1
11

MATTHEW The Genesis of the
New Testament

HENRY C. WESTON, D. D

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inn iliHlfflffl

YALE
DIVINITY SCHOOL
LIBRARY

Gift of
Mr. Earl W. Pearson

MATTHEW

MATTHEW

The Genesis of the New Testament

Its Purpose, Char
acter and Method

BY

REV. HENRY G. WESTON, D.D.
President
Crozer Theological Seminary

Philadelphia
American Baptist Publication Society
Boston Chicago Atlanta

New York

St. Louis

Dallas

FK5^ W5rgwv

c
q Author's Note
*" The principles by which I have sought to be
»j guided in these studies in the gospel according to
^- Matthew are, first, that the New Testament must
_^ be interpreted, as every other book should be, by
-* its purpose, character and method. It is a divine
— and human history, written by inspiration of the
^ Holy Spirit in accordance with the universal laws
Uiof language. It is an Oriental book, composed
. hundreds of years ago, under Syrian skies, in the
_^" language, and according to the mental methods
** of that age and race and country.
:* Next, all true interpretation is sympathetic.
pT-Unless the student enters into the spirit of the
.^author he cannot understand what is written.
x£r The New Testament is the believer's book. It is
not addressed to opponents, critics, cavilers, or
«. speculators. No external evidence is cited to
i confirm its statements, nor does our Lord guard
"N^His language against distortion or perversion.
^ The gospel is love speaking to love.
"~\. As the truths of Christianity were not discov
ered by the eye, the ear, or the mind, but were
revealed by the Spirit, the one question to be
asked by the student is, What thought did the
Holy Spirit intend to convey by the words He has
employed and the place He has assigned them.
7

8 Author's Note
Necessarily, a most important task of the in
terpreter is to ascertain the sequence of thought
in the mind of the inspired writer. In this the
science of interpretation is like every other sci
ence ; its one aim is to discover and unfold the
plan of God. The knowledge of a phenomenon
whose relations cannot be ascertained is of no
value. A text without a history and purpose is
like an isolated life— worthless.
Henry G. Weston.
Crozer Theological Seminary,
Upland, Pa.

Contents PAGE
PART ONE
The Gospel of Matthew — Its Purpose and Char
acter.  ii
PART TWO
The Gospel of Matthew — An Exposition  37
The Genealogy and Birth of Jesus Christ .... 39
The Infancy of Jesus  41
The Forerunner  43
The Baptism of Jesus  45
The Temptation  46
The Entrance to the Galilean Ministry  51
/ The Kingdom of Heaven Portrayed  54
The Righteousness of the Kingdom  59
The Motive of Righteousness  6a
The Claims of Righteousness  63
The Judgment of Righteousness  -64
The Miracles of the Kingdom . .'  66
Sanctification, Redemption, Life  67
The Propagation of the Kingdom  71
The Reception of the Kingdom  75
Antagonism to the Kingdom Results in the Ex
clusion of all Ties of the Flesh  78
The Mysteries of the Kingdom  84
The New Order of Miracles  89
The Holiness of the Kingdom Defined  93
The Fundamental Methods of the Kingdom De
clared  97
9

io Contents PAGE
The Transfiguration  102
The Kingdom Awaiting its Consummation . . . 103
The Final Presentation of the King to the Jewish
Nation  107
The Interval Between Our Lord's Departure from
the Earth and His Return  Ill
Preparations for the Delivery of Jesus to His
Enemies  117
The Condemnation of Christ  123
The Denial by Peter  129
Trial Before Pilate  132
The Death of Christ  134
The Resurrection of Christ  140
The Commission  141
Synopsis of the Gospel According to Matthew . . 143

The Gospel of Matthew — Its Purpose and
Character

The Gospel of Matthew — Its Purpose and
Character

The Bible is the history of salvation. The
gospels are the history of salvation as wrought
out by our Lord Jesus Christ in His earthly life,
death, burial, and resurrection. They are not
biographies of Christ, nor are they collections of
interesting incidents in His life. They are written
. for the believer, giving the history of salvation in
its successive aspects and stages, aspects of the
work of Christ, and stages of the salvation in
i process. Each gospel prepares the way for its
' successor, each telling afresh the story of the life,
death, and resurrection, from its own point of
view, each beginning at a higher level than the
preceding. The gospels are vitally related to one
another, and the four constitute an organic whole.
It follows that no one of these gospels can be
understood unless its relation to the whole and
to every other be comprehended.
The gospel according to Matthew is the open
ing book — the Genesis — of the New Dispensation.
The Old Testament closes with the Jewish nation
looking for the fulfillment of the prophecies of a
King who shall reign in righteousness, under
whom the earth shall be filled with the glory of
«3

