we so concentrate our fancy upon the consummation that we forget the progressive element in the development of the kingdom and the required use of means in carrying on that progress. The former error breeds unprofitable dreamers – the latter promotes skeptics. The preacher is more liable to be led astray by the one, the average church member by the other. Perhaps the most unprofitable of all sermons is the one full of human eloquence and glowing description excited by the great generalities of salvation, and perhaps the most stubborn of all skepticism is that resulting from disappointment as not witnessing and receiving at once the very climax of salvation, both as to the individual and the race. Such a spirit of disappointment finds expression in words like these: "The prophecies here of the kingdom are about 1,900 years old. Nineteen centuries have elapsed since the Child was born. Wars have not ceased. The poor are still oppressed. Justice, equity, and righteousness do not prevail. Sorrow, sin, and death still reign. And I am worried and burdened and perplexed. My soul is cast down and disquieted within me." In such case we need to consider the false principles of interpretation which have misled us, and inquire: Have we been fair to the Book and its promise? Here I submit certain carefully considered statements: (1) The consummation of the Messiah's kingdom was never promised as an instantaneous result of the birth of the Child. (2) The era of universal peace must follow the utter and eternal removal of things and persons that offend. This will be the harvest of the world. (3) Again, this consummation was never promised as an immediate result, i.e., without the use of means to be employed by Christ's people. (4) Yet again, this aggregate consummation approaches only by individual reception of the kingdom and individual progress in sanctification. (5) It is safe to say that the promises have been faithfully fulfilled to just the extent that individuals have received the light, walked in the light and discharged the obligations imposed by the gift of the light. These receptive and obedient ones in every age have experienced life, liberty, peace, and joy, and have contributed their part to the ultimate glorious outcome. (6) And this experience in individuals reliably forecasts the ultimate race and world result, and inspires rational hope of its coming. This is a common sense interpretation. In the light of it our duty is obvious. Our concern should be with our day and our lot and our own case as at present environed. The instances of fulfilment cited by the New Testament illustrate and verify this interpretation, particularly that recorded by Matthew as a fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah 4-13 inclusive, of his gospel. What dispassionate mind can read these ten chapters of Matthew, with the parallel passages in Mark and Luke, without conceding fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecies uttered seven centuries before? Here is the shining of a great light, brighter than all of the material luminaries in the heavens which declare the glory of God and show his handiwork. This is, indeed, the clean, sure and perfect law of the Lord, converting the soul, making wise the simple, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes, enduring forever, more desirable than gold and sweet "r than honey in the honeycomb. Here are judgments true and righteous altogether. Here in sermon and similitude the incomparable Teacher discloses the principles and characteristics of a kingdom that, unlike anything earth-born, must be from heaven. Here is a fixed, faultless, supreme, and universal standard of morality. The Teacher not only speaks with authority and wisdom, but evidences divinity by supernatural miracles, signs, and wonders. But there is here more than a teacher and wonder worker. He is a Saviour, a Liberator, a Healer, conferring life, liberty, health, peace, and joy. To John's question – John in prison and in doubt – the answer was conclusive that this, indeed, was the one foreshown by the prophets and there was no need to look for another: "Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And whosoever shall find no occasion for stumbling in me, blessed is he" (Matthew 11:1-4). The special matter here most worthy of our consideration is that the kingdom of heaven was not expanded by instantaneous diffusion over a community, a nation, or the world, regardless of human personality, activity, and responsibility ill receiving and propagating it, but it took hold of each receptive individual's heart and worked out on that line toward the consummation. To as many as received him to them he gave the power to become the sons of God. Those only who walked in the light realized the blessings of progressive sanctification. To the sons of peace, peace came as a thrilling reality. From those who preferred darkness to light) who judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, the proffered peace departed, returning to the evangelists who offered it. The poor woman whom Satan had bound for eighteen years experienced no imaginary or figurative release from her bonds (Luke 11:10-16). That other woman, who had sinned much, and who, in grateful humility, washed his feet with her tears – was not forgiveness real and sweet to her? That blind Bartimeus who kept crying, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me" – did he not receive real sight? That publican, who stood afar off and beat upon his breast, crying, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner" – was he not justified? And when the Galilean disciples went forth in poverty and weakness preaching his gospel, did they not experience the Joy of the harvest on beholding the ingathering of souls? And when they saw even demons subject to them through the name of Jesus, was not that the joy of victory as when conquerors divide the spoil? When the stronger than the strong man armed came upon him and bound him, might not our Lord justly say, "As lightning falls from heaven, I saw Satan fall before you"? And just so in our own time. Every conversion brings life, liberty, peace, and joy to the redeemed soul. Every advance in a higher and better life attests that rest is found at every upward step in the growth of grace. Every talent or pound rightly employed gains 100 per cent for the capital invested, and so the individual Christian who looks persistently into the perfect law of liberty, being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the Word, is blessed in every deed. Willing to do the will of God, and following on to know the Lord, he not only knows the doctrine to be of God, but experimentally goes on from strength to strength, from grace to grace, and is changed into the divine image from glory to glory. In the light of these personal experiences he understands how the kingdom of God is invincible, and doubts not the certain coming of the glorious consummation foreshown in prophecy and graciously extended, in the hand of promise. His faith, staggering not through unbelief, takes hold of the invisible, and his hope leaps forward to the final recompense of the reward. The opening incident of the Galilean ministry is the healing of the nobleman's son, the second miracle of our Lord in Galilee, and a most remarkable one. The nobleman was Herod's steward, maybe Chuza, as many suppose, but that is uncertain. The nobleman manifested great faith and it was amply rewarded. This is an illustration of the tenderness with which Jesus ministered to the temporal needs of the people, thus reaching their souls through their bodies. The effect of this miracle was like that of the first: "He himself believed, and his whole house." The next section (Luke 4:16-31) gives the incident of his rejection at Nazareth. The account runs thus: "And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read." How solemn, how sad in its immediate result – how pathetic that scene in Nazareth when the Redeemer announced his mission and issued his proclamation of deliverance: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to publish good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim deliverance to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To send crushed ones away free, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Oh! what a day when this scripture was fulfilled in the hearing of the captives I But the Spirit on him was not on them. As Jewish widows in Elijah's day, perished of famine, through unbelief, and left to Sarepta's far-off widow in a foreign land to believe and be blessed with unfailing meal and oil, as Jewish lepers, through unbelief, in Elisha's day died in uncleanness and loathsomeness while touching elbows with One having power to heal, leaving to a Syrian stranger to wash in Jordan and be clean, so here where Jesus "had been brought up," the people of Nazareth shut their eyes, bugged their chains and died in darkness and under the power of Satan – died unabsolved from sin, died unsanctified and disinherited, and so yet are dying and shall forever die. The Year of Jubilee came to them in vain. In vain its silver trumpets pealed forth the notes of liberty. They had no ear to hear, and so by consent became slaves of the Terrible One forever. This brings us to church responsibility and ministerial agency in the perpetuation of this proclamation of mercy. As Paul went forth to far-off shores, announcing in tears, yet with faith and hope and courage, the terms of eternal redemption, so now the churches find in the same mission their warrant for existence, and so now are we sent forth as witnesses to stand before every prison house where souls are immured, commissioned "to open the eyes of the prisoners that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in Christ." Ours to blow the silver trumpets and proclaim to captives the year of jubilee. Ours is the evangel of liberty – ours to make known that "if the Son of God make men free, they shall be free indeed." Leaving Nazareth, Jesus went to Capernaum, where he made his residence from which he radiates in his ministry in Galilee, teaching and healing on a large scale. His work here in Zebulun and Naphtali is a distinct fulfilment of Isa 9:1-2, in which he is represented as a great light shining in the darkness. By the sea of Galilee near Capernaum he calls four fishermen to be his partners – Peter, Andrew, James, and John, two sets of brothers. Here he announces his purpose for their lives – to be fishers of men. What a lesson! These men were skilled in their occupation and now Jesus takes that skill and turns it into another direction, toward a greater end, "fishers of men." Here he gives them a sign of his authority and messiahship in the incident of the great draught of fishes. The effect on Peter was marvelous. He was conscious of Christ's divinity and of his own sinfulness. Thus he makes his confession, Luke 5:8 : "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” But our Lord replied to Peter: "Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men." Later (John 21), when Peter and his comrades went back to their old occupation, the risen Lord appeared to them and renewed their call, performing a miracle of a similar draught of fishes. In Section 28 (Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:31-37;) we have his first case of healing a demoniac. What is the meaning of the word "demoniac"? It means demon-possessed, and illustrates the fact of the impact of spirit on spirit, many instances of which we have in the Bible. Here the demons recognized him, which accords with Paul's statement that he was seen of angels. They believed and trembled as James says, but they knew no conversion. The lesson there is one of faith. The effect of this miracle was amazement at his authority over the demons. In Section 29 (Matthew 8:14-17; Mark 1:29-34; Luke 4:38-41) we have an account of the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, which incident gives us light on the social relations of the disciples. Peter was married, the Romanist position to the contrary notwithstanding. Further scriptural evidence of his marriage is found in 2 Corinthians 8:5. It is interesting to compare the parallel accounts of this incident in the Harmony and see how much more graphic is Mark's account than those of Matthew and Luke. There is a fine lesson here on the relation between the mother-in-law and the son-in-law. Peter is a fine example of such relation. Immediately following the healing of Peter's wife's mother those that had sick ones brought them to Jesus and he healed them, thus fulfilling a prophecy of Isaiah, that he should take our infirmities and bear our diseases. Our Lord not only healed their sick ones, but he cast out the demons from many, upon which they recognized him. But he would not let them speak because they knew that he was the Christ. The effect of our Lord's great work as described in Section 29 was that Peter tried to work a corner on salvation and dam it up in Capernaum. This is indicated in the account of the interview of Peter with our Lord as described in Section 30 (Matthew 4:23-25; Mark 1:35-39; Luke 4:42-44). Here it is said that Jesus, a great while before day, went out into a desert place to pray, and while out there Peter came to him and complained that they were wanting him everywhere. To this our Lord responded that it was to this end that he had come into the world. So Jesus at once launched out and made three great journeys about Galilee. His first journey included a great mass of teaching and healing, of which we have a few specimens in Sections 31-36, which apparently occurred at Capernaum, his headquarters. A second journey is recorded by Luke in Section 47 (Luke 8:1-3) and a third journey is found in Section 55. (For Broadus' statement of these tours, see Harmony, p. 31.) Here we have the occasion of one of the special prayers of Jesus. There are four such occasions in his ministry: (1) At his baptism he prayed for the anointing of the Holy Spirit; (2) here he prayed because of the effort to dam up his work of salvation in Capernaum; (3) the popularity caused by the healing of a leper (Sec. 31 – Matthew 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16) drove him to prayer; (4) the fourth occasion was the ordination of the twelve apostles. The immense labors of Jesus are indicated in Matthew 4:23-24. These labors gave him great popularity beyond the borders of Palestine and caused the multitudes from every quarter to flock to him. Attention has already been called to the popularity caused by the healing of the leper (Sec. 31) and Jesus' prayer as the result. In the incident of the healing of the paralytic we have a most graphic account by the synoptics and several lessons: (1) That disease may be the result of sin, as “ thy sin be forgiven thee” ; (2) that of intelligent cooperation; (3) that of persistent effort; (4) that of conquering faith. These are lessons worthy of emulation upon the part of all Christians today. Out of this incident comes the first issue between our Lord and the Pharisees, respecting the authority to forgive sins. This was only a thought of their hearts, but he perceived their thought and rebuked their sin. From this time on they become more bold in their opposition, which finally culminated in his crucifixion. Let the reader note the development of this hatred from section to section of the Harmony. In Section 33 (Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32) we have the account of the call of Matthew, his instant response and his entertainment of his fellow publicans. Here arose the second issue between Christ and the Pharisees, respecting his receiving publicans and sinners and eating with them. This was contrary to their idea in their self-righteousness, but Jesus replied that his mission was to call sinners rather than the righteous. This issue was greatly enlarged later, in Luke 15, to which he replied with three parables showing his justification and his mission. In this instance (Matthew 9:13) he refutes their contention with a quotation from Hosea which aptly fitted this case: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." Then came to him the disciples of John and made inquiry about fasting, to which he replied with the parable of the sons of the bride chamber, the interpretation of which is that we should let our joy or sorrow fit the occasion, or set fasting ments and old bottles, the interpretation of which is to let the form fit the life; beware of shrinking and expansion. In Section 35 (Matthew 9:18-25; Mark 5:22-43; Luke 8:41-56) we have the account of his healing of Jairus' daughter and the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. Usually in the miracles of Christ, and in all preceding miracles, there was the touch of some kind between the healer and the healed. We are informed that great multitudes of people came to Jesus with this confidence, "If I but touch him I shall be healed." Accordingly we find that Christ put his fingers on the eyes of the blind, on the ears of the deaf, or took hold of the hand of the dead. In some way usually there was either presence or contact. We will now consider the special miracle connected with the fringe of the garment of Jesus which the Romanists cite to justify the usage concerning the relics of the saints. In Numbers 15:38 we have a statute: "Thou shalt put fringes on the wings or ends of the outer garment," and this fringe had in it a cord or ribbon of blue, and the object of it was to remind the wearer of the commandments of God. The outer garment was an oblong piece of cloth, one solid piece of cloth, say, a foot and a half wide and four feet long. The edge was fringed on all the four sides, and in the fringe was run a blue thread, and the object of the fringe and of the blue thread also was to make them remember the commandments of God. The statute is repeated in Deuteronomy 22. Again in Deuteronomy 6 is the additional law of phylacteries, or frontlets – little pieces of leather worn between the eyes – on which were inscribed the commandments of God. The people were taught to instruct their children in the commandments of God: "And they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt put them upon thy door posts, and when thou goest out and when thou comest in, and when thou sittest down and when thou gettest up, and when thou liest down, thou shalt at all times teach thy children the Word of God.” Now, because of these statutes a superstitious veneration began to attach to the fringe and to the phylacteries. So we learn in Matthew 23, as stated by our Saviour, that the Pharisees made broad the phylacteries between their eyes and enlarged the fringe of the outer garment. They made the fringe or tassel very large. They did it to be seen of men. The law prescribed that when the wearer should see this fringe on his garment he should remember the commandments of the Lord his God. But these Pharisees put it on that others might see it, and that it might be an external token to outsiders of their peculiar sanctity and piety. What was intended to be a sign to the man himself was converted by superstition into a sign for other people. Hence this woman said within herself, "If I but touch that sacred fringe – the border of his garment." She could not go up and touch the phylactery between his eyes, in case he wore one, but he did wear the Jewish costume with the fringe or border on his outer garment, and she could reach that from behind. She would not have to go in front of him. She argued: "Now, if I can in the throng get up so that I can reach out and just touch that fringe, I shall be saved." We see how near her thought connected the healing with the fringe of the garment, because by the double statute of God it was required on the Jewish garment to signify their devotion to his Word – the matchless Word of Jehovah. Mark tells us that she was not the only woman, not the only person healed by touching the border of his garment (Mark 6:56). Her sentiment was not an isolated one. It was shared by the people at large. Multitudes of people came to touch the fringe of his garment that they might be healed. The question arises, Why should Christ select that through contact with the fringe on his outer garment healing power should be bestowed? He did do it. The question is, why? There shall be no god introduced unless there be a necessity for a god. There shall be no special miracle unless the case demands it. Why? Let us see if we cannot get a reason. I do not announce the reason dogmatically, but as one that seems sufficient to my own mind. Christ was among the people speaking as never man spake, doing works that no man had done. He was awakening public attention. He was the cynosure of every eye. They came to him from every direction. They thronged him. And right here at this juncture Jairus had said, "Master, my little girl, twelve years old, is even now dead. Go and lay thy hand upon her that she may live." He arose and started, the crowd surging around him and following him, and all at once he stopped and said, "Who touched me?" "Master, behold the crowd presseth thee on every side, and thou sayest, who touched me?" Here was a miracle necessary to discriminate between the touches of the people. "Who touched me?" Hundreds sin sick touched him and were not saved. Hundreds that had diseases touched him and were unhealed. Hundreds that were under the dominion of Satan looked in his face and heard his words and were not healed. It was touch and not touch. They touched, but there was no real contact. They rubbed up against salvation and were not saved. Salvation walked through their streets and talked to them face to face. The stream of life flowed right before their doors and they died of thirst. Health came with rosy color and bright eye and glowing cheek and with buoyant step walked through their plague district) and they died of sickness. But some touched him. Some reached forth the hand and laid hold upon the might of his power. This woman did. Poor woman! What probably was her thought? "I heard that ruler tell him that he had a little girl twelve years old that was just dead, and he asked him to go and heal her, she twelve years old, and for twelve years I have been dead. For twelve years worse than death has had hold on me and I have spent all my money; have consulted many physicians. I have not been benefited by earthly remedies, but rendered worse. Twelve years has death been on me, and if he can heal that, girl that died at twelve years of age, maybe he can heal me twelve years dead. If that ruler says, 'If you will but go and lay your hand upon her even now she will revive,' what can I do? In my timidity, in the ceremonial uncleanness of my condition, in my shame, I dare not speak. I cannot in this crowd, for if they knew that I were here they would cast me out; for if any of them touch me they are unclean in the eyes of the law. I cannot go and kneel down before him, and say, 'Master, have mercy on me.' The ceremonial law of uncleanness forbids my showing my face, and if I come in contact with his power it must be with a touch upon the garment. And I beg for that. I say within myself, that if I but touch the fringe with its blue thread in it that reminds him of God's commands, I shall be healed." There was the association of her healing with the memento of the Word of God. There was the touch of her faith, that came into contact with that Word of God and with him. So her faith reasoned, and virtue going out from him responded to her faith. And she felt in herself that she was healed. Well, he healed her and there it stands out one of the most beautiful lessons in the Word of God. Oh, what a lesson! Some will say at the judgment, "Lord Jesus, thou hast taught in our streets and we have done many wonders in thy name," and he will say, "I never knew you." "You were close to the Saviour. You did not touch him. You were his neighbor. You did not touch him." There were many lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha, the prophet – lepers that could have been healed of leprosy by an appeal to the power of God in Elisha. They died in leprosy, but Naaman came from afar and touched the healing power of the prophet and was healed. There were many widows in Israel whose staff of life was gone, whose barrel of meal was empty, whose cruse of oil had failed, and here was the prophet of God, who by a word could supply that empty barrel, that failing cruse, but they did not touch him. They did not reach out in faith and come in contact with that power. The widow of Sarepta did, and her barrel of meal never failed, and her cruse of oil never wasted. Now, the special miracle: It was designed to show that if there be a putting forth of faith, even one finger of faith, and that one finger of faith touches but the fringe, the outskirts of salvation – only let there be a touch, though that touch covers no more space than the point of a cambric needle – "let there be the touch of faith and thou art saved." In the midst of this stir about the woman the news of the death of Jairus' daughter burst forth upon them with the request to trouble not the Master any further. But that did not stop our Lord. He proceeded immediately to the house to find a tumult and many weeping and wailing, for which he gently rebuked them. This brought forth their scorn, but taking Peter, James, and John, he went in and raised the child to life and his praise went forth into all that land. 1. What is the general theme of this division of the Harmony? 2. What common errors of interpretation of the kingdom? Illustrate. 3. What was the offspring of these errors respectively and who the most liable to each? 4. What, perhaps, was the most unprofitable sermon and what was the most stubborn skepticism? 5. How does such disappointment find expression? 6. Give the author's statements relative to the kingdom, 7. Where do we find the fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecies relative to the kingdom? 8. What specific prophecy in Isaiah fulfilled in Matthew? 9. Where do we find the principles of the kingdom disclosed? 10. What great office did our Lord fill besides teacher and wonder worker and what proof did he submit to John the Baptist? 11. What thing most worthy of special consideration in connection with the kingdom? 12. What the opening incident of the Galilean ministry, what its importance, what its great lesson and what its effect? 13. Give an account of our Lord's rejection at Nazareth. 14. Why was he thus rejected? 15. By what incidents in the lives of the prophets does he illustrate the folly of their unbelief? 16. What is the church responsibility and ministerial agency in the proclamation of mercy? 17. Where does Jesus make his home after his rejection at Nazareth and what his first work in this region? 18. Recite the incident of the call of the four fishermen and its lessons. 19. What was Christ's first case of healing a demoniac and what the meaning of the term "demoniac"? Illustrate. 20. What was the lesson of this miracle and what was its effect? 21. Recite the incident of the healing of Peter's mother-in-law and give its lessons. 22. What were the great results of this miracle and why would not Christ allow the demons to speak? 23. How did Peter try to work a "corner" on salvation and how did our Lord defeat the plan? 24. How many and what journeys did Jesus make about Galilee? 25. Give the four special prayers of Jesus here cited and the occasion of each. 26. Describe the incident of the healing of the paralytic and its les sons. 27. What issue arises here between our Lord and the Pharisees and what was the final culmination? 28. Give an account of the call of Matthew, his entertainment, the second issue between our Lord and the Pharisees and how Jesus met it. 29. What question here arises, how was it brought up, how did our Lord reply and what the meaning of his parables here? 30. What double miracle follows and what was the usual method of miracles? 31. What was the law of fringes and phylacteries and what were their real purpose? 32. Why should Christ select that through contact with the fringe on his outer garment healing power should be bestowed? 33. What, probably, was the thought of this woman as she contemplated this venture of faith? 34. What was the great lesson of this incident of her healing? 35. Describe the miracle of raising Jairus' daughter and its effect. XXXII OUR LORD'S GREAT IN GALILEE Part VII THE TEMPEST, THE TWO , SECOND AT , SENDING FORTH THE TWELVE, AND HEROD'S Harmony -pages 66-75 and Matthew 8:18-23; Matthew 11:1; Matthew 13:54-58; Matthew 14:1-12; Mark 4:34-5:20; Mark 6:1-29; Luke 8:22-40; Luke 9:1-9.When Jesus had finished his discourse on the kingdom, as illustrated in the first great group of parables, he crossed over the Sea of Galilee to avoid the multitudes. While on the bosom of the sea a storm swept down upon them, as indicated by Luke, but our Lord had fallen asleep. So the disciples awoke him with their cry of distress and he, like a God, spoke to the winds and the sea, and they obeyed him. Such is the simple story of this incident, the lesson of which is the strengthening of their faith in his divinity. Upon their approach to the shore – the country of the Gadarenes – occurred the thrilling incident of the two Gadarene demoniacs. The story is graphically told here by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and does not need to be repeated in this interpretation, but there are certain points in the story which need to be explained. First, there are some difficulties: (1) The apparent discrepancy of long standing, relating to the place, is cleared up by Dr. Broadus in his note at the bottom of page 67 (see his explanation of this difficulty); The long famous instance of "discrepancy" as to the place in this narrative has been cleared up in recent years by the decision of textual critics that the correct text in Luke is Gerasenes, as well as in Mark, and by Dr. Thomson's discovery of a ruin on the lake shore, named Khersa (Gerasa). If this village was included (a very natural supposition) in the district belonging to the city of Gadara, some miles south-eastward, then the locality could be described as either in the country of the Gadarenes, or in the country of the Gerasenes (2) Matthew mentions two demoniacs, while Mark and Luke mention but one. This is easily explained by saying that the one mentioned by Mark and Luke was probably the prominent and leading one, and that they do not say there was only one. Second) there are some important lessons in this incident for us: (1) We see from this incident that evil spirits, or demons, not only might possess human beings by impact of spirit upon spirit, but they also could and did possess lower animals. (2) We see here also that these evil spirits could not do what they would without permission, and thus we find an illustration of the limitations placed upon the Devil and his agencies. (3) There is here a recognition of the divinity of Jesus by these demoniacs and that he is the dispenser of their torment. (4) There is here also an illustration of the divine power of Jesus Christ over the multitude of demons, and from this incident we may infer that they are never too numerous for him. (5) The man when healed is said to have been in his right mind, indicating the insanity of sin. (6) The new convert was not allowed to go with Jesus, but was made a missionary to his own people) to tell them of the great things the Lord had done for him. (7) The Gadarenes besought him to leave their borders. Matthew Henry says that these people thought more of their hogs than they did of the Lord Jesus Christ. Alas I this tribe is by far too numerous now. In Section 55 (Matthew 10:1-42; Mark 6:7-13; Luke 9:1-6) we have the first commission of the twelve apostles. The immediate occasion is expressed in Matthew 9:36. (See the author's sermon on "Christ's Compassion Excited by a Sight of the Multitude.") These apostles had received the training of the mighty hand of the Master ever since their conversion and call to the ministry, and now he thrusts them out to put into action what they had received from him. The place they were to go, or the limit of their commission, is found in Matthew 10:5-6. This limitation to go to the Jews and not to the Gentiles seems to have been in line with the teaching elsewhere that salvation came first to the Jews and that the time of the Gentiles had not yet come in, but this commission was not absolute, because we find our Lord later commissioning them to go to all the world. What they were to preach is found in Matthew 10:7 and what they were to do in Matthew 10:8. The price they were to ask is found in the last clause of Mat 10:8. How they were to be supported, negatively and positively, together with the principle of their support, is found in Matthew 10:9-11. The principle of ministerial support is found also, very much elaborated, in 1 Corinthians 9:4-13, and is referred to in 1 Corinthians 9:14 as an ordinance of our Lord. The manner of making this operative on entering a city is found in Matthew 10:11-12. The rewards of receiving and rejecting them are found in Matthew 10:13, while the method of testimony against the rejectors is expressed in Matthew 10:14-15. The characteristics of these disciples are given in Matthew 10:16 : "Wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." If they should have had the characteristic of the dove alone they would have been silly; if the serpent alone, they would have been tricky. But with both they had prudence and simplicity. In this commission we find also that they were to be subject to certain hazards, recorded in Matthew 10:18. Their defense is also promised in Matthew 10:19-20. The extent of their persecutions is expressed in Matthew 10:21-22. Their perseverance is indicated in the last clause of Mat 10:22. In Matthew 10:23 we have the promise that the Son of man would come to them before they had gone through all the cities of Israel. What does that mean? There are five theories about it, all of which are amply discussed by Broadus (see his Commentary in loco). The consolations offered these disciples, in view of their prospective persecutions, are as follows (Matthew 10:24-31): (1) So they treated the Lord, (2) all things hidden shall be made known, (3) the work of their persecutors is limited to the body, but God's wrath is greater than man's and touches both soul and body, and (4) the Father's providential care. The condition of such blessings in persecution, and vice versa, are expressed in Matthew 10:32-33. From this we see that they were to go forth without fear or anxiety and in faith. The great issue which the disciples were to force is found in Matthew 10:34-39. This does not mean that Christ's work has in it the purpose of stirring up strife, but that the disturbance will arise from the side of the enemy in their opposition to the gospel and its principles, whose purpose means peace. So there will arise family troubles, as some yield to the call of the gospel while others of the same family reject it. Some will always be lacking in the spirit of religious tolerance, which is not the spirit of Christ. In this connection our Lord announces the principle of loyalty to him as essential to discipleship, with an added encouragement, viz., that of finding and losing the life. In Matthew 10:40-42 we have the identity of Christ with the Father which shows his divinity and also his identity with his people in his work. Then follows the blessed encouragement of the promise of rewards. When Jesus had thus finished his charge to his disciples, he made a circuit of the villages of Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom. From this incident come three important lessons for us: First, we have here the origin and development of a call to the ministry as follows: (1) Christ's compassion for the perishing and leaderless, (2) prayer to God that he would send forth laborers, and (3) a positive conviction that we should go. Second, there is also suggested here the dangers of the care for fine preaching: (1) If it has its source in anxiety and selfishness it restrains spirituality; (2) it manifests itself in excitement and excess which adulterates spirituality; (3) it leads to weariness or self-seeking and thus destroys spirituality. Third, we have here several encouragements to the preacher: (1) The cause is honorable; (2) the example is illustrious; (3) the success is certain; (4) care is guaranteed; (5) the reward is glorious; (6) the trials become triumphs; (7) the identification with Christ. The account of the miracles wrought by the disciples of Jesus on this preaching tour impressed Herod Antipas, as well as those wrought by Jesus himself, the impression of which was so great that he thought that John the Baptist was risen from the dead. The account in the Harmony throws light on the impression that was made by the ministry of John. Some were saying that Jesus was Elijah or one of the other prophets, but Herod's conscience and superstition caused him to think it was John the Baptist, for he remembered his former relation to John. Then follows here the story of how John had rebuked Herod which angered his wife, Herodias, and eventually led to John's death at the band of the executioner. Josephus gives testimony relative to this incident. (See chapter X of this "Interpretation.") There are some lessons to be learned from this incident. First, we are impressed with the courage and daring of the first Christian martyr, a man who was not afraid to speak his convictions in the face of the demons of the pit. Second, the life must leave its impress, but that impress will be variously interpreted according to the antecedents and temperaments of the interpreters. Third, the influence of a wicked woman, often making the weak and drunken husband a mere tool to an awful wicked end. Fourth, the occasion of sin and crime is often the time of feasting and frivolity. Just such a crime as this has often been approached by means of the dance and strong drink. Fifth, we have here an example of a man who was too weak to follow his conviction of the right because he had promised and had taken an oath. He had more respect for his oath than he had for right. Sixth, there is here also an example of the wickedness of vengeance. It is a tradition that when the daughter brought in the head of John and gave it to Herodias, her mother, she took a bodkin and stuck it through the tongue of John, saying, "You will never say again, It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." 1. Give the time, place, circumstances, and lesson of Jesus stilling the tempest. 2. Tell the story of the two Gadarene demoniacs. 3. What two difficulties here, and how is each explained? 4. What seven important lessons for us in this incident? 5. Give the story of the second rejection of Jesus at Nazareth and its several lessons. 6. What was the immediate occasion of sending forth the twelve apostles on their first mission? 7. What preparation had they received? 8. Where were they to go, or what was the limit of this commission? 9. Why was it limited, and was it absolute? 10. What were they to preach, and what were they to do? 11. What price were they to ask? 12. How were they to be supported, negatively and positively, and how do you harmonize the Synoptics here? 13. What was the principle of their support and where do we find this principle very much elaborated? 14. How is this principle referred to in 1 Corinthians 9:14? 15. What was the manner of making it operative on entering a city? 16. What rewards attached to receiving and rejecting them? 17. What was the method of testimony against those who rejected? 18. What was to be the characteristics of these disciples? 19. To what hazards were they subject? 20. What was to be their defense? 21. What was to be the extent of their persecution? 22. What was text on the perseverance of the saints, and what was its immediate application to these apostles? 23. Explain "till the Son of man be come." 24. What were the consolations offered these disciples? 25. What was the condition of such blessings? 26. In what spirit were they to go forth? 27. What great issue must they force? Explain. 28. What principle of discipleship here announced? 29. What proof here of the divinity of Jesus Christ? 30. What promise here of rewards? 31. What did Jesus do immediately after finishing his charge here 32. What lessons here on the origin and development of a call to the ministry? 33. What dangers of the care for fine preaching? 34. What seven encouragements from this incident to the preacher of today? 35. How was Herod and others impressed by the miracles of Jesus and his disciples? 36. What several conjectures of Herod and others? 37. What part was played in this drama by John? by Herod? by Herodias and by Salome, the daughter of Herodias? 38. What testimony of Josephus on this incident? 39. What lessons of this incident? I SEASON OF PART I Harmony, pages 76-89 and Matthew 14:13-16:12; Mark 6:30-8:26; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-7:1. We now take up Part V of the Harmony, the general theme of which is "Season of Retirement into Districts Around Galilee." The time is six months, i.e., from just before the Passover (John 6:4) to the Feast of Tabernacles. There are four of these retirements, found in sections 57, 61, 62, 63-67, respectively. The occasion of the first was twofold, (1) the hearing of the death of John the Baptist, and (2) the return of the twelve apostles for rest. The place of this retirement was Bethsaida Julias, which is referred to by Luke, as over against the Bethsaida mentioned by Mark, which was near Capernaum. The occasion of the second retirement was also twofold, (1) the fanaticism of the disciples in trying to make him king (John 6:15), and (2) the hostility of the Jewish rulers (Matthew 15:1). The place of the second retirement was Phoenicia, about Tyre and Sidon. The occasion of the third retirement was the suspicion of Herod Antipas, who was a very wicked man and had much fear respecting Jesus and his great works. The place of this retirement was Decapolis. The occasion of the fourth retirement was continued Jewish hostilities, and the place was Caesarea Philippi, in the extreme northern part of Palestine on the east side of the Jordan. In every case he avoided Herod's jurisdiction. The first outstanding event of these retirements is the feeding of the five thousand, the account of which is prefaced by the report of the twelve apostles, who had just returned from their first missionary tour. This is a glowing account of their work and their teaching. The latter item of this report is unusual in a missionary report. Matthew says that Jesus withdrew to a desert place apart when he heard of the death of John the Baptist. In this desert place the multitudes thronged from the cities, and this excited the tender compassion of Jesus because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Mark says that he taught them many things. His work here continued until the day was far spent, upon which the disciples besought him to send the multitudes away to buy food. Here begins the beautiful story of "Feeding the Five Thousand," which is told by all four of the evangelists and does not need to be repeated in this expression, but there are certain facts and lessons here that need to be emphasized. First, there is the test of his disciples as to what they were willing to undertake. Second, this furnished the occasion for the great discourse of John 6 on the Bread of Life. Third, it was the occasion of sloughing off unworthy disciples. Fourth, it supplied the physical wants of the people. Fifth, there is here a most excellent lesson on order in doing things. Sixth, Christ is presented here as the great wonder-worker in supplying the needs of his people. Following this miracle is the incident of Jesus walking on the sea. After feeding the five thousand Jesus retired to the mountain to pray and sent the disciples back across the sea in a boat. A storm arose and they were distressed, but on the troubled sea they saw Jesus walking and they were afraid. Out from the storm of their distress came the voice of Jesus: "It is I; be not afraid." What a lesson for us! Jesus walks on the troubled sea. But Peter, impulsive Peter, must put the matter to a test and he receives the command to try his strength in walking on the sea, but the wind and the waves disturb his faith and he sinks, only to be rescued by the hand divine. Our Lord rebukes his “ little faith,” as he does the "little faith" of others in two other instances in this division of the Harmony, (viz., on pp. 88, 95). This incident made a profound impression on the disciples. Matthew says, "They that were in the boat worshiped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God." Mark says, "They were sore amazed in themselves; for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened." John says, "They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat." There seems, at first sight, to be some discrepancy here, but these evangelists are speaking from different standpoints. Matthew seems to look at it from the standpoint of the effect in strengthening their faith in his divinity; John, from the standpoint of their scare when they first saw him, and Mark, from the standpoint of the preceding incident of "Feeding the Five Thousand." Broadus says, "Mark (Mark 6:52) censures their astonishment at this miracle, for which the miracle of the loaves would have prepared them if their minds had not been stupid and dull. This language of Mark does not necessarily forbid the supposition that they were now convinced Jesus was divine; but it best falls in with the idea that they were at a lower standpoint." They straightway landed at Gennesaret, according to Matthew and John, where the people came in great numbers to touch his garment that they might be healed. Mark's description of this healing work of our Lord is most vivid, closing with the words, "as many as touched him were made whole." All this prepared the way for the great discourse of our Lord on the Bread of Life in John 6 (Harmony, pp. 81-82). This is a marvelously strong discourse on the spirituality of his kingdom. The introduction (John 6:22-25) explains the connection of this discourse with the miracle of the loaves and how the multitudes found Jesus after that event in Capernaum. In John 6:26-40 we have the first dialogue between them and Jesus in which Jesus reveals their purposes and exhorts them to seek the Bread of Life. Then they ask, "How?" and he explains that it is by accepting him whom the Father sent. Then they demand a sign, referring to the sign of the manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, upon which Jesus showed them the typical and spiritual import of the manna, explaining that it referred to him. In John 6:41-51 we have the second dialogue arising from their murmuring at his teaching, that he came down from heaven. Here he announced the great doctrine of God's drawing in order to salvation, his relation to the Father and the nature of the salvation he brought as eternal, over against the perishable manna which their fathers ate in the wilderness. In John 6:52-59 we have the third dialogue arising from their strife among themselves about his teaching, in which Jesus shows them their utter hopelessness apart from him and his sacrifice. In John 6:60-65 we have the fourth dialogue, which was between Jesus and his disciples, growing out of their murmuring at his hard doctrine. Here he explains that the words which he had spoken were spiritual and life-giving, and then revealed the fact that one among them was an unbeliever. This he knew, says John, from the beginning. In John 6:66-71 we have the final effect of his discourse upon them, driving many of his disciples back, but confirming his immediate disciples in his divine mission as voiced by this first great confession of Peter: "We believe and know that thou art the Holy One of God." But Jesus let them know that one of them was a devil. Note that this revelation of the betrayer was nearly a year before the revelation of Judas at the Passover supper (John 13), and shows that Jesus knew all the time that Judas would betray him. Note also that this discourse is progressive. Each dialogue brings a new revelation and the effect of this progress upon his audience is marked, finally driving them away from our Lord to walk with him no more, while the severity of the test brought forth from his disciples their strongest expression of faith in his divinity up to this time. In section 60 (Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23; John 7:1) we have the account of another issue between Christ and the Pharisees at Capernaum. They sent an embassy to him from Jerusalem and asked why his disciples did not keep the tradition of the elders with regard to the washing of their hands, the full explanation of which is given by Mark and needs only a careful reading to be understood. To this Jesus responded with a charge of hypocrisy and quotes a prophecy of Isaiah which he applies to them. This prophecy has in it a double charge, (1) of emptiness, of heartlessness, in their service and (2) that they taught the doctrines and precepts of men. This applied to all their traditions, what a comment on the whole of the Jewish Talmud! Then he goes further and charges them with transgressing the commandment of God because of their tradition in respect to honoring parents. If they should say that their property was "Corban," i.e., given to God, that exempted them, according to the Jewish tradition, which made void the word of God. Then he explained the fallacy of their tradition by showing that it was not what goes into a man that defiles him, but that defilement was an issue of the heart. But this offended the Pharisees, to which he replied to his disciples with the parable of the blind guides, which the disciples did not understand, as it applied to the matter under consideration. This called for a more elaborate explanation, that the heart and stomach of a man were vastly different and that sin issuing from the heart was the only true defilement of the man. Mark gives thirteen items in his list of sins coming out of the heart, and Matthew seven, but these are but illustrations of the principle that all sin issues from the heart. Immediately following this issue with the authorities at Jerusalem, Jesus retired to the region of Tyre and Sidon, in the territory of Phoenicia, which is outside of the land of Israel. This retirement, as already explained, was caused by the fanaticism of his disciples in trying to make him king, and the hostility of the Jewish rulers. Phoenicia (see map) was located northwest of Palestine and contained two cities of importance – Tyre and Sidon. It was in this territory and while on this retirement that Jesus healed the Syrophoenician, or Canaanitish woman's daughter. The term "Canaanitish," as used by Matthew, refers back to the time when the inhabitants of this section were called Canaanites. It is probable that the Jews continued to apply this name to the inhabitants of Phoenicia, though the after inhabitants may have been of later origin. To Matthew's Jewish readers this word would show that she was a Gentile. (Broadus' Commentary). But Mark says that she was a Greek, meaning a Gentile, and a Syrophoenician, meaning an inhabitant of the united countries of Syria and Phoenicia, a term used to distinguish this country from Libyphoenicia, or the Carthaginians. To Mark's Gentile readers this name also would mean a Gentile. This country of Syria extended from the northern part of Palestine all the way up the Mediterranean coast to the headwaters of the Euphrates, following that river east to the great Syrian Desert, and thence south to the headwaters of the Jordan, including Antioch and Damascus, two cities well known to Bible history. This country has a vital connection with the Greeks. It was conquered by Alexander the Great, allotted to the Seleucids after his death, who built Antioch and ruled this country till it was taken by the Romans. This was in the fourth, third, and second centuries before Christ. It was in this country Jesus sought retirement and rest for himself and disciples, but this rest was broken by the coming of the Syrophoenician woman to Jesus in behalf of her daughter. Jesus could not be hid because of his fame and his approachableness by those who were in distress. We find that, in every effort which he made at retirement, the people found him. So, this Canaanitish, Greek, Syrophoenician woman found him when he came into those parts. The facts of this case are as follows: This Syrophoenician woman had a little daughter who was grievsouly demonized. She heard of the presence of Jesus in those parts, came and besought him to cast forth the demon out of her. He made no answer. Then the disciples intervened and asked him to send her away, but he answered that he was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The woman personally renews her petition and begs for help, but Jesus tells her that it is not meet to give the children's bread to the dogs. She answered that she would be satisfied with the crumbs, and this brought forth from the Saviour the highest commendation of her faith. Now let us look at this picture again and see if we can find in it the lessons intended for us. First, let us look for the proofs of this woman's faith. There are four of these: (1) Her address in which she calls him the Son of David; (2) she worshiped him; (3) she recognized Jewish priority; (4) her humility and importunity. This scene was, perhaps, on the road and not in the house, which helps us to understand better some of the points in the story. The seeming indifference of Jesus was only to test and develop her faith. The intervention of the disciples was not to ask that she be dismissed without help, but, rather, to give her the blessing and let her go. Evidently the woman did not hear Christ's reply to the disciples. Being in advance of the woman on the road, this conversation was not understood by her, which explains the next statement that "she came and worshiped him." The statement of Jesus to the disciples that he was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel meant that he was unwilling to carry on a general ministry in Phoenicia, because his mission was to the Jews. The "crumb" idea here introduced by the woman and acted upon by Christ does not conflict with this idea of avoiding a general ministry in Phoenicia. This referred to the smaller blessing to a Gentile dog which would not take any of the children's bread. She seems here to argue that Jesus is now away from the Jews and not feeding them. So a blessing in this isolated case would not interfere with the blessings for the Jews. The dogs here referred to were little dogs. The word in the Greek is diminutive and means the little house dogs allowed to run around in the house and under their master's table. The woman was willing not only to be called a dog, but to be called a little dog and to have a little dog's share of food. This incident is also an illustration of the scriptural teaching that we should pray for the salvation of others who are not even interested. After the incident of the Syrophoenician woman Jesus hastened to return to the land of Israel. Going from the borders of Tyre and Sidon he passed through Sidon, thence across to the east side of the Jordan and down on the east side of the Sea of Galilee through the borders of Decapolis. This was intentional, to avoid the territory of Herod, who was suspicious of Jesus. As soon as he arrived they brought him a deaf and dumb man whom he healed, and charged not to tell it, but he published it the more, which resulted in their bringing the multitudes of the unfortunate to him for a blessing. He healed all of these and then fed four thousand, the circumstances and particulars of which are similar to the feeding of the five thousand. Then, sending away the multitudes, he crossed over the Sea of Galilee to the borders of Magadan, where he was met again by the Pharisees demanding a sign, but sighing deeply in his spirit he rebuked them and left them, never to return to this part again to teach. This text illustrates the grieving of the Holy Spirit. On leaving here he went across the Sea of Galilee to Bethsaida, where he tarried a short time on his way to Caesarea Philippi. When they arrived at Bethsaida the disciples were reminded by a little parable of Jesus that they had forgotten to take bread with them. This parable referred to the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, which was their doctrine, but the disciples did not understand it and thought that he referred to their forgetting the bread. Then he issued a sharp rebuke to his disciples as follows: (1) for hardness of heart; (2) for dimness of perception; (3) for a torpid memory; (4) for lack of faith. Then they understood that he referred to the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Does teaching, or doctrine, leaven? It seems to have leavened them. Does it make any difference what we believe? Certainly there is a moral quality of belief. At Bethsaida was brought to him a blind man whom he carried out of the village. He healed him by the use of means; at least apparently, and gradually, thus illustrating the gradual perception of conversion. Then he sent him away and would not even permit him to go into the village. This case is very similar to the case of the deaf and dumb whom he healed in the borders of Decapolis. In each case he took the person out and healed him privately. In each case he also used means, apparently. Why this method in these two cases particularly? On the point of the "why" here we cannot be dogmatic. Perhaps it was to prevent excitement as far as possible by making it appear that he used means; that he was healing more in the natural way and thus avoid the excitement that usually followed his regular method. 1. What is the theme of Part V of the Harmony? 2. What was the time and what the time limits of this division? 3. How many retirements in this period and where are they found in the Harmony? 4. What was the occasion and place of each? 5. What was the first outstanding event of this period of retirements and how is it prefaced? 6. What, in order, are the events which led up to the feeding of the five thousand? 7. Tell the story of the feeding of the five thousand. 8. What are the lessons of this incident? 9. Give the story of Jesus walking on the sea and its lessons. 10. How do you harmonize Matthew, Mark, and John on this incident? 11. Where did they land and what incidents there? 12. What was the occasion and nature of the great discourse in John 6? 13. Give an analysis of this discourse, showing its introduction, its dialogues, the progress of the thought in these parts of the discourse, the progress of its effect on the enemy and its effect on the disciples of Jesus. 14. What issue raised between Christ and the Pharisees at Capernaum and how did Christ meet it? 13. Give an account of the progress of this issue and show the final outcome of it. 16. Bid Jesus ever leave the land of Israel? If so, why? 17. In what country were Tyre and Sidon? 18. State the geographical position of Phoenicia. 19. Explain the terms "Ganaanitiah," "Greek," and "Syrophoenician" as applied to the woman who approached Christ in these parts. 20. What is the extent of Syria? 21. What, briefly, was Syria's connection with the Greeks, and how long since to this incident? 22. Why should Jesus desire to remain incognito here? 23. How was the rest broken? 24. Why could not Jesus be hid? 25. What are the facts of this case in their order? 26. What was the proofs of this woman's faith? 27. Was this scene in the house or out doors? 28. Why did Jesus so act in this case? 29. Did his disciples ask that she be dismissed without help? 30. Why should Jesus avoid a general ministry in Phoenicia? 31. Explain how "crumbs" did not conflict with this idea. 32. What kind of dogs here referred to and what the import? 33. What is the lesson here on praying for others not interested? 34. Trace on the map the journey of Jesus from Tyre to the neighborhood of the Sea of Galilee. Why this course? 35. What were the events of his stay in this section? 36. Where did he go from there and what were the events at the next place? 37. Where then did he go, and what important lesson did he there teach his disciples and how? 38. What are the items of his rebuke here and what the importance of doctrine as here indicated? 39. Give the incident of the healing of the blind man here and its lessons. II SEASON OF PART II WHO IS JESUS OF AND WHAT IS HIS MISSION? Harmony, pages 89-92 and Matthew 16:13-28; Mark 8:27-9:1; Luke 9:18-27.The scene of this discussion is Caesarea Philippi, in the extreme northern part of Palestine. The historians are Matthew (Matthew 16:13-28); Mark (Mark 8:27-28; Mark 9:1); and Luke (Luke 9:18-27). These records, being presented in parallel columns, sections 64 (Matthew 16:13-20; Mark 8:27-30; Luke 9:18-21) and 65 (Matthew 16:21-28; Mark 8:31-38; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:22-27), on pages 89-92 of the Harmony of the Gospels, it is quite easy to observe the peculiarities of each. Note three general observations: First, they exhibit the most remarkable independent testimony, each supplying entirely some detail omitted by the others, or adding somewhat to details given by them, not only without the slightest discrepancy, but so that all that each says may be incorporated into one perfectly congruous statement. Second, Mark, commonly called Peter's gospel, modestly omits Christ's high commendation of Peter, but is particularly careful to record Peter's sin, the public rebuke of it, and the exhortation based on it; while Luke, commonly called Paul's gospel, omits the sin of Peter, its rebuke and the connection between it and the exhortation. Third, Matthew writing for Jews, records particularly and elaborately the things most needed by them, to wit: the kind of faith necessary to salvation; the true foundation of the church; its indestructibleness; its high functions and authority; the necessity of the vicarious passion of Jesus; the certainty and glory and judgment of the second coming. Now, combining a congruous statement of all the records, it is easy to fashion an outline for the whole. The following is submitted as that outline: 1. The great ministry in Galilee is ended forever. 2. To sum up and crystallize its results, and to rest somewhat before entering upon a final ministry elsewhere there is a season of retirement. 3. Having reached the place of retirement, a suburban village of Caesarea Philippi, our Lord separates himself from his immediate disciples and the attendant multitudes to seek God in prayer (Luke 9:18). 4. The object of that prayer, as inferred from the context, is that however variant the opinions of others concerning himself, his own disciples may have a God-revealed faith in his office and divinity, so that they may be able to receive clearer teaching concerning his vicarious passion by which his office becomes efficient in the salvation of men (Matthew 16:17-21). 5. What men think of him and why. 6. What the disciples believed as expressed in Peter's confession. 7. Our Lord's wonderful response to this confession and the doctrines involved. 8. Clearer teaching concerning his passion. 9. Peter's rebuke of Christ and Christ's rebuke of Peter. 10. Terms of discipleship and why so hard (Mark 8:34-37). 11. A great danger and its antidote, – the danger of being ashamed or afraid before the world, to confess Christ (Mark 8:38). 12. An assuring promise: That some of them should not taste of death until they saw Jesus coming in glory to judge the world (Matthew 16:28). It cannot reasonably be expected that I should discuss all this outline in one chapter. I can cover none of it elaborately except one capital point. But it is desirable to make an outline of all the salient points suggested by these remarkable incidents at Caesarea Philippi. Let it be impressed on the mind that the Galilean ministry is ended forever. For that great section, parable, and miracle are over forever. In his teaching capacity he has finally left Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee. True, we will find him subsequently, passing through Galilee, but in hurry and silence. True, after his resurrection, he there, once more, meets with is own people and commissions them. But his own personal ministry to that lost people – to those doomed cities – is completely ended. This ministry being finished, it becomes to Christ a very solemn question: What are its results? The people who heard him, who witnessed his miraculous deeds, were bound, by the very nature of the case, to propound each to himself and to others this question: Who is he? We need not be surprised that the answers to this question were widely variant. It requires no deep philosophy to understand why men, hearing the same things and looking upon the same facts, shall yet reach widely different conclusions from what they hear and see. The standpoint alone will account for the divergence. We may easily understand why Herod would suppose from what he had heard of Jesus that he was John the Baptist risen from the dead. He reasoned from the standpoint of an excited and guilty conscience, taking counsel of his fears. His superstitious apprehension of coming evil for his wrongdoing would lead him to put a construction upon Christ and his work that would not suggest itself to any other man. It is just as easy to understand how others familiar with the closing passages of the Old Testament, which predict the coming of Elijah before the great and notable day of the Lord, should surmise that this Jesus, working such wondrous deeds, was that Elijah. A widely prevalent tradition accounts also for the fact that yet others supposed he might be Jeremiah. The tradition was that Jeremiah, at the destruction of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon, had hidden away in some secret place in the mountains, known only to himself, many of the sacred utensils of the Temple, and that at some time in the future he would return and show Israel the place of deposit of these precious relics. We see the same divergent opinions concerning Christ at the present time. Some say he is a good man; others that he is an impostor; others that his teaching concerning morality is perfect, but there is no reason to admit the claims of his divinity. Conscious in his own mind of the divergent conclusion concerning himself and his work, and having so faithfully instructed his immediate disciples, and intending now to call forth a definite expression from them, we can see an occasion for his prayer. While we may not dogmatize, it would seem that he would pray after this manner: “ O Father, the world does not understand me and my mission. But here is a particular group that I have called out from the others to be with me and to hear thy word. They have witnessed more than the others. They have been near to me; O Father, grant that these, my disciples, at least, may have a God-revealed faith in me as the Messiah." That his prayer was somewhat in this direction may perhaps be inferred from the exultation manifested by him on Peter's avowal. Anyhow, immediately after his prayer comes first the question calling out the popular verdict, and then the emphatic question, "Who say ye that I am?" Very naturally Peter speaks for the others. We have had reason already to observe the readiness with which he takes the lead. Mark the principal elements in his answer: "Thou art the Christ," recognizing his office; "the Son," recognizing his divinity; "of the living God," sharply drawing a distinction between the real God and the dead and dumb deities of the heathen world. In considering Christ's response let us take up each word. "Simon" means a hearer. "Peter" means a rock, "Barjona" means the son of Jona, or, according to the best Greek text, the son of John. This answer of Christ to Peter gives us a clue to the true faith: "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, who is in heaven.” Many other passages of Scripture might be cited to show that evangelical faith is not an intellectual perception of the truth of a proposition, but that it is a product of the divine Spirit, as is expressed in the beginning of John's Gospel: "To as many as received him, even to them that believed on his name, he gave the power to become the sons of God, who were born, not of flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God." Let the reader, therefore, especially note the nature of the true faith. It might be asked just here if this was the first time that there had been among his disciples a recognition of his messiahship. We have twice already found in the ground over which we have passed, some recognition on the part of his disciples of Christ as the Messiah. Now there has been clearer teaching, and the statement, under the present conditions, that he is the Messiah, shows a great advance in the nature of their faith. We come now to consider perhaps the most remarkable passage in the New Testament: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whosoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whosoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Here almost every word calls for explanation and occasions controversy. Who or what is the "rock" upon which the church is founded? In what sense is the term "church" used? What is the import of Hades and what signifies, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"? What signify the "keys of the kingdom," and the binding and loosing power? The first thought that I would impress upon the mind is that Christ alone founded his church. I mean that the church was established in the days of his sojourn in the flesh; that the work of its construction commenced with the reception of the material prepared by John the Baptist. That organization commenced with the appointment of the twelve apostles, and that by the close of his earthly ministry there existed at least one church as a model, the church at Jerusalem. We find in the history immediately succeeding the Gospel account that this church at Jerusalem began to transact business by the election of a successor to Judas; that they were all assembled together in one place for the reception of the Holy Spirit, and that to them were added daily the saved. Hence, we are prepared to ask: On what did Christ found his church? What is the rock? After mature deliberation and careful examination of all the opposing views, and after a thorough study of the Word of God, it is clear to my mind that the rock primarily and mainly is Christ himself. If it seems to violate the figure that he, the builder, should build upon himself, the violation is no more marked here than in the famous passage in John where he gives the bread to the disciples and that "bread of life" is himself. I would have the reader note the scriptural foundation upon which I rest my conclusion that the rock is Christ. The first argument is from prophecy: "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste" (Isaiah 28:16). This prophetic scripture clearly declared God's purpose to lay in Zion a foundation, a stone foundation, one that was to be tried, that was assured, a foundation on which faith should rest, without haste or shame. We next cite Psalms 118:22 : "The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it." In fulfilment of these prophecies we cite first the testimony of Peter, unto whom the language of our passage was spoken: "To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. Ye also as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient the stone which the builders disallowed the same is made the head of the corner. And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed" (1 Peter 2:4-8). The spiritual house of which Peter here speaks is unquestionably the church. The foundation upon which that church as a building must rest, is unquestionably our Lord Jesus Christ himself. He claims this as a fulfilment of the prophecies which have been cited. Our Lord's own words in another connection (Matthew 21:42), claim the same fulfilment: "The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner." With any other construction it would be impossible to understand Paul's statement (1 Corinthians 3:11-17): "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." Here again the church is compared to a building. The foundation of that building is distinctly said to be Christ. It is also worthy of note that any other foundation for the church than Christ himself would be wholly out of harmony with the Old Testament concept, as given by Moses, Samuel, David, and Isaiah, and Paul's New Testament comment in the following passages, which the reader will please note and examine carefully for himself: Deuteronomy 32:4; Deuteronomy 32:15; Deuteronomy 32:31; 1 Samuel 2:2; 2 Samuel 22:2; 2 Samuel 22:32; Psalms 18:2; Psalms 18:31; Psalms 61:2; Psalms 89:26; Psalms 92:15; Psalms 95:1; and Isaiah 17:10; 1 Corinthians 10:4. Do not understand me to affirm that all these passages refer to God as a foundation. The thought is that the Bible concept regards God as the rock of his people under every variety of image, and so uniformly that to make a mortal and fallible man that rock on the doubtful strength of one disputed passage, which may easily and naturally be construed in harmony with the others, does violence to the rule of the faith as well as to the usage of the term. In a secondary sense, indeed, other things may be called the foundation and are so called, but all these senses support the view that Christ is the rock, primarily and mainly. By examining and comparing Isaiah 8:14; Luke 2:34; Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:8; Luke 20:18, we may easily see how the faith which takes hold of Christ may be compared to a foundation. This accounts for the fact that many of the early fathers of the church understood the rock in this passage to be Peter's faith in Christ, and also explains how others of the fathers understood the foundation of the church to be Peter's confession of that faith. The great majority of Protestant scholars regard the confession of faith as the rock, and it is a notable fact that Baptists particularly make this confession or its equivalent a term of admission into the church. Indeed, in a certain sense, both the faith and the confession may be regarded as the foundation of the church. From Ephesians 2:20-22 and Revelation 21:14, we see that the apostles are called the foundation. But it is only because they teach Christ. They are but instruments in leading souls to Christ, and are not the true foundation. By so much as Peter was more prominent than the others, in this sense the church may be gaid to be founded on Peter. The scriptural proof of Peter's prominence is very clear. Though not the first apostle chosen, his name heads all the recorded lists of the twelve (Matthew 10:2 Mark 3:16; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). He also leads the movement in filling the place of Judas (Acts 1:15). He opens the door to the Jews on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14). And he is selected to open the door to the Gentiles (Acts 10; Acts 15:7). By noting carefully Hebrews 6:1-2, we see that the primary or fundamental doctrines concerning Christ may well be called a foundation, and at the close of the Sermon on the Mount, obedience to Christ is compared to building a house on a rock (Matthew 7:24), but all these secondary senses derive their significance from their connection with Christ, the primary and real foundation. Inasmuch as there are in the world at least 200,000,000 nominal professors of the Romanist faith, constituting over half of Christendom, and as all of these regard Peter as the rock upon which the church was founded, and as they deduce most tremendous and portentous consequences from this interpretation, I think it well to carefully examine this Romanist faith I would not, however, have the reader derive his views of Romanist doctrine from any other sources than those regarded as authoritative by themselves. A natural inquiry of the mind would be, "On what scripture do Papists rely for proof of Peter's primacy"? Only three passages of Scripture are cited by them: Matthew 16:18-19; John 21:15-17; Luke 22:31-32 These are called the "rock-argument," the "keysargument" the "shepherd-argument," and the "confirmerargument." I" connection with our text, which is the main one cited "Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my church " they construe John 1:42, where Christ promises that Simon shall be called Cephas, a stone. When they speak of the powers indicated by the keys as conferred upon Peter, they understand that government and Jurisdiction are among those powers, in proof of which they usually cite Isaiah 22:22; Revelation 3:7; Job 12:14; Isaiah 9:6; from which they claim that if putting the key upon the shoulder of Jesus implied government, surely it meant as much when applied to Peter; and they interpret the historical usage of giving up the keys of a walled city or fortress to a conqueror, as signifying that the control of that city or fortress is thereby publicly ceded, and that to the one to whom these keys are presented is the province of receiving or excluding. In the same way they derive the thought of jurisdiction from the shepherd argument, by construing it with 2 Samuel 5:2; Psalms 78:71-72; Ezekiel 34:1-23; Jeremiah 3:15; Jeremiah 3:23; Nahum 3:18; Isaiah 40:11; Micah 7:14; John 10:1-18; 1 Peter 2:25; 1 Peter 5:4; Acts 20:28. Whoever is able to meet these four arguments, the rock, the keys, the shepherd, the confirmer, is able to answer the whole of the papal system. On these three scriptures they predicate the stupendous doctrine of the supremacy of the Pope, signifying that the Pope, or Bishop of Rome, as the successor of Peter, possesses authority and jurisdiction in things spiritual over the entire church, so as to become the visible head and the vicar or viceregent of Christ on earth; that, as the universal shepherd, he is the center of unity, with whom all the flock must be in communion or be guilty of schism; that he is the fountain of authority, all subordinate rulers in the church being subject to him, and deriving their limited jurisdiction from him; that all the executive power of the universal church is vested in him. He confirms in the faith; he oversees all; he corrects all; he corrects abuses; he maintains discipline; he possesses all inquisitorial power necessary to evil, and all authority to subdue or excommunicate the refractory. He is infallible in all utterances concerning faith and morals, being God's mouthpiece, and his decrees thereon are absolute and final, being God's viceregent. It is necessary for me to cite the authentic Romanish authyroids from which this monstrous doctrine is gathered. I cite: (1) the profession of the Tridentine faith, which says, "I acknowledge the holy, Catholic, apostolic Roman church as the mother and mistress of all churches, and I promise and swear true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor to St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ." The Council of Trent met in the Tyrol near the middle of the sixteenth century, lasting off and on for about eighteen years. The language which I have quoted is not a part of the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, but it is from the profession of the Tridentine faith, issued by the Pope, and to which all Catholics must subscribe. The date of it Isaiah 1564. The second authoritative source is the dogmatic decrees of the Vatican Council held in 1870, which declare the following propositions: 1. That our Lord Jesus Christ himself instituted the apostolic primacy at Caesarea Philippi, by setting Peter as prince and chief over the rest of the apostles, and making him, as God's vicar, or viceregent, the visible head of the universal church, which becomes indestructible because founded on Peter, thereby constituting him the center of all ecclesiastical unity and fountain of all directly, in his single person, with supreme jurisdiction over preachers and church. The council expressly denies that this supreme jurisdiction was conferred upon the twelve apostles originally and reached Peter through them, or as one of them, and expressly denies that it was conferred on the church originally and on Peter through the church, but by a variety of expressions set forth the claim that his jurisdiction was direct, immediate, single, original, personal, centripetal, supreme, and, by being transmissible to his successor, perpetual, thus putting him alone in the place of God to all the rest of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, to the end of time, and anathematizes all who deny the claim. This declaration of the institution of the papacy, as I have just said, and as this council expressly declares, is based upon the rock, keys, and shepherd arguments, drawn from Matthew 16:18-19, and John 21:15-17. 2. The second declaration purports to show how this power of Peter was transmitted to his successor as the Bishop of Rome. They declare that Peter founded the church at Rome; became its first bishop, constituted this bishopric the Holy See, and that to this day Peter lives, presides, and judges in his successors in that bishopric, so that whoever obtains the office of Bishop of Rome does by the institution of Christ receive the entailed supremacy conferred on Peter over the whole church. This declaration closes with this clause: "If then any should deny that this be the institution of Christ the Lord, or by divine right that blessed Peter should have a perpetual line of successors in the supremacy over the universal church, or that the Roman pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy, let him be anathema." 3. Their next declaration relates to the nature and extent of this power. Let us quote: "Hence we teach and declare that by the appointment of our Lord the Roman church possesses a priority of ordinary power over all other churches, and that this power or jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate, to which all, of whatever right or dignity, both pastors and people, both individually and collectively, are bound by their duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience to submit, not only in matters which belong to faith and morals, but also in those that pertain to the discipline and government of the church throughout the world." The council makes him the supreme judge of the faith, and further declares that recourse may be had to his tribunal in all questions, the discussion of which belongs to the church, and that none may reopen his judgment, nor can any review his judgment. There is no greater authority than his. His office is not merely of inspection and direction, but of full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal church. His power is not mediate and extraordinary, but immediate and ordinary over each and all the churches, over each and all the pastors. Whoever denies it, let him be anathema. 4. Their fourth declaration is concerning infallibility. Citing one proof text only, "I have prayer for thee that thy faith fail not" (Luke 22:3). The council declares that this See of Holy Peter remains ever free from any blemish of error, and as through Christ's prayer Peter's faith failed not, so his. inerrancy of teaching is transmitted to his successors. Therefore, quoting their precise language: "It is a dogma, divinely revealed: that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks ex-cathedra, that is, when in the discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals, to be held by the universal church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith of morals; and that, therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the church. But if any one – which may God avert – presume to contradict this, our definition: let him be anathema." It seems an incalculable thing, an inexplicable thing, that in the latter part of the nineteenth century such a quadruple declaration could be made by the distinguished and educated leaders of any form of religion. We may well inquire just here what proof is necessary to support these stupendous claims. This much proof is absolutely necessary: (1) Scriptural proof that the supreme and absolute power here claimed was conferred on Peter himself. (2) Scriptural proof that it was transmissible and actually transmitted. (3) Scriptural proof that the method of transmission was through a local pastorate. (4) Scriptural proof that the See of Rome was constituted that pastorate. In his lectures on the church Cardinal Wiseman seems to consider himself able to furnish abundant proof, if not just this proof. The limits of this discussion admit only a suggestion of some things in reply: (1) All the apostles were declared to be a foundation of the church (Ephesians 2:19-22; Revelation 21:14). (2) All the apostles had the same binding and loosing power (John 20:23; 3 John 1:10). So also had Paul (1 Corinthians 5:3-5; 2 Corinthians 2:6-10; 2 Corinthians 13:2; 2 Corinthians 13:10). (3) So had every local church (Matthew 18:18; 2 Corinthians 2:10). (4) For preserving unity and averting schism all the apostles and others were appointed and no human headship hinted at (1 Corinthians 12:25-30; Ephesians 4:11-16). (5) A short time after our Lord used the words, "Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my church," cited as indubitable proof by Papists of the institution of the office of Pope, none of the disciples knew who was to be the greatest, and our Lord, in reply to their question, was careful not to say that he had just given that office to Peter (Matthew 18:1-4). Indeed he seems to deny that he had given it to any one (Mark 9:38-39). If the Papist claim, that the office of Pope was established in Peter at Caesarea Philippi, as recorded in Matthew 16, is correct, this incident a short time after recorded in Matthew 18, is inexplicable. (6) On a still later occasion we find the question of priority still unsettled. How else account for the fact that James and John, sons of Zebedee, through their mother, asked for the highest places in the kingdom? Why did not Jesus, in answering this request, reply that he had already given the highest place to Peter? Why did he expressly declare that none of them should exercise authority over the others, and that there should be no greatness and no primacy but in humility and service? (See Matthew 20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45.) On a yet later occasion, up to the institution of the Lord's Supper, we find the question still unsettled (Luke 22:24-40). And again it is declared that there shall be no primacy of authority and jurisdiction, but all are put on an equality, each occupying a throne. On still another occasion we have these words: "One is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters, for one is your Master, even Christ." Now as the word "Pope" means father, this language is equivalent to saying, "And call no man your Pope on earth, for one is your Pope, which is in heaven." When we examine the history of the apostles, as recorded in Acts, and the references to apostolic authority cited in the letters, we find every reason to suppose that such supreme and absolute authority had not been conferred upon Peter. Take, as an example, the case of Samaria, as recorded in Acts 8:14. When the apostles heard that the Samaritans had received the word, it is not Peter who sends the others, but it is the others who send Peter. And even in the case of Cornelius, where Peter was specially empowered by divine authority for opening the door to the Gentiles, we find that he was held to an account for his action by the others (Acts 11:1-18). Again in the great consultation on a question of salvation, as recorded in Acts 15, there it not only no indication that Peter exercised Papal functions, but it is evident that the sentence was framed by James and not Peter, and that it was sent out in the name of all the apostles and the church. In Galatians 2:11-12, we find a proof of Peter's deference to James, the half brother of our Lord, utterly inconsistent with the papal office. And the scriptural proof is overwhelming that there was no subordination of Paul to Peter. That Peter was not the fountain of authority to Paul. He did not derive his gospel from Peter. He withstood Peter to his face when Peter was in error. But examine particularly the following scriptures; 1 Corinthians 9:1-5; 2 Corinthians 10:8-15; 2 Corinthians 9:5-15; Galatians 1:11-12; Galatians 1:17; Galatians 2:6-14. Another observation in this connection will be regarded as just. There is abundant New Testament proof of Paul's presence and work in Rome, but not a hint in that Holy Book about Peter's ever being there. It is equally true that Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 3:4-23, is adverse to the papal claim. But what is more remarkable still, Peter himself not only never claimed such authority, but exhorts against its exercise (1 Peter 5:1-4). We may add this pertinent fact: Inasmuch as Peter died be-fore John (that is, as John was the last surviving apostle), if Peter's succession in the papal authority was transmitted through his pastorate at Rome to his successor, that uninspired successor would become the fountain of authority for the apostle John, yet alive, and John, who derived his authority directly from the Lord, would be under the absolute jurisdiction of one who had never known the Lord in the flesh, nor received authority from him. The true history of that Vatican Council would make interesting reading. It was a secret conclave. Its program was dictated by the Pope. It was neither free nor ecumenical. The awful subordination of intelligent human conscience to such a dictum, and the horror it excited in the minds of even true and long-tested papists, may be gathered largely from a speech of the late Archbishop Kenrick, prepared to be delivered before this council, in which he sets forth some views very little different from those I have advocated as to the rock being Christ, and to the utter insufficiency of any scriptural proof for the papist claim, based on any of the other passages. It may be well to cite a few statements from this famous speech of Archbishop Kenrick. After combating the papal argument based on the several scriptures which have been cited, Archbishop Kenrick says: The natural and primary foundation, so to speak, of the church, is Christ, whether we consider his person, or faith in his divine nature. The architectural foundation, that laid by Christ, is the twelve apostles, among whom Peter is eminent by virtue of the primacy. In this way we reconcile those passages of the fathers, which understand Him on this occasion (as in the instance related in John 6, after the discourse of Christ in the synagogue of Capernaum), to have answer-ed in the name of all the apostles, to a question addressed to them all in common; and in behalf of all to have received the reward of confession.. In this explanation of the word rock, the primacy of Peter is guarded as the primary ministerial foundation; and the fitness of the words of Paul and John is guarded, when they call the apostles by the common title of the foundation; and the truth of the expression used with such emphasis by Paul is guarded: "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, even Christ Jesus" (1 Corinthians 3:2); and the adversaries of the faith are disarmed of the weapon which they have so effectively wielded against us, when they say that the Catholics believe the church to be built, not on Christ, but on a mortal man. Again referring to the fallacy of the usual modern Romanist interpretation of Luk 22:31-32, he cites his own "Observations," from which we extract the following paragraph: Neither is there any more value as a proof of papal inerrancy in those words of Christ to Peter (Luke 22:31-32), in which the advocates of this opinion think to find their main argument. Considering the connection in which Christ uttered them, and the words which he proceeded to address to all the apostles, it does not appear that any gift pertaining to the government of the church as then granted or promised to Peter, much less that the gift of inerrancy in Christ's prayer for him that his faith might not fail – that is, that he might not wholly or forever lose that trust by which thus far he had clung to Christ. The words of Christ, then, are to be understood, not of faith as a body of doctrine, in which sense it is never used by our Lord. In another part of the speech he says: "I believe that the proofs of the Catholic faith are to be sought rather in tradition than in the interpretation of the scriptures." And again, We have in the Holy Scriptures perfectly clear testimony of a commission given to all the apostles, and of ths divine assistance promised to all. These passages are clear, and admit no variation of meaning. We have not even one single passage of scripture, the meaning of which is undisputed, in which anything of the kind is promised to Peter separately from the rest. And yet the authors of the Schema want us to assert that to the Roman pontiff, as Peter's successor, is given that power which cannot be proved by any clear evidence of Holy Scripture to have been given to Peter himself, except just so far as he received it in common with the other apostles; and which, being claimed for him separately from the rest, it would follow that the divine assistance promised to them was to be communicated only through him, although it is clear from the passages cited that it was promised to him only in the same manner and in the same terms as to all the others. I admit, indeed, that a great privilege was granted to Peter above the rest; but I am led to this conviction by the testimony, not of the Scriptures, but of all Christian antiquity. Yet again he says, with reference to the proposed declaration of infallibility: I boldly declare that that opinion, as it lies in the Schema, is not a doctrine of faith, and that it cannot become such by any definition whatsoever, even by the definition of a council. We are the keepers of the faith committed to us, not its masters. God only is infallible. Of the church, the most that we can assert is, that it does not err in teaching the doctrines of faith which Christ has committed to its charge; because the gates of hell are not to prevail against it. Therefore, infallibly, absolute and complete, cannot be predicated of it; and perhaps it would be better to refrain from using that word, and use the word "inerrancy" instead. What need would there be to a Pope who accepted this notion, of the counsel of his brethren, the opinions of theologians, the investigations of the documents of the church? Believing himself to be immediately led by the divine Spirit, and that this Spirit is communicated through him to the church, there would be nothing to hold him back from pressing on in a course on which he had once entered. At the close of his speech, arguing against undue haste, and meeting the objection of the Archbishop of Dublin that an examination into the facts would last too long, in that it would reach to the day of Judgment, he says, If this be so, it were better to refrain from making any definition at all, than to frame one prematurely. But it is said the honor and authority of the Holy See demand a definition, nor can it be deferred without injury to both. I answer in the words of Jerome, substituting another word for the well-known word auctoritas: Major est calus orbis quam urbis. ["It is better to save the world than the city."] I have done. Let the reader understand that the authoritative pronunciamento of papal infallibility issued by the Vatican Council in July. 1870. is retroactive. It means that every ex-cathedra utterance of every Pope of the past ages is infallible and irreformable. As this decree of infallibility is retroactive, I will illustrate its awful significance by citing only four things out of many thousands: 1. In 1320, Pope Boniface VIII issued ex-cathedra a bull, entitled Unum Sanctum, which, under pain of damnation, claims for the Pope what is called the "double sword"; i.e., the secular as well as the spiritual, over the whole Christian world, and the power to depose princes and absolve subjects from their oaths of allegiance. If we would know whether this power has ever been exercised we should ask history to tell us what Pope Paul III did for Henry VIII; Pius V for Queen Elizabeth; how Henry IV of Germany on demand of the Pope went to Canossa, and there barefooted and clad in a hair shirt, waited in penitence, for days, in an outer court, until Pope Gregory VII condescended to receive and absolve him; how Pope Innocent III treated Raymond VI of Toulouse; and others too numerous to mention. Connect all this with the papal declaration that the Popes have never exceeded their powers. 2. In September, 1713, Pope Clement XI issued the bull called Unigenitus, which condemns 101 sentences in a book of the Jansenist, Pasquier Quesnel. Among the sentences condemned are some that assert the total depravity of fallen human nature, others the renewing power of the free grace of God in Christ, but particularly some that assert the right and duty of all Christians to read the Bible for themselves. In the bull of condemnation the following terms are indiscriminately employed to describe the condemned sentences: "False, captious, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, rash, injurious, seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected of heresy and savoring of heresy itself, near akin to heresy, several times condemned, and manifestly renewing various heresies, particularly those which are contained in the infamous propositions of Jansenius." I will cite now the condemned sentences that assert the right and duty of the people to read the Bible, and that there may be no mistake I give them in both Latin and English, retaining the original number of each condemned proposition: (79). Utile et necessarum est ornni tempore, omni loco, et omni personarum generi, studere et cognoscere spiritum, pietatem et mystheria sacrae Scripturae. (80). Lectio sacrae Scripturae est pro omnibus. (81). Obscuritasi sancti verbi Dei non est Jaicis ratio dispensandi se ipsos ab ejus lectione. (82). Dies Dommicus a Christianis debet sanctificari lectionibus pietatiset super omnia sanctarum Scripturarum. (83). Damnosum est, velle Christianum ad hac lectione retrahere. (84). Abripere e Christianorum manibus Novum Testamentum seu eis illud clausum tener auferendo eis modum istud intelligendi, est illish Christi os obturare. (85). Interdicere Christianis lectioneum sacrae Scripturae, praesertim Evangelii, est interdicere usum luminis filis lucis et facere, ut uatiantur speciem quamdam excommunicationis.As I know of no English version of Quesnel's book, I submit a reasonably accurate translation of the foregoing Latin propositions: (79). It is useful and necessary at all times, in every place, for all sorts of people, to study and investigate the spirit, piety, and mysteries of the Holy Scriptures. (80). The reading of the Holy Scriptures is for all. (81). The obscurity of the Holy Word of God is not a reason why laymen should excuse themselves from reading it. (82). The Lord's day ought to be hallowed by Christians by readings of piety, and, above all, of the Holy Scripture. (83). It is injurious to wish that a Christian draw back from that reading. (84). To snatch the New Testament from the hands of Christians, or to keep it closed to them by taking away from them this manner of understanding it, is to close to them the mouth of Christ. (85). To forbid to Christians the reading of the Holy Scriptures, especially the Four Gospels, is to forbid the use of light to the sons of light, and to cause them to suffer a certain kind of excommunication. Let the reader fix the solemn and awful fact in his mind matized by a so-called infallible Pope, claiming to be God's viceregent, and delivering himself ex-cathedra in a sentence of condemnation which) according to the Vatican Council, is irreformable. 3. On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX, issued ex-cathedra, the bull entitled Ineffabilis Deus, declaring it to be a divinely revealed fact and dogma, which must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful on pain of excommunication, "that the most blessed Virgin Mary, in the first moment of her conception, by a special grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Christ, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin." The reader will understand that this Romanist dogma of "the immaculate conception" has no reference to our Lord's immaculate conception referred to in Luke 1:35, but to Mary's own conception and birth, concerning which the Scriptures are entirely silent. And to further show what is meant by this unscriptural and antiscriptural dogma, I now cite a paragraph of an encyclical letter, dated February 2, 1849, and sent out to the world by Pope Pius IX: You know full well, venerable brethren, that the whole ground of our confidence is placed in the most holy Virgin henceforth, if there be in us any hope, if there be any grace, if there be any salvation, we must receive it solely from her, according to the will of Him who would have us possess all through Mary. 4. On December 8, 1864, Pope Pius IX, issued another encyclical letter, entitled Quanta Cura, and a Syllabus of Errors which he anathematized. It was this Syllabus that roused Mr. Gladstone to issue his pamphlet entitled "Vaticanism." As an encyclical letter of Pope Gregory XVI, in 1831, condemned the liberty of the press, so this encyclical letter, together with the Syllabus condemns liberty of conscience and worship, liberty of speech, free schools under secular control, the authority of the state to define the civil rights of the church, the binding force of any marriage not performed by Romanist authority, the right of a state called Catholic to tolerate any religion but the papal system. Not only are these and many like things condemned, but there are affirmed: The union of church and state, provided it be the Romanist church only; the right of the Romanist church to employ force. Those also are condemned who hold that Roman pontiffs have ever transgressed the limits of their lawful power. Hence I say that these four things, to wit: The bull Unum Sanctum, 1320; the bull Unigenitus, 1713; the bull Ineffabilis Deus, 1854; the Syllabus of Errors, 1864, serve as well as a thousand things to show what papal infallibility, decreed in 1870, means and involves. The dogma certainly places any Pope, however ignorant or immoral, in the place of God to the whole world, and substitutes a sinful and fallible woman for the immaculate Son of God. 1. What was the scene and who are the historians of the great confession of Peter at Philippi? 2. What three general observations on these accounts? 3. Give the outline submitted for the whole of sections 64-65. 