14 The Gospel of Matthew
the Lord. Its pages glow with the predictions of
the splendors which shall mark the Messianic
reign. The Jews are God's chosen people, a
kingdom of priests, a holy nation set apart for
God's peculiar possession (Ex. xix. 5, 6), through
whom all nations are to be blessed. But for
these many centuries Jerusalem has been in
ruins ; the temple is no more ; its altar fires are
gone out; the sacrifices prescribed by the Levit-
ical ritual are impossible; Judea is deserted by her
people ; the Jews are scattered and peeled, a by
word and hissing. The recognized people of God
are now a church, a body differing radically and
generically from the Jewish nation, and indeed
from all human organizations. To them its prin
ciple of union is unknown; it recognizes none of
their distinctions and divisions. In this new body
— the church, — all national peculiarities, all di
versities of birth, culture, social position or
possessions are swallowed up. In this church
the Mosaic rites are forbidden ; the Jews are con
spicuous by their absence, the Gentiles forming
the overwhelming majority. We see no signs of
the accomplishment of the Old Testament proph
ecies, no traces of the splendor predicted of the
reign of the Messiah. He was put to death as
a malefactor, and has left the earth still under
the power of Satan while the world which
despised and rejected Him goes on its old sinful
course. What has caused this strange condition? If
the promises of God are true and His gifts and

Its Purpose and Character 15
calling are unrepented of by Him, how are these
astounding facts to be explained and justified?
Are they consistent with the divine character?
Can they be shown to be in accordance with the
divine declarations? Do they accomplish the
divine purposes? Is the course which Christ
pursued, and is His present position capable of
reconciliation with the Old Testament ?
The gospel according to Matthew answers
these questions. It shows how the present con
dition came into being ; it justifies the course
which God has pursued and is pursuing by con- f
stant appeal to the Old Testament, to the divine
method in nature, and to the principles which
govern human life. It conducts us from the
position of the Old Covenant to that of the New,
expounds the place and purpose of the Old Dis
pensation, declares the principles and methods of
the Christian Dispensation, showing at every step
their accord with the Old Testament. It is in its
structure systematic, fundamental and official,
disregarding chronological sequence — the order
of events — for the sake of logical arrangement
and regular development of its thought. Our
Lord's instructions in Luke are largely conveyed
in conversations, in John in dialogues, in Matthew
in discourses in the strictest sense, marked, as is
the whole gospel, by unity, progress, symmetry,
and completeness. The teleological consecutive-
ness of the gospel is perfect, not a sentence which
is not in its logical place, not one which is not a
link in the chain. The twenty miracles recorded

16 The Gospel of Matthew
by Matthew follow a regular sequence, beginning
with the cure of leprosy, the symbol of sin, and
ending with the withering of the fig-tree, the
type of judgment. The arrangement of the
parables is equally systematic, commencing with
that of the sower scattering the seed of the king
dom, and closing with that of the talents, the
adjudication of the last day. In the method of
Christ's teaching, two stages are distinctly
marked. In the first twelve chapters, his state
ments are direct and explicit. Hn the thirteenth
chapter, with the recognition of the judicial blind
ness of the Jews, our Lord introduces a new mode
of teaching — by parables. The topics of Christ's
teaching are equally distinct, divided by the six
teenth chapter. Previously to the recognition of
His true character and nature by His disciples,
His instruction has reference to His person and
nature. Who is Christ is the question in every
miracle and underlying every controversy. When
this is rightly answered, the manner of redemp
tion, by death and resurrection, is revealed. In
other words, the person and the work of Christ
— Christ and Him crucified — are taught in their
order. This gospel, by necessity of its place and pur
pose, is the gospel of the Jewish King Rejected.
These three words determine the gospel with all
it contains and all it reveals.
i. It is the Jewish gospel. £"By this is not
meant that it is written for Jews, either Christian
or unbelieving, any more than when we say that

Its Purpose and Character 17
it is the kingly gospel we mean that it is addressed
to kings. Jit is the record of salvation offered to
the Jews, constantly recognizing their place and
relation. The Jews are the children of the king
dom, and Gentile is synonymous with heathen:
(vi. 7; viii. 12; xviii. 17). The point of depar
ture, the phenomena, the divine appellations, the
symbolism, are all Jewish. Matthew explains no
facts, no laws or customs peculiar to the nation,
nor does he describe the position of places in
Judea, as do the other Evangelists. Only in this
gospel is Jerusalem the holy city (iv. 5), the city
of the great King (v. 35), and the Jewish temple
God's dwelling-place (xxiii. 21), the holy place
(xxiv. 15), the temple of God (xxvi. 6). Here
only does Christ assume the sacred and sanctify
ing power of the temple and the altar (xxiii. 17-
21), and draw from the altar service illustrations
of obedience to the divine requirements (v. 2},
24). The freedom of the nation from the unclean
spirit of idolatry is distinctly recognized (xii. 43-
45) ; authority over unclean spirits is given to the
apostles (x. 1), but in striking contrast to the
other Synoptic gospels there is no instance in
Matthew of possession by a spirit designated as
unclean. The authority of those who sit in Moses'
seat is asserted, and obedience to their official
commands enforced (xxiii. 1-3). Our Lord's
genealogy is traced to Abraham and is marked by
the great events in Jewish history. The symbol
ism is Jewish. Not to speak of other examples,
the symbolism of numbers pervades the gospel.

18 The Gospel of Matthew
Seven, ten, twelve with their multiples repeat
edly appear. The genealogy is arranged in three
fourteens. There are fourteen parables divided
by place and purpose into two sevens. There
are twenty miracles separated in like manner into
two tens. The number seven always divides it
self into four and three, the human and divine.
The beatitudes, the parables, the seven petitions
of the Lord's prayer are examples of this.
2. It is the kingly gospel. The genealogy is
the royal succession, giving the heirs to the
throne. His first appellation from human lips is
found in the words of the Magi, Where is he
that is born King of the Jews. Of His birthplace
it is said, Out of thee shall come a Governor who
shall rule my people Israel. In Matthew, John the
Baptist cries, Repent ye, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand ; in Mark and Luke He preaches
the baptism of repentance for the remission of
sins. The authority of the sermon on the mount
astonishes the multitude as they recognize the
tone not of an interpreter, but of the Lawgiver
Himself. The parables are all of the kingdom of
heaven. Luke begins his parables — A certain
man — went down from Jericho, made a great
supper, had two sons. The parables of Matthew,
with three exceptions, begin: The kingdom of
heaven, etc. Only in this gospel is it said: The
Son of Man shall send His angels, and they shall
gather out of His kingdom all things that offend,
and them which do iniquity (xiii. 41); here only
is the word preached the word of the kingdom

Its Purpose and Character 19
(xiii. 19) ; and that which in other books of the
New Testament is the gospel, is in Matthew, with
a single exception, the gospel of the kingdom
(iv. 2y, ix. 35; xxiv. 14). Here only does our
Lord give Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven
(xvi. 19). Only in this gospel, and here twice,
does he speak of the Son of Man sitting on the
throne of His glory (xix. 28; xxv. 31); here only
does he gather all nations before his throne for
judgment, and apply to himself those wonderful
words, Then shall the king say unto them, And
the king shall answer and say unto them (xxv.
34, 40). At the royal entry into Jerusalem the
multitudes cry, and the children in the temple
repeat the ascription, Hosanna to the Son of
David, a title which recognizing Him as the Jew
ish king sorely displeased the chief priests and
scribes, and drew from them a strong remon
strance (xxi. 9-16). Matthew alone tells us that
in the closing hours of Christ's life, more than ten
legions of angels awaited His word (xxvi. 53) ;
that at His death the earth was shaken, and the
rocks were rent, and the graves were opened
(xxvii. 51-53) — heaven, earth, and hades all ac
knowledging their king; and the gospel closes
with the assurance that in heaven and in earth
Christ has exclusive authority (xxviii. 19).
The kingly character of Christ in this gospel
differs from that in Luke and John. Here He is
born king of the Jews (ii. 2) ; in Luke His king
ship is in the future, appointed to Him by His
Father (xxii. 29) ; in John He reigns now, but His