4. What question arose in the minds of the people from Christ' Galilean ministry? 5. What were the various answers and how do you account for the divergent answers to this question? Illustrate each. 6. What, probably, was our Lord's prayer on this occasion, and what occasion, what Peter's answer and what elements of his answer? 7. What was our Lord's question addressed to the disciples on the meaning of the terms used? 8. What was Christ's response to Peter's answer and what is the inference to this effect? 9. What does Christ's answer to Peter reveal and what other pas sages show the same thing? 10. Indicate the beginning and growth of the disciples' faith in bin as the Messiah up to this time. 11. What important questions arise from this passage? 12. Who founded the church and when? 13. Upon what did Christ found his church and what is the scriptural proof? 14. What is the import of Deu 32:4; Deuteronomy 32:15; Deuteronomy 32:31; 1 Samuel 2:2; 2 Samuel 22:2; 2 Samuel 22:32; Psalms 18:2; Psalms 18:31; Psalms 61:2; Psalms 89:26; Psalms 92:15; Psalms 95:1; Isaiah 7:10; and 1 Corinthians 10:4? 15. How may faith in Christ be the foundation also? Proof. 16. What do the majority of Protestant scholars regard as the "rock'" here and in what sense is it true? 17. In what sense are the apostles the foundation and what is the scriptural proof? 18. In what sense may the church be founded on Peter? 19. What is the doctrinal foundation? Proof. 20. What is the Roman Catholic position on this question and on what scriptures do they rely to prove it? 21. What are the names of their various arguments? Explain each. 22. What is the resultant jurisdiction of the Pope? 23. What have the Romanist authorities cited here? 24. What four propositions of the Vatican Council? Explain each. 25. What proof is necessary to support these stupendous claims? 26. What was the author's reply to Cardinal Wiseman's contention? 27. Give a summary of Bishop Kenrick's speech combating the papal argument. 28. What was the nature of the pronunciamento of the Vatican Council in 1870? 29. How does the author illustrate its awful significance? 30. What is the sum total of such dogma? III PART III THE Harmony, pages 92-94 and Matthew 17:1-13; Mark 9; Mark 2:13; Luke 9:28-36; John 1:14; 2 Peter 1:14-18.The transfiguration of Jesus is one of the most notable events of his history. The occasion which called forth the event – the wonderful facts of the event itself – the manifest correlation of these facts with both the near and the remote past, and the near and distant future – the primary and multiform design of this event, and the secondary important lessons which may be deduced from it, all conspire to make it notable. The history of the whole case may be gathered from what are called the Synoptic Gospels, that is, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and from the references to the event by two out of the three witnesses, Peter and John. James, the other eyewitness, was prevented by an early martyrdom from leaving any record. We find an account of his death in Acts 12. He was put to death by Herod. So these are the five historians of the transfiguration. In discussing the subject of the transfiguration, let us consider: 1. The occasion. – From the context in Matthew, Mark, and Luke we group in order the following facts, which, taken as a whole, constitute the occasion of the transfiguration: First fact: While the people generally had vague and conflicting views of the person and mission of Jesus, his immediate disciples had now reached a definite and fixed conclusion that he was the divine Messiah, and had publicly confessed that faith near Caesarea Philippi. Second fact: On this confession of their faith in his messiahship, he began for the first time to openly and plainly show that the Messiah was to be a suffering Messiah; that he must die; that he must die an ignominious death; that he must die under the condemnation of the supreme court of their nation. Third fact: At this plain revelation of his death their faith staggers. It is both an inexplicable and abhorrent thing to them. It so deeply stirred them that, through Peter, they present the strongest possible protest. Peter says, "Mercy on thee, Lord, it shall never be." They, while believing him to be the Messiah, wanted a living, conquering Messiah, with a visible, earthly, triumphant kingdom and jurisdiction. Fourth fact: He sharply rebukes this protest, as satanic in its origin – as coming from the devil, and it had originally come from the devil. Now, one of his own apostles comes as a tempter. As if he had said, "You are a stumbling block to me. You quote the very sentiments of the devil, when you would beguile me from the cross to accept an earthly crown." He then adds that to take that view of it is to think men's thoughts and not God's thoughts. He says, "You are minding the things of men and not the things of God when you present such a view as that to me." Fifth fact: Whereupon, after his turning sharply away from Peter, he calls up the whole multitude to hear with his disciples, the great spiritual and universal law of discipleship, and perhaps it will stagger some to hear it, if they take it in. What was it? Absolute self-renunciation – the taking up daily of the cross upon which one is appointed to die, and the following of Christ; carrying the cross even unto the death which is appointed. We have such low conceptions of self-denial. We count it self-denial if we want a little thing and do not get it. We count it cross-bearing if some little burden is put on us and we bear it. That is not the thought in this connection at all. "If any man, whether he be an apostle or anybody else – if any man would be my disciple, he must have absolute self-renunciation, and he must take up every day the cross upon which he is appointed to die, and he must follow me, bearing that cross even unto the appointed death." He assured them that a man must not be merely willing to suffer temporal death, if an occasion should arise – not at all such a mere contingency – but he must actually lose temporal life in order to find eternal life. He must do it. He must lose temporal life to find eternal life, and then puts it to them as a supreme business question of eternal profit and loss. In that very connection he says, "What will it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul, and what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" It is the universal law of discipleship, from which there is no exception. No Christian can escape crucifixion. The reference is to our sanctification. We not only die judicially on the cross in Christ our substitute (Colossians 3:2), but we must actually "put to death our members which are upon the earth" (Colossians 3:5). I say this is a universal law: "If ye through the Spirit do mortify [put to death] the deeds of the body ye shall live" (Romans 8:13). Our sanctification consists of both death and life. The old man must die. The new man must be developed. Paul died daily. In putting on the new man we put off the old man. Our baptism pledges us both to death and life. ' In our progressive sanctification the Holy Spirit reproduces in every Christian the dying of our Lord, as well as his living. In every Christian "a death experience runs parallel with his life experience." Not only Paul must fill up "that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in his flesh, for his body's sake, which is the church" (Colossians 1:24), but all of us must have fellowship with his sufferings. We must suffer with him if we would reign with him. The lamented Dr. Gordon quotes this remarkable passage: "The church is Christian no more than as it is the organ of the continuous passion of Christ." Yes, it is no possible contingency, but a universal fact – we must take up the cross. We must lose our life to find it. Sixth fact: The solemnity of this occasion was deeply intensified by his announcement of his second coming in power and great glory for the final judgment of all mankind according to their decision of that question which he had presented. All this comes just before the transfiguration. After announcing to them his death; after rebuking other conceptions of the messiahship; after presenting the great universal law of discipleship; now he says, "For the Son of man shall come in his glory, with his angels, and shall reward every man according to his doings.” Seventh, and last, fact: Mark it well. Then follows the startling announcement that some of them standing there should never taste of death until they saw this second coming. These seven facts, taken as a whole, constitute the occasion of the transfiguration of Jesus Christ. Let us restate them: (1) That while the world had vague and conflicting ideas of his person and missions, his immediate disciples had reached the conclusion that he was the divine Messiah, and had publicly confessed that faith. (2) That upon that public confession he commences for the first time plainly and openly to show that this Messiah must be a sufferer and must die. (3) They indignantly and abhorrently repudiate that conception of the Messiah. (4) He rebukes their protest as coming from the devil. (5) He announces the great law of discipleship, that no man could be a disciple of Jesus Christ without absolute self-renunciation, and without taking up every day the cross upon which he was appointed to die, and following Jesus even unto the appointed death, and that it was simply a question of business – a supreme business question of profit and loss, and they had to decide one way or the other. "If you prefer to find your life, you will lose it; if you prefer to lose your life, you will find it; if you want to take this world, you will lose your own soul; if you want to save your soul, you must renounce the world." Just that, no less and no more. (6) He announces his second coming in power and glory, as a final judge to determine the destiny of men upon this solitary question: "Did you lose your life for my sake?" (7) The still more startling announcement that some people – some of those to whom he was speaking would never taste death until they saw his second coming. That these seven facts, considered as a whole, do in some way constitute the occasion of the transfiguration, is to my mind incontrovertible. Some of the most convincing reasons for the conclusion may be stated. First: In all the histories the account of the transfiguration follows immediately after the record of these events without &break in the connection. No event of the intervening week is allowed to separate the two transactions. Now, that three historians should, without collusion, follow this method, seems to establish a designed connection between these facts and the transfiguration which followed. Second: The disheartening protest of the disciples against his position and in favor of the common Jewish idea of an earthly kingdom, would naturally so depress the humanity of Jesus that he himself would need some marvelous encouragement from heaven and would seek it in prayer. Third: From the same sad cause, it would be necessary that some compensating revelation of future glory must be shown to the disciples in order to make them bear up under the hard condition of present discipleship, and under the awful thought of separation from him by death. Fourth: It cannot be a mere coincident that the transfiguration is calculated to so exactly supply these things – the encouragement to Jesus and compensation to the disciples, both for the death of Jesus and for the hard terms of present discipleship. 2. The event. – Such being the occasion, then, let us reverently approach the wonderful transaction itself. The scene cannot have been at Mount Tabor in Lower Galilee, as tradition would have us believe. While it is not now necessary to show how insuperable are the objections to Mount Tabor as the place, yet it is important to note, by the way, that little reliance can ever be placed on the exact localities of great events in the New Testament, as indicated by tradition, because the inspired record oftentimes designedly and wisely leaves them indeterminate. It is not small proof of inspiration by him who knew the superstitions of men, and would provide no food to feed it on. Christ left neither autograph nor portrait to be worshiped as relics. None of the historians even/ hint at a personal description of Jesus. We know absolutely nothing of the color of his eyes or hair. Absolutely nothing of his height or size. Worshipers of shrines, relics, and souvenirs derive no sort of help or encouragement from the New Testament. The scene of the transfiguration was evidently near Caesarea Philippi, and on some mountain spur of the Hermon range. It could not have been anywhere else from the circumstances going before and after the event. The time is night, somewhere about seven months before his crucifixion. The object is prayer in some lonely private place. His companions are Peter, James, and John. It must have been an all-night prayer meeting, for they did not come down from the mountain until the next day, and it is stated that the three disciples were heavy with sleep, as on a later and more solemn occasion, these very three men succumbed to the spirit of sleep, through the weakness of the flesh. The original here, however, would lead us to infer that they forced themselves to remain awake, notwithstanding their strong inclination to sleep, and now, late in the night, struggling against an almost irresistible desire to sleep, but yet their gaze fixed upon their Master, who is yet praying, they behold a sight that drives sleep utterly away. What do they see? A wonderful sight indeed; earth never saw a more wonderful one. Mark you, it is no vision or dream. With the use of their natural senses, sight and hearing, being fully awake, they became the wit- nesses of three distinct remarkable supernatural events. These three things are: first, the transfiguration of Jesus; second, the glorified forms of Moses and Elijah; third, the luminous cloud symbol and the voice of the eternal God. Now, let us consider separately each one of these things: "Transfiguration: – what does the word mean? The word means to transform – to change the form or appearance. In what respect was the appearance or form of Jesus changed? It was this: It is in the night; it is on that lonely mountaintop; and while they look at him, he begins to shine as from a light within. The light seems to struggle through him. He seems to become translucent, and his whole body becomes luminous, as if it were a human electric jet, and the light is white – whiter than any fuller on earth could make it, and his face is brighter than the shining of the sun at midday. Let us carefully collate the several records: Matthew says, "And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart." Mark says, "They went up into that mountain to pray." There are the four separating themselves from all the others and going up into that high mountain to hold a prayer meeting. Luke then says, "And as Jesus was praying, the fashion of his countenance altered," or, as Matthew says, "His face did shine as the sun and his garments became as white as light," or, as Mark says, "And his garments became glistering, exceeding white, so as no fuller on earth could whiten," and, as Luke says, "His raiment became white and dazzling." We notice that two things are referred to, first, the fashion of his countenance, and second, the shining of his garments. Jesus becomes as a pillar of fire to them, as they look at him. That is the first thing they saw that night. Then suddenly there is an interview held with him. Those who come to hold the interview with him are not from hell; they are not from earth. He has gone up on that mountaintop and implored the Father for something. As a result of his prayer, an interview is held with him. Who comes to hold that interview with him? The two most remarkable men of the past: the representative of the law, and the representative of prophecy – Moses, the great law-giver, and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets. These three witnesses could instinctively, by spiritual intuition, recognize them. Of course, they had never personally known them, but it was given to them to recognize them. And what do they look like? They are also in glory; they are luminous. There are the three shining bodies together, and they enter into conversation – they are talking. What are they talking about? Now, mark the occasion. Jesus had said to his disciples, "I go up to Jerusalem to die. I must die. There is a' necessity that I should die, and these disciples abhorred the thought that I should die. Oh, Father, show them by some way that I must die. Is there no one in the past whose evidence would avail?" Out from the past comes Moses and says, "Jesus, I came to talk to you about your death." Out from the land of the prophets comes Elijah and he says, "Jesus, I came to talk to you about your death." The law says the substitute of the sinner must die. Moses comes from the other world, representing the law, saying to the substitute of the sinner, "You must die." Elijah says, "You must die." Every voice from the prophets calls for the death of the Messiah. "And they come to talk to him about his death" – his death that should take place at Jerusalem. Suppose Moses had said this: "Jesus, I died on Mount Nebo. No man on earth knows where my bones are resting. Unless you die, that body will never be raised, never, never." Suppose Elijah had said: "Jesus, I escaped death as to my body. I was translated. I was carried up to heaven, and am now enjoying in both soul and body the blessed glories of the eternal world, upon your promise to die. That promise must be redeemed. I am in heaven on a credit – the credit is on your promise to pay. You must die." "They talked with him concerning his/ death at Jerusalem." They are now about to leave. They have had their interview, and they are going back, and just as they are about to depart. Peter is terribly frightened, but they never could put Peter in a place where he would not say something. Peter sees that the guests are about to leave, although trembling with apprehension, and not knowing what he did – thinking, however, that he ought to say something, as if he had said, "Lord, they intend to go," and in the original it does not say, let us build three tabernacles; it says, "Lord, I will build three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Now, while Peter said that, there came the third wonderful thing, and the only time that it ever was seen in the New Testament dispensation, though it had often been seen in the earlier days – the cloud symbol of God. How did the cloud symbol of God appear? If it was in the daytime, it appeared as a beautiful pillar of cloud; if it was the nighttime, it appeared as a pillar of fire. Now, the old-time drapery of God, the fire cloud, that had not been witnessed since far off Old Testament days – that fire cloud came down and wrapped Moses and Elijah and Jesus in its folds of light. As it wrapped them, there leaped from its bosom, as leaps the lightning from the clouds, a voice: "This is my beloved Son: hear ye him." And they fell as if lightning had struck them. Fear had taken possession of them from the beginning; their apprehensions had grown more and more demoralizing from the very beginning of the supernatural manifestation, but when this voice spoke – this voice of God, they fell on their faces; they could not bear to face that burning cloud and to hear that awful voice, and there they lie, as still as if dead, until Jesus comes and stoops over them, and touches them, each one, and says: "Do not be afraid," and they rise up and the cloud is gone, and Moses and Elijah are gone. Now, these are the things they witnessed – three entirely distinct things: The transfiguration of Jesus; the glorified appearance of Moses and Elijah; the fire cloud, which was the symbol of the divine presence, and the audible Voice. Such were the wonderful facts of the event. Now comes the next question: 3. The design – What was meant by the transfiguration? We go back and look at it to see if we can gather there the design. We take the testimony of the men who actually witnessed these transaction, in order to get the design. Let’ s see what that is. First, he had said that there were some people there that should never taste death until they saw the coming of the Son of man – until they saw the second coming of the Son of man – until they saw the kingdom of God come with power. Unquestionably that is what he said: that there were some people there that should never taste death until they saw the second coming of Jesus Christ. Let's see what one of the witnesses says about this. I cite the testimony of Peter: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father, honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount." Now mark what Peter says, that in preaching to these people that Christ would come again the second time with power and great glory and as a final judge, he had not followed a cunningly devised fable, but he preached what he had witnessed; that he, on Mount of Transfiguration, had gazed upon the second coming of Christ in some sense, in whatever sense that might be. He had seen it. He was an eyewitness of the power and majesty of that second coming. Let's see what J John said about it. He was the other witness. In John 1:14, and in the parenthesis of that verse, we have this: "And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." When did John see his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father? The glory of Christ always in the New Testament when spoken of in its fulness, is that glory which shall attend him when he comes the second time. The first time he came without glory; he came in his humiliation. The second time, he comes in glory, as we learn from Matthew 24: "The Son of man shall come in all of his glory, and all of his holy angels with him, and then shall he sit on the throne of his glory." John says that he, with others witnessed the glory of Jesus Christ, as of the only begotten of the Father. He saw it, and like Peter, he saw it on the Mount of Transfiguration. As a further proof of it, in John 12:24 we have an account of Jesus praying, and he says, "Father, glorify me," and instantly that same voice says, loud as thunder, "I have glorified thee, and will glorify thee." So that the glory that they witnessed was in some sense the glory of the second Coming of Jesus Christ. It was a miniature representation of the power and glory that would be displayed when he does come – an anticipatory scene – presenting to the ye on a small scale that great and awful event in the future. When Jesus does come, every living Christian will instantly be transfigured. He will take on the resurrection body. He will take on a glorified body – just as Elijah and Enoch did. As Paul puts it: "Behold I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Here was Elijah, the type and representation of that work. Here was Elijah, who without death, by the transfiguring power, had been carried up to heaven. Here he was talking to Jesus. There is another thing that will take place when Jesus comes. The dead will be raised. The bodies that have been buried and turned to dust are to be reanimated and "are to be glorified in one moment of time. Corruption puts on incorruption; mortality puts on immortality; sleep changes to waking; and the dead rise up and are glorified in the twinkling of an eye. As Paul again puts it: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Here is Moses representing that thought. Moses died; he did not escape death like Enoch and Elijah. Moses died, and no man has ever been able to tell where he was buried. The devil tried to take possession of his body, but here in this transfiguration scene appears Moses glorified as Elijah is glorified. In type, these represent the two great displays of divine power at the second coming of Jesus Christ, and they are the very two that are needed to be brought to bear on the discouraged heart of the disciples who have been informed that Jesus will die. They wanted a living Messiah. They wanted an earthly king. To say that he will die means the loss of everything to them. They have not yet looked over the border. Now, how can a revelation be given to them that will compensate them for the awfully disheartening effect of the announcement that their Messiah must die? Why, in order to compensate them, there must be some revelation of the future. They must have an insight into the things which shall be. The curtains must be drawn aside. They must look beyond death. They must see into the spirit world. They must see samples of heavenly glory that are to be brought about by the death of Christ, and as they gaze upon that transfiguration of Jesus, which pledges the resurrection of his body when he dies, they can understand that death; and when they see the forerunner of his death in Moses and Elijah, as types of classes, and can thereby look to the end of time and see all the sleeping bodies brought to life, and the living Christians changed – if anything on earth is calculated to remove their depression, that scene is certainly calculated to remove it. I venture to say that every Christian has become at times disheartened and depressed when he looked at the sacrifices that have to be made in order to be a Christian; when he looked at the stern and unrelenting laws of discipleship – absolute self-renunciation – absolutely, a man must deny himself. When one denies Christ, what does that mean? "I will not have him to rule over me." Now, when we deny self, what does that mean? "I absolutely abjure thee, O self, as the ruler of my life. I repudiate thee, self. I have another King." When we take up these duties and requirements, that is the start only, but every day of our lives requires us to see to it that self is crucified; that the body shall be mortified; that the deeds of the flesh shall be crucified; that they shall be put to death. When we daily take up that cross, and know that this must go on as long as we live, even up to the very time that we die, where is the compensation? It is in this: If I do not renounce self, if I do not follow Christ to crucifixion, I will ultimately lose self. I will lose my soul. This supreme business question comes up before me for decision: Shall I gain the world and lose myself, or shall I save myself and lose the world? Now, to help a man on that; to help him to decide rightly; to take away from him any discouragement, and the disheartening depression, what can do it so forcibly as to bring him up on a mountain and cause him by night, in the loneliness of its solemn hours, to witness an interview with the glorified spirits that have passed out of earth's sorrows and pains and disappointments, and now in the midst of the blessedness which is theirs forever. It is to bring him where he can see the ordinarily closed doors of the arching heavens open, and down through the opening the light of the eternal world transfigures everyone upon whom it shines, and looking at that he will say, "Oh, self, die; oh, world, you shall not be my master. Jesus, I am coming; I follow; I take up the cross. I carry it to the place where I must die the appointed death on the appointed cross. I accept it for Christ's sake." So the transfiguration fits the occasion of it by meeting the needs of the disciples. Let us now see if that design of the transfiguration met the need of Christ. Oh we must remember that he had humanity, that, he could not help feeling terribly discouraged when these, his chosen disciples, the witnesses of his power, at this late day in his ministry, while they had clearly recognized him as the divine Messiah, yet did not recognize him as a suffering Messiah, and still clung with old Jewish ideas to the thought of an earthly conquering king. How it must have disheartened him! Then, we remember that from the beginning he saw his death, but as he neared it, the shadows on his brow had deepened, and the depressing effect of it weighed him down more and more as he got closer to it, at every approach of it, feeling more and more the anguish of it, and now with these thoughts upon him, he had spent so much time and labor, his loneliness, his solitariness oppresses him, and he wants to pray. He wants to get alone and pray; and on that mountain top he prays: "Oh, Father, nobody down here understands me, nobody, not even my disciples; send me sympathy, send me some revelation that shall cheer and sustain me; let somebody from the upper world come and talk with me here on the edge of the battlefield, where I am breast- ing the tide by myself." And he prays until the glory of God in him bursts through the opaqueness of the flesh and makes translucent, and he is glorified by his importunate prayer. And the Father comes down from heaven, comes in a drapery of clouds, comes in his drapery of fire, and wraps around with its folds of light the dear Redeemer, and speaks to him. "My Son, my beloved Son, my chosen One on earth, hear him! Hear him! Hear him I Not Moses, not Elijah, hear the Son of God." That strengthened him, and he went back to his burden with lighter heart. That is what I understand to be the design of the transfiguration. 4. Its relations – See how the facts of that transfiguration correlate themselves with the near and the remote past and with the near and the remote future. The facts of the transfiguration reached right over and took hold of the scene of that confession at Caesarea Philippi; they go on back until they touch the prophetic days and grasp the hand of Elijah; they go on back to the days of Israel in the wilderness and take the hand of Moses; they go on back until they touch the first promise of mercy in Eden. Then they go forward until they touch the death in Jerusalem. They touch the resurrection after that death; they reach through the silent centuries of the unborn future and take hold of the second coming; they speak of hovering angels and heavenly glory, and open graves, and the white throne of the judgment, correlating with all the past, and correlating with all the future, harmonizing law and prophecy and gospel; showing that in Jesus, they all meet in perfection, and also showing that in Jesus is the redemption of all the world. Such is the relation of the transfiguration to the past and present and future. "Say nothing about it; say nothing about ill" Well, why say nothing about it? "Do not tell it now; wait until I am dead; wait until I have risen from the dead; and when I have risen from the dead you may tell this story, and it will fit into the resurrection so that no man will disbelieve it. If you tell it now they cannot understand it, but wait until I have risen and then it will instantly appear to men to be a miniature resurrection scene." I have thus presented to you what I conceive to be: (1) the occasion of the transfiguration; (2) the wonderful facts of the event itself; (3) the design of that event; (4) the correlation of that event with the past and with the future, and now what are its lessons for us? 5. Its lessons for us. – There is one thing about a pastor that a congregation never can understand – never can, and that is his concern that the congregation may get upon a higher plane of Christianity. Sometimes it is like a stroke of death. What kind of Christians are we? What kind of self-denial do we now exhibit? What kind of cross-bearing? What kind of discipleship? What kind of decision of the question of profit and loss? And after intense agony, I pray, "Oh, God, multiply the number that will make a full renunciation of self." We ourselves know that the majority of church members are walking on the edge only of practical Christianity; just on the edge of it. Oh, the value of the spiritual power that will come upon all who will utterly decide the question – who will truly say: "I am God's all over. He is Lord of all my time, and all my money and all of my life." Now and then we find a few that will come up to that – just a few. In view of the low grade of present Christianity, the very few that attain the gift of the Spirit, what is it that keeps pastors from being discouraged? From being utterly disheartened? What is it that keeps despair from spreading her mantle of gloom over his pulpit and over his heart? What is it that keeps away the howling wolves, and the ill-boding owls and ravens, that creeping or swooping from the plutonian shores of night, croak and howl their prophecies of evil? What is it? It is that every now and then he gets on some mount of transfiguration, where after long prayer; where after reconsecration; where after offering up himself and his soul and his body to God Almighty, the heavens open and show him the glorious future, so beautiful, so shining, so near, so enchanting, so drawing, so thrilling, that he goes back, and says, "Well, I can stand anything now." And every now and then God comes so to a church. He did to us, once, while I was pastor in Waco. He did rend the heavens and come down. The fire cloud was on the church. Heaven was near to us. We saw it. We felt it. Its glory could be touched, and under the power of that revival, earth seemed little and insignificant, and all of its claims were DO more than thistledown on the breath of the storm. O that our children some dark night, awfully dark night, should be up on a spiritual mountain and see a fire church, see a translucent church, a church in touch with angels, a church hearing heavenly voices, a church wrapped in the great fire symbol of God, then might they believe and receive in their trusting hearts an impression that would affect forever and forever their life. Shall we not pray that God may cause us to take a solemn look at that universal and spiritual and absolute law of discipleship? "If any man would be my disciple, let him renounce himself, take up his cross and follow me. He that loses his life for my sake shall find it." "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" O Lord, we are in the valley just now. Its shadows are as the shadows of death. Lead us, we pray thee, for a little while up to the top of the Delectable Mountains, from whose unclouded summits we may catch again the inspiring, transfiguring view of the Heavenly City. Thus reassuring our desponding hearts, and refreshing our weary minds, we may resume our pilgrimage in hope of speedily arriving at our heavenly home. 1. What things conspire to make the transfiguration a notable event? 2. What are the sources of its history and import? 3. What facts constitute its occasion? 4. What reasons assigned for the conclusion? 5. What was the scene of this event and what left in doubt by the inspired record? Illustrate. 6. What was the time? 7. What was the object of the going on this mountain? 8. Who were Jesus' companions? 9. What were the events while on the mountain leading up to the transfiguration? 10. Was what they saw a dream or vision? 11. What were the three distinct, supernatural events which they saw here? 12. What is the meaning of the word "transfiguration"? 13. Describe this transfiguration of Jesus. 14. What two Old Testament characters appear in interview here with Jesus, how were they recognized by Peter, James, and John and what was the bearing on the question of heavenly recognition? 15. What was the subject of their conversation, what were the circumstances which led up to it, what was the bearing of the work of Moses and Elijah on this subject, respectively, and how illustrated in each case? 16. What was Peter's proposition and why? 17. What Old Testament symbol reappeared here and what was its special significance? 18. What voice did they hear and what was its import? 19. What was the design of this incident? 20. What was Peter's testimony? What was John's? 21. What was the significance of the appearance of Elijah here and how does this correlate with the New Testament teaching on this thought? 22. What was the significance of the appearance of Moses here and how does this thought correlate with New Testament teaching? 23. What was their conception of the Messiah and what was the bearing of this incident on that conception? 24. What was the requirement of discipleship and what was the bearing of this incident on it? 25. Show that the design of the transfiguration met the need of Christ just at this time. 26. What was probably Christ's prayer here on this occasion and how does this fit the idea of his need at this time? 27. How do the facts of the transfiguration correlate themselves with the past and the future? 28. What charge did our Lord give his disciples relative to this incident &why? 29. What are the lessons of the transfiguration for us? 30. What illustration of this transfiguration power from the life of the author? IV SEASON OF PART IV THE CLOSING Harmony, pages 94-103 and Matthew 17:14-18:35; Matthew 8:19-22; Mark 9:9-50; Luke 9:37-62; John 7:2-10.When Christ and the three disciples who were with him at the transfiguration returned from the Mount they saw a great multitude gathered about the nine and the scribes questioning with them. Then follows the story of the failure of the nine to cast out the evil spirit of a demoniac boy and Jesus' rebuke of their little faith, upon which our Lord healed the boy and restored him to his father. This story is interesting from several points of view. First, the case was an exceptional One and so difficult that the nine were unable to cast the Evil spirit out. Second, this is the only case of demonical epilepsy in the New Testament, the description of which by Mark is very vivid and much more in detail than that of either of the other evangelists. Third, Christ's momentary impatience at dwelling amid such an environment is nowhere else so expressed, perhaps the more distressing from the contrast with the scene of the transfiguration, a few hours before. Fourth, the rebuke of the boy's father is a fine lesson. He said, "If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." Jesus answered, "If thou canst!" We see here the point of the rebuke. Herefore we have found the form of faith that said, "If thou wilt, thou canst," but this man reversed it: "If thou canst do anything, help us." But the rebuke of Jesus set him right in his faith and then healed the boy. What a lesson for us! So often the Lord has to set us right in our faith before he can consistently give us the blessing. Fifth, the explanation which Jesus gave of their failure and the possibilities of God through the children of faith are a most helpful encouragement to the Christian of today. All difficulties may be removed by the power of faith. Sixth, the prescription of prayer as a means to the strengthen- ing of faith is a valuable suggestion as to the mans of our overcoming. Prayer is the hour of victory for the child of God. This is the winning point for every worker in the kingdom. All victories for God are won in the closet before the day of battle. Let us heed the lesson. While on the way from Caesarea Philippi Jesus revealed again to his disciples that he must suffer and die and rise again, but they did not understand and were afraid to ask him. They were very slow to comprehend the idea of a suffering Messiah. This they did not understand fully until after his resurrection. This thought is more fully developed in connection with his submitted test of his messiahship which is discussed elsewhere in this OF THE GOSPELS. When they came to Capernaum an event occurred which made a lasting impression on Peter. This was the incident of the half-shekel for the Temple. When asked if his Lord was accustomed to pay the Temple tax, Peter said, "Yes." But Peter did not have the money to pay it with, and our Lord, after showing Peter that he (Jesus) was exempt, told him to go to the sea and take the piece of money from the mouth of a fish and pay the Temple tax for Peter and himself, in order that there might be left to the Jews no occasion of stumbling with reference to him as the Messiah. In section 70 (Matthew 18:1-14; Mark 9:33-50; Luke 9:46-50) we have the lesson on how to be great, which arose from their dispute as to who among them should be the greatest. To this Jesus replied that the greatest one of all was to be servant of all, and illustrated it by the example of a little child. The characteristic of the little child to be found in the subjects of his kingdom is humility.. Then he goes on to show that to receive one of such little children was to receive him. Here John, one of the "sons of thunder," interrupted him with a question about one whom he saw casting out demons, yet he was not following with them. Then Jesus, after setting John right, went on with his illustration of the little child, showing the awful sin of causing a little one who believes on him to stumble, and pronounces a woe unto the world because of the occasion of stumbling, saying that these occasions must come, but the woe is to the man through whom they come. The occasions of stumbling arise from the sin of man and the domination of the devil, but that does not excuse the man through whom they come. Now follows a pointed address in the second person singular, showing the cases in which we become stumbling blocks, in which he also shows the remedy, indeed a desperate remedy for a desperate case. This passage needs to be treated more particularly. Then, briefly, what the meaning of the word "offend"? If thy hand offend thee, if thine eye offend thee, if thy foot offend thee; what is the meaning of this word? We find it in the English in the word "scandal," that is, "scandal" is the Anglicized form of the Greek word here used. But the word "scandalize," as used in the English, does not express the thought contained in this text, since that is a modern derived meaning of the word. Originally it meant the trigger of a trap, that trigger which being touched caused the trap to fall and catch one, and from that of its original signification it came to have four well-known Bible meanings. An instance of each one of the four meanings, fairly applicable to this passage here, will be cited. First, it means a stumbling block, that which causes any one to fall, and in its spiritual signification, that which causes any one to fall into a sin. If thy hand causeth thee to fall into a sin, if thine eye causeth thee to fall into a sin, if thy foot causeth thee to fall into a sin, cut it off, pluck it out. It is more profitable to enter heaven maimed than to have the whole body cast into hell. The thought is as we see it in connection with a stumbling block, that we fall unexpectedly into the sin, as if we were going along not looking down and should suddenly stumble over something in our regular path, where we usually walk. Now, "if thine eye causeth thee, in the regular walk of life, to put something in that pathway that, when you were not particularly watching, will cause you to stumble and fall into a sin" – that is the first thought of it. Its second meaning is an obstacle or obstruction that causes one to stop. He does not fall over this obstacle, but it blocks his way and he stops. He does not fall, but he does not go on. To illustrate this use of the word, John the Baptist, in prison, finding the progress of his faith stopped by a doubt, sent word to Christ to know, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" Evidently showing that some unbelief had crept into his heart that had caused him to stop. He was not going on in the direction that he had been going, and hence, when Jesus sent word to John of the demonstrations of his divinity, He added this expression, using this very word, "Blessed is the man who is not offended in me." "Blessed is the man who in me does not find an obstacle that stops him." Anything that is an occasion of unbelief fulfils this meaning of the word. If thine eye causes something to be put in thy path that suggests a doubt as to the Christian religion, and by that doubt causeth thee that had been going steadily forward, to stop, pluck it out. Let me give another illustration: In the parable of the sower, our Saviour, in expounding why it was that the grain that had fallen upon the rock and came up and seemed to promise well for awhile, afterward, under the hot sun, withered away and perished, says, "There are some people that hear the word of God and, for awhile, seem to accept it, but when tribulation or persecution cometh they are offended – they are stopped." That is the meaning of the word strictly. Persecution and tribulation cometh and an obstacle is put in their path that causes them to stop. Now, if thine eye causes an obstacle to be put in thy Christian path, that causeth thee to stop and not go forward, pluck it out. Yet another illustration: Our Saviour, who had announced a great many doctrines that people could easily understand and accept, suddenly, on one occasion, announced a hard doctrine, very hard, and from that time it is said that many of his disciples followed him no more. They stopped. Now, there was something in them, in the eye or the hand or the foot, that found an occasion of unbelief in the doctrine he announced, and they stopped. I remember a very notable instance, where a man, deeply impressed in a meeting, and giving fair promise of having passed from death to life, happened to be present when the scriptural law of the use of money was expounded, and he stopped. Some obstacle stretched clear across his path. It was the love of money in his heart. He couldn't recognize God's sovereignty over money. As if he had said, "If you want me to cry; if you want me to say I am sorry, I will say it; if you want me to join the church, I will join it; if you want me to be baptized, I will be baptized; but if you want me to honor God with my money, I stop." Now, the third use of the word. It is sometimes used to indicate, not something over which one stumbles and falls into a sin, and not an obstacle that blocks up his pathway, but in the sense of something that he runs up against and hurts himself and so becomes foolishly angry. As when one, at night, trying to pass out of a dark room, strikes his head against the door, and in a moment flies into a passion. "Now, if thine eye causeth thee to run up against an object that when you strike it offends you, makes you mad, pluck it out and cast it from thee." These three senses of this word have abundant verifications in the classical Greek and a vast number of instances in the Bible, in the Old and New Testaments. But there is a fourth use of the word. That is where the eye has caused a man to turn aside from the right path and to reject the wise counsel of God, and to indulge in sin until God has given him up; then God sets a trap for him right in the path of his besetting sin. In Romans 11:9 we find that use of the word: "Let their table be made a trap for them." That is to say, God, after trying to lead a man to do right, if he persists in doing wrong, the particular sin, whatever hat may be, whether it be of pride, or lust, or pleasure, whatever it may be, that particular, besetting sin which has caused him to reject God, will make the occasion of his ruin, and in the track of it God will set the trap, and the man is certain to fall into it and be lost. Now, these are the four Bible uses of this term "offend." Greek: Scandalon, the noun, and skandalizo, the verb. "If thine eye causeth thee to offend," that is, "If your eye causeth you to put something in your path over which you will unexpectedly fall into a sin; if thine eye causeth thee to put an obstacle clear across your path, so that you stop; if thine eye causeth thee to put some object against which you will unthoughtedly run and hurt yourself and become incensed; if thine eye causeth thee to go into a sin that shall completely alienate you from God, and in the far distant track of which God sets a trap that will be sure to catch your soul – pluck it out." The next thing needing explanation: People who look only at the shell of a thing may understand this passage to mean mutilation of the body. They forget that the mutilation of the body is simply an illustration of spiritual things. Take a case: One of the most beautiful and sweet-spirited girls I ever knew, before whom there seemed to stretch a long and bright and happy future, was taken sick, and the illness, whatever the doctors may call it, was in the foot, and the blood would not circulate. The doctors could not bring about the circulation and that foot finally threatened the whole body. Then the doctors said, "This foot must be amputated." And they did amputate it. They amputated it to save her life. They cut off that member because it offered the only possible means of saving the other foot and both hands and the whole body and her life. It was sternness of love, resoluteness of affection, courage of wisdom that sacrificed a limb to save the body. Now using that necessity of amputation, as an illustration, our Saviour says, "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; if thy foot offend thee, cut it off. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out." But that he does not mean bodily mutilation is self-evident from this: that if we were to cut off our hand we could not stop the spiritual offense; if we were to pluck out the eye we could not stop the spiritual offense on the inside, in the soul; no lopping off to external branches would reach that. But what our Saviour means to teach is this: That as a wise physician, who discovers, seated in one member of the body, a disease that if allowed to spread will destroy the whole body, in the interest of mercy cuts off that diseased limb, so, applying this to spiritual things, whatever causes us to fall into sin, we should cut loose from it at every cost. One other word needs to be explained, the word "Gehenna." It is a little valley next to Jerusalem that once belonged to the sons of Hinnom. It came to pass that in that valley was instituted an idol worship, and there the kings caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch, and because of this iniquity a good king of Israel defiled that valley, made it the dumping ground of all refuse matter from the city. The excrement, the dead things, the foul and corrupt matter was all carried out and put in that valley. And because of the corruption heaped there, worms were always there, and because of the burning that had been appointed as a sanitary measure, the fire was always there. Now that was used as an illustration to indicate the spiritual condition of a lost soul; of a soul that had become as refuse matter; of a soul that had become entirely cut loose from God and given up to its own devices; that had become bad through and through; that had become such a slave to passion, or lust or crime, that it was incorrigible, and the very nature of the sin which possessed it was like a worm that never dies. There was a gnawing, a ceaseless gnawing going on, referring to conscience, and there was a burning and a thirst going on. Now those images our Saviour selected were to represent the thought of hell. Having explained its words, look now at the passage itself: "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out." What is the principle involved in that exhortation? First, that it is a man's chief concern to see that he does not miss the mark; that he does not make shipwreck; that he does not ruin himself. That is the chief concern of every boy, of every girl, of every man and woman, to see to it that he does not miss the mark of his being; that he does not make shipwreck; that he does not go to utter ruin. The next thought involved in it is that in case we do miss the mark; in case we do make shipwreck; in case our soul is lost, then there is no profit and no compensation to us in any thing we ever had. "For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" If he misses the main thing, if he makes shipwreck of his own soul, then wherein does the compensation come to him that in his life he had this or that treasure, this pleasure or that; that he was able to attain to this ambition or that; that he for such a while, no matter how long, was on top in society or fashion in the world? What has it profited him if the main thing worthy of supreme concern, is lost? The next thought is this: Whatever sacrifice is necessary to the securing of the main thing, that we must make. That is what this passage means, and no matter how dear a treasure may be to us; no matter how much we esteem it, if it be necessary that we should give it up or that our soul should be lost, this passage calls on us to give it up. A man may have in a ship a vast amount of money which he idolizes, but in the night he is alarmed by the cry of fire; he rushes upon the deck and he finds that the ship is hopelessly in flames and that the only way of escape is to swim to the shore. Now he stands there for a moment and meditates: "I have here a vast amount of money, in gold. If I try to take this gold with me in this issue in which the main thing, my life, is involved, it will sink me. My life is more than this money. O glittering gold, I leave you. I strike out, stripped of every weight and swim for my life." It means that he ought to leave behind everything that would jeopardize his gaining the shore. A ship has a valuable cargo. It has been acquired by toil and anxiety and industry. It may be that the cargo in itself is perfectly innocent, but in a stress of weather, with a storm raging and with a leak in the vessel and the water rising, it becomes necessary to lighten that ship. Now whatever is necessary to make it float, to keep it above water, that must be done. If there be anything which, if permitted to remain in that ship, will sink it, throw it out. They that do business in great waters know the wisdom of this. Why? It is a question of sacrificing the inferior to the greater and better. The next thought involved is this: Whenever it says, "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out," I venture to say that it is a demonstration, by the exhortation addressed to us personally, that if ruin comes to us it comes by our own consent. I mean to say that no matter what is the stress of outside seduction, nor how cunningly the devil may attempt to seduce and beguile us, all the devils in hell and all the extraneous temptations that may environ a man can never work his shipwreck if he does not consent. The next point involved is, that whenever one does consent to temptation, whenever the ruin comes to him, it comes on account of some internal moral delinquency. Out of the heart are the issues of life. Out of the heart proceed murder, lust, blasphemy, and every crime which men commit. I mean to say that as the Bible declares that no murderer shall inherit eternal life, that external incentives to murder amount to nothing unless in him, in the man, in the soul, there be a susceptibility or a liability or moral weakness that shall open the door to the tempter and let in the destroyer. Now if that be true we come naturally to the next thought in this text, that is, God saves a man, and if God can save a man, he must save him in accordance with the laws of his own nature. That is to say, that God must, in order to the salvation of that man, require truth in the inward part; that nothing external will touch the case; that God's requirements must take hold, not of the long delayed overt act, but of the lust in the heart which preceded the act and made the act. And therefore, while a human court can take jurisdiction only of murder actually committed, God goes inside of the man and says, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." From hate comes murder. If God saves you he must save you from the internal hate. Human law takes hold of a case of adultery. God's law goes to the eye: "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart." God requireth truth in the inward part. And if one is saved he must be saved internally; he must be saved, not only from the guilt and penalty of sin, but he must be saved from the love of it and from the dominion of it. The next point: With that law looking inside, looking at our thoughts, looking at the springs of action, the question comes up, "How shall one save his soul? How shall one so attain to the end of his being as that in the main thing he shall not miss the mark?" He has to look at it as an exceedingly sober question. There is no child's play about it. He must not rely upon the quack remedies of philosophers and impostors, or rely upon any external rite, upon joining the church or being baptized, or partaking of the Lord's Supper. The awful blasphemy of calling that the way to heaven! God requireth truth in the inward part, and if we are saved, we must be saved inside. As a wise man, having my chief business to save my soul, I must scrupulously look at everything with which I come in contact. Some men's weaknesses are in one direction and some in another, but the chief thing for me is to find out my weakness, what is my besetting sin, where is the weak point in my line of defense, where am I most susceptible to danger, where do I yield most readily? And if I find that the ties of blood are making me lose my soul, I must move out of my own family, and therefore in the Mosaic law it is expressly said, "If thine own son, if the wife of thy bosom, shall cause thee to worship idols and turn away from the true God, thou shalt put thine own hand on the head as the first witness, that they may be stoned. Thou shalt not spare." It is a question of our life, and if our family ties are such that they are dragging us down to death, we must strike out for our life. And that is why marriage is the most solemn and far-reaching question that ever came up for human decision. More souls are lost right there, more women go into hopeless bondage, more men are shipwrecked by that awful tie, than by anything else. Then he goes on to show that these little believers must not be despised, because their angels are always before their heavenly Father, just as the angels of more highly honored Christians. This thought he illustrates with the parable of the ninety and nine, the interpretation of which might be considered as follows: (1) If there are many worlds and but one is lost, (2) if there are many creatures and only man is lost, (3) if there were many just persons, and only one is lost, then we find the lost world, the lost race, the one lost man is near the heart of the Saviour, the principle being that the weakest, the most needy, the most miserable are nearest the Shepherd's heart. "Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish," is the conclusion of the Saviour. In section 71 (Matthew 18:15-35) we have our Lord's great discussion on forgiveness, i.e., man's forgiveness of man. This subject is amply treated in volume 1, chapter xvi of this and also in my sermon on "Man's Forgiveness of Man." (I refer the reader to these discussions for a full exposition of this great passage.) In section 72 (Matthew 8:19-22; Luke 9:57-62) we have a very plain word on the sacrifices of discipleship. Here three different ones approached Christ asking permission to be his disciples. The first one that came proposed to go with him anywhere. Jesus told him that he had no abiding place; that he was a wanderer without any home, which meant there were many hardships in connection with discipleship. The second one that came to him wanted to wait till he could bury his father, which according to Oriental customs, might have been several years, or at least, thirty days, if his father was dead when he made the request, including the time of mourning. Luke tells of one who wanted first to bid farewell to them of his own house. But Jesus said, "No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." The import of all this is that Christ will not permit his disciples to allow anything to come between them and him. He must have the first place in their affections. The expression, "No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God," means that the man who is pretending to follow Christ and is looking back to the things he left behind is not fit for his kingdom. This is a strict test, but it is our Lord's own test. Then, following the Harmony, we have, in the next section, the counsel of the unbelieving brothers that Jesus go into Judea and exhibit himself there. But he declined to follow their counsel and remained in Galilee. This incident shows that the brothers of Jesus had not at this time accepted him, which was about six months before his death and thus disproves the theory that the brothers of Jesus were apostles. We now come to the close of this division of the Harmony in section 74 (Luke 9:51-56; John 7:10), which tells of Jesus setting his face toward Jerusalem in view of the approach of the end of his earthly career. This going up to Jerusalem, John says, was after his brothers had gone, and it was not public, but as it were in secret. He sent James and John, the "sons of thunder," ahead to Samaria to make ready for him, but the Samaritans rejected him because he was going toward Jerusalem, which exemplifies the old, deep-seated hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. This section closes with a rebuke to James and John for wanting to call down fire upon these Samaritans. The next chapter of this connects with this section and gives the results of this trip to Jerusalem and his ministry in all parts of the Holy Land. 1. What was the incident immediately following the transfiguration? 2. What are the points of interest in the story of the epileptic boy? 3. What revelation did Jesus again make to his disciples while on the way from Caesarea Philippi, how did the disciples receive it and why? 4. Tell the story of Peter and the Temple tax and give its lesson. 5. What was the lesson on "greatness" here and what its occasion? 6. What was the point in the illustration of the little child? 7. What is the lesson from John's interruption of our Lord here? 8. How does Jesus show the awfulness of the sin of causing a little child who believes on him to stumble? 9. From what do the occasions of stumbling arise and upon whom rests the responsibility for them? 10. What would you give as the theme of Mat 18:8-9; and Mark 9:43; Mark 9:45; Mark 9:47-50? 11. What are the several meanings of the word "offend" in these passages? Illustrate each. 12. What is the application of all these meanings? Illustrate. 13. Explain the word "Gehenna" as used here. 14. Looking at the passage as a whole, what is principle involved the exhortation? Give details. 15. What reason does Christ assign for the command not to despise one of these little ones and what does it mean? 16. How does he illustrate this 17. In a word what is the author's position on the subject of man's forgiveness of man? 18. What is Christ's teaching here on discipleship and what is the meaning of his language addressed to each of the three, respectively, who approached him here on the subject? 19. What advice here given Jesus by his brothers, how did Jesus regard it, and what the lesson of this incident? 20. What are the closing incidents of this division of our Lord's ministry and what are their lessons? VI THE SENDING OUT OF THE SEVENTY Harmony, pages 110-111 and Luke 10:1-24.This passage of Scripture at times impresses my own mind more than any other passage except Luke 15. I am never able to read it without being deeply and solemnly impressed. There are in it the solutions of more difficult questions than in I any similar amount of statement ever compacted into so small a space. There are more texts for revival preaching in it than in any similar space of scripture in the Bible. After such fashion as I am able I will try to impress upon the reader its import – its deep, high, and wide import. It contains the foundation principles underlying the spread of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1. The great destitution. – "The harvest is plenteous." On several momentous occasions in his life, and with every possible emphasis of solemnity, our Lord called the attention of his disciples to this fact. The destitution pressed on his spirit at the well of Jacob, near Sychar, so that he had no appetite to eat earthly food. He says, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." And while they were concerned about what kind of a dinner they would have, he pointed to the great crowd of lost and uninstructed people that were pouring out of that city to approach them and said, "Say not ye, there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest? Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest." And before he sent out the twelve apostles we are told that he looked out over the vast destitution – I mean spiritual destitution – of the masses of the people – the common people, the poor people, the sick people, the sad people. He stood there alone and he wanted help. And when he saw that destitution, he appointed the twelve and sent them out. And we have here another sight of destitution and he appoints seventy more and sends them out. Now do let us impress upon our minds the nature of this destitution among the just as it appears in the United States, the most enlightened country of the world, and where we have greater religious privileges than any other country in the world. The destitution is appalling: People that do not hear the word of God preached; people that are without God and without hope in the world; people that are dying by thousands, unforgiven; a dearth of the word of God; a dearth of the promise of eternal life. In the vicinity of the strongest churches that destitution lurks. The light that shines from the brightest church of God's kindling in the world today does not illumine the darkness thoroughly one square from that church building. It is not merely a destitution of privation, a privation of life, not merely that, but it is a privation enhanced by the fact of false teachers, of wolves in sheep's clothing, of those who claim to be guides and are themselves blind; of those who go in and out among these people ignorant of the teachings of God's Word and kindling the hot and blasting fires of prejudice and strife and malice, making every poor little church an arena of contention and of shame in the sight of God. Men claiming to be preachers men claiming to be sent out by the Holy Spirit, who will, to serve some selfish purpose, see the light put out, the only light that shines in a vast circumference of darkness. A destitution not merely of being harried by wolves in sheep's clothing, but a destitution of shepherds. Our Saviour saw the people scattered like sheep without a shepherd, no safe guides, no unselfish God-loving, prayerful, pious, God-fearing men, to stand among these scattered and dying masses of people and shepherd them as the flock of God. O the destitution – the destitution! Look at it, church of God. Look at it, ye grumblers, ye growlers, ye kickers, ye splitters, ye cavilers – look at it and remember the judgment to come. Look at it and ask your souls what emotions should be excited by it. This leads to our next thought. 2. The great compassion. – Of course I mean the Lord's compassion. Here are the very words of the touching record concerning the occasion of sending out the twelve: "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers unto his harvest" (Matthew 9:36-38). Who that is converted, who that himself has experienced the grace of God, who that himself has rejoiced in the glory of God, who that has tasted for himself the Bread of Life and quenched his own burning thirst in the cool waters of life, can be without concern and without deep anguish of spirit when he looks out over this destitution? I would be willing, God being my judge, this day to renounce all my claim or title to any mansion in the skies; I would count myself an exile from God's favor; I would reckon myself to be among the reprobate, if I did not have something of the compassion that was in the heart of Christ when he looked out over this destitution. If I could eat and drink and be merry; if I could be absorbed in the pleasures of this world; if I could follow the bent of a worldly mind, without concern, without anguish of soul, concerning the appalling destitution that there is in the world, I would be willing to say, "It is certain that my own name is not written in heaven." Having adverted to the appalling destitution and noted the divine compassion excited by it and the human pity and prayer that ought to be excited by it, let us now be amazed as we consider 3. The simplicity of the means for supplying the destitute – Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to establish a world empire; he wanted to be the dominant spirit in the world; over Spain, over Portugal, over Holland, over the German Confederation, over Austria, over Prussia, over Turkey, over Egypt, and on into India, where Alexander halted, and he wanted to unfurl his flag, though it froze, over Moscow, the ancient capital of the Czars. Wanting such an empire, what means did he deem necessary for its establishment? How much money? What treasure? What systems of taxation? What sources of revenue? He thought it necessary to lay the resources of the entire world under an exhaustive tribute in order to establish it, so far as money could do it. And so far as men were concerned, he called out every able-bodied man in France. He anticipated the conscription two years in advance. He not only robbed the cradle of its youth, but he robbed the tomb of tottering old age. By the side of his hoary-headed veterans who ought to have been in the hospital, were boys that ought to have been in school. And then he called upon Portugal for its contribution of men, and Spain for hers under the Marquis of Romano; Holland for her contingent; Bavaria for hers, and a vast army corps from Prussia after he conquered it; and Saxony for hers and Poland for hers. He said to the world, "Give me men," and he took them. And what else? He wanted artillery that could not be numbered; not twenty pieces, nor a hundred, nor a thousand, but many thousand pieces of field and siege artillery. And what number of horses? Horses by the hundreds, by the thousands, by the ten thousand, by the hundred thousand, by the million. And what arms? The sword, the bayonet, gunpowder, and every means of destruction. These were the means he employed – and failed. We see the Son of God looking out on a world over which he purposes to establish an empire, and with a view that he shall not reign a few short years, as did Napoleon and then, before the close of an ordinary lifetime meet his Waterloo; but reign while the sun rises and sets and ocean tides beat against the shores; reign until the moon waxes and wanes no more and the heavens are melted and rolled together as a scroll; reign one hundred, one thousand, two thousand years, forever, over the whole world. And what means? "Shall I send to the universities and call the learned professors from their chairs? Shall I gather about me the philosophers who have inquired touching the secrets of life? Shall I gather about me metaphysicians who can spin webs so fine spun that they are transparent? Shall I gather about me men who in logic and argument or in oratory surpass all other men? Shall I do this? Not that; not any of it. I do not want the wise, nor the great, nor the noble. I gather a few fishermen together. I will not reach up to what is called the upper crust of society and take some man of lordly intellect or of colossal wealth. No, I will go down here next to the mud-sills, in the haunts of poverty, where men are sickening and dying, and there from among the people, I will gather me a lot of simple folk, and I will say to them, 'Carry no sword; beat no drum; unfurl no flag; carry no purse; do not carry even an extra pair of shoes; but go out and take the world.' " This is the thing that caused profound astonishment to Napoleon Bonaparte in his exile. Over and over again at St. Helena he looked at it and thought about it and compared it with his method of establishing a world empire. "My empire is gone. I am in exile; and two thousand years in passing away have added only to the glory and power of the Galilean." How wonderful the simplicity of the means! 4. How were these men educated for their work? – Mighty question! The question of ministerial education! What is a school for the prophets? We readily understand the necessity of preparation, of training, of disciplining in order to attain great success in any work. There is West Point for training army officers. See the West Pointers under Taylor and Scott in the Mexican war and doubt, if you can and dare, their value at Palo Alta, Resca, Monterey, Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Cherubusco. There is the naval academy in Annapolis. What thoughtful student of naval warfare will have the hardihood to deny the value of that school? But a school of prophets – what is that? Did Jesus send out uneducated men? As the destitution was so great why did he not send out 12,000 instead of twelve? Why not 70,000 instead of seventy? Be- cause only twelve were ready first, and only seventy later. But how were they made ready? That is the supreme question – the vital inquiry. I answer, by patient training under Jesus himself. They had no need to sit at Gamaliel's feet. What Paul learned there, he had to forget and count it loss and refuse when compared to the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus. But it does not follow that ignorance of human learning means knowledge of Christ. Let not ignorance so presume. Training under Jesus implies hard and long continued study of what God has revealed, lesson after lesson, here a little, there a little, as they are able to bear the light. It implies a subordination of the passions, a bringing of every thought, desire, and imagination into the subjection of Christ, a crucifixion of self, of cowardice, and a patient and persistent cross-bearing. Therefore before he would send out anyone he took the selected ones near to himself. "Stay close to me. Let me teach you. Imbibe my spirit. Learn my methods. See how I endure. See the spirit of self-sacrifice that prompts me in what I do. Learn from me the revelation from heaven, so that men may take knowledge of you when you go out that you have been with Jesus, and then when you are instructed I will put you in this field." But though the destitution was vast, and the darkness intense, and the wailings and the sobs and sighing of the perishing were like the dirges of a lost world, he would send no man until that man was ready. Better not send anybody if) he is not qualified to teach, if he does not know what to preach, if he has not the spirit of the Master, if he will not go to de- liver the people from their ignorance and prejudice. If he go out simply to stir up and excite parties for selfish ends, better never send him. And so he waited until he had instructed twelve, and sent them, and now having instructed seventy, he sends them. Now when he has instructed these men and they are ready to be sent out the question comes up 5. "What were they to do?" – He says, "You are to do this: Heal the sick and preach the gospel. Say unto every city you visit, The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel." That is the whole of it. But, says one who assumes to be a critic and who would check the benevolence of the people of God, "Our Lord sends men out simply to preach the gospel. Why attempt in missionary lands to heal the sick and care for the poor? Why tax missionary money to have the bodies of these people attended to in their suffering?" And they think they have raised quite a question. I ask them to go back and look at Jesus. Go and see him who never could have filled the prophecy that he was the Messiah if the lame man did not leap at his coming, if the blind did not receive their sight, if the sick were not visited and healed. What commission of our Lord Jesus Christ was ever given that did not enjoin it upon his disciples to give heed to the sufferings of the body? Where is there one? I challenge any man to find one. And he who would try and put the church so supernally and spiritually high as to put it out of contact with suffering humanity, just as it is, with its poverty and its cold and its hunger and its groanings and its fever, that man has a sublimated view of the subject that is foreign to his Saviour. "As you go, heal the sick, remember the poor." Paul had that solemn charge given to him, "Do not forget the poor." And if we were to take off of the brow of Christianity today its crown of benevolence, what it has done for asylums, for orphanages, for the amelioration of human sufferings, for the relief of the destitute, we would deprive it of the characteristic of the New Testament, and we would sap its power with the people to whom the gospel is to be preached. And why? Because our Lord came to save the body as well as the soul; because he suffered in the body; because he purposed to redeem the body; because the consummation of salvation is a glorification of the body as well as a sanctification of the spirit. 6. Other amazing things. – I stand amazed when I look at these men. We see two of them coming along down a dusty road, walking with staves in their hands, coming to a city, a great city, without a letter of recommendation, no bank account, no armies back of them; coming up to a house and saying, "Peace be to this house," accepting just what hospitality was accorded them; if a crust of bread, taking it and making no complaint; if better fare, eating that without comment; not running around from house to house eating big dinners and to be entertained. They were sent out on a message of life and death – sent to redeem the world, to minister unto others and not to be ministered unto; not to be the pets, the pampered pets of the sickly sentimentalism of a community, but the vitalized exponents of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ in the community they visit. I stand amazed at their authority: "We come not to argue anything. We come not to indulge in metaphysical speculation. We come as heralds – we come with a proclamation, a proclamation from heaven. It is our business to herald it and let God take care of it. He did not appoint us to prop it up with our feeble strength. He sent us in his name to say, 'The kingdom of God is come; the kingdom of God, the power to forgive sins here on earth, is come. And we offer to you people the peace of God.' " I have a picture in my mind of that peace of God going out from them to the unworthy, and returning, as Noah's dove went out from the ark, to find a resting place for its feet, and after long and weary flight, coming back again to the window of the ark. "If there be no son of peace in that house, your peace shall return unto you"; and yet in eternity it will be true that in that house – that house that had so little thought of God and so much thought of the world – it would be eternally true that one time the dove of God's peace, the white dove of that peace that passeth all understanding, came to that house and tried to get in; tried to find a resting place for its feet, and was rejected and returned and no more reappeared at that place. And the same way with the cities. They were to go to that city and say, "The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you"; you bankers, you merchants, you rich people, you poor people, you lawyers, the kingdom of God, the power on earth to forgive sin, is come among you, and you are commanded to repent of your sins and believe the gospel. And if they rejected it, then they were to shake the dust off their feet. Shake it off! What does it mean? It means two things: That there is upon that preacher a responsibility for the sins of that community and there rests upon him blood guiltiness until he does faithfully and courageously preach the gospel. But when he cries aloud and spares not, and seeing the sword coming he blows his trumpet, though the people perish, yet he can shake off the dust. He can shake it off of his feet and say, "You die in your sins, but your blood can not be required at my hands. You are lost. You go down to death and hell. Lost forever, but O Lord, I was faithful. I stood in that city and preached to you. I did not preach philosophy. I did not preach an empty, indefinite morality. I preached life, eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, and every grain of your dust I shake from my feet. I am clean from the blood of you men." It means that and it means more than that. It means that when that dust is shaken from that man's feet it becomes a witness, an imperishable evidence of the fact that the kingdom of God had once come nigh to that soul and been rejected. And when the great day of account rolls around and that convicted soul stands in the presence of its Master and would attempt to proffer before God's bar the empty pretenses that fell so glibly from his lips here upon the earth, the grains of sand upon which apostolic feet stood and testified that life had come right to his door, they become vocal and Bay, "Your excuses are false. Remember, on us poor grains of sand, stood the feet of the messengers of the Son of God, and preached peace to you and you rejected it." Just as the prophet describes it, the rafter in the roof and the beam of timber in the wall, cry out against the man. So even on the very verge of the final and eternal separation there will be a demonstration for that man: "I might have repented. I had an opportunity to repent. The dove hovered over my house once. The waters came to my door once. The minister of God approached my vicinity once. To me, now lost, to me, now without hope, to me, doomed to a prayerless, hopeless, merciless, and eternal condemnation; to me is the conviction that I might have obtained eternal life by just holding out my hands, but I would not do it." 7. The great victory. – In looking at this scripture another thought presses on my mind and it should certainly teach a solemn lesson to every preacher, and that is, the astounding victory that resulted from sending out these seventy men. It eclipsed their own conception. They did not understand it. The means seem to be so utterly disproportionate to the result! Not only blindness saw; not only the halt were made to stand erect and walk with ease; not only the deaf heard and the dead were quickened; not only did hoary-headed sinners find forgiveness of sin and peace with God; not only did these fall before them, but even the very devils, at the name of Jesus, the principalities and powers in high places, fell before them at the first stroke of the gospel sword. "Oh Jesus; even the devils were subject to us through thy name." And Jesus says, "I know it; I saw it. My spirit was with you. I saw you go to that town and I saw Satan fall as you preached." Fall how? Fall struggling? Fall after stubborn resistance? No! "Have you ever been out when clouds were gathering and have you seen the lightning fall from heaven so swift the eye could scarcely see it before it was gone? Well, I saw Satan fall that way." He does not mean, "I saw Satan in heaven fall from heaven, but when you preachers went to a community and preached in that earthly community, I saw the devil fall as suddenly while you were preaching as the lightning falls from heaven." And it has no other meaning than that. We know when people, who never amounted to much in themselves (and I frankly say that preachers do not amount to much, I mean the very best of them, and some of them are a terrible lot), whenever instrumentalities thus weak, thus powerless, see such a mighty result as that, it is an easy thing for them to be puffed up; it is an easy thing for each of them to say, "I came; I saw; I conquered." It is an easy thing for them to begin to lay the flattering unction to their souls that by their own might and power this was accomplished, and to rejoice that they are conquerors of the devil. But our Lord said, "I would not stop to rejoice over that. You did not do it. I would not stop to glory over that. I will tell you something that ought to make you glad, even in the darkest sorrow and the blackest night that this earth, with its vicissitudes of trial, ever brings upon a soul." "Well, what is it?" "Rejoice because your names are written in heaven." By the power of God a Judas might cast out devils, but Judas' name is not written in heaven, and there will come a time when it would be better for him that he had never been born. Balaam had prophetic power and Balaam is lost. Gifts are not graces, and in the world to come there will be something of such a nature that when the mind reflects upon it joy will spring up in the heart like an unsealed fountain, that will spontaneously bubble and outflow and glow and sparkle and sing as it goes. And what is it? "My name is written in heaven. I am sick, but my name is written up yonder, and sickness shall not have eternal dominion over me. I am slandered, but my name is written up yonder and slander's foul stain shall not forever spot my good name. My name is written up yonder. I am dying, but death shall not have eternal dominion over me. My name is written up yonder. The Judgment Day is coming. The heavens are on fire and the earth is in blaze. Graves open and hell yawns, and the white throne looms up, but, ah me! on that throne a book called the Lamb's Book of Life, and whosoever's name is written there need never fear the second death, which means to be cast into the lake of fire with the devil and his angels. Now, I rejoice in that." 8. The strange joy of Jesus. – "At that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit." I do not say that Jesus rejoiced in spirit on account of the report made by these missionaries. I know we sometimes grow jubilant over the report made by our missionaries. He rejoices not at that. Here is the ground of his joy: He rejoiced because the Father was well pleased to reveal these things to babes and not to wise men. That caused him to rejoice. Often I have considered that joy of Jesus and philosophized. And when men would say, "Come here now and get a gospel out of geology; go to Chicago University and get a gospel out of higher criticism; go to Yale, go to Oxford, and get a gospel out of the speculations of the very learned few.'" I don't want to do it, because it would give no joy to Jesus. Our Saviour saw that any way of salvation that let in only great people, would be a very limited way of salvation, for there were a very few great people; and he saw that a way of salvation that would only let in rich people who already have the earth, why, that would make a very small heaven. And he saw that a way of life that could be found out only by a college and a post-graduate course, would be a very limited road, and he wanted a wider road. He wanted a way that the masses could find, for it was their destitution that touched his heart. It was their condition that excited his compassion. “ O Father, I thank thee that thou hast made the way so plain and so simple that the weak and the poor and the suffering and the untutored can enter in." I am glad of that. That saves the millions. That saves those who are hemmed up by cruel circumstances and ever narrowing environment; that saves the prisoner in the dungeon; that saves the sailor on the plank in mid-ocean; that saves the thief on the cross; that saves the man whose time is but a few gasping moments ere he is gone. “ O God, I do thank thee that thou hast revealed these things to babes I" There are some great cities almost utterly lost because they have only worldly great preachers. Every preacher there is a great man; every one of them a graduate and a postgraduate; every one of them is learned in philosophy and nearly every one of them preaches more politics than religion; and the proportion of the saved to the total population gets smaller all the time. Yet there one may hear the most unanswerable arguments on mere morality. He may hear the most beautiful essays on philosophy to which the world ever listened, but ah me! it does not save a man and it does not awaken a conscience; and it continually diminishes the crowd that hears it, and there is no saving power in it. The sooner the last one of such sermons is forgotten the better for the world. Let a preacher preach Christ to the lost and not Epicurus; preach salvation through the blood of the Lamb instead of the miserable subterfuge of speculative vagaries and unverified hypotheses of conceited so-called philosophers, that cannot kindle a glow worm's spark, much less make a sun to dispel the darkness. There is no contempt so deserving as the contempt for the idea that all good men ought to pour out upon the people are the miserable, sickly, frivolous, drivelling things they substitute for the gospel. Hasn't it been tried? Where did it reform a nation? Where did it save a soul? Where did it quicken a conscience? O my soul, come thou not into such traitorous counsel! Oh, let us keep the gospel of the blessed God, that causes the mother to die in peace and with heaven-lighted face to say, "My boy, meet me in heaven." O God, let us keep that! What is to become of these people when such stuff as that is commended for preaching? Why should one man preach that more than another? What right has any man to claim to be a minister of that? What right has any man to demand of an audience a support for talking such stuff as that? Why, you do not need any church for that. Tear your churches down. Pull down your altars. Tear down your religious schools and join the dizzy walk down to death. I could give some samples. I have in my mind passages of Genesis and other portions of the Old Testament, that even within my time were held up as absolute, scientific demonstrations that the book was not from God. I have seen that chameleon, Science, that forty years ago was one thing, and thirty years ago was another, and twenty years ago was still another, and ten years ago another, and today is another – have seen Science come with her spade and dig up from the ruins of buried cities the conviction of the falsity of what she taught ten, twenty, thirty, forty years ago. Why, it doesn't stand still long enough to believe in it. It doesn't stand still long enough to put your finger on it. A man would have to be swifter than Atalanta; yea, he would have to have the wings and heels of Mercury, or ride upon Pegasus, to be able to keep near enough to it to be orthodox, and then he would have to go on the supposition, "I hold myself prepared to denounce as false tomorrow everything I bold sacred today." I think we had better wait until it settles in one place long enough to know "where it is at" before we give up religion for it. I went out on all of those tracks in my early life. I was a fool, a downright fool. I laughed at the religion of my father and my mother, and like many another young man, half-fledged, imagined that I was wiser than those whose souls had been converted by the Spirit of God, and whose feet rested upon the everlasting Rock. I was a fool. But God delivered me from my follies. And now I would not give one ray of light that shines from this blessed Book for all the fox-fire light that emanantes from decaying philosophies. If the whole world was Egyptian darkness, whose opaqueness was penetrated in only one place, through which one flicker of light from that Book would come, do you think that I would exchange that ray of heavenly light for all the dim glow the lightning bugs of science could kindle by holding their phosphorescent tails together? To the young preachers who are concerned about a support, I do not say, "Trust the brethren." I do not. But I do say to you that if you will trust Jesus Christ, and rely upon his word, for he cannot deny himself – the heavens will fall before one of his words shall fail to come to pass – 1 say that if you will just rely on the word of Jesus Christ and go out and preach the pure, simple gospel of eternal life, God will take care of you. He will feed you and he will clothe you; don't you be uneasy about that. Go out where wolves are raven, I admit. Go out in danger, I know. Go out to face contradiction and slander, is conceded. Go out to be spoken against by men. I know that. But I do know here on earth Jesus will make your heart sing with happiness, and give you plenty of food to eat and clothing to wear, and in the world to come eternal life. O thou doubting heart; thou hesitating foot, that will not step out on the promises of God; thou palsied hand of incertitude that will not lay hold of the promises of God with a grip that never turns loose, have faith in God and preach his word and leave the results to him. 1. How does the author show the importance of section 80 (Luke 10:1-24)? 2. What can you say of the great destitution? Give other similar experiences of our Lord. 3. What of our Lord's great compassion and its relation, to the Christian experience? 4. What can you say of the simplicity of the means used by our Saviour? Contrast with Napoleon Bonaparte. 5. How were these men trained and what is the bearing on theological schools for preachers? 6. What were they to do and what is the bearing on the benevolent work of Christianity? 7. What are some of the amazing things in this connection? 8. How is the return of their peace illustrated from the Old Testament? 9. What two things signified by shaking off the dust of their feet? 10. How does the prophet describe the second thought? 11. How is the lost soul represented as reflecting on this opportunity? 12. What can you say of the victory of this movement? 13. What is the meaning of Satan falling as lightning? 14. What is the danger of a preacher in such a time of victory? 15. What was the real cause for rejoicing noted by our Lord here? Discuss. 16. What can you say of the joy of Jesus on this occasion? 17. How does the author here philosophize on this joy of Jesus? 18. What has the author to say of chameleon Science? 19. What was the author's experience with these speculative philosophies? 20. What is the author's final word to preachers? VII THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD ; JESUS, THE GUEST OF MARTHA AND MARY Harmony, pages 111-112 and Luke 10:25-42.We commence this chapter with section 81 of the Harmony. Taking up Luke 10:25, we have this statement: "And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted Jesus." "Lawyer" here does not mean a pleader before a court, but an expounder of the Jewish law, which was both civil and ecclesiastical. The word “ tempt” may have a good or a bad sense. May judgment is that the sense here is good. It means to try. "And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted Jesus, saying, Master [that means teacher], what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, What is written in the law?" i.e., You are a lawyer. Your business is to expound the law. "What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." Well, that is written in the law. It is a summary of the Ten Commandments. Not a New Testament summary, but the synopsis given by Moses himself, not all in one place, but in two different books of the Pentateuch. Here it is a quotation: "It is written in the law that thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself." "And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast answered right. Do this and thou shalt live." Mark the answer: "Do this and thou shalt live." "But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, Who is my neighbor? Jesus made answer and said, A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among robbers who both stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead." That road from Jerusalem to Jericho was down hill all the way, the grade very steep and in certain parts of it almost a canyon through the mountains; a very narrow passway, with porous rocks on each side, honeycombed with caves. From time immemorial robbers have harbored in those caves and attacked travelers passing over that road from Jerusalem to Jericho and from Jericho to Jerusalem. In the time of the Crusaders an organization was formed called the "Knights Templars," for the sole purpose of establishing their headquarters on that road and protecting travelers, keeping robbers off. That organization of the Knights Templars increased and changed its original form until it became the mightiest organized power of chivalry at one period, and of rascality at a later period. Kings found it necessary to the peace of their realms to banish them. Romance readers will recall Scott's vivid description in Ivanhoe of their expulsion from England by Richard the Lion-hearted. In modern times we have the Knights Templars, a continuation of the old organization, only with different objects. Here it is well to note in passing that the illustrations of Jesus, while always supposititious, are always natural. His illustration is always a verisimilitude of real life; the thing could have naturally happened Just as he stated. "And by chance a certain priest was going down that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion, and came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine; and he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow he took out two-pence and gave them to the host, and said, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, I, when I come back again will repay thee. Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor to him that fell among the robbers? And he said he that showed mercy on him. And Jesus said unto him, Go and do thou likewise." I ask the reader to note, first, our Lord's method of dealing with men. He always addressed himself to the man's standpoint in such a way as to awaken thought and produce self-conviction. Here was an expounder of the law relying upon his conformity to the law for eternal life; an expounder of the law who wanted to call out and try Jesus on this standard. Hence he comes with this most important of all questions: "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Oh, what a question! What a question for you, for me, for anybody, for everybody! "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Or, "What shall I do to escape eternal death?" Jesus says to him, "What does the law say?" "Well, the law says this: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy strength and with all thy mind and with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." Jesus replied to the man, "You have answered right. That is what the law says. That covers the scope of all the Commandments. That summary comprehends every detail, not only of the decalogue, but of every other statute, civil, ecclesiastical, ceremonial, or of any other kind. That is the whole of it. "On these two hang all the law and the prophets." What was the question? "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Mark the answer: The law says, "Thou shalt love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself. Do this and thou shalt live. You are standing in the law. You are an expounder of the law. You are seeking justification before the law, from your standpoint. Here is your chance. Do this and thou shalt live. Fail to do this and thou shalt die." Just here comes up a question. As men now are – am not talking about Adam and how he was, but as men now are, – is this a practical way of life? That is, is it possible for eternal life to be obtained this way? And the answer to it is prompt and clear: "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God." That makes it absolutely impracticable. There is God's inspired declaration that while it remains true if a man will do what the law requires, he shall inherit eternal life, yet under present conditions it cannot be done; no man can obtain eternal life that way. And here arises a question in morality. Why then did Jesus say, "Do this and thou shalt live?" Why did be answer the question that way? For this reason: It was the object of Jesus to convict that man. That man did not think he was a sinner. Jesus knew he was. The Bible says, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." And Paul says, "I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came sin revived and I died." Now that man stood before Jesus without any consciousness that he was a lost soul, and there in that delusion, he was going along a road that he thought would certainly land him in heaven, and the only way on the earth to cause him to turn from his hopeless and doomed path was to produce the conviction in his mind that he was a lost sinner. Hence Jesus says, "This is what the law says: Do it. Come and look in this mirror and let it, as you look, reflect back yourself to your sight, that you may see that you are not loving God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind, and that you are not loving your neighbor as yourself." In other words, he turned Mount Sinai, trembling with the touch of God's foot and crested with the fire that shows his presence and throbbing with the thunders of his power, over on this man, not to save him, but to bring him to Calvary. Moses was a schoolmaster unto Christ. This lawyer stood there and said: "I am for the law. I am going to stand on my own record. I am going before the bar of God, at the last, and according to what I have done I will seek justification. Now, the sooner Jesus got that man to see what was the heart, the spirit, as well as the exceeding broadness of the divine commandment, the better it was for him. That was the object that Jesus had. Pursuing the discussion our next question is: What is the constant attitude of the mind of a man who is trying to get to heaven that way? This passage says of the lawyer, "He, desiring to justify himself." There it is. The constant attitude is a desire to justify himself. But what does that desire to justify himself prompt him to do? Here is that high, broad commandment of God: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself," and here is a man trying to save himself by obedience to that law, and very anxious to justify himself. What result follows? He lowers that law to suit the grades of his obedience. How does this lawyer manifest that? By the question, "Who is my neighbor? “ Oh, yes, I am seeking salvation by the law. The law says I must love my neighbor as myself. Now in order for my obedience to that law to be practicable, I must so limit I the meaning of that word 'neighbor' as that my obedience will be co-extensive with it." The very first thing that it induces is the lowering of the divine commandment to suit the grade of the obedience. The lawyer in his mind was saying, "My neighbor is a Jew, and a Jew of my own sect, a Pharisee; of course not a Sadducee. He is not a neighbor of mine; an Essene, he is not a neighbor of mine; a Samaritan, pah! I would not even look toward a Samaritan. I love my neighbor as myself, but you must let me say who my neighbor is, that it means my brother Pharisee." Now we can see why Jesus gave him that answer, and to expose that man's profanation of the divine commandment and the sophistry with which he sought to justify himself, he gives the parable of the good Samaritan. As if he had said, "I will throw a side light on that subject of neighbor, and I will throw such a side light as you yourself with your own mouth shall condemn yourself." Didn't he condemn himself? What does the record say? When Christ got through with that story of the good Samaritan he puts the question to this lawyer: "Which of these three thinkest thou proved neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?" And out from his very lips the answer had to come, "He that showed mercy to him." But where does this answer land his law-righteousness? "If that is what the word 'neighbor' means, looking back over your past life, O Pharisee, where is your Justification? How have you loved your neighbor as yourself? You that seek to be justified by the law, in the light of this parable defining neighbor, you are a lost soul and you know it. You know you hate a Samaritan. You know you hate a Sadducee. You know you hate the Gentile. You know that you have wrapt the mantle of your exclusiveness about you, lest you should come in contact, and by contact receive defilement, from other men, and you have kept narrowing the law, narrowing it until you have got a little bit of a circle here, described by the word 'neighbor,' that confines only you and your wife and your son and his wife, and nobody else in the world." I never saw a man on the face of this earth that stood on the basis of his morality, that stood on his own record, either before or after his conversion, that did not lower the divine law in order to make his obedience fill what the law required. A sliding scale! A sliding scale! I can keep the law perfectly if I may reach up and slide it down to fit what I do. So the parable of the good Samaritan disposes of the lawyer's quibble on the Second Commandment. Let us now take up section 82 (Luke 10:38-42), our Lord's first visit to the home of Mary and Martha. Perhaps no part of the Bible has attracted more quiet, pleasing attention than the part which tells of the relation of Jesus Christ to this Bethany family, consisting of two sisters and a brother. We have four special accounts of it. This is the first one, where Jesus makes the acquaintance of the family, and Martha, who seems to be the head of the house, the elder sister, invites him to be her guest. The second account is when they send him a message that their brother is sick, and his coming after the brother dies, and raising him to life again. The third account is later, six days before his last Passover, when he visits Bethany again. The fourth is still later, when, in this very village, a certain man, once a leper, gives him a feast and invites to meet him his friends and his disciples. In this case, as in the first, Martha characteristically serves the outer man while Mary ministers to the spiritual nature of Jesus. The first question that called for solution in my own mind as I began to study this passage, was this: What object had Christ in view in entering into this or any other house while he was here upon earth? If we once understand his purpose, the great reason prompting him to come, we can understand then what reception of him would be most consistent with that purpose and hence would best please him. He himself tells his purpose. He says, "I come not to be ministered unto, but to minister." He did not come into the world to be made much of as a guest, to receive a stranger's hospitality. He came to save the world, to minister to them. That purpose never left his mind. It follows that when he accepted this invitation he would approve as the better reception of him, that which best accorded with his object in going there. The two sisters seem to have formed separate ideas of the kind of reception to tender Jesus. One of them, as we infer from what is said of her every time she is mentioned in the Bible, was a very careful housekeeper, with much pride in her housekeeping, and who, when she received a guest, thought that the best thing she could do would be to prepare a very sumptuous meal for him, and so she put herself to a vast deal of trouble in the preparation of this meal. She counted it a big thing, something well worthy of thought and anxiety and preparation. And so highly did she emphasize this part of hospitality that it drove everything else out of her mind. "Now the way I am to receive this guest who comes to my house this day is to spread before him such a table as he has not seen in a long time." This involved a great deal of work. The other sister had this idea of hospitality – that to receive a guest properly implies that he be given her company; that it did not suffice to feed him, for he could provide food elsewhere, but if he came to that house he came to enjoy the companionship of those who were there. So, while the one concluded to give him a dinner, the other decided to give him her company, to entertain him personally. This view of it would strike any thoughtful mind at once as being the best attention a thoughtful hostess could possibly pay to a guest; to show by her presence, by the delicate manner in which she listens to what he says, is the best way to receive him, far higher in the scale of hospitality than to so busy herself about less important matters as to allow no opportunity for personal conversation or communion with him. On this point then, all good judges of hospitality will say that Mary's method was the better method. But I pass to something very much higher than this. As was stated, our Lord came to minister to other people. He came to do them good. He was the great teacher of the way of life. He came to open up to them a plan of reconciliation to God. He came to save the souls of the people with whom he came in contact. Mary seemed to understand that: "Now as that is his mission, as his heart is on that, as he is thinking more of saving my soul than of eating a fine dinner in this house, I will receive him, not to my table but to my heart. Come and reign in my soul forever, Lord Jesus." And I submit that the reception of Jesus into the soul, to give him a welcome into the heart, is far higher than simply to give him a welcome at the table. A great many people have kind thoughts about the Son of God and his kingdom who are ready enough at times to minister, with some degree of thoughtfulness, to what are called the external wants of the kingdom of God, and yet these people are very slow to welcome that kingdom into their own souls, very reluctant to say, "I will not only give a portion of my time, of my money, and of my best skill to attend to the external parts of the Christian religion, but independent of all this, and higher than all of this infinitely, I will give myself, and let the Lord Jesus Christ be the King of my soul." It is important next to observe that when he came to that house these two ways were optional. Martha chose one. Mary chose the other. I am not now discussing that high and mysterious and great doctrine of God's election, God's choosing us from before the foundation of the world, but I am speaking of the choice that we make. Here was a necessity of choice put upon these two women: "Jesus is coming to this house today. He will be a guest under this roof, and to both of us is an opportunity of election, as to the better method of receiving him." Martha chose one way and Mary chose the other way. Let us see then what this choice was. It is said that, "Mary sat at his feet." What does it mean? Does it mean that he occupied a high chair and that she took a stool or low chair, and literally and actually sat at his feet? There is not the slightest reference to that. Painters indeed catch that thought and so represent it in the great masterpieces given to the world on canvas, concerning this scene. But the expression "sitting at the feet” is what is called a Hebrew idiom. Paul refers to it. He says he sat at the feet of Gamaliel. What does it mean there? It means that Gamaliel was the teacher and Paul was the pupil. To sit at one's feet then, in all the sense meant here, is to put one's self under the instruction of another, to become a pupil, to be taught. Behold then, the scene! The great Teacher has come to this house. His object is to teach and to teach the greatest thing. He comes to teach as no other can teach. Now, if the Teacher is coming, which is the better, to be no more than an ordinary cook to furnish him a dinner, or to receive instruction from him, to put the life under his direction? Note this point: To submit one’ s self to the tuition of Jesus is to become the disci- ple of Jesus. Jesus is the Master, the Teacher. Mary became the disciple or pupil. Approach that thought through a lower form. Suppose such a man as Socrates, the great teacher of philosophy, has come to the marketplace in Athens; and two services are there offered to him. First, a friendly huckster in the marketplace arranges for him a sumptuous repast, which is confessedly a very thoughtful, pleasant kindness; second, Alcibiades comes with lordly intellect, and princely form, and mighty influence to say, “ O Socrates, teach me; impart to me thy wisdom. Let me receive thy familiar instruction." Which service would please the great philosopher most? And when we consider that our Lord's teaching was infinitely higher than the teaching of any earthly philosopher, that it involved a gathering back of all the clouds of darkness that hide the other world from human sight, that it revealed to the clear eye of faith the great hereafter, eternity and judgment and salvation and glory, and that this is the first time that this Teacher comes to that house, why did it not occur to Martha: "The supreme thing that I can do this day is to place myself at Jesus' feet, saying, 'O Lord, instruct me.' " The question recurs, Which would he like the better? Fortunately we have some examples from the Bible that show us which he liked best. On one occasion when traveling through Samaria, he stopped at Jacob's well near Sychar. They were tired and hungry; Jesus was very weary; they had walked a long way, and the minds of the disciples were very much concerned about dinner and what they should eat. For this they left him. But there came a woman to this well, and instantly Jesus forgot the hunger of his body and began the joyous work of leading a soul to salvation and making that soul the instrument of leading many others to salvation. And when the disciples return with their baskets of dinner he waves them aside and says, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of. You ask me which I prefer, which I would esteem as the greater joy, for you to bring me food to minister to temporal and physical hunger, or for God my Father to open up a way for me to show a lost soul how to find salvation." No wonder that his worldly minded brothers thought he was crazy on this very point, for we are told that on one occasion when word was brought to them that he was so much absorbed in teaching, in reaching out the hand to lead souls to eternal life, that he would not so much as eat, they said, "He is out of his mind." They wanted to get out a writ of lunacy against him and apprehend him, to lay violent hands upon the one who was so crazy as to prefer teaching the plan of salvation and the way of eternal life to the satisfaction of temporal hunger. These two cases show how much more the Son of God appreciated the reception that Mary gave him than the reception that Martha gave him. She sat at his feet and heard his words. He says, "Mary hath chosen that good part. Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about a great many things. There is only one thing in this world that it is needful to be anxious about, just one, and that is the obtaining of that good part which can never be taken away." It is a waste of human energy; it is a degradation of human dignity; it is a reflection upon the majesty of the image of God in which a human being is made, that we should have distracting cares and anxieties about infinitesimally small things, the millions of them, when if they were all put together they would not weigh even as a particle of fine dust in the balance of God's judgment, and that too, when the great question of eternal life is not solved. Look at the Sermon on the Mount. See how he addresses himself to this question. He says, "Be not anxious about what ye shall eat nor what ye shall drink, nor what ye shall put on. The life is more than the raiment, than the food of the body, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and afterward all these things shall be added to you." There was the wisdom of Mary; she chose the chief thing first. She made the great thing paramount. And there was the folly of Martha, that she disturbed her mind and fretted and fumed and took cares and burdens on her soul when that supreme question with her had not been settled. Here is a comparison between many things and one thing. "Martha, Martha, thou art disturbed about many things, but one thing is worth anxiety, only one thing in this world that you need to be deeply concerned about, and when that thing is settled, everything is settled, and when that is unsettled, all things are unsettled." It is only another instance of our Lord's manner of impressing upon his audience, whether that audience was a great crowd of people or a single individual, that we should first settle our relation with God, that we should fix our thoughts on the great need of the soul, and never allow anything else to be accounted as worthy of consideration until that supreme question was thoroughly and effectually settled. He gives as a reason for this that the good part that Mary chose could not be taken away from her. This is the doctrinal point and I will discuss is briefly. Our Saviour here certainly teaches that if one does choose God and eternal life, it can never be taken away from him.. I know there are some who teach that one may have that good part today and may lose it tomorrow. That puts it on an equality with the dinner that Martha made, with the perishable things, sweet to the taste and gladsome to the sight, here now and gone tomorrow, and the same hunger crying out to be appeased as if we had never stood at that feast. Over against the perishable in sublime contrast Christ puts the imperishable. Over against the things which slip through our fingers even while we grasp them, and the robes which fade even while we wear them, he puts the crown of eternal life, and predicates the wisdom of choice upon the fact that no change of season, no vicissitudes of life, no emergency that can arise under the sun, can ever jeopardize what we have gained when our souls once get that good part. The psalmist refers to this in that precious division of the book of Songs that has always been a favorite with me, Psalms 73. After staling that God will guide him on earth with his counsel and afterward receive him into glory, he bursts into this rapture: "Though my heart fail, though my flesh fail, O God, thou art my portion forever." "Mary hath chosen that good portion which shall not be taken away from her." And in talking with his disciples about it he says, "I give unto them eternal life [mark the nature of it, eternal], and they shall never perish." "None shall pluck them out of my hand." "I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus." The value then of this good part consists in that when we once get it, it is ours forever. It is inalienable. There are no destroying forces of wind or wave, or fire or persecution, that can eliminate one grain of substance from the solid and enduring gift of God, but in its fulness and in its entirety it is ours forever and ever. "Mary hath chosen that good part which can never be taken away from her." Let us notice in the next place that when we make an election of the good thing first that it shows the highest wisdom in this, that we secure the other things also. The apostle Paul referring to this says, "All things are yours. Is Peter a gifted apostle? If you are Christ's, Peter is yours. Is Apollos, that great rhetorician from Alexandria, who being converted to God turned all of the powers of his cultured mind to the ministry of God, desirable? Then Apollos is yours, and life is yours, and death is yours, and heaven is yours." All things are ours if we get the main thing, which is God. We are so constituted, God made us so, that we can never be satisfied if we do not get that lasting portion that never can be taken away from us. The prophet Isaiah compares what are ordinarily called the good things of this world to a cistern. The cistern is a vessel limited, and a broken cistern can not hold any water. Not only is it limited in its capacity, while our cravings are unlimited on account of the eternity of our being, because we have a deathless soul, but even as a cistern it is cracked and lets the water out, whereas God, he says, is an unfailing fountain that is not wasted by its outgushing fulness and its overflowing, a fountain which comes from such deep reservoirs and such a great volume of accumulated waters that it commenced to sparkle and sing when the earth was created, and when the last day dawns on the world that fountain is still flowing. He says, "My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have hewed out for themselves broken cisterns which can hold no water." Hear the words of a great and good man. Patrick Henry thus closed his last will and testament: "I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing I wish that I could give them and that is the Christian religion. If they had that (and I had not given them one shilling) they would be rich; and if they have not that (and I had given them all the world) they would be poor." Whoever has God and nothing else is rich indeed. Whoever has everything else and not God, is poor indeed. Then we see why one is called the good part. We see how there is no necessity to have any undue cares and anxieties about the little things. They are not worth it. The human soul ought not to vex itself over the nonattainable. Let them go if they do not come of themselves. Now we can understand what our Saviour meant when the disciples, the seventy that were sent out, came back rejoicing. "What are you so glad about?" "Lord, the devils are subject unto us." "Rejoice not that the devils are subject unto you. Why? Because there is only one thing in which the soul should rejoice. Rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Rejoice that the good portion is yours; rejoice that the great question of salvation has been settled and settled forever, and can never become unsettled." And that is why also those preachers who go out among the people, whose minds are so possessed with the value of a soul, who can enter into the depths of that question of Jesus, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul when it is once lost?" why the preachers who go out with that great ruling thought in their heart and address themselves to saving men, become such grand preachers. It is a nice thing to get up in the pulpit and sometimes, if we do not take too much time for it, a profitable thing to tell how many miles it is from Dan to Beersheba, and what is the grade of the fall of the river Jordan, and how much lower the Dead Sea is than the Mediterranean. These are good points, but if a preacher's mind is fixed on them, if he stops to look at landscapes, if his fancy is carried away with the height and blueness of mountains, if he stops to gaze at the trees and the flowers as he goes and forgets that souls are perishing, his ministry is barren, and the world could well do without him. 1. Recite the story of the good Samaritan. 2. What is the meaning of "lawyer" in this connection? 3. What are the two meanings of the word "tempt" and what its meaning here? 4. What question did the lawyer ask Jesus and how did Jesus turn the question upon him? 5. What was the lawyer's reply and where do we find this teaching in the Old Testament? 6. What was Jesus' reply to the lawyer's statement? 7. How did the lawyer then try to evade the proposition and what was Jesus' reply? 8. Describe the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. 9. What organization was formed as a result of such conditions as herein described and what of their later history? 10. What can you say of the illustrations of Jesus and what does this parable illustrate? 11. Who then is your neighbor? 12. What can you say of Jesus' method of dealing with men, what our Lord's purpose here and how is it here demonstrated? 13. What use does Jesus make of the law here and how does it con- form to the New Testament teaching on the same point? Discuss. 14. What is the constant attitude of a man who is trying to get to heaven by the works of the law and what result follows? 15. How does the parable of the good Samaritan explode the lawyer's theory of "Who is my neighbor"? 16. What can you say of the Bible accounts of the relation of Jesus to the Bethany family? Recite these accounts. 17. What was the purpose of our Lord in entering this or any other house in his earthly ministry? 18. What were the different ideas of the two sisters respecting the entertainment of our Lord and which must have pleased him the better? 19. How do these two women illustrate the relative importance of the externals and internals of the kingdom? 20. What can you say of the freedom in the choice of Martha and Mary and what is meant by "Mary sat at the Lord's feet?" Illustrate. 21. What illustrations from Christ's ministry showing his appreciation of the spiritual over the temporal? 22. What of the teaching of our Lord here touching anxieties and how does it correspond to his teaching elsewhere? 23. How is Mary's wisdom here seen above her sister Martha's? 24. What is the doctrinal point here? Discuss. 25. How is the highest wisdom shown in the election of the "good thing" first? 26. Why is this called the "good part"? Discuss and illustrate. VIII THE MODEL PRAYER ; A ; HOW TO BE CLEAN; AND A ON , WORLDLY , , ETC. Harmony, pages 112-118 and Luke 11:1-13; 59.In section 83 of the Harmony (Luke 11:1-13) we have the model prayer repeated. It will be noted that the phraseology here is quite different from that found in section 42 (Matthew 6:5-15), but the ideas are the same. Then follows immediately the parable of the friend at midnight, which teaches that importunate prayer overcomes the greatest difficulties, to which is added the promise of success to the one who asks, seeks, and knocks. In this same connection is also given the promise of the Holy Spirit to them who ask for him. This promise is emphasized by contrasting the willingness of earthly parents, though evil, in giving good gifts to their children, with the heavenly Father's willingness to give the Holy Spirit. In section 84 of the Harmony (Luke 11:14-36) we have the incident of casting out the demon which was dumb, and the blasphemous accusation that Jesus did this by the prince of demons. This incident and the teaching growing out of it needs to be considered more particularly. When that question came up about the expulsion of that demon, Jesus met it substantially thus: Here is a fact. This man was occupied and Satan has been cast out. How do you account for it? The Pharisees reply: "You cast him out by the chief of demons." "But that is absurd. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and if Satan cast out Satan, Satan's kingdom ends. Moreover, you and your children profess to be able to cast out demons. Turn your logic there, and if I, by the prince of demons, cast out demons, do not your children? As you say of your children, then let them judge you in this accusation. If not then by Satan, then what follows? Here is a superhuman power that could not be expelled except by a stronger force. Man is no stronger force. This superhuman power has been overthrown. It is absurd to suppose that Satan did it himself. Hence it follows that I by the finger of God have cast him out. And then it follows that if I by the finger of God have cast him out, the kingdom of heaven is come to him. The kingdom of heaven is present whenever Satan is overthrown, for Satan will not overthrow himself, and it must be a power greater than Satan, and therefore it is the kingdom of heaven, and that kingdom of heaven is among you." What a thought! See one who last year rejoiced in the fact that he was a sinner, that he did not go to church, that he reviled religion, that he mocked at its holy claims, that he laughed at its threatenings, that he invoked presumptuously a judgment – this man that pitched his frail straws of opposition against the thick bosses of Jehovah's buckler – look, a change has come, and profanity has died on his lips and praises sit there, praises unto his God. A glorious change! Light has come into his eye, innocence into his face, joy and love into his heart, hope into his soul, consecration into his life, and it has been done by the finger of God, and it is a demonstration that the kingdom Of God has come. It is here. That is one thing it proves. What other thing? It proves the Judgment. "When the Holy Spirit is come he will convince the world of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." The Scriptures say that there shall appear a great white throne, and him that sitteth on it, before whom the heavens shall fade away, and before whom all nations shall be gathered, and that they shall be judged out of the things that are written in the book. One solid argument that judgment is coming is that the prince of this world is judged. Satan is judged and overthrown, and if the captain be judged and his power demolished, then we may rest assured that his subjects will be judged. That crisis on Calvary was the only crisis the world ever had after the fall of man in the garden of Eden, the only one. Just as sure as Satan is judged; just as sure as the finger of God delivers one here and there throughout the land; every time there is heard the voice of a newborn soul; every time there is an emergence from darkness into light; every time one lifts himself up through the power of God and shakes off the crushing bondage of the devil, it is another thunder-toned demonstration that the judgment is coming, and all who are of Satan shall go to Satan's place, to the place prepared for the devil and his angels. The strong man here then is Satan, but what is his trusted armor? I will name some pieces of it which show the ground of his confidence. First, "this subject of mine is lawfully condemned by the divine statute. There is the strength of my hold on him. There is the chief part of my armor – even the righteous law of God. I could not have done anything with him if I had not made him transgress the law, and now, while God's law stands and calls for a victim to satisfy its penal sanction, my hold on him is good." What else? "When he sinned his nature became perverted. That which had loved God now hates God, and I trust in that aversion to his heart from God. I know that his mind is not subject to God's law and cannot be made subject to God's law. His inherited depravity, therefore, is a part of my armor. By it I shut the windows of the cup held out before him. If his bent be not in this direction, if he have a disposition that cannot be extravagant or spendthrift, then I lead him in the path of the miser, and fill his mind full of wise laws and maxims and apothegms about saving and holding on to what he gets, and that 'if a man doth not provide for his own he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel'; and in the guise of economy I will make him so stingy and hard-hearted that the granite is softer than his soul. I trust to his habits." These things constitute Satan's armor. Evidently till some one stronger than Satan shall come, this usurped dominion over this world will be successfully maintained. And Just here I want to call attention to one of the most remarkable missionary sermons ever preached by man, by one of the profoundest thinkers that ever honored the American continent. It is Dr. Lyman Beecher's great sermon on the "Resources of the Adversary and the Means of His Overthrow." The next question is, "How are these captives at peace in a state of captivity?" "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are at peace." How can people be at peace who are in bondage, who are slaves, who have lost that liberty with which God originally endowed the moral agent? How is it that they are at peace? In a case of mesmerism so long as the subject is under the influence of the mesmerizer he is at peace; he reflects the mind of the one who has put the spell upon him. He voices the will of that one. He performs what the mesmerizer commands. No one can come in from the outside and break that spell, and so long as the spell obtains, that man, if one were to ask him the question, "Are you obeying this mesmerizer cheerfully?" "Yes." "Are you doing this of your own will?" "Yes, I want to do just what he tells me to do." That illustration may partly serve to introduce this scriptural thought, that when a strong delusion possesses the mind it assures the mind of its rightfulness, and there is perfect confidence on the part of the deluded one in the rightfulness of the position which he occupies. He is thinking another's thought. A superior and imperious will is suggesting his thought and inditing his words and prompting his acts and filling his heart so that he becomes but the expression of another, doing the will of another, and while in that state he is at peace. What good would it do to argue with one who is mesmerized? What pictures would he see if we were to hold them up before him? What impression could we make on his mind that is occupied? His mind is preoccupied. His mind is filled full of another. Hence, before that man can be delivered we must overcome the one that holds him under the spell. Hence, this passage says that "when a strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are at peace." We have illustrations of this in people that we from our standpoint of regeneration, of redemption in Christ, know to be lost. We know them to be slaves. We know them to be doomed. And yet, they calmly look into our eyes and claim as complete a satisfaction with their state as we claim for our state. How many times have I heard one of the most deluded men repeat, putting his hand upon his heart, "I have perfect peace. I am at rest." The next question is, "How is the captor at peace?" He seems to be perfectly quiet, as long as his subject remains in subordination, as long as there is no effort to throw off the yoke of bondage, as long as there is no rebellion against his authority, the captor seems to be at peace; and we also notice in this passage that if that evil spirit be expelled from a man or voluntarily leaves him that then he, the captor, is at unrest: "But when the unclean spirit is gone out of the man he walketh through dry places seeking rest and finding none." To dispossess him is to put him at unrest. Note this thought. We get at the nature of a mind by the surroundings it seeks. This evil spirit seeks dry places, waste places, desolate spots, volcanic shores, treeless countries. There is something in the brazen sky above, in the iron bound earth beneath, in the dust, in the barren rocks, in the lava beds and other tokens of volcanic eruptions; in other words, in the desolation and the absence and privation of life, there is something consonant with his feelings. If consonant with his feelings why does he not find the rest that he seeks in these places? This demon that has been cast out, when he comes to a desert where no rose blossoms and no water laughs, no birds sing and no flowers perfume the air, no luscious fruits hang from the trees; when he comes to a country that seems to be a land of ashes and despair, looking for rest in such surroundings, why does he not find it? Here is the answer: It does not content a deathless mind to have an empire only over rock and soil. It does not content such a lost spirit to see a land burned up in drought or convulsed by volcanic eruptions. It does not content such a mind as that to see the lightning rive the vigorous oak and blast the surrounding trees about it. That does not content it. "I want to see desolation and despair come not only to rocks and trees, but I want to see it come to intelligence. I want to rule over minds. I want to rule over souls." Hence, he is never at rest until he gets some soul in subjection. When the unclean spirit is gone out of the man he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and finding none he says, "I cannot stay out here. I will return unto my house, whence I came out. I want to inhabit a man's body and dominate a man's soul and make that a desert. I want to put that in ruin, so that when I look abroad on the prostrate image of God, on the understanding darkened, on the conscience seared, on the judgment deflected, on the affections perverted, on the brain collapsed, on great powers prostituted – when I look on that I can then say, I am getting even with God.' I am at rest, satisfied while I can hold such a possession as that. Take this away from me and I cannot content myself with fire and ashes and rock and drought." And what is true of an expelled demon is true of one who is demon like. A man whose character is crystallized in evil would not be satisfied in the presence of purity. He seeks impurity. He is not satisfied simply to have the forces of nature subject to him. Not he. "I want to poison youth. I want to defile the minds of young men. I want to turn aside the right thoughts of young maidens. I want to dominate and hold in subjection, under bondage to my dictation, people who have immortal souls." We sometimes wonder why these recruiting sergeants of the devil, these agents of evil, why they take such a delight and go so much out of their way, to cause another human being to fall. That is the reason. It is their unrest. They will not be content with a barren sway. They want to exercise power over intellect and over soul, and that is why they do this. Who then is the stronger than Satan? On this point the Bible is clear as the sun. Immediately after Satan obtained his dominion by guile, God promised to put enmity between the woman and Satan, and that the seed of the woman should bruise his head – the seed of the woman, not of the man. As by subtlety he overcame Eve, so through the seed of the woman shall a Deliverer come. When Cain was born Eve thought the promise was fulfilled and said, "I have gotten the man from the Lord," but that was not the seed of the woman, nor was Abel. Not he. He saith, "And the seed" (not seeds), meaning one – there should come one born of a woman that would overthrow Satan. How could he do it? Who could solve the problem? And yet at last a bright being winged his way from the heavenly mansion and came down to the lowly hut of a Jewish maiden and said, "Hail, Mary. Blessed art thou among women. I announce to thee that of thee shall be born the Holy One that shall overcome Satan." And the power of the Highest overshadowed the virgin and the Holy One born of her was called the Son of God. Here in this passage, are two releases spoken of: A release that simply expels Satan and then a release that expels Satan and puts Christ in: that release which simply drives out Satan and leaves the house empty is not a complete victory, for there may be a relapse. The mind is not occupied. Man's mind, man's soul, is derived, it is created. It is not a creator. Hence it must be in subjection, and simply to expel one master and not provide another is not to win a final victory, because when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, that does not mean that the Holy Spirit is gone into the man. And though that house be swept and garnished, yet if it is empty, no Spirit of God reigning in those chambers, that evil spirit may come back, and "the last state of that man is worse than the first." And just here a capital mistake is often made. Some men suppose that it is conversion to have Satan expelled. How does the expulsion of Satan turn the carnal mind into amity? Now, if Satan had taken possession of innocent people, if Satan had taken violent possession, and not by guile and through their consent, the expulsion of Satan would have been sufficient. But since they are fallen in their nature the expulsion of Satan and the cessation of his direct domination, does not mean that a man is converted. We have seen people who had an experience similar to this in the abandonment of a bad habit, and they thought they were converted. "I was once a drunkard; I have quit; now am I not a Christian? I was once a swearer; I no longer swear; am I not now a Christian? I was once the slave of sensual desires; I now govern my passions; am I not now a Christian? I once was stingy; I now make large contributions to benevolent purposes. The evil spirit is gone out of me; am I not now a Christian?" Certainly not, unless another master has come in – unless Christ, unless the Holy Spirit dwell in that heart, and have renewed that soul by regeneration we are simply delivered from the immediate domination of Satan, and our house is without a tenant. That is all – without a tenant; but we may be assured the devil will get tired of ruling over dry rocks, and he will say, "I cannot find anything to sufficiently occupy my powers or satisfy my desires out here on mere material nature. I will go back to my old house. I remember, I remember how I dominated that intellect, that soul; how I prostituted it. I will go back." And he goes back and he takes a look, looks into the window: "The house is swept; it is garnished. Nobody in that house; empty, empty! Jesus is not in there. The Holy Spirit is not in there. I went out, but nobody else has been put in, and now I go back in there, this time to stay, and so I will call to me other evil spirits, many in number, more evil than I am, and our name shall be legion, and we will re-enter that house and fortify again and hold that soul," and the "last state of that man is worse than the first." Sometimes a man, just by one of those little tricks of the devil, the cessation of an evil habit, perhaps imagines he in converted, joins the church and becomes a preacher, but the house being empty shall he escape Satan? Can Satan find him in the pastor's study? Can Satan follow him into the pulpit? Can Satan enter into that pulpit and refill that unoccupied heart, and say, "Go thou and be my infidel! go thou and be the apostle of unbelief"? Unquestionably. And unquestionably the "last state of that man is worse than the first," for it is hopeless. I have never in my life heard of any man being saved who has apostatized from the pulpit – mean who went into infidelity from the pulpit. I have never heard of a case; I have never read of a case. "The last state of that man is worse than the first." There are several other items of interest in section 84 (Luke 11:14-36) which call for special mention. First, a woman with true motherly instinct cried out from the multitude: "Blessed is your mother." But Jesus referred her to the higher relation which is expressed in obedience to God. Second, he reproved that generation as evil because they were seeking a sign, but no sign would be given it but that of Jonah, typifying the Lord Jesus Christ in his resurrection. Third, he gives a principle of the judgment, as illustrated by the incident of the "queen of the south" and that also of the Ninevites. These show that the judgment will be conducted on the principle that the condemnation will be according to the amount of light that people have here in this world. Fourth, the illustration of the lighted lamp, which connects back with Matthew 6:22-23. There the dark side of the illustration is presented, but here the light side. The thought is expressed in Matthew 6:36, which is a thrust at their stubborn and wilful darkness in the face of such light as they had in Jesus Christ. We now take up section 85 (Luke 11:37-54) of the Harmony, the incident of Jesus break fasting with a Pharisee. The paragraph is Luke 11:37-54. Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him to take breakfast with him, and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not dipped himself before breakfast. And the Lord said unto him, replying to his thought, "Now do ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter; but your inward part is full of extortion and wickedness. Ye foolish ones, did not he that made the outside make the inside also? Howbeit, give for alms those things which are within; and behold, all things are clean unto you." The King James Version reads: "But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you." But this reads: "Give for alms those things which are within and all things are clean unto you." There is no doubt in anybody's mind as to the word in the original Greek, enonta. This word was before the King James translators and the Canterbury revisers, but it can be grammatically derived from either one of two words, eni or eneimi. If from the former, it means "such things as ye have," but if from the latter, it means, "those things that are within." Where the grammatical construction favors one derivation as much as another, we must go to the context to determine the true word from which it is derived; and the context here unquestionably shows that the Canterbury revisers derived it from the right word. I recall many books which I have read and hundreds' of things which I have heard, predicating an awfully false theology upon the King James rendering, "Give alms of such things as ye have and all things are clean unto you," that is, if we are benevolent, if we are open-hearted, why, the Lord will forgive everything else; and the way to get to heaven, the way to inherit eternal life, is just to give alms. But that is far from the meaning of Jesus. To resume the quotation: "But woe unto you Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and every herb, and pass over judgment and the love of God; but these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Woe unto you Pharisees! for ye love the chief seats in the synagogues and the salutations in the market places. Woe unto you! for ye are as the tombs which appear not, and the men that walk over them know it not. And one of the lawyers answering said unto him, Master, in saying this thou reproachest us also. And he said, Woe unto you lawyers also! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. So ye are witnesses and consent unto the works of your fathers; for they killed them, and ye build their tombs. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send unto them prophets and apostles; and some of them they shall kill and persecute; that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary: Yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation" (Luke 11:42-50). What an awful thing is God's dealing with a nation or a race! Just as he deals with an individual, so with a nation – the whole race. And how the long treasured wrath that has been massing up from the beginning of a nation's history until its iniquity is full, bursts over the barriers, and on that last generation falls all of the accumulated woe. Instance the French Revolution. Louis XVI was about the most moderate, the most amiable of all the Bourbon kings, and yet on him and in his day came the doom that the predecessors of his dynasty had gathered up. "Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge!" Not the key that unlocks knowledge, but the key, knowledge; knowledge itself is the key. "Ye took away the key." What key? Knowledge. "Ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in, ye hindered." This passage shows that what that man in section 81 (Luke 10:25-37) did as an individual the Pharisees did as a class; that in order to obtain justification by the law they were sliding God's law down on everything. How? Well, the law requires us to be clean, clean, clean. But they said that we will slide the law down so that it just means to be clean on the outside; that it only means to keep the outside of the cup and the platter clean. That is all. Inwardly full of rottenness and dead men's bones. "Ye foolish ones! Did not he that made the outside make the inside also? Does not the law of God require truth in the inward part? Does it not say that the inward part shall know wisdom and righteousness? And now you will slide it down until it only means obedience in little things, but not the great things, tithing mint and rue and herbs and leaving undone love and judgment and mercy. Ye hypocrites! It says, 'Honor thy father and thy mother,' but you do not want to honor your father and your mother, so you slide that law down, so that it says, that if I take some of my property and write 'Corban' on it, and say, It is a gift,' then I am under no obligation to take care of my old worn-out father; I am under no obligation to support, in her last days, my infirm mother. Thou hypocrite! sliding the law down, and it must be slided down to get any justification." How shall I be clean? How shall I keep clean? "Give alms of those things that are within and all things are clean unto you." Here is a question of how to be clean and how to keep clean. Some say, "Wash externally"; Jesus says, "Wash inwardly, and let the soul be made clean." What a man has on his hands, the little dirt on his hands that when he goes to eat may get into his mouth, that does not defile him, but defilement comes from within. "Out of the heart of man proceed murder and blasphemy and adultery and every foul and loathsome thing." That is where defilement comes from. In section 86 of the Harmony (Luke 12) we have a continued discourse of our Lord, interrupted here and there by a question from the audience. There are some things in this discourse which remind us of the Sermon on the Mount, and others which remind us of his great discourse on the second advent. These parts are Luke 12:21-34 and Luke 12:35-40 respectively. The first thought here presented by our Lord is the danger of the leaven of the Pharisees, which was hypocrisy. With this statement as a predicate he showed that all hidden things should be revealed, and exhorted them not to fear them who could kill the body and not hurt the soul, but to fear him who had power to cast into hell. Then follows the great passage on the providential care of God's children; that God cares for the small birds, and the very hairs on our heads are numbered. All this was given to encourage them to be steadfast in their testimony of him in the most trying times of persecution. In this connection he refers to the sin against the Holy Spirit which I discussed at length in The Four Gospels, Volume I of this . Just at this point our Lord was interrupted by a request from the audience, that he become a divider of an inheritance, to which he replied that he was not a judge nor a divider of inheritances. Then he issued a warning against covetousness, illustrating it by the parable of the rich fool, which shows the folly and danger of selfish wealth. Out of this incident also came forth his great teaching on God's providential care for his children (Luke 12:21-34) so similar to his great teaching on the same subject in his Sermon on the Mount. In this she shows God's pledge to care for those who make his kingdom paramount in their lives. Then he closes this paragraph by exhorting them to secure perennial purses by transmuting the money of this world into the money of heaven, where thieves and moths could not steal nor destroy. But the reason for it all is that the heart follows the treasure. Our Lord follows this teaching with the parable of the watchful servant, which warns God's people to be ready at all times to meet the coming Lord. He introduces this thought with the imagery of the parable of the ten virgins, viz.: the girded loins, the burning lamps, and the watchfulness of the five who were ready to go out to meet him, but the thought is different in that when they receive him as here described he makes a feast for them and serves them. The point of both, though, is readiness for his coming in view of the concealment of the time at which he shall come. The next paragraph (Luke 12:41-48) enlarges the idea and teaching of the preceding parable. This was suggested by Peter's question, "Speakest thou this parable unto us, or even unto all?" The Lord apparently ignores Peter's question, but" shows by the application that he here included all, i.e., those who were his faithful servants, and that his dealing with all would be on the same principle of justice; that one principle is that the rewards and punishments at the judgment will be according to the amount of light people have here, but all disobedience will receive its just recompense of the reward. The rest of this chapter consists of three parables. The first is the parable of fire, sword, and flood, which shows the divisive effect of the gospel. This has been illustrated in thousands of homes as here described. The second is the parable of the weather signs, which shows that, as the weather signs forecast the weather, so spiritual developments forecast themselves to the observing, just as the sons of Issachar were wise to discern what Israel ought to do. The third is the parable of the settlement with an adversary which warns against the delay in being reconciled with God. 1. What can you say of the model prayer given, here as compared with the one given in Matthew 6:5-15? 2. What parable in this connection, what is its lesson, what promises growing out of it, and how is the latter one emphasized? 3. What blasphemous accusation did the Jews make against Jesus here, what was its occasion and how did Jesus meet it? 4. How does Jesus turn their logic against them? 5. If Christ cast out demons by finger of God, what followed from that fact? 6. How is the kingdom of heaven brought to a man? Illustrate. 7. How does this prove the judgment? 8. Who then is the strong man here and what is his trusted armor? 9. What sermon commended by the author in this connection? 10. How are these captives at peace? 11. When is the captor at peace and what causes his unrest? 12. Who then is the stronger than Satan? 13. What two releases here spoken of? Discuss and illustrate each. 14. What cry from the multitude in response to this teaching of Jesus, what was the reply of Jesus and what its meaning? 15. What reproof did Jesus here give the Jews? Explain? 16. What principle of judgment did he here announce &how did he illustrate? 17. What is the illustration of the lighted lamp and what does it illustrate? 18. Give an account of Jesus' breakfasting with a Pharisee. 19. What is the difference in the rendering of Luk 11:41 in the King James Version and in the Canterbury Version? 20. Which is the true rendering and what is the proof? 21. What heresy based upon the King James rendering? 22. What was Jesus' charge here against the Pharisees? 23. What was his charge against the lawyers? 24. How does Jesus here show God's dealing with a nation? Illustrate. 25. What is the meaning &application "Ye took away the key of knowledge"? 26. How does this passage here show that the Pharisees as a class did just what the man described in section 81 (Luke 10:25-37) did as an individual? Discuss. 27. What are the two theories of cleanliness and which is scriptural? 28. In our Lord's discourse in Luke 12 what do we find to remind us of the Sermon on the Mount and the discourse on the second advent? 29. What was our Lord's warning respecting the Pharisees and what his teaching growing out of this warning? 30. What is the teaching here on the providence of God, and what was its occasion and what its purpose? 31. What reference here to the sin against the Holy Spirit? 32. What was our Lord's teaching respecting wealth, what was the occasion of this teaching, how did he illustrate it, and what special teaching on the providence of God growing out of this incident? 33. What is the meaning of "purses perennial"? 34. What of the parable of the watchful servant; its imagery; the difference in the thought of this and that of the parables of the ten virgins? 35. How does the next paragraph (Luke 12:41-48) enlarge the idea and teaching of this parable and what is the teaching here in particular? 36. What three parables in Luke 12:49-59, and what is the import of each? Illustrate. IX REPENT OR PERISH; OF THE MUSTARD SEED AND LEAVEN; AT THE FEAST OF ; "ARE THERE FEW THAT BE SAVED?" DINING WITH A AND A LESSON; THE COST OF Harmony, pages 118-122 and Luke 13:1-14; Luke 13:22-25; John 10:22-42.In this chapter we commence with section 87 of the Harmony (Luke 13:1-9), which is on the necessity of repentance. This thought is elaborately treated in my discussion on repentance . Therefore, I pause here only to say that the parable in Luke 13:6-9 illustrates the teaching on repentance in the preceding verses as it applied to the Jews. The "three years" of this parable refers to the three years of Christ's ministry to the Jews prior to this time. "This year" refers to the time from the giving of this parable to the end of Christ's ministry and was the last space for repentance granted the Jewish nation. This parable of the fig tree should be taken in connection with the cursing of the barren fig tree which marks the end of the space here allotted for their repentance. Then the mercy limit was passed and the tree was cut down, i.e., the sentence was pronounced though it was not executed until the year A. D. 70 when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus. In section 88 (Luke 13:10-21) we have an account of an act of mercy on the part of Jesus, performed on the sabbath day, which provoked the indignant expression of condemnation from the ruler of the synagogue because this was done on the sabbath day. To this Jesus replied with the parable of watering the ox on the sabbath, which shows the triumph of mercy over statutory law. This put his adversaries to shame, and all the multitude rejoiced because of the glorious things that were done by him. Then he gave two parables – that of the mustard seed and that of the leaven, illustrating, respectively, the extensive and intensive phases of the kingdom. The kingdom, with a very small beginning is destined to be the biggest thing in the world, and the method of the kingdom is the leavening process. The principles of the kingdom, through the gospel, must permeate every part of the world until the whole shall be leavened. In section 89 (John 10:22-42) we have an account of an incident in Solomon's porch in the Temple at Jerusalem. The Jews here demanded that Jesus should tell them plainly whether he was the Christ. To this he replied that he had already told them, but they would not believe. Then he cited them to his works and his relationship to his people and the Father, upon which they attempted to take him, but "He went forth out of their hand," and went away into Perea where many believed on him. In this section is to be noted one of the strongest teachings of our Lord on the final preservation of the saints: that his people know him intimately and are held by the firm hand clasp of himself and the Father, which shows that God's people are beyond the power of the devil to destroy them. Not one of them shall perish without breaking the omnipotent grip of the hands of the Trinity. In section 90 of the Harmony (Luke 13:22-35) we have a very important question asked, and therefore I shall dwell upon it at length here because it involves a most important proposition respecting the final outcome of the gospel of the kingdom of our Lord. To a Bible class I once put these questions and passed them all around, insisting on direct answers from each one: "Have you ever been seriously concerned about the comparative number of the saved and the lost? Does the question obtrude itself often? So far as you are able to determine, is mere curiosity the predominant element prompting the question?" It was developed by the answers that all had been concerned and often about this matter – the concern sometimes resulting from curious speculation – sometimes from graver causes. Where the spirit of inquiry is reverent, in view of the infinite God, and humble, in view of our own finite nature, and for good ends, very gentle is our Lord in replying to our questionings, and only where it is best for us do we find the barrier, "Hidden things belong to God, but revealed things to us and our children." If then we have this reverent spirit, this humility so becoming to our finite nature, if our inquiry looks to good ends only, and if we are willing to stop where our Lord's wisdom and love raises a barrier to further investigation just now, and if at that barrier we consent in patience to wait, comforting ourselves with his assurance that we shall know hereafter what we know not now, even knowing as we are known, then I see no reason why we may not follow our great Teacher as he, in his own fashion, answers the question: "Are there few that be saved?" Let us then very reverently consider the whole paragraph: "And one said unto him, Lord, are they few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in by the narrow door: for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he shall answer and say to you, I know you not whence ye are; then shall ye begin to say, We did eat and drink in thy presence, and thou didst teach in our streets; and he shall say, I tell you, I know not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and yourselves cast forth without. And they shall come from the east and west, and from the north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last." Now that the whole paragraph is before us we are first of all reminded of this saying in the Sermon on the Mount: "Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it." Here then we learn our first lesson if our minds are docile, that our Lord's words are often repeated, but always with a variant setting of conditions and circumstances. Wide apart are the places and yet wider apart the conditions and times of the two lessons. The scene of the Sermon on the Mount is Galilee, the time early in his ministry. The application of the paragraph cited (Matthew 7:13-14) more local. The scene of our lesson today is Perea, late in his ministry, the application more worldwide. In Matthew 7:14 he says, "Few there be that find it." But we may not arbitrarily construe these words of our Lord to be an answer to the general question: "Are there few that be saved?" When he says "few" in Matthew 7:14, we are sure he is not referring to the whole number of the elect. He refers to Jews and to Jews of that day. Allow me to prove this double limitation. Turn to the next chapter in Matthew, where our Lord marvels at the faith of the Gentile centurion: "And the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having under myself soldiers: and I say to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. And when Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." This incident occurred immediately after the Sermon on the Mount and that "few" there has become the "many" here. So, then, we must not construe Matthew 7:14, "few there be that find it," with this passage. For a true parallel read together Matthew 8:11 and Luke 13:29, this way: "And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 8:11). "And they shall come from the east and west, and from the north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God" (Luke 13:29). The glorious prophecies and promises in both Testaments concerning the ingathering of the Jews after the fulness of the Gentiles, show that the "few" of Matthew 7:14 is limited even in its Jewish application. So that we may express the whole matter somewhat in this fashion: "Are there few that be saved?" Answer: Of the Jews of Christ's day, few; of the Gentiles, not many; of Jews and Gentiles in apostolic days, perhaps we find an answer in the glowing imagery of Rev 7:2-17. But two verses express the thought: "And I heard the number of them that were sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel. . . . After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude, that no man could number, out of every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands. . . . These that are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and whence came they? . . . These are they who come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." But we must not look on this as the final showing. This is the first fruits only. This is but the first martyr crop. We must read Revelation 21-22 to get a full view of the Holy City – the Lamb's Bride. So then if I were called on to answer, in the light of Bible teaching, this question: "At the judgment will the saved outnumber the lost?" I would reply by citing in contrast a Jewish opinion prevalent just before Christ was born, and a Christian opinion of the present day, and say frankly that I am inclined to the Christian opinion. The Jewish opinion is thus expressed twice in the apocryphal book of Esdras: "The kingdom on earth was made for many; the kingdom above for few," and "The number of the saved is like a drop to the wave." Such is the Jewish opinion. The Christian opinion, expressed by one of the truly great expositors of this generation is: "The number of the finally lost will compare with the whole number saved about as the criminals in jails and penitentiaries now compare with the free and law-abiding citizens of this country." For myself, without taking time just now to cite the scriptural basis of the judgment, I heartily cherish the Christian opinion. Understand me, I do not dogmatize here, but express the deepest, maturest conviction of mind, that at the round up, the outcome, the consummation, our blessed Lord will have saved the overwhelming majority of the human race. There are many mansions in the Father's house. They will be occupied. There is great room in paradise. It will be filled. Many indeed that were bidden shall not enter in, but other hosts will. I count much on the millennium. Even if it mean only a literal thousand years, who can estimate the teeming population this earth may bring forth and nourish in ten centuries of the highest religious civilization, with Satan shut up; peace reigning; no armies; no wars; no plague, famine, or pestilence? I am quite sure that all the population for the first six thousand years would not be a tithe of the population of the seventh thousand and under millennial conditions of health, knowledge, peace, and love. The devil banished and selfishness routed and religion reigning as Christ taught it, all the latent forces of nature developed by civilization, disease checked, and this earth could easily produce and support a hundred billion people for each generation of the thousand years. I mention this just this way because of the deep earnestness and ever-recurring interest attaching to the question: "Lord, are there few that be saved?" Let us now take up this passage and mark our Saviour's treatment of this dread question. The questioner here, as I think) was prompted by prurient curiosity, or to evade personal responsibility. This may be inferred from the fact that our Lord did not answer him directly. He heard him, but he answered aside to the others; and always where some good and honest motive is at the bottom of a question propounded to our Lord, he answers to the person. Seeing then that when this man asked this question, "Are there few that be saved?" he turned and gave his answer to the crowd that were about him, I believe that the question was prompted by an evil motive, though the questioner may not have been conscious of it. It is that answer of our Lord Jesus Christ to that question, as set forth in this passage, that I wish to speak very earnestly about. Our Saviour's answer suggests several reflections, each worthy of some notice, in its order. 1. There is an implied rebuke of the questioner. This may be fairly gathered from the answer: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." Does not that seem to suggest to the questioner that there was a much more important matter to which he should be giving his attention? Does not that say to him plainly that his mind is exercised upon the solution of a problem comparatively unimportant, and especially when considered in contrast with this mightier one? The rebuke points with emphatic earnestness to the necessity of giving precedence to a personal matter. "Are you to be one of the saved? Are you to be one of the saved, whether the whole number be few or many? That number, great or small, will not amount to much to you if you are lost." Whatever the number, whatever the comparative status of the number, here is a question of great and personal interest, "Are you to be one of the saved?" This means that each one should settle the question of his personal salvation; that there is no other question comparable to it in urgency and importance. There is nothing superior in obligation. If we are not now saved we might combine all the other matters which excite public interest, from one end of this earth to the other, and the combination means less to us personally than this: "Are we to be of the saved?" 2. Following that thought comes this reflection: In the matter of personal salvation, whatever many scriptures seem to teach, there must be earnest exertion upon our part. No man believes more than I do the doctrine of predestination, the doctrine of the elect, the doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God in salvation, the doctrine that salvation from its inception to its consummation is of God, the doctrine of the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit at the very beginning and throughout the entire course of the Christian life. All of these I believe, without a shadow of reservation. And yet the Bible teaches that man must not sit still; that he occupies no waiting attitude; that he is not to remain in a morally passive state, and if I knew that I had to stand before the judgment bar tomorrow and answer for the orthodoxy, the soundness of the statement 'I now make, I would lift up my voice confidently and say that this lesson shows that in the matter of salvation there must be the most attentive, the most earnest, the most vigorous and the most persistent exertion upon our part. On what word do I found this? I found it on this word "strive." It is our Lord, not I, who turns the questioner from a question of curiosity first to his own case and then to the responsibility of exertion. The Greek word is agonizes. The Milton has a poem, "Samson Agonistes," that is, "Samson the Wrestler." This very good word is employed in the Greek to indicate, not only the kind of preparation and training one must make to be able to wrestle on the arena with a competitor, but the degree and persistence of intense exertion that he actually puts forth in that conflict. He prepares himself for the contest by a regimen of diet. He does not eat the things that enervate. He does not give himself up to dissipation, but by temperance, by self-denial, by practice, by continual exertion, he drills and trains his muscles – the muscles of his fingers, of his hands, of his legs, of his back, of his whole body, and when after the most diligent training the hour comes for the wrestling, then see the exertion that he puts forth! What can equal it? Every muscle is on tension and it is not relaxed for one moment. It is persistent. Some of the most expressive works of art in painting and sculpture exhibit the bulging outlines of the muscles of the athlete. And yet that is the word which our Saviour uses by which to express personal exertion in the matter of salvation. And it is the precise thought that the apostle Paul brings out in his letter to the Hebrews under the image of the race course. In view of the fact that they are surrounded by so great a crowd of witnesses, the competitors are commanded to lay aside every weight and every besetting sin, and to run, and to run with patience the race which is set before them. Evidently our Lord did not employ such terms to express a passive state of mind on the question of personal salvation. Not only this term "strive," but others of like import are employed: "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven." He calls upon us to direct our attention, to call forth all our powers, to concentrate our minds, and to lay hold and to hold on, and to press to its settlement the question of our personal salvation in the sight of God. 3. The third thought is that not all who strive will be saved: "I say unto you, Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able." Here it is of infinite moment to know certainly the ground of this disability. By paraphrase and punctuation we may easily learn. Note this reading. "Do you strive now to enter in at the strait gate, for many shall seek to enter therein later and shall not be able when once the Master of the house is risen up and the door is shut." The thought then is this: That there comes in a limitation as to time; that there is a time to seek and a time when not to seek; that there is a time when seeking has the promise and hope of accomplishment, and there is a time when if one were to put forth all the exertion in the world it would make no difference at all. That certainly is the thought of our Saviour here. It is the keynote of this very lesson. It is Isaiah's emphasis: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near." It is Matthew's emphasis: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works, and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." It is the regnant thought in the parable of the ten virgins. Those five foolish virgins tried to get in, tried hard to get in, and knocked and said, "Lord, Lord, open to us." Then let it be fixed in our minds in what the inability consists. These that did strive and failed, in what did the inability consist? So far as the teaching of this lesson is concerned the inability consisted in striving after it was too late to strive, when no good could be accomplished by it, when the door was shut, when the opportunity was gone. Then they wake up; they are aroused, and with eyes wide open take in at one appalling sight, the eternal importance of the question, feeling that outside is darkness and death and banishment, and that inside is light and life and glory. Realizing at last the great importance of personal salvation they do then seek him, they do try, they do strive, they do knock and pray, but in vain. "Too late; too late; you cannot enter now." 4. Keeping strictly to the lesson, which only presents certain views of this question, and not the fulness of it, I call attention to another feature of our Lord's answer: Enter the strait gate. If one would enter he must try at the right place. Of what avail is it to be concerned about eternity, and what shall it profit if one exert himself from early youth to bended old age, and how much will it count in the solution of the question, that he shall sacrifice any amount of property, if he tries to get in where there is no opening? This part of the subject is brought out very prominently in all the scriptures. People who vainly busy themselves to establish a righteousness by which to enter heaven, they may show a zeal toward God, but it avails nothing if not according to knowledge. They seek to build a tower so high that from its summit they can put their fingers in the crevices of the skies and pull themselves up into the realms of glory. They seek to construct a ladder so long that when its base rests on the earth its summit will touch the skies, and up that ladder, step by step and rung by rung, they fain would climb to glory and to God. But they are never able. Though they rise early, commencing betimes, though they persist in struggling, their ladder is ever too short; their tower does not reach the skies. Their righteousness is spotted, and cannot bear the test, and at that day when they take their seat at the marriage supper of the Lamb, the finger of the bridegroom rests on the guilty shoulder: "Friend, what doest thou here without the wedding garment?" I mean to say that no matter how much one does, how much he exerts himself, what sacrifices he makes, that if he ever tries to enter heaven except by the strait gate he will never enter. Never! How important then to settle the question, "What is meant by the gate?" A gate or door is a means of entrance. What is the door? See the walls of heaven rise up in their impenetrable solidity, and I wish to enter in. What is the door? Where will I find an open place through which I may enter in? Following the language of the figure, this is the answer: Our Saviour says, "I am the door." Whoever seeks to enter heaven, and not through Christ, and not through the atonement of Christ, not through the vicarious expiation of Christ, that man is lost. 5. Let us next inquire what is meant by the door being shut. If Christ is the door what is meant by the inability of people to enter heaven even by Christ? That also we may easily understand. God gives to us here upon earth an opportunity; that opportunity he measures himself. We cannot measure it for ourselves. God measures it out himself. How much there is of it to any particular person only he knows. He may to one school girl give a measure of three weeks. He may to a wicked man give a measure of sixty years, I don't know. It is wholly, absolutely, with him. Herein is divine sovereignty. This much we do know: There is a time in which Christ may be found, and there is a time in which he cannot be found. Because of that I say, "Exert yourselves, seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near." The passages which I have cited show that these people were trying to enter through Christ, but Christ had then withdrawn. Now then plainly, how is the way of life through Christ limited to men? One thing shuts the door, we know, and shuts it forever. If death finds us out of Christ there never will be another opportunity to us. We know that as the tree falls so it lies. One who dies unjust is raised unjust, and all the proceedings of the final judgment are predicated, not on what we do after death, but on what we do in this life. We know that the door is shut then. Our Saviour tells us of a case where it is shut before that time. He says that if one should blaspheme against the Holy Spirit he has committed an eternal sin which hath never forgiveness, neither in this life nor in the life to come, which means that while people are yet alive, before the dissolution of the soul and body they may have that door shut, and that shutting is eternal, and though they may live ever so long after that time, the door is shut and forever shut against them. Rising up early, sitting up late, knocking by day and by night, weeping as Esau wept, they then find no place for repentance. God says about Jezebel, "I gave her space to repent and she repented not." Jesus said to Jerusalem: "And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." 6. There are many that be saved. "Are there few that be saved?" He seems now to answer that question. So far, he has not answered it. He has desired to awaken attention to a more important question. But now, in the last of his words he does give an answer to this question. As if he said, "You ask me if there are few that be saved; I say, Look yonder toward the north, you see them coming; you see many coming. Look south, you see them coming; you see many coming. Look east, look west, look at every point of the compass, and behold them coming as the birds gathered in clouds to the ark. What mighty multitudes are these? And they are coming and entering into the kingdom of God, and they are sitting down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, the multitude, the uncounted and uncountable multitude." 7. Heaven's joy is its company and feast. What image of heaven is here presented? There are two elements of blessedness set forth, so far as this lesson goes. First, the company of heaven, as represented by the words, "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Second, the feast of heaven. There is one long Greek word which is translated by "sit down." It means this: "Recline at the table." They shall recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So that there is presented to us heaven, as to its company and its banquet. Elsewhere he tells us of a great supper in which many are invited, and over and over again is heaven presented in that way. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that is the ruling thought. The rich man here on earth fared sumptuously every day. He had his feast here. Lazarus hungered here. Lazarus died and immediately he was carried up and made to recline at the table with Abraham, for the phrase "in Abraham's bosom," means that in reclining at the table he would be next to Abraham, so that in the posture of eating, his head would touch the bosom of Abraham, as John at the Last Supper reclined on the Lord's bosom. There is the feast of life. The hunger and starvation on the opposite side are presented in the case of the rich man. "Remember that in yonder world you had your feast, your good things. Now you are tormented. In yonder world Lazarus had his evil things, his starvation; now he is filled." Heaven I say, in this lesson, is represented in the two features: its company and a feast, and in that company the light shining on them, the music delighting them and the converse of the good and great and wise and pure and true and noble; we may eat and drink to our fill of things which the soul has been hungering for so long, the bread of life – the water of life. It cannot but be an attraction that a certain place, no matter how difficult of access, has in it the good people of the world, the women that as daughters were true, as wives were true, as mothers were true, as children of God were true, and who lived not for fashion, not for time, but for eternity. Oh, what a grand thing it will be to see that company of women, and the men that have been self-denying, that have not said, "I live for myself, I satisfy my hunger, I foster my pride, I pander to my tastes, I yield to the cravings of my passions"; not them, but the men who have endeavored to do good, to love God, to brighten the world, all of them gathered together in one grand company. O how sweet in the next world to have that association I No evil men or women among them. No man or woman of slimy thought; no man or woman of vile affections. No man or woman but whose soul has been sanctified by the Spirit of God and made spotless and holy. That is a goodly company to join. And then their feast! When the Queen of Sheba, coming from the uttermost parts of the earth, saw Solomon's house that he had built, and the sitting of his servants, their apparel, and the feasts that he had spread for them, she fainted away. There was no more breath in her. She said that the half was never told. But O the servants of God, and the sheen of their apparel, and their banquet, and the richness of it, if we could see it we would fall breathless before the ravishing prospect of the things that God has in reservation for them that come to him. 8. Sorrow and despair. We now come to the last thought of the lesson. When we see people coming from the north and the south and the east and the west and reclining at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, there will also be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Here are two thoughts: First, that the blessedness of the saved will be within the vision of the lost. That is certainly taught in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man was not only penetrated with a sense of his own awful loss and agony; but when he lifted up his eyes he saw Lazarus afar off in Abraham's bosom: "That miserable beggar, in yonder world, I did not count him as the dust of my feet; he had no name on the exchange, he could not even pay for his supper. Oh, to look across the wide and deep and impassable gulf, and to see Lazarus in Abraham's bosom I Does not that double my hell?" This brings home an awful thought. What is it? The most painful thing in this world to an evil soul, is the anguish of seeing other people happy I The evil people in this world are tormented by that sight now. Mark how a man with an envious, jealous disposition will cast his eye sideways at the prosperity of his neighbor! See how it did fill the devil with malice when Job prospered! The righteous have not that feeling, but I say that the unregenerate heart has it, and one of their enduring pangs of anguish will be to look upon the class of people that they now despise, that they call fools, and to see those fools in heaven and glorified, and they, the wise ones of earth, in the depths of dark and endless damnation. How unspeakable the scorn now extended to the simple-minded followers of Jesus Christ! How the eye is haughtily elevated above them! But when you – O proud man, O scorner, O intellectual giant, drawing about yourself the mantle of your exclusiveness – when you see the poor despised people enter heaven, enter light and glory, there will come to you these awful pangs: Weeping and gnashing of teeth. You are cast out! You, that had been a governor, you that had been a senator, you that had been a Congressman, you a banker, you a great man in time; you are cast out into outer darkness, and that one that you despised is in heaven! The weeping expresses grief, the gnashing of teeth expresses both the impotence of ungratified malice, and also of despair. A wolf that has sprung at the throat of a lamb and missed his aim, gazing at his victim, now beyond his reach, will gnash his teeth. That is the impotence of malice, malice unable to reach and glut its vengeance. Then when one has striven and has failed, and sees the sand slipping from under his feet, and the opportunities of recovery gone forever, he gnashes his teeth in despair. Unglutted malice, impotence, and despair – that shall be the pang of the lost. In that hour come certain Pharisees to him, warning him that Herod would kill him. But he told them to tell that fox that he must finish his course before any one could kill him; that Herod was not to be feared because Jerusalem was the place where the prophets perished. Then he pronounced the doom and desolation of Jerusalem and that they should not see him again until they should be prepared to serve him, when all the Jews as a nation should be converted. Then they will say, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." The incident of dining with a Pharisee (Luke 14:1-24) and the lessons growing out of it were very instructive and valuable. The healing of the man with the dropsy and his defense is the first item of interest. The Pharisees were watching him and seeking an occasion to accuse him, but Jesus here anticipated their accusation by raising the question of the lawfulness of healing on the sabbath day, and seeing that he had thus anticipated their objection they held their peace. Then Jesus took the man, healed him, and defended the act by an appeal to their own custom of helping lower animals on the sabbath day. From the occasion comes also the parable of the seats of honor, which shows that the host should designate the relative places of the invited guests and not the guests themselves; or, in a word, this parable teaches that there is no place of conceit in the kingdom of God; that the subjects of the kingdom should be humble and await the call of the Master to promotion. Then follows a second parable growing out of the same occasion, to the end that acts of benevolence should be toward those who are needy, and that those who do them should look to the Lord for the reward which will be bestowed at the resurrection of the just. The third parable growing out of this occasion is the parable of the great supper. This parable shows the vain excuses for not accepting Christ and is one of our Lord's master strokes at the Jews. They are the ones who were bidden first, but their vain excuses provoked the Lord to denounce them and to send out after the poor and needy, and then again to go into the highways and hedges, everywhere and for everybody, that the Lord's house should be filled. But the Jews who had the first chance at the gospel were rejected because they rejected him. In section 92 of the Harmony (Luke 14:25-35) we have an impressive lesson on the cost of discipleship. The renouncing of everything which is most dear to the individual and cross-bearing are the essentials to being a disciple of our Lord. He does not mean here that one must literally hate his earthly relations, but that no earthly, or human relation can come between the disciple and his Lord. It is a figure of speech by which one extreme is counteracted by another. Then in view of such cost of discipleship our Lord gives two parables showing that one should consider well the step when he would enter upon discipleship to him. This section closes with another stroke at the Jews. They had been the salt of the earth, but now, since they had lost their savor, they were fit only for the refuse heaps of the world. 1. What is the relation between the parable of the barren fig tree and the preceding teaching on the necessity of repentance? 2. Explain the meaning of this parable and show its connection with the incident of cursing the barren fig tree and the destruction of Jerusalem. 3. Give an account of the healing in the synagogue (Luke 13:10-17) and the controversy growing out of it. 4. What is the meaning of the two parables, the mustard seed and the leaven? 5. Give an account of Jesus' controversy with the Jews in Solomon's porch. 6. What great and consoling doctrine here is taught by Christ and how is it here set forth? 7. What important question raised in Luke 13:22-35 and why is it important? 8. What can you say of the general interest in this question and the causes for it? 9. In what spirit should we approach the solution of such problems, and with what assurance may we come to them in such a spirit? 10. In what particular does this passage remind us of the Sermon on the Mount? 11. What is the first lesson from this comparison with the Sermon on the Mount, and what is the variant setting of conditions and circumstances? 12. To whom does the "few" of Matthew 7:14 refer and what is the proof? 13. Where do we find and what a true parallel to Luke 13:29? 14. What was the testimony of the prophets on this question, how may we express the whole matter, and what was the testimony of Rev 7:2-17; 21-22? 15. Contrast a Jewish opinion just before Christ was born and a Christian opinion of the present time on this point. 16. When, perhaps, will most of the elect be saved, and what are the conditions then conducive to their salvation? 17. What prompted the questioner here to ask this question and what is the evidence? 18. What is the implied rebuke of the Saviour here? Discuss. 19. What is here taught as to personal exertion in one's salvation? Discuss, 20. Will all who strive to enter be able to do so? Why? Discuss and illustrate. 21. What other limitation here and what is the door? 22. What is meant by the door being shut? Discuss. 23. Then what is our Lord's answer to the question? 24. What image of heaven is here presented? Illustrate. 25. What can you say of the attractions of heaven here pictured? 28. What is the contrast with this condition of the saved as represented in the lost, and what will then constitute the horrors of the lost? Illustrate. 27. What warning came to Jesus just here from certain of the Pharisees, what his reply and why? 28. What sentence did he here pronounce and what great prophecy did he give in this connection? 29. What issue arose when Jesus dined with the Pharisee (Luke 14:1-24), how did Jesus anticipate their objection and how did he defend the act afterward? 30. What is the parable of the seats of honor, and what does it illustrate? 31. What is the second parable growing out of this occasion and what its lesson? 32. What is the parable of the great supper and what in detail does it illustrate? 33. What is our Lord's teaching on discipleship and what is the meaning of his language in this instance? 34. How does our Lord illustrate the caution one should have when he enters upon discipleship to him? 35. What is the meaning and application of Christ's illustration of the salt here? X FIVE : THE LOST SHEEP; THE LOST COIN; THE LOST BOY; THE UNJUST STEWARD; DIVES AND LAZARUS Harmony, pages 123-125 and Luke 15:1-17:10.We are now in the section treating generally of the closing ministry of our Lord in all parts of the Holy Land, but particularly of his Perean ministry. We have already learned what is a parable, etymologically and by usage; we have stated clearly the distinctions in the meaning between the word "parable" and such other words as proverb, allegory, illustration, fable, myth, and legend; we have given the principles of interpreting parables, particularly noting the discrimination between what is important and what is the mere drapery of the illustration, and we have noted the wisdom of our Lord in grouping parables so that the many sides of a great truth or of a complex subject may be shown. It has been my custom, hitherto, particularly when considering our Lord as the great Teacher, to lay special stress on his method of teaching by parables. And to this end I have prepared a large chart showing, in the order of their occurrence and in the setting of their occasion, all of his parables, citing for each the page of the Harmony, the chapter and verse, and the leading thought, or principal lesson. Every Bible student, every Sunday school teacher should have such a chart. (For this chart see The Four Gospels, Volume I of this .) Since there has been so much injudicious and even wild interpretation of the parables, I warn the reader against certain books purporting to expound them, and especially commend certain other books which treat generally of the whole subject in a masterly way and expound each particular parable on sane and profitable lines. And even now I delay the present discussion long enough to urge the reader to put into his library and to master by close study, the books of both Taylor and Trench on the parables. I do not endorse every particular statement, or detail, in either of the books, but on the whole I can commend them most heartily. To those who are more advanced in scholarship and general information, I commend in the same general way Edersheim's discussion of the parables in his really great work The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. What a pity that many young preachers, following the promptings of an unripe judgment, waste their scanty means for purchasing good books, and fill up their few shelves with not only profitless, but poisonous literature. But now to our subject. It would not be difficult to show some connection between these parables and the others closely following in Luke's Gospel, but it is more important just now to note the close connection between the two last parables of this group and the three parables immediately preceding, namely, the lost sheep, or one of a hundred; the lost coin, or one of ten; the lost boy, or one of two. There five parables arise from one occasion, to wit, the censure of the Pharisees on our Lord's receiving sinners, and make an incomparable group, surpassing in value all of the uninspired wisdom of the ancients and the philosophies of all heathen sages since the world began. The first exhibits the attitude of mind toward sinners and his special work in their behalf, of God the Son, who, like a good shepherd, seeks and saves the lost. The second illustrates the part of God the Holy Spirit in the same salvation as a shining light which discovers the lost coin. The third discloses the heart of God, the Father, in receiving the penitent prodigal. The third also exhibits, in an inimitable way, the experience of the sinner himself in passing from death unto life, and all three vividly exhibit heaven's joy at the salvation of the lost, in sharp contrast with earth's scorn and censure. (For detailed explanation of the parable of the prodigal son see author's sermon in Evangelistic Sermons.) It is the purpose of the fourth, that is, the unjust steward, to teach a forward lesson to these saved publicans, viz., as God the 'Son had come down from heaven to seek out and save them; as God the Spirit had shined into their hearts the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of his Son; as God the Father had embraced them coming in their penitence, and, as all the bells of heaven ring out their welcome, so, after salvation, they should offer their service and, the particular lesson is that the wisdom which prompted them as publicans to make provision for the future in time must now be applied to making provision for the future in eternity, else the "children of this world in their generation will be wiser than the children of light in their generation." The reader must not fail to note the mixed audience listening to these parables. The lesson of the unjust steward is indeed addressed primarily to his disciples, that is, mainly to the recently disciplined publicans, but yet in the hearing of the Pharisees, while the warning lesson of Dives and Lazarus is addressed primarily to the Pharisees, but yet in the hearing of the others. It is important to note that both parables have one theme, namely: "How the use or misuse of money in this world affects our status in the world to come, whether in heaven or hell." But we must bear in mind that, while the parables in Luke 16 discuss-service and rewards, we must carefully hedge against the idea of any power in money to purchase heaven or evade hell. I repeat that the three preceding parables in Luke 15 teach us the way of salvation; the parable of the unjust steward, on the other hand, is addressed to saved men to show how their lives as Christians may yet affect their status in heaven. It is a matter of rewards, not salvation. Just so, the parable of Dives and Lazarus does not teach that the rich man was lost because of the wrong use of money, but that being already lost, his misuse of money in time aggravates his status in hell. Apart from salvation and damnation is the question of awards when saved or of aggravated suffering when lost. And as both parables have one theme, so one moral links them together indissolubly. That moral is, "And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail, they [the friends made by it] may receive you into the eternal tabernacles." In the case of both parables the leading thought is that a reasonable mind should provide for the future, and that the use or abuse of what we have in time, whether opportunities, or talents, or money, does in some way affect our status in eternity. Other important things may be taught incidentally; and in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, particularly, other quite important things are certainly so taught but sound principles of interpretation require that first of all there should be due stress on the main point. With these premises in mind we now consider… THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST STEWARDAs has been said, it is addressed primarily to "his disciples," that is, particularly to the publicans recently discipled; that its purpose is to show that after their salvation comes service, with its appointed rewards in glory; that since the publicans, before their conversion, had endeavored to provide for their future on earth, so now as disciples they must with the same foresight, only better directed, provide for an eternal future; that for only a little while on earth they are blessed with opportunities and means of usefulness, and that these are held in trust. How then shall they be transmuted into eternal exchange? This grave question is answered by this illustrative parable. The substance of the story is this: A rich lord, on learning that his steward was wasting the substance entrusted to him, notifies him that he may no longer be steward, and orders him to give an account of his stewardship. This dishonest servant had no illusions, attempted no self-deceptions, but in a candid, practical way, looked the facts and the logic of the situation squarely in the face. He knew that his own books would confirm the accusation against him; that his office was inevitably lost; that there was no defense possible; and that there was no hope of future employment from his lord. He must, therefore, rely wholly on himself. He saw clearly and rejected both of the ordinary alternatives, hard manual labor or beggary. He felt himself unable to dig and was ashamed to beg. What remained then? In some way he must provide for his future. He was as quick to decide what to do as he was clear in his apprehension of the facts. Being only a child of this world, no moral scruples hampered his decision. Moreover, as the time was short he must be as prompt in action as in decision. Having yet the power of attorney that accompanies stewardship, his disposition of his employer's interests would be legal. That point he must safeguard. So he proceeded at once to make friends in another direction by further misuse of his employer's means, according to the saying, "In for a penny, in for a pound," or "One may as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb." Rapidly and separately he approached his lord's debtors and by sharp reduction of the amount due in each case he succeeded in securing the good will and gratitude of each debtor. By that creative faculty, the imagination, he could vividly see each relieved debtor going home, and hear him tell the delighted family all about the kind offers of the friendly steward who sympathized with labor against capital; with the oppressed tenant against the bloated landlord. He argued: "Now, when I am cast out of this office these grateful debtors will receive me into their homes with welcome and hospitality, and so I shall be provided for the rest of my days with shelter and food without the necessity of digging or begging." It is also true that he could hold in terror over these tenants the fact that they had knowingly conspired with him to defraud the landlord, but there is no hint in the parable that he relied upon exciting fear in the tenants, but friendship only. When his lord (not our Lord) heard of this new exploit of rascality, he could not but admire the sagacity and shrewdness with which the cornered steward had escaped from his dilemma and caught upon his feet with catlike dexterity. We must not for a moment suppose that in relating this story our Lord approves either the rascality of the steward or shares the employer's commendation of his shrewdness. He is merely showing how children of this world, without thought of heaven or hell, do from their worldly viewpoint, make shrewd provision for the future in this life and how they apply a shrewdness that wins by any means without technically breaking any human law. He is showing how with practical business sense they are clear in their apprehensions of the facts of a case, quick to decide on a course, prompt to act on their decision, and ready to use all available means to attain their object. The application is that "the children of light" from a higher viewpoint of the future, extending into an eternity of heaven and with higher moral standards, should so wisely use their fleeting wealth as to make it a friend, not an enemy; to make friends by it, who passing ahead into eternal habitations await to greet and welcome them when they arrive. There is a difference between a mere entrance and an abundant entrance. Two ships sail from one harbor and are bound for the same port. Much depends upon skillful seamanship and the prompt use of all available means. Both reach the port of destination. One of them by bad seamanship arrives at last, a battered hulk, masts broken, shrouds riven, cargo damaged, and is towed by a tug into safe anchorage. It is much to get there at all. But the other arrives with every mast standing, every sail filed, freighted to the water's edge with precious cargo, and flags flying. How joyous her welcome! Friends crowd the wharf to greet her coming. Salvos of artillery salute her. So, while salvation is one definite thing for all, the heavenly status of the saved is not one uniform, fixed quantity. In my Nashville, Tennessee address on the death of Spurgeon I gave an illustration of the meaning of the scripture, "Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the everlasting tabernacles." Spurgeon was saved by grace, not money; but he made wise use of his money in building orphanages, almshouses for widows, and his pastoral college. Orphans, widows, preachers were not only beneficiaries of his bounty, but many of them had been led to Christ by him, and others comforted and strengthened by his ministrations. Many of these died before he died, and waiting up there, welcomed him when the Master called him home. THE PARABLE OF DIVES AND LAZARUSThe parable of Dives and Lazarus shows another side of the same picture. It is addressed to the scornful Pharisees who were lovers of money and callous to human suffering, who lived with reference to this world and not at all with reference to the world to come. Keeping in mind first the main thought, that the misuse, or ill use, of money on earth will affect the final status in eternity, we may by a diagram make visible this leading thought, as the words make it audible (diagram on next page). From the upper left hand corner (marked A) is a line to the lower right hand corner (marked C). So from the lower left hand corner (marked B) is a line to the upper right hand corner (marked D). Then two perpendicular lines in the center, inclosing the crossing point of the diagonal lines. The perpendicular space is death; all to the left in this world; all to the right, the eternal world. In this world Dives has the upper place at A, faring sumptuously every day, while Lazarus has the lower place at B) starving with hunger for even the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. In the other world the position of the two is reversed: Lazarus has the upper place (marked D) reclining at the heavenly banquet with Abraham, while the rich man has the lower place (marked C) starving with hunger and burning with thirst. It will be observed that death does not break the continuity of being in either case, nor interrupt the exercise of the senses of the disembodied soul. Both are alive, conscious, sensible (the one to enjoyment, the other to pain), seeing, speaking, hearing, feeling, remembering. It will further be observed that there is no midway stopping place for either after death, but both pass at once to a final place and state; to the one, a place and state of happiness; to the other, a place and state of wretchedness. It will be noted that in this world Lazarus may pass to the rich man and the rich man to Lazarus; not so after death; neither can pass to the other. Here wealth may help poverty and poverty may serve wealth. The rich man may send crumbs to hungry Lazarus. Yonder the opportunity is dead; Lazarus may not bring water to thirsty Dives. It will be more particularly observed that neither Dives nor Lazarus may return to this world for any service to the living; that opportunity is dead. The rich man, conscious that hell's restrictions prevent his own return, pleads that one from heaven may return and bear a message for him. But the one from heaven is not permitted to return. Each has gone to a bourne from which no traveler, except One, has ever returned. If, therefore, we desire to make friends with our money or our service, we must do it in this world or never. If we desire to keep the lost from hell and lead them to salvation we must do it while we are living in the body and they are living in the body. If they die first, from earth we cannot help them by prayer, money, or service. If we die first, we cannot return to help them from either heaven or hell. In either case, so far as we are concerned, "their redemption must be let alone forever." The main thought is that while Dives and Lazarus were both living the rich man had an opportunity by means of the wealth entrusted to his stewardship to make a friend of Lazarus. But failing to use the means, when, at death his wealth failed, he, in his eternal habitation of woe could not have the friendly service of Lazarus. The parable implies that Lazarus was a Christian and the rich man an unconverted Jew, relying upon fleshly descent from Abraham. It does not teach that Lazarus went to heaven because he was poor in this world, but because in this world he prized future good above present good. Nor that Dives went to hell because he was rich in this world, but that he prized present good above future good. This is implied in the words of Abraham: "Son remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things: but now here he is comforted, and thou art in anguish." Each man made deliberate choice. The rich man, according to the saying, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," preferred his good in time and despised eternity; the poor man elected eternal good instead of temporal good, and each reaped according to his sowing. But let us consider more particularly the details of the story. Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate. This fact stops Dives from pleading ignorance of the special case. The opportunity to do good with his wealth was brought home to him who would not seek it. The destitution was real and great. The poverty, hunger, rags, and sores advertised themselves and all pleaded for help, though Lazarus, in the parable, utters no word. It is related that a traveler in Ireland coming upon a diseased, emaciated wretch, ill-clad in dirty rags, silently standing by the wayside, said, "Why are you dumb? Why don't you ask for help?" "Can my mouth," replied the miserable one, "speak louder than my rags and sores and skeleton bones?" Dives was abundantly able to help without impoverishing himself, as even crumbs falling from his table were desired. But he so fully trusted in his wealth he could not conceive that he ever might, himself, be in want. He had no realization that death would strip him of all he possessed and send him bankrupt into eternity. He could not conceive that he ever would be in a situation to desire the help of Lazarus. We can almost hear him saying, "What impertinent busy-body thrust this disgusting nuisance upon my attention? Let every man take care of himself. When I put money out it is to make more money. It is absurd to think that I should ever need, in return, anything that this diseased and helpless beggar could do. I do not care for his friendship or good will. And so let him die – the sooner the better." And the beggar died; the rich man never expected to see or hear of him again. He could not see the angels bearing the disembodied soul to heaven. He could not see heaven's banquet table awaiting the starved pauper. He could not see his place of honor, resting his head on Abraham's bosom as he reclined at the table, even as the head of the beloved John rested on the bosom of his Lord at the Last Supper. "The rich man also died," and, what a revelation! All his wealth gone! Gone all his purple and fine linen, all his obsequious servants! And, oh, this burning thirst, this eternal hunger! With uplifting eyes seeking help he sees the sore-smitten, rag-covered, starving Lazarus of earth, now healed, now in shining apparel whose sheen out-glistens all his fine linen in time, now feasting at a banquet whose viands far surpass his own sumptuous, everyday fare on earth, now resting his head on the heart of glorified Abraham. What a revelation! What a reversal of earth's conditions! What an overthrow of his time confidence that he was a true child of Abraham! But shall he not still think to himself that Abraham is his father? Is he not a Jew and shall not a Jew claim relationship with the father of the Jews? In his torment may he not appeal to his father? HE PRAYSMark where he prays. In hell. Mark to whom he prays. To one of the heavenly saints, Abraham. Mark for what he prays. One drop of water. Mark for whose service he prays. "Send Lazarus." Mark how small a part of Lazarus. "The tip of his finger." These questions thunder: May prayers in hell avail? May prayers to saints avail? Can the thirst of hell be quenched? May the saved in heaven minister to the lost in hell? THE ANSWER"Son" – The fleshly relation acknowledged. "Remember" – So memory survives death. Remember what? The supreme choice of time. "In yonder world you preferred your good things and Lazarus had his evil things." The appeal to reason: "Now here he is comforted and thou there art in anguish." So reason survives death. So time fruits in eternity. So is the law of cause and effect inexorable: "What a man sows that shall he also reap." The answer reveals another law, viz.: One may not invoke the service of friendship where no friend was made. The rich man, wretched in eternity, had no title to the services of Lazarus, whose wretchedness he had ignored in time. The answer reveals a far greater law: Between the saved in heaven and the lost in hell yawns a fixed and impassable gulf. No saint in heaven may pass to hell on a mission of mercy. No lost soul may after death enter heaven. HE PRAYS AGAINMark what he accepts – that his own case is without remedy. "I pray thee therefore Father" – i.e., since no help can come to me. Mark what he remembers: "I have five brothers in yonder world," not yet forever lost. Mark what he implies: It is as if he said, "I am now at last concerned for their future. I am now troubled at the thought of my influence over them. They looked to me as the head of the family. They imbibed my spirit. They endorsed my business maxims. They are following in my footsteps. I hear them coming! They are under my delusions. They are nearing the boundary line of death. I am in great anguish already, but if they come here my anguish will be greater, my hell enlarged. Then, must I eternally remember that my influence dragged them here. Oh, my brothers! My brothers! I cannot myself return to warn them. Hell's restrictions forbid. I am in prison, in everlasting chains." Mark what he prays for: "Send Lazarus to my father's house." Ah! He needs again the friendship and service of Lazarus. Send him for what? "That he may testify unto them; lest they also come into this place of torment." Let us suppose that the testimony was permitted. He comes to the house he so well remembers, the house whose portals were shut against him in time when he was in need. He obtains an audience. "I am Lazarus, who died unpitied and unhelped at your gate. From that very gate angels carried my soul to recline at the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while you were carting off my body and rattling my bones in a pauper's grave. In that glorious place and company we heard a voice from hell, the voice of your brother in torment. That voice said, 'Send Lazarus to my father's house to testify to the reality, certainty, and eternity of the heaven and hell in which they do not believe, and to tell my brothers not to come to this place of torment.' So here I am, risen from the dead, with testimony and message from the eternal world. I testify that I saw your brother lost forever, and bring you his very words." But be was not permitted. The answer: "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." That is, they have light enough. God's written inspired Word is sufficient. Or, as teaches Paul: Every one of these holy writings is God-inspired and is profitable for teaching what one should believe or do, and for convicting one of any error in belief or deed, and for correcting the error of belief or deed, and for training one into right belief or deed that one should be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. What more light is needed? THE of A LOST SOUL "Nay, father Abraham: but if one go to them from the dead, they will repent." Ah! The incorrigible blindness and delusions of the lost! They keep on affirming that they need more light, when what they need is an eye to see the light and a heart to walk in the light. If our God's light be hid, it is hid to them whom the god of this world has blinded. Their condemnation is, that light has come into the world, but they love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. All whose deeds are evil hate the light and shun it. The final answer: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead." This very Moses suffered not a wizard, witch, necromancer, or soothsayer to live, because they taught the people that messages from the dead could be obtained throwing more light on the other world than shines in God's revelation. Isaiah, the most evangelical of the prophets taught: "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? On behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead? To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them" (Isaiah 8:19-20). Now let us impress our minds with a brief restatement of some of its great doctrines, expressed or implied: 1. At death probation ends, character crystallizes, the constant tendency to fixedness of type reaches its consummation. This is evident because in all the Scriptures there is no hint that any man is brought into judgment for speech, thought, or conduct after death. The final judgment is only on "deeds done in the body." But if there were probation after death there must needs be judgment for deeds done out of the body. As the tree falls, so it lies. He that dies just remains just, and he that dies unjust is raised unjust. 2. There is no half-way stopping place between death and the final place of happiness or woe. The banquet feast at which Lazarus reclined, leaning his head on Abraham's bosom, is in "the kingdom of heaven." The tormenting flame into which the rich man was cast was the real and only hell for the soul. The body after the resurrection will go to the same place. It is true that the word in this parable is Hades, not Gehenna. But Hades means only the invisible world where disembodied spirits go, whether good or bad. The idea of hell is not in the word Hades, but in the torment and flame into which the rich man enters, its irretrievable nature and its eternal fixedness. There is no purgatory from which souls may ascend after purification unto heaven, or becoming confirmed in wickedness, pass on to hell. Therefore, all prayers for the dead are without scriptural warrant. Lazarus and Dives each passed at once without a pause to his final home. 3. No saint or sinner after death can return to earth in behalf of or against the living. Going from this world to the next, death is passable; returning from the other world, it is impassable. All attempts through mediums, necromancers, wizards, and witches or spirit-rapping is expressly contrary to God's law and does despite to the sufficiency of God's revelation. 4. We should not pray to the saints, but unto God only. Jesus Christ is the one Mediator between God and man, and we need no human mediator between ourselves and Jesus. He is more approachable, more willing to hear than Mary or Peter or Paul. They are but sinners themselves saved by grace. The stupendous system of Mariolatry is one of the most blasphemous heresies ever propagated by priestcraft. The only prayer to a saint in heaven recorded in the Bible is the prayer of Dives in hell to Abraham, and every request was denied. 5. We should stand upon the impregnable rock of the Holy Scriptures as the sufficient means of light in defining creed and deed. 6. Between the saved and lost, from death to eternity, there is a fixed and impassable gulf. On earth the saved may go to the lost in order to seek their salvation or the lost may hopefully appeal to the saved for help, but after death no saved man can pass over to the lost in any kind of helpful ministration, not even to carry on the tip of one finger a single drop of water to cool the tongue. The parable, as a whole, and in all its parts, stresses the thought: Now, not hereafter, is the day of salvation. 1. Where are we in the discussion of the life of our Lord, generally and particularly? 2. What instruction on parables precedes the discussion at this point? 3. What books are commended on the parables? 4. What parables constitute the group which are discussed in this chapter, what was their occasion, and what is the direct connection of the two last with the preceding ones of the group? 5. What is the purpose of the parable of the unjust steward? 6. To whom was the parable of the unjust steward addressed, to whom the parable of Dives and Lazarus, and what is their common theme? 7. In interpreting these parables what teaching must be hedged against; and what is the moral of both? 8. What question is answered by the parable of the unjust steward? 9. What is the substance of the story? 10. What are the points illustrated by our Lord in this parable as it relates to the children of this world and what is the application? 11. Illustrate the difference between mere entrance and an abundant entrance into heaven. 12. How is this truth illustrated in the life of Spurgeon? 13. Give the diagram showing bow the misuse of money on earth affects the final status in eternity, as illustrated by the parable of Dives and Lazarus. 14. What three observations worthy of note relative to the change wrought by their exit from this world? 15. What changes have been wrought as to possibilities &opportunities each? 16. What does the parable imply, what does it not teach and what the basis of the implication? 17. Show how the opportunity came to Dives in this world, illustrate how he disposed of his responsibility and the reversed state of Dives and Lazarus in eternity. 18. Dives prays, where, to whom, for what, whose service asked, how much, and what four questions arise from this prayer? 19. What is the answer to this prayer and what three laws revealed? 20. What was his second prayer, what does he accept, what does he remember, and what does he imply? 21. What was the answer, what the meaning and application? 22. Show the desperate persistence of a lost soul and what the final answer. 23. What was the teaching of Moses and Isaiah on this very point? 24. What are the great doctrines of this parable expressed or implied? ON Luke 17:1-10 1. Why is it "impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come"? Answer: This arises from the sin of man and the domination of the devil. 2. What is the meaning of "stumbling"? Answer: Sin. 3. What is meant by "little ones" in Luke 17:2? Answer: Young converts. 4. What law of forgiveness is 'here stated? Answer: That we must forgive those who repent of their sins against us. (See author's discussion of this subject in The Four Gospels, Volume I of this . 5. What kind of faith is referred to in Luke 17:6 and what its nature? Answer: Miracle-working faith, which was temporary &passed away with apostolic age. 6. What is the lesson of the parable on unprofitable servants, and what of the Romanist doctrine to the contrary notwithstanding? Answer: The lesson here is that we cannot go beyond God's law in works, and is a strong teaching against the Romanist doctrine of supererogation. XII THE TEN LEPERS; WHEN AND WHERE OF THE KINGDOM; THE PARABLE OF PRAYER FOR JUSTICE Harmony, pages 128-129 and Luke 17:11-18:8.This section commences on page 128 of the Harmony (Luke 17:11-37) and includes three subjects: 1. The healing of the ten lepers 2. The when and the where of the kingdom and the king 3. The parable of the prayer for Justice On the page immediately preceding this section we learn that "Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed thence into the country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and there he tarried with the disciples." That Ephraim is in the northern part of Judea. The first verse of the section says, "And it came to pass, as they were on their way to Jerusalem, that he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee." The question naturally arises: Why did not Jesus, being in Judea, go straight back to Jerusalem, why did he go through Samaria and a part of Galilee, both north of him, in order to get to Jerusalem south of him? The answer is: Jesus in making this last visit to Jerusalem wishes to fall in with the pilgrim throng from Galilee attending the Passover near at hand, and this pilgrim throng would not pass through Samaria to go to Jerusalem, but would cross the Jordan and pass through Perea to Jericho and thence to Jerusalem, the object being to avoid Samaria. The Samaritans were very hostile to all Jews going south to the feasts, but hospitable to them going north, because they claimed that theirs was the true temple in Mount Gerizirn. THE TEN LEPERSIn John 20-21, we have these two passages: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that should be written" (John 21:25); and, "Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name" (John 20:30-31). In other words, the inspiration of God leads each historian to record, not everything that Jesus said and did, but just such things as fall in with his plan and viewpoint, leaving the combined histories to show a larger plan. Therefore, when we come to consider this healing of the ten lepers we first compare it with the passage on page 31 (Matthew 8:2-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16) of the Harmony, where Matthew, Mark, and Luke give an account of the healing of one leper in the early Galilean ministry. I have already discussed all the general features of leprosy, so it remains now to consider only the distinguishing features of the two passages, which are these: There, on page 31 of the Harmony, only one leper is healed, and here ten. There, the leper was near at hand and was healed by a touch; here the ten lepers are afar off, in speaking distance however, and are healed by a word. There, the healing of one leper was instantaneous; as soon as Christ touched him he was healed. Here the healing of the ten lepers is as they were going away obeying what he told them to do. There, the healer enjoins silence on the healed because he didn't want to spring prematurely on the unbelieving Jews the claims of his messiahship lest their hostility should hinder the laying of the foundations of his kingdom and the preparation of his disciples. But here no silence is enjoined. Apart from these distinctions of the two lessons, we now note these special things: 1. Leprosy, as it outlaws a Jew, unites him in association with the Samaritan. One of these ten was a Samaritan. On account of the religious jealousies, only a great calamity upon all could associate them. We often see in life that the people who scratch and fight in the days of prosperity become bedfellows in the day of adversity. 2. One reason for recording a second healing of lepers is to show the exceptional gratitude of one of the recipients of the divine mercy. Jesus healed all the ten. One of them, feeling himself to be healed, rushed back and prostrated himself at the feet of Jesus and returned thanks and glorified God. Hence comes the great text from which many preach: "Where are the nine?" Ten were healed. Only one is grateful, which leads to another reason. 3. Both the judgments and mercies of God are given to lead to salvation. Paul says that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance. Now only one out of the ten who received this goodness, physical healing, was led to spiritual healing, and that one was a Samaritan. Nine Jews, one Samaritan. The one, following the leading of the divine mercy, is saved – saved spiritually as he had been saved physically. The nine were saved physically, but no hint of their spiritual salvation is given. When any great trouble or any great blessing comes upon us we should stop right there and ask ourselves the question, What is the shortest road from this trouble or blessing to God? What did he mean by it, to me? He meant good of some kind. He always means good. But some people both judgments and mercies harden. Leprosy was regarded as a special divine judgment, and its healing a divine mercy. Therefore, both the affliction and its cure should turn the mind toward God. In order that we may get vividly before us the fearful nature of leprosy and the blessedness of its cure, we should study the case of Job. His affliction was leprosy. The account in Ben Hur of Christ's healing his leprous mother and sister, and N. P. Willis' great poem on the healing of the leper are worthy of note. THE WHEN AND THE WHERE OF THE KINGDOMThis part of our discussion is given by Luke alone (Luke 17:20-37). In the beginning of the paragraph the Pharisees ask, "When is the kingdom of God?" At the close the disciples ask, "Where, Lord?" So that this paragraph is an answer to two questions, "When" and "Where?" If we turn to our Lord's great prophecy on page 160 (Matthew 24:1-51; Mark 13:1-37; Luke 21:5-36), we find a similar question, last part of the third verse in Matthew and corresponding places in Mark and Luke: "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Mark says, "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when these things are all about to be accomplished?" And Luke puts it: "Teacher, when therefore shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when these things are about to come to pass?" Again, on page 229 (Luke 24:44-49; Acts 1:3-8; 1 Corinthians 15:7) of the Harmony, near the bottom, Acts 1:6 f, "They therefore, when they were come together, asked him, saying, Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority." So, that first question is, When? It is the most natural question that comes to the mind. Jesus is talking about the judgment, about his final coming. They say, "When, Lord? Will it probably be tomorrow, or next week, or next year?" In both ancient and modern times experts have not been wanting to answer that question, When? But notice that Jesus does not answer it. So we, when we preach, may safely imitate our Lord. I heard an old Negro preacher say to an ambitious young Negro preacher, "My young brother, don't you be cocksure about the time the Lord is going to come." The Lord himself said that the angels in heaven did not know it, that no man knew it, not even the Son of man, Jesus himself, as far as his humanity was concerned. Of course, he knew it in his divinity. The Pharisees asked when the kingdom of God should come. Now notice how he replies to questions of that kind. He says, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, there! for, lo, the kingdom of God is within you." To Pilate he said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Paul says that the kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. In other words, instead of being curious as to dates, we should be concerned as to the spiritual nature of the kingdom, and our preparedness for it. There was a kingdom set up and it was a visible kingdom, but the spiritual nature of the kingdom should concern us, and our preparedness for it, far more than to know the date. Keeping in mind the question asked by the Pharisees, he then turns to the disciples and begins to talk about the final coming of the Lord: "The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it." In other words, many sad things must intervene. "You will be discouraged at the delay of your vindication. You will be outcasts, persecuted, put to death, so that the souls of the saints under the altar will be crying out, 'How long, Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?' " So his answer here and elsewhere puts the When a long way off. Likewise as to the place, in answering the question, Where? Pay no attention to men's "Lo, here, and Lo, there." The Millerites in the United States were wiser than the Lord. They appointed a date for the Lord to come and a place from which they were to ascend to heaven. He warns against such folly. When that day comes, it will advertise itself. As a flash of lightning from one end of heaven to the other, in a moment of time, so will be the coming of the Son of man. There will be no need of human heralds to say, "Lo, here, and Lo, there." Here and elsewhere many times, the New Testament teaches and warns that the necessary intervening things must precede his coming. Here he says, "But first must he suffer many things and be rejected of this generation." In this great discourse on this subject, to be considered later, he warns: "The end is not yet . . . famines and earthquakes . . . are the beginning of travail." Paul, in the letter to the Thessalonians, rebukes them for expecting the advent to come right away. He says that it cannot be until first the great apostasy comes, and the revelation of the man of sin. In other words, it comes at an appointed time. It is not true that the final advent and general judgment may come tomorrow or next day – that it is always imminent. Likewise, Peter explains the delay of the coming of the Son of man when they were saying, "Where is the promise of his coming?" i.e., "He said he was coming quickly and he has not come." He explains that God's delay is in order to the salvation of the lost; that we must reckon that the long delay of his coming meaneth salvation, i.e., he delays his final advent in order to save men, for after he comes nobody will be saved. This section does teach, however, that the coming will be sudden and that the wicked will be unprepared. It will be as in the days of Noah. Noah for 120 years had been preaching righteousness and telling them the flood was coming; at first, he may have attracted some attention, but after awhile they got to laughing at him, doubtless joked the old man for spending all that money building that huge old tub of a ship, and on the very last day the sun was shining as brightly as it ever shone, the wedding bells were ringing, people were marrying and giving in marriage, eating and drinking. The likeness of his advent to the days of Noah does not consist in the relative number of the saved and lost. Our passage does not mean that as there were only eight people saved at the deluge, so only a few Christians will be on the earth at the coming of Christ, as some premillennialists insist on preaching, but the likeness is in the suddenness of the event and in the unpreparedness of the wicked. Similarly he compares the advent on these points, with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, a preacher of righteousness, was vexed in his soul at their wickedness. They did not repent and reform, so the very day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and those cities were buried under the Dead Sea. So, to the unprepared wicked the advent will be sudden. The great point of the passage is that there will be no chance to get ready after the coming. A man on the housetop has no time to go back into the house to get anything. If he is out in the field he cannot go back home. Whereover a man may be or in what engaged (he may be asleep; he may be traveling), when that great shout and the sound of the trumpet come, the preparation is ended forever. This scripture teaches clearly that it will be a time of separation – very unexpected and startling separation. The very day that Christ comes two women will be grinding at a mill, one will be taken and the other left; two men will be in the field, plowing, grubbing, or harvesting, and in one flash of the eye one will be translated and caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord, and the other will be left. Nothing that has ever happened on this earth will equal the suddenness and sharpness of this separation: "When the Son of man shall come . . . he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats." The father may be placed on the left, and the mother on the right; the daughter on the left, and the son on the right. Now comes the disciples' question, Where, Lord? "When he comes, to what place is he coming?" Man's questions are, “ When is it? Where is it?” As he answered the “ When,” so here, the Where: "Where the body is, thither will the eagles also be gathered together." He will not tell whether the place be Jerusalem or London or New York or Texas, but "wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered." THE WIDOWThis is a lesson on prayer. If the reader will take the Harmony and go through it on the subject of prayer, first, as to Christ praying, and what he prayed for; second, Christ's lessons on prayer, what he taught concerning it, he will be wonderfully impressed by these prayers of Jesus. Here are two of his prayer lessons. The first connects right back with his advent-teaching just discussed, that is, the relation of the prayers of his people to their vindication at his advent. Because of this connection we must not construe the words, "Men ought always to pray, and not to faint," as being equal to Paul's exhortation, "Praying without ceasing." Paul gives an exhortation concerning prayer in general, but this parable refers to praying for one particular thing. The idea here is that Christians ought to keep on praying that Jesus would vindicate them, avenge them on their adversaries and not become discouraged at his long delay. This idea he illustrates by a story of how one on earth, persisted in her plea for justice, before a human court, until her wrongs were righted. Her persistence until successful under far more unfavorable conditions than those surrounding a Christian, constitutes the point of the story. The judge before whom she pleads is far less approachable, far less disposed to hear, than the Judge to whom the Christian prays for vindication. The argument is, that by just so much as our Judge is better than the woman's judge, on all the points of contrast, by just that much the Christian should be encouraged to pray in faith, and to keep on praying, nothing doubting. But though this argument makes it certain that God will at last avenge the wrongs of his people, yet as faith in long deferred vengeance is difficult to impatient people, will the Lord at his coming find that faith on earth? In general this is the idea of the parable. But let us note somewhat in detail the points of contrast between the human and the divine Judge. In both cases it is the office of the judge to right wrongs, to dispense justice. The Mosaic law sternly requires every judge to acquit the innocent and condemn the guilty and particularly enjoins him to protect the widow and the orphan from oppression. But this judge was unjust. The plea for justice did not move him. This judge cared nothing for widows. He was not concerned to protect the helpless. Usually the fear of God hereafter influences men to do right in time. But this man feared not God. He was an atheist. Usually deference to public opinion somewhat constrains men to do right. But this judge "regarded not man." The case seemed hopeless. But the woman kept on crying out: "Avenge me of my adversary." Every day she appeared in the court and renewed her plea: "I am a widow. I have been wronged. You are the judge. Avenge me of my adversary." Perhaps she waylaid him on the streets or followed him home and stood under his window, if the door was shut in her face, all the time, everywhere crying out, "Avenge me of my adversary," and so at last she found the one and only way to reach him. He loved himself and his ease, or feared danger to his person from a desperate woman, and therefore righted her wrongs. But God is just; God loves his people. They are his elect. God has promised to right their wrongs. Therefore, shall not God avenge his own elect who continually, day and night, pray unto him, though he delay long to avenge? He will avenge them speedily, though not as we count speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh to avenge them, so long has he delayed to come, and so impatient are they, and so sick from hope deferred, will he find that faith on the earth? Not, Will he find faith on earth, but that faith, faith in his speedy vengeance on their enemies, not saving faith in Christ. Indeed, not even faith that he will ultimately avenge them, but faith in his speedy vengeance, ten pistin, "that faith." The article has all the force of a demonstrative pronoun. It designates a particular kind of faith. The difficulty in the way of exercising that particular faith lies in the two ways of understanding "speedily." He promised to come quickly. But men construe the "speedily" and "quickly" from their idea of the meaning of the words. But God construes them from his idea of the meaning. With him a thousand years are as one day. So when he said, "speedily" and "quickly," though eighteen centuries have passed away, that is less than two of our days to him. Bulwer, in his drama of Richelieu, represents that great cardinal as scornful of future judgments, to whom Annie of Austria replies: "The Almighty, my lord cardinal, does not pay every week, but at last He pays." The German poet, Von Logau, well says: The mills of God grind slowly, But they grind exceeding small. Though with patience He stands waiting With exactness grinds He all. All our premillennial friends should restudy on the "quickly” Peter’ s great argument on this point (2 Peter 3), and no longer allow their misconception of Luk 7:26; Luke 18:8 to fill them with pessimistic views concerning the progress of the kingdom and the fewness of Christians on earth at the coming of our Lord. 1. Why did Jesus go through Samaria and Galilee, which were north of him, on his way to Jerusalem? 2. What was the cause of the hostility of the Samaritans toward the Jews? 3. What two passages in John bearing on inspiration, and the individual plan and viewpoint of the several historians? 4. What did inspiration lead each historian to record? 5. What method, therefore, is adopted in the study of the healing of ten lepers? 6. What are the distinguishing features of the healing of the one leper and the healing of the ten? 7. What three special things noted? 8. What great text for a sermon in this connection and what is the point of application? 9. How was leprosy and its healing regarded in that day? 10. What Old Testament case of leprosy cited and what are the points of its illustration? 11. In what country was leprosy most prevalent? 12. What two instances of the healing of leprosy in current literature cited? 13. What two questions does Luke 17:20-37 answer? 14. What were the similar questions which brought forth "the great prophecy" of our Lord? 15. What similar question just before our Lord's ascension and what was his answer? 16. How does Christ answer the question, "When the kingdom of God"? 17. What should be our principal concern as to the kingdom? 18. What statement of our Lord here puts the when a long way off, and what does it mean? 19. What illustration given of the foolishness of appointing the date and place of our Lord's coming? 20. What of the warning of Christ against such folly? 21. According to Christ, what must first take place? 22. According to Paul, what? 23. What was Peter's explanation of our Lord's delay? 24. What two Old Testament illustrations cited by our Lord? 25. In what does the likeness of the coming of our Lord to the days of Noah consist, negatively and positively? 26. What of the likeness to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? 27. What is the great point of the passage? 28. What illustrations given by our Lord of the startling separations that will take place at his coming? 29. What was Christ's answer to the question, "Where"? 30. What is the lesson of the parable of the importunate widow and how does it connect back with his advent teaching? 31. What is the principal idea in this parable? 32. Repeat the story of the widow and the judge. What is the point of the story? 33. What is the argument of the parable? 34. What is the relation of this argument to faith? 35. What are the points of contrast between the human and divine Judge? 36. What faith is mentioned in this parable and what is the difficulty in exercising it? 37. What is the meaning of "avenge them speedily"? 38. What is Bulwer's illustration of this? 39. What is Von Logau's? 40. What misconception of Luk 17:26; Luke 18:8 here cited and what u the result of such interpretation? XIII PARABLE OF THE AND THE ; THE LAW OF , AND DIVORCE; THE CASE OF THE LITTLE Harmony, pages 129-131 and Luke 18:9-17; Matthew 19:1-15; Mark 10:1-16.Our last section closed with the prayer for vengeance or justice, called the prayer of the importunate widow. Over against that we have a prayer for mercy, not for justice. Nothing in any language, in so short a space, conveys such clear ideas of prayer as this parable, both negatively and positively – negatively, in that the prayer offered by the Pharisee is not prayer at all. Let us see if we can find any petition in it: "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." No petition there. "I fast twice in the week." No prayer there. Neither in form nor in spirit is that a petition. Truly does the text say, "And prayed thus with himself." He is simply congratulating himself upon his superiority over other people and his absolute need of nothing. The other prayer, how different! "Standing afar off"; he does not feel that he can come close to God. "Would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven." There is utter absence of presumption, "but smote his breast," as if there in his heart was the seat of his trouble, "saying [now we come to the prayer], God, be merciful to me the sinner." How few the words, how expressive each word and how more expressive the conjunction of the words! "Ho theos, hilastheti mm toi hamartolm," "God, be propitious to me the sinner." Mark the elements of this great prayer: First, there is an evidence of contrition for sin. The Holy Spirit had convicted him of sin, and now he exercises contrition. In receiving members into the church I often put this question to them, "Did you ever realize that you were a sinner?" I had one man to answer me by saying he never did feel like he was a sinner. Then I asked him what need he had for a Saviour. The second element is humility. The parable has this application: "Every one that exalteth himself [as that Pharisee did], shall be humbled, but he that humbleth himself [as that publican], shall be exalted." So that the second element of power in this prayer is the deep humility. He did not trust in himself that he was righteous. He did not despise others. The third element is the sense of helplessness. He comes for something that he can't secure by tithing or fasting. He stands there contrite, humble, helpless. The fourth element of his prayer is the earnestness manifested in going right to the heart of the matter in the fewest words. There is not only the absence of anything perfunctory in this petition, but there is directness and earnestness. When I was studying Latin my teacher called my attention to this distinction between the Latin language and the English, viz., that the Latin language always puts the main word first, and the illustration used was this: We say in English, "Give me fruit," and the Latin says, "Fructum do mihi," "Fruit give to me." So this prayer gets at the very heart of the matter with a directness and simplicity that has never been surpassed and seldom, if ever, equalled. The fifth element that we note is that it is a prayer of faith, evidenced by the word employed, hilastheti in the Greek. The hilasterion is the mercy seat where the atonement is made and hence asking God to be propitious is exactly the same as saying, "God be merciful to me through a sacrifice; be propitious to me through the atonement." That shows it to be a clear case of faith, which is further evidenced by the result: This man went down to his house justified and not the other. We are justified by faith. We do not get to justification except through faith. God's mercy has appointed a propitiation for sin and with that propitiatory sacrifice atonement was made on the mercy seat. So the one word hilastheti expresses every thought in the "be propitious to me through the atonement," and hence it is the prayer of faith, and justification follows it. THE LAW OF DIVORCE AND The next section of this discussion gives us Christ's teaching concerning divorce, and also concerning the expediency of not marrying. There are two elements in the discussion: The lesson on divorce, if one be married, and the lesson on the expediency of not getting married if one be single. The heart of the lesson is presented in the following language: "Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh?" (Matthew 19:4 f). Now, that is the great law of marriage as instituted by the Father himself when he created the world, when he first made man, when he himself performed the first marriage ceremony. That constitutes the law of marriage. "They twain, saith he, shall become one flesh" (1 Corinthians 6:16). It contemplates such a complete unity that there is in it no idea even of separation. That being the law in the beginning, the question comes up, Why did Moses, an inspired man, allow in his legislation divorce for a number of causes? Jesus says that on account of their hardness of heart Moses did that. In other words, they had been slaves for a long time, just as the Negroes have been here in the South. What low ideas of marriage those slaves had and have yet! These Israelites were but little prepared for the enforcement of a high moral standard. The original law was not changed nor its high ideal standard withdrawn. Whatever evil custom his people had adopted from heathen nations, such as divorce, polygamy and slavery, which were rooted too deep for immediate and complete eradication, these he modifies in his practical legislation, softening their asperities, restricting their evil, while always upholding in theory a pure, ideal standard, whose principles ever tend to eliminate the evil altogether. Moses prescribed no law on divorce, slavery, or polygamy that did not ameliorate the evils of these deep-rooted customs. And we must distinquish between the moral law inculcated by Moses and his civic regulations. The moral law standard was never lowered. It was absolutely perfect. But he was also the head of a nation, a political entity, and must needs legislate on civil, criminal, sanitary, and other matters. This legislation was as high in its moral tone as they were able to bear. He did not proscribe divorce, but mitigated its existing evils. Men already were putting away their wives. He regulated the evil by requiring a bill of divorcement, which was some protection to the divorced and their children. On account of their hardness of heart and unpreparedness for better things he suffered them to retain the custom of divorce for the time being, while all the time teaching moral principles that tended to the utter eradication of the evil. A critical examination of the Mosaic civil and criminal law makes evident to an unprejudiced mind that all his statutes on existing social evils elevated the standard far above the prevalent custom, and never lowered it. If he suffered divorce while hedging against its evils, he did not approve it. But when the question was put to our Lord, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause" he promptly set forth the primal law of marriage for all men; for man, as man, in the creation, long anterior to Moses and the civil law of the Jews. Instead of its being lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause, be acknowledged only one justifiable cause, viz., infidelity to the marriage vow. The husband alone had title to the body of the wife and the wife alone to the body of the husband. An offense against this authority justified absolute divorce, for thereby was the unity of "one flesh" broken. But even this did not operate ipso facto. The one wronged might forgive and not legally plead the offense. It is always lawful to forgive, as God, married to his people, oftentimes does forgive spiritual adultery. These two spheres of law, civil and moral, together with the prevalence of social customs, cause, for Christian people, many vexations and hard problems. Our missionaries today in heathen lands confront these problems, in dealing with new converts. Paul confronted them in the heathen city of Corinth in his day. Many slaves, many from the dregs of society, many polygamists, many liars, thieves, and murderers were converted, many with loose ideas of purity and of family sanctity. He could not regulate the state, but what should the church do? What must be the stand of preachers and churches in relation to members of the church in matters of discipline? On these problems the letters to the Corinthians constitute a mine of instruction. It was there that a new question came to the front, a question not of absolute divorce, but of legal separation. Suppose a heathen man becomes a Christian and his wife on that account leaves him? Or, because the wife becomes a Christian her husband abandons her? Paul's reply is: "If the unbelieving departeth, let him depart: the brother or sister is not in bondage [rather, enslaved] in such cases" (1 Corinthians 7:15). Here arises a question of interpretation upon which Christian theologians differ, and even the discipline of churches differ. The question is, Do Paul's words fairly teach that abandonment of the other, by husband or wife, justifies absolute divorce or merely separation a mensa et toro? And if it justifies absolute divorce, then since abandonment may be "for every cause," does not this interpretation put Paul in direct conflict with our Lord,, who justifies divorce for only one cause? Even if one insists on limiting Paul's words to the one course of abandonment on religious grounds, it yet makes two justifiable grounds of absolute divorce, whereas our Lord taught but one. The author believes that Paul's words, "is not in bondage in such case," mean only, "is not in bondage" to so much of the marriage bond as the abandonment necessarily renders impracticable. That is, is not in bondage to live with, to provide for, and like things. But in 1 Corinthians 7:11 Paul settles the question by quoting our Lord to the effect that cases of abandonment do not permit remarriage. This seems further evident from Paul's later statement in the same connection: "A wife is bound for so long a time as her husband liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 7:39). This reaffirms the primal law limited only by our Lord's one exception (see Matt. 19). We must also note the difference in Paul's words. In 1 Corinthians 7:15 the word is "enslaved," but in 1 Corinthians 7:30 the word is "bound." To sum up: 1. Death breaks the marriage bond and leaves the survivor free to marry. 2. Divorce on the ground of adultery leaves the innocent party free to marry. 3. Abandonment frees the abandoned one from so many of the marital duties as it necessarily renders impracticable, but confers no privileges. Therefore, there may be separation a mensa et thora on other grounds than adultery, but no privilege of remarriage. I urge, with insistent emphasis, on the reader, particularly the preacher, to immediately supply himself with Dr. Alvah Hovey's little book, The Law of Divorce, because the divorce question is much to the front. When I conducted the "Query Column" of the Baptist Standard, more queries on divorce came to me than on all other matters put together. It is so now in letters asking for advice. The civil divorce mill is grinding day and night. Divorces are granted by the courts for almost every cause. The sanctity of the family is continually violated and children put to open shame by their parents and by the law. The public conscience on marriage and purity in this country is debauched to the ancient heathen level, and in some respects below it, and even below the mating of the brutes which perish. The churches all over the land are staggered with the perplexing problems of discipline and in fear of libel laws. Three imperative duties devolve upon us: 1. We must as citizens seek to reform the civil divorce laws. 2. We must as churches maintain a Christ standard on the reception of members and on discipline. No matter what the complications or hardships in a given case, the church suffers more in receiving or retaining them than it gains by their membership. Their membership gags the pulpit, and commends the example of sin to the young. 3. We must as preachers refuse to officiate at marriages which violate divine law. In addition to the more vital matters just considered it may not be amiss before we leave the subject of marriage to call your attention to the import of these words of our Lord: "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife." We generally construe it the other way: The bride must leave her father and mother and cleave unto her husband. If we put emphasis upon the "his" it would mean that it is better for the groom to live with his father-in-law than to take his bride to his father's home. The reasons would be obvious. The wife's life being indoors and the husband's outdoors, it would entail greater hardship on her to live with his mother than for him to live with her mother. He would not be, in his outdoor field, subordinate to her mother; but her sphere, being indoors, would make her subordinate to his mother. But doubtless the meaning is that both bridegroom and bride, having now become a family unit, should each leave the old home and strike out together for themselves. Neither marries the family of the other. Both want a home of their own in which no outsider is boss. They must be free to live their own life, unhampered by each other's relatives. Living with her father reflects on his manhood. Living with his mother breaks her heart. If marriage means to her only subordination to somebody's mother, naturally she would prefer her own. Let them visit occasionally each other's family, but not dwell; and let not the parents of either side interfere. Let the reader particularly note that while nearly all the scriptures on this subject speak of the man's putting away his wife, yet Mark 10:12 expressly applies the law to a woman's putting away her husband. So Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, applies it to both parties. Because of the importance of the subject, we must take time to expound one other word, "fornication." Some expositors contend that this term can refer only to unchastity before marriage, therefore no offense after marriage justifies divorce. The position is wholly untenable on three grounds: 1. The Greek word porneia is a general term, not limited to unchastity before marriage. This is the verdict of most scholars. This abundantly appears from classical, biblical, and later usage by great scholars. The term is applied to married people in the noted case in-1 Corinthians 5:1 ff. The corresponding Hebrew word is always employed figuratively to denote Israel's unfaithfulness to Jehovah, her husband. Dr. John A. Broadus, one of the greatest Greek scholars in American history, cites Amos 7:17; Ezekiel 23:5; Numbers 5:19 f; Hosea 3:3, and many passages from great Greek scholars and theologians, including Dion, Cassius, Chrysostom, Origen, and notes that the Peshito Syriac translates this very passage by "adultery." The reason for the general term is to include un chastity during betrothal, as well as adultery after marriage is consummated. (See supposed case in Matthew 1:18-19.) 2. The limitation of the meaning to unchastity before marriage would give most married women and multitudes of married men a scriptural ground for divorce. Divorces would be disastrously multiplied. 3. The limitation is absurd, opposed to sound principles of common sense and law. Nations hold each other responsible for violations of treaties after they are made, not before. Married people cannot reasonably dissolve the bonds of marriage for offenses before the marriage or the engagement to marry. Contracts do not bind before made or the pledge to make. Here it is important to note what the disciples said: "If the case of a man is so with his wife, it is not expedient to marry." What does this mean? It means, if marriage is so binding as our Lord had just stated, if only one extreme offense justifies divorce, then it is not expedient to marry at all. The "so" refers directly back to Christ's statement of the binding power of marriage on both man and wife. Many commentators attach a delicate meaning to the word "so" and interpret it as if it read: "If the case be so with a single man, it is not expedient for him to marry." But there is nothing in their statement touching single men. They say, rather: "If the case of the man is so with his wife [i.e., as Christ has just declared], then marriage at all is inexpedient." To them this was one of Christ's "hard sayings." In other words, they thought his teaching here, as at other times, put a man in too tight a place. This shows that the disciples shared the general Jewish view that a man might put away his wife for every cause, otherwise marriage was not desirable; concubinage would be preferable. That this is the meaning of their statement further appears from the "but" with which Jesus commences to refute their statements. "But" indicates opposition to the preceding clause. Instead of citing instances of inexpediency to confirm and illustrate their general statement, he cites certain exceptional cases to which alone their inexpediency would apply. In effect affirming that in all ordinary cases men and women ought to marry, notwithstanding the stringency of the marriage bond. We come then to these exceptional cases where marriage is inexpedient: 1. Natural disqualifications, whether congenital or from violence or from accident. This would include physical and mental cases, or those subject to grave hereditary diseases. 2. Voluntary, but temporary, abstinence from marriage in view of "a present distress" of any great character, as that of which Paul speaks. 3. Certain widows and widowers might find it inexpedient to remarry (others had better remarry). 4. Voluntary and permanent abstinence from marriage on the part of certain people in order to special concentration in the service in the kingdom of God. But, as our Lord declares, this saying is only for those who are able to receive it. The cases are rare, special, exceptional. The rule is the other way. Man's original commission required marriage. "Marriage is honorable in all" and "Forbidding to marry" a mark of the great apostasy. Any church law forbidding the marriage of its preachers outrages both the precept and example of the New Testament. All of the apostles, except Paul, were married men, and it is quite probable from a passage in 1 Corinthians 7 that he was a widower, not choosing to remarry. The law concerning church officers contemplates the bishop or pastor as a married man and father of a family. An unmarried pastor is greatly handicapped, and, indeed, only very prudent bachelors or widowers can safely be pastors. We now pass from celibacy to consider one of the most touching and instructive incidents in the life of our Lord, the case of his praying for… LITTLE What a pity that this impressive, heart-moving story was ever wrested from its truly great lessons and marred by being irreverently dragged into the baptismal controversy. It has nothing whatever to say or suggest about baptism. These children were certainly not brought to our Lord that he might baptize them, for our Lord himself personally baptized nobody. Nor, that being the purpose of their being brought, would the disciples have forbidden their coming if they had been accustomed to baptize children. The purpose of being brought is expressly stated: That he should touch them, lay his hands on them, and pray. What he did is expressly stated: He called them unto him, took them in his arms, blessed them, laying his hands upon them. But the defenders of infant baptism who employ this passage in defense of their view, say our Lord said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven," and quote his words on another occasion: "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." They interpret these passages to mean that little children, in their natural state, are free from sin, equal to converted adults and therefore possess the spiritual qualifications for baptism. But this denies their own doctrine of depravity, as set forth in their confessions, and denies their avowed purpose for baptizing infants, namely, to cleanse them from sin, regenerate them, and make them children of God and members of the kingdom. Their prescribed rituals for baptizing infants makes this very clear. Indeed, church history abundantly shows that it was the doctrine of baptismal regeneration that led to infant baptism. If until today there had been no infant baptism, and tomorrow for the first time baptismal regeneration should be widely received, then inevitably would follow infant baptism. "Such" in the passage, "Of such," expresses likeness rather than identity. Here it cannot mean identity. It would be absurd to say, "Of little children is the kingdom of heaven." The true lesson of the touching passage is that the imperfectly developed disciples considered those children too young and too unimportant to be thrust upon the attention of the Saviour engaged in great matters about grown people. Our Saviour promptly rebuked their error. Children, because more docile, more trustful, less bound by evil habits, less absorbed in business or other cares are more susceptible to religious impressions than adults. Prayer takes hold on them more powerfully. We should pray for them before born and when in their cradles, as well as later. We should welcome, not distrust, their interest in the Lord. The mothers did well to bring them in touch with Christ and seek his prayers in their behalf. No one of the little ones could ever forget, "The Lord noticed me. He called me to him. He took me in his arms. He prayed for me. He laid his hands on me and blessed me." 1. What contrast in the parable of the Pharisee and publican and the parable of the importunate widow? 2. To whom was the parable of the Pharisee and publican addressed? 3. What do the Pharisee and the publican each illustrate respectively concerning prayer? 4. What was the petition of the Pharisee? 5. What was the petition of the publican? 6. What was the contrast between it and the prayer of the Pharisee? 7. What are the elements of this prayer? 8. What is the literal translation of this prayer? 9. What is the bearing on justification? 10. What are the two elements in the discussion on marriage and divorce? 11. What is the primal law of marriage? 12. Then why did Moses allow divorce for a number of causes? 13. How did Moses adapt his law to the social evils of his time, and which of the elements of the Sinaitic covenant was thus adapted to their conditions? 14. What one cause alone for divorce did Christ recognize? 15. Did this law operate ipso factor Why? 16. What are the perplexing problems relative to this question? 17. What letters furnish much light on these questions? 18. What new question arises in these letters? 19. What was Paul's reply to this question? 20. What question of interpretation arises here? 21. What is the author's interpretation of Paul's language on this point and what is his proof? 22. Give a summary of this teaching. 23. What book is commended on this subject? 24. What is the present status of things relating to marriage and divorce? 25. What three imperative duties devolve upon us? 26. What is the import of Christ's words in Matthew 19:4-5? 27. What one scripture applies to the law of the woman's putting away her husband? 28. What is the meaning of "fornication"? 29. What false theory is mentioned and what are the three arguments against it? 30. What is the meaning of the language of the disciples in Matthew 19:10? 31. What was Christ's reply and what did he mean? 32. What are the exceptional cases where marriage is inexpedient? 33. What was the original commission of man and under what limitation was he placed with respect to it? 34. What do you think of the doctrine of celibacy for the ministry? 35. Did Jesus baptize the children and why your answer? 36. What is the argument of the defenders of infant baptism and what is the reply? 37. What is the relation of infant baptism to baptismal regeneration? 38. What is the meaning of the phrase, "Of such"? 39. What is the true lesson of this touching passage? 40. Why are children more susceptible to religious impressions than adults? XIV THE RICH YOUNG RULER; DEATH AND ; THE SELFISH OF JAMES AND JOHN REBUKED Harmony, pages 132-136 and Matthew 19:16-20:28; Mark 10:17-45; Luke 18:18-34.This section commences on page 132 of the Harmony; the first three pages of the section constitute a distinct subsection, because all that is said in it arises from the coming of the young ruler to Christ. This coming of this rich young man to Christ, related by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is the occasion of four distinct lessons, which I group around four passages of Scripture: The first, "One thing thou lackest"; the second, "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God"; the third, Peter said, "Lo, we have left all, and followed thee' what then shall we have?"; and the fourth, "But many shall be last that are first; and first that are last." Everything in this section may be arranged around these four scriptures. The teaching of the Bible, especially the teaching of our Lord, on the subject of riches, calls for careful interpretation. The teaching is very abundant and manifold in both Testaments. Probably no other subject is more extensively discussed. We may accept as safe the following conclusions on these teachings: To be rich or to be poor is not in itself a sin; either may be a token of divine favor. Exceptional temptations and dangers, however, attend either great riches or extreme poverty. Agur's prayer was wise (Proverbs 30:8-9) : Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is needful for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is Jehovah? Or lest I be poor, and steal, And use profanely the name of my God. But we may pray for others as John prayed for Gaius: "I pray that in all things thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." This expresses the great law and standard. Be as rich as you please, even as your soul prospers; keep your soul on top, but do not love wealth more than God, nor trust in uncertain riches. Wealth is a trust which brings blessings rightly used or curses wrongly used. We are perfectly safe in accepting those conclusions concerning the manifold teachings in both Testaments on the subject of wealth. Jesus said to this young ruler, "One thing thou lackest." This young ruler's sin is discovered to him by the throbbing heart of our Lord and is found to be his refusal to accept God's paramount authority and sovereignty in one point alone: "One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me." There seems to be more than one point here, but they are different sides to the same thought – "selling all" is the negative side; "following Jesus" is the positive side. Heavenly treasure must be preferred to earthly treasure. This young man preferred the earthly treasure. Following Christ must be preferred to following mammon. This young man preferred to follow mammon. Let the reader observe that this case is introduced with the answer, "Keep the commandments." This young man, relying upon salvation through obedience to the law, supposed that he had kept the Commandments all his life. It was necessary to prove to him that he had not kept them perfectly: "If thou wouldst be perfect." We are not to understand our Lord to teach that the universal condition of eternal life is that men must actually give all their possessions to the poor, nor that fallen man can keep the law of God perfectly, but the soul must accept God's sovereignty in all things. It must love treasure in heaven more than the treasure on earth. It must follow Jesus. There must not be even one thing reserved from God's supremacy; there must be a complete surrender of our mind to God's mind. These are great matters: The question of sovereignty, the question of true objects upon which affections should be placed, and the question of obedience. We may not satisfy ourselves with compromise or reservation. We may not Compound with sins we are inclined to, By damning those we have no mind to. The next part of this discussion hinges on "the camel and a needle's eye." The camel was the largest animal familiarly known to the Jews of Palestine in Christ's day and a needle's eye one of the smallest openings. To say, then, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for &rich man to enter the kingdom of God, naturally expresses not something difficult, but something that is impossible, and is so meant here; the disciples so understood it, and our Lord, later in his explanation, confirmed their construction. It was the custom of our Lord that when he desired to attract attention and to so impress the memory that his hearers would never forget, to employ very striking sayings, but men when they come to interpret these sayings, are tempted to take all the snap out of them by trying to soften the meaning, for example (See Harmony, middle column, page 133, Mark's account, latter part of Mar 10:24): "How hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God." That seems to be an explanation of what k he says, and yet that is a gloss, a human gloss. I mean to say, that verse does not appear in the two oldest Greek manuscripts, the Sinaitic and the Vatican, and that its appearance in later manuscripts is easier to account for as a marginal gloss by the copyist (he is doing it according to his opinion of what it means), than it is to suppose that such a statement as that would have been left out of the oldest manuscripts. The interpolating copyist is trying to soften Christ's hard saying. It is true that they that trust in riches cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The interpolated doctrine is taught in other scriptures, but it is not a part of this scripture and should not be so received. It is one of the passages that is certainly spurious. Consider another gloss: When I was a child in Sunday school, all the Sunday school lessons had this explanation: The Jaffa-gate at Jerusalem had a little side-gate much smaller than the other, and over that little gate was its name written, "The Needle's Eye," and no camel could go through that little gate without getting on its knees and having its load taken off. That seemed to be, and is, a most beautiful illustration. The rich man must kneel and have his load taken off him before he can get in, but it is probable that the gate of the Sunday school lesson got its name as a development of this text, rather than being its cause. Another explanatory gloss in this, that the Greek word of the text should not be kamelos, "a camel," but kamilos, "a cable." Those who have been about wharves or vessels and have noted the eye or loop of a cable in comparison with a needle's eye may see how much this play upon words relieves the difficulty. It would then mean for a camel to go through the eye of a cable. But as every text has kamelos, and not kamilos, we need not believe any of it. The disciples were exceedingly amazed and they rightly said, "Who then can be saved?" They had been taught that riches are a blessing sent from God, and that he promises prosperity to those who love and obey him. If it be impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, "Who then can be saved?" Our Lord's answer practically says, "It is impossible for anybody to enter the kingdom of heaven," that is, in themselves. Impossible with men, but possible with God. His teaching seems to be this: That in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven there must be something apart from any power in us. Now this rich young man had been well taught, but he had never been regenerated. He was trying to keep the law of God perfectly, and a camel might just as well try to go through the eye of a needle. It is an impossibility for any man in himself, apart from an extraneous power, to enter into the kingdom of God. We may try to set our affections on heavenly treasures, but we have to be regenerated before we can do it. Christ's questions were designed to show him just where his difficulty lay. He must be willing at least to give up everything and follow Jesus. To show that they thus understood it, it is manifest from Peter's words: "Then answered Peter and said unto him, Lo, we have left all, and followed thee; what then shall we have?" He claims that what was required of this rich man is just what they had done. Christ found them engaged in the fishing business, making a living by it, and said to them, "Leave this business and come, follow me. I will make you fishers of men." "If then the rich man when obedient shall have treasure in heaven, what shall we have?" Or, "What shall we have hereafter, and what shall we have in this world?" Listen to the answer: "And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, (or wife), or children, or lands, for my sake, shall receive a hundred fold, and shall inherit eternal life" (Matthew 19:28-29). This does not mean, "you that have followed me in the regeneration," but "you that follow me now shall have in the regeneration." The phrase, "in the regeneration," marks the time of the reward and not of the following. He is telling first what they shall have hereafter. What then, is the meaning of the word "regeneration" here? Precisely the same word, paliggenesia, is found in Titus 3:5 and there refers to the new birth of a man, but here to the new birth of the world, which in Acts 3:21 Peter calls the times of the restoration of all things and which in his second letter he describes as the destruction and renewal of the material universe (2 Peter 3:7-13). To the same great climax of the world's history Paul refers in Romans 8:19-23 where the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together with us waiting for the redemption of our bodies. It is the clear teaching of the Bible that this earth, which was cursed on account of man's sin, shall itself have a regeneration; not only shall man be redeemed, but his habitat shall be redeemed. There shall be a new heaven and a new earth. There shall come a great fire in which the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll and the earth wrapped in flame shall be burned, not annihilated, for out of the purgation of that fire in the dissolution of the material universe there shall come the new heaven and the new earth, like that which was pronounced good when God originally made it. "Now, you ask me what you shall have," says Jesus. "I tell you what ye shall have: in the regeneration [that is, hereafter], when the Son of man comes in his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." And Paul says, "Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? . . . Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" Now, when Christ comes again he takes his own people to himself at his right hand. They sit down with him, sit on his throne and share in the judgment that he pronounces upon wicked men and fallen angels. See a similar promise in Revelation 2:26-27. In other words, Christ, the Son of man, shall lift up by his redemption, all of his people who have suffered, to sit with him on his throne, sharing with him as co-heirs of God, and that is why man, who for a little season is made lower than angels, will be lifted up above them and shall have all dominion and everything shall be in subjection to him. "Now, you apostles left your possessions, quit your business, dropped your nets and left your homes! left everything, you twelve apostles; when I said follow me, you followed me. So you will have a reward for that hereafter." Then he goes on to show what they shall have now, and that not only is to the apostles, but to every Christian: "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions: and in the world to come eternal life" (Mark 10:29-30). A hundredfold now. The question arises here, what did Jesus mean by that? If you leave one acre of land, that you will in this life receive a farm of 100 acres? That is not his meaning, but you do in this world receive some of these things in a sense. Let us suppose, for instance, that your father and mother and brother and sister and wife, every one of them, opposed your being a Christian, and that to be a Christian, you must lose the affection of every one of them. Now in this world you will receive the affection of 100 fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and wives. You will find that a new family and a new kingdom exists among the people of God. You will recall when Jesus was so intensely interested in teaching on one occasion that he would not even stop to eat, that his mother and his brothers came to arrest him under a writ of lunacy. Somebody said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are standing out there." He answered, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" and raising his hands to his disciples, he said, "Behold, my brothers and my mother and my sisters." You get into a new spiritual family. The old earthly kinsfolk may go against you, the spiritual kinsfolk will be for you. That is what it means as to this world. In other words, "Godliness with contentment is great gain. It has the promise of the life that now is and of the world to come," both of them. Receive that deep into your heart, but receive it in the sense that the Lord meant it. We now come to another one of the scriptures around which lessons are grouped: "But many shall be last that are first, and first that are last." This proverb he explains by a parable. The time that you have been in the service of God does not count, so much as the spirit and the quality of your services. One may say, "Here is a young Christian; he was converted only three years ago and behold how exalted, while I am still at the bottom, though I have been a member of the church forty-five years [and asleep all the time]." Who shall be the first of these twelve disciples? Is it the one that Christ called first in order of time? Is that the one? Here in the parable are some men that commenced work the first hour of the day and some that commenced the eleventh hour of the day, and these eleventh-hour men were paid first and received just as much as the ones who, as they said, had borne the burden and the heat of the day. I heard Dr. Tom Eaton, who, by the way, was a marvelous expounder of God's Word, before my prayer meeting in Waco deliver a lecture on this parable of the laborers. He said: I want to inquire on what principle Christ paid the eleventh-hour men as much as he paid those that had worked longer. I think this may be recognized as the principle: These later men explain why they are not at work. They say "No man hath hired us. We have had no opportunity. We reported ready for work; we went to the place where workmen are employed. We have wanted to work we have needed the work we held ourselves in readiness to work but there were no openings." David's men detailed to stay in camp and watch over the baggage, received an equal portion with those who went and fought the battle. They would have gone if they had been commanded to go and how many hundreds of their brethren, brokenhearted men, are begging for work I They want work. It is enough to make one weep to see a man who feels that he is called to preach, whose soul is on fire to preach, longing and hungering for the care of a church and no church calls him. Perhaps he has not the attractive qualities of some other men, perhaps the modern standard of employment is not of the right kind. Some churches have itching ears and they want preachers who will preach something pleasing to them, and daub with untempered mortar, and it does not follow that every man that is idle, is sinfully idle. That was Tom Eaton's explanation, and there is sense in it. But this parable gives another explanation: The sovereignty of God. If I give a man that only came at the last hour as much as I give a man who commenced at the beginning of the day on a special contract, what is it to that first man? Can't I do as I please with my own? In other words, God is the sovereign and we must never lose sight of that. The next section (of two pages) has two great lessons arising from one occasion. Mark 10:32 thus gives the occasion: "And they were in the way, going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus was going before them: and they were amazed; and they that followed were afraid." What excited that amazement and fear? He was saying nothing. It was something startling and marvelous in his appearance. The shadow of an awful coming event invested his face with a pathetic solemnity, a realization of the approaching tragedy, and a sublime purpose of resignation. More than once the historians refer to this bearing of Jesus, this majestic presence, radiating his glory in a way to separate him from all other men and to put him above all other men. His disciples once saw him praying, and something in his manner convinced them that they knew not how to pray. They saw him on the mount of transfiguration radiating his glory, and they were as drunken men at the sight. Later, in Gethsemane, his presence or bearing, caused the company of soldiers who came to arrest him to fall back as if smitten with lightning. On the occasion we are considering he answers their unspoken amazement and fear. He explains the handwriting of tragedy on his own face. He foretells minutely his approaching arrest in Jerusalem and all its attendant indignities; his crucifixion and his resurrection. But they understood it not. How blind they were, not to understand that the crosses must precede the crown! Their minds kept leaping forward to a glorious earth kingdom with its high places of honor. So Peter, immediately after his great confession at Caesarea Philippi, had said of Christ's humiliating death: "Be it far from thee, Lord." So here two of his disciples, James and John, working through their ambitious mother, are petitioning for the places of honor at his right hand and left hand, in his kingdom. My old friend, Mr. Bartlett, of Marlin, once put into my hands a newspaper clipping which related a remarkable occurrence at the Pan-Episcopal Convention in London. The clipping set forth that Dean Stanley put up to preach in Westminster Abbey the bishop of Haiti, a coal black, thicklipped Negro, who, unawed by storied urn and animated bust, or the representatives of royalty, nobility, boundless wealth and aristocratic pride, calmly took this text: "The mother of Zebedee's children said, Lord give my son John the place at thy right hand in thy kingdom and give my son James a place at thy left hand in thy kingdom," and then said, "Let us pray: “ O Lord, thou who didst make of one blood all the nations of men that inhabit the earth and didst fashion their hearts alike, give thou to the sons of Shem that betrayed thee a place on thy right hand, and give to the sons of Japheth that crucified thee a place on thy left hand, but Lord, give to the sons of Ham, the sons of that Simon, the Cyrenean, that bore thy cross, a place at the outer gate where some of the light of the heavenly city may fall on them and where they can hear some of the sweet music, but where looking earthward they can see Ethiopia stretching out her hands to God and behold her dusky children coming home in penitence to God and be the first to welcome them there." It is a marvelous prayer, if correctly reported. One very important lesson we may deduce from this petition of the mother of Zebedee's children. The Romanists claim that Peter received away back yonder, that is, at Caesarea Philippi, the primacy; that he received from the hands of Christ the first place; that he was made Pope. But if indeed that question was settled then, how could John and James here suppose that the highest places were yet to be assigned, and how could the same matter of honor or precedence arise again at the last Passover supper? But look at our Lord's reply: "Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" The sons prompted the mother to make the request and were with her. So Bathsheba, who came to David requesting that Solomon, her son, should succeed him upon the throne. Ambitious mothers! Our Lord rebukes the ambitious sons: "You ask for the high places, but high places must be preceded by high service. Are you able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of? Are you able to be baptized with that baptism that I am baptized with? Are you able to establish your title to precedence, and to do the services that obtain primacy in the kingdom of heaven?" When the ten heard this application they were moved with indignation. The ten includes Peter; the ten includes nine others. What does it show? Virgil once asked, when he was describing how the gods intervened to destroy Troy, "Can such ire exist in celestial minds?" So here we may ask, "Can such envy exist in apostolic minds?" Did you ever notice at conventions an ambitious desire to be made prominent? Now comes the great lesson (p. 136), Matthew 20:25-28 : "Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you; but whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." Now, I solemnly assure you that instead of craving the prominent places and positions, it is far better to crave the spirit of service and sacrifice, that will entitle you to the prominent places. 1. What are the four scriptures around which the four lessons occasioned by the rich young ruler's coming to our Lord are grouped? 2. What may be regarded as safe conclusions on the teachings of our Lord concerning riches? 3. What was Agur's prayer relative to riches? 4. What was John's prayer for Gaius and its lesson? 5. What was the one thing the "rich young ruler" lacked, or what was his one sin? 6. What was the double idea in Christ's language to him, "Go, sell," etc., and what the application? 7. Had he kept the Commandments? If not, in what point had he failed? 8. What are three great questions for every soul? 9. What couplet cited in point, and who wrote it? 10. What is the meaning of the "needle's eye," negatively and positively? 11. What question did the illustration call forth from the disciples, what Christ's answer and what his meaning? 12. What question did this call forth from Peter, and Christ's reply? 13. What did Christ mean both negatively and positively by "in the regeneration"? 14. Give the Bible teaching on the "regeneration" of the earth. 15. What is the meaning of "sit upon twelve thrones," etc., and how does the thought apply to all Christians? 16. How are we to receive a hundredfold for the sacrifices we make here in this world for Christ and what was Christ's own illustration of this thought? 17. What is the point illustrated by the parable of the laborers and Dr. Baton's explanation of it? 18. What other point explained by this parable? 19. Explain the amazement of the disciples on the way to Jerusalem and illustrate by other scriptures. 20. How does Christ answer their amazement and fear and how did they receive the explanation? 21. How does the ambition of James and John here manifest itself? Relate the incident of the Pan-Episcopal Convention in London. 22. What lesson from this incident of the mother of Zebedee's children relative to Peter and the papacy? 23. What was our Lord's answer to this request and its lessons? 24. How did this request of Zebedee's sons affect the other ten, and what does it show? 25. What is the great law of promotion in the kingdom of God? XV HEALED; SAVED; AND THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDS Harmony, pages 137-139 and Matthew 20:29-34; Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-19:28.This section commences on page 137 of the Harmony. There are just seven things that I want to say about this miracle of the healing of Bartimeus: 1. This record has always given Bartimeus a lively place in the memory of each student of the Bible. The story takes hold of the imagination. 2. While our Lord healed a great many blind people, our Gospels specialize but three instances in the following order: (1) The healing of the blind man in Bethsaida recorded by Mark alone (Mark 8:22-26), found on page 89 of the Harmony; (2) the healing of the man born blind at Jerusalem as recorded in John 9, and found in the Harmony, page 108; and (3) this lesson on page 137 of the Harmony, recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And it is one of the greatest proofs of the inspiration of the Bible that when we take the three accounts and put them together in the form of a Harmony, a definite plan is just as evident in the combined narrative of the case as in the gradations of the single narratives. The same characteristic appears in the three restorations to life: (1) of the daughter of Jairus, (2) of the son of the widow of Nain, and (3) of Lazarus. So with other miracles; the combined narratives are graded in every case. Therefore in studying this miracle of the healing of blindness we must compare the first instance recorded, the one in Bethsaida, with the second instance recorded, the one in John 9, and this last instance, and we will be enabled by the comparison to notice the distinguishing features of the three miracles, which are very remarkable. I have more than once recommended Trench's book on miracles. If we take his book and carefully read in connection and in order these three instances of the healing of the blind, then Broadus on this last one in his commentary on Matthew, and Hovey on the one in John, we learn how to gather and correlate homiletic materials for a great sermon on Christ's healing the blind. The books of Broadus and Hovey belong to "The American Commentary." 3. The textual difficulties of this last case call for some explanation. These difficulties appear as follows: Matthew says, "Behold, two blind men sitting by the wayside;" Mark and Luke give just one, and give the surname. Matthew says, "And as they went out from Jericho," and Luke says, "As he drew nigh unto Jericho." There is no trouble at all about the first difficulty, that is, Matthew mentions that there were two and the others confine what they say to the principal one; there is no contradiction. In other words the histories of Mark and Luke do not contradict the statement by Matthew that there were two, unless they had said, "only one." 4. In the other difficulty, Matthew and Mark saying it occurred as they went out from Jericho, and Luke saying that it was as they drew nigh to Jericho, and Luke saying that it was as they drew nigh to Jericho, there seems to be a plain contradiction of Scripture. The footnote in the Harmony gives the best explanation. It is clearly stated in that footnote and it is much more elaborated in the commentary on the passage by Dr. Broadus. The point is just this: The old Jericho was abandoned for a long time after the curse that was put upon it when the Israelites first entered into the land, but it was afterward partially rebuilt. Herod, the king living when Christ was born, built a new Jericho, and if we simply understand that Luke is referring to the new Jericho, and Matthew and Mark to the old Jericho, we have the explanation. 5. This beggar, or these two beggars, both ascribe to Jesus a messianic title: "Thou son of David." It was the peculiar characteristic of the Messiah when he came that he was to be the son of David – sit on David's throne – and that is why in the genealogies Matthew traces the descent of Jesus from David legally through Joseph, and Luke really through Mary, his mother. It had to be proved that he belonged to the royal family of David. Now these men ascribe that messianic title to him. 6. The next thing which I wish to explain is in Matthew 20:31 of Matthew's account: "And the multitude rebuked them, that they should hold their peace." The source, or ground, of that rebuke, has been explained in two ways, and the latter way is the more probable. The first is that the Pharisees in that multitude rebuked these suppliants for ascribing the messianic title to Jesus of Nazareth. It is more probable that the disciples did the rebuking because they did not like for Jesus to be constantly obtruded upon by the persistence of these beggars. In like manner, on an earlier occasion, they rebuked the persistence of the Syrophoenician woman: "Why trouble ye the Master?" And again they rebuked the bringing to him of little children that he might put his hands on them, bless them, and pray for them. One of the strongest proofs of the divinity of Jesus Christ was his approachableness by all men at all times. He would not allow himself to be hedged against the approach of people to him who needed help. A rich man like Mr. Rockefeller surrounds himself with guards and with clerks, so that it is impossible for anybody to have an interview with him unless he first designates his wish to have an interview, and the reason is that he hasn't time, and that it isn't possible for him to receive and hear everybody who desires to come and see him) especially when they want help, but Christ faces the whole world and says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," and whether it was a Syrophoenician woman, or parents bringing little children, or blind beggars by the wayside, he would not have their approach or progress to him barred. 7. The last thing to which I wish to call attention in that miracle can be put forth in the form of a question. What thrilling song was based on a passage in this miracle? SAVED Now, on the next section (p. 138 – Luke 19:1-28), I wish to say a few things about the case of Zaccheus. Zaccheus, like Bartimeus, strikes the imagination. In my childhood I heard a plantation Negro sing: Little Zaccheus climbed a tree, The Lord and Master for to ace. I don't remember the rest of the song, but it illustrates the hold of the Zaccheus story on the popular imagination. It suggests also a very valuable lesson, correcting the impression that only giants in body and strength can become masters in mind and knowledge. Big men physically are apt to look down somewhat, not only in body, but spiritually and mentally, upon men of low stature. I recall the poem in the old school book, McGuffey's Third Reader: How big was Alexander, Pa, That people called him great? Was he so tall, like some steeple high, That while his feet were on the ground His hands could touch the sky? We recall such men in this country as Alexander Stephens, and Stephen Arnold Douglas, the little giant, and many others of small stature who attained to great distinction. The great William of the house of Orange, the Duke of Luxemburg, General Roberts, a great British general, the Duke of Wellington, and even Louis XIV, were small men. I say that for the comfort of any one who is unable to measure up high physically as he may wish he could. Here I ask a question: When Zaccheus says, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold," does that language express what had been his habit before this date, or does it express a purpose of what he will do since he has met Jesus? Does Zaccheus say that from the viewpoint of a man converted that day and expressive of what he intended to do in the future, or does he designate what had been his habit to justify himself of the censure upon him by the Pharisees? They said, "Here is a sinner and Jesus of Nazareth is going to abide with a sinner." Now does Zaccheus reply, "However great a sinner I may have been, hereafter I intend to give half of my goods to the poor, and if I have wronged any man, to restore to him fourfold?" Or, "Though they call me a sinner, yet by my deeds have I proved that I am saved?" The third observation on the case of Zaccheus is the expression, "Today is salvation come to this house." I remember once when the president of Baylor University, in the long ago, took a number of the boys out to hear an Episcopal preacher. The Episcopal preacher took the position that there was no such thing as instantaneous conversion, intending to criticize the Methodists and Baptists upon that point – that conversion was the result merely of a long previous education. As we were walking away from the church Dr. Burleson says, "What about the case of Zaccheus? He was a sinner, and a lost sinner, when he climbed that tree. He was a saved man when he came down from the tree, for our Lord said, 'To-day is salvation come to this house.' " I call attention to that fact because a great many preachers preach without directness and without expectation of immediate results. They think that if they will hold a meeting about nine days that on the tenth day they can get the iron so hot somebody will be converted, and they themselves have no faith in anybody being converted early in the meeting. But great preachers expect immediate results. They are dissatisfied if somebody is not converted every time they preach. They feed their minds on that thought that God has present ability to save any man, and look for conversions. They believe that somebody will be converted that day. They pray that somebody will be converted that day: The last thought on the Zaccheus case is what Christ said in the rebuke of the Pharisees: "He also is a son of Abraham." They counted him, because a publican, an outcast, for the publican was a Jew, who would consent to collect taxes for the Roman government, and they were held as much in abomination by the Jews as the Southern people used to hold a scalawag, i.e., a Southerner who would take office under the oppressor of the people. So "scalawag" would be a pretty good modern translation of "publican." Jesus says, "He shows that he is the son of Abraham." "All are not Jews who are Jews outwardly, but only those that are Jews inwardly," Paul says. Now this man is a Jew inwardly and outwardly; he is a fleshly and spiritual son of Abraham. THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDSThe case of Zaccheus and what disposition he made of his money, for he was a rich man, suggested a parable. But the two reasons assigned for giving the parable of the pounds are these: "He spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was immediately to appear." Oh, how many times did our Lord warn against the idea that the coming of Christ in his glorious kingdom was immediate! Instead of its being immediate, this nobleman goes away as Jesus went away when he ascended from the dead; went to receive his kingdom and administer it from his throne in heaven; only after a long time will he come back. Let us be clear on that. He will stay there until he has done the things for which he ascended to heaven, and then when he comes back he will come back for reasons of resurrection and judgment. He will make professed Christians give an account of their stewardship. He will punish his enemies and there will not be an interval of time between his coming to reward his people and the punishment of the wicked, which the premillennialists continually affirm, but both will take place on the same occasion. This parable and a number of others make that as clear as the noonday sun. One of the reasons for speaking this parable was because so many of them supposed that this glory kingdom would come immediately. A little later we will take up a parable pretty much on the same line as the parable of the pounds, called the parable of the talents, and the two ought always to be studied together, but there were special reasons for speaking the parable of the pounds, in this connection, and when we get to the parable of the talents I will show the points of distinction between the two. So far as this one goes, two classes of people are in his mind, as here represented in the parable, the going off of the nobleman or prince to receive a kingdom: the first one is the case of those who profess to be his disciples or his people; the second case is that of those who refuse to admit his sovereignty over them, that is, the wicked, the avowedly wicked, those who openly say Jesus Christ is neither my king, nor my ruler, nor my Saviour. It is the object of this parable to show what he does in the case of his servants as he goes off, and what he does in their case when he comes back, and then to show what he does with those citizens who say that he shall not reign over them. In the case of his professed servants they are represented as agents or stewards receiving a certain amount, and here the amount is equal, ten servants each one pound, and he says, "Trade ye herewith till I come." If we profess to be Christians we acknowledge that we stand toward Christ in the relation of steward, and that what we have is given to us; that we may use it for the glory of God, and that when Jesus returns he will have a reckoning with us on that point; so that a Christian comes into judgment, not on a life and death matter, but he comes into judgment on his fidelity as a Christian. The parable shows that rewards will not be equal. All saved people will not be rewarded alike: they are saved alike, but they are not rewarded alike. The difference in their rewards is based upon the degree of their fidelity. If one man takes one pound and makes ten with it his reward is twice as great as the one who takes one pound and only makes five. That is clear. We often hear the question, "Are there degrees in heaven?" The answer to it is but another question, "Degrees of what?" If we ask, "Are there degrees of salvation?" The answer is, "No." If we ask, "Are there degrees of rewards?" The answer is, "Yes." That is evident. The servants are dealt with according to their profession, as church members are held accountable, without stopping to inquire whether they are rightfully church members. One of these servants took his pound and hid it in a napkin, and at the day of judgment he says, "Lord, here is your pound, just as you gave it to me. I rolled it up in a napkin and hid it." Now to the man Jesus replies, "Thou wicked servant," wicked because he has done no good with his opportunities, with his talents, with his money, with anything that he has had as a professed Christian. "Therefore," says the Lord, "take away from that man his pound. What good is it to him? Wrap it up in a rag and stick it in a hole. He doesn't use it for any good purpose." As Cromwell said when he entered the British parliament and saw twelve silver images, "Whose are those images?" and the reply was, "They are the twelve apostles in silver." "Well," he says, "melt them down and put them into the coin of the realm and let them go about doing good like their name sakes." An idea is expressed in this paradox, "Unto every one that hath shall be given, but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him." There is an inexorable natural law, that an unused organ goes into bankruptcy and a used organ develops a greater power. An arm carried in a sling and unused for twelve months, loses its muscle power. So nature proves how may be taken away what one hath and to him that hath shall be given. The parable closes, "Howbeit these mine enemies, who would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me." The slaying of the enemies and the rewarding of the servants take place at his coming and not separated by a thousand years of time. As Paul says, he visits his righteous indignation upon his enemies when he appears to be admired in his people. The two are simultaneous. 1. What is the impress made by the story of Bartimeus? 2. What three instances of healing the blind specialized by the Gospels and what evidence of inspiration do they give? 3. What are the points of likeness and the points of contrast in these three instances? 4. What authors commended on these instances of Christ's healing the blind and the special value of a study of them on these miracles? 5. What two textual difficulties here and what is the solution of each? 6. What title did these beggars ascribe to Jesus, what is its meaning and what is the bearing of this on the harmony of the genealogies of Christ? 7. What are the two explanations of Mat 20:31, which is preferable, and what other examples that illustrate this explanation? 8. What is one of the strongest proofs of the divinity of Christ and how contrasted with modern men of wealth and power? 9. What thrilling modern song is based on a passage in this miracle? 10. How has the incident of Zaccheus impressed the imagination and what is the couplet here given to illustrate? 11. What valuable lesson suggested by the fact that Zaccheus "was little of stature"? Quote the poem to illustrate. 12. Name seven men small in stature but great in mind. 13. What did Zaccheus mean by his saying in Luke 19:8? 14. What bearing has this incident on instantaneous conversion and what is the lesson here for the preacher? 15. What is the meaning of Christ's saying, "He also is a son of Abraham," and what is Paul's teaching in point? 16. What parable suggested by the case of Zaccheus and what two reasons assigned for speaking the parable? 17. How does this parable warn against the idea that Christ's coming in his glorious kingdom was immediate? 18. What other parable ought to be studied in connection with this one? 19. What two classes of people in the mind of Christ when he gave this parable and what is the object of the parable? 20. What do "servants" and "citizens" each represent in this parable? 21 What tremendous responsibility here shown to rest upon the professed servants of Christ and what is the bearings on rewards? 22. Who is represented in this parable by the man who buried his pound? 23. Give the illustration of the twelve apostles in silver. 24. What paradox in this parable and what the explanation? 