20 The Gospel of Matthew
domain is different from that of either of the pre
ceding gospels (John xviii. 36, 37); on His head
are many crowns (Rev. xix. 12). And because
in Matthew and John only does He now occupy,
in the one His innate, and in the other His essen
tial, office, in those gospels only is the prophecy
of Zechariah quoted: Tell ye the daughter of
Zion, Behold the King cometh unto thee sitting
on an ass's colt (Matt. xxi. 5; John xii. 15). Luke
says: The Lord God shall give unto Him the
throne of His father David (i. ^2), a promise yet
to be accomplished; and in the parables of the
talents, He represents the nobleman as going
into a far country to receive for himself a king
dom and to return (xix. 12). In Matthew our
Lord is worshipped from His birth (ii. 2, 8, n);
in Luke not until His ascension (xxiv. 52).
3. It is the gospel of rejection. Compare the
introduction of this gospel with that of Luke, the
gospel of acceptance. In the one the advent of
Christ is hailed with joy by all. Zacharias, Eliza
beth, Mary, Simeon, Anna, the angels, the shep
herds, pour forth their exulting praise in canticles
sung by the church in all ages. When a boy of
twelve years He sits in the temple, the centre of
an admiring circle, astonishing them by His un
derstanding and His answers; and the second
chapter closes, Jesus increased in wisdom and
stature, and in favor with God and man. In the
other, before Christ is born He exposes His
mother to the danger of repudiation by her hus
band, from which she is saved only by divine in-

Its Purpose and Character 21
terposition; at His birth Jerusalem is troubled,
and Herod seeks to kill the young child; on the
plains of Bethlehem, in place of the chorus
sweeping through the midnight sky, the wail of
mothers for their slaughtered babes is heard; in
stead of a multitude of the heavenly host, a soli
tary spectre is seen — Rachel from her tomb looks
in vain for her children and bewails their loss ;
Christ returns from Egypt, and for thirty years
His life is covered by a single sentence with
which this chapter closes: " He shall be called a
Nazarene." In this gospel He withdraws from Judea, in
consequence of the imprisonment of His forerun
ner John the Baptist (iv. 12), and begins an itin
erant ministry in Galilee. In Luke no such reason
is assigned: He returned in the power of the
spirit into Galilee (iv. 14). In both gospels great
multitudes follow him (Matt. iv. 25); they see
the proofs of His power (ix. 8); they are as
tonished at His doctrine (vii. 28 ; xxii. 2}) ; they
wonder and are amazed (ix. ^}\ xxii. 23); but
Luke adds what is not found in Matthew: He
taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all ;
they wondered at the words of grace which pro
ceed out of His mouth (iv. 22) ; the people gladly
received Him, for they were all waiting for Him
(viii. 40) ; they stayed Him that He should not
depart from them (iv. 42). Even in the embit
tered hostility which marked the last days of
Christ's intercourse with the Jewish people, Luke
tells us that from certain of the Scribes came

22 The Gospel of Matthew
commendation of Christ's replies : Master, thou
hast well said (xx. 39). Matthew's gospel is the
record of the national opposition to Christ and of
Christ's withdrawal from that opposition. The
word "withdraw" is characteristic of this Evan
gelist; found once in Mark (iii. 7), and once in
John (vi. 15), and not at all in Luke, it occurs ten
times in Matthew. At the beginning of our
Lord's work in this gospel, we read those sad
words in which Christ declares the inveterate
rancor of His foes, and the result of their deter
mined pursuit as foreseen by Him: The foxes
have holes where they may escape from their
pursuers, the birds of the air have shelters where
they are safe, but the Son of Man hath no place
where He may lay His head; He will be hunted
to the death (viii. 20). In this gospel Christ's
life begins with withdrawal from His enemies;
to escape the murderous rage of Herod He with
draws into Egypt (ii. 14); on His return He
withdraws into Galilee for fear of Archelaus (ii.
22). His public ministry commences and con
tinues in the same way : Now when Jesus had
heard that John was delivered up, He withdrew
into Galilee (iv. 12). The Pharisees follow Him
and hold a council against Him how they may
destroy Him : But when Jesus knew it He with
drew Himself from thence (xii. 15). John the
Baptist is put to death : When Jesus heard of it
He withdrew by ship into a desert place apart
(xiv. 13). Still pursued