25. What does this parable teach relative to the second coming of Christ and attendant events? XVI JESUS AT BETHANY; THE ENTRY; THE FIG TREE CURSED; THE COMING OF THE GREEKS, AND THE CRISIS OF THIS WORLD Harmony, pages 140-146 and Matthew 21:1-22; Mark 11:1-18; Luke 19:29-48; John 11:55-12:50.We now come to the seventh part of the Harmony, devoted to the transaction of one week. The record extends from page 140 to page 217 of the Harmony. It is very thrilling. There is no halt; one event chases another. It is as living a narrative for rapidity of action as can be found in any language, and from now on to the conclusion of the Harmony we have before us the greatest studies to which the mind of man was ever directed. On page 140 there is a paragraph from John. That paragraph of just a few lines tells everything that is recorded about two of the days of the week, Friday and Saturday. Friday he gets to Bethany; Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, he remains there; there is nothing recorded about it at all. So that from the bottom of page 140 to the part that commences with the appearances, we have just six days. Now, as that one paragraph in John tells about what took place Friday and Saturday, so we have what happened on Sunday pages 140-143; what happened on Monday, pages 144-146; and what happened on Tuesday, pages 146-148, and so on. But we will have to do our hardest studying when we come to what happened on Tuesday. Just now, however, we are to consider what happened on Friday. The events that happened on Friday were that Jesus, six days before the Passover, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, and on that very day in Jerusalem there was an intense curiosity as to whether Jesus would come to this feast. The resurrection of Lazarus had made a profound impression. It stirred the people; it stirred the enemies of Jesus, and there was an increased curiosity in the city about his coming. About that time the common people found out that he was already within two miles of Jerusalem, at Bethany, there on Friday, and so a great many of them go out that afternoon to Bethany, just a two-mile walk, with a double purpose in view: First, to see Jesus; and, second, to look in the face of a man who had been raised from the dead after he had been dead four days. When the Pharisees saw that great throng leaving Jerusalem that Friday afternoon to go two miles out to Bethany, and learning that one of the motives that prompted them to go was to see Lazarus, then they counseled together to put Lazarus to death as well as Jesus. They were afraid for the people to go out and see Lazarus. They were afraid that the multitudes, through this miracle of the raising of Lazarus and their personal knowledge of the fact that Lazarus was raised, would turn from them. Saturday, which was the Jewish sabbath, he remained quietly in Bethany. Now we notice what took place on Sunday. That is the first time that Sunday is brought into prominence as the first day of the week. On the first day of the week Jesus is proclaimed King; on the first day of the week Jesus rises from the dead; on the first day of the week he makes his appearance after rising from the dead; on the first day of the week he pours out the Holy Spirit upon his church. From now on Sunday will be prominent. That is what is called Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday occupies a conspicuous place in ecclesiastical calendars. The world is full of literature on Palm Sunday. The Romanists and Episcopalians have a special service on every Palm Sunday, and on the following Sunday, which is Easter, or Resurrection Sunday. On one he was proclaimed King; on the other he was raised from the dead, and crowned King in heaven. Now, my own calculation commences with the commandment in Ezra 7:13, which was 457 B.C., and adding 483 years it brings us to the baptism of Jesus Christ when he was publicly acknowledged from heaven and the Spirit of God descended upon him. The procession was twofold. First, his disciples and the Bethany people, including the Jews, that had come to him the Friday previous, and then a multitude, when he was on the march to Jerusalem, came out and joined him. It was an immense procession. They knew that Zechariah had prophesied that when their King came he would come that way. They knew from the prophets just what they should say in acclamation: "Hosanna to the Son of David: blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" and they gathered the branches and leaves of the palm trees and spread them down before him. Some spread their clothes down for him to ride on, and the whole multitude shouted and sang as they moved, and one thousand pieces of artillery thundering at one time on Jerusalem could not have shocked and startled his enemies like seeing that throng. The event was a vivid fulfilment of Scripture and identified the Messiah, The demonstration terrified his enemies. Some of the multitudes were not participating in either the praise or throwing down branches for him to ride on, and they said, "Master, rebuke thy disciples. They are applying to you the words that belong to the Messiah. Rebuke them." He replied, "If these shall hold their peace, the stones shall cry out." Why? Because this is the day that marks the winding up of the probation of the Jewish people, and if nobody should cry out, "Hosanna to the Son of David," then the rocks their lasting silence should break and cry out, "Hosanna to the Son of David." It is characteristic of children to be intensely interested in parades and processions. When a circus comes, we see the little children running to where they can see it, and when it passes them, they cut around another corner and wait for it to pass again. So these children cut around and got into the Temple, as that was Jesus' objective point. And as he approaches the Temple they take up the song, "Hosanna to the Son of David," and the Pharisees speak again: "Hearest thou what these children are saying? Ought you to suffer that? Why even the little children are hailing you as the Messiah!" Jesus whirled upon them and said, "Yea, did ye never read, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? Have you never read that?" The next section commences on page 144 of the Harmony, and is the beginning of what took place on Monday. We will consider the sections separately and in order. THE FIG TREE CURSED (Mark 11:12-14 and Mark 11:20-25; Matthew 21:18-22) It has already been a subject of remark that nearly all of our Lord's miracles were miracles of mercy, and that only two were punitive – the cursing of the fig tree and the permitted destruction of the swine in the sea. This cursing of the fig tree, in fact, must be compared with the parable of the barren fig tree on page 118 of the Harmony given in Luke 13:6-9. It may be well in this connection to repeat the very words of that parable: "He spake also this parable: A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found none. And he said unto the vinedresser, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why doth it also cumber the ground? And he answering saith unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit thenceforth, well; and if not, thou shalt cut it down." The parable represents the Holy City, Jerusalem. For three years he had been preaching to them concerning the kingdom of God. They had borne no fruit and a sentence is pronounced: "Why doth it also cumber the ground? Cut it down." The husbandman or dresser of the vineyard pleads for one more year, the part of the year yet remaining of the ministry of our Lord. How often has the parable been the theme of a sermon or of an admonition! In our old family Testament on the margin in the handwriting of my father are these words: "Lord, spare him another year." This was written concerning my oldest brother, and on the other margin in my mother's handwriting years afterward are these words: "He now bears fruit." It is the mission of a fig tree to bear fruit. If it does not bear fruit it has failed of the object of its being. It is characteristic of the fig tree that it puts out its fruit before it puts on its leaves, hence to see leaves on a fig tree justifies an expectation of fruit. Jesus leaving Bethany walking toward Jerusalem, not yet having had the breakfast or first meal of the Jews and being hungry, sees a fig tree covered with leaves. He goes to it to find fruit, and finding none, pronounces a curse upon it that withers it instantly to its taproot. The action is symbolic. It represents the cursing and destruction of Jerusalem, a total and overwhelming destruction, a destruction that was so unnecessary if only their eyes had been opened to the things which made for their peace. How well Luke has expressed the thought: "When he drew nigh, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known in this day," that is, the great Palm Sunday, the day when he came as King, so vividly foretold by the prophets, "If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. . . . Thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, . . . and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation" (Luke 19:41-44). An infidel has said that it was not the season for figs, and according to the text itself, the curse was unjustifiable but the meaning here is that it was the full season for figs; the tree is not cursed for failing to bear fruit out of season, but having failed in season it now creates an expectation of fruit by putting forth its leaves. In nearly all books upon the Holy Land we find the fact stated that in some places of the country some fig trees bear fruit earlier than others and often some in the same garden, one tree being in a sunny spot sheltered from cold winds, bears a week or two ahead of other trees, and the putting forth of the leaf is the sign that the fruit is there. THE COMING OF THE GREEKS (John 12:10-36)This section is intensely interesting, not merely on account of the historical incident, but on account of the great group of mighty lessons developed from it. Certain Greeks of those that went up to worship at the feast came to Philip and said, "Sir, we would see Jesus." I suppose many preachers, as well as myself, have preached from that text, "Sir, we would see Jesus!" and maybe got more out of the text than those Greeks meant. I suppose those Greeks were Jewish proselytes, as the Ethiopian eunuch was a proselyte, that is, they had adopted the Jewish religion, and coming up to the annual feast were concerned to see the new great expounder of their adopted religion. When informed of their desire to see him, our Lord makes this strange reply, "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified." What is its relevancy to the request of the Greeks that they should see him? Apparently this: if the Gentiles, already knocking at the gate of grace which they could not possess until the time of the Jews be fulfilled, then does not their coming prove that the hour approaches for Christ to die and for all Gentiles to share in his salvation? Hence he says, "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified." But how is he to be glorified? He explains: "Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit." The sense of the passage seems to be this: "The Gentiles are coming. In their salvation I will be glorified. I cannot get to that glory except through my cross." His disciples all the time misconceived the nature of his kingdom: "Far be it from thee, Lord, to suffer death," and "Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus rebukes them by teaching first, his death: "I can attain no glory nor bear fruit until I die." Then he announces the general principle: "He that loveth his life loses it; he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If a man profess to love me, let him follow me; if when to follow me means to die with me, come to my cross. Men cannot be my disciples except they take up the cross and follow me." We must die to our sins, by the withering work of the Holy Spirit, before we can bear the fruit of joy in our regeneration. That was the astounding thing the prophet spoke concerning John the Baptist. This man comes to bring the news of salvation, and what shall he say? And the voice said, "Say that all flesh is grass and the grass withereth and its flower fadeth." In other words, as Christ died before he was glorified, there must be the withering work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts to precede the saving work. He now turns from the special application of his words to the coming of the Greeks, to the general principles involved in his death. "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?" This death ahead of him was not a painted death. It was not merely a physical death. It was a spiritual death; it was a penal death. The baptism of suffering was not a mere sprinkling of sorrow, but it was an overwhelming flood. Wave after wave must roll over him. A few aspersed drops on the brow can never represent the overwhelming sorrows of Christ when deep uttered its voice to deep at the noise of its water-spouts. He continues: "Shall I say, Father, save me from this hour?" In view of its sorrow shall he ask God to avert it? It was for this cause he came into the world and shall he offer prayer to defeat the object of his mission? Later on when we see him in the garden of Gethsemane and the awful horrors of Calvary are already felt in apprehension, we indeed hear him pray: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." That seems to mean, "If men can be saved without my death; if thy omniscience can discern some other plan; if thy omnipotence can bring about any other way of salvation, then let this cup pass from my lips." But if there is no other way and no other plan for the salvation of man, then he offers to drink the cup according to the will of God. It seems to me that this is the most convincing proof in the world that there can be no salvation apart from salvation in Christ. Having thus stated the only method of his glorification and the horror of that method, he now prays: "Father, glorify thy name," and the silence of heaven is broken by a voice from the most excellent glory, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again." This is the third time that a voice of attestation has come from the highest heaven – once at his baptism when the Father said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"; once at his transfiguration, when the Father again said, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him," and now, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again." This brings us to a climax. The thought has been continually mounting upward as if climbing from one peak of a range to another still higher, until at last the foot is planted upon the crest of the loftiest summit. THE CRISIS OF THIS WORLDThe coming of the Greeks suggested the thought. He sees the coming of the Gentile world. The desire of the Greeks, "Sir, we would see Jesus!" he interprets as coming from the lips of all nations. In their voice he hears the Roman and the Briton and every nation and tribe and tongue saying, "Sir, we would see Jesus." It is no Jewish crisis of which he speaks when he says, "Now is the crisis of this world." In employing the English word "crisis," I simply Anglicize the Greek term. The world has had but two crises: The first man when he stood before the tree of death and yielded to the temptation of his wife – that was the first crisis. In him the race fell. In that fall Satan usurped the sovereignty of this world. He has been the prince of this world ever since, and now the Second Adam has come. Satan was foiled in his first temptation of our Lord immediately after his baptism. But he only left him for a season. He is back again. The conflict between the Prince of life and the prince of death has been raging for three and a half years. The death grapple comes on the cross. There the serpent will bruise the heel of the Messiah and there the Messiah will crush the serpent's head. So when this temptation comes to him to shun the horrors of his sacrificial, penal, and substitutionary death, it is again and for the last time the crisis, not of the Jews alone, but of the whole world. This Second Adam, this messianic Prince, who, before his incarnation, created the world for his own glory and from whom it had been snatched by the wiles of Satan in the fall of the first Adam, shall regenerate this world. The material earth itself shall be purified by fire. All its land and sea, its mountains and valleys, its sky and its earth, shall be redeemed. The strong man armed has kept his goods in peace, but he shall be bound hand and foot, stripped of his armor and expelled from the house which he has defiled. The crisis consists in this: That the prince of this world – the usurping prince – shall be cast out, and now on the last mountaintop the cross is erected as the supreme climax and his words ring out, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself." By being lifted up he signifies the manner of his death on the cross. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life." That lifting up occurred nearly two thousand years ago. We may well ask, "Has it lost its attractive power? Can it now draw men?" Paul said to the Galatians long after the crucifixion of Christ, "Before whose eyes Christ was openly get forth crucified." On the cross he was lifted up in fact, but in the gospel he is lifted up as a proclamation of that fact. Every time the preacher sets forth from the pulpit Christ crucified as the hope of glory, he is lifted up. Every time a man, claiming to be a preacher, substitutes for the cross some inferior theme, he is guilty of the blood of Jesus Christ. The cross is Time's masterpiece and Eternity's glory. And whoever in simple, childlike faith will lift up Jesus crucified will find that it draws more than any sensational advertisement, pays better than the hired singing of theatrical choirs, pays better than philosophical, economic, or ethical discussion, and ultimately not only all redeemed will be drawn to that cross, but all the lost will be compelled to bow the knee, and every tongue in the last judgment shall confess his name, and even from the horrors of hell in that day of revelation of the righteous judgment of God shall say, "Thy judgment is just." I mean to say that everybody that ever lived upon this earth and every angel who has ministered, and every fallen demon who has sought to mar and obstruct the kingdom of God, shall at the last acknowledge the wisdom and glory of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ – some in their salvation and others in their punishment. They, blind as moles, replied: "We have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth forever: and how sayest thou the Son of man must be lifted up?" The lifting up is the means of his abiding forever. Again they say, "Who is this Son of man?" Had they never read Daniel? Does not that great prophet fix the title of the Messiah as the "Son of man," and does not Christ accept the title? Did they not recall how that prophet said that he saw one like unto the Son of man, brought to the Ancient of Days and thousands and thousands and ten thousand times ten thousands ministered unto him, and that there was given him a kingdom that should never end? In that way shall he abide forever. Isaiah, seven hundred years before, had foreseen their rejection and the triumph of the cross in that great Isaiah 53, commencing: "Lord, who hath believed our report and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Men saw no beauty in him that they should desire him. To them he seemed to be afflicted and smitten of God. They did not understand that by his stripes we are to be healed, and that God was to put on him the iniquity of us all, and that be must pour out his soul unto death, and that when he poured out his soul unto death then he should see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. We have seen all of the final struggle pivoting on the raising of Lazarus. That event led the Sanhedrin to its final determination to put the Christ to death. Then we have seen him coming according to the Scriptures on that great Palm Sunday, and their rebuking of his disciples and of the little children because they cried, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" 1. What division of the Harmony does this study embrace and what can you say of the narrative? 2. Which one of the historians gives an account of our Lord's actions on Friday and Saturday of his last week, and what were they? 3. What particular interest upon the part of the common people were manifested, what the actions of the chief priests and why? 4. What did Christ do on Sunday and what other great events in the scripture marking the first day of the week? 5. What is this Sunday called by Romanists and Episcopalians, what other Sunday is of importance with them, and what do you think of such celebrations? 6. From what date does the author calculate Palm Sunday and how? 7. Who constituted the procession into Jerusalem, what prophet had foretold this event, how did the procession demonstrate its joy, and what the effect on Jerusalem? 8. What request came from some of the multitude and why, what Christ's answer and its signification? 9. What interest manifested on this occasion by the children, who objected and what Christ's reply? 10. What two of our Lord's miracles only were punitive? 11. What parable must be considered in connection with this cursing of the fig tree, what does the parable represent, what the three years, what the extra year begged for it by the husbandman, and what touching incident in the author's family in this connection to illustrate? 12. What is the mission of a fig tree, what is its characteristic, justifies what expectation, what is the application, and how does Luke express Jerusalem's great responsibility in this matter? 13. What infidel objection, and what is the reply? 14. Why is the incident of the coming of the Greeks intensely interesting, who were these Greeks, why their interest to see Jesus, when thus informed what was Jesus' reply, what its relevancy to this coming of the Greeks, how was he to be glorified, what misapprehension by the disciples, what general principle announced. What its application? 15. What was the nature of the death that he was to die? 16. Did Christ try to escape death for the salvation of the world, what was the meaning of the prayer in Gethsemane, what great proof that there can be no salvation apart from salvation in Christ? 17. What was his prayer on this occasion, what was the Father's response, what three voices from the Most Excellent Glory, and how do they express a climax? 18. What did Jesus hear in the voice of these Greeks, what thought did it suggest to him, how many and what crises of the world, how is this a crisis of the world, what the parallels between the two crises, what to be the outcome of the last, what part has the preacher in the result, and what theme suggested for the preacher? 19. What was the reply of the multitude, what prophecies show their blindness? 20. Show the connection of these events with the raising of Lazarus. XVII THREE AND CHRIST'S ANSWERS Harmony, pages 147-154 and Matthew 21:23-22:33; Mark 11:27-12:27; Luke 20:1-40 This section commences on page 147 of the Harmony, near the bottom. Before its special exposition let us consider several introductory thoughts: First, It is a part of a great day in the life of our Lord. We have already noted one great day's work in Galilee, and a little later we considered another great day, and this one makes the third. The transactions of this one twenty-four hour day covers everything from page 146 to page 172 of the Harmony. If we reckoned according to the Jewish method of days, from sunset to sunset, we would have to stop at page 168. To obtain some general idea of the tremendous work of this day we must group its events: Jesus walked from Bethany to the Temple – two miles. On the way he gave the lesson concerning the withering of the fig tree. On arriving at the Temple he began walking about and teaching. Here the Sanhedrin pressed on him this question of authority: "What sort of authority have you for doing these things and from whom did you get it?" Their inquiry looks to the nature of his authority and its author. To that question he makes an elaborate reply. Then commences the series of questions resulting from a conspiracy on the part of his several enemies with a view to ensnare him or tangle him in his talk in one way or another that would make him odious either to the authorities or to some part of the people. The object of the second question is to put him either in opposition to Herod and Rome, and thus make him amenable to the civil authority, or to the people, and thus destroy his popularity. This was a question concerning the tribute money. Then comes a question concerning the resurrection, the answer to which they hoped would array him against either the Sadducees or the Pharisees. This was followed by a question as to the kind of commandment that should be considered greatest. The form of this question resulted from a conference among themselves, and they selected a lawyer to propound it. To all of these questions he gave the most marvelous replies, demonstrating his supreme wisdom and rendering them dumb. Then follows his last public discourse, in which he makes a terrible indictment against the scribes and Pharisees, denounces an awful penalty upon the Jewish nation, but holds out a glorious future hope. Then follows his lesson on giving suggested by the widow's contribution to the treasury of the Temple. Then, after he left the Temple and got as far as Mount Olivet going to Bethany, came his great discourse concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and his final advent in response to the questions of his disciples. This great discourse is recorded in Matthew 24-25; Mark 13; Luke 21. Following this comes a lesson concerning his death nearly at hand. In the meantime a meeting of the Sanhedrin is held concerning the way to put him to death. We have a thrilling account of a feast given in his honor when he arrives at Bethany, at which he is anointed by Mary, and where he delivered a great lesson concerning that anointing. Following this anointing Judas returns to Jerusalem and offers for a price to betray him to the Pharisees. All of these events thus grouped happened in one day. The strain upon both his physical and mental resources must have been very great. Second, The next introductory thought lies in the obvious fact that here it is Bethany versus Jerusalem, an obscure village against the Holy City. His headquarters are at Bethany and every morning he goes into the city and teaches in the Temple, and every afternoon late he goes back to Bethany. The whole narrative here is very lively. Third, We cannot fail to see the steps of a triple development. The malice of his enemies ripens rapidly. We see also the development in the clearness of Christ's exposure of their murderous attempt. We see the rapid development in the spiritual downfall of Judas Iscariot and how it culminated. Commencing then on page 147 of the Harmony, in the text of Matthew 21:23-22:14, Mark 11:27-12:12, and Luke 20:1-19, let us consider in detail such of the events of this great day, as come within this discussion. We see him walking and teaching in the Temple. One who is familiar with Greek history may recall how Aristotle was accustomed to teach in the same manner, walking about with his disciples under the colonnades of certain buildings; hence the name, "peripatetic philosophy." He may also recall from Greek history the method of Socrates, who taught by asking and answering questions, and the scene of Paul at the marketplace in Athens. FIRST The scribes and Pharisees commenced the catechism with this twofold question: "By what sort of authority do you teach and do these things and who gave it to you?" They were accustomed to give authority to the rabbis before they taught. No man could expect to be heard in teaching who could not show the authority by which he taught. Their questions, however, had already been answered by our Lord, as appears from John 12:44-50. I will quote: And Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that beholdeth me beholdeth him that sent me. I come a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me may not abide in the darkness. And if any man hear my sayings, and keep them not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings, bath one that judgeth him: the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I spake not from myself, but the Father that sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life eternal; the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto me, so I speak. Here very plainly and explicitly he has given a reply to that question as to the sort of authority under which he acted and the author of that authority. He had divine authority for all he said and did. They knew well enough what he had taught concerning his being sent of the Father, and there was no need to propound that question this time, but let us see how he replies now. He replies by a counter question. This was an acceptable method of rejoinder by both Pharisee and Greek philosophers: "I also will ask you a question; and tell me – the baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?" After consideration they replied that they did not know. Their answer was insincere, for in their communing they had said, "If we say that John's baptism is from heaven, then he will say, Why did not ye believe him when he testified of me and baptized me as the Messiah and pointed to me, saying, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!" Hence to answer that the baptism of John was from heaven would be to answer the question that they had just propounded to him. On the other hand, if they had answered that it was from men, then the people would rise up against them, for the people believed that John was a prophet, and here they would be defeated in the object that they had in view, viz., to destroy his popularity with the people. As the object of their questioning was to break his power with the people so that they could arrest him safely, we can readily see the dilemma in which he placed them by his counter question. So they had to stand there dumb before the people. To complete their discomfiture he then goes on to show that John was sent from heaven and that the people who believed in John were wiser than these religious teachers propounding questions to him: "The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God ahead of you. They justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John, and you, when you saw it, repented not yourselves that you might believe." In this way he made it plain that it was not a desire upon their part to know his authority) but their question was one of guile and malice. Nor is he yet through with them upon this question of authority. He continues to press home upon them their own wickedness by a parable. A man had two sons. To the first he said, "Son, go along and work to-day in the vineyard," and he answered and said, "I will not," but afterward he repented and went. He said also to the other son, "Son, go and work in the vineyard," and he replied, "I will, sir," but went not. Having stated this parable he forces them to say which was the obedient son, the one who first said, "I will not" and afterwards obeyed, or the one who said, "I will," and did not obey. Having extorted from them the reply that the first was the obedient son, he then applied his lesson. Here are two classes of people: First, these publicans and harlots refused to obey God at first, going into open wickedness and wrong, then later repented and obeyed God and he accepted them. The other class, consisting of the scribes and Pharisees, are all the time saying, "I will, I will," but their professions are empty; they never obey. He now drives them like a wolf into a final corner by another parable – the parable of the wicked husbandman. His object is to utterly expose the malice underlying all their opposition to him. They could not misunderstand the application of this parable. It is a perfect arraignment of the Jewish nation and of its leaders. Following the old time Jewish imagery he tells of a vineyard as one of the prophets hath said, "I brought a vine out of Egypt, and planted it and watered it and cultivated it, and what more could I do to my vineyard than I have done?" Now these husbandmen who had charge of that vineyard were refusing to its owner its land dues. The prophets who had been sent unto them were maltreated, their message rejected, some of them were killed, some sawn asunder, some stoned. Then at last the heir comes and they take counsel to kill him in order to make permanent their authority over the vineyard. His purpose is to show that the most inveterate unbelief, hardness of heart, and murderous malice are evinced by these scribes rind Pharisees. From that day until the present the unbelieving Jews have sought to evade the point of our Lord's great indictment, that they have murdered the Prince of Glory, their own Messiah. Many years ago, when I was a young pastor, a Jewish rabbi came to Waco and offered to prove from the Gospels themselves that the Jews were not guilty of the death of Christ; that he was punished according to the forms of the Jewish law. And he offered to prove this if any church in the city would offer him their pulpit. I accepted on condition that I be allowed to reply to him, and he would get his people to hear my reply, as I would get my people to hear his discussion. The arrangements were made and when he delivered his address he followed very closely an account of the trial of Jesus Christ given by Mr. Joseph Salvador, a physician and learned Jew, who had published at Paris a work entitled A History of the Institution of Moses and the Jewish People. In this history there is a chapter on the administration of justice. Then follows an application of the principles set forth in that chapter to the most memorable trial in history – that of Jesus Christ. Doubtless this rabbi supposed that nobody in Waco had ever heard of that book. When I began my reply the following night I recited the facts concerning Mr. Salvador's book and that this rabbi's speech was merely a series of quotations from that book, and then I gave the reply to Mr. Salvador's book by a distinguished French lawyer, Mr. Dupin. Mr. Dupin, with the utmost courtesy and respect, grinds to fine powder Mr. Salvador's argument. I then told the audience that they would find both Mr. Salvador's argument, which was the same as that to which the audience had listened, and Mr. Dupin's reply in an appendix to Greenleaf's Testimony of the Evangelists. I may refer also to a discussion by Mayor Gaynor of New York, and I mention the most exhaustive discussion by a great lawyer: The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint – two volumes, by v. M. Chandler of the New York Bar. While fully agreeing with Mr. Chandler in his broad sympathies with all persecuted Jews, by any country" or religion, I utterly dissent from him on one capital point which is also both a legal and a historical one, my own conviction being that nations as well as individuals are responsible for their actions and the actions of their leaders, and more so in this case than in any other in history. There can be no serious question here. Jesus of Nazareth was pursued to death – murderous death – contrary to the forms of the Jewish law. This is exactly our Lord's indictment, and in this argument of the wicked husbandman he puts the final point upon this indictment, forces these scribes and Pharisees to answer this question: "When, therefore, the Lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do unto these husbandmen?" And they are compelled to answer: "He will miserably destroy these miserable men, and will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, who shall render him the fruits in their season." Our Lord seeks to prepare all of his audience for this immense transition, the taking away of the kingdom of God from the Jews and the giving of that kingdom to the Gentiles. He puts the capstone upon his application by a citation from the prophets, "The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner." Isaiah had said, "Behold, I lay for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone." Now our Lord's charge is that this stone, which God himself had prepared for the foundation, they rejected, and then he announces their doom: "Whoever stumbles on that stone, whoever through unbelief in this life, rejects Christ, shall be broken. But upon whom that stone shall fall, he shall be ground to powder." He follows up this victory by another parable, the parable of the marriage feast. We have already seen Luke's account of a similar parable, and yet in some things dissimilar: The parable of the gospel feast. The distinction between the two is very important. A student should put them side by side. The gospel feast is at the beginning, illustrating the preaching of the gospel to the Jews. The marriage feast presents not the beginning, but the culmination. While the Jews counted a betrothal as binding as marriage, yet there was a distinction between the betrothal and the consummation of the marriage. The object of the gospel feast is to betroth Christ. The object of the marriage feast is to show the consummation of that betrothal. Paul says, "I have espoused you as a chaste virgin unto Christ." Everybody is invited under the terms of this gospel feast to be betrothed to Christ, but in this marriage feast the rejection is final, and as a penalty the king himself sends his armies and destroys the murderers and burns their city. Such is the fate of Jerusalem. Already the shadow of the coming armies of Titus on the nation appears. In less than forty years from the time that Jesus speaks this parable, Titus takes Jerusalem, since which time they have had no home, no Temple, and no national government. This argument clearly shows that on the rejection of the Jews the heralds of the cross are to go to the highways and the hedges. There is one special incident in the parable – a man who outwardly accepts the invitation to the wedding feast, but attends without a wedding garment is cast into the outer darkness. He represents the formal professor of religion; the one who accepts God's invitation so far as externals are concerned, but who makes no inward preparation. Thus by parable after parable Christ makes an end to his answer to their first question, "By what sort of authority do you teach and who gives it?" SECOND The conspiracy underlying the second question and the motive prompting it is thus expressed by Luke 20:20 : "And they watched him, and sent forth spies, who feigned themselves to be righteous, that they might take hold of his speech, so as to deliver him up to the rule and to the authority of the governor." There were two political parties. One was called the Herodians, that is, those who accepted the Roman government and its administration through Herod. The Sadducees belonged to this party. The Pharisees constituted the bulk of the other party. Their object was to free their nation from any semblance of dependence upon Rome. The issue between these parties was very sharp. Everywhere there was alignment for one or the other. One who committed himself to the Herodians deprived himself of favor with what is called the patriotic party led by the Pharisees, and one who openly aligned himself with them secured the enmity of the ruling party. Led by malice they feigned great love for Jesus and respect for his teaching and brought him a question concerning the poll tax or tribute money. With flattering words they thus introduce it: "Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, and carest not for any one: for thou regardest not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar or not?" If he had answered, "Yes," this would have turned the people against him. If he had said, "No," this would have made him obnoxious to the authorities and would have furnished them the ground for preferring a charge of treason. It is a well laid plot. The question was a puzzling one to most of the Jewish people. They were a holy nation enslaved to a heathen nation. Could they as God's own people pay this poll tax? History tells us that not long after Christ was crucified a rebellion took place on this very subject. A man named Judas in Galilee raised an insurrection, and Barabbas, about whom we will learn later, was not so much a common robber and murderer as he was a representative of this patriotic idea of freeing the nation from the iniquitous government of Rome. Our Lord does not hesitate to make a reply to their question. He passes no judgment on the righteousness of the Roman rule, but he recognizes the fact that they are the rulers of Judea. His mission is not a political one, but a spiritual one. He asks for the tribute money. Holding it in his hand he says, "Whose is this image and superscription?" They answer, "Caesar's." He replies, "Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." This reply shows that he would not head a political faction; that his kingdom was not of this world; that while he did not justify the Roman government, he recognized the fact that they were the rulers of the nation and he made it the occasion of laying down a principle of worldwide application by his people. Paul repeats it later, "Render tribute to whom tribute is due." Peter repeats it, "Honor the king," not that he expresses a preference for a monarchial form of government over a democratic, but that it is not the object of the Christian religion primarily to teach forms of human government, but to save men; to deal with the spiritual condition of the people. The answer of our Lord to this second question, has, throughout all history, been the guiding principle of his people. THIRD The Sadducees came to the front with a question that has hitherto puzzled their adversaries. They do not believe in the immortality of the soul. They are materialists. They think when a man dies that is the last of him, and, of course, they do not believe in the resurrection of the body. The Pharisees believe in the immortality of the soul and in the resurrection of the body. The Sadducees present what they consider an unanswerable question, citing a supposititious case of a man dying without an heir and under the Mosaic law his brother taking his place as a husband of the widow, and that brother dying without an heir, and so on, until she had been the wife of seven brothers. Then she dies. Now, in the resurrection which one of the seven will be her husband? Of course, they did not believe that there would be any resurrection, but as the Pharisees were accustomed to teach that in the next world there would be marriages, and that earthly relations would be continued, to them the question was a puzzle. The Mohammedans also teach the continuance of sexual relations in the world to come: They hold out as an incentive the luxuries of sexual pleasures of paradise. Of course, it was agreed between the Pharisees and the Sadducees that this question should be propounded to our Lord. If he should answer in favor of the Sadducees that would turn against him all the people who followed the teachings of the Pharisees. If he should answer in favor of the Pharisees then the Sadducees, who were Herodians, fewer in number, but occupying the most of the offices, would have had ground of accusation against Christ. The Sadducees were the party in power. The object of the question was to put him between the upper and the nether millstones. He completely vanquishes both of them by his teaching that in the next world there is no marriage nor giving in marriage. Those who attain the resurrection state are sexless, as are the angels, not that they will be angels. But the present physical conditions of this life will not be continued in the other world. He does not mean that man and wife living long together on earth may not rejoice with each other in heaven, remembering the lessons of time, but that the physical conditions of married life do not continue in the world to come. This answer both breaks the points of the question of the Sadducees and corrects the erroneous doctrine of the Pharisees concerning the conditions of the future life. No Pharisee with the views that he held could have met the difficulties of the question of the Sadducees. Our Lord now turns upon the Sadducees with a most crushing rejoinder. "You deny the resurrection of the body. You err upon two points: You neither know the scriptures nor the power of God." He then proves from the Pentateuch the resurrection of the dead by the words of God to Moses: "I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and the God of Jacob." He is not the God of dead people, but of living people. Abraham is dead only as to his body. He lives and is with God. This argument is from the greater to the lesser; if God be the Saviour of the soul of Abraham he will be the Saviour of his body, rescuing it from the grave. Some commentators have been puzzled to see the application of Christ's answer to the resurrection of the body. But our Lord was wiser than commentators. His one citation destroys both errors of the Sadducees. They held that there is no immortality of the soul. He disproves that. They held that there is no resurrection of the body. He disproves that. 1. What are the three introductory thoughts to this chapter? 2. What is the greatest day's work in the life of our Lord, and what two other very great days in his life? 3. Give a detailed outline of this great day's work. 4. What are the parallels between the methods of Christ and Paul in their teaching and the methods of the Grecian philosophers? 5. With what double question did the scribes and Pharisees open the discussion with Christ in the Temple? 6. How had Jesus already answered these questions? 7. How did Christ answer them here and how did this answer place them in a dilemma? 8. Do you know any other people who have been puzzled to account for John's baptism? 9. How does Christ complete their discomfiture? 10. How does he further press on them their own wickedness in a parable? 11. How does he drive them into a final corner by another parable? 12. Give an account of the controversy which occurred in Waco between a Jewish rabbi and the author. 13. Where may be found the substance of the rabbi's speech and the reply? 14. What other discussion cited and commended and what one point from the prophets and what application? 15. What great purpose of Christ toward his audience, what citation of dissension? 16. How does he further show their doom in a parable? 17. What other parable similar and what points of contrast and distinction between the two? 18. What historical event clearly foreshadowed by this parable? 19. Who represented by the man that "had not on the wedding garment"? 20. What were the two political parties in the time of Christ, what did each stand for, how did one of these parties try to entangle Christ, and how did Christ in his reply, outwit them? 21. What does this reply show, what principle here enunciated by Christ and how recognized afterward by Paul and Peter? 22. What distinctive tenets of the Sadducees, how did they conspire with the Pharisees to entrap Christ, what dilemma in which they attempted to place him and how did he escape? 23. How does Christ prove the resurrection in this connection and what is the argument? 24. How does this citation disprove the two main tenets of the Sadducees and thus silence them? XVIII ANOTHER AND ITS ANSWER; HIS LAST PUBLIC ; OVER AGAINST THE Harmony, pages 155-159 and Matthew 22:34-23:39; Mark 12:38-44; Luke 20:41-21:4.This section commences on page 155 of the Harmony and consists of the last question of Christ's enemies, differing bitterly among themselves, yet led by a common interest, conspired to test, tempt, and ensnare him by hard questions. He had answered the question concerning his authority, the question concerning paying tribute to Caesar, and the resurrection question. The Pharisees, seeing that he had muzzled the Sadducees, rapidly held a council, selected with great care the form of a final question and a representative to propound it. It will be understood that this representative is a better man than those he represents, but he speaks representatively. And the word "tempt" is used in its usual bad sense. They consulted first as to what question should be propounded. Second, who should propound it. The querist was a lawyer. The word "lawyer" in the Bible does not mean altogether what our word "lawyer" means. A lawyer in the time of Moses and after, and especially in mediaeval ages, was one who was an expert in both civil and canon law, or ecclesiastical law. The first business of a scribe was to copy the text, then expound it. And after a while they became authorities both on text and exposition, and from them originated the meaning of the degree LL. D., the word "laws" being plural, that is, one being skilled in both civil and canon law. In all countries where there is a union of church and state there are two forms of law, one applying to ecclesiastical matters and the other to civil matters. Oftentimes the two blend. A matter can be both civil and ecclesiastical. It is quite important here to note the precise form of the question they propound. Following the Greek literally this is the question: "What sort of commandment is great?" We usually understand that the question seeks to find a distinction between the various commandments of the moral law, as to relative importance. This seems not to have been their idea. There would not have been a snare in such a question. Let us see if we can find just what was the snare. They themselves continually distinguished between a commandment that was written and a commandment that was oral or traditional. And they were accustomed to put the traditional law above the written law. One of themselves had said, "The commandments of the written law are sometimes weighty, and sometimes little, but the commandments of the scribes are always weighty." So when they put the question in this form, "What sort of commandment is great?" they want to commit him either for or against the oral law. If he decides against the oral or traditional law they hope to make capital out of it before the people, who were very much devoted to the traditional law. Now, from the very beginning there had been a marked difference between them and him on the meaning of law. When he says law he means only the written law. When they say law they mean both the written and the oral law. All through the Sermon on the Mount we see how he magnifies the written law, and throws contempt upon their traditional law. He shows that in their construction of traditional law they oftentimes set aside the written law entirely. We have considered a case already where they set aside the commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother," by following the traditional law, to the effect that if a man said to himself that the money with which he ought to help the aged, feeble parents was in his mind consecrated to something else, that would exclude him from piety toward his father and mother, that is, relieve him from the burden of taking care of them. All along he has been setting aside their conception of law. Now their hope is that if he takes his old ground, that only written law is great, it would turn away from him the people who believed in the oral law. We have a passage in Mark often quoted in baptismal controversies showing how punctilious they were in their observance of their traditional law, the diligent washing of their hands and, when they returned from the market, the dipping of themselves lest they had contracted ceremonial defilement by touch with unclean people. And even the dipping of their tables and beds, and anything that might by a possibility have become ceremonially defiled. Hence the form of this question: "What sort of commandment is great?" In other words, "Do you say that only the written law is great, or do you agree with us that the traditional law is even greater?" He replies by a quotation from the Pentateuch. The first part of his answer is from Deuteronomy 6:4, the second part from Leviticus 19:18. He says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the great and first commandment. The second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Here he accepts the condensation of all the first table of the law by Moses into one commandment and his condemnation of the second table of the law into another commandment. Spurgeon, while seeming to misapprehend the precise point of this question propounded to Christ, has a great sermon on the text, "The first and the great commandment." To love God supremely is first in order of position in the Ten Commandments. It is first in order of importance. It is first and greatest because it includes the second. That is to say, unless we love God supremely we can never obey the second commandment to love our neighbor as ourself. Some magnify the first table of the law and disregard the second. They think that if they pray and pay tithes to God, and do not worship images) and keep the sabbath day, it makes little difference how they do toward their neighbors. They may refuse to honor their parents, steal, lie, commit adultery, if only they comply with what they think is the .First Commandment. On the other hand it is the custom of the world to utterly disregard the First Commandment and magnify the Second. Businessmen on the streets conceive of law simply as it relates to our fellow man. They think if we kill nobody, do not wrong our neighbor in any respect, we are all right. Their stress is on morality, but our Lord shows an indissoluble connection between the two commandments: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself. He conceives of no sound morality apart from supreme love of God. This representative LLD who propounded this question was much interested in our Lord's answer. It becomes evident that he is a better man than those who loaded him with the question. He expresses hearty approval of Christ's answer, and our Lord said that he was not far from the kingdom. As usual, our Lord follows up his victory. He puts a question before the Pharisees are scattered. They still stand grouped where they had consulted to determine what question should be propounded to him. So he propounds a counter question. "What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?" They readily answered as any Jew would have answered, "The Son of David." Then he puts a question with a barb on it: "If he is only the Son of David, how is it that David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls him Lord, in Psalms 110, to wit: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand?" The object of his question is to correct their limited conception of the Messiah. They were disposed to look at him as a mere human Jewish king establishing an earthly government and raising the throne of David so as to bear reign over the whole Gentile world. His object is to convince them that the Messiah foretold in their Old Testament was not merely a man, and to prove it by David: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand." He wants to bring out the thought which he himself later expressed to John in Revelation: "I am the root as well as the offspring of David." In the divine sense he is the source of David; in the flesh he is the offspring of David. This statement of our Lord is of incalculable value in its bearing on the radical criticism. They do not hesitate to say that David never wrote Psalms 110. Jesus says that he did. He explicitly ascribed that psalm to David. They say the psalms are not inspired. Jesus says that David wrote that psalm in the Spirit. They deny any reference to a coming One in that psalm. Jesus shows that there is a reference to himself, the coming Messiah. It is a little remarkable that this particular psalm is quoted oftener in the New Testament as messianic than any other passage in the Old Testament. Our Lord himself quotes it more than once. Peter quotes it in his great address recorded in Acts 2, and yet again in his first letter. Paul quotes it expressly in his first letter to the Corinthians, and again in the letter to the Ephesians and four times in the letter to the Hebrews, and all of them say that David wrote it; that David wrote it by inspiration; and that David wrote it with reference to the coming Messiah. And so we come to the end of the great catechism. It has been a duel to the death. THE LAST PUBLIC OF OUR LORDWe do not mean to intimate that Christ will not hereafter speak to his disciples. We mean that this discourse that we are now to consider ends his public ministry to the Jews. He considers the battle ended. They have rejected him, and now he makes the most serious indictment against the nation and its rulers known in the annals of time. It is the sharpest arraignment and the deepest denunciation to be found in the whole Bible. This discourse consists, first, of a great indictment; second, the denunciation of a great penalty; third, the suggestion of a great hope. Let us see then what is the indictment. We have already learned from the preceding discussion that the chief item of the indictment is their rejection of the Messiah and their purpose to murder him. Then follows the other items of the indictment relating particularly to the leaders: First, sitting in the seat of authority, they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne upon the people, which they themselves will not move with their finger. Second, all their works are done to be seen of men, hence they make broad their phylacteries, enlarge the borders of their garments, love the chief places at feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the marketplaces – to be called rabbi. Third, they shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, themselves not entering nor suffering those to enter who would enter. Fourth, they compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is become so, he is made twofold more a son of hell than themselves. Fifth, they swear by the lesser things, disregarding the greater, swearing by the gift on the altar as more than the altar which sanctifies the gift, swearing by the gold of the Temple as more than the Temple itself. Sixth, they tithe mint and anise and cummin and ignore the weightier matters of the law – judgment, mercy, and faith – strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Seventh, they cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within are full of extortion and excess, as whited sepulchres, outwardly appearing beautiful, while inwardly they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness, so they outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Eighth, they are as monument-builders garnishing the tombs of the righteous, as if they thus said, "We would never have been partakers in the blood of the prophets." All the time they are sons in spirit, as well as in flesh, of them that slew the prophets. In this way they fill up the measure of their fathers. And now comes… THE PENALTY"Upon you shall come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel, the righteous, unto the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah. . . . Your house is left unto you desolate." It has long been a puzzle to the thinker how the blood of Abel should came on the Jewish people, who, in their father Abraham, originated so many years subsequent to Abel. The answer to the puzzle is this: Abel and all subsequent martyrs believed in salvation by a coming Messiah. This doctrine was the hope of the whole world. And when the Jewish nation was established they were made the custodians of this doctrine. To them were committed the oracles of God. If, therefore, when the Messiah comes, to whom Abel and every martyr had looked forward, and the Jews rejected and killed that Messiah, they sin, not only against the Messiah, and not only against themselves, but they sin against the whole world. They sin against the hope of the world. If their attitude toward the Messiah is true, then Abel died in vain. If they alone of all the nations were entrusted with the doctrine of Abel's saving faith, and they repudiate that doctrine, on them comes the blood of Abel. The penalty denounced is not merely the destruction of the Holy City and the sacred Temple, and the dispersion of the Jewish nation, but it is a desolation – a tribulation that shall last through all the ages until the coming of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Therefore, as we learn later, it is called a trouble such as the world had never known before and would never know again. It is surprising that commentators, in discussing "the great tribulation" set forth in our Lord's great prophecy, make it a general tribulation bearing upon Gentile nations. It is exclusively a Jewish tribulation, which has already lasted about 1900 years. Nor is the end yet in sight. They were on probation twenty centuries as the bearers of the oracles of God. Their tribulation has already lasted nearly twenty centuries. THE GREAT HOPEThe great hope is suggested in this final word of his discourse, "Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." (Matthew 23:39). So, that the last word to the Jews, the last public message, touches the second advent of our Lord. Following this discourse we have an account of Jesus seated over against the treasury and beholding how men put money into the treasury. What a lesson is here! Christ watching the contributions, noting the amount, noting the motive, measuring the relative importance of the contributions, not by the amount, but by the unselfish sacrifice in the donation. In my young days I preached a sermon to the Waco Association on this text, on the theme, "The Treasury of God's People, and Christ's Observation of the Contributions to This Fund." The association called for its publication. The discussion was an epoch in the history of the association. From that time on enlargements in both spirituality and gifts, and broader fields came to Waco Association. Always before God's people should be this picture of Christ sitting over against the treasury watching how men put money into the treasury. (The author's sermon to which references are here made will be found in his first book of sermons.) 1. What was the Pharisees' last effort to entangle Christ by questioning him, how did they proceed and what two points upon which they consulted? 2. What is the meaning and usage of the words "lawyer" and "doctor"? 3. What was the form of the question they propounded to Christ and why important to note its form? 4. What difference between the Pharisees' use of the word "law," and Christ's use of it and in what did the trap here set for our Lord consist? 5. What was Christ's attitude toward their oral law, what example of their setting aside the written commandment cited, and what example of their punctiliousness in the observance of their oral law given? 6. State clearly the question as they propounded it to him and give his answer verbatim. 7. What sermon cited on this passage, what is the substance of it, and what application of this interpretation to our own generation? 8. What evidence here that this lawyer was better than those whom he represented? 9. How does Christ follow up his victory in this instance? 10. What was their answer to his question, what his second question and what the purpose of our Lord in these last questions? 11. What is the value of this statement of Christ in its bearing on radical criticism and what is the fallacy of the position of the radical critics in this case? 12. Of what does our Lord's last public discourse consist? 13. What items of the indictment? 14. What penalty denounced and its meaning and application? 15. What great hope suggested and its far-reaching meaning? 16. What great lesson of Christ and the treasury? XXI OUR LORD'S GREAT – HIS SECOND COMING Harmony, pages 160-168 and Matthew 24:1-25:46; Mark 13:1-37; Luke 21:5-36.The whole prophecy of our Lord, as contained in Matthew 24-25, in Mark 13, and Luke 21, has been considered in its general terms in the preceding discussions. Some details call for special attention in this discussion. 1. False christs. – On page 160 of the Harmony, Matthew 24:45 and the corresponding verses of the others there is a warning against false christs who will come before the advent of the real Christ. It was such a difficult matter to keep the disciples from expecting the final advent of our Lord speedily, as they call "speedily." He knew they would misunderstand and be all the time on the lockout for the coming, so would increase the danger of being deceived by false christs. If one is confidently looking for the final advent of our Lord tomorrow, and he does not come, and somebody else comes claiming to be Christ, he would very likely take the one that comes. Hence these warnings on that subject, "Take heed that no man shall lead you astray. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall lead many astray." Yet again in a much later stage of the prophecy he warns: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or, Lo, there; believe it not, for there shall arise false christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." Now, these false christs commence coming before the destruction of Jerusalem, and have been coming ever since, and they will multiply as the time approaches for the real advent of our Lord: but as we learn from 2 Thessalonians and Revelation, immediately preceding the advent of our Lord the man of sin will be revealed claiming that he is the Christ. 2. Warnings against false signs. – "And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled: for these things must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet, for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places. But all these things are the beginning of travail." Notwithstanding that solemn caution of our Lord, in every age of Christian history some disciples have found these events to be signs presaging the immediate coming of the Lord. In Bulwer's romance, The Last Days of Pompeii, he, true to history, gives us an account of how the Christian people in those cities misunderstood the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. When they saw that eruption, its smoke, its ashes, its lava, its fire, its overwhelming destruction of the cities, they said, "Behold the sign of the Son of man; the end of the world is at hand." This misconception was prevalent in the early centuries and held by what, in church history, is known as the Chiliasts, that is, literally, the "thousand year" people. It was repeated later in the history of Germany by the "Mad Men of Munster," who pointed to the signs of the times as indicating the approach of the Son of man, and taught that he would, on this earth, set up a kingdom, and they were to begin that kingdom, and history tells us how the strong arm of secular power had to put down the madness of these superstitious, crazed people. In the days of Oliver Cromwell, as English history informs us, a large part of his army was composed of what is known as the "Fifth Monarchy Men," that is, as there was the kingdom of Babylon, the kingdom of Persia, the kingdom of Greece, the kingdom of Rome, so the Fifth Monarchy Kingdom would be the kingdom of the little stone; hence they were called the Fifth Monarchy Men because) judging from the signs and commotions in England at the time, they thought that the Messiah would speedily be at hand, and they were to set up that fifth monarchy on earth. In the United States there arose the Millerites who believed in the speedy coming of our Lord, and who fixed the very day of his appearing. Edward Eggleston, true to history, has written a romance called, "The End of the World." He tells how these Millerites, having fixed the time for Christ to come, quit their business, gave away their property, and assembled on the day appointed with their ascension robes ready, expecting before that day closed to go right up to heaven) if only they could get the right flop, and when the day passed and no Christ came, then infidelity took the place of superstition concerning his coming at all. In 1833, just ten years before I was born, there occurred a marvelous meteoric display, commonly known as the falling of the stars. Several books have been written upon this falling of the stars. Whenever you see a star fall you may know it is not a star. Stars do not fall. But when this great meteoric display occurred it seemed as if every star in the heavens were falling. So white men, black men, lawyers, doctors, preachers, and all classes alike, ran out in the street or in the road, and cried, "Behold, the sign of the Son of man; the end of the world is at hand." Our Lord here is warning against that kind of belief. Notwithstanding his warning, every generation sees some people led astray in just that way. 3. Persecution. – Let us consider the paragraph of Mat 24:4-14, Harmony pages 160-162. Here he tries to make them understand that Christ's coming is not imminent, because a long series of events must precede it, and he gives the series here. There will be false christs, false signs, earthquakes, long-continued persecutions of Christians. They shall be accused before synagogue and Sanhedrin) before Gentile judges and kings until the gospel of the kingdom has been preached in all the world. All these things must precede the coming of the Lord, and therefore that coming cannot be speedy in man's sense of the word. As Peter taught, replying to an objection about the coming of Christ based on that fact, he says, "The Lord is not slack concerning the promise of his speedy coming as men count slackness, but it is speedy in God's sight, for a thousand years are with God as one day." It is speedy to him. It is not speedy to us. I called attention in the previous discussion to the statement of the apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2. Let us read that again in order to see that Christ's coming cannot take place until every foretold, preceding event has taken place. Hence he says, "Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by any epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is just at hand; let no man beguile you in anywise: for it will not be except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." 4. The great Jewish tribulation. – In Matthew 24:15-22; Mark 13:14-20; Luke 21:20-23, we have the sign of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the great age-long tribulation of the Jews, shortened for the sake of some elect Jews. Then in Luke 21:24 we learn how long this tribulation shall last, viz., to the fulness of the Gentiles. But the sign of our Lord's advent follows that tribulation. So we have no right to expect the coming of Jesus Christ until after the fulness of the Gentiles, until the end of the tribulation of the Jews, and until the conversion of the Jews. When, then, is that sign to appear? "But in those days after that tribulation." It must be after the cessation of the Jewish tribulation. It must be after the great darkness that follows that tribulation. I have already explained what the sign was – the white throne of glory in the judgment as compared with the sign of the first advent – a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Then comes the advent itself, then they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. All three of the witnesses testify as to the personal, visible, audible, tangible advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, and every time, he is represented as coming in the clouds: as, "That same Jesus whom ye saw taken up into heaven shall so come again in like manner." No man with a Bible before him can seriously question a personal, real, visible, audible, palpable, tangible coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't preach on it enough. While the premillennialist preaches too much on the time feature of it, the postmillennialist preaches too little on the reality and certainty of it. Whoever puts the time too soon, or makes it always imminent prepares for infidelity in the reaction of disappointment. Whoever leaves it out of his preaching altogether, leaves out the great hope of the gospel. 5. The parable of the fig tree. – We come now to the parable of the fig tree in Matthew 24:32 and parallel places in Mark and Luke. They all tell about it. It is preceded by this statement in Luke, "But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh." Certain indications in the fig tree tell us when to look for the fruit. So when we begin to see the conversion of the Jews, the end of the fulness of the Gentiles, then we may rejoice and lift up our heads, for our redemption is nigh. The crucial difficulty of interpretation is Matthew 24:34 : "This generation shall not pass away until all these things be accomplished." That the commentators differ on this passage is true. Some claim this as proof that Christ himself believed and so taught his disciples to believe that his final advent would be in that generation, i.e., in an ordinary lifetime. But this claim is utterly irreconcilable with his previous, explicit teaching of the long series of events that must intervene. It utterly contradicts all his careful hedging against this very delusion. We are compelled therefore to construe this verse as referring exclusively to the question, "When shall Jerusalem be destroyed?" and then to account for its order in the discussion, or we must construe the Greek phrase e genea aute to mean "this race" – these Jews as a distinct people, shall not pass away till all these things be accomplished. It would thus become a prophecy, and a very remarkable one, of the persistence of this people through all their tribulation until the coming of the Lord. In the preceding discussion I have given Dr. Broadus' contention that it means an ordinary lifetime, and allowing that his contention accounted for its order in the discussion. In the same discussion also I have given my own contrary conviction of the meaning of the phrase and justified it by the context, which renders any explanation of the order wholly unnecessary. I trust the reader may understand this matter as explained, but I restate to make sure: First explanation: "This generation" means an ordinary lifetime, and answers the question, "When shall Jerusalem be destroyed?" Our problem then is to account for its order in the prophecy, following as it does the unmistakable reference to the final advent. We thus account for it. Our Lord answers all the questions propounded by his disciples and comes to a pause at Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27; Luke 21:28. In the general sense the discussion is ended. But in order to give clearness on some points he resumes the discussion of both the destruction of Jerusalem and of his final advent. This resumption begins where the general discussion closed, and is introduced by the parable of the fig tree, which in that case refers exclusively to the destruction of Jerusalem. This Jerusalem reference stops at Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:32. The resume has no more to say about Jerusalem, but takes up the second topic, our Lord's final advent, commencing, "But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only" (Matthew 24:36; Luke 13:22). To this topic is devoted all the rest of the discourse. On Dr. Broadus' theory of the meaning of "this generation" there is no other explanation of the order in which the fig tree parable occurs. On the other theory of what "this generation" means there is no need to strain an explanation of the order of the fig tree. From beginning to end the whole prophecy proceeds in order and without a pause. From Matthew 24:29 to the end the advent only is discussed. Let us consider this theory. The Greek is e genea aute, and may mean this generation or this race of people. There is no question but that e genea aute sometimes means this race of people as well as this generation. And the context, notwithstanding Dr. Broadus' declining to accept this meaning in his commentary (and I have more deference for him than any other commentator I ever studied), notwithstanding that he says that we should not put this meaning on it, I can take the context and prove that we should put this meaning on it. He doesn't deny that the phrase sometimes means this race of people. Then, if it sometimes means that, if that is a correct translation in some connections, may it not in this connection mean that, and does not this connection demand it? The signification then would be that other nations will rise and fall and pass away, but this race of people, the Jews, will not pass away. They will be here when Jesus comes. It becomes a prophecy of the perpetuity of the Jewish people. Since the call of Abraham until the present time, while Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, and scores of other nations have passed away, this people has persisted in continuity of being. The argument from the context appears in a preceding discussion. The next thought is Matthew 24:35. 6. The certainty of the advent. – "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." Put the word of Jesus Christ against the heavens above and the earth beneath us. They may pass away, and they will, but "thus saith the Lord" is indestructible. He says that he is coming back. He will come back. No matter what the course of nature teaches as set forth in the second letter of Peter, when man looking at it stated, "Since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they have done from the foundation of the world:" Spring, summer, autumn, winter, a series of ever recurring events is called the course of nature. They say that has been from the beginning. Jesus says that if he puts in a word against that course of nature, the course will fail, but his word will stand, and he says he is coming. 7. The time of his coming. – Take Matthew 24:36, "But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." The Son, in the limitation of his humanity, as a man, did not know. Michael doesn't know; Gabriel doesn't know; the angels in heaven do not know the day of the coming of the Son of man. God knows. "God the Father hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained." (1) It is all important to fix the mind on this capital point, viz.: It is not liable to come any day. As the first came only in the fulness of time, so the second. The day of his first coming was like the day of his second coming will be. It is as fixed and immovable as the day of his first coming. Never forget the words of Paul, to the Athenians: "God hath appointed a day" (2) Certain pessimists reverse Daniel's stone image of the growth of the kingdom and our Lord's parable of the mustard seed. They have a tadpole interpretation of the kingdom, big at the head and "petering out" at the tail. They hold that matters will wax worse and worse until at the advent only a handful of saints will be in the world, and claim this passage as a proof text. They argue from the few saved in Noah's day to the few when Christ comes. They utterly mistake the point of likeness. The day of the advent is not like the day of the flood in the fewness of the saved) but in the suddenness of the coming in each case. In both cases the wicked are surprised and are swept away unprepared. 8. Noah and the flood. – This paragraph finds a point of likeness between the coming of the flood and the final advent. It is our business to make no mistake on what is the likeness in point: "In that day they were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came and took them all away. So shall be the coming of the Son of man." That is, it shall be as unexpected as the coming of the flood. That very day when the flood came the wicked were buying, selling, and marrying, and giving in marriage, and going right along, not believing that there would be any flood. The point of likeness there then is the suddenness and unexpectedness of that coming to the wicked. The coming is like a flash of lightning, startling even those who are watching the clouds. In the text (Matthew 24:40-41) he shows that it will be unexpected to the righteous. He does the same thing in the parable of the ten virgins. They are all of them, the true and the false alike, asleep. They were startled by that coming. That separation the angels make will be utterly unexpected to the good man that was taken and the bad man that was left, to the good woman that was taken and to the bad woman that was left. 9. The warning of the parables. – Four parables follow in succession, all of them bearing on the suddenness and unexpectedness of his coming. The first is the parable of the man sojourning in another country, who before he went away gave authority to his servants, just as Jesus, before he goes up to heaven, will say to his disciples, "All authority in heaven and in earth is given unto me. I give it unto you, and I tell you what to do: go and preach the gospel to every creature and make disciples of all nations." The parable anticipates the fact. The man sojourning in a far country does not tell his servants the day of his return. So the second parable, that of the householder, leaves the master of the house ignorant of the time when the thief comes. The thief does not write a letter to this householder saying, "On next Thursday night I am coming to burglarize your house," nor does he, on arrival, ring the bell and send in his card. The parable of the ten virgins is of like purport to good and bad. It matters not that one be awake at the time of the advent. All the ten slept. The thing that matters is preparedness. Get ready and keep ready. A soldier, though asleep, is ready, if, when the sentry fires at midnight and the drum beats, he can put his hand at once on his clothes, musket, and cartridge box. He is unready, if, when the alarm awakes him, he must in the dark hunt up things, clean his musket, and fill his cartridge box. These five wise virgins, though sleeping, were ready, because they had bought oil for their lamps. The five foolish virgins were unready, because they had not made this provision. The great point of this parable is: There can be no preparation after Jesus comes. The time for preparation is then forever gone. John the Baptist came to prepare men. Jesus, at his first advent, came to prepare men. At the final advent he comes not to save, but to reward and judge. 10. The purpose of the final advent. – This purpose is clearly taught in the parable of the talents, so far as his professed servants are concerned. Going away, he made them stewards of his goods. But "now after a long time the Lord of these servants cometh and maketh a reckoning with them." If hypocrites, they utterly perish. Why does he come, so far as they are concerned? What is the purpose of his coming? To make a reckoning with them – their stewardship ceases. So far as the Christians are concerned the purpose of the final advent is, by their works, to show what fidelity as Christians they have exercised in the service of the Lord. If they have done well they receive a reward; if they have done unrighteously they suffer loss, but they are saved, yet as by fire, says Paul. The object of the coming, then, so far as Christians are concerned, is to reckon with them as to their Christian stewardship. But the fulness of the purpose appears in the last paragraph of the prophecy: "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory and all nations shall be gathered before him." Why gathered? That tells us why: They are separated instantly. The righteous take the place at the right hand and participate with him in the judgment. The wicked are sent away into everlasting punishment. And every time the coming of the Lord as to its purpose is expressed, that same lesson is taught – that he doesn't come to teach; he doesn't come as a vicarious sacrifice for sin; he doesn't come to make intercession for his people in his priesthood ; he doesn't come to rule as a king, but he comes to turn over the kingdom. He does come to judge. I want to get the thought of that judgment before you. Revelation 20:11 says, "I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it, before whom the heavens and the earth fled away and there was found no place for them." The earth will be regenerated by fire. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. He winds up the present earth and the present heavens at his coming, "and the dead, small and great, stand before him," for judgment, "and the books were opened." Now notice: "And the dead were judged out of the books according to their works." 11. Some questions. – very briefly answer some questions. If Christ's first advent was a far-off, fixed time and not a sliding scale of possibilities, then is it true that Christ may come at any time? It is not true. He couldn't come before the Spirit was given, as he promised. He couldn't come before Jerusalem was destroyed, as foretold. He couldn't come before the fulness of the Gentiles and the conversion of the Jews, as he foretold. He couldn't come before the great apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin, as he foretold. Then why exhort everybody to watch? I wouldn't know how to answer that question at all if Christ was liable to come at any time, but I do know how to answer it if the day of his coming is fixed and far away. I know how to reply to it. It is quite important to answer this question fairly, for three things are clear from our Lord's teaching: (1) the final advent is a fixed, definite date; (2) the series of foretold intervening events necessitates a far away date; (3) yet every man is exhorted to look for it, in his day, and be ready. The first part of the answer consists of this fact: There are many comings of the Lord, and each is related to the final coming: The Lord comes in the Holy Spirit: "I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you" (John 14:18). The relation of this advent to the final advent is shown in Acts 2:19-20. The Lord comes in judgments, as at the destruction of Jerusalem (Matthew 21:40-41). And this coming, like the flood, is related to the final coming, as in the prophecy. The Lord comes at the Christian's death (John 14:3; Acts 7:56; Matthew 24:44-51). Otherwise the warning in Matthew 24:44-51 would be only a scare to all but the generations living when Jesus comes. The second part of the answer consists in this: That while the final advent is a long way off to the race of man, between that advent and the individual of the race there is only the time till the individual's death. With death his watching and his preparation cease. If he dies tomorrow unready, he will be unready when the advent comes to the race, though that may be centuries hence. When I die I will get out of time into eternity. I am not charged or credited with anything that I do after I die. All that the judgment takes cognizance of are the deeds that are done in the body, not after one gets out of his body. The only time for me to prepare for the second advent is while I am living, and though that advent to the race may be a thousand years off, it isn't a thousand years to me; it is just a number of days till I am dead. The only time I can watch, can pray, can get ready, is before I die. Therefore, he says, "I say unto you all, Watch, be ready." We must keep before us distinctly these two points: The coming of Christ historically to the race at a fixed day far away, and the coming of Christ to the individual when he dies; at the depot of death he meets us if we are Christians. The purpose of the advent is to judge both the righteous and the unrighteous. 12, The one ground of judgment. – That is the treatment accorded to Christ in his gospel and in his people. That is set forth in the end of the lesson. Jesus says to those on his right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my Father. Because I was sick and ye visited me, I was hungry and ye fed me, I was in prison and ye ministered unto me." Then shall they say, "Lord, when did we do this? You were not on earth while we were living." "Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me. I identify myself with my gospel, my cause, my people." Look at the wicked. They are condemned now, but at the judgment there will be taken into account their deeds done in the body: "How did you treat Christ offered to you as a Saviour in his gospel? How did you treat his cause, his people?" And when he tells them that they did not come when he was sick, they did not give him food when he was hungry, they did not clothe him when he was naked, and did not minister unto him, they will say, "When, Lord? We don't remember ever seeing you." He answers, "Yes, but you saw my people, you had my gospel preached to you." And in the same way the good angels will be confirmed, the evil ones with the devil condemned, and their treatment of Christ will be taken into account. 1. Why the necessity of warning against false christs? 2. What is Christ's warning on this point? 3. Has history verified the wisdom of this caution of Christ? If so, how? 4. Who is to be the culmination of all the antichrists? 5. What was Christ's warning against false signs? 6. What is the historical proof that men have mistaken natural phenomena for the sign, erred in fixing a date, and have misconceived the nature and time of the kingdom, with grievous results? 7. What are the events outlined by our Lord in Matthew 24:4-14 which show that the coming of Christ is not imminent? 8. What does Paul say must come first? 9. What is the importance of the doctrine of the advent and the preacher's duty with respect to it? 10. What is the lesson of the parable of the fig tree according to the construction of Mat 24:34? 11. Restate the two theories of interpretation and show the argument for the author's position. 12. In what statement does our Lord show the certainty of his coming and how does this answer the objection offered by the mockers referred to in 2 Peter 3:4-7 13. What does Jesus say as to who knows the time of his coming and how explain this statement as it applies to Christ? 14. Cite positive proof that the day of his final advent is not a sliding scale of possibilities, always imminent, but a definitely fixed and unalterable date, and compare it, in this respect, with the date of his first advent. 15. Two opposing views are preached: one, pessimistic as to the world prevalence of the gospel under the Spirit dispensation presenting the gospel kingdom as a tadpole, i.e., big at the head but tapering into a fine-pointed tail; the other, optimistic, as to the world prevalence of the gospel, as a little stone in its beginning and growing into a mountain and finally filling the whole earth. Which of these is the scriptural view and the proof? 16. What, then, is the explanation of Mat 7:13-14; Luke 13:23-24; Luke 17:26; Luke 18:8? 17. What four parables follow bearing on the suddenness and unexpectedness of his coming and what the point illustrated in each respectively? 18. What is the purpose of his coming with reference to hypocrites? With reference to Christians? 19. If a justified man goes immediately to heaven when he dies and an unjustified man to hell, why bring them from these places of joy and torment before a judgment seat at the end of the world? 20. What reference to this is in the book of Revelation and what are the books to be opened at the judgment? Answer: For the answer to the last part of this question see sermon, "The Library of Heaven"; first volume of sermons by the author. 21. If Christ's first advent was a far-off, fixed time and not a sliding scale of possibilities, then is it true that Christ may come at any time? 22. What events must come first as foretold? 23. What three things are clear from our Lord's teachings on this point? 24. Then why exhort everybody to watch? 28. What is the one ground of the judgment? Illustrate in the case of the Christians, the sinners, and the angels, respectively. XX OUR LORD'S GREAT – HIS SECOND COMING Harmony, pages 160-168 and Matthew 24:1-25:46; Mark 13:1-37; Luke 21:8-36.This discussion begins with the third question: What shall be the extent of the tribulation of the Jews, commencing with the destruction of Jerusalem? Jesus answers, "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." (Luke 21:24). That is his answer. A great many people, in commenting upon this, try to make out this great tribulation to be a Gentile tribulation. There is no Gentile tribulation in it at all; it is a Jewish tribulation altogether, and the "elect" spoken of, for whose sake the days were shortened, are not elect Gentiles, but elect Jews. Now, as their probation had lasted nearly twenty centuries, so that penalty has already lasted nearly twenty centuries, and no man now can see the end of it. There is no discernible sign yet upon the spiritual horizon of the fulness of the Gentiles. The kingdom of heaven was turned over to them and they pushed it through Asia into Africa, into Europe, across the ocean into America, across that continent and into the Pacific and into its islands, and then to the thick-peopled Orient again, and they are still pushing out the boundaries of the kingdom of God, and triumphantly preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Jewish tribulation has not yet ceased. Moses, with very great particularity, anticipating the very declaration of Jesus Christ, describes this Jewish tribulation. He says, "If you shall break my covenant, and will not hear the prophet that is to come, like unto me, then you shall be destroyed as a people. You shall be sent captive among all nations, and nowhere shall ye be kindly received. And so great will be the persecution against you that the heavens above shall seem brass and the earth beneath seem iron, and when it is evening you will say, Would to God it were morning, and when it is morning, you will say, Would to God it were evening." Our Lord further says that this tribulation shall cease when they shall say, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," that is, when they shall hear the Gentile messengers bearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then, as Zechariah puts it, "In the last days, saith the Lord, I will pour out upon the house of Israel and upon the house of David, the spirit of prayer and supplication, and they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his first-born son, and in that day a fountain for sin and for uncleanness shall be opened for the house of Israel and for the house of David." So that the tribulation ends, just as Paul, in Romans 11, says it will end, by the conversion of the Jews. He says, "I say then, Did they stumble that they might fall? God forbid: but by their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. Now, if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? . . . For, if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" (Romans 11:11-12; Romans 11:15.) To like purport speaks Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36:16-27; Ezekiel 37:1-14. He saw a valley of dry bones. They represented dispersed and afflicted Israel. He prophesied over them, and they came together, and articulated into skeletons, and were clothed with flesh. He prophesied to the Spirit: "Come from the four winds, O Spirit, and breathe on these slain that they may live." And they lived. Thus, under the figure of a physical resurrection, he sets forth the spiritual resurrection of Israel in the day of their conversion. The house of Israel had gone away to the nations in captivity and this is the promise of God that they shall be revived and restored, so that a very important question arises – what is the relation of the conversion of the Jews to the final advent of our Lord? Peter answers that question. He says to the Jews: "Ye crucified the Lord of glory. I know, brethren, that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers, and now repent ye and turn so that your sins may be blotted out, so that God may send Jesus, whom the heavens must receive until the time of the restoration of all things." There is not in the Bible one thought more clearly taught than this, viz.: The Jews must be converted before Messiah comes again. The salvation of the Jews in one day, as set forth in many prophecies, and many other events lasting at least a thousand years, will intervene between the end of the tribulation and the advent of our Lord, as is shown in his second great prophecy – Revelation. We now take up the next question: When, then, will Messiah come? And here is Jesus' answer to that. On page 164 of the Harmony, Matthew 24:29 says, "But immediately, [mark that comma] after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven." Notice how Mark 13:24-25 puts it: "But in those days, after the tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall be falling from heaven." Luke 21:25-26 says, "And there shall be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows: fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." Notice that word "immediately." You see from the punctuation that it does not connect with tribulation, so as to make it read without comment, "immediately after the tribulation." It does not connect with that. It connects with the darkening of the sun – "after the tribulation of those days" – how long after, he does not say: "the sun shall be immediately darkened." That means not gradually, as in an eclipse, but instantly every light shall be put out. Is that the sign of his advent? He says, "No." The next verse says: "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." What, then, is the last event antecedent to the sign? It is this instant darkening of all the heavenly bodies. That is the background for the sign – total darkness, darker than Egypt, darker than the darkness of Byron's dream, so dark it could be felt, the whole world dark 'and not an eclipse – not a gradual and partial darkness, but immediately the sun shall be darkened and totally. Then, right in that darkness, shall appear the sign of the Son of man. What is that sign? He answers that question very plainly. He says (Matthew 25:31), "When the Son of man shall come in his glory" – not in his humiliation, as he did the first time, but in his glory – "then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory." John says (Revelation 20:11), "And I saw a great white throne." Now, that is the sign; a great white throne, right in the heart of that darkness. When he came the first time he said to the shepherds through the angels, "This shall be a sign unto you." What was the sign the first time? "A babe in swaddling clothes and cradled in a manger;" that was the sign of the first advent, the sign of the coming of his humiliation, when he stooped, when he condescended, when he took upon himself human nature, when he came in the feebleness of infancy, exposed to hunger and cold and thirst and poverty – that was the sign then. The next time he comes he does not come in his humiliation: he comes in his glory, and we must look for a sign as far distant from a baby in a horse trough as possible, and that sign is a throne, and it is a white throne of dazzling whiteness. From the manger to the throne! And mark well, it is not the throne of a continuing priesthood. It is not the throne of the inauguration of a king. The priest has left forever the most holy place of intercession, and kingship ends with the second coming. The King is just about to abdicate and turn the kingdom over to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). It is the throne of the judge, the last office of our Lord. That is the sign of his coming, viz.: The appearance of a great white throne of judgment. Picture the scene. Imagine that the expanse above the horizon and all around the world is as dark as the world was in its chaos, when darkness was upon the face of the deep, and right in the midst of that darkness a center spot of whiteness is seen, the whitest thing the eye ever looked at, coming, coming, coming, larger, whiter) until we can see him that is sitting on the throne. Now, that white throne is the sign of the final advent of our Lord. But we are not left to that identification alone. We are told in this very prophecy that at his coming he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet. The trumpet and the throne come together. Earth never heard it but once before. When the law was given at Mount Sinai, when God came down and Sinai smoked and trembled and thundered, Moses says that there came a sound of a mighty trumpet that waxed louder and louder and louder, and the people fell at the sound of that terrible blast blown by no human lips. Now, that trumpet sound will come in connection with that white throne. But don't make the mistake that this is Gabriel blowing his horn for the raising of the dead. That is Negro theology. Gabriel doesn't blow that horn. Michael blows it. The object of it is not to raise the dead, but to marshal the angels that come. He shall send forth his angels with this trumpet sound. It is their signal to fall into line and forward march: "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory." Nor is that all. There is a signal to the saints on earth. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout," says Paul. He shall come with a great shout. The earth never heard that voice of the archangel (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Earth never heard that shout before, and we know just what it is. Jesus tells us here in this prophecy. He says, "And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold the Bridegroom; go ye out to meet him." There can be no mistaking in any of these things. We can't mistake that darkness for any other darkness, that whiteness for any other whiteness, nor that trumpet for any other trumpet, nor that shout for any other shout. To complete the intensely dramatic and artistic power of the application, imagine that whiteness to be fringed with fire – whiteness fire-fringed, outlined in darkness. His angels are flaming spirits, ministers of fire, and they come surrounding that white throne on which the Master, the Judge, is sitting. Darkness, white throne, fire-fringed, trumpet, and shout. Two men shall be out in the field that very day. They get their breakfast and start out to work, maybe plowing side by side, but there are two of them, and all at once they can't see the plow handles nor each other. There is total darkness. Then that whiteness, that fire fringe, then that trumpet, then that shout comes. A part of that fire fringe separates itself. It is an angel swooping down upon the earth and one of these men is taken, and the other is left. "He shall send his holy angels and gather up his elect from all the ends of the earth." Now imagine the man whom the angel took and the man whom the angel left. But that man is not left long. Another angel swoops down and that man is taken. He (Jesus) says in the parable of the tares, "At the end of the world he shall send his angels and they shall gather out of his kingdom everything that offends." They shall pick up these tares and bind them for the burning. Notice again that he says, "Two women shall be grinding at the mill." It is a handmill. They will be pounding their corn with a maul. We see that in Mexico today, just as they did then, and these two women will be working together. They will be getting ready the material for dinner, pounding the grain. All at once the darkness, the whiteness, the fire fringe, the trumpet, the shout, "Behold the Bridegroom; go ye out to meet him," and an angel swoops and one woman is taken, and the other is left. Another angel swoops, and the second woman is taken. He then brings out another thought so intensely tremendous that it will stagger the credulity of some. He says that the kingdom of heaven at that time shall be likened unto ten virgins. These are all professing Christians, all church members, five of them are real Christians. They have oil in their lamps. Five of them are only nominal Christians. They took no oil with their lamps, and suddenly that cry was heard, "Behold, the Bridegroom!" and the five that were ready were caught away with the Lord. The other five, what? Mark it. They tried then to get ready. They go out to buy oil, and what is the reply? "Too late, too late; ye cannot enter now.” After Jesus comes in his final advent, the soul-saving time is ended forever. Whoever is not ready will then never be ready. The idea of Christ coming and thousands of years passing on after he comes and men living and dying, and the gospel being preached or men being saved by some other means, is wholly foreign to the teaching of our Lord. No one can get ready then. His coming is a windup. The prodigies are not exhausted. One great tragedy remains, more momentous than Noah's flood, its great prototype. We recall that when Noah was ark sheltered, then on the wicked came the deluge. As soon as the saints, soul and body, are caught into the clouds unto the Lord, another deluge comes, not of water, but of fire. The whole world, land and sea, is an ocean of flame. In this literal world the living wicked perish. Their bodies are actually consumed in this fire. They cannot escape physical death as do the living saints. There is for them no transforming change as comes to the righteous (1 Corinthians 15:51-55). They must die by fire in the day of that fire. Carefully read in this connection the following scriptures: Malachi 4:1-3; 2 Peter 3:1-10; 1 Corinthians 3:11-15; and especially the parable of the tares, Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 13:36-43. While the foolish virgins vainly seek to get ready, vainly knock when it is forever too late, the fire comes, the deluge of fire, and their bodies are consumed. Let us now proceed to his next question: What is the purpose of his coming, and in what capacity does he come? When he came the first time he came as a prophet teaching the way of life. He came as a sacrifice expiating sin. He ascended to heaven, assuming his kingdom and reigning in heaven for his people, and exercising his priesthood in heaven, ever living to make intercession for them, but when he comes the next time he does not come to teach; no gospel then; he does not come as a sin offering. Paul says, "When he comes the next time, he comes apart from a sin-offering unto salvation." There is no salvation in his second coming. He does not come next time as a king, for when he comes, says Paul, he comes to turn over the kingdom to the Father, and then will be the end. As he says further in 1 Corinthians 15, he reigns up yonder until the last enemy is put under his feet, and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, and then he turns over the kingdom to the Father, and God is all in all. Then, if he comes, not as prophet nor as' sacrifice, nor as king, does he come as priest? Nay, verily. When he comes he vacates the high priesthood function in the court of heaven, for in the New Jerusalem that is seen, says John, "I saw no temple therein." He does not come as a priest; he comes as a Judge: "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all the nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then he says to those on the right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, and to those on his left hand, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." These shall go into eternal life and those shall go into the place prepared for the devil and his angels. There is no teaching about that; there is no explanation about that; there is no ruling about that; there is no high priesthood about that. That is the function of a judge. Now here is John's statement of it: "I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away. . . . And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. . . . The sea gave up its dead, death and hell gave up their dead, and they were judged." That is the purpose of his coming. You never can be a sound theologian until you master the purpose of Christ's first coming and what he did; his ascent into heaven, why he went, how long he stays, and what he does while he is up there; then the purpose of his final advent. "The Lord said unto my lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." And he is going to stay up there until he does make his enemies his footstool. "We have left all to follow thee," says Peter, "What shall we have?" "You who have followed me, when the regeneration comes," that is, the regeneration of the earth, when the great fire sweeps the earth, and it is purified, "then you shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Those that are placed at his right hand aid him and voice his word when he pronounces the sentence of death upon the wicked and upon the lost angels: "Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?" says Paul, and "Know ye not that the saints shall judge angels?" What poetic justice is there in thinking that Peter and Job shall sit upon this throne at the right hand of Jesus Christ and judge the devil that worried them so much while they were here upon the earth I All Christians will participate in that judgment. They will take their place at the right hand of the Lord: "They shall sit with me upon my throne, as when I had overcome and took my seat on my Father's throne, and they shall judge all nations." 1. What was Jesus' answer to the question, "What is the extent of the tribulation commencing with the destruction of Jerusalem"? 2. Was it a Gentile, Christian, or strictly Jewish tribulation? 3. How long was it to continue? 4. The elect for whose sake it is shortened, are they Jews, Gentiles, or Christians? 5. What is the description of this tribulation given by Moses? 6. What is the description given by Hosea? See Hosea 3:4. 7. How long has it already lasted and are there yet clear indications of its speedy cessation? 8. What event will terminate it? 9. What is Zechariah's description of it? 10. What is Paul's description of it? 11. What is Ezekiel's description of it? 12. What is Isaiah's description of it? Answer: Isaiah shows that the judgments of God upon Israel continue until their conversion, Isaiah 65:17-20; that this conversion introduces the millennium, Isaiah 65:25; that this national conversion shall be in one day, with glorious results to the Gentiles, Isaiah 66:8-10. 13. In what dispensation, by whom &what means will all this take place? 14. What is the relation this event to the final advent according to Peter? 15. What were the mighty attendant events according to Revelation? Answer: Revelation 11:19-19; Revelation 20:1-3. 16. What glorious world triumph of the gospel do these events introduce? 17. How does Christ answer the question, "When is the final advent and the end of the world?" 18. What great supernatural prodigy precedes the sign, and how do you connect and construe the "immediately" of Matthew 24:29? 19. What is not the sign? 20. When and what is the sign of the second advent? 21. What is the sign of the first advent? 22. What is the contrast of the signs of the two advents and what is the fitness of each to the event? 23. What sound accompanying the sign, who sounds it, when heard before, negatively and positively what is this sound for, what appearance of those summoned by this sound, and what their double office on this occasion? 24. What shout attending the sign? 25. What two other supernatural prodigies precede the gathering of the elect by the angels? Answer: The resurrection of the righteous dead and the transfiguration of the living saints. 26. Describe in the case of the two women grinding at mill, the two men in the field and the ten sleeping virgins, this rapture, or catching up of the elect. 27. In view of the universal darkness, the appearance of the great white throne in the darkness, the fire fringe of the angels around the throne, the loud sounding trumpet, the great shout, the resurrection of the righteous dead, the transfiguration of the living saints, the instant separation of people close together, as in the case of the two women – the two men – the ten virgins – is it possible, as some teach, that these stupendous events shall be secret, invisible, and inaudible to the wicked? 28. What convincing Scripture proof to the contrary? 29. What stupendous mistake was made by the foolish virgins, and what present-day teaching tends to perpetuate their mistake? 30. Instead of opportunity to then get ready, what overwhelming supernatural disaster befalls sinners and the world, and what office of the angels toward them is instantly executed? 31. What parable sets forth this angel office to the wicked? 32. Where according to this prophecy, do the angels in the double office of catching up the "elect" and the "tares" gather them? 33. How does our Lord in an earlier teaching concerning Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba show that good and bad are gathered together at one time and for one judgment? Answer: See Matthew 12:41-42. 34. How does his last Revelation to John show the same thing? 35. How does Paul show that when he comes to be glorified in his saints is the very time that the wicked are punished with everlasting destruction? Answer: See 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10. 36. What paragraph of this prophecy shows the purpose of final advent? 37. What are the Messiah's several offices, when and where each exercised and in which does he come last? 38. Show from the Scriptures that in the final advent he does not come as a prophet, sacrifice, priest, or king, but only as a final, supreme judge, and that after this coming there can be no increase in the number of the saved. 39. What three things essential to know in order to be a sound theologian? 40. What part do the saints have with Christ in the judgment? XXII THE BETHANY SUPPER; THE SUPPER; WASHING THE ' FEET; PETER AND JUDAS AT THE LAST SUPPER Harmony, pages 169-177 and Matthew 26:1-25; Matthew 26:31-35; Mark 14:1-8; Mark 14:27-31; Luke 22:1-16; Luke 22:21-38, John 12:2-8; John 13:1-38.This section is taken from the events from our Lord's great prophecy to his betrayal by Judas. The principal events in their order are: (1) Jesus predicts and the rulers plot his death; (2) the three great suppers – at Bethany, the Passover, and the Lord's Supper; (3) the farewell discourse of comfort to his disciples; (4) Christ's great intercessory prayer; (5) Gethsemane. Their importance consist not only in the signification of the events themselves, but also in the sharp contrasts of character in the light of the presence of Jesus, and their bearing upon the meaning of all the rest of the New Testament. The space devoted to them by the several historians is as follows: Matthew, Mark, and Luke give less than one chapter each; Paul a single paragraph; John four full chapters. Here we note the value of John's contribution to this matter, with similar instances, and his great silences sometimes where the others speak, and the bearing of the facts on two points: Did he have the other histories before him when he wrote, and what one of the purposes of his writing? John's large contribution to this matter, with similar instances – for example, the early Judean ministry and the discourse on the Bread of Life in Capernaum, and his silences in the main concerning the Galilean ministry, clearly show that he did have before him the other histories when he wrote, and that one of his purposes was to supplement their story. According to Dr. Broadus these intervening events between the prophecy and the betrayal are but successive steps through which our Lord seeks to prepare both himself and his disciples for his approaching death and their separation. They did prepare Christ himself but not his disciples, who did not understand until after his resurrection, nor indeed, fully, until after the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The Bethany supper. – Bethany, the village, and Jerusalem, the city, are brought in sharp contrast. The Holy City rejects the Lord, and the little village entertains him by a special supper in his honor. Two persons also are contrasted, viz.: Judas and Mary. This revealing light of places and persons was in Jesus. The revelations of Mary in her anointing were: (1) Her faith in the Lord's words about his approaching death, greater than that of any of the apostles. They were surprised; the great event came upon them as a surprise, but later they understood. (2) It is a revelation of the greatness of her love, selecting the costliest and best of all she had without reservation to be used as an ointment for her Lord – a preparation for his burial. (3) It is a revelation of the far-reaching effect of what she did; as the ointment was diffused throughout the house, the fame of her glorious deed would be diffused throughout the world and to the end of time. Such love, such faith, no man has ever evinced. This incident reveals Judas as one who had become a disciple for ambitious ends and greed. He, like Mary, is convinced now that Christ will not evade death, and that his ambitious desire of promotion in a worldly government will not be realized. The relation between Mary's anointing and his bargain to sell his Lord arise from the fact that as he was treasurer of the funds, mainly contributed by the women who followed the Lord, and was a thief accustomed to appropriate to himself from this fund, and as Mary's gift, in his judgment, should have been put into the treasury and thus increase the amount from which he could steal, he determined to get what he could in another direction. This treasury being about empty, and under such following as that of Mary was not likely to be increased, then he must turn somewhere else for money. In the same way the light of the Lord's presence revealed by marvelous contrast all other men or women who for a moment stood in that light. We would know nothing worth considering of Pilate, Caiaphas, and Herod, or the thieves on the cross, except as they stand revealed in the orbit of Christ's light, in which they appear for a short time. On them that light confers the immortality of infamy; as in the case of others like Mary, it confers the immortality of honor. The Passover supper. – Our Lord's intense desire to participate in this particular Passover arises from his knowledge of its relation to his own approaching death, he being the true Passover Lamb, the antitype, and because at this Passover supper is to be the great transition to the Supper of the New Covenant. Here the question arises: In the light of this and other passages, did he in fact eat the regular Passover supper? His words, "I will not eat it," being only a part of a sentence, do not mean that he did not participate in the last Passover supper, but it means that he will not eat it again. That he did partake of this supper the text clearly shows. See the argument in Dr. Robertson's note at the end of the Harmony. But the clause, "Until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22:16; Luke 22:29-30), needs explanation. Both the Passover supper and the Lord's Supper, instituted thereafter, are shadows of substances in the heavens. There will be in the glory world a feasting, not on earthly materials, but on the spiritual food of the kingdom of God. Our Lord washing the feet of the apostles. – When we carefully examine Luke 22:24-30 and John's account, we find that the disciples, having complied with the ablutions required by the Levitical law preparatory to the Passover, knew that when they got to the place of celebrating, somebody must perform the menial service of washing the feet which had become defiled by the long walk to the place. Hence a controversy arose as to greatness and precedence; each one, on account of what he conceived to be his high position in the kingdom, was unwilling to do the needed service. This washing of feet was connected with the Passover, an Old Testament ordinance, and not with our Lord's Supper, a New Testament ordinance. A Southern theologian, Rev. John L. Dagg, preached a brief, simple, but very great sermon on this washing of feet, found in the Virginia Baptist Pulpit, an old book now out of print. That sermon gives two classes of scriptures, and analyzes this washing of feet, giving its lessons and showing how it cannot be a New Testament church ordinance, as follows: The two classes of scriptures are: (1) Those which refer to the purifications required before entering the Passover proper, or its attendant seven-day festival of unleavened bread, e.g., Numbers 9:6-10; 2 Chronicles 30:2-4; 2 Chronicles 30:17-20; Luke 22:14-30; John 13:1-26; John 18:28. (2) Those referring to the ablution of feet, before an ordinary meal and as an act of hospitality, e. g., Genesis 18:4; Genesis 19:2; Genesis 24:32; Genesis 43:24; Judges 19:21; 1 Samuel 25:41; Luke 7:38-44; John 12:2-3; 1 Timothy 5:10, counting, particularly, I Samuel 25-41 with Luke 7:38-44 and 1 Timothy 5:10. The feast of Joh 18:28 is the feast of unleavened bread following the Passover supper. Here we need also to explain John 13:31-32 and the new commandment, John 13:34, in the light of 2 John 1:5, where it is said to be not new. (1) The going out of Judas to betray his Lord through the prompting of Satan, Jesus knowing it to be the last step before his person should pass into the hands of his enemies that would result in that expiatory death which would bring about his own glory, used the words, "Now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in him." (2) When Jesus says in John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another," it was indeed new to their apprehension at that time, but when very many years later, John, in his second letter, declares it to be not a new commandment, but one they had from the beginning, he means by the beginning, this declaration in John 13:34. But since that time the Holy Spirit had come, and many years of intervening events in which the disciples had understood and practiced the commandment until it was no longer new, when John wrote his second letter. Peter and Judas (it the last Passover. – These two persons are revealed, in the light of Christ's presence at this last Passover. Peter, standing in the light of Christ, is shown indeed to be a sincere man and true Christian, but one greatly ignorant and self-confident. He is evidently priding himself upon the special honor conferred upon him at Caesarea Philippi, and has no shadow of doubt about his own future fidelity. In this connection Christ makes a triple prediction, which is a remarkable one. This we find set forth on pages 176-177 of the Harmony. He predicted that Judas would betray him; that every one of them would be offended at him, and that Peter would deny him outright three times. What a remarkable prediction! that with those chosen ones before whom he had displayed all of his miraculous powers and with whom he had been intimately associated so long, and who had received such highly responsible positions and who had been trained by him, to whom he had expounded the principles of the kingdom of God – that he would say to them, "All of you shall be offended in me this night." It was very hard for them to believe that this could take place, and when he went beyond that to predict that Peter would deny him outright, Peter just couldn't believe it. In Luke 22:3-32; Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-6; John 10:15; John 10:28-29; 1 John 5:18; Jude 1:9, are five distinct limitations of Satan's power toward Christians, with the meritorious ground of the limitations. Looking at Luke's account, Harmony, page 176 near the bottom: "Simon, Simon, behold Satan asked to have you" – "you" being plural, meaning all the apostles – "by asking." To give it literally, "Satan hath obtained you by asking that he might sift you as wheat." That is one of the greatest texts in the Bible: "Satan hath obtained you apostles by asking that he might sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee," using a singular pronoun and not a plural, "that thy faith fail not: and when thou art turned, strengthen [or confirm] thy brethren." Thus is expressed one of the limitations of Satan's power. By looking at Job I we find that Satan has to make stated reports to God of all that he does, wherever he goes. I have heard ministers preach on that text – "When the sons of God came, Satan appeared among them," and they seemed to misunderstand altogether the signification of it. Satan did not make any appearance there because he wanted to, but because he had to. Not only good angels, but evil angels, are under the continual control of God, and they have to make stated reports to God. God catechized Satan: "Where have you been?" Satan replies, "Wandering up and down through the earth." "Did you see my servant, Job?" "Yes." "Did you consider him?" "Yes, walked all around him. Wanted to get at him." "What kept you from getting at him?" "You have a hedge built around him, and I couldn't get to him." "What is your opinion of him?" "Why, I think if you would let me get at him I would show you there is not as much in him as you think there is." Let the Christian get that thought deep into the heart, that Satan is compelled to come before God with the holy angels and make his report to God of every place he has been, of every Christian he has inspected and what his thoughts were about that Christian, what he wants to do with that Christian – that he has to lay it all before God. That is the first limitation. Let us take the second limitation: "Simon, Satan hath obtained you by asking." The second limitation is that he can't touch a Christian with his little finger without the permission of God. That is very comforting to me. Satan walks all around us, and it is in his mind to do us damage, for he would destroy us if he could, and if he can't destroy us, he will worry us. So a wolf will prowl around a fold of sheep and want to eat a sheep mighty bad, but before Satan can touch that Christian at all he has to ask permission – has to go to Jesus and ask permission. The third limitation is that when he gets the permission, it is confined to something that is really beneficial to the Christian: "Satan hath obtained you by asking that he may sift you as wheat." If he had asked that he might burn them like chaff it would not have been granted, but he asked that he might sift them as wheat. It doesn't hurt wheat to be sifted. The more we separate the pure grain from the chaff the better. So you see that limitation. Satan made that request on this account: He thought God loved Peter and Jesus loved Peter, so that if Jesus sifted him he would not shake him hard. But Satan says, "I have been watching these twelve apostles. You let me shake them up." And at the first shake-up he sifted Judas out entirely, and Peter got an awful fall. Don't forget in your own experience, for the comfort of your own heart, that the devil can't touch you except in the direction of discipline that will really be for your good. The fourth limitation: Even when he obtains permission to act for God in a lesson of discipline, he can't take the Christian beyond the High Priest's intercession: "But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." "Now I will let Satan take you in hand. You need to be taken in hand by somebody. You have very wrong notions. You think that a man's salvation depends on his hold on Christ, while it really depends on Christ's hold on him, and you are sure that if everybody else turns loose, you will stand like a rock till you die." In other words, Peter says, "I keep myself." Jesus was willing for Satan, by sifting Peter, to discover to him that if his salvation depended on his hold on Christ, the devil would get him in a minute. It depended on Christ's hold on Peter. So we have that limitation that Satan is not permitted, even after he obtains permission to worry or tempt a Christian, to take him beyond the intercession of the High Priest; Christ prayed for Peter. We will, in a later discussion, see how he prays for all that believe on him, and all that believe on him through the word of these apostles, and he ever liveth to make intercession for us, and that is the reason we are saved unto the uttermost. He is able to save unto the uttermost because he ever liveth to make intercession. The last limitation of Satan: Satan cannot cause a Christian to commit the unpardonable sin. He can't touch the Christian's life. When Satan asked permission to try Job, God consented for him to take away his property and bring temporal death to his children, but not to touch Job's life. And John (1 John 5:16), in discussing the two kinds of sin – the sin which is not unto death and the sin which is unto death – says, "When you see a brother sin a sin which is not unto death, if you will pray to God he will forgive him, but there is a sin which is unto death. I do not say that you shall pray for it." Prayer doesn't touch that at all. "And whosoever is born of God does not commit sin [unto death], and cannot, because the seed of God remains in him and he cannot sin it, because that wicked one toucheth him not." Satan never has been able to destroy a Christian. As Paul puts it: "I am persuaded that neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Or, as Jesus says, in talking about his sheep, "My father is greater than all, and none can pluck them out of his hand." To recapitulate: The first limitation of Satan – he must make report statedly to God; second limitation – he must ask permission before he touches a Christian; third limitation – he can then only do to a Christian what is best for the Christian to have done to him; fourth limitation – he cannot take a Christian beyond the intercession of the High Priest; fifth limitation – he cannot make the Christian commit the unpardonable sin. Let us set over against that the revelation of Judas in John 12:4-6; Luke 22:3-6; Matthew 26:23; Luke 22:48; Matthew 27:3-5; Acts 1:16-20, showing the spiritual status, change of conviction, and trace the workings of his mind in selling and betraying Jesus, his subsequent remorse, despair and suicide, with no limitations of Satan's power in his case. When we carefully read in the proper order the statements concerning Judas in John 12:4-6, we behold him outwardly a disciple, but inwardly a thief. In the subsequent references to him (Luke 22:3-6; Matthew 26:23; Luke 22:48; Matthew 27:3-5; Acts 1:16-20), the whole man stands clearly before us. Evidently he expected, when he commenced to follow Christ, that he would be the Messiah according to the Jewish conception – a king of the Jews and a conqueror of the world – and that there would come to him high position and great wealth as standing close to the Lord, but when subsequent developments made it plain to him that Christ's kingdom was not to be of this world, and that his enemies were to put him to death, and that neither worldly honors nor wealth would come to his followers, then he determined to sell and betray his Lord. We are indeed surprised at the small price at which he sells his Lord and himself, but our only account for it is that he was under the promptings of Satan, and as Satan, having used a man and wrecked him, leaves him to his own resources, it is quite natural that remorse and despair should come to Judas. If there be something worth having in the spiritual kingdom, he has lost that. He has gained nothing by betraying and selling his Lord, and now in his despair, there being no limitation of Satan's power over a lost soul, he is goaded to suicide. We cannot account for Judas and leave Satan out. Arminians apply the doctrine of apostasy to both Judas and Peter. They say that Peter was truly converted and utterly fell away from the grace of God, and after the resurrection was newly converted. They say that Judas was a real Christian and fell from grace, and was finally lost. Though Adam dark, the noted Methodist commentator, contends that Solomon was a Christian and apostatized and was lost, he contends that Judas, after his apostasy, repented and was saved. Somewhere about 1875 there appeared a poem in the Edin- burgh Review, which gave this philosophy of the betrayal of Judas: It affirms that Judas was a true Christian and did not mean to bring about the death of Christ, but thought that if he would betray Christ into the hands of his enemies that the Lord would at the right time, by the display of his miraculous power, destroy his enemies and establish his earthly kingdom. But when he found that the Lord refused to exercise his miraculous power to avert his death, then he was filled with remorse that he had precipitated this calamity. The poem is a masterly one, but attributes to Judas motives foreign to any revelation of him in the New Testament. The New Testament declares him to be a thief, and that what prompted him to sell the Lord was the waste of the ointment on Jesus that might have been put into the treasury, which he not only disbursed, but from which he abstracted what he would. It is seen in Luke 22:32 that Peter did establish the brethren. "When once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren." The word convert in the King James Version, "when thou art converted," does not mean "when thou art regenerated." It is used there in its etymological sense. Here is a man going through temptation. He has a wrong notion in his mind. "Now, when thou art turned, establish thy brethren." He is to establish them on the same point where he has been wrong, and got into trouble by it, and now he is to consider that the other brethren will have the same weakness, and he must, as a teacher, confirm them upon that weak point. If we turn to 1 Peter we will see how he did establish the brethren on that very point. He thought then he could keep himself – that he could hold on to Jesus, while weak-kneed people, weak-handed people, might turn loose, but he would not. Now, Jesus says, "When you are turned from that error, establish your brethren on that very point." In 1 Peter 1, he says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in the heavens for you, who, by the power of God are guarded through faith." How long and unto what? "Unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." "You who are kept through the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last day." You have learned a great lesson if you will take into your heart all of the thoughts in connection with Peter that we have been discussing here, for every point that you can get clear in your mind that touches the devil, will be very helpful to you. On page 177 of the Harmony we come to this statement: "And he said unto them, When I sent you forth without purse and wallet and shoes, lacked you anything?" They said, "Nothing." By reading Matthew 10 and Luke 10 you will find that the Lord there ordains that they that preach the gospel should live by the gospel: "The laborer is worthy of his hire." You don't have to furnish out of your own pocket the expenses of your living while you are preaching for Jesus Christ. Ha is to take care of you. You are to live of the gospel. And now he puts a question, "When I sent you forth without purse and wallet and shoes, lacked you anything?" A great deal is involved in that. Christ promised to take care of them. "I send you out like no set of men were ever sent before on such a mission in the world." A soldier does not go to war on his own charges. The government takes care of him: "I send you out that way." But this commission was temporarily suspended at this Passover: "And he said unto them, but now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet: and he that hath none let him sell his clothes and buy a sword. [He that hath no sword, let him sell his clothes and buy a sword.] For I say unto you, that this which is written must be fulfilled in me. And he was reckoned with the transgressors: for that which concerneth me hath fulfillment. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords, and he said unto them, it is enough" (Luke 22:36-38). Now, I will give you some sound doctrine. Christ had ordained that they who left everything and committed themselves with absolute consecration to his service, that he would take care of them, and he established and ordered that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel. Now he comes to a time when he is going to reverse that: "There is just ahead of you and very near to you a separation from me, and as much as you are separated from me, i.e., as long as I lie in the grave dead, you will have to take care of yourselves. If you have a purse, take it, and you will not only have to take care of yourselves, but you will have to defend yourselves. If you haven't a sword, buy one." But that suspension was only for the time that he was in the grave. Peter applied it both too soon and too late. This is a peculiarity of Peter. See my sermon in my first book of sermons called, "From Simon to Cephas." "Simon" means a hearer, and "Cephas" means established – a stone. But Peter here was both too short and too long in getting hold of what Christ meant. He was too short in this, that he used that sword before Christ was separated from him. He cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. He was not to depend on the sword and not to defend himself as long as the Master was with him. As long as Jesus is alive, we don't use our swords to take care of ourselves. When Jesus is dead, we may. Peter was too short. He commenced too soon and used the sword. Now I will show that be was too long. After Christ rose from the dead, Peter says, "I go a fishing." In other words, "I go back to my old occupation; I must make a living, and my occupation is fishing, and times are getting hard. I go back to my fishing." It did not apply then, because Jesus was risen and alive. So he took that too far. He commenced too soon, and he carried, it too far. Whoever opposes ministerial support, and I mean by ministerial support the support of a man who consecrates himself in faith, who does like Peter said they did, "Lord, we left all to follow thee," and whoever opposes the ordinance of Jesus Christ, that they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel, virtually put themselves under a dead Christ. They virtually say that Jesus has not risen from the dead. They go under this temporary commission: "He that hath a purse, let him take it, and a wallet, let him take that, and he that hath no sword, let him take his coat and sell it and buy one to defend himself with. Let the preacher do like other people do." They that take that position virtually deny the resurrection of Christ, and virtually affirm that Jesus Christ is not living. Just as soon as Jesus rose from the dead he said, "Now you can put that sword away, Peter. There was a time when you could defend yourself and make your own living, and that was while I was dead." But we believe that Christ is now alive. He is risen indeed: "I am he that was dead) but am alive to die no more." The man who believes that God has called him to preach ought to burn the bridges behind him. A deacon got up once, when we were ordaining a preacher and said, "I am leaving it to the presbytery here to ask the things on doctrine, but I have a question to ask: 'Do you, in seeking this office and submitting to this ordination, burn every bridge between you and the secular life, or do you leave that bridge standing, thinking in your mind that if you don't make a living you will go back and take up the secular trade?' " "Well," the candidate said, "I will have to study about that." The deacon replied, "I will have to study about voting for your ordination until you are ready to answer that question." One of the sharpest sentences I ever made in my life was a declaration that: No man on earth that God called to preach and who burned absolutely all the bridges behind him and really trusted in Jesus Christ to take care of him, ever failed of being taken care of. That is a hard saying and a broad one, but it is the truth. And whenever a preacher is disposed to question that, let him remember the words of Jesus Christ, "I sent you out without purse or wallet, or sword. You just took your life into your hands. You went out as sheep among the wolves. Did you lack anything?" You won't lack anything that is good for you. Sometimes you will get mighty hungry. I don't say you won't get hungry. Sometimes you will get cold. I don't deny that. But I do affirm before God that whoever puts himself unreservedly upon the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ and keeps himself on that, either God will take care of him, or it is the best for him to die, one or the other. Never any good comes from doubting. 1. From what great division is this section taken? 2. What are the principal events in their order? 3. What is their importance? 4. What space devoted to them by the several historians? 5. What value of John's contribution to this matter? 6. According to Dr. Broadus what successive steps do we find in this group of events? 7. Did they prepare Christ himself but not his disciples for his approaching death? 8. What two places are revealed in sharp contrast by the Bethany supper? 9. What two persons are also contrasted? 10. In whom was this revealing light of places and persons? 11. What revelations of Mary in her anointing? 12. What revelation of Judas and the relation between Mary's anointing and his bargaining to sell our Lord? 13. Show how the light of our Lord's presence revealed others also. 14. Explain our Lord's intense desire to eat this particular Passover (Luke 22:15). 15. Explain "I will not eat it" (Luke 22:16). 16. Explain "until it be fulfilled, etc." (Luke 22:16; Luke 22:29-30). 17. What was the occasion of the foot-washing in John 13? 18. Was it connected with the Passover or the Lord's Supper? 19. What sermon on it is commended? 20. What two classes of scriptures cited and what are the lessons? 21. What was the feast of Joh 18:28? 22. Explain John 13:31-32; John 13:34 in the light of 2 John 1:5. 23. What two persons are revealed in the light of Christ's presence at this last Passover? 24. Analyze the revelation of Peter. 25. What triple prediction did Christ set forth in this connection, and what makes it a remarkable prediction? 26. Give five distinct limitations of Satan and the scriptures therefore. 27. Correlate and analyze the scriptures on Judas. 28. How do Arminians apply the doctrine of apostasy to both Judas and Peter and what was the reply? 29. What was the explanation of Judas' betrayal of our Lord, in the Edinburgh Review) 30. What the meaning and application of Luk 22:32 and what the evidence from his letter that Peter did this? 31. What is the law of ministerial support? 32. What was the reason of its temporary suspension at this Passover? 33. How long was the suspension? 34. How and wherein did Peter apply it too soon and too late? 35. What does one who opposes ministerial support virtually say, and what the lesson for the preachers? XXIII THE LORD'S SUPPER Harmony, pages 178-179 and Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:17-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26.The Passover furnishes the Old Testament analogue of this ordinance. As the Passover commemorated the temporal redemption of the Old Covenant, so this ordinance commemorates the spiritual redemption of the New Covenant. The proof is as follows: Christ the antitype of the paschal lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7). Christ crucified at the Passover feast (Matthew 26:2; John 18:28). This supper instituted at the Passover supper and of its materials. The analogy discussed by Paul (1 Corinthians 5:6-13; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22;. The preliminary study essential to a full understanding of this institution is the Old Testament teaching concerning the Passover. The principal classes of New Testament scripture to be studied are: Those which tell of its institution. Those which tell of its later observance. Those which discuss its import, correct errors in its observance, and apply its moral and spiritual lessons. The historians of its institution and observance are: (1) Paul, who derived his knowledge by direct revelation from the risen Lord (1 Corinthians 11:23); (2) Luke, who derived his knowledge from inspiration, from Paul, and others who were eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2); (3) Mark, who derived his knowledge from inspiration, from Peter, an eyewitness; (4) Matthew, an inspired eyewitness and participator (Matthew 26:20 f). The record of its institution is found in (1) Matthew 26:26-29; (2) Mark 14:22-25; (3) Luke 22:19-20; (4) 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. The three historic observances are recorded in Acts 2:42; Acts 20:7; and the case at Corinth, 1 Corinthians 11:20-22. We find the discussions of its import and the application of its teachings in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8; 1 Corinthians 10:14-22; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. Jesus instituted the ordinance on the night before his death, at the last Passover, in an upper room in Jerusalem. All the apostles, except Judas, were present and participating. Judas was not present because he was sent out by our Lord before its institution (see Matthew 26:25; John 13:23-26). The apostles receive it as representing the church. The elements used were unleavened bread and unfermented wine, or grape juice, (1) "bread" meaning one loaf not yet broken; (2) "cup" meaning one vessel of wine not yet poured out. The proof of this rendering is found in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, the exposition of which is as follows: The one loaf of unleavened bread represents the one mortal but sinless body of Christ yet living, but appointed and prepared as a propitiatory sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:4-9). It also represents the mystical (body of Christ, the church) (1 Corinthians 10:17). So the one vessel of wine represents the body of Christ yet living, the blood of which is the life and yet in the body. The first scene of the drama displayed in this ordinance then, is what we behold first of all, in each of two succeeding symbols, the loaf and the cup, the appointed and accepted Lamb of sacrifice. Whether we look at the loaf or the cup, we see the same thing, as in the doubling of Pharaoh's dream (Genesis 41:23; Genesis 41:32). In the second scene we behold the appointed sacrifice "blessed," or eulogized, and thus consecrated by the benediction, or set apart for the sacrifice (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22), with thanksgiving (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24), that an acceptable sacrifice has been found. This second scene is repeated in both "blessing" and "thanksgiving" in the case of the "cup" (Matthew 26:27; Mark 14:23; Luke 20:22; 1 Corinthians 11:25). The import is one, but the scene is double, to show that "God hath established it." In the third scene: (1) The consecrated loaf is broken to show the vicarious death, i.e., for them, of the substitutionary Lamb (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24). (2) The wine is poured out from the cup into the distributing vessels (Luke 22:20) to show the vicarious death of the sacrificial Lamb by the shedding of his blood for the remission of sins. The scene is one, but doubled. In the fourth scene: (1) The distribution of the broken loaf to all the communicants present and their participation, each by eating a fragment, signifying their appropriation by faith, of the vicarious body given for them. (2) The distribution of the outpoured wine to all the communicants present and their participation, each by drinking a sip, signifying their appropriation by faith, of the expiating, sin-remitting blood. The scene is one, but doubled. This ordinance is pictorial) showing forth by pictures, or scenes, earth's greatest tragedy. To make the "showing forth" complete, four double scenes must be exhibited, or made visible to the eye: (1) The appointed spotless Lamb; (2) The consecration to sacrifice with thanksgiving; (3) The sacrifice itself of vicarious death – "broken" – "poured out"; (4) Participation of the beneficiaries, by faith, in the benefits of the sacrifice. The order of the scenes must be observed. The visible consecration and thanksgiving must follow a view of the appointed and suitable substitutionary victim; the visible sacrifice must follow the view of consecration with thanksgiving; the visible participation must follow a view of the sacrifice. The modern provision of many tiny glasses for sanitary reasons does not violate scriptural order or symbolism: (1) Certainly not in the number of distributing cups. Those cups, like the plates, are for distribution. Whether one plate, two, or a dozen; whether one cup, two, or a hundred are used for distribution is immaterial, a matter of convenience, provided only that there has been one vessel of wine "blessed," or eulogized, before the outpouring into the distributing vessel or cups. (2) It is against the symbolism if the outpouring into the distributing vessels is private and not visible to the congregation, since the outpouring does not come in its order, the blessing and the thanksgiving coming after the outpouring and not before. Perhaps this construction of the symbolism is too rigid, yet it is true that the order in the record of the institution best shows forth the successive scenes of the tragedy. The name of the institution is "The Lord's Supper"; proof is found in 1 Corinthians 11:20. This title is further shown by the expression, "The cup of the Lord . . . The table of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 10:21). It follows from this title that if it be The Lord's Supper, the Table of the Lord, the Cup of the Lord, then he alone has the right to put the table where he will, to prescribe its elements, to impose the order of its observance, to define its import, and to prescribe who shall be invited to its participation, and indeed to fix authoritatively all its rules and conditions. The import of the word "communion," in 1 Corinthians 10:16, is as follows: (1) It means participation rather than communion; (2) it is a partaking of the body and blood of Christ, and not communion of the partakers with each other. They do not partake of each other, but of Christ. The design is: (1) To show forth pictorially or to proclaim the Lord's death for the remission of the sins of his people; (2) to show forth our participation by faith, in the benefits of that death; (3) to show that our spiritual nutrition is in him alone, since he is the meat and the drink of his people; (4) to show our hope of spiritual feasting with him in the heavenly world; (5) to show our faith in his return to take us to that heavenly home; (6) to show that the communicants constitute one mystical body of Christ. The nature of the ordinance: (1) It represents a new covenant between Jehovah and a new spiritual Israel (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25). (2) It is a memorial ordinance: "This do in remembrance of me. . . . This do, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24-25). (3) It is an emblematic ordinance, representing both spiritual nutrition here, and a heavenly feast with Christ (Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25). (4) It is a mystical ordinance showing that communicants, though many, constitute one body. (5) It is a church ordinance to be observed by a church assembled and not by an individual (1 Corinthians 10:17; 1 Corinthians 11:17-22; Acts 20:17). (6) It is an exclusive ordinance: "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons." The faculties employed in the observance of this ordinance are – memory, faith, hope. We remember (1) Jesus only; (2) Jesus dying on the cross; (3) Jesus dying on the cross for the remission of our sins; (4) Samuel Rogers, an English poet, wrote a poem on "The Pleasures of Memory." Faith apprehends and appropriates Christ in the purposes of his expiatory and vicarious death, and finds in his sacrifice the meat and drink which constitute the nutrition of our spiritual life. Hope anticipates his return for his people, and the spiritual feasting with him in the heavenly world; the poet, Thomas Campbell, an Englishman, wrote a poem on "The Pleasures of Hope." The appointed duration of the ordinance is "Till he come" (1 Corinthians 11:26). But will we not eat the bread and drink the wine anew in the kingdom of heaven? If not, what is the meaning of Mat 26:29; Mark 14:25? Is it not, "I will not henceforth drink of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom," but "when I drink it new." Here we drink the material wine; there it will be a new thing – spiritual wine. The feasting on earth, in its meat and drink, represents the everlasting joy, love, and peace of our heavenly participation of our Lord, as he himself foretold: "Many shall come from the east and the west and the north and the south and recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." See the account of angels carrying the earth-starved Lazarus to Abraham's bosom (Luke 16) and the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). How often must we observe this ordinance the record does not say. Its analogue, the Passover was once every year, but that was strictly prescribed in the law. There is no such prescription in the New Testament law of this ordinance. "But," says one, "does not the New Testament require its observance every Lord's Day?" There is no such requirement. At Troas, indeed, the disciples came together on the first day of the week to break bread (Acts 20:7), but even in that case the ordinance was not observed until the next day (Acts 20:7-11). The other record of observance (Acts 2:42) seems to imply that in this great Pentecostal meeting it was observed every day. Some things are not prescribed, but left to sound judgment and common sense. In a great meeting like that following Pentecost, when thousands of new converts were added every day, and all of every day was devoted to religious service, there was a propriety in and sufficient time for a daily observance of this ordinance. Under ordinary conditions the observance every Sunday, if administered with due solemnity, would shut off much needed instruction on other important matters, at the only hour at which older Christians can attend public worship, and the only hour at which many others do attend. The main points of the Romanist teaching and practice on this ordinance are: (1) They call it the sacrifice of the mass. (2) That when the priest pronounces the words, "This is my body . . . this cup is the New Testament in my blood," the bread and the wine (though not to sight, taste, or touch) do really become the actual body and blood of Jesus, yea, Jesus in body, soul, and deity; this miraculous and creative change, not only of one material substance into another; not only of inert into living matter, but of matter into both spirit and deity, they call transubstantiation. (3) Being now God, the priest kneels to it in adoration. (4) It is then lifted up that the congregation may adore it as God; this is called "The Elevation of the Host." (5) That so changed to God it may be carried in procession, and so carried, the people must prostrate themselves before it as God; this is called the "Procession of the Host." (6) That the communicant does literally eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus. (7) That the efficacy of the sacrifice is complete in each kind, and so in the exercise of its heaven-granted authority the church may and does withhold the cup from the laity. (8) That eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus is essential to eternal life. (9) That the words "eat ye" and "drink ye" are a divine appointment of the priesthood, widely distinguishing them from the laity, and making their ministration of the ordinance exclusive and essential to the ordinance itself. (10) That this is, whensoever, wheresoever, and how oftensoever performed, a real sacrifice of our Lord, who as a High Priest forever must offer continual sacrifice. (11) That it is a sacrifice for both the living and the dead, available at least for the dead who are in purgatory, hence in application, their "masses for the dead." (12) That in another sacrament called "Extreme Unction," this consecrated "wafer" is put on the tongue of the dying as a means to remission of sin. (13) That the church has authority to prescribe all the accompaniments of order, dress, language, or other circumstances prescribed in their ritual of observance. (14) That the belief of this teaching in whole and in every part is essential to salvation, and whoever does not so believe let him be accursed. This Romanist teaching is the most sweeping, blasphemous, heretical perversion of New Testament teaching known to history. As a whole, and in all its parts, it subverts the faith of the New Testament and substitutes therefore the traditions of men. 1. The Lord's Supper is not a real, but a pictorial sacrifice: (a) The sacrifice of our Lord was once for all, because real, and not often repeated, as the typical sacrifices were. (b) This error gives the officiating priest creative power to transubstantiate inert matter into living matter, both soul and deity, though not even God in creation formed man's soul from matter, (c) The alleged transubstantiation is contrary to the senses, for the bread and wine are still bread and wine to sight, touch, and taste, unlike when Christ transmitted water into wine, for it then looked like wine, tasted like wine, and had the effect of wine. (d) Christ said, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world," and "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in yourself," and is careful thus to explain, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not," and thus he shows that to believe on him is what is meant by the figurative language "eating his flesh" and "drinking his blood." (e) This error controverts philosophy, in that the body of Jesus cannot be in more places than one at the same time. (f) It controverts many scriptures that explicitly teach that the body of Jesus ascended to heaven, and must there remain until the final advent and the times of the restoration of all things. (g) It is idolatry, in that mere matter is worshiped and adored as God. 2. It violates the New Testament teaching of the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ, who does not continually repeat his sacrifice, but continually pleads the efficacy of the sacrifice offered once for all, and continually intercedes on the ground of the one offering. As a high priest he does indeed continue to present the spiritual sacrifices of his people, such as prayer, praise, and contribution. 3. It subverts the New Testament teaching of the mission and office of the Holy Spirit, who was sent as Christ's vicar because he was absent, and whose office continues until Christ returns. 4. It re-establishes the Old Testament typical order of priests, abrogated by the cross, and separates by a greater distance than in the Old Covenant the priest from the laity, and thereby nullifies the New Testament teaching that all believers are priests unto God. It thus sews together again the veil of the old Temple which at Christ's death God rent in twain from top to bottom. 5. It makes the Pope at Rome Christ's vicar instead of the Holy Spirit. 6. It makes the church a savior instead of the Lord himself, and confers on it legislative powers instead of limiting it to judicial and executive powers. Yea, it may change or set aside Christ's own legislation. 7. It substitutes a sacerdotal salvation, and a salvation by ordinances for the New Testament salvation. 8. It destroys the church character of the ordinance by the administration of it to individuals. 9. It withholds the cup from the people, though Christ said, "All ye drink of it." 10. It destroys the unity of the ordinance by affirming that the bread alone is sufficient, though Christ used both symbols to express his meaning. 11. It makes the ordinance for the dead as well as the giving, thus not only extending probation after death, but giving its supposed benefits to those who did neither eat nor drink, thus contradicting their own previous teaching, as well as the words of our Lord which they misapply and pervert. 12. It bases its defense more on ecclesiastical history and tradition, than on the Word of God, and limits that Word to a Latin translation, and to the church interpretation of that translation, rather than its text. 13. It makes belief in the whole and in all parts of this complex, self-contradictory, crude mass of human teaching essential to salvation instead of simple faith in Christ. While Luther rejected the Romanist doctrine of transubstantiation, he advocated a doctrine which he called consubstantiation, by which he meant that while the bread and wine were not the real body and blood of Christ, yet there was a real presence of Christ in these elements. His illustration was this: Put a bar Of iron into the fire until it is red hot, then there is heat with that iron, though the iron itself is not heat. The trouble about Luther's consubstantiation is, that according to his illustration, there must be some change of the elements that could be discerned by the senses. A man can see with his eye the difference between a cold iron and a red hot iron. And he can tell the difference by touching it, none of which phenomena appeared in the elements of the bread and wine. The Genevan doctrine was that the Lord's Supper was a memorial ordinance, this being the principal idea in it; that it exhibited or showed pictorally, not really, certain great doctrines; that the bread and wine remained bread and wine, so that they neither were the real body and blood of Jesus, nor held the presence of Jesus, as iron put into the fire contained heat. There is a thrilling story of the vain effort by Philip of Hesse to bring Luther and the advocates of the Genevan doctrine into harmony on the Lord's Supper. When the question came up in the Reformation as to whether Christ's presence was really in the bread and wine, Philip of Hesse, who loved Luther, and who also loved the Genevan reformers, invited two of the strongest of each to meet at his castle and have a friendly debate. Luther contended for consubstantiation, or the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, and the Genevan reformers insisted that it was simply a memorial ordinance. So for the debate were chosen Luther and Melanchthon on one side and Zwingli and Cecolampadius, on the other side. Luther was the fire on the one side and Zwingli was the fire on the other side. Philip placed Luther against Cecolampadius, and Zwingli against Melanchthon. But after they had debated a while, Cecolampadius and Melanchthon dropped out, and the two fiery men came face to face. In the course of the discussion Luther wrote on the wall a verse from his Latin Bible: "Hoc meum est corpus," "This is my body," and Zwingli said, "I oppose it by this statement," and he wrote under it, "Ascendit in coelum," "He ascended into heaven." "The heavens must retain him; therefore," said he, "Christ cannot be in his body in heaven and on earth at the same time." A theological seminary, a district association, a state, national, or international convention, cannot set out the Lord's Table and observe this ordinance, because it is strictly a church ordinance. The spiritual qualifications of the participants are: (1) On the divine side, regeneration. (2) On the human side, repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The legal qualifications are justification, redemption and adoption, while the ceremonial qualifications are: A public, formal profession of faith in Christ, or, in other words, the relating of one's Christian experience before a competent official authority; baptism by that authority in the name of the Trinity; formal reception into a particular church, which is the authority to pass upon the credibility of the profession of faith, to administer the baptism, to judge of the Christian life, and the only body that may lawfully set the Lord's Table. Certain passages show that though one has all the qualifications enumerated above, whether spiritual, legal, or ceremonial, and yet is living an unworthy Christian life, the church of which he is a member may judge him and bar him from participation in this Supper, viz.: 1 Corinthians 5:11-13; 1 Corinthians 10:21. These qualifications may all be condensed into one brief statement, thus: A baptized child of God, holding membership in a particular church and walking orderly in Christian life. The officers of the church cannot carry the elements of this Supper to a member who, for any cause, was absent at the assembly observance, and administer them to him privately. Here are two well-known historic cases: First case. – A member of a church, who had been living far from God, attending church seldom and never remaining when the Supper was observed, was now penitent, and in his last illness, knowing death to be at hand, dictates a penitential letter to the church, avowing the faith originally professed, but confessing all the irregularities of his life, claiming to have received the divine forgiveness, and asks forgiveness of the church. The letter expressed deep regret that the writer had never once obeyed his Lord in observing this ordinance and an intense desire to obey him one time in this matter before death, carefully assuring the church that he attributed no magical value to the ordinance, being himself already at peace with God, but longing to have God's people with him one more time, to hear them sing and pray and to partake of this Supper, so that when he passed to the heavenly feast, he could say, "Lord, though unworthy, I did obey your solemn commandment one time on earth." Whereupon the church voted forgiveness to the penitent brother, adjourned the conference to meet in the sick man's house that night, and there convened pursuant to adjournment, and did there observe the Lord's Supper as the assembled church, and allowed -the sick man to participate. The members had come for miles in buggies, wagons, and on horse-back. The conference was unusually large. The house seemed to be filled with the glory of God. Others confessed their sins; alienated members were reconciled. A marvelous revival prevailed, and the dying brother passed from the earthly feast to drink the wine at the heavenly feast. I was present and officiated as pastor. Second case. – A wife, professing to be a Christian, though not a church member, appealed to a Baptist preacher to come and administer the Lord's Supper to her dying husband, himself not a member of any church, but who desired to partake of the Lord's Supper before death. This preacher, of his own motion and alone, carried bread and wine to the house and there administered to the dying man the elements of the Lord's Supper. I knew this pastor and wag instrumental in his confession and recantation of his error. If the church, according to Christ's law, must judge as to a participant's qualification, what then the apostle's meaning of "Let a man examine himself and so let him eat?" The man who is commanded to examine himself is not an outsider, but a member of the church, already qualified according to church judgment, yet on whom rests the personal responsibility to determine whether by faith he now discerns the Lord's body. What is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 11:27? This passage does not say, "Whosoever is unworthy," but who partakes "unworthily," i.e., whose manner of partaking, like these Corinthians, was disorderly. They ate and drank to satisfy physical hunger and thirst. They feasted separately without waiting for the assembly. What is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 11:30 : "For this cause many are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep"? This has no reference to physical weakness, sickness and sleep, as if a judgment in this form had come on them for a disorderly manner in partaking of the Supper. The meaning must be sought in the purpose of the ordinance. We have houses in which to eat ordinary' food when we seek physical nutrition and from that, bodily strength and health. The taste of bread and the sip of wine in this ordinance cannot serve such a purpose. These represent a different kind of nutriment for the saved soul, which we appropriate and assimilate by faith. If we do not by faith discern the Lord's body, then missing the spiritual nutrition, the soul becomes weak, or sick, or sleepy: "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee." I here expound the Old Testament analogue in Exodus 24:9-11. This is the passage: "Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: and they beheld God and did eat and drink." This is the ratifying feast of the Old Covenant, as the Lord's Supper is the feast of the New Covenant. In Exodus 19 God proposes a covenant which they agree to accept and prepare themselves for it. God himself then states the three great stipulations of the covenant binding upon Israel: (1) The Decalogue, or God and the normal man (Exodus 20:1-17); (2) the law of the Altar, or the way of a sinner's approach to God; in other words, God and the sinner (Exodus 20:24-26), with all its developments in Exodus 25-31; 35-40, and almost the whole of Leviticus; (3) the judgments, or God, the state and the citizen (Exodus. 21-23), with all developments therefrom in the Pentateuch. These three make the covenant with national Israel. Then in Exodus 24:3-8, this covenant, so far only uttered, is reduced to writing, read to the people and solemnly ratified. Following the ratification, comes this passage, which is the Feast of the Covenant (Exodus 24:9-11). Here Moses records the institution of this feast of the ratified Old Covenant as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul record the institution of the feast of the New Covenant, in which Jesus says, "This cup is the New Covenant in my blood." It is noteworthy that in the institution of both feasts (not in subsequent observances) the partakers are few, acting in a representative capacity. Moses, Joshua, Aaron, Aaron's two sons, seventy elders, seventy-five in all, in the first case; Jesus and the eleven apostles in the other case. In both cases the communion, or participation, is with God, who is present: "They saw God and did eat and drink." But they saw no similitude. They saw symbols. They saw him by faith. They saw the symbols of God's presence with a natural eye, and tasted of the symbol, i.e., the Lamb of sacrifice, with the natural tongue. The symbol was not God; it represented him; nor was it changed into God. God was neither the symbol, nor in the symbol, nor with, by or under the symbol. He was there himself and with his covenant people. They saw him as propitiated through the sacrifice. Hence they saw him in the holy of holies, the paved work like sapphire stones under his feet (Exodus 24:10), which is the sign that they saw him on his throne of grace and mercy, as appears from a comparison of kindred passages (see Ezekiel 1:26; Rev. 4). Hence it is said (Exodus 24:11), "And on the elders of the children of Israel he laid not his hands," i.e., to smite them. Seeing God out of the covenant the men would have died. But in the covenant they were safe, because he was propitiated. The Lord's Supper is not the holy of holies, but in faithful observance of the Covenant feast, we by faith approach and commune with him in the holy of holies. That is, the blood of the everlasting Covenant propitiates God, so that we may approach him and commune with him, and by faith see him and yet not die, for the blood turns away his wrath. To further illustrate this thought, the tabernacle was God's house, or dwelling place, whose innermost chamber was the holy of holies. There, over the mercy seat between the Cherubim, the symbol of the Divine presence appeared as a Shechinah, the sword flame (Genesis 3:24), or pillar of cloud, or fire, and was the oracle to reveal and to answer questions; hence the most holy place is many times called the oracle, i.e., the house of the oracle. So in the Temple. But the tabernacle and the Temple fulfilled their temporary mission, and the veil was rent when Christ died. So a new house or Temple succeeded, namely, the church, a spiritual building (1 Corinthians 3:9; 1 Corinthians 3:17; Ephesians 2:21, American Standard Version, 1 Peter 2:5), and this new temple was anointed with the Holy Spirit (Daniel 9:24; Acts 2:1-4), as the first was (Exodus 30:25-26), with the holy oil which symbolized the Spirit. Now, in this new temple, the church, is a most holy place, the place of the real Divine presence, in the person of the Holy Spirit, and in the Supper as a covenant feast, when faith is exercised, we approach and commune with a propitiated God. We see him and eat and drink in his presence. The hiding veil in this case was Christ's flesh. When he died, whose death is commemorated in the Supper, the veil was removed, and the way into the most holy place is wide open to the believing communicant. But in the church in glory, which is an eternal temple, hieron, there is no naos or symbolic shrine, most holy place, or isolated, inner chamber (Revelation 21:22), for God and the Lamb constitute the naos, and the tabernacle (Revelation 21:3) with all the inhabitants of the Holy City, who see God directly, face to face – not by faith. The days of propitiation are ended then, and the glorified ones need no intercession of the High Priest. Their salvation in body, soul, and spirit is consummated forever. But they feast with God forever. They sing indeed, but they do not "sing a hymn and go out." 1. What is the Old Testament analogue of the Lord's Supper? 2. What is the proof? 3. What preliminary study essential to an understanding of its institution? 4. What are the principal classes of New Testament scriptures to be studied? 5. Who were the historians of its institution and observance? 6. Where and what record of its institution? 7. What are the three historic observances? 8. Where do we find the discussion of its import and the application of its teachings? 9. Who instituted the ordinance and when and where? 10. Who were present and participating? 11. Why was Judas not present? 12. In what capacity did the apostles receive it? 13. What elements used? 14. What is the meaning of "bread" and "cup"? 15. What is the proof of this rendering and what the exposition? 16. What then was the first scene of the drama of this ordinance? 17. What was the second scene? 18. What was the third scene? 19. What was the fourth scene? 20. What kind of an ordinance then is this, and what is necessary to convey its full meaning? 21. Is the order of the scenes important? 22. What of the modern provision of many tiny glasses? 23. What is the name of this ordinance and what the proof? 24. How is this title further shown? 25. What follows from this title? 26. What is the import of the word "communion" in 1 Corinthians 10:16? 27. What is the design of this ordinance? 28. What is the nature of the ordinance? 29. What faculties do we employ in the observance of this ordinance? 30. Whom do we remember, where and why, and who wrote a poem on "The Pleasures of Memory"? 31. Faith does what? 32. Hope does what, and who wrote a poem on "The Pleasures of Hope"? 33. What was the appointed duration of the ordinance? 34. What was the meaning of Mat 26:29 and Mark 14:25? 35. How often must we observe this ordinance? 36. Does not the New Testament require its observance every Lord's Day? 37, What were the main points of the Romanist teaching and practice on this ordinance? 38. What was the reply to this Romanist teaching? 39. What is Luther's doctrine of consubstantiation? 40. What is the Genevan doctrine? 41. Recite the story of Philip of Hesse? 42. May any religious organization except a church celebrate the Supper? 43. What are the spiritual qualification of the participants? 44. What are the legal qualifications? 45. What are the ceremonial qualifications? 46. What scriptures show that a man with all these qualifications may be barred from the Supper by the church? 47. Condense these qualifications into one brief statement. 48. May the officers of the church administer this ordinance to an individual in private? 49. State the two cases cited and show which was right and why? 50. What is the meaning of "Let a man examine himself, etc."? 51. What is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 11:27? 52. What is the meaning of 1 Corinthians 11:30? 53. Expound the Old Testament analogue in Exodus 24:9-11. 54. Is the Lord's Supper the holy of holies? 55. How further illustrate the thought? XXII THE BETHANY SUPPER; THE SUPPER; WASHING THE ' FEET; PETER AND JUDAS AT THE LAST SUPPER Harmony, pages 169-177 and Matthew 26:1-25; Matthew 26:31-35; Mark 14:1-8; Mark 14:27-31; Luke 22:1-16; Luke 22:21-38, John 12:2-8; John 13:1-38.This section is taken from the events from our Lord's great prophecy to his betrayal by Judas. The principal events in their order are: (1) Jesus predicts and the rulers plot his death; (2) the three great suppers – at Bethany, the Passover, and the Lord's Supper; (3) the farewell discourse of comfort to his disciples; (4) Christ's great intercessory prayer; (5) Gethsemane. Their importance consist not only in the signification of the events themselves, but also in the sharp contrasts of character in the light of the presence of Jesus, and their bearing upon the meaning of all the rest of the New Testament. The space devoted to them by the several historians is as follows: Matthew, Mark, and Luke give less than one chapter each; Paul a single paragraph; John four full chapters. Here we note the value of John's contribution to this matter, with similar instances, and his great silences sometimes where the others speak, and the bearing of the facts on two points: Did he have the other histories before him when he wrote, and what one of the purposes of his writing? John's large contribution to this matter, with similar instances – for example, the early Judean ministry and the discourse on the Bread of Life in Capernaum, and his silences in the main concerning the Galilean ministry, clearly show that he did have before him the other histories when he wrote, and that one of his purposes was to supplement their story. According to Dr. Broadus these intervening events between the prophecy and the betrayal are but successive steps through which our Lord seeks to prepare both himself and his disciples for his approaching death and their separation. They did prepare Christ himself but not his disciples, who did not understand until after his resurrection, nor indeed, fully, until after the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The Bethany supper. – Bethany, the village, and Jerusalem, the city, are brought in sharp contrast. The Holy City rejects the Lord, and the little village entertains him by a special supper in his honor. Two persons also are contrasted, viz.: Judas and Mary. This revealing light of places and persons was in Jesus. The revelations of Mary in her anointing were: (1) Her faith in the Lord's words about his approaching death, greater than that of any of the apostles. They were surprised; the great event came upon them as a surprise, but later they understood. (2) It is a revelation of the greatness of her love, selecting the costliest and best of all she had without reservation to be used as an ointment for her Lord – a preparation for his burial. (3) It is a revelation of the far-reaching effect of what she did; as the ointment was diffused throughout the house, the fame of her glorious deed would be diffused throughout the world and to the end of time. Such love, such faith, no man has ever evinced. This incident reveals Judas as one who had become a disciple for ambitious ends and greed. He, like Mary, is convinced now that Christ will not evade death, and that his ambitious desire of promotion in a worldly government will not be realized. The relation between Mary's anointing and his bargain to sell his Lord arise from the fact that as he was treasurer of the funds, mainly contributed by the women who followed the Lord, and was a thief accustomed to appropriate to himself from this fund, and as Mary's gift, in his judgment, should have been put into the treasury and thus increase the amount from which he could steal, he determined to get what he could in another direction. This treasury being about empty, and under such following as that of Mary was not likely to be increased, then he must turn somewhere else for money. In the same way the light of the Lord's presence revealed by marvelous contrast all other men or women who for a moment stood in that light. We would know nothing worth considering of Pilate, Caiaphas, and Herod, or the thieves on the cross, except as they stand revealed in the orbit of Christ's light, in which they appear for a short time. On them that light confers the immortality of infamy; as in the case of others like Mary, it confers the immortality of honor. The Passover supper. – Our Lord's intense desire to participate in this particular Passover arises from his knowledge of its relation to his own approaching death, he being the true Passover Lamb, the antitype, and because at this Passover supper is to be the great transition to the Supper of the New Covenant. Here the question arises: In the light of this and other passages, did he in fact eat the regular Passover supper? His words, "I will not eat it," being only a part of a sentence, do not mean that he did not participate in the last Passover supper, but it means that he will not eat it again. That he did partake of this supper the text clearly shows. See the argument in Dr. Robertson's note at the end of the Harmony. But the clause, "Until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22:16; Luke 22:29-30), needs explanation. Both the Passover supper and the Lord's Supper, instituted thereafter, are shadows of substances in the heavens. There will be in the glory world a feasting, not on earthly materials, but on the spiritual food of the kingdom of God. Our Lord washing the feet of the apostles. – When we carefully examine Luke 22:24-30 and John's account, we find that the disciples, having complied with the ablutions required by the Levitical law preparatory to the Passover, knew that when they got to the place of celebrating, somebody must perform the menial service of washing the feet which had become defiled by the long walk to the place. Hence a controversy arose as to greatness and precedence; each one, on account of what he conceived to be his high position in the kingdom, was unwilling to do the needed service. This washing of feet was connected with the Passover, an Old Testament ordinance, and not with our Lord's Supper, a New Testament ordinance. A Southern theologian, Rev. John L. Dagg, preached a brief, simple, but very great sermon on this washing of feet, found in the Virginia Baptist Pulpit, an old book now out of print. That sermon gives two classes of scriptures, and analyzes this washing of feet, giving its lessons and showing how it cannot be a New Testament church ordinance, as follows: The two classes of scriptures are: (1) Those which refer to the purifications required before entering the Passover proper, or its attendant seven-day festival of unleavened bread, e.g., Numbers 9:6-10; 2 Chronicles 30:2-4; 2 Chronicles 30:17-20; Luke 22:14-30; John 13:1-26; John 18:28. (2) Those referring to the ablution of feet, before an ordinary meal and as an act of hospitality, e. g., Genesis 18:4; Genesis 19:2; Genesis 24:32; Genesis 43:24; Judges 19:21; 1 Samuel 25:41; Luke 7:38-44; John 12:2-3; 1 Timothy 5:10, counting, particularly, I Samuel 25-41 with Luke 7:38-44 and 1 Timothy 5:10. The feast of Joh 18:28 is the feast of unleavened bread following the Passover supper. Here we need also to explain John 13:31-32 and the new commandment, John 13:34, in the light of 2 John 1:5, where it is said to be not new. (1) The going out of Judas to betray his Lord through the prompting of Satan, Jesus knowing it to be the last step before his person should pass into the hands of his enemies that would result in that expiatory death which would bring about his own glory, used the words, "Now is the Son of man glorified and God is glorified in him." (2) When Jesus says in John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another," it was indeed new to their apprehension at that time, but when very many years later, John, in his second letter, declares it to be not a new commandment, but one they had from the beginning, he means by the beginning, this declaration in John 13:34. But since that time the Holy Spirit had come, and many years of intervening events in which the disciples had understood and practiced the commandment until it was no longer new, when John wrote his second letter. Peter and Judas (it the last Passover. – These two persons are revealed, in the light of Christ's presence at this last Passover. Peter, standing in the light of Christ, is shown indeed to be a sincere man and true Christian, but one greatly ignorant and self-confident. He is evidently priding himself upon the special honor conferred upon him at Caesarea Philippi, and has no shadow of doubt about his own future fidelity. In this connection Christ makes a triple prediction, which is a remarkable one. This we find set forth on pages 176-177 of the Harmony. He predicted that Judas would betray him; that every one of them would be offended at him, and that Peter would deny him outright three times. What a remarkable prediction! that with those chosen ones before whom he had displayed all of his miraculous powers and with whom he had been intimately associated so long, and who had received such highly responsible positions and who had been trained by him, to whom he had expounded the principles of the kingdom of God – that he would say to them, "All of you shall be offended in me this night." It was very hard for them to believe that this could take place, and when he went beyond that to predict that Peter would deny him outright, Peter just couldn't believe it. In Luke 22:3-32; Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-6; John 10:15; John 10:28-29; 1 John 5:18; Jude 1:9, are five distinct limitations of Satan's power toward Christians, with the meritorious ground of the limitations. Looking at Luke's account, Harmony, page 176 near the bottom: "Simon, Simon, behold Satan asked to have you" – "you" being plural, meaning all the apostles – "by asking." To give it literally, "Satan hath obtained you by asking that he might sift you as wheat." That is one of the greatest texts in the Bible: "Satan hath obtained you apostles by asking that he might sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee," using a singular pronoun and not a plural, "that thy faith fail not: and when thou art turned, strengthen [or confirm] thy brethren." Thus is expressed one of the limitations of Satan's power. By looking at Job I we find that Satan has to make stated reports to God of all that he does, wherever he goes. I have heard ministers preach on that text – "When the sons of God came, Satan appeared among them," and they seemed to misunderstand altogether the signification of it. Satan did not make any appearance there because he wanted to, but because he had to. Not only good angels, but evil angels, are under the continual control of God, and they have to make stated reports to God. God catechized Satan: "Where have you been?" Satan replies, "Wandering up and down through the earth." "Did you see my servant, Job?" "Yes." "Did you consider him?" "Yes, walked all around him. Wanted to get at him." "What kept you from getting at him?" "You have a hedge built around him, and I couldn't get to him." "What is your opinion of him?" "Why, I think if you would let me get at him I would show you there is not as much in him as you think there is." Let the Christian get that thought deep into the heart, that Satan is compelled to come before God with the holy angels and make his report to God of every place he has been, of every Christian he has inspected and what his thoughts were about that Christian, what he wants to do with that Christian – that he has to lay it all before God. That is the first limitation. Let us take the second limitation: "Simon, Satan hath obtained you by asking." The second limitation is that he can't touch a Christian with his little finger without the permission of God. That is very comforting to me. Satan walks all around us, and it is in his mind to do us damage, for he would destroy us if he could, and if he can't destroy us, he will worry us. So a wolf will prowl around a fold of sheep and want to eat a sheep mighty bad, but before Satan can touch that Christian at all he has to ask permission – has to go to Jesus and ask permission. The third limitation is that when he gets the permission, it is confined to something that is really beneficial to the Christian: "Satan hath obtained you by asking that he may sift you as wheat." If he had asked that he might burn them like chaff it would not have been granted, but he asked that he might sift them as wheat. It doesn't hurt wheat to be sifted. The more we separate the pure grain from the chaff the better. So you see that limitation. Satan made that request on this account: He thought God loved Peter and Jesus loved Peter, so that if Jesus sifted him he would not shake him hard. But Satan says, "I have been watching these twelve apostles. You let me shake them up." And at the first shake-up he sifted Judas out entirely, and Peter got an awful fall. Don't forget in your own experience, for the comfort of your own heart, that the devil can't touch you except in the direction of discipline that will really be for your good. The fourth limitation: Even when he obtains permission to act for God in a lesson of discipline, he can't take the Christian beyond the High Priest's intercession: "But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." "Now I will let Satan take you in hand. You need to be taken in hand by somebody. You have very wrong notions. You think that a man's salvation depends on his hold on Christ, while it really depends on Christ's hold on him, and you are sure that if everybody else turns loose, you will stand like a rock till you die." In other words, Peter says, "I keep myself." Jesus was willing for Satan, by sifting Peter, to discover to him that if his salvation depended on his hold on Christ, the devil would get him in a minute. It depended on Christ's hold on Peter. So we have that limitation that Satan is not permitted, even after he obtains permission to worry or tempt a Christian, to take him beyond the intercession of the High Priest; Christ prayed for Peter. We will, in a later discussion, see how he prays for all that believe on him, and all that believe on him through the word of these apostles, and he ever liveth to make intercession for us, and that is the reason we are saved unto the uttermost. He is able to save unto the uttermost because he ever liveth to make intercession. The last limitation of Satan: Satan cannot cause a Christian to commit the unpardonable sin. He can't touch the Christian's life. When Satan asked permission to try Job, God consented for him to take away his property and bring temporal death to his children, but not to touch Job's life. And John (1 John 5:16), in discussing the two kinds of sin – the sin which is not unto death and the sin which is unto death – says, "When you see a brother sin a sin which is not unto death, if you will pray to God he will forgive him, but there is a sin which is unto death. I do not say that you shall pray for it." Prayer doesn't touch that at all. "And whosoever is born of God does not commit sin [unto death], and cannot, because the seed of God remains in him and he cannot sin it, because that wicked one toucheth him not." Satan never has been able to destroy a Christian. As Paul puts it: "I am persuaded that neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Or, as Jesus says, in talking about his sheep, "My father is greater than all, and none can pluck them out of his hand." To recapitulate: The first limitation of Satan – he must make report statedly to God; second limitation – he must ask permission before he touches a Christian; third limitation – he can then only do to a Christian what is best for the Christian to have done to him; fourth limitation – he cannot take a Christian beyond the intercession of the High Priest; fifth limitation – he cannot make the Christian commit the unpardonable sin. Let us set over against that the revelation of Judas in John 12:4-6; Luke 22:3-6; Matthew 26:23; Luke 22:48; Matthew 27:3-5; Acts 1:16-20, showing the spiritual status, change of conviction, and trace the workings of his mind in selling and betraying Jesus, his subsequent remorse, despair and suicide, with no limitations of Satan's power in his case. When we carefully read in the proper order the statements concerning Judas in John 12:4-6, we behold him outwardly a disciple, but inwardly a thief. In the subsequent references to him (Luke 22:3-6; Matthew 26:23; Luke 22:48; Matthew 27:3-5; Acts 1:16-20), the whole man stands clearly before us. Evidently he expected, when he commenced to follow Christ, that he would be the Messiah according to the Jewish conception – a king of the Jews and a conqueror of the world – and that there would come to him high position and great wealth as standing close to the Lord, but when subsequent developments made it plain to him that Christ's kingdom was not to be of this world, and that his enemies were to put him to death, and that neither worldly honors nor wealth would come to his followers, then he determined to sell and betray his Lord. We are indeed surprised at the small price at which he sells his Lord and himself, but our only account for it is that he was under the promptings of Satan, and as Satan, having used a man and wrecked him, leaves him to his own resources, it is quite natural that remorse and despair should come to Judas. If there be something worth having in the spiritual kingdom, he has lost that. He has gained nothing by betraying and selling his Lord, and now in his despair, there being no limitation of Satan's power over a lost soul, he is goaded to suicide. We cannot account for Judas and leave Satan out. Arminians apply the doctrine of apostasy to both Judas and Peter. They say that Peter was truly converted and utterly fell away from the grace of God, and after the resurrection was newly converted. They say that Judas was a real Christian and fell from grace, and was finally lost. Though Adam dark, the noted Methodist commentator, contends that Solomon was a Christian and apostatized and was lost, he contends that Judas, after his apostasy, repented and was saved. Somewhere about 1875 there appeared a poem in the Edin- burgh Review, which gave this philosophy of the betrayal of Judas: It affirms that Judas was a true Christian and did not mean to bring about the death of Christ, but thought that if he would betray Christ into the hands of his enemies that the Lord would at the right time, by the display of his miraculous power, destroy his enemies and establish his earthly kingdom. But when he found that the Lord refused to exercise his miraculous power to avert his death, then he was filled with remorse that he had precipitated this calamity. The poem is a masterly one, but attributes to Judas motives foreign to any revelation of him in the New Testament. The New Testament declares him to be a thief, and that what prompted him to sell the Lord was the waste of the ointment on Jesus that might have been put into the treasury, which he not only disbursed, but from which he abstracted what he would. It is seen in Luke 22:32 that Peter did establish the brethren. "When once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren." The word convert in the King James Version, "when thou art converted," does not mean "when thou art regenerated." It is used there in its etymological sense. Here is a man going through temptation. He has a wrong notion in his mind. "Now, when thou art turned, establish thy brethren." He is to establish them on the same point where he has been wrong, and got into trouble by it, and now he is to consider that the other brethren will have the same weakness, and he must, as a teacher, confirm them upon that weak point. If we turn to 1 Peter we will see how he did establish the brethren on that very point. He thought then he could keep himself – that he could hold on to Jesus, while weak-kneed people, weak-handed people, might turn loose, but he would not. Now, Jesus says, "When you are turned from that error, establish your brethren on that very point." In 1 Peter 1, he says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in the heavens for you, who, by the power of God are guarded through faith." How long and unto what? "Unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time." "You who are kept through the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last day." You have learned a great lesson if you will take into your heart all of the thoughts in connection with Peter that we have been discussing here, for every point that you can get clear in your mind that touches the devil, will be very helpful to you. On page 177 of the Harmony we come to this statement: "And he said unto them, When I sent you forth without purse and wallet and shoes, lacked you anything?" They said, "Nothing." By reading Matthew 10 and Luke 10 you will find that the Lord there ordains that they that preach the gospel should live by the gospel: "The laborer is worthy of his hire." You don't have to furnish out of your own pocket the expenses of your living while you are preaching for Jesus Christ. Ha is to take care of you. You are to live of the gospel. And now he puts a question, "When I sent you forth without purse and wallet and shoes, lacked you anything?" A great deal is involved in that. Christ promised to take care of them. "I send you out like no set of men were ever sent before on such a mission in the world." A soldier does not go to war on his own charges. The government takes care of him: "I send you out that way." But this commission was temporarily suspended at this Passover: "And he said unto them, but now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet: and he that hath none let him sell his clothes and buy a sword. [He that hath no sword, let him sell his clothes and buy a sword.] For I say unto you, that this which is written must be fulfilled in me. And he was reckoned with the transgressors: for that which concerneth me hath fulfillment. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords, and he said unto them, it is enough" (Luke 22:36-38). Now, I will give you some sound doctrine. Christ had ordained that they who left everything and committed themselves with absolute consecration to his service, that he would take care of them, and he established and ordered that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel. Now he comes to a time when he is going to reverse that: "There is just ahead of you and very near to you a separation from me, and as much as you are separated from me, i.e., as long as I lie in the grave dead, you will have to take care of yourselves. If you have a purse, take it, and you will not only have to take care of yourselves, but you will have to defend yourselves. If you haven't a sword, buy one." But that suspension was only for the time that he was in the grave. Peter applied it both too soon and too late. This is a peculiarity of Peter. See my sermon in my first book of sermons called, "From Simon to Cephas." "Simon" means a hearer, and "Cephas" means established – a stone. But Peter here was both too short and too long in getting hold of what Christ meant. He was too short in this, that he used that sword before Christ was separated from him. He cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. He was not to depend on the sword and not to defend himself as long as the Master was with him. As long as Jesus is alive, we don't use our swords to take care of ourselves. When Jesus is dead, we may. Peter was too short. He commenced too soon and used the sword. Now I will show that be was too long. After Christ rose from the dead, Peter says, "I go a fishing." In other words, "I go back to my old occupation; I must make a living, and my occupation is fishing, and times are getting hard. I go back to my fishing." It did not apply then, because Jesus was risen and alive. So he took that too far. He commenced too soon, and he carried, it too far. Whoever opposes ministerial support, and I mean by ministerial support the support of a man who consecrates himself in faith, who does like Peter said they did, "Lord, we left all to follow thee," and whoever opposes the ordinance of Jesus Christ, that they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel, virtually put themselves under a dead Christ. They virtually say that Jesus has not risen from the dead. They go under this temporary commission: "He that hath a purse, let him take it, and a wallet, let him take that, and he that hath no sword, let him take his coat and sell it and buy one to defend himself with. Let the preacher do like other people do." They that take that position virtually deny the resurrection of Christ, and virtually affirm that Jesus Christ is not living. Just as soon as Jesus rose from the dead he said, "Now you can put that sword away, Peter. There was a time when you could defend yourself and make your own living, and that was while I was dead." But we believe that Christ is now alive. He is risen indeed: "I am he that was dead) but am alive to die no more." The man who believes that God has called him to preach ought to burn the bridges behind him. A deacon got up once, when we were ordaining a preacher and said, "I am leaving it to the presbytery here to ask the things on doctrine, but I have a question to ask: 'Do you, in seeking this office and submitting to this ordination, burn every bridge between you and the secular life, or do you leave that bridge standing, thinking in your mind that if you don't make a living you will go back and take up the secular trade?' " "Well," the candidate said, "I will have to study about that." The deacon replied, "I will have to study about voting for your ordination until you are ready to answer that question." One of the sharpest sentences I ever made in my life was a declaration that: No man on earth that God called to preach and who burned absolutely all the bridges behind him and really trusted in Jesus Christ to take care of him, ever failed of being taken care of. That is a hard saying and a broad one, but it is the truth. And whenever a preacher is disposed to question that, let him remember the words of Jesus Christ, "I sent you out without purse or wallet, or sword. You just took your life into your hands. You went out as sheep among the wolves. Did you lack anything?" You won't lack anything that is good for you. Sometimes you will get mighty hungry. I don't say you won't get hungry. Sometimes you will get cold. I don't deny that. But I do affirm before God that whoever puts himself unreservedly upon the promise of the Lord Jesus Christ and keeps himself on that, either God will take care of him, or it is the best for him to die, one or the other. Never any good comes from doubting. 1. From what great division is this section taken? 2. What are the principal events in their order? 3. What is their importance? 4. What space devoted to them by the several historians? 5. What value of John's contribution to this matter? 6. According to Dr. Broadus what successive steps do we find in this group of events? 7. Did they prepare Christ himself but not his disciples for his approaching death? 8. What two places are revealed in sharp contrast by the Bethany supper? 9. What two persons are also contrasted? 10. In whom was this revealing light of places and persons? 11. What revelations of Mary in her anointing? 12. What revelation of Judas and the relation between Mary's anointing and his bargaining to sell our Lord? 13. Show how the light of our Lord's presence revealed others also. 14. Explain our Lord's intense desire to eat this particular Passover (Luke 22:15). 15. Explain "I will not eat it" (Luke 22:16). 16. Explain "until it be fulfilled, etc." (Luke 22:16; Luke 22:29-30). 17. What was the occasion of the foot-washing in John 13? 18. Was it connected with the Passover or the Lord's Supper? 19. What sermon on it is commended? 20. What two classes of scriptures cited and what are the lessons? 21. What was the feast of Joh 18:28? 22. Explain John 13:31-32; John 13:34 in the light of 2 John 1:5. 23. What two persons are revealed in the light of Christ's presence at this last Passover? 24. Analyze the revelation of Peter. 25. What triple prediction did Christ set forth in this connection, and what makes it a remarkable prediction? 26. Give five distinct limitations of Satan and the scriptures therefore. 27. Correlate and analyze the scriptures on Judas. 28. How do Arminians apply the doctrine of apostasy to both Judas and Peter and what was the reply? 29. What was the explanation of Judas' betrayal of our Lord, in the Edinburgh Review) 30. What the meaning and application of Luk 22:32 and what the evidence from his letter that Peter did this? 31. What is the law of ministerial support? 32. What was the reason of its temporary suspension at this Passover? 33. How long was the suspension? 34. How and wherein did Peter apply it too soon and too late? 35. What does one who opposes ministerial support virtually say, and what the lesson for the preachers? XXV JESUS IN Harmony, pages 183-186 and Matthew 26:30; Matthew 26:36-48; Mark 14:26-42; Luke 22:39-46; John 18:1; Hebrews 5:7-8.This section commences on page 183 of the Harmony, introducing us at once to the Gethsemane scene. It is of vital importance that the interpreter of the Bible should know what significance to attach to this scene in the garden. We have four accounts – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul. You will observe that while John touches the other historians on some things, he has nothing to say about this garden scene. His Gospel was written so much later than the others, and the others had so clearly set forth all the necessary facts about the garden of Gethsemane that he does not mention it at all. And when we confine ourselves to the accounts given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul, we get at results about which I will now speak in their order. The word, "Gethsemane," means an oil-press. The word, "place," as Matthew calls it – "He came to a place" – means an "enclosed place." In this were olive trees, other trees, and flowers. Just as you cross the brook Kidron, which separates that part of Jerusalem near the Temple from Mount Olivet, and right at the base of Mount Olivet, was this enclosed space. If you were there now you would see about an acre of ground with old olive trees in it, centuries old, but you are not to understand that this enclosure represents the enclosure of the text, or that these very trees were there when Christ spent this night of agony in that garden. We know from history, Josephus among others, that all of the trees of every kind for miles were cut down by the Romans when they were besieging Jerusalem about forty years after Christ's entrance into the garden of Gethsemane. Right at the foot of the mountain three roads went over or around Mount Olivet. They centered in that garden, and Jesus was accustomed to stop there. Our record tells us that he was accustomed to stop in that garden, either going to Jerusalem from Bethany; or going to Bethany from Jerusalem; and Judas, we learn, was sure that there Jesus could be found, if he had left the upper room where the Lord's Supper was celebrated. You will remember that just at the close of the Passover supper, Judas "went immediately out," and gathered the crowd unto whom he wished to betray him. He knew he would find Jesus either where he left him, in that upper chamber, or in that garden on his way back to Bethany, which was his headquarters. So much, then, for the place. The next item is that when he came to that garden he stopped eight of the apostles at the gate: "You stay here." He took three with him – Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and with these three he entered deeper into the garden. Then he stationed the three, and went deeper still into the garden, as far as you can throw a stone – say fifty paces. Those at the gate, and particularly these three, were commanded to watch and pray; to watch, because he wanted to be informed when his betrayer was coming; to pray, lest they should enter into temptation when they saw him openly captured by his enemies. He knew that it would greatly shake them, and that they ought to be praying. It was very late in the night, and being in the time of the Passover, it was full moon, but they were weary and sleepy. As he said of them, "The flesh is weak; your spirit is ready, but your flesh is weak." These three that entered with him are mentioned on two other special occasions in the Gospels. Peter, James, and John were selected from the twelve apostles to be witnesses of his power when he raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead, as we learn from Mark 5. Peter, James, and John were selected to witness his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, as we learn from Matthew 17, and now Peter, James, and John are selected to witness his agony in this garden. They became very important witnesses to all of these events. We notice the next point. He said, as Matthew expresses it, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Mark says the same thing. This language evidently teaches that Jesus really had a human soul. There is an old heresy to the effect that he had only a human body, and that the Deity inhabited that body. But Jesus was a man in the true sense of the word. He took upon himself our nature, apart from any sin, but yet it was fully human nature, soul and body. Or, if you want to express it in a trichotomous way – body, soul, and spirit. He was fully human. This sorrow proves that he was human in every true sense of the word. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." The agony described here is mental and spiritual. The effect is shown in his body, in that he sweats, as it were, great drops of blood. This is the most thrilling description in literature of the intensity of spiritual suffering under the preparation of the coming evil, and how that suffering evidences itself in the body. The body and the soul are intimately connected. When Belshazzar saw the handwriting on the wall, his knees shook, the terror in his soul was connected with his body. Or, as a man in reading a letter, or receiving a telegram of awful news, becomes so transfixed with pain that he has a tendency to faint. That is the reaction of the inner man on the outer man. The next thought is – what caused that sorrow even unto death? A young preacher, and a very brilliant one, preached a sermon on this subject in which he took the position that the devil, as a person – a visible, tangible person – that night tried to kill Jesus, as he had first tried to have Jesus killed when he was a baby. So there was a wrestle between Christ and Satan, and that when Jesus prayed, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," he meant, "If it be possible, don't let the devil kill me before I go to the cross and expiate human sin." It was a very ingenious thing that young preacher preached, but it was very unscriptural. The sorrow that came over Jesus – the trouble of his soul, of his spirit, was that he was very near the time of dying on the cross, not as a martyr – for a martyr has no such sorrow as that; not as a guilty person in view of pending execution, for he was without sin; but it was a sorrow caused by the thought that in dying he was to die alienated in soul from God; to die as a sinner, though no sinner; to die the death of a felon, and, for the time being, pass under the power of Satan. He knew that when that sacrifice was made the Father would forsake him; that he would have to die the spiritual death, and the spiritual death is absence of the soul from God. You get at a fine idea of the thought – a very fine idea indeed – when you consider the petition of Major John Andre to George Washington, commander-in-chief of the American armies. He prayed that he might be shot as a soldier, and not hanged as a spy. His agony was not the thought of death, for he was a very brave man, but the thought of a felon's death. To die by a hangman – that constituted the agony of Major Andre. He did not want to die that death. The humanity of Jesus, not merely his body, but his soul and spirit, suffered vicariously the spiritual death. His soul shuddered unspeakably at the thought of passing away from God and going under the power of Satan, and to feel the stroke of the punitive sword of the divine law won him. That was his trouble. Paul's statement of the case is thus expressed: "Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered" (Hebrews 5:7-8). The next thought is this – that in that agony of approaching separation from his Father, he prays to his Father, that if it be possible, to let this cup pass from him. That means this: "I came to the earth to save men; to do anything that is necessary to their salvation, and the means appointed for their salvation is that I should take the sinner's place; die the sinner's death; die under God's judgment; die under the sword of the divine law." Now when he says, "Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me," he means this: "If there is any other way to save men, then let this cup pass from me; it is so bitter." The theology involved in that prayer has a depth that has never yet been sounded. It is the strongest possible proof of the sinner's destiny; of the enormity of the sinner's death. It is the strongest proof that I know that the only available way to save men was by substitution. In other words, the law of God, which is holy, just, and good, must be vindicated. That law says, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." "Man has sinned. If I came to redeem man, and to take the place of man, I must pay man's debt to the law. I must die the death of the sinner, or God can never be just in justifying man – in forgiving man." The claim of the law must be met, and if you just think a moment, when a man talks about your being saved without the expiation of sin by Jesus Christ upon the cross, remember that Jesus prayed: "If it be possible, i.e., if there be any other way under heaven among men whereby man can be saved, apart from vicarious and substitutionary death in his behalf, then let this cup pass from me." And the cup was not allowed to pass. Let us suppose that some one takes the position: "I believe in God; I believe in his love and in his mercy, but I reject this idea of Jesus Christ as a Saviour, and whenever I come to stand before the judgment bar of God my petition will be: 'Lord have mercy on me and save me.' " The answer will be: "If it had been possible for man to have been saved in that way, then the petition of Jesus would have been answered." The omniscience of God could see no other way; the omnipotence of God could work out no other way; the omnipresence of God could get in touch with no other way; the holiness and justice of God could find no other way. And, therefore, Peter, who witnesses this, says, "There is no other name given among men whereby we can be saved, but by the name of Jesus," and the name of Jesus avails only as Jesus died in our behalf. "God made him to be sin, though he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." In the Old Testament we have his words, as given, not by these Gospel historians, but by prophetic historians, and one of his words is, "Save me from the sword," not the sword of man, but the sword of divine justice. And the reply that came to that petition was: "Awake, O sword, and smite the shepherd." Another one of his prayers, as given by the prophetic historian, is, "Lord, save me from the lion." The lion is the devil. He is the one who goeth about like a roaring lion. He was not saved from the lion. In other words, he was to be the live goat; the goat laden with the sins of the people; the goat that was to be sent into the wilderness to meet Azazel; he was "set alive before Jehovah to make atonement for him, to send him away to Azazel into the wilderness." So Jesus must meet the prince of evil and there fight out the battle in which Jesus would be bruised in the heel and Satan would be crushed in the head, and in which Jesus' body would die, but his soul would be triumphant and Satan be cast out. The devil knew that Christ was near the cross; he knew that if Christ got to the cross and died on the cross, what would be the effect of that death. And what he was trying to effect here (for this was a real temptation of Jesus), was not to bring about the physical death of Jesus, as that young preacher taught, but it was to get Jesus to so shrink back from this suffering that he would not undertake it. That was his point. And Jesus felt all of the agony, so deeply felt it that he prayed, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me." But he said, "Not my will, but thine be done." It was the will of God that the sufferer for sinners must die for sinners. It is noticeable in all cases of this kind, that the great internal fight is made before we get to the actual reality. I never undertook a great enterprise that I did not first pass through all of the agony before I started out. I had my battle then, and after I had fought the battle out, I never fought it the second time. And when Jesus fights it out here in Gethsemane, he is as serene and equable from this time on as he ever was in his earlier life, when this dark shadow was yet a long way off. Notice that while the Father does not remove the curse, and could not remove it and save man, that he does send an angel to strengthen Jesus – to hold up his fainting head. I ask the reader to notice in the next place that these prayers of Jesus were threefold. He prayed, and the hardest of the fight was in the first prayer; he prayed again, a prayer which was not such a terrible prayer as the first one; he prayed the third time, and in the last prayer peace came to him. He had asked these men to watch, and they slept; he had asked them to pray, not for him, but lest they enter into temptation when they saw their Captain taken, and their hopes, as they understood them, blasted, but they slept. And how pathetic were his words to Peter: "Simon, could not you have watched with me one hour? You have been up a good deal and it is now midnight; the flesh is weak, but your Lord is going through a death agony. Could you not hold out just one more hour?" What a great text! He felt the need of human sympathy. But he was alone in Gethsemane, as we will see him later alone on the cross. I ask the reader to notice also three prayers of Jesus: First, the prayer that he taught his disciples to pray, commencing, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name." Next, the prayer that we discussed in our last chapter, in which he prayed for the disciples. And now this prayer in which he prays for himself. From these prayers we learn what he prayed for, and how he prayed for himself. I also note in this connection, the three gardens: The garden of Eden, in which the first Adam was tempted and fell; the garden of Gethsemane, in which the Second Adam resisted all of the wiles of the devil, the weakness of the flesh, and the mental despondency that comes from the contemplation of the felon's death, and, finally, the garden of Paradise, in the last chapter of the Bible – that as Adam in the first garden of Paradise turned it into a desert of sin, Jesus in Gethsemane turned the desert into a garden of flowers; that by the preparation here for that which must be accomplished for man's redemption, viz., to die on the cross, he made possible our entrance into the garden of Paradise. The last chapter in the Bible says, "Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have the right to come to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city." Please notice again in what the essence of prayer consists: "Not my will, but thine be done." As it is expressed later: "If we ask anything according to his will," and John got the thought right here, when witnessing that agony; so he afterward wrote, "If ye ask anything according to the will of God, he heareth us." This shows the limit there is upon prayer. I could not pray that God would enable me to steal from a man, or kill a man. I could not rightfully pray for anything in order that I might consume it upon my lusts and passions. James says that is asking amiss; that is asking not according to the will of God. That is the limitation upon all prayer. And Jesus hedged upon that point, "Not my will, but thine be done." I heard Major Penn one hundred times, standing up before great crowds of people, when he had invited hundreds not to come and take -the mourner's bench, but to come up as inquirers to investigate; and he would stand up, and pointing his finger at them, say, "Now have you come to this point: the will of the Lord be done? Have you come to the point that you can say, I want that to be undergone because it is the will of God?' Are you willing for the will of God to prevail in regard to your conversion, whoever should be the instrument? Or, do you say, I will be converted if a certain preacher should come; or, if it be at home; or, if God shall convert me some night when they shout; or, when they do not shout?' Are you ready for the will of God to be done?" The next point is – who were coming to capture him? A statement in John in the original Greek says, "These saw the band, and the chief captain." "The band," with the definite article is, in the Greek, "the cohort," which was that special cohort of Roman soldiers quartered in the tower of Antonio, which sat over the Temple; and the chief captain there, in the Greek, chiliarch (chiliarchos), means "chief of the thousand." The Roman legion usually, at this time, consisted of 6,000 men; there would be six chiliarchs, six men each over one thousand; and each chiliarch would have under him ten men, centurions, each over one hundred. The chiliarch was one who occupied an office similar to our colonel – commander of a regiment; and the legion answered somewhat to our brigade, or division, more to a division than to a brigade. When it says, "the chief captain," or chiliarch, was there, it means the most important Roman officer in the city – a man of great dignity and power – and while the legions were not always full, and therefore the band or number commanded by the chiliarch was not always full in number, yet it meant that hundreds of trained Roman soldiers had here come; the colonel of the regiment, and the captains of several companies. That shows that there was a strong realization, that even in the night people might wake up and that an attempt might be made to rescue him. For fear of that very thing the Sanhedrin would not arrest him in the day time. The chiliarch and the cohort came not to arrest, but merely to prevent a tumult of the people when the Temple officers arrested Jesus. It is quite important to note not only the presence of the cohort and the reasons therefore negatively and positively, and the fact that they did not arrest Jesus, nor carry him to Pilate, nor to anybody else, but were present to prevent possible disorder. Then the text also says that the officers of the Sanhedrin, and the partially armed rabbis that attended them, and their followers carrying staves, were there. The soldiers, of course, had their swords. The short sword of the Roman soldier was a very deadly weapon. So that at least, counting the representatives of the Sanhedrin and the rabbis, and that disciplined band of Roman soldiers, who could not have been sent without the consent of Pilate, at night were all apparently coming to arrest a man that never carried a weapon in his life; coming to arrest a man whose constant followers were twelve, or eleven in this case, unarmed men; coming by night to arrest a man who had taught every day openly in their Temple and in their city. Hence his question: "Do you bring out this army here as if you are going to capture a robber or a thief? Why do you come by night when you could have found me any time by day in the very heart of the city?" And notice the traitor: Though it was full moon, this man brought lanterns and torches. They wanted to identify the Person, and while the lanterns were shining and their torches throwing out a lurid glare, Jesus says, "Whom do you seek?" And as he stepped out and said, "Whom do you seek?" they fell, just as if they were shot. That was a supernatural event. It showed how easily he could have blotted the whole band out of existence. And when they got up he repeated his question, "Whom do you seek?" They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus answers them, "I am he: you have not said you have come seeking these followers of mine. Let them go; do not arrest them." 1. Who are the historians of the Gethsemane scene and why, in all probability, was it omitted by John? 2. What is the meaning of the word "Gethsemane," what is the meaning of the word "place" as used by Matthew in his account and how is Gethsemane described as to location, its contents, etc.? 3. What was the access to this garden and what made it easy for Judas to find our Lord here on the night of his betrayal? 4. Upon entering this garden on the night of his betrayal how did our Lord station the disciples, what command did he give them; why watch and why pray? 5. What hour of the night, who were with him and on what occasions were they admitted to special privileges with Jesus? 6. What does the expression, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, etc.," teach, what heresy mentioned, was Jesus dichotomous or trichotomous, what proof, what was the nature of the agony which Christ suffered, and what is the reaction of the inner man on the outer man? Illustrate. 7. What was the young preacher's theory as to the sorrow of Christ in. Gethsemane, what was the real cause of the sorrow, how does the case of Major Andre illustrate this? what was the nature of Christ's death and how does Paul express this Gethsemane suffering? 8. What is the meaning of Christ's prayer in Gethsemane and of what is it a proof? 9. What is the judgment test of this idea of our salvation, what is the answer from the standpoint of God's omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, holiness, and justice? What was Peter's testimony? Paul's? the prophetic historian's? What Old Testament type of this vicarious work of our Lord? 10. What was the devil's real temptation of our Lord in Gethsemane" 11. What notable fact about this Gethsemane conflict of our Lord? 12. What relief did the Father send to our Lord in this very intense agony? 13. How is Christ's need of human sympathy revealed in this scene, what three prayers of Jesus cited and what do they teach? 14. What 3 gardens are mentioned here, what were the points of correspondence and what was the condition of entrance into the garden of Paradise? 15. In what does the essence of prayer consist, what was John's testimony on this point, what does this show, what was James's testimony, and what practical illustration of the application of this principle given? 16. Who arrested Jesus, why this great band of Roman soldiers, and in what consists the ridiculousness of their course? 17. Why did Judas carry lanterns and torches, what supernatural event happened at this arrest, what does it show and what request did he make for his disciples? XXVI JESUS , , ; TRIED BY ANNAS, BY , AND BY THE Harmony, pages 186-196 and Matthew 26:47-75; Matthew 26:59-75; Matthew 27:1-2; Mark 14:48-15:1; Luke 22:47-23:1; John 18:2-28.In the last chapter we considered the sorrow of Christ in Gethsemane, and dipped somewhat into the account of the betrayal of our Lord. Just here we call attention particularly to the supplemental testimony of John's Gospel that the Roman band or cohort, under its own prefect or miltary tribune, or chiliarch, was present when Jesus was arrested, and participated therein, indeed, themselves arresting, binding, and conducting Jesus to the Jewish authorities. This is a little difficult to understand, but we find no difficulty in the presence of the Temple guard, under the leadership of the Sanhedrin, and the mixed multitude irregularly armed, that came out for the purpose of arresting Jesus. Our trouble is to account for so strong a Roman force, under a high Roman officer, and the part they played in the matter, inasmuch as it was not an arrest for violating a Roman law, nor did they deliver the prisoner to Pilate, but to Annas and Caiaphas. From this supplemental story of John (John 18:2-14), certain facts are evidenced: Judas, the betrayer of Christ, and who guided the arresting party, "received the Roman cohort," usually about 600 men, under its own commanding officers. This could not have been without the consent of Pilate. They evidently did not go out to make an ordinary arrest under Roman law, else would the prisoner have been delivered to Pilate. Yet the facts show that they did seize and bind Jesus and deliver him to Annas, one of the acting high priests, and thence to Caiaphas. As it was not customary for Roman legionaries in conquered states to act as a constabulary force for local municipal authorities in making an arrest touching matters not concerning the Empire, and as it is evident there were present an ample force of the Jewish Temple guard, besides an irregularly armed Jewish multitude subordinate to the Sanhedrin, then why the presence of this Roman force at all, and more particularly, why their participation in the arrest? The answer is as follows: First, both the Sanhedrin and Pilate feared tumults at the crowded feasts when the city swarmed with fiery, turbulent Jews gathered from all the lands of the dispersion. Doubtless the Sanhedrin had represented to Pilate the presence in the city of a dangerous character, as they would charge, yet one so popular with the masses they dare not attempt to arrest him in the daytime, and even feared a mob rising in the night. Second, their presence and intervention was necessary to protect the prisoner himself from assassination or lynch law. When they came to the garden and found Jesus there with a following of at least eleven men disposed to resist the arrest, and when they saw the whole Jewish guard fall before the outshining majesty of the face of Jesus as if stricken by lightning, and when they saw at least one swordstroke delivered in behalf of Jesus, then only, it became proper for the Roman guard to intervene. This necessity might arise from the fact that they could not trust the turbulent Jews with the management of this case. "We will arrest this man and protect him from their violence until delivered to their authorities to be tried for whatever offense with which he may be charged under their laws." Indeed, humanly speaking, if that Roman cohort had not been present, he would have been mobbed before he reached any kind of a trial. The case of Paul (Acts 21:30), and the intervention of Lysias, the chiliarch, illustrates the grounds of Roman intervention. It must be borne in mind that the Romans were silent, and did nothing until they saw the Temple guard unable to face the dignity of Jesus, and that a commencement, at least, of the struggle had been made by Peter to resist arrest. As we are now coming to the climax of our Lord's earth life, his betrayal, his trials, condemnation, execution, and resurrection, the literature becomes the richest in the world, and the bibliography most important. Particularly do we here find a unique and most powerful literature from the viewpoint of lawyers. They do not intrude into the theological realm to discuss the trial of Jesus as the sinner's substitute before the court of God on the charge of sin, with the penalty of spiritual death, nor the trial of Jesus as the sinner's substitute before the court of Satan on the charge of sin, with the penalty of physical death, but they discuss the legal aspects of his trial before the Jewish supreme court, the Sanhedrin, on the charge of blasphemy) with the penalty of stoning, and the trials of Jesus before the Roman courts of Pilate and Herod on the charges of treason and sedition. They answer the question: Under the Jewish law, which was not only civil and criminal, but ecclesiastical, was Jesus legally arrested, legally prosecuted, and fairly condemned, or was the whole case, as tried by the Sanhedrin, a case of malice, violating all the rights of the accused, and culminating in legal murder? In the same way these great lawyers and jurists expound the case before the Roman courts of Pilate and Herod, and from a lawyer's viewpoint pronounce upon the Judgment of these cases under a judicial construction of the Roman law. Under this first head of bibliography I give a list of these books by the great lawyers, every one of which ought to be in every preacher's library. Do not waste money on inconsequential and misleading books. Do not fill your libraries with rubbish. Have fewer and greater books, and study them profoundly. The Testimony of the Evangelists, by Dr. Simon Greenleaf. He was a law partner of Chief Justice Story, was for quite a while professor of law in Harvard University, and the author of that noted book, The Law of Evidence, which has been accepted in two continents as the highest and safest authority OD this great theme. Indeed, when we consider this splendid contribution by Dr. Greenleaf, we may almost forgive Harvard for its erratic infidel president emeritus, Dr. Charles v. Eliot, and many of its radical critic professors. This book of Greenleaf's, over 600 pages, is divided into the following distinct parts: The legal credibility of the history of the facts of the case, as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, of which there are no known existing autographs, but only copies. The question he raises is from the lawyer's standpoint: "Before a human court, could these confessed copies be accepted as legal evidence of the history of the case?" That part of the case he demonstrates affirmatively in the first fifty-four pages. Then he gives a harmony of these histories, pages 55-503, in order to compare the several histories on each fact given, not only of our Lord's life and death, but of his resurrection and appearances. The point of this section is to show that the books, having been accepted as legal evidence, then these are a legal harmony of the testimony of the books. He gives on pages 504-549 Tischendorf's discussion of the various versions or translations of these histories, with notes of variations from the King James Version, to show that the legal harmony is not disturbed. Having thus shown the legal credibility of the histories, and their legal harmony as witnesses, he applies the case by giving his account of the trial of Jesus before these three earthly courts, demonstrating that it was a case of legal murder, pages 550-566. Then on pages 567-574 he gives an account of the trial of Jesus from a Jewish viewpoint. Mr. Joseph Salvador, a physician and a learned Jew, published at Paris a work entitled A History of the Institutions of Moses and of the Jewish People, in which, among other things, he gives an account of the course of criminal procedure in a chapter on the administration of justice, which he illustrates in a succeeding chapter by an account of the trial of Jesus, which he declares to be the most memorable trial in history. This last is the chapter Mr. Greenleaf publishes. Mr. Salvador ventures to say that he shall draw all of his facts from the evangelists themselves, without inquiring whether their history was developed after the event, to serve as a form of new doctrine, or an old one which had received fresh impulse. This was a daring venture on the part of Mr. Salvador. Relying upon these historians – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – for the facts, he contends that Jesus was legally arrested, legally tried, according to all the forms of Jewish law, and legally condemned. The rest of Mr. Greenleaf's book, pages 575-603, he gives to a reply to Salvador by the very distinguished French advocate and doctor of laws, M. Dupin, which is a most overwhelming demonstration of the fallacy of Mr. Salvador's argument. This sixth section of Mr. Greenleaf's Kook makes it invaluable to a biblical student. The late Judge Gaynor, a jurist, and who later became mayor of New York City, delivered a legal exposition on the trial of Jesus Christ, purely from a lawyer's standpoint. His conclusions are in harmony with Dr. Greenleaf and Dr. Dupin. In two octavo volumes Walter M. Chandler, of the New York bar, has written perhaps the most critical examination of the whole subject from a lawyer's standpoint. He devotes his first volume to the Jewish trial, and his second volume to the trials before the courts of Herod and Pilate. On all substantial points, and after a most exhaustive investigation of the legal points involved, he agrees substantially with Dr. Greenleaf, Dr. Dupin, and Judge Gaynor. In only one point would the author think it necessary to criticize this great book by Mr. Chandler, and that does not touch the merits of the law of the case he discusses. I refer to that part of his second volume where, after bearing his most generous testimony to the many excellencies of the Jewish character and its many illustrious men and women in history, whether as prime ministers, financiers, philanthropists, or as contributors to special forms of literature, and after denouncing the persecution to which the Jewish people have been subjected by all nations, except the United States, he then seems to deny national responsibility to God and, particularly, any connection of the worldwide sufferings of the Jews with their national sin of rejecting the Messiah. All my life shows my abhorrence of the persecutions of Jews and my admiration for their great men and women who have conferred lasting benefits on the race. The only point upon which I would raise a criticism is that he does not write as a lawyer when he seems to deny that nations, like individuals, are under responsibility to God for what is done by them, and through their acknowledged leaders. That part of his book cannot be sustained in either nature, law, or revelation. To sustain his contention on this point he must repudiate the univocal testimony of the entire Jewish Bible, whether law, prophets, or psalms, as well as the entire New Testament, Christ and the apostles, universal history, and nature as interpreted by true science. Among the general works on the trial of Jesus (i.e., not confined to the legal phases of the case), I commend Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, a part of Farrar's Story of a Beautiful Life, with Broadus' Commentary on Matthew. It would cover the limits of a whole chapter to even name the books on the cross. It was a strange episode of the young man in the linen garment: "And a certain young man followed with him, having a linen cloth cast about him, over his naked body: and they lay hold on him; but he left the linen cloth and fled naked" (Mark 14:51-52). Commentators have supposed that this young man was John Mark, who alone recounts the fact. They account for his presence and state thus: The upper room in which the Lord's Supper was established was the house of his mother. When Judas gathered his arresting force he could not yet know that Jesus had left that room, and so first, he led his armed force to that house. This aroused the house, and Mark, himself a Christian, threw a linen robe about him and followed to Gethesame and so was present at the arrest of Jesus. It is at least worthy of notice, that Melville, a great Scotch preacher, preached a sermon on the passage (Mark 14:51 f), contending that the young man in the linen robe was the antitype of the scapegoat (Lev. 16). The sermon is a classical model in diction and homiletics, but is absolutely visionary. There is not a hint anywhere in the New Testament that his conjecture is at all tenable. I cite this fact to show you that preachers, in their anxiety to select texts that have the suggestion of novelty in them, will sometimes preach a sermon that will be sensational in its novelty, and yet altogether unscriptural in its matter, and to warn you against the selection of texts of that kind. The next thought is the manner in which Judas identified the person of Christ, that he might be arrested. They were sure that some of the disciples would be with him, and they wanted to get the right man. So Judas gave this sign: "When we get to them I will step out and kiss the One that we want to arrest: that will be the sign to you. When you see me step out from you and kiss a certain Man in the group, that is the Man you want." Christ submitted passively to the kissing of Judas, but said to Judas, "Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" And that has gone down into history. Traitors betray with a kiss. It is to that incident Patrick Henry refers in his famous speech before the House of Burgesses in Virginia, when he said to them, "Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss," that the English government would furnish bouquets in compliments, while mobilizing armies and fleets for conquest. The incident of the sword. Some-find, it difficult to reconcile Luke 22:22 with Matthew 26:51-55; Luke 22:51; John 18:10-11; John 18:24. The explanation seems to be simple. In his charge (Matt. 10), while he was alive and they were in his service, they must depend upon him for defense and support. But while he was dead they must defend and support themselves. This, of course, could apply only after his death and until his resurrection. Peter was both too soon to fight, for he was not yet dead, and too late to go back to his fishing, for Christ was then risen. Only those preachers whose Christ is dead should use the sword or resume self-support. When Christ was arrested, all the disciples, without any exception (and there were eleven of them), forsook him and fled, and now at midnight he is led through the silent streets of Jerusalem, hemmed in by a cohort of Roman soldiers, who are attended by officers of the Sanhedrin and their servants. They bring him, strange to say, first to the house of Annas. This man Annas is one of the most remarkable men in Jewish history. He had himself been high priest; his son-in-law, Caiaphas, is high priest at this time; six of his sons became high priests. It made no difference to him who was official priest, he, through sons and sons-in-law, was the power behind the throne. He was very wealthy, lived in a palatial home, and was a Sadducee, like Dr. Eliot, and believed in neither angel, spirit, nor resurrection of the dead. He believed also in turning everything over to the Romans. That is, he aligned himself with what is called the "Herod party," or "Roman party." The patriot Jews hated him. Josephus draws an awful picture of him. Mr. Salvador, in alleging that Christ was tried according to the forms of Jewish law, forgets that the Jewish law forbade the employment of spies in their criminal trials, and yet they brought Judas. He forgets that Jewish law forbade a man's being arrested at night – that it forbade any trial of the accused person at night. He forgets that an accused person should be tried only before a regular court. And yet the first thing they did was to bring Jesus to the house of Annas for a private examination, while the guard waited outside at the door till Annas got through with him. On page 190 of the Harmony we have an account of what took place in the house of Annas. The high priest catechised Jesus. Annas is called the high priest as well as Caiaphas. He asked Jesus about his disciples and about his doctrines. Jesus said, "I have spoken openly to the world; I ever taught in synagogues, and in the Temple, where all of the Jews came together; and in secret spake I nothing. Why asketh thou me? Ask them that have heard me." So to conduct an examination of that kind at all; to conduct it at night; to conduct it not in the presence of a full court; to allow the prisoner to be struck, were all violations of the Jewish law concerning the administration of justice. Notice what the Jewish trial is. Dr. Broadus shows the preliminary examination before Annas; second, the trial before the Sanhedrin that night, in the house of Caiaphas; third, the meeting of the Sanhedrin the next morning. It was not proper that a man should be tried except in the place of meeting, the Sanhedrin, and in this they violated the law. It was not proper that he should be tried at night, as Jesus is tried this night in the house of Caiaphas. Let us now see what were the developments that night at the house of Caiaphas. "Annas therefore sent him bound unto Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together" (John 18:24; Matthew 26:57). That constituted the Sanhedrin – chief priests, elders, and scribes. The chief priests were Sadducees; the scribes were Pharisees. The Sanhedrin, according to a Jewish account, consisted of seventy-two – twenty-four chief priests, twenty-four elders, and twenty-four scribes. The Sanhedrin was the supreme court in matters ecclesiastical and criminal. They had some lower courts that were appointed by the Sanhedrin. Any town of just 100 or 200 population had a court of three. If it was a larger population it had a court of twenty-three, but the Sanhedrin was the high or supreme court in all matters ecclesiastical and criminal. When the Romans conquered Judea, as was usual with the Romans, they took away from the people the right of putting anybody to death by a sentence of their own courts. They refer to this, saying, "We are not allowed by the Romans to put a man to death under sentence of our law." That is, when Pilate had said to them, "Why do you not try him before your own law?" they said, "We are not permitted to put a man to death under our law." That night there were assembled the Sanhedrin, as the record says: "Now the Sanhedrin was seeking [imperfect tense, denoting continued action, not only sought, but were seeking] false witnesses against Jesus." They were seeking these witnesses with a view to putting him to death. They had previously decreed his death; and now they were simply trying to find somebody that would swear enough to justify them. Not even that Sanhedrin, when they heard the multitude of these false witnesses, could find two of them agreed upon any one point. And the Mosaic law solemnly declared that there must be two witnesses to every fact. But at last there came two false witnesses, and here is what they testified: "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.' " That is the sum of the evidence, and all the other testimony was thrown out as incompetent. Both these men lied. He never said that, but away back in his early ministry, when he first cleansed the Temple, and when he first came into conflict with these people, he had said these words: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again." He was speaking of the temple of his body, but he never said that he would destroy that Temple (of Jerusalem) and in three days build another. But they were not satisfied with that, so the high priest violated the law by asking Jesus to speak. It was a principle of the Jewish law that one should not be forced to testify against himself. A man might testify for himself) but he is protected by the judge who sits on the bench from giving evidence against himself. Jesus knew all that, so he paid no attention. So the chief priest had to get at that matter in another way He did have a right in certain cases, to put a man on oath before God, and this is what he did: "I adjure thee [which means to swear by the living God, the highest and most solemn form of the judicial oath – put thee on thy oath] before the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God." To that Jesus responded. Under the solemn oath before God he swore that he was the Messiah, and that hereafter that very crowd of people would see him sitting at the right hand of the throne of God in heaven. I preached a sermon once from this text: "I adjure thee by the living God." A young lawyer was present. He had never heard such a thing before. In the sermon I presented the character of Christ, against whom no man could prove an accusation; the devil himself found nothing in him; all the enemies of the great doctrines of the New Testament admitted the spotless character of Jesus of Nazareth. And yet this Man swore by the living God that he was the Messiah. All of the latent infidelity in the lawyer disappeared under that sermon. To this day he will testify that there got on his mind in the discussion of that single fact that Jesus was the Son of God. Would such a man swear to a false-hood? Is it credible that he would? He knew what "Messiah" meant – that it meant he was the God-anointed One, to be the Prophet, the Sacrifice, the Priest, and the King, and he swore that he was. After his oath they should have tried his claims by the law, the prophets, and the facts of his life. When he had given that testimony under oath the high priest rent his robe. The law required that whenever they heard a blasphemy they were to rend their clothes, and unless Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God; unless God was his Father, while Mary was his mother; unless he was the God-anointed Prophet, Sacrifice, Priest, and King, then it was blasphemy. And therefore Mr. Greenleaf, who is the author of The Law of Evidence, a law book which passes current in all the law books on this continent and in Europe, in mentioning the trial of Jesus Christ, says, No lawyer of any reputation, with the facts set forth in the Gospels, would have attempted to defend Jesus Christ, except on the assumption that he was the Messiah and divine, because all through the Book that is his claim. If he was not divine, he did blaspheme. Therefore when he took that oath, that court should have investigated the character of his claim as the Messiah, but instead of that they assumed the thing that they should have investigated and called it blasphemy. Another great violation of the law takes place: "What further need of witnesses have we? We have heard the blasphemy; what think ye?" And now they vote that he is worthy of death; they condemned him to be worthy of death. Their law declared that a vote of condemnation should never be taken the day of the trial. There had to be at least three intervening days, and here at night they pass sentence on no evidence but the oath of Jesus Christ, and that without investigating the matter involved. Then they allowed the following indignities: They spat in his face and buffeted him; they smote him with the palms of their hands after they had blindfolded him. Then one would slip up and slap him, saying, "Prophesy who hit you." I shall omit in my discussion here all this testimony concerning the denial of Peter, because I want to bring all of the history of Peter together. I pass that point for the present. I merely remark that the case of Judas and the case of Peter, connected with the arrest and the trial of Jesus Christ, have an immensity of pathos in the tragedy of the twelve – the first one and the last one on the list. That is the Jewish trial except this one additional fact: When it was morning, or as soon as it was day, they held their final meeting, and confirmed their night decision. They had a law that the Sanhedrin must come together for a final meeting in a case of this kind, and that if anybody had voted to acquit in the first meeting he could not change his vote, but if anybody had voted to condemn in this meeting he might ratify or he might change his vote and acquit. There were to be three days between these meetings. Having thus finished the Jewish trial, which was in violation of all the forms of the law, as soon as daylight comes they carry Jesus to Pilate. The first trial of Jesus, then, was before the Jewish Sanhedrin; the accusation against him was blasphemy; the penalty under that law was to be put to death by stoning, but they had not the power to put to death. So now they must bring the case before the court of Pilate. And here Mr. Salvador says that the Jewish Sanhedrin's condemnation of Jesus Christ on the charge of blasphemy was confirmed by Pilate. There never was a statement more untrue. Pilate declined to take into consideration anything that touched that Jewish law. When he tried him he tried him ab initio, that is, "from the beginning," and he did not consider any charge that did not come under the Roman law. Therefore, we see this people, when they bring the case before Pilate, present three new charges. The other case was not touched on at all, but the new charges presented were as follows: First, "he says that he himself is King"; the second is, "he teaches that Jews should not pay tribute to Caesar"; and third, "he stirreth up the people," which was one of the things that the Roman was always quick to put down anywhere in the wide realm of the Roman world. A man who stirred up the people should be dealt with in a speedy manner. Treason was a capital offense. So they come before Pilate and try him in this court on the threefold charge, viz.: "He says he is King; he forbids this people to pay tribute to Caesar," interrupting the revenue coming into Rome, which was false, for he taught to the contrary; and "he stirreth up the people." We have had, then, the history of his case, so far as his trial before the Jewish Sanhedrin is concerned. In the next chapter we will take up his first trial before the court of Pilate. 1. What two facts concerning the arrest of Christ are evident from John's supplemental story? 2. Why the presence of the Roman legionaries and their participation in the arrest of Jesus? 3. What illustration in Acts of the intervention of the chiliarch to protect a prisoner? 4. What unique and powerful literature on the trials of Jesus is mentioned? 5. What question do they answer? 6. What three books from the viewpoint of the lawyer commended? 7. What are the six distinct parts of Greenleaf's Testimony of the Evangelists? 8. On what one point does the author dissent from Mr. Chandler? 9. What general works on the trials of Jesus commended? 10. Who was the young man spoken of in Mark 14:51-52, and how do the commentators account for his presence and state on this occasion? 11. What noted Scotch preacher preached a sermon on this incident, what was his interpretation of this young man and what the lesson here for the preacher? 12. How did Judas identify Christ as the one to be arrested, what saying originated from this incident and what reference to it in the early history of our country? 13. How do you reconcile Luke 22:22 with Matthew 26:51-55; Luke 22:51; John 18:10-11; John 18:24? 14. Upon Christ's arrest what prophecy of his was fulfilled? 15. After his arrest where did they lead him, why to him, and what were the characteristics of this man? 16. Of what did the Jewish trial consist? 17. Give an account of what took place at the house of Annas. 18. Where did they take Jesus when they left the house of Annas, by what body was he tried there, of what was that body composed, and what were the limitations of its power under the Roman government? 19. Describe the trial of Jesus before this court. 20. What was the testimony of Jesus under oath, what should have been their course after his oath, what charge did they bring instead, and under what circumstances would their charge have been sustained? 21. What indignities did Jesus suffer in this trial? 22. What two pathetic cases connected with the arrest and trial of Jesus? 23. What the last act of the Jewish trial? 24. After the Jewish trial where did they lead Jesus, how did Pilate try him, what the threefold charge brought by the Jews against Jesus, and what the legal name of these offenses? 25. In what great particulars did the Jews violate their own law in the arrest and trial of Jesus as defined by Mr. Salvador? XXVII CHRIST BEFORE PILATE AND HEROD Harmony, pages 196-206 and Matthew 27:3-30; Acts 1:18-19; Mark 15:1-19; Luke 23:2-25; John 18:28-19:16.You will understand that our Lord was tried before the Sanhedrin, as we saw in the last chapter, on the charge of blasphemy, penalty for which was stoning. We will find in this discussion that Jesus is first tried before the court of Pilate on the charge of treason, and then differently charged with sedition, the penalty of these two charges being crucifixion, and on the same two charges he was tried before the Galilean court of Herod. We have yet to consider his trial before the court of God on the charge of sin, with the penalty of physical and spiritual death, and finally, we will consider his trial before the court of hell on the charge of sin, with the penalty of passing under the power of the devil. So that this discussion commences at the last verse on page 196 of the Harmony, Matthew 27:2, "And they bound him, and led him away, and delivered him up to Pilate, the governor"; or, as Mark puts it, Mark 15:1-2, "They bound Jesus and carried him away, and delivered him up to Pilate"; or, as Luke expresses it, Luke 23:1, "And the whole company of them rose up, and brought him before Pilate"; or, as John has it, John 18:28, "They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the palace; and it was early." We have seen in the preceding discussion that Jesus was tried before the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court, on the charge of blasphemy, and condemned. We have seen that in every step of the proceedings they violated their own criminal law. Just now the important thing to note is that they also violate the Roman law. In this particular they had no right to even try a capital offense. Of course, we know that a capital offense is one of which the penalty is death. That is, capital offense comes from the word caput (root, "cap," connected withkephala), meaning "the head." And capital offense is one in which one loses his head. The right to-try-such an-offense Rome never granted to the conquered provinces. The position is untenable that any conquered province might try and condemn, but the Roman representative had to execute. On this point Mr. Greenleaf says, "If they (the Sanhedrin) had condemned him, they had not the power to pass sentence, this being a right which passed from the Jews by conquest of their country, and really belonged to' the Romans alone. They were merely citizens of the Roman province; they were left in the enjoyment of their civil laws, the public exercises of their religion, and many other things relating to their police and municipal regulations." They had not the power of life and death. This was a principal attribute of sovereignty which the Romans took care to reserve to themselves always, whatever else might be neglected. Tacitus says that the imperial right among the Romans was incapable of being transmitted or delegated, and that right was the jurisdiction of capital cases, belonging ordinarily to the Roman governor or general. The word is praeses, answering to our word president, or governor of the province, the procurator, having for his principal duties charge of the annual revenue and the cognizance of capital cases. Some procurators, like Pontius Pilate, had the jurisdiction of life and death, but it could not be expected that Pilate would trouble himself with the cognizance of any matter not pertaining to the Roman law, which consists of an alleged offense against the God of the Jews, and was neither acknowledged nor even respected by the Romans. Of this the chief priests and elders were well aware. To show that Mr. Greenleaf is right in that contention, I will give three instances from the New Testament upon that point. The first is Acts 18, in the city of Corinth, and under the Roman governor Gallic. When Paul was accused under him, and brought before the judgment seat, Gallic says: "If indeed, it were a matter of wrong or of wicked villainy, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you, but if they are questions about words and names and your own law, look to it yourselves; I am not minded to be a judge of these matters." So a little later, when the mob treated the chief of the synagogue with indignities, it is said, "But Gallic cared for none of these things," i.e., as a Roman officer he had nothing to do with them. So it was impossible for Pilate to take cognizance of anything brought against any matter of the Jewish religion, such as the accusation of blasphemy. The next case that I cite is in Acts 23, where the chiliarch, or military tribune, called Claudius Lysias, writes a letter to Felix, who at that time was governor (Acts 23:27) : "This man was seized by the Jews, and was about to be slain of them, when I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman. And desiring to know the cause wherefore they accused him, I brought him down into their council; whom I found to be accused about questions of their law, but to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds." The next case that I cite is from Acts 25) when Festus was governor in place of Felix. So we see we have Pilate, Felix, Festus, and Gallic, all testifying upon the point to which I am now speaking. Festus cited Paul's case to King Agrippa (Acts 25:14): "There is a certain man left prisoner by Felix, about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, asking for sentence against him. To whom I answered, that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up any man, before that the accused have the accusers face to face, and have had opportunity to make his defense concerning the matter laid against him. When, therefore, they were come together here, I made no delay, but on the next day sat on the judgment seat, and commanded the man to be brought. Con-erning whom, when the accusers stood up, they brought no charge of such evil things as I supposed: but had certain questions against him of their own religion." And he declined to take any jurisdiction of such a question. Further upon this point, I now give what the great French lawyer, Dupin, says: Let us distinctly establish this point; for here I entirely differ in opinion from Mr. Salvador. According to him (p. 88), "the Jews had reserved the power of trying, according to their law; but it was in the hands of the procurator alone that the executive power was invested; every culprit must be put to death by his consent, in order that the senate should not have the means of reaching persons that were sold to foreigners." No; the Jews had not reserved the right of passing sentence of death. This right had been transferred to the Romans by the very act of the conquest; and this was not merely that the senate should not have the means of reaching persons who were sold to foreign countries; but it was done, in order that the conqueror might be able to reach those individuals who should become impatient of the yoke. It was, in short, for the equal protection of all, as all had become Roman subjects; and to Rome alone belonged the highest judicial power, which is the principal attribute of sovereignty. Pilate, as the representative of Caesar in Judea, was not merely an agent of the executive authority, which would have left the judiciary and legislative power in the hands of the conquered people – he was not simply an officer appointed to give an exequatur or mere approval (visa) to sentences passed by another authority, the authority of the Jews. When the matter in question was a capital case, the Roman authorities not only ordered the execution of a sentence, but also took cognizance (coynito) of the crime; it had the right of jurisdiction a pnon, and that of passing judgment in the last resort. If Pilate himself had not had this power by special delegation, vice praesdis, it was vested in the governor, within whose territorial jurisdiction the case occurred; but in any event we hold it to be clear that the Jews had lost the right of condemning to death any person whatsoever, not only so far as respects the execution, but the passing of the sentence. – M. DUPIN, Testimony of the Evangelists, pages 601-602. We must not forget that Judea was a conquered country, and to the Roman governor belonged the right of taking cognizance of capital cases. What then was the right of the Jewish authorities in regard to Jesus? The Jews had not the right reserved of passing sentence of death. This right had been transferred to the Romans by the very act of conquest; and this was not merely that the Roman senate should not have the means of reaching persons who were sold to foreign countries, but that Rome might have charge of all cases of life and death. Pilate, as the representative of Caesar in Judea, was not merely an agent of the executive authority, he having left the judiciary in the hands of the Jews; not simply an officer appointed to execute a Jewish sentence passed by any authority, but when the matter in question was a capital case the Roman authorities could not only order the execution of the sentences, but they also claimed the right of passing upon the crime itself, with the right of jurisdiction over the question, and of passing judgment in the last resort. The Jews had lost the right to try a man for a capital offense, or to condemn to death any person whatever. This is one of the best settled points in the provincial law of the Romans. If the Jews had the right of trial in capital cases, and the Roman power was exercised merely to execute a Jewish sentence, then when the accusation was brought before Pilate the proceedings would have been after this fashion: "Jesus has violated the Jewish law of blasphemy, and we have condemned him to death, and do bring him to you that you may approve and execute the sentence." But what are the facts? When they bring Jesus before Pilate they say not one word about the offense of blasphemy, but bring a new charge. Pilate puts the question, "What accusation bring you against this man?" And they began to accuse him, saying, "We found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a King." That is the charge they prefer against him before the Roman Court. That is the new case. And Pilate examines whether Jesus Christ was guilty of treason against the Roman governor in claiming to be a king. So he examines the case by asking questions of Jesus himself: "Art thou the King of the Jews?" And after Pilate had finished his investigation he brought in his verdict of the case before him. He has heard the people and he has heard Jesus, and now here is his sentence: "And Pilate said unto the chief priests and the multitudes, I find no fault in this man." (Top of page 200 in the Harmony.) That is the decision. The decision having been rendered upon that charge of treason, they bring another charge (Luke 23:5, Harmony page 200) : "But they were the more urgent, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, and beginning from Galilee even unto this place." This is what we call sedition, that is, stirring up a tumult; so they changed the accusation. When they bring that charge against him before Pilate he merely notes the fact that they have spoken of Galilee, and as Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, happened to be in Jerusalem at this time, and as the offense, according to this charge, commenced in Herod's territory, Pilate wishing to avoid the responsibility of deciding the case, refers it to Herod. We will see how it goes before Herod. On page 201 of the Harmony we find that Herod, after maltreating him, sends him back to Pilate. Page 203 shows that Pilate announces Herod's verdict: "I, having examined him before you, found no fault in this man touching those things whereof you accused Him; no, nor yet Herod: for he sent Him back unto us; and behold, nothing worthy of death hath been done by Him." So there we have a double verdict, that under the second charge Herod finds no offense against the Roman law, and Pilate says the same thing – that he hath done nothing worthy of death. No fault in him under either of the accusations. So that is the third verdict of equivalence that has been pronounced – twice by Pilate and once by Herod. Pilate now wishes to smooth things, for he knew that the Jews were very turbulent, and that the position of the Roman officer in Judea was always a hazardous one, since accusations could be made against him to Rome. Pilate had been moved by a message from his wife. She had had a dream. So she sends to Pilate while on his judgment throne, and says, "Have thou nothing to do with this man." Now, the Jews were urging Pilate on from one side, and his wife restraining him on the other. Burns, in "Tam O'Shanter," says, about the attitude of men toward the good counsel of their wives: Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet To think how many counsels sweet, How many lengthened, sage advices, The husband frae the wife despises! Therefore, Pilate proposes an expedient. He says, "There is a custom among you that at feast time some guilty man shall be pardoned. Now, you have a man here, a murderer and a robber, whose name is Barabbas, and it is within my province to pardon a man. Suppose you let me pardon Jesus, or, would you prefer that I pardon Barabbas?" It is a strange thing to the lover of justice that after Pilate had twice acquitted this Man he now proposes to pardon him. He could not pardon a man that had been acquitted. The Jews make their choice; they say: "Not this man, but Barabbas; release that robber to us; don't you release this man." Pilate then has Jesus crowned with thorns to show his contempt for their accusation that he would be a king, and invests him with purple, and brings him before the Jews, and exclaims (in words, that, put together, make a great text for a sermon: "Ecce homo"; "Behold the man!" "Ecce Rex!" "Behold the King!" When the Jews persisted that they preferred that Barabbas should be released to them, then Pilate put this question, which has been the theme of many sermons, "What then shall I do with Jesus, who is called the Christ?" Very many years ago at a meeting of the old General Association, Dr. A. E. Clemmons, pastor at Marshall, Texas, and Shreveport, Louisiana, preached a sermon from that text, and made this stirring application: This question comes to every man. Every man is under obligation to accept Jesus Christ as King, and if he rejects Christ then the question arises, "What shall I do with Jesus? He is in the world; he is preached in ten thousand pulpits; I cannot ignore him; I must make some disposition of him; what shall I do with him? Shall I count him as an impostor, or shall I accept him as my Saviour?" Having made that point clear, Dr. Clemmons then passed to his last question: "In not trying to dispose of Jesus Christ you reject him. Then later the question will come to you in this form, 'What will Jesus, who is called the Christ, do with me?' " Showing that there would come a time when the despised Nazarene would occupy the throne of eternal judgment, and according to the manner in which you disposed of him when the question was up to you, so will he dispose of you when the question is up to him. Their answer to the question was, "Crucify him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate says, "Why don*t you take him and crucify him yourselves?" Then they said, "We have no jurisdiction; we have not this power of life and death; you have. We bring the case to you, and we tell you now that we charge him with being an enemy of Caesar, claiming himself to be a King; and if you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend." It was a favorite custom of the Jews to prefer charges against the governors of Judea before the Roman court at Rome itself, and many a governor of Judea was recalled on charges preferred against him at Rome. When Pilate heard that, he was terrified. He knew that it was an easy thing to shake the confidence of Caesar in any of his subordinates, and he was afraid. He therefore fell upon another expedient. He washed his hands, saying, "I am innocent of the blood of this man; I wanted to let him go; you forced me to put him to death; you are responsible." Then they said, "His blood be on us and on our children." When you see Pilate go through that form of washing his hands, as if by washing his hands he could divest himself of the responsibility to render just judgment, you are reminded of the incident in the play of Shakespeare's Macbeth, in which Lady Macbeth, having instigated the death of the king, Duncan, and stirred up her husband to usurp that king's throne, her conscience and her imagination were always washing off the blood spots on her hands. The great author relates how she became insane; and she was all the time going to the basin and washing her hands, then looking at them and saying, "This blood on my hands would make the sea red; all of the ocean cannot wash it – the stain of blood on this lily-white hand." Pilate never recovered from his cowardly betrayal of his trust. History and tradition both tell us that he was pursued by undying remorse, and there is a tradition that when he was banished to the foot of the Alps, every time a storm was about to come a dark mist would gather over a mountain named after Pilate. There is a very thrilling reference to that in one of Scott's novels. Whenever the people looked up and saw Mount Pilatus wrapped in mist they would cross themselves and say, "Avoid thee, Satan." So tradition and history have tied the name of Pilate to that cloud-covered mountain. And Pilate finally signs the death warrant of Jesus of Nazareth, whom he had twice acquitted, and concerning whom he had said, "I find no fault in him; he is guilty of no crime." On page 206 of the Harmony we have an account of the indignities Christ suffered at the hands of the soldiers. Let the reader study that for himself. 1. Who brought the case of Jesus before Pilate and what great illconsistency in the Jews manifested at the palace? 2. In what particular did they violate the Roman law in the trial of Jesus? 3. What was the testimony of Tacitus on this point? 4. Was it the province of Pilate under Roman law to merely execute a sentence of the Sanhedrin concerning an offense against Jewish law or must he assume original and complete jurisdiction and try the case brought before him solely in view of an offense against Roman law? 5. What three special cases in the Acts illustrate this fact and what the point in each case? 6. What was the testimony of Dupin? 7. If the Jews had the right in capital cases, and the Roman power was exercised merely to execute a Jewish sentence, then when the accusation was brought before Pilate, what would have been the proceedings? 8. But what are the facts in the case? 9. What, therefore, was Pilate's first demand and what was their answer? 10. What was Pilate's second demand and their reply? 11. Would he have counted within his jurisdiction a charge of blasphemy against the Jewish God? 12. What threefold accusation against Roman law, therefore, did the Sanhedrin substitute for the charge of blasphemy and wherein consisted the atrocious malice of their accusation? 13. What one word covers all these accusations? 14. Was this threefold charge within Pilate's jurisdiction? 15. What question, therefore, did Pilate ask Jesus, what was his answer, then what question did he ask Pilate and why? 16. What explanation did Christ here make to Pilate as to the nature of his kingdom and what was Pilate's first verdict in the case? 17. What new charge did his accusers now prefer against him? 18. What was the legal term of this offense, was it a punishable offense against Roman law and was it within Pilate's jurisdiction? 19. What circumstance in the new charge enabled Pilate to evade trying the case by referring it to another tribunal? 20. In referring a case from one Roman court to another, was it customary and necessary to make a formal statement of the case? (See Acts 23:26-30; Acts 25:25-27.) 21. Would such a statement in this case include the charge of treason, of which Pilate himself had acquitted Jesus, as well as the new charge of sedition and why? 22. How did Herod receive Christ, what interest did he manifest in our Lord, what was the procedure of the trial before Herod and how did this incident affect the relation of Herod and Pilate? 23. Under Roman law in this case would Herod announce his verdict directly to the Sanhedrin or would he send it through Pilate, and why? 24. What was Herod's verdict on both counts as announced through Pilate? 25. What was Pilate's verdict on the new charge? 26. What is now the legal status of the case? 27. What was, therefore, Pilate's plain duty? 28. What Latin proverb of law would now be violated if the defendant's life is again placed in jeopardy on either of these adjudicated cases? 29. Why, then, does Pilate hesitate and parley with the accusers? 30. What admonition came to Pilate on the judgment seat? 31. Cite the reference in Burns' "Tarn O'Shanter" to a husband's disregard of wifely admonitions. 32. What expedient does Pilate now suggest in order to save the life of Jesus and vet placate his proud accusers? 33. What was the infamy of this proposal? 34. Under Pilate's proposal what deliberate choice did the Sanhedrin make? 35. How do the apostles subsequently bring home to them with terrific effect this unholy and malicious choice? (See Acts 3:14-15.) 36. How did Pilate again seek to appease their wrath? 37. What text for a sermon cited, what is the application and what was their answer to Pilate's question? 38. How does the Sanhedrin now confess their mere pretense in making charges against Roman law and terrify Pilate by stating the case under Jewish law? 39. What were the circumstances of Pilate's reopening of the case, what examination followed, what effort did Pilate again make and what was the result? 40. Why could not Pilate render a formal verdict on this count? 41. To what old charge do the Jews recur and thereby bully the cowardly Pilate into once more occupying the judgment seat, thereby reopening the case under Roman law? 42. What time in the day was it now, reconciling John's sixth hour with the time in the other Gospels? 43. Why does Pilate now say, "Shall I crucify your king"? 44. By what dramatic form does Pilate now seek to divest himself of responsibility and guilt in the judicial murder of one whom he still declares innocent, but condemns, what incident in the classics referred to, and what the tradition concerning Pilate? 45. In what awful words do the bolder Jews assume the responsibility for Christ's death? 46. To what indignities was Jesus then subjected? XXVIII THE OF CHRIST – THE FIRST THREE HOURS Harmony, pages 207-212 and Matthew 27:31-44; Mark 15:20-22; Luke 23:26-43; John 19:16-27.Upon the execution of Jesus by crucifixion I have one general remark. Far back yonder in Old Testament history, in the days of Moses, is this saying, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." The one hanged on a tree was lifted up. See particularly the expiatory case of hanging up the sons of Saul. Hence also the typical act of Moses in lifting up the brazen serpent, and our Lord's application to his own case as antitypical: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up" – a type that the Saviour of the world was to die by crucifixion. Jesus explained in his lifetime that by being lifted up signified the manner of his death. The question comes up, Why was Jesus crucified, since the Jewish penalty was death by stoning? They did not crucify – they stoned other people. How mighty the spirit of prophecy, so far back in history, to foretell a method of punishing not known to the prophet in his age! Now we commence on page 207 of the Harmony. I will give first the events leading to the place of crucifixion, and what transpired there. The incidents, in their order, as we see on page 207, are as follows: The first incident is expressed near the top in John's column: "They took Jesus, therefore; and he went out bearing the cross for himself." In view of the next incident, it is quite probable that in his fasting and weakness, and his lack of sleep, he was physically unable to carry that cross from the judgment seat to the place of crucifixion, and fainted under it. Hence we come to the second incident, recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke: "And as they came out they found a man of Cyrene, Simon, by name: him they compelled to go with them, that he might bear his cross." So Christ bore his own cross until they got out of the city, and being unable to carry it longer, the crucifiers took a man that they met coming into the city and compelled him to bear the cross. There is a song we all have heard: Must Jesus bear the cross alone, And all the world go free; No, there's a cross for every one, And there's a cross for me. Judge Andrew Broadus, who was once president of the old Baptist State Convention of Texas, once said that when this song was first written, or certainly as they used to sing it in old Virginia, it read thus: Must Simon bear the cross alone, And all the world go free; No, there's a cross for every one, And there's a cross for me. The newspapers reported that when the Pan-Episcopal Council was held in the City of London (the Pan-Council is an all-the-world council) Dean Stanley, dean of the ceremonies, put up to preach in Westminster Abbey a coal black Negro, Bishop of Haiti; and when that Negro got up to preach in the presence of royalty, nobility, and the professors of the great colleges or universities of Oxford and Cambridge, surrounded by "storied urn and animated bust," he read the scripture about the two sons of Zebedee being presented by their mother for the positions on the right hand and on the left hand in the kingdom of Jesus; and he fashioned his text this way: "Lord, let my son John have the place on thy right hand in thy kingdom, and let my son James have the place on thy left hand in thy kingdom." Then the Negro said, "Let us pray," and offered this prayer: O God, who hast fashioned all of our hearts like, and hast made of one blood all the nations of men that inhabit the earth, we pray thee that the sons of Shem who betrayed the Lord may have the place on thy right hand, and the sons of Japheth who crucified the Saviour may have the place on thy left hand; but let the sons of Simon of Cyrene, the African, who bore thy cross, have the place at the outer gate, where some of the sweetness of the song from within, and something of the light of the glory of God in heaven may fall upon them, but where, looking earthward, they may see Ethiopia stretching out her dusky hands to God and hear the footfalls of the sons of Gush coming home to heaven. That Negro preacher based his thought upon the geography of Simon the Cyrenian. Cyrene is a province of northern Africa, but it does not follow that because he was from Cyrene he was a Negro, and this Simon certainly was not. He was rather the father of Alexander and Rufus, well-known Jews. But, anyhow, that Negro's prayer, in my judgment, was the most eloquent language ever spoken in Westminster Abbey. I call attention to a singular sermon. At a meeting of Waco Association many years ago, held with the East Waco church, Rev. C. E. Stephen preached the annual sermon from this text: "Him they compelled to bear his cross," referring to Simon. Simon, the Cyrenian, him they (the enemies of Christ) compelled to bear the cross of Christ. It certainly was a singular sermon. His thought was this: That if a man professes to be a Christian and will not voluntarily take up the cross of his Lord and Master, the outside world will compel him to bear that cross, or they will advertise him well abroad. "Compelling a Christian to bear the cross," was his theme. For instance, it is reported that in the days of demoniacal possession Satan took possession of a Christian, and when he was summoned before a saint with power to cast out demons, and asked how he dared to enter into a Christian he said, with much extenuation, "I did not go to the church after him; he came into my territory. I found him in the ballroom and in the saloon, and I took possession of him." Whenever, therefore, a Christian departs from true cross-bearing; when he leaves the narrow way by a little stile and goes over into the territory of Giant Despair, he is soon locked up in Doubting Castle until he is compelled to bear his cross. The next incident related is that a great multitude followed. And a great multitude will follow a show, parade, even a band of music, or a hanging of any kind. I once saw 7,000 people assembled to see a man hanged, and since I saw it, I was there myself. Now, here was a man to be hanged on a tree, and a great multitude followed from various motives. In this multitude were a great many women who bewailed and lamented. They followed from no principle of curiosity, no desire to see a show, but with intense sympathy they looked upon him when he fainted under the burden of the cross that he was carrying – his own cross. The women wept, and right at that point the great artists of the world with matchless skill have taken that scene for a painting, and we have a great masterpiece of Christ sinking under the cross and a woman reaching out her hands and weeping and crying, dragging up Simon the Cyrenian to make him take the cross. The next incident is that of the two malefactors also condemned to crucifixion, walking along with him. They had their crosses, and Jesus had his cross with the malefactors. And another incident is that they came to the place of crucifixion, which is, in the Hebrew, or Aramaic, called Golgotha, and in the Latin version it is called Calvary. Golgotha and Calvary mean exactly the same thing, "a skull." Dr. Broadus rightly says that this was a place where a projection of the hill or mountainside assumes the shape of a skull. You can see a picture of it in any of the books illustrative of the travels in the Holy Land; and there that rocky skull seems to stand out now. That is the place where Jesus was crucified. If you were to go there they would tell you he was crucified where the holy sepulcher is situated; they would show you a piece of the "true cross" if you wanted to see it. They have disposed of enough of the pieces of the "true cross" to make a forest. Just as they came to the place of crucifixion, Golgotha, they made a mixture of wine and gall. The object of that was to stupefy him so as to deaden the pain that would follow when they began to drive the nails in his hands, just as a doctor would administer ether, laudanum, or chloroform, and Jesus, knowing what it was, refused to drink it. He looked at what was before him, and he wanted to get to it with clear eyes and with a clear brain. Some men seek stupefication of drugs, and others that of spirits, such as alcohol, suggested by still lower spirits of another kind; and they drug themselves in order that they may sustain the terrible ordeal they are to undergo. Christ refused to drink. These are the incidents on the way and at the place. Now they have gotten to the place, and it is said, "They crucified him." The word "crucify" comes from crux, meaning "a cross," that is, they put him on a cross. There are three kinds of crosses. One looks like X, or the multiplication sign; that is called St. Andrew's cross; another was like a T. This probably was the oldest form. The third form is like a + with the upright stroke extending above the crossbar. This is the most usual form, and is the real form of the cross on which Christ was crucified. Except the cross had been made in this last fashion, there could not have been put over his head the accusation that we will look at directly. The tall beam was lying on the ground, Christ was laid on it, and a hole was dug as a socket into which the lower end of it could be placed after he was fastened on it. Then he was stretched out so that his hands, with palms upward, would come on that crosspiece, and with huge spikes through each hand he was nailed to that crosspiece. Then his feet were placed over each other with the instep up, and a longer spike was driven through the two feet into the centerpiece. When he was thus nailed, they lifted that cross up just as they do these big telegraph poles. They lifted up that cross with him on it and dropped it into its socket in the ground. You can imagine the tearing of his hands and of his feet; but he said nothing. When they had crucified him, the record says, "And sitting down they watched him there." When I was a young preacher, in 1869, I was invited to preach a commencement sermon at Waco University, afterward consolidated with and known as Baylor University. So I came up to preach this commencement sermon, and my text was, "Sitting down, they watched him there," explaining who "they" were; the different people that watched him, and the different emotions excited in their minds as they watched him; the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the elders, the Romans, the curious crowd – they watched him, and they watched him there on the cross. Many years afterward, George v. Truett came to my house one day and said, "I would like to see a sermon you preached when a young man." So I gave him that sermon to look at. He sat there and read it with tears in his eyes, and said, finally, "You can't beat it now." The next thought is: What time of day was it? The record says that it was the third hour, which means, counting from sunup of our time, nine o'clock exactly, when the cross was dropped into the socket. And now is presented the thought that the two malefactors – the thieves, or robbers, along with him – were crucified, the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. He was crucified between two thieves, and what a proverb that has become -0- "crucified between two thieves!" The sinless man and only holy man by nature and perfect obedience that ever lived – crucified as a sinner and between two evildoers. How dramatic – how pathetic! Now for the first time Jesus speaks. On the way to the cross he had spoken just once. He had said to those weeping women: "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me: weep for yourselves and for your children." And then he tells them of the awful doom coming on that city and on that nation, because of their rejection of Christ. He never opened his mouth again until in this first voice, hanging there between those two thieves, and looking at his executioners, he says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Whoever, under such circumstances, prayed such a prayer? The martyrs oftentimes afterward, when they were bound to the stake and burned and the flames would begin to rise, and the Spirit of Christ would come on them, would stretch out their hands through the fire and say, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." That is voice one. The next incident is that there were right under the cross the four soldiers – four were detached at each cross, according to the Roman custom, the executioners – who were entitled to the effects of the victim. And they had taken off all his outer garments before they crucified him. Now these four men take various articles of his apparel and divide them: "Now, you take the girdle and I'll take the turban"; "I will take the inner coat," and so on. But they came to the outer coat, a seamless coat, and being without a seam, how could they divide that? So they agreed to gamble for it. And there, with Christ, hanging on the cross and dying, the men that impaled him there gamble for his clothes. And the record says that two scriptures were fulfilled thereby. One scripture says, "They parted my garments [vestments] among them, and for my garment did they cast lots." In order to see the dramatic effect on many painters, of Christ on the way to the cross, of Christ on the cross, and of Christ being let down from the cross, just go into a good and great picture gallery in Europe, or into a real good one in the United States. There will be seen the great master-paintings of Christ before Pilate, the Lord's Supper, Christ sinking under the burden of the cross, Christ nailed to the cross, Christ hanging on the cross, or Christ taken down from the cross. Picture after picture comes up before you from the brushes of the great master painters of the world. The next incident recorded is: They nailed up above his head a wide board on which the accusation against him was written. That was in accordance with the law that if a man be put to death, a violent death, over his head, where everybody could see it, could be read the charge against him. Now, I will reconcile the different statements of that accusation. Mark says, "The King of the Jews"; Luke says, "This is the King of the Jews"; Matthew says, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews"; John says, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." So we see that Luke prefixes two words, Matthew puts in the word "Jesus," and John adds the other two words "of Nazareth." So we take the simple statement first and go to the most complex, the four statements given by the historians, just as it is given above. All tradition is agreed as to "The King of the Jews," and each one of the historians adds some other thought. As I said in a previous discussion, that accusation was written in Hebrew, or Aramaic, in Greek, and in Latin, and this will account for some variations in the form of the statement. Suppose, for instance, in Aramaic it was: "This is the King of the Jews"; in Latin, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews"; in Greek, "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews"; you can see how each one could have written just exactly as he should read it; and everybody that passed by, seeing a man hanging on the cross would look up and say, "What has he done, this King of the Jews? What has this Jesus, the King of the Jews done? What has Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, done?" So Pilate wrote on that board that went over the head of Jesus Christ on the cross, "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." He had not been able to try him on any other offense than that. When the Jews saw that sign they said to Pilate, "Do not put it, 'This is the King of the Jews,' but write it that he said he was the King of the Jews." Pilate then was petulant and said to them, "What I have written, I have written. You charge him with being King of the Jews, and I write that over his head on the cross." I heard Dr. Burleson preach thirteen times on what Pilate said, "What I have written, I have written." He makes this application of it: "You cannot get away from anything that you have signed your name to: 'What I have written, I have written,' " that you can ofttimes evade a word you have spoken, though the Arabs have a proverb that "the word spoken" is master. Lawyers will tell you: "Say what you please, but don't write anything; curse a man if you want to, knock him down if you want to, kill him if you want to, but don't write anything. Whatever you write is evidence, and that is against you; but so long as you don't write anything we can defend you and get you off under some technicality of the law." As a famous baron of England once said to a young man he encouraged: "Whisper any sort of nonsense you please in the ear of the girl, but don't write a letter; that letter can be brought up in evidence against you." Now we can see how Dr. Burleson made the application in that sermon, "What I have written, I have written." Pilate was determined that everybody should see and be able to read it; and so he wrote it in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. They were the three languages of the world, and therefore when Conybeare and Howson began to write their Life of Paul, the motto of the first chapter is, "And the title was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin": in Hebrew, that every Jew might be able to read it; in Greek that every scholar might be able to read it; in Latin that every Roman might be able to read it. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin were the reigning languages of the world, and through the world in the three regnant languages there went this statement of Pilate: To the Jew, who said in his own language, "This crucified man is Jesus, the King of the Jews." To every Roman it went, being written in Latin, "This crucified man is Jesus, the King of the Jews." To every Greek it went in his language, "This crucified man is Jesus, the King of the Jews." The second voice is the next thought for consideration. You are not to suppose that he was up very high, but so that his feet were two or three feet above the ground. Then he had to be up there where everybody could see his face, and as they were watching him he was looking at his mother. In the Temple when he was presented, Simeon, whom God had declared should live until Christ came, turning to the mother, said, "This child is set for the falling and rising of many in Israel; and for a sign which is spoken against; yea, and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul." And the sword comes. The Romanists have a very beautiful tract called the "Sorrows of Mary." I have a copy of it, but it is in Portuguese. The seven sorrows of Mary answer to the sword piercing her heart, and one of them was when Christ fell down under the cross, and another was when she saw him hanging on the cross. Now, he is looking at his mother. Joseph, her husband, has long since died. They were very poor when Joseph lived. As you know, they could offer only a pair of turtle doves when they presented him in the Temple. They were not able to offer even a kid or a lamb, they were so poor. And Jesus had no home – nowhere to lay his head – and his mother and his younger half-brothers would go around with him wherever he went. "Now you take care of the mother, the brokenhearted mother," he said, as he looked down from the cross upon John. This next voice comes, then, as he speaks for his mother. John is seen as he looks down. So he says, "Mother, behold thy son!" And then he looks at John (who is now talking to his mother), and says, "Son, behold thy mother!" He meant for John to provide for her. Her own sons had no abiding place, no home. John was well-to-do – the richest one of the apostles. So he charges John to take care of his mother, and from that hour John took her to his home. Now the Romanists say that this proves that these others were not half-brothers of Jesus – that Mary never had but one child. They say, "If her own sons were living, why did Jesus give her over to John, her kinsman?" And the answer is that they had no home. John was rich; he had a home. John was nearer to Jesus than these half-brothers, and John was nearer to Mary than they were. The voices of Jesus, thus far, as he spoke from the cross: first, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"; second, "Woman, behold thy son; Son, behold thy mother." We will now consider the mocking that took place. Let us see who did that mocking. First class: They that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads and saying, "Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself: if thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross." Thus spake the passer-by. Second class: "In like manner also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, he saved others; himself he cannot save. He is the king of Israel; let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe on him. He trusteth on God; let him deliver him now, if he desireth him," and they belonged to the Sanhedrin. How sarcastic and cutting they were! Third class: "And the robbers also that were crucified with him cast upon him the same reproach." The passer-by; the priests, scribes, and elders and his fellow sufferers, all mock him. But Luke tells us a different story about one of these men hanging there. In other words, at first both of them mocked him, but one of them, looking at him, reflected about his case, became penitent, and he turned around then, and said to the other, "Dost thou not even fear God, seeing that thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due rewards of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss." He rebukes himself and the other malefactor, dying there by the side of Christ. Penitence strikes him when he looks upon the matchless dignity, patience, and glory of Jesus. Twisting his head around toward Christ, he said, "Jesus, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom," as a hymn so sweetly puts it: Jesus, thou art the sinner's friend, As such I look to thee; Now in the fulness of thy love, O Lord, remember me. I heard that hymn sung in a camp meeting when one thousand people wept and hundreds of lips spoke out and said, “ O, Lord, remember me." We now come to the third voice of Jesus. "Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." "You ask me to remember you when I come to my kingdom. I answer not hereafter, but right now. To-day you and I will enter Paradise together." What a salvation! No wonder everybody wants to preach on the penitent thief. How gracious to see a man who had been a criminal, his hands stained with blood, being led out to execution, strange to say, being executed by the side of the Saviour, and there, instead of an ignominious death, the thought awaited him of the Paradise of the world to come! The question arises: Where is Paradise? This question we will discuss in the next chapter (Matthew 27:45-56). 1. What was the general remark on the crucifixion of Christ? 2. What was the first incident cited leading to the crucifixion? 3. What was the second incident, the hymn based thereon and, according to Andrew Broadus, what is the original text of the first stanza? 4. What was the incident of the Pan-Episcopal Council, based on this bearing of Christ's cross? 5. What singular sermon cited and what is the application? 6. Who followed him to the place of crucifixion, what pathetic incident on the way, and what is the meaning and application of Christ's little parable in Luke 23:31? 7. Where was Christ crucified, what is the description of the place and what is the story of the auctioneer illustrating the traditions of sacred places and things? 8. What anesthetic was offered Christ at the place of crucifixion and why did he not take it? 9. What is the meaning of "crucify," what are the different kinds of crosses used and upon which kind was Christ crucified? 10. Describe the awful scene of nailing Christ to the cross and the erection of it. 11. Who "watched him there" and what was the effect on each class? (See sermon in the author's first volume of sermons.) 12. At what hour of the day was the cross erected, and what makes this scene peculiarly dramatic and pathetic? 13. What was the first voice from the cross and how unlike any other saying ever uttered before? 14. What incident at the cross especially emphasizes the depravity of the human heart? 15. What was the dramatic effect of the crucifixion on the world's artists? 16. What custom prevailed among the Romans in regard to an accusation under which a man was crucified? 17. What were the words so written, as given by the four historians, commencing with the briefest form and going in order to the longest, showing why there is no contradiction? 18. Why would not Pilate change the form of the accusation at the request of the Jews? 19. According to this accusation, under which of the three charges was Jesus executed – blasphemy, treason, or sedition? 20. What great preacher preached many times on Pilate's reply to the Jews and what was the application? 21. In what three languages was Christ's accusation written, and why? 22. What was the second voice from the cross and why did Jesus commit the care of his mother to John? 23. Who mocked Jesus on the cross and what did each class of mockers say? 24. What was the case of the two thieves, what led to the repentance of one of them, what was his prayer and what hymn is based upon it? 25. What was the third voice from the cross, what was its meaning and what was the significance of the three crosses? XXIX THE THREE HOURS OF AND FOUR MORE SAYINGS Harmony, pages 212-214 and Matthew 27:45-56; Mark 15:33-41; Luke 23:44-49; John 19:28-30.The last chapter closed as we were discussing Christ's third voice from the cross, saying to the penitential thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." And the discussion closed with this question: Where is Paradise? Upon this subject two views prevail: One is that between death and the final resurrection the souls of disembodied saints go to an intermediate place; the other view is that there is no intermediate place. And it is the second view that the author firmly holds. In Dr. J. R. Graves' book The Middle Life he takes the position that Paradise is a half-way station; that Hades is divided into two compartments, one called Paradise, in which the saints lodge, and the other called Tartarus, in which the souls of the wicked lodge. That neither the wicked nor the righteous immediately upon death go to their heaven or hell, is the "intermediate place" theory. It is also connected with an additional theory that when Christ died his soul went to that intermediate place, and while there preached to the spirits that were imprisoned there. The author does not subscribe to that at all. In determining where Paradise is, we consult, not the Greek classics (as Dr. Graves does), but the New Testament usage. This usage makes Paradise the antitype of the earthly garden of Eden, which has its tree of life. The antitype of that is the true Paradise. We have these instances of the use of the word in the New Testament: In Luke 18 the first use of it. It is not mentioned again in the Gospels, but we come to it in 2 Corinthians 12. There Paul tells us how he knew such an one about fourteen years ago, whether in the body or out of the body, he could not tell, but he knew such an one caught up to the third heaven and into the Paradise of God. There is nothing in that passage to make Paradise an intermediate place. Both the other two instances are in Revelation. In the letter to the churches Jesus says to one of them, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." Then by turning to the last chapter of Revelation you find where that tree of life is: it is in the midst of the Paradise of God. But where is that? The chapter commences: "I saw a pure river of water of life, coming out from the throne of (Sod and of the Lamb, and on either side of it was the tree of life." Then in the same last chapter, it says, "Blessed are they that wash their robes . . . that they may have the right to the tree of life," or, as it is expressed in an earlier passage in Revelation, "These are they who have washed their robes and made them white . . . that they may have a right to the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." These are the instances of the usage of the word in the New Testament, abundantly settling where Paradise is. There are other passages you may use in making it certain. For instance, in the letter to the Hebrews, Paul tells us where are the spirits of the Just made perfect. He says, "You are come unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of Just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel." So that wherever God is, and the heavenly Jerusalem, and the true Mount Zion is, and where the angels are, there are the disembodied spirits of the saints – and this is no half-way house. Look at it by this kind of proof: Who will deny that after the resurrection of Christ he ascended into the highest heavens? That is abundantly taught. Stephen, when he was dying, saw him there. And Paul says, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." Where the Lord is, there Paul's soul would go, as soon as he died. He says in 2 Corinthians 5:1, "We know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." So, I do not believe that there is any stopping place for any saint or sinner immediately upon the death of the body, but his soul goes to its final place. We can get at it in this way: when Lazarus died the poor man was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom. Where is Abraham? Jesus says, "Many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." This is no half-way place. So Paradise is a place. Jesus also said, "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. . . . In my Father's house are many mansions, etc." We are now on page 212 of the Harmony. It is the sixth hour, which is twelve o'clock. There was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. That darkness lasted three hours. And the word "land" means the whole of this earth. It does not mean a little section of it, either. Every one of the three Gospel writers uses a particular word which means the whole of the earth. It could not be over all the earth and be an eclipse; for an eclipse is not seen at the same time from all points of the compass. Then, again, no total eclipse ever lasted three hours. I witnessed a total eclipse once, and there were a few minutes when the shadow of the moon covered the sun completely, but in a very few minutes a little rim of light was shown, and it kept slightly passing. More and more of the sun appeared until directly all the darkness was gone. I have a full discussion of these three hours of darkness in my sermon on "The Three Hours of Darkness." For three hours that darkness lasted; and there was death silence. About the ninth hour, which would be three o'clock, the silence was broken, and we have the fourth voice of Jesus: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body, and spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God. So just before that darkness passed away, closing the ninth hour, Christ died the spiritual death. Right on the very verge of that deeper darkness came another voice. His words were, "I thirst." This shows that his soul was undergoing the pangs of hell, Just as the rich man lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torment, and said, "I pray thee, Father Abraham, send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." This anguish was not from loss of blood, as in the case of a bleeding soldier. Any old soldier – and I am one – can testify that the fiercest pang which comes to the wounded is thirst. The flow of the blood from the open wound causes extreme anguish of thirst in a most harrowing sense. On battlefields, where the wounded fall in the range fire of both armies, a wounded man cannot get away, and nobody can go to him, and all through the night the wounded cry out, "Water, water, water!" After I myself was shot down on the battlefield – it was two miles to where any water could be obtained, I had to be carried that distance, and the thirst was unspeakable. How much more the anguish of Christ enduring the torment of hell for a lost world! The next voice is inarticulate, and that means that he had no joined words. We say a woman shrieks: that is inarticulate; but if she clothes her feelings in words, that is articulate. The record says, "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, It is finished." So there is a cry from Jesus which had no words. "It is finished," that is, the work of expiation of sin, toward God; and the work of deliverance from the power of Satan is accomplished. All of the animals that were slaughtered upon the Jewish altars as types are found there in the Antitype, "It is finished." The Old Testament is finished ; the old ceremonial, sacrificial law is nailed to the cross of Christ. Paul says, "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances against us, he nailed them to his cross." On the cross he triumphed over Satan. "It is finished." Because it is finished, Paul also says, "Let no man judge if you should eat anything that would be unclean according to the Mosaic law; that is nailed to the cross." The Mosaic law forbade the eating of swine. But now you can eat swine if you want to. [It is far better, however, to eat fruits and vegetables than flesh foods of any kind. – Editor.] "Let no man judge you in meat or drink." And then he mentions the weekly sabbath, Saturday, and the lunar sabbath. The whole sabbatic cycle is nailed to the cross of Christ. If the Jew, then, after the death of Christ comes and says you must be circumcised according to the ordinances of Moses, you tell him that the handwriting of the ordinances of the Mosaic law were blotted out and nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ. You do not have to be circumcised in order to become a Christian. If he tells you that you should offer up sacrifices of lambs, or goats, or bullocks, you tell him, "No, that is nailed to the cross of Christ." "Sacrifice and offerings thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast prepared for me"; and "through the eternal Spirit he made one offering once for all." "It is finished." Whenever you preach on that and tell exactly what was finished, you have finished a great sermon. Expiation for sin was made; the penal demands of the law were satisfied; the vicarious Substitute for sinners died in their behalf; and the claims of the law on the sinner that believes in Jesus Christ were fully met. Therefore, no man can "lay any charge to God's elect." The debt, all of it, has been Paid. His last voice on the cross was, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," that is, as soon as he died, his spirit went immediately to the Father, and not to that half-way place you have heard about. There can be no more important thing than this: Where was Christ's soul between the death of his body and the resurrection of it, and why did he go to that place? Christ's soul was-with the Father immediately upon his death. As quick as lightning his soul was with God. Now, why did he go there? The answer to this question will come in after the completion of our study on the resurrection. Remember we want to know why Christ's soul, just as soon as he died, went to heaven. He went to heaven as High Priest to offer on the mercy seat, in the holy of holies, his blood which was shed upon the earth – on the altar on earth – in order that on the basis of that blood he might make atonement for his people. That is one reason. In Leviticus 16 we have the whole thing presented to us in type. The goat that was offered was slain, and just as soon as it was slain the high priest caught the blood in the basin he had, just as it flowed from the riven heart of the sacrifice. He then hastened with it, without delay, behind the veil into the holy of holies, and sprinkled it upon the mercy seat to make atonement, based upon the sacrifice made upon the altar. There was no moment of delay. Now, when the true Lamb of God came and was slain, he being both High Priest and Sacrifice, he must immediately go into the presence of God in the true holy of holies, and sprinkle that blood upon the mercy seat. Therefore, Paul says, "When you come to the heavenly Jerusalem, Mount Zion, to God, and to angels, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, you also come to the blood of sprinkling," there in the holy of holies, where Christ sprinkled that blood. How long did Christ's spirit stay up there? Three days – the interval between his death and his resurrection. Why did he come back? He came back first to assume his resurrection body. He came back after his body. Second, in that risen body he received the homage of all the angels: "And when God bringeth again into the world his only begotten Son, he said, Let all the angels of God worship him." He is the Son of God by the resurrection, as Psalms 2 declares: "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Paul quotes that to show that it is applied to the resurrection body of Jesus Christ. The angels worshiped Jesus in his eternal divinity, and they recognized him in his humanity. But there was a special reason why every angel of God should be called upon to worship the glorified Jesus – Jesus in his risen and glorified body. So that is certainly one reason why he returned. Another reason was to further instruct his people – to clarify and confirm their faith, which he did. And the fourth reason was that he might, with all authority in heaven and on earth, commission them to do their work. I will show in subsequent discussions that he did that when he came back. If you do not know why Jesus came to the earth; if you do not know why he died; if you do not know where his spirit was between his death and resurrection, and why that spirit went to that place; if you do not know when he returned, why he returned, and how long he stayed after he returned; when he ascended into heaven; what he is doing in heaven in his risen body, and how long he will stay up there in his risen body, then you have not yet got at the gospel, and you do not know how to preach. Still another reason why Jesus came back was to breathe on his apostles, that is, to inspire them, which means "to breathe," to give inspiration to them, and to commission them. How long did he stay? Forty days. In that forty days he finished his instruction upon every point. Then when he went back he did not go as a disembodied soul. He went reunited, soul and body. And why? To be made King of kings and Lord of lords. Another reason: As the High Priest of his people to ever live and make intercession for them in heaven; to receive from the Father the Holy Spirit, that he might send him down upon the earth to baptize his church. In other words, the old Temple was ended, its veil was rent in twain from top to bottom, and the new Temple, his church, set up, and as the old Temple had been anointed, the new Temple was to be anointed. All of which I discuss particularly in Acts of this . How long will he stay up there? He will stay as long as his vicar, the Holy Spirit, works on earth; until all of his enemies have been put under his feet; until the times of the restitution of all things; until after the millennium, when Satan is loosed, and the man of sin is revealed, who is to be destroyed by the breath of the Lord when he comes. He will stay up there until he comes; until the salvation of the last of his people, and no more people are to be saved. As we learn from 2 Peter, he will stay up there until he comes to raise the dead, be married to his people, to raise the wicked dead, to judge the world in righteousness, and then to turn the kingdom over to the Father. You must know that Christ died with a view of taking the place of the sinner, in his stead, the iniquities of the sinner being put on him. He who knew no sin is made sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. By his death he comes in the sinner's place to satisfy the penal claims of the law, and to propitiate God. That is the Godward side of his death. What is the devilward side of his death? The devilward side is fully presented in the sermon on "The Three Hours of Darkness." He died that by his death he might destroy the devil – that he might overcome him. So we have gotten to the last voice, and Jesus is dead. The very moment that he died the whole earth shook; it quaked; there was an earthquake; the rocks were rent, the graves were opened, and the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from top to bottom. We are told by some writers that this veil of the Temple was seventy feet long, thirty feet wide, and four inches thick, closely woven, hard woven. Two yoke of oxen could not tear it, and yet the very minute that Christ died, commencing at the top, it split wide open, clear to the bottom, thus signifying that the way into the most holy is open for everybody. So you see that is the one reason why he went to heaven between his death and his resurrection – to open up a new and living way for his saints to follow him where he has forerun – has already passed. The rending of the veil of the Temple signifies that the old Temple is now empty. They can go on if they want to, but they do not offer sacrifices any longer, and if they did God would not recognize them; and in future years it will be destroyed utterly. In A.D. 70 it was destroyed, and there has been none since, and no Jew today ever offers a lamb or a sheep upon any altar. There is an abrogation utterly of the Old Testament economy, i.e., all of the ceremonial part of it. Among the things that Jesus came back to earth for was to provide a new sabbath for his people. The Mosaic sabbath commemorated the creation – the Christian sabbath commemorates redemption, and as God on the seventh day rested from his work of creation, Christ on the first day of the week rested from the work of redemption. His body came out of the grave, and from that time on it was the day upon which his people met to celebrate his resurrection – the first day of the week. He himself met them several times upon the first day of the week, during those forty days. On the first day of the week he poured out the Holy Spirit. He ordered that collections be taken – that money be laid aside for collection on the first day of the week. We learn that the Lord’ s Supper was observed at Troas on the first day of the week; that John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, which is the first day of the week. So he comes to provide a new sabbath for his people. But we will discuss all this later. While the graves were opened in that earthquake, the bodies lay exposed. Many of the saints whose bodies were lying there came to life, that is, after the resurrection. They lay there exposed three days, but after his resurrection, after he became "the first fruits of them that slept," these bodies came to life and went into the city and were recognized. Then Jerusalem waked up and looked right into the face of their dead that had been buried but a short time before. Here is what the record says: "And the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many." These voices, that darkness) that earthquake, that veilrending, that grave-opening, made a profound impression upon those who were there. The centurion, the captain of the hundred, who was conducting a section of the army – the officer in charge) whose business it was to see that he was crucified – said) "Truly this was the Son of God." That is the impression it made upon his mind. No such things happened on the death of any other human being; therefore, one of the great French infidels said that Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ died like a god. The effect upon the women is thus described – and here are the very women who organized that first Ladies' Aid Society: "And there were also women beholding from afar, among them were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome: who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered unto him: and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem." How were the people affected? "And all the multitudes that came together to this sight, when they beheld the things that were done, returned smiting their breasts." Now he is dead, and the next event to notice is, Why he did not hang on the cross longer? This is the explanation, Harmony page 215: "The Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath (for the day of that sabbath was a high day) asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away." A sabbath did not necessarily mean the seventh day. Any high day could be a sabbath, and the Jews wanted those who were crucified to die soon. A crucified man might linger several days. So Pilate, out of deference to the Jewish law, commanded their legs to be broken, so as to bring about an earlier death. Now, when they came to break the legs of Jesus, to their surprise, he was already dead. There was nothing in the mere physical anguish in the crucifixion to bring about the death of Jesus Christ. He died under the hand of God. He died by the stroke of the sword of the law: "Awake, O sword, against the Shepherd: let him be smitten and let the flock be scattered." He died of a broken heart, evidenced by the fact that when the soldiers, to make sure that he was dead, ran a spear in his side, behold, water gushed out, an indication, physicians say, of death from heartbreaking. N ow, while he is hanging there, Joseph of Arimathaea, a member of the Sanhedrin, and Nicodemus, another member of the Sanhedrin, who came to Christ by night, obtained permission to take his body down and bury it. They had become disciples. It is a very precious thought to me that that same Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night, and was so puzzled about regeneration, has at last been born again, and become a disciple of Jesus Christ. They had not consented to what the others did in condemning Jesus, so they take him down and wrap his body with spices in a fine linen shroud and put him in a new tomb, belonging to Joseph of Arimathaea; in which no other one has ever lain, and shut him up in a big stone vault. This stone was hewn out like the vaults you see in New Orleans, and some in Waco. It was not a burial by the piling of dirt on him, but it was the placing of him in a rock vault. 1. What was the third voice from the cross? 2. What two views prevail on the location of Paradise and to which one does the author hold? 3. What other theory closely connected with "intermediate place" theory? 4. What are the uses of the word "Paradise" in the New Testament? 5. Where is Paradise and how do you prove it from these scriptures and others cited? 6. How long was the darkness over all the land at the crucifixion, and what is the meaning of the word "land" in this connection? 7. How do you prove that this darkness was not an eclipse of the sun? 8. Has the earth ever known such another period of darkness? 9. When and what was the fourth voice from the cross and what was its meaning? 10. What is meant by death, both physical and spiritual? 11. What was the fifth voice and its meaning? Illustrate. 12. What was the sixth voice and what its significance? 13. What was the seventh voice and what its meaning and broad application? 14. What was the last voice from the cross and what was its significance? 15. Briefly, why did Christ's spirit go immediately to heaven when he died and of what was this act of Christ the antitype? 16. What does Paul say about this? 17. How long was Jesus up there and why did he return? 18. How long did he stay here after his return, and what was he doing while here? 19. Why then did he go back to the right hand of the Father? 20. How long will he stay there and for what will he come back? 21. What great supernatural events attended the death of Christ? 22. Describe the veil of the Temple which was rent in twain at his death and what is the special significance of this great event? 23. Explain the opening of the graves and the coming forth of the saints. 24. Who were present at the crucifixion and what was the effect on each class? 25. Why did not Christ hang on the cross longer, what caused his early death and what the proof? 26. Who took Jesus down from the cross, where did they bury him and what the manner of his burial? XXX OUR LORD'S ; ITS TO HIS CLAIMS; ITS AND PROOFS Harmony, pages 215-217 and Matthew 27:57-66; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:31-42. We have How come to the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. The theme of this discussion is "The Resurrection of Jesus." This doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is fundamental and vital in the Christian system, and absolutely essential to its integrity – so much so, that if a man denies the resurrection of the body, he denies the whole Bible; for, if the foundation be removed the whole superstructure falls. The New Testament teaches both a spiritual and a bodily resurrection (John 5:25-29): "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself." That refers to the resurrection of the soul, or spirit. Then he adds: "Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." That shows two resurrections – the resurrection of the spirit, and that of the body. The body resurrection is literal; the spirit resurrection is figurative. The spirit resurrection is accomplished by the Holy Spirit in regeneration, that is, the soul, dead in trespasses and in sins, is made alive. That is soul resurrection. Whenever one is regenerated, he is made alive, as Paul says in Ephesians: "You hath he quickened [or made alive, that is, the soul is made alive], who were dead in trespasses and in sins." The same matter is fully discussed in Ezekiel 36:24-27; Ezekiel 37:1-15; and Ephesians 2:1-6. There, under the image of the body resurrection, the spirit resurrection of Israel is signified. It refers to the coming kingdom, the future salvation of the dispersed Jews; but it is presented under the image of the body resurrection. Both the literal and the figurative resurrection call for the exercise of supernatural, omnipotent energy, that is, it takes the Spirit of God to quicken a soul dead in trespasses and in sins; it takes the Spirit of God to quicken a dead body – to make it alive. But this discussion is limited to the resurrection of the body. By resurrection of the body is meant more than a resuscitation of the corpse to resume its mortal existence, as in the case of the daughter of Jairus, the widow's son at Nain, and Lazarus. These all died again. It means to make alive, the body to die no more; in the case of the Christian, mortality puts on immortality; corruption puts on incorruption; weakness puts on strength; dishonor puts on honor; the natural body becomes a spiritual body; the image of the first Adam, who was the natural man, becomes the image of the Second Adam, who is the spiritual man, and Lord of glory – 1 Corinthians 15:42-49. Now we see the difference between the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus, and the resurrection of Christ's body and our bodies. But, while all these marvelous changes take place, the identity of the body raised is never lost. The body that dies and lies buried is the body that is raised, but it is changed to suit its new life. Yet, whatever the change, it is recognizable as the very body that died. Even in the creation of man, God purposed the immortality of the body and provided the means in the fruit of life, but his access to that tree was forfeited by the sin of the first Adam; and so death reigned over the body. So access to immortality of the body was restored through Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, as Paul puts it: "Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel"; life to the soul; immortality to the body. But this, Jesus did not, and could not do, unless he himself rose from the dead. All Christianity is an imposture, a fraud, unless Jesus himself rose from the dead. The relation of the Lord's resurrection to ourselves, and its relation to all his claims and to all of our hopes, is thus expressed by Paul: "Now I make known unto you brethren, the gospel which I preached unto you – except ye believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures; and that he appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve; then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep; then he appeared to James; then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to the child untimely born, he appeared tome also" (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). "Now, if Christ is preached that he hath been raised from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been raised: and if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we witnessed of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up if so be that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither hath Christ been raised; and if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable. But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first fruits of them that are asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:12-20). It is evident from that statement of Paul that everything in the whole Bible is dependent upon one single fact: the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Let us now carefully consider in order the following facts: 1. Jesus repeatedly in his lifetime predicted that he must suffer death and that he would rise again on the third day: "Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said" (John 2:18-22). "For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered up into the hand of men, and they shall kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he shall rise again. But they understood not the saying, and were afraid to ask him" (Mark 9:31-32). I say that he did that repeatedly. In his early ministry in Judea, we read (Harmony page 20, John 2:18-22, quoted above), this one: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." That is the sign. "When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this; and they believed the scripture." It is in his early ministry that he makes that statement. Notice on page 91 of the Harmony (this is immediately after the great confession at Caesarea Philippi): "From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples, that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up" (Matthew 16:21). Take a still later occasion (page 110 of the Harmony) where he is discussing the Good Shepherd, John 10:17-18 : "Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." But we come to a still later instance (Harmony page 135, Matthew 20:17-19 : "And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples apart, and on the way he said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify: and the third day he shall be raised up." Notice another (Harmony, page 145) the time when the Greeks wanted to see him: "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it dies, it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will the Father honor. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour! But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name" (John 12:23-28). The statement of the fact just cited is, that this first fact Jesus repeatedly predicted in his lifetime – that he must suffer death and would rise again the third day. I have given some proof of it, spoken at different times in his earthly ministry. 2. Let us take up the next fact. He made his resurrection the sign and proof of all his claims. See page 59 of Harmony, Matthew 12:38-40 : "Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we would see a sign from thee [You come claiming to be the Son of God; now give us a sign]. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." 3. And thus we come to the third fact. Jesus instituted two perpetual ordinances, one to commemorate his death, and the other to commemorate his burial and resurrection. On this I cite just two passages of Scripture. I could cite a great many, but two will be enough: "For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup, after Supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come" (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). The other passage is from Romans 6:3-5 : "Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." We thus see what his ordinance commemorates; and it is the third fact in the order. 4. The fourth fact is that while only Mary, the sister of Lazarus, of all his disciples, understood the teachings concerning his death and resurrection at this time (Matthew 26:12), yet his enemies distinctly understood what he meant. Let us see the proof. While he was hanging on the cross, Matthew 27:39-42 : "They that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildeth it in three days, save thyself: if thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross," that is, "Try to prove you are alive after we kill you." "In like manner also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, he saved others; himself he cannot save." 5. The next fact is, they so understood his teaching that they took all necessary precautions to guard against the theft of his body, until after the third day, and thereby hedged against any false claim of his resurrection. I give the proof (Harmony page 217) Matthew 27:62-66 : "Now on the morrow, which is the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees were gathered together unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply his disciples come and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, Ye have a guard: go, make it sure as ye can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them." That shows they understood his teaching better than the disciples did. I have thus given five facts in their order: 1. Jesus repeatedly predicted in his lifetime that he must suffer death, and rise again the third day, though his disciples did not understand it. 2. He made his resurrection the sign and proof of all his claims. 3. He instituted two perpetual ordinances, one to commemorate his death, the other his burial and resurrection. 4. While only Mary of Bethany, of all of his own disciples, understood his teachings, yet his enemies distinctly understood them. 5. They so understood that they took all necessary precautions to guard against the theft of his body until after the third day, and so to hedge against a false claim of his resurrection. Never was an issue more openly joined and understood. He risked all his claims and all Christianity on one fact – his resurrection on the third day. His enemies accepted the challenge openly, and safeguarded against any fraud or delusion. Let us now consider in order another relation of facts, answering this question: Did Jesus actually die, or was it only a case of swoon, trance, or other kind of suspended animation from which he subsequently revived? The first fact is, as the record says, "He died," that is, the body and soul were separated. All the historians say, "He yielded up his spirit." The second fact: To make sure that he was actually dead, one of the executioners pierced his heart with a spear, from which flowed water and blood, an unmistakable evidence of death – John 19:33-37. The third fact: The centurion in charge, officially certified his death to Pilate (Mark 15:44-45). If a sheriff hangs a man now, the law requires that he make due report of the fact, and that is recorded as the act of the court executed; then the appointed officer signs it, then he goes and makes his first report that he has executed the man, and he is certified to be dead. So the record says, "And behold, a man named Joseph, who was a councillor, a good man and a righteous (he had not consented to their counsel and deed), a man of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews, who was looking for the kingdom of God: this man went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus" (Luke 23:50-52). "And Pilate marveled if he were already dead; and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. And when he learned it of the centurion, he granted the corpse to Joseph" (Mark 15:44-45). The fourth fact: He was actually embalmed and buried, and the mouth of the tomb was barred with a great stone (John 19:38-42): "Joseph of Arimathaea, . . . came therefore, and took away his body. And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now, in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb wherein was never man yet laid. There then because of the Jews' preparation (for the tomb was nigh at hand) they laid Jesus." Now you see that the dead body was taken down and that a hundred pounds of embalming spices, a long linen cloth was brought, and myrrh was spread on that cloth, which they wrapped around, and rolled and swathed about the body. If you find a mummy of the Egyptian days now, it has still that linen robe, buried over one thousand years ago, and shows that these spices preserve the body. There was Jesus, proved to be dead, embalmed as they would have him, in many folds of linen, and buried. The fifth fact is that a very great stone was placed at the door of the tomb to bar it – a stone so great that when the women came they did not know how they could get that stone rolled away. It was so big that a man on the inside could not have pushed it away. The sixth fact: This stone entrance was sealed with the Roman seal, and to break that seal was death. The seventh fact is that a guard was stationed to watch the sepulcher and protect it day and night from interference, until the third day had passed (Matthew 27:62-66). The eighth fact: On the third day came an angel of the Lord and with a great earthquake rolled away that stone, while the guard fell as dead men (Matthew 28:2-4). As we want the facts all in order, let us see the proof of this (Matthew 28:1 ff, Harmony page 218): “ Now late on the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was as lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the watchers did quake, and became as dead men." The ninth fact is that the guard faithfully reported the facts to the Sanhedrin, and with a large sum of money were bribed to say that his body was stolen by his disciples while they (the guards) slept. A protection from Pilate was promised, if the matter came to his ears. Let us see the proof on this point (Matthew 28:11-15): "Some of the guard came into the city, and told unto the chief priests all the things that were come to pass. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, his disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him, and rid you of care. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying was spread abroad among the Jews, and continueth until this day." The tenth fact is that the angel told his disciples that he was risen, according to his promise, and reminded them to meet him at the previously appointed place in Galilee (Matthew 28:5-7). Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all tell that. And the eleventh fact is that the disciples themselves saw that the tomb was empty. We are now ready to discuss his resurrection. I have led up to it in an orderly way, proving that he said he would suffer death; that he would rise on the third day; that while his disciples did not understand that, his enemies did; that he made that the sign of all his claims; that he did die; that he was embalmed and buried; that his tomb was guarded; that at the appointed time an angel came and rolled away the stone, and the guard fell as dead; that the guard faithfully reported the facts; that they were then bribed to say that his disciples stole him while they slept; that the angel told his disciples that Jesus was risen, and reminded them of the appointment that he had made with them, both the women and the men, and we will see about that appointment a little later. Now we have come to the place where the tomb is found empty, and there are just two reports about that empty tomb. Nobody disputes any fact thus far, not even an infidel or Jew. The report prevails that his disciples stole his body, and reported that he was raised from the dead, and the other fact is that Jesus rose from the dead. How do we account for the tomb being empty in which Jesus was buried? Some of the guard testified that the body was stolen by the disciples while they (the guard) slept. The objections to this testimony are manifold: (1) It contradicts their original testimony. They told the facts to the chief priests and elders. That was their testimony. (2) Their second testimony was the result of bribery, and therefore should have been thrown out of court. (3) It was false on its face, since they could not know that it was stolen, or who had stolen it, as on their own story it had disappeared while they slept; and since it was contradictory to all history that a whole Roman guard slept while on the post of duty, and equally contradictory that such a capital offense against military law should be passed over without even a reprimand. (4) It was contradictory to the state of the minds of the disciples, who counted all lost by his death and were in terror for their lives; who did not believe at this time in his resurrection, and who had not the faith and courage to preach what they knew was false; and it is contradictory to the simplicity of their character, and their own natural, unbounded surprise when apprised that the tomb was empty and to their slowness to believe in the resurrection. In a word, they had no use for a dead body. And it is contradictory to their subsequent lives and sacrifices. (5) It leaves unexplained the resurrection and appearances of the saints who were recognized by many in Jerusalem. No court in the world would accept that testimony, and no jury in the world would believe it. Now, on the other hand, the angel testified that Jesus was risen according to his promise and prediction. But the disciples were unable to accept the angel's testimony. They must see him for themselves; or, as John puts it, they must see him with their eyes, hear him with their ears, and handle him with their hands. As Luke has it, they must recognize him with the inner spiritual sense as he talked with them, so that their hearts would burn within them, and they must note his old-time mannerism as in "the breaking of bread." The proof of identity must be repeated often, and for many days, and under varied circumstances, and at different places, and to different groups, so as to be absolutely infallible and all-convincing. His mother must recognize him; his unbelieving brothers must recognize him; his friends and companions for years must recognize him. In other words, just what Acts 1:3 declares: "To whom he also showed himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them by the space of forty days, etc." 1. What is the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection? 2. What two kinds of resurrection taught in the Bible? 3. Cite one Old Testament and one New Testament proof that the restoration of a people may be called a resurrection. 4. Cite one New Testament proof that regeneration may be so called. 5. Cite a New Testament proof that a revival of the martyr spirit may be so called. 6. In the resurrection of the body, what four things are involved? 7. What is the glorification of the body? 8. What are the five characteristics of a natural body? 9. What are the five characteristics of a spiritual body? 10. Does the change from a natural to a spiritual body destroy its identity? 11. How was provision first made for the immortality of the body, how did man forfeit that right, and how was it regained? 12. Show the relation of Christ's resurrection to ourselves, and how Paul makes it fundamental in Christianity. 13. Cite orderly and connected proof from the Gospels that Jesus, from the beginning and repeatedly, foretold his death and resurrection. 14. Prove that he made his resurrection on the third day the supreme sign and test of his divinity and messiahship. 15. What perpetual ordinance did Christ institute to commemorate his death? 16. What other to commemorate his burial and resurrection? 17. Cite the proof that the enemies of Christ understood the test he submitted of his claims. 18. What precaution did his enemies take to guard against any false claim of his resurrection? 19. Restate the five facts concerning his resurrection in order. 20. What seven facts prove that Jesus was dead? 21. What three facts bear on his resurrection? 22. Give a summary of the discussion leading up to the resurrection. 23. What two reports concerning the empty tomb? 24. What were the objections to the report that the disciples came and stole him while the guard slept? 25. What four earth senses were employed in recognizing the identity? XXXI CHRIST'S AND Harmony, pages 218-227 and Matthew 28:1-15; Mark 16:1-18; Luke 24:1-43; John 20:1-21:25; 1 Corinthians 15:5. BETWEEN DAY AND FIRST LORD'S DAYThere were five appearances of Christ on the day he rose from the dead. These five, in their order of time, were: 1. To Mary Magdalene – Mark 16:9; John 20:14-18; Harmony, pp. 221-222. 2. To the other women – Matthew 28:9-10; Harmony, pp. 218-222. 3. To Simon Peter – Luke 24:34-35; 1 Corinthians 15:5; Harmony, p. 224. 4. To Cleopas and another disciple on the way to Emmaus – Mark 16:12-13; Luke 24:13-35; Harmony, pp. 223-224. 5. To ten apostles, Thomas absent; gives first commission – Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25; Harmony, pp. 224-226. SECOND LORD'S DAY 6. To the eleven, Thomas present – John 20:26-29; 1 Corinthians 15:5; Harmony, p. 226. IN THE SECOND WEEK 7. To seven disciples beside the sea of Galilee. Gives Peter a special commission – John 21:1-24; Harmony, pp. 226-227. THIRD LORD'S DAY 8. To the eleven and above five hundred brethren on the appointed mountain in Galilee, where he gives the Great Commission – Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:15-18; 1 Corinthians 15:6; Harmony, pp. 228-229. 9. To James – 1 Corinthians 15:7; Harmony, p. 229. FOURTH LORD'S DAY 10. To the eleven; gives another commission – Luke 24:44-49; Acts 1:3-5; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Harmony, p. 229. DAY – HIS 11. To the eleven and many others – Mark 16:19; Acts 1:6; Luke 24:50-53; Harmony, pp. 230-231. Here Acts 1:6 shows another gathering or assembly before they ask the question. From his ascension to the close of the New Testament our Lord appears to at least four persons (not counting Peter and Cornelius) – Stephen, Paul, Ananias, and John; to Stephen and Ananias once each; to Paul several times, and to John on Patmos in visions recorded in Revelation. Unquestionably the voice which spake to Peter (Acts 10:14) was the Lord's voice, but Peter seems not to have seen the speaker. There was an audible, but not visible interview. Except the first vision in Revelation, John's visions of the Lord on Patmos were mainly, but not altogether, symbolic representations of the Lord. In the case of Paul three of the appearances were constructively true, but not evident, i.e., they may be proved by argument, namely, the fourth, sixth, and ninth, as enumerated below. In order of time the appearance to Ananias follows the first appearance to Paul. BETWEEN HIS AND THE CLOSE OF THE NEW 1. To Stephen – Acts 7:55-60. 2. First appearance to Paul – Acts 9:1-9; Acts 22:5; Acts 26:12-20; 1 Corinthians 1:1; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8. and at the beginning of other letters. This was to call him to be an apostle. An apostle must have seen the risen Lord in order to be a witness of his resurrection. 3. To Ananias – Acts 9:10-17. 4. Second to Paul, in Arabia. This is constructive, depending on two lines of argument: (a) Whether we shall give precedence to Luke's "straightway" in Acts 9:20, or to Paul's "immediately" in Galatians 1:15-17. The author believes that Paul did not preach in Damascus until after his return to that city from Arabia – that he had not yet received his gospel. (b) But before preaching, he spent about three years of retirement and preparation in Arabia, probably at Mount Sinai, communing with the Lord; there at the site of the giving of the law studying its relations to the gospel which afterward he so clearly discloses, and receiving from the Lord directly his gospel to which reception he so often refers, as in Galatians 1:11-18; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; 1 Corinthians 15:3. 5. Third to Paul, in the Temple – Acts 22:17-21. This supposes that the Temple vision occurred on his first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion, an account of which is given in Acts 9:26-29 and Galatians 1:18-19. 6. Fourth to Paul in Tarsus, or possibly Antioch – 2 Corinthians 12:1-9. This is constructive, and depends on two lines of argument: (a) That "revelations of the Lord" in 2 Corinthians 12:1, implies a vision of the Lord. (b) The place of the vision is determined by the chronological argument. Reckoning back "fourteen years" from the date of the second letter to the Corinthians, about A.D. 56 or 57, and comparing Acts 9:30; Acts 11:25, we learn where Saul was in this period, and find in Acts 15:41 Cilician churches, probably established by him. 7. Fifth to Paul, in Corinth – Acts 18:9-10. 8. Sixth to Paul, in Jerusalem – Acts 23:11. 9. Seventh to Paul, on the ship – Acts 27:23-25. This is constructive. "An angel of the Lord" would signify an angel proper. But "the angel of the Lord" often means our Lord himself. This appearance, therefore, must be counted as doubtful. TO JOHN IN 10. Revelation 1:1-3:22. This is real. The following in the same book are mostly symbolical: (a) The Lamb slain – Revelation 5:6-7. (b) The Rider on the white horse in converting power – Revelation 6:2. (c) The angel with the censer – Revelation 8:3-5. (This is the High Priest.) (d) The angel with the little book, probable – Revelation 10:1-11. (e) The Lamb on Mount Zion – Revelation 14:1. (f) The angel with the sickle – Revelation 14:14. (g) The Rider on the white horse, in power of judgments – Revelation 19:11-16. (h) The Judge on the throne – Revelation 20:11. (i) The Lamb, the Light of the New Jerusalem – Revelation 21:23. (j) Witness (through angel) – Revelation 22:12-20. IN HIS 1. To the twelve – Harmony, pp. 44-45 and 71-72; Matthew 9:36-38; Matthew 10:1-42; Mark 3:13-19; Mark 6:7-13; Luke 9:1-6. REMARKS (a) Limited to Jews – Matthew 10:5. (b) Provides for their support – Matthew 10:9-10; 1 Corinthians 9:14. (c) Gives authority to cast out evil spirits and heal the sick – Matthew 10:8. (d) Gives authority to preach the kingdom – Matthew 10:7. (e) Foretells persecution – Matthew 10:17-18. (f) Promises protection – Matthew 10:28-29. (g) Spirit guidance in speech – Matthew 10:19-20. 2. First special commission to Peter, the keys – Matthew 16:19; Harmony, p. 90. REMARKS (a) The gift of the keys authorized Peter to open the door of the kingdom of heaven to both Jews and Gentiles. (b) The door to the Jews was opened by Peter in his Pentecost address – Acts 2:37-39. (c) The door to the Gentiles was opened by Peter in his address to Cornelius and his household – Acts 10:43-48; Acts 11:1-18; Acts 15:7-9. (d) The power to bind and loose, i.e., to declare the terms of remission, as in Acts 2:38 and in Acts 10:43, and to pronounce judicially and with final authority on all matters of the kingdom, here specially given to Peter, is later given to all the apostles, as we will find in John 20:21-23, and later to Paul. It was also given to the church, as we will find later in two commissions. 3. The discipline commission to the church – Matthew 18:15-18; Harmony, p. 100. Here again we find "the binding and loosing" power which holds good in heaven when the church follows the law of the Head of the church. 4. To the seventy – Luke 10:1-24; Harmony, pp. 110-111. REMARKS (a) Limited to Jews. (b) Provides for the support –Luke 10:4-8. (c) Gives authority over evil spirits – Luke 10:17. (d) Gives authority to preach the kingdom – Luke 10:10. (e) Gives authority to heal the sick – Luke 10:9. Note: This and (a) were both temporary commissions. AFTER HIS 1. To the ten apostles, Thomas absent – John 20:19-25; Harmony, p. 225. This commission appears in John 20:21-23. REMARKS (a) They are sent, as the Father sent Jesus, to all the world. (b) They were inspired. (c) They had authority to bind and loose, i.e., to declare the terms of remission of sins, and to pronounce judicially and with authority upon all matters pertaining to the church or kingdom. Harmony, p. 227. 2. Second special commission to Peter – John 21:15-17; (a) The triple form of the question here, "Lovest thou me?" is a mild rebuke of Peter's triple denial. (b) The triple form of the commission fits the three classes of Christians symbolized by sheep, little sheep, and lambs; the feed-ing, or shepherding required for each, suggests that the work is great enough to occupy all of Peter's time, and conveys a mild rebuke to Peter for distrusting Christ's provision, and his subsequent returning to his old, secular business. Peter erred in the use of the sword while Christ was living, and erred in attempting to provide for a living after Christ was risen. The suspension of Christ's protection and provision lasted only while Christ was dead. (c) There is nothing in either of the two special commissions to Peter to warrant his supremacy over the other apostles, and over the church, and especially no ground for a transmitted and perpetual supremacy to his so-called successors, and still less for those successors to be limited to the Roman See. 3. The great and perpetual missionary commission to the church – Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:15-18; 1 Corinthians 15:6; Harmony, pp. 228-229. REMARKS (a) This commission was given to an ecclesiastical body, as appears: From the number present. 1 Corinthians 15:6 : from its perpetuity, Matthew 28:20; from the universality and scope of the work. (b) The authority is plenary – Matthew 28:18. (c) The presence perpetual, through the Holy Spirit. (d) The work is both evangelistic and pastoral, i.e., making disciples and then training them to do all Christ had commanded. (e) The baptizing power is under jurisdiction of the church, as is also the keeping of the Lord's Supper. It supposes a time when no apostle will be alive, and provides a continuous body is whom authority resides. (f) This commission lasts till the final advent of our Lord, and throughout the Spirit's administration. We will now consider in detail some of his appearances after his resurrection and before his ascension, and also his commissions as we come to them. At least ten appearances are mention-ed, but there are some serious difficulties in harmonizing the testimony of all the Gospels concerning about six of these appearances. I will not stop now to point out these six and reply to them. Just now I will discuss the appearances between his resurrection and his ascension: First, to Mary Magdalene – Mark 16:9; John 20:11-20; Harmony, pp. 221-222. All the circum-stances of this case are thrilling. A group of women had follow-ed Joseph and Nicodemus, had witnessed his burial and returned home to prepare spices and ointments for his embalming. Then, resting on the sabbath day (Saturday), they returned early on Sunday morning to embalm him. But they find the tomb empty, see the angel, hear his explanation, and report his message to the disciples. Four of these women are named: Mary Magdalene; Mary, the mother of James; Salome, and Joanna. But there were others; as Luke says, Mary Magdalene runs and tells Peter and John that the tomb is empty. She says, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." And she returns with Peter and John and lingers after they have left. While she remains, the appearance of Christ to Mary takes place, as Mark states, and as is graphically described by John. It is very touching when the angels ask her why she weeps. She said, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." When I was a young preacher I preached a sermon from that text, and this was the application of the sermon: That people would go to church with a natural expectation of hearing about the Lord; the choir would sing, the pastor would preach, but there would be no Lord in the sermon; the deacons would pray, but there would be no Lord in the prayers; and they would look at the lives of the church members, and there would be no Lord in their lives. Then they would say, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him." When Mary had thus said, she turned and beheld Jesus, but she did not know it was Jesus. She just caught a glimpse of him, and thought it was the gardener. She saw that somebody was there with her. Jesus said unto her, "Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" "She, supposing him to be the gardner, said unto him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary!" As soon as she heard that voice, so familiar, the pathos and the manner of it which she had realized before a thousand times, her heart told her that it was the voice of the Lord. "She turns herself and saith unto him, in Hebrew, Rabboni, that is, My Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not [take not hold of me], for I am not yet ascended unto the Father, and my God and your God." I have never been able to read that passage of Christ's words to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils – this woman whose love for Christ was unspeakable, and whose gratitude unbounded – without being moved to tears. Just here an objection comes up, for Jesus said, "I have not yet ascended to my Father." How do you reconcile that with a previous statement that at his death the spirit went to the Father? My answer is that there is no contradiction at all. He is here referring to his ascension in the body: "I have not yet ascended to my Father," that is, the whole Christ – the divinity, soul, and body. The second appearance is found also on page 222 of the Harmony, and it is to a group of women, Mary Magdalene, however, not included. Matthew alone gives that: "And behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then saith Jesus unto them, Fear not; go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see me" (Matthew 28:9-10). These women are the first to see him. I have already stated that there was a Ladies' Aid Society organized, which ministered unto him of their substance while he lived. This is the same group of women exactly. They are still going to minister unto him of their substance, after he is dead. They had provided for his embalming; and now he appears to this group – first to Mary, and second to the rest of the group. The third case is presented on page 224 of the Harmony, Luke 24:34 : "The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon." And 1 Corinthians 15:5 : "He appeared to Cephas." You can understand why the next appearance of Christ would be to Peter. Peter had denied him. He had been very greatly honored, and would be honored for all time. So the third appearance of the Lord was to Simon Peter. The fourth appearance is on page 223 of the Harmony. This is very touching. It is the two men going to the village named Emmaus, about sixty furlongs from Jerusalem; and they were very sad. They had been to the crucifixion. Their Lord was dead, and while they were talking over that sad topic, a Stranger joins them. The record says, "Their eyes were holden that they should not know him." So they did not recognize him. And he asked them what was the matter – what all their sadness was about, and what they were talking about. They said, "You must be a stranger, or you would know what things have lately happened in Jerusalem." And they told him about the death of the Lord, and when they got to their stopping place, Jesus made out as though he was going on. But they halted and asked him to take a meal with them, and when he went to ask the blessing, that mannerism of his, that peculiar, solemn way in which he broke the bread – by these they knew him in a minute, and when he knew that they had recognized him, he disappeared, and then they said, "Did not our hearts burn within us, while he spake to us in the way, while he opened to us the scriptures?" He had been delivering a discourse which I would give everything in the world to have heard. He talked about the law, the prophets, and the psalms, and expounded to them every passage which referred to him, and expressed his astonishment that they were so slow to believe all these things that the prophets had foreshown of him. It was right on the surface. Why did they not see it? Why did they not see that it was necessary for Jesus to die for them? Why should they be disappointed at his death? Why should they count that everything was lost when he died? The whole topic is intensely interesting. The fifth appearance is on pages 224-225 of the Harmony. Mark, Luke, and John each gives an account of it: "When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you." NOTE: "The first day of the week," the very day on which he rose. This is five times in one day, all of them on that first Lord's Day. And he "stood in their midst." They were terrified, supposing it was a spirit, for the door was not open; it was fastened. He came in without opening the door; they thought it was a ghost, and he upbraided them on account of their unbelief and hardness of heart. They had no reason to be troubled; they had no right to have reasonings in their hearts. And then he showed them his hands, his side, and his feet. That was to show that it was the very body that was laid in the grave. They could not question the identity. Here he gives his first commission after his resurrection. It is found on pages 224-226 of the Harmony, as follows: "When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, 'Peace be unto you.' And when he had said this, he showed unto them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord. Jesus therefore said to them again, 'Peace be unto you: as the Father hath sent me, even so I send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Spirit; whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.' " We want to examine that commission. The points are as follows: As he was sent forth by the Father on a mission to this earth for the salvation of the lost, so he now sends them forth for the same purpose. It is their business by preaching the gospel to afford an opportunity for the Spirit's application of saving grace, which came through Jesus Christ. The next item in this commission is that inspiration is given to these ten men. He breathed on them. That is what inspiration means, a "breathing on." He breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." The third thing in his statement, "Whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." What does that mean? Evidently, as God only can forgive sins, it was not granted to these ten men to really forgive sins. But it means that they are inspired to declare the terms of remission of sins, and not to make a mistake. When the apostles hereafter shall be asked, "What shall I do to be saved; how shall my sins be forgiven," these men are inspired to tell just how that remission of sins may be obtained ; and whatever they say is as if God had said it to those asking. "Whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained," that is, when they declare, as inspired men, that a man has not complied with the terms of the remission of sins, then that man has no forgiveness. Let us take two cases to illustrate that part: The Jailer said to Paul and Silas, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved – what are the terms of salvation?" Paul said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved, and thy house," that is, "thy house must believe also." There he declares that whosoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, his sins are remitted. "Another New Testament case is where Peter said to Cornelius, as we learn in Acts, "To him [Jesus Christ] gave all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive the remission of sins." No man can receive remission of sins except through Christ. The hand with which he lays hold on it is faith; faith apprehends, takes hold. In my discussion on Acts 2:38 I bring out this question again, and answer a further question as to whether baptism is one of the terms essential to forgiveness of sins. The Campbellite's answer, Dr. Mulling' answer, and mine; I give them all, and the reader may take any one of the three he prefers. All this is found in Acts of this . Here is a summary of this first commission: (1) "As the Father hath sent me, so I send you"; they were thus to be sent; (2) they received inspiration; (3) being so sent and so inspired, they were to declare the only terms upon which the remission of sins could be obtained. But Thomas was not present; there were only ten of the apostles present at that time. When Thomas came and they told him about It, he would not believe it. Here were ten men saying, "I tell you we have seen Jesus; he came into the room where we were; we know it was Jesus; we saw the marks of the nails in his hands and in his feet, and the spear print in his side." Listen to what Thomas says: "That may do for you, but I won't believe it until I put my finger in those nail-prints; I will have to see it for myself; I will have to put my finger there." So just a week from those five appearances, and it is the Lord's Day again, they are assembled, and Thomas is present. This is what it says, John 20:26-31 : "And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and put it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God." He was satisfied that this was the very Jesus, and more – that this was God in man. It is quite common to preach a sermon on "Doubting Thomas." A great many men have shown that Thomas was not such a bad case after all; that he did insist on adequate proof – proof that would satisfy him, and not other people. And when that proof reached him he accepted it with all his heart, and forever. So that is the sixth time. Jesus has this rebuke for Thomas: "Because thou hast seen me thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." In other words, there is a sufficiency of testimony without seeing Jesus. You have not seen him, and yet have believed, and you are as strong in your faith as Thomas was. We note another appearance. It was on another Sunday. Jesus, before he died, made a positive appointment with all of his people, at a certain mountain in Galilee. Not only the apostles, but the women and others were there. Most of his converts were in Galilee. Here we find Peter, as I have said, in one case, acting too quickly, and in another case he acted too late. Jesus had said that while they were under his commission, and he was alive, not to take scrip or purse; not to feel that they had to provide for themselves or to defend themselves; but that while they were thus under his commission he would provide. I showed you how Peter used his sword before Christ was dead, and there he was too quick. Now, after Christ is risen, and he knows that Christ is risen, be says, "I go a fishing." What he meant by that was this: "We have to have a living. It looks like our preaching occupation is gone, and we were by profession fishermen. I am going back to my old business." Let one big man, the ringleader, start off, and the others, not quite so big, will follow. The rest said, "We'll go with you." And they went back to their old occupation, and to their old homes. They went fishing, toiled all night and caught nothing. A back-sliding preacher makes a mighty poor farmer or anything else. If he succeeds well in a secular business it is a pretty good proof that God never called him; and if he does not succeeded, then it certainly seems that he is out of his place. Jesus appears and shows them how to catch fish, as he had done once before. That is a repetition of the miracle that had taken place when he called them to leave that business that he might make them fishers of men. To repeat that miracle here, when they were out of that business, whatever their regular business for Christ, would bring the whole thing back to their remembrance. And now commences a colloquy between Christ and Peter. He says to Simon, "Do you love me more than these?" Instantly the question comes up – what does that pronoun "these" refer to? Does it mean these fish? If so, it means this: "Do you, Simon, love your secular business more than you love your Lord and Master?" Or that pronoun may refer to the other disciples. Simon had said, "Though all these others leave thee, I will never leave thee." Then it means: "You professed while I was living that you had an attachment for me beyond all other men. Do you love me more than they do? If so, why are you leading them astray?" It will be noticed that Jesus puts his question three times, corresponding to the three denials of Peter, and that Peter's heart keeps breaking and getting more and more humble, as each question is put. He is a good man. One of my old-time lady members at Waco said, "Peter is a great comfort to me; he was so impulsive and imperfect. But Paul is a trial for me. I am all the time back-sliding and repenting, yet greatly loving my Lord." We now come to our Lord's commission to Peter, which is his second commission after his resurrection, and I call attention to another important thing. In the Greek language Jesus directs Peter to take care of three classes of Christians, for the Greek words differ. In the Greek New Testament we see that the words used differ in the manuscripts. The word for "sheep," the word for "lambs," and the word for "little sheep" differ. "Shepherd my sheep," "feed my lambs," and "shepherd my little sheep." A "sheep" is an experienced Christian; a "lamb" is a young convert; and a "little sheep" is a Christian who has been converted long enough to be mature, but who is in a state of arrested development – what you would call a "runt." The majority of Christian people that I know are "little sheep," as Paul says, "For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food" (Hebrews 5:12). It is somewhat like trying to feed them with a spoon, just as if they were babies. They have not moved up any. They can go back and tell when they were converted, but they do not grow. Paul refers to "little women" (gunaikarion), which our translators call "silly women." What he means by "little women" is not the little women that Louisa May Alcott writes about in her book Little Women, i.e., "girls that soon will be women." Paul does not mean little woman in stature, but a woman with a little soul. Her soul is so small that she loves pleasure more than God. The world is bigger to her than heaven. The pleasures and gayeties of this world are more to her than God's service. She goes to ballrooms. She is swallowed up in fashionable parties, so that she seldom gets in touch with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This is manifest in the church. Little women, quite small, may be worth 1,000,000; may be leaders in society, but such are little women. Such are on the pastor's heart very heavily, and he doesn't know what to do with them. Jesus says to Simon, "You feed these little sheep." In the twenty-seven years that I was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Waco, I came to know these "little sheep" well, and how to deal with them. These apostles quit fishing and they went on to the appointment, which brings us to the next appearance of Jesus, at which he gives the third commission after his resurrection, which we will consider in the next chapter. 1. How many and what appearances on the day that Christ rose from the dead? 2. How many and what on the second Lord's Day? 3. How many and what during the second week? 4. How many and what appearances on the third Lord's Day? 5. What one on the fourth Lord's Day? 6. What one on the fortieth day? 7. To whom did Christ appear between his ascension and the close of the New Testament and how many times to each? 8. How many and what commissions did Christ give in his lifetime? 9. Analyze the first commission to the twelve. 10. Analyze the special commission to Peter. 11. What is the discipline commission given to the church, and what is the meaning here of the "binding and loosing" power? 12. Analyze the commission to the seventy, and what of special note about the first and fourth of these commissions? 13. How many and what commissions after his resurrection? 14. To whom did Christ first appear after his resurrection, and what the circumstances of that appearance? 15. How do you harmonize Jesus' statement to Mary, "Touch me not," etc., with the fact that at his second appearance the women touched his feet, and the fact that Thomas was invited to touch his hands and his side? 16. How do you reconcile the last saying on the cross with the statement, "I have not yet ascended to my Father"? 17. To whom did he appear the second time, and what were the circumstances? 18. To whom did he appear the third time, and why to him especially? 19. To whom did he appear the fourth time, and what, in detail, were the incidents connected with it? 20. To whom did he appear the fifth time, what were the circumstances, and what important event in connection with this appearance of our Lord? 21. Analyze this commission, explaining each point in particular. 22. To whom did he appear on the second Lord's Day, and what were the circumstances, and what was the special purpose of this appearance? 24. What was the meaning of Christ's questions to Peter here? 25. What analysis of the second commission to Peter? (See outline of the commission.) 26. In this second commission to Peter, what is the meaning and application of Christ's language to him, distinguishing three classes of Christians? 27. What two references to the "little sheep" by Paul, and who, especially, are Paul's "little women"? XXXII CHRIST'S AND Harmony, pages 228-231 and Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:15-18; Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:3-12; 1 Corinthians 15:7.The next commission is found on page 228 of the Harmony, Matthew's account, Matthew 28:16-20 : "But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth, go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." By the side of it is Mark's account, also a statement by Paul about five hundred being present. This is what is called the Great Commission. The points of it are: (1) Before he was put to death he appointed this place, a mountain in Galilee, for the assembling of his disciples; and Paul says five hundred brethren were there, and we have already seen that the women were there also. In his appearances to the women he told them to be present, so we must put the number at anywhere between five and six hundred. The gathering is a specially appointed one. He appointed the women after his resurrection to remind them of it. It was to be the gathering of the general body of his disciples – apostles, other men and women. The supposable reasons for assembling them at this particular place are: (a) Most of his disciples were Galileans, and (b) by having this big gathering in Galilee, it would avoid creating a disturbance, for if a meeting had been held in Jerusalem, not so many could have attended, and there they would be liable to interruption by the excited people. (2) The next point is that this was the most eventful, far-reaching, important gathering of God's people between his death and his ascension. (3) Let us analyze the Commission itself. Dr. Landrum once preached a sermon on the Commission, calling attention to the "alls": (a) "all" authority; (b) go to "all" the nations; (c) observe "all things"; (d) "I am with you all the days," as it is expressed in the margin. The reference to the authority which he received is to show them that in telling them to do something, and so great a something, and so important a something, he had the authority to do it; "all authority" in heaven and on earth, is given unto him. That is because of his faithful obedience to the divine law, and particularly because he had expiated sin by his own death on the cross. Now he is to be exalted to be above all angels and men; the dominion of the universe is to be in his hands, and from this time on. It is so now. He today sits on the throne of the universe and rules the world; all authority in heaven and on earth is given unto him. That is the question which always is to be determined when a man starts out to do a thing: "By what authority do you do this?" If you, on going out to preach, should be asked, "By what authority do you preach, and are you not taking the honor on yourself?" you answer that he sent you. We are to see what he told them to do, and we will compare the Commission to a suspension bridge across a river. On one side of the river is an abutment, the authority of Jesus Christ. And at the other end of the bridge we will take this for the abutment: "And lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the age." On one side of the river stands the authority, and on the other side stands the presence of Jesus Christ – Christ in the Holy Spirit. That is to be until the end of the age. Suspended between these two, and dependent on these two, and resting on these two, is the bridge. Let us see exactly, then, what they are to do: First, to "go therefore." The "therefore" refers to the authority; second, "make disciples of all the nations." So there are three parts to this first item of the Commission: To go, what to go for, and to whom. If we are Missionary Baptists indeed, this Commission is the greatest of all authority. One of the deacons, when I took charge of the First Baptist Church at Waco, said to me on one occasion, when I was taking up a foreign mission offering, "Brother Carroll, I am interested in helping you reach these Waco people, and I will help some on associational missions, and state missions, but when it comes to these Chinese and Japs, if you will just bring me one of them, I will try to convert him." I said to him, "You don't read your Commission right. You are not under orders to wait until somebody brings you a Jap; you are to go; you are the one to get up and go yourself. You can't wrap up in that excuse." This Commission makes the moving on the part of the commissioned – the people of God; they are to go to these people wherever they are. If they are Laplanders, go; if Esquimaux, go; if they are in the tropics, you must go there; if in the temperate region, you must go there; anywhere from the center of the earth to its remotest bounds. That is what makes it missionary – one sent, and being sent, he goes. And we can't send anybody unless he goes somewhere. The first thought, then, is the going. It does not say, "Make the earth come to you," but "you are to go to them," and that involves raising the necessary means to get you there. The command to go involves the means essential to going. That is the going law. If the United States shall send one of its diplomats to England, that involves the paying of the expenses of the going. The next thing is, What are you to do when you get there? You are to make disciples. There are two words here in the Greek – one, matheteusate, which means "to make disciples"; the other, didaskontes, which means "teaching." You do not teach them first, but you make disciples out of them. Now come the questions: How make a disciple? What is discipleship? That will answer the other question, What is necessary to the remission of sins? When is a man a disciple? How far do you have to go in order to make him a disciple? The way to answer that question is to look at what John the Baptist and Christ did. The Gospel of John tells us that John the Baptist made and baptized disciples; that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John did. John made disciples before he baptized them; Jesus made disciples before he baptized them, not afterward. John did not baptize them before he made them disciples; he did not leave off the baptism after he disciplined them. The question of order here is one of great importance. There are three things to be done: (1) Make disciples; (2) baptize disciples; (3) then teach them all things whatsoever Christ commanded. And you must take them in their order. It is not worth while to try to teach a man to do everything that Jesus did when he refuses to be a disciple. Don't baptize him before he is a disciple. You must not baptize him in order to make him a disciple; you must not attempt to instruct him in Christian duties until he is a disciple. How important is the answering of that question: "How do you make a disciple?" John made disciples this way: Paul says that John preached repentance toward God, and that they should believe on Jesus to come, i.e., a man who has repented toward God and exercised faith in Jesus Christ, was a disciple; then John baptized him. The Pharisees came to be baptized, but John refused, saying to them: "Think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our Father: for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham." "Do not think that entitles you to baptism; that does not at all entitle you to baptism; but you bring forth fruits worthy of your repentance, then I will baptize you, ye offspring of vipers." And Jesus went forth and preached: "Repent ye, and believe the gospel." So that from time immemorial the Baptists have contended that the terms of discipleship, or the terms of remission of sins, are repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said that he everywhere testified to both Greeks and Jews, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. I sometimes change that a little by putting first the contrition, or godly sorrow; the Spirit convicts a man, and under that conviction he becomes contrite, has godly sorrow; that contrition leads him to repentance; that leads him to faith, then he is a child of God, right there: "We are all the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus." This is a great part of your qualification to be a preacher – that you know how to tell a man what to do to be saved; to know what to tell him. You don't bury a man to kill him. Baptism is a burial. You bury dead men, but not till they are dead. Nor do you bury a live, raw sinner. You must wait till the Spirit kills him to sin. Major Penn told of a man who had been lost in the woods. It was in the heat of the day, and he was very thirsty. Late in the day he found his way to a shady little nook, where, bursting from a rock, was a cool mountain spring, and hanging up over the spring was an old-fashioned gourd. He dipped that gourd in the spring and held the water up a little and let it run down his throat, and gloried in drinking out of a gourd. Major Penn made such an apt description of it that one man came up and said, "I'll go and get me a gourd; that is the best drinking vessel; I know by the way you talk about it." So he went to a farmer and asked for a gourd. The farmer picked him a green gourd. He cut off the top of it and dipped it into the water. He commenced sipping and drinking. When he discovered the bitter taste he asked, "What in the world is the matter with this gourd?" An old woman said to him, "Why, you were not such a fool as to drink out of a green gourd, were you? You let that gourd get thoroughly ripe; then open it, take out the insides, boil it, let it get dry, and it will be fit to drink out of." Major Penn said to baptize a man a dry sinner is to bring him up a wet sinner, and it is like drinking out of a green gourd. This is the answer to the question, What are the terms of discipleship, or, How do you make a disciple? He has godly sorrow. That godly sorrow leads him to repentance – a change of mind; that leads him to the Saviour, and when he accepts Jesus Christ he is a child of God. Now you know how to approach a sinner, but don't you put him under the water at the wrong time and with the wrong object in view. This brings up another question: Who is to do this baptizing? Is the command here to be baptized, or is it to baptize? Which comes first? Any lawyer will tell you that the command to do a thing, in which you must submit to the act of another, must specify the authorized party to whom you must submit in that act. For example, suppose that after you had come to the United States from a foreign country, you speak to your friends and ask, "How did you settle in the United States?" They tell you that they took out naturalization papers. Then you meet a man and ask him, "Will you give me some naturalization papers?" He gives you the naturalization papers, and says, "You are a citizen of the United States." Being now a citizen, you come up to vote, but the judge of the election says, "Are you a foreigner?" "Yes, I was till I was naturalized." Then he asks for your papers. Looking at them he says, "Why, this man was not authorized to do it. The law tells how you shall be naturalized, and you have just picked up a fellow on the streets here that did not count at all." The law tells us in every state who shall issue naturalization papers, otherwise the citizenship of the state would be vested in a "Tom-Dick-and-Harry" – everybody and nobody. It is just that way about baptizing. I know some who teach that the command is simply to be baptized. I said to one of them once, "Does it make any difference who does the baptizing?" "Well," he said, "no it doesn't; the command is simply to be baptized." I said, "I will give you $100 if you will show me a command to be baptized, with no authorized administrator standing there to administer the ordinance." "Well," he said, "look at Paul's case: Ananias said, 'Arise and be baptized.' " I said, "Who sent Ananias? Ananias had authority from God to baptize Paul. Who sent Philip into the desert? The eunuch said, 'Here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?' but there was the administrator talking to him, a sent administrator." And this question is thereby raised: Jesus ascended to heaven and vested this authority to disciple and to baptize, in whom? Here's a big gathering, not apostles only, because here are five hundred besides those women. Not in that particular crowd alone, for he said, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the age." There is no escape from it, that when he gave this Commission, he gave it to an ecclesiastical body – the church. That is why the great church gathered. It is a perpetual commission. No man can deny that these disciples were acting representatively. "But," says one, "the Commission was given to the apostles." But I say, "Where were the apostles?" Paul says that God set them in the church (1 Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11-16). He did not set anybody out in the woods. Ask those free lances who run out on the prairie, or in the woods, who set them. God put these apostles, pastors, etc., in the church, and from the time that God gave this commission he has done the baptizing through the church. You cannot give it just in your own way or notion; you cannot just pick people up and put them in the creek, and say, "I baptize you." Here are the things that are essential to a valid baptism: (1) A man must be a disciple, a penitent believer in Jesus Christ; (2) The act of baptism, whatever that commission means. If it means to sprinkle, sprinkle them; if to pour, then pour; if to immerse, then immersion is the act. (3) The design or purpose: Why do it? If we baptize to "make a disciple" or in order that he may become a disciple; that he may be saved; that his sins be remitted, then I deny that it is baptism. It lacks the gospel design, or purpose. (4) It must be done by authority, and that authority is the church. The church authorizes; the subject must be a disciple, and the act is immersion. The purpose is to make a public declaration, or confession, of faith in Jesus Christ, to symbolize the cleansing from sin, a memorial of Christ's resurrection, and a pledge of the disciple. According to your understanding of this commission you bring confusion into Israel, or keep it out. While I was pastor in Waco, we received a member from another Baptist church. He heard me preach on this commission and came to me and said, "Look here, I want to preach; I believe I am called to preach, and the way you state that, I have not been baptized at all." I said, "How is that?" "A Campbellite preacher baptized me." "Did the Baptist church receive that baptism?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Now suppose you want to preach, and you come before this church for ordination, and they find out that fact, they won't ordain you. But suppose they did ordain you, wherever you go that would come up against you. They would say, 'There is a man not scripturally baptized.' It will hamper your whole ministerial life, and bring confusion into the kingdom of God." "Well," he said, "what ought I to do?" I said, "Don't do anything until you are convinced it is the right thing to do. You study this again, and let me know what your conclusions are." About a week after he came and said, "I don't think I have been baptized: he baptized me to make me a disciple. I did not claim to have been a disciple before he baptized me." "Well," I said, "did it make you one?" He said, "I do not think it did." So the blood you must reach before you reach the water. The way is the blood. It has to be applied before you reach the water. It must be reached before you can be saved. So, the blood is before the water. A preacher's whole future depends on how he interprets this commission. You will see by referring to the Harmony that Dr. Broadus puts Mark's commission beside this great Commission on Matthew, thereby indicating that they refer to the same occasion. Assuming this to be correct, I do not discuss the commission of Mark except to say that the first eight verses of Mark 16 are in the manuscripts of Mark's Gospel, but the latter part of this (Mark 16:9-20) which includes the statement, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," is not in any of the ancient manuscripts. I have facsimiles of the three oldest manuscripts – the Sinaitic, the Vatican, and the Alexandrian. Whenever those three agree as to what is the text of a passage we need not go further. It is usually right. But whenever those three leave out anything that is in the text, we may count it spurious. The best scholars among preachers never preach from Mark 16:9-20, because it is so very doubtful as to whether it is to be received as Scripture. Dr. Broadus says it certainly does not belong to Mark's Gospel, but that he believes it records what is true; and I am somewhat inclined to believe that too. I think it is true, though it was added by a later hand. Certainly, Mark did not write it. The manuscript evidence is against that part of it. Therefore, I do not consider this as a separate commission of our Lord. We now take up the fourth commission, that is to say, the commission recorded by Luke, found in Luke 24:44-49 and 1 Corinthians 15:7; Harmony, pp. 229-230. The remarks upon this commission are these: 1. It is to the eleven apostles. 2. He introduces it by reminding them of his teachings before his death of the witness to him in the law, the prophets, and the psalms, especially concerning his passion, his burial, and his resurrection. 3. Especially to be noted is the fact that he gives them illumination that they may understand these scriptures, and shows the necessity of their fulfilment, in order to the salvation of men. 4. On this necessity he bases the commission here given, which is, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name unto all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 5. He constitutes them his witnesses of these things. 6. He announces that he will send the promise of the Father, namely, the Holy Spirit, and commands them to wait at Jerusalem until they receive this power from on high to enable them to carry out the work of this commission. 7. The reader should note that, as in the commission recorded by John (John 20:22) he inspired them to write the New Testament Scriptures, so here he illumined their minds to understand the Old Testament Scriptures. Mark the distinction between inspiration and illumination: The object of inspiration is to enable one to speak or write infallibly; the object of illumination is to enable one to understand infallibly what is written. 8. Further note the unity of the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, and their equality in inspiration. 9. Note also the very important item that illumination settles authoritatively the apostolic interpretation of the Old Testament as to the true meaning of these Scriptures. As he inspired men to write the Old Testament, and inspired these men to write the New Testament, so now he illumines these men to understand the Old Testament and to interpret it correctly. In other words, as the Holy Spirit is the real author of the Old Testament, which he inspired, by illumination he shows these men just what he meant by those Old Testament writings. We cannot, therefore, put our unaided interpretation on an Old Testament passage against the Spirit's own explanation of that passage by the illumination of the apostles' minds. Due attention to this one fact would have prevented many false expositions of Old Testament Scriptures, particularly in limiting to national Israel what the Spirit spoke concerning spiritual Israel. Very many premillennial expositions of the Old Testament prophecies go astray on this point. They insist on applying to the Jews, as Jews, a great many prophecies which these illumined apostles saw referred to spiritual Israel, and not to fleshly Israel. In the same way do the expositions of the Old Testament passages by modern Jews and the limitations of meaning which destructive critics and other infidels put on the Old Testament Scriptures, go astray. It is wrong, and contrary to sane rules of interpretation, to say that you must not read into an Old Testament passage a New Testament meaning. In that way they wish to limit it to things back there only, but the Holy Spirit illumined the minds of the apostles to understand these Old Testament Scriptures better than the prophets that wrote them. Oftentimes the prophets did not know what they meant, and were very anxious to find out what they did mean. The meaning was revealed to New Testament prophets, and their minds illumined to understand them. I have just finished reading a book which as certainly misapplies about two dozen Old Testament prophecies as the sun shines. In other words, this book interprets them as a modern Jew would interpret them, and exactly contrary to what the apostles say these passages mean. When an illumined apostle tells us the meaning of an Old Testament passage, we must accept it, or else deny his illumination, one or the other. You have no idea how much you have learned if you let this one remark sink into your mind. 10. Yet again, you should especially note in this commission the inseparable relation between repentance and the remission of sins, or forgiveness. The first, repentance, must precede remission of sins, and the relation is constant and necessary in each case of all sin, whether against God, against the church, or against ourselves. If you read carefully Acts 2:38; Acts 3:19; Psalms 51, where the sin is against God, you find that a repentance of that sin is made a condition of forgiveness. Then if you read carefully Luke 17:3 and Matthew 18:15-17, where the sin is against ourselves or against the church, the law is, "If he repent, forgive him." I saw a notice in The Baptist Standard once where it was assumed that we must forgive a sin before the person who committed it against us has repented of the sin. That would make us out better than God, for God won't do it. He won't forgive sin against himself until there is repentance, and he says to Peter, concerning a brother's trespass against a brother, that if he repent, forgive him. And in Matthew 18:15, it says, "If thy brother sin against thee, go right along and convict him of his sin, and if he hear thee thou hast gained thy brother; if he does not hear thee, tell it to the church; if he does not hear the church, then he is unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." There are men who insist that you must forgive trespasses against you whether they are repented of or not, meaning that you must be in a forgiving and loving attitude; and that is correct. You must cultivate that spirit which at all times is ready to forgive when repentance comes. But the majority of people who take that position take it in order to get out of some very troublesome work resting on them, and that work is to go right along to convict a man of that sin. It is much easier to say, "I forgive," and let him alone, than it is to go and show him that he has sinned, and lead him to repentance. And they thus dodge their duty. The largest part of the back-sliding in the church comes from that fact. "If thou seest thy brother sin, then what? Forgive him? No. If thou seest thy brother sin, whether it is a private offense or a general one, report it to the church? No, but go right along and convict him of that sin; and if you fail, take one or two brethren with you; if they fail, let the church try the case. If the church fails, forgive him? No. Let him be to thee a heathen man and a publican." That is Bible usage. On the other hand there are some people who rejoice in the thought that they do not have to forgive a man until he repents, and they keep right on hating him. You are not to hate him; you are to love him. You are to have toward him a keen desire to gain him, and under the spirit of that desire, the obligation to gain him is on you personally, and there is no excuse for you. God will not hold you guiltless if you see a brother sin on any point, whether against you, the church, or the state, and do not try to bring him to repentance. It is our duty, as Dr. Broadus puts it, "to go right along and not rave at him," but convict him that he has sinned, saying, "Now brother, this is wrong, and I have come, not in the spirit of accusation, nor in a disciplinary manner, but as a brother interested in you, and with the earnest desire in my heart to make you see that wrong, and if you ever see it and get it on your conscience and repent and make amends, I will save my brother." He says that repentance and remission of sins shall be preached in all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Paul says about that, "I have testified everywhere, both to the Jews and to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." The weakness of modern preaching is that the preachers leave repentance out. So the modern churches leave out the faithful and loving labor which should always precede exclusion. Especially should you note in this commission the unalterable relation between repentance and remission, or forgiveness of sins. The first must precede the second, and the relation is constant and necessary in the case of all sin, whether against God, the church or against ourselves. The fifth commission is the commission at his ascension. The scriptures bearing on this are: Acts 1:6-12; Mark 16:19; Luke 24:50-53, and the account of it is found in the Harmony on pages 229-231. Upon this last commission, given just before Jesus was taken up out of their sight, note: Acts 1:8 indicates a "gathering together," different from any of the preceding ones, and at which they asked this question: "Dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Acts 1:9 shows that the occasion of this commission was his ascension into heaven. Acts 1:15 implies that 120 were present at this time. This specific number necessitates that the occasion when 500 brethren were present, mentioned by Paul, must have been at the appointed mountain in Galilee, where the great commission to the church, recorded in Matthew 28:16-20, was given. A very distinguished scholar has said, "Maybe these five hundred brethren were present at the time of his ascension." It could not be, because one hundred and twenty is given as the number. It could not even have been at any other time than at that appointed in Galilee, where most of his converts were, and where be could get together so large a number as that. The form of the commission here is: "Ye shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." That is the test for the Commission. The place where the Commission was given is thus stated: "And he led them out until they were over against Bethany," and "from the mount called Olivet." Another commission was given at that place. The place from which he led them is the place of their gathering, to which they returned (Acts 1:13), and they returned to Jerusalem, to the upper room, where were a multitude together, about 120. And then the writer gives the names of those who abode there, and Peter got up and spoke to these 120. The commission to be his witnesses suggests the simplicity and directness of their work. I heard a preacher say once with reference to what he did when he went out to an appointment, "I snowed." He said the Spirit was not with him, and it was just like s snow. Another preacher said, "I 'hollered,' and I 'hollered.' " Preachers lose sight of one important function of their office, and that is to be witnesses. That is a simple thing – to testify. You are to stand with uplifted hands, and with elbows on the Bible you are to witness before God and to bear witness to what you know – to testify. They were to testify to his vicarious passion, his burial, and his resurrection. Paul makes these three things the gospel. He says, "I delivered unto you first of all that which also I have received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day." Of what they were eyewitnesses we will see a little later, in some other testimony. We come now to his sixth commission. This commission is found in Acts 9:15-16; Acts 22:10-15; Acts 26:15-18; Galatians 1:15-16; Galatians 2:7-9. These scriptures give you the commission of Paul, on which note: While both Peter and Paul, on proper occasion, preached to both Jews and Gentiles, yet we learn from Galatians 2:7-9 that while the stress of Peter's commission was to the circumcision, the stress of Paul's commission was to the uncircumcision. He was pre-eminently the apostle to the Gentiles. The elements of his commission may be gathered from all these scriptures cited. Read every one of them, and you will gather together the elements of his commission. Let us see what these elements were: (a) He was set apart to his work from his mother's womb, and divinely chosen. (b) Personally he must suffer great things. (c) He received the gospel which he was to preach by direct revelation from the risen Lord. He did not get it from reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Paul's letters were written before the Gospels were written. He did not have them to read. He did not go to Jerusalem to talk with them, but he went into Arabia, and therefrom ;the Lord himself, and from the site of the giving of the law, whose relation to the gospel he so clearly cited, he received direct from Jesus Christ the gospel which he wrote. (d) He was chosen to bear the Lord's name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. (e) He was chosen to know God's will, and to see and hear the Just One, and then to witness to all men what he saw and heard. Now, here comes in Paul as a witness, and this is a part of his commission: "What are you testifying to, Paul?" "I know God's will; it was revealed to me; I saw Jesus; I saw him with these eyes; Jesus raised; I heard him; I heard his voice." What next? "He saved my soul." One of the most effective sermons I ever preached was on this use that Paul makes of his Christian experience. Seven times in the New Testament Paul states his Christian experience, and for a different purpose every time. When he was arraigned before Agrippa he tells his Christian experience as recorded in Acts 9. In Acts 22, standing on the stairway, looking into the faces of the howling mob of murderous men, he states his Christian experience. Writing to the Romans, as is shown in Romans 7, he tells his Christian experience. Writing to Timothy he does the same. The man is speaking as a witness. In one of Edward Eggleston's books there is an account of a pugnacious Methodist preacher, who was not only ready to preach the gospel, but to fight for the gospel also. On the way to a certain community two men waylaid him and said, "Mr. McGruder, if you will just turn your horse around and go back, we will let you alone, but if you persist in going to this place and interfering with our business, we are going to beat the life out of you." So the preacher got down off the horse, saying, "I prefer to give you the beating," and he whipped them both unmercifully. But he got his jaw broken, and that jaw being broken, he could not say a word. In the church he took his pencil and wrote to a sixteen-year-old boy and said, "Ralph, you have got to preach today." Ralph said, "I have just been converted, you must remember." "Do you want me to get up here and write a sermon in lead pencil to a crowd?" continued the preacher. "Well," said Ralph, "I don't know any sermon." "If you break down on preaching," said the preacher, "tell your Christian experience." So Ralph got up and started to preaching a sermon, looking very much scared, for he had a terror, which was what we would call stage fright. At last he remembered the direction to tell his Christian experience, and the poor boy quit trying to be eloquent, or to expound the Scriptures that he knew very little about, and just told how the Lord Jesus Christ came to him, a poor orphan boy, an outlaw, and saved his soul, and that he wanted to testify how good God was to him. Before he got through there was sobbing all over the house, and a great revival broke out there. I am telling these things to show that men are commissioned to bear witness, and while you cannot bear witness to facts that you do not know anything about, you can tell what you do know – what God has done for you. David says, "Come, all ye that fear the Lord and I will tell you what great things he hath done for my soul, whereof I am glad." In one of the prophecies concerning Jesus it is written: "I have not hid thy righteousnesses within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation; I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great assembly." (f) The fulness of Paul's commission appears best in Acts 26:16-18, as follows: "Arise, and stand upon thy feet: for to this end have I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee, to open their eyes, that they may turn: from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me." Whenever you want to preach Paul's sermon, take Paul's commission and analyze it. Paul was speaking before Agrippa. Notice that besides witnessing, Paul wanted to open their eyes (they were spiritually blind) ; that they might turn from darkness to light (then they were in the dark) ; from the power of Satan unto God, (they were under the power of Satan); that they might receive the remission of sins (so that they were unpardoned; and to an inheritance among them that are sanctified (then they were without heritage). Analyze that commission and you will see what he was to do; he puts it all before you plainly in that scripture. So he said to Agrippa, "Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision," i.e., he just went on and carried out that commission. That is the analysis of the commission of Paul. The seventh and last commission is the special commission of John – Revelation 1:1-2; Revelation 1:9-11; Revelation 1:19. This commission is unlike any other; but it is a commission. It is a commission, not to speak, but to write; and in it we have an account of the past tenses. "What did you see, John?" "Well, I saw one of the most wonderful things in this world." And he tells about Jesus, and how he looked in his risen glory; about the candlesticks and the stars, and what they meant; and then, having thus told what he saw in the midst of the churches, and (see chap. 4) what he saw in heaven, he looks at the present things; the churches, as they are, and heaven as it is. Then follows the last part of his commission: "Write the things which are to come." 1. On the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) answer: What evidence that this was at an appointed meeting? Where, and who were present? 2. What are the supposable reasons for assembling at this particular place? 3. How does this occasion rank in importance? 4. What is Dr. Landrum's analysis of this commission? 5. What authority does Christ claim in giving this commission, why was this authority given him and what the pertinency of this statement of our Lord on this particular occasion? 6. Compare this commission to a suspension bridge. 7. What does the first part of the commission prescribe to be done, or what are the three parts of the first item? 8. What does this going involve? Illustrate. 9. After going, then what three things are commanded to be done and what is the order? 10. How make disciples, and what is the teaching and example of John the Baptist and Jesus on this point? 11. Who then must do the baptizing? 12. What are the essentials to a valid baptism? 13. What can you say of Mar 16:9-20? 14. To whom was the Commission, recorded in Luke 24:44-49, given? 15. How does Christ introduce this commission? 16. What does he show in this commission to be a necessity in order to the salvation of men? 17. In this commission what does he say should be done? 18. What does he constitute the disciples in this commission? 19. What promise does he announce to them in this commission? 20. What special gift does he bestow upon the disciples here, what is the difference between inspiration &illumination, and what is the object of each? 21. What especially is noted relative to Old &New Testament Scriptures? 22. What very important question does this illumination settle and how? 23. What is the necessary &constant relation between repentance &forgiveness of sins, and what the application of this principle in the case of all sin? 24. What danger, on the other hand, does the author here warn against? 25. What weakness of modern preaching churches here pointed out? 26. Give the analysis of the Commission of our Lord at the ascension. 27. To whom was Paul especially commissioned to preach? 28. What are the six elements of this commission? 29. What was the condition of the people to whom he was sent as indicated in Acts 26:16-18? 30. What was the special commission to John, and what is the analysis of it as given in Revelation 1:1-2; Revelation 1:9-11; Revelation 1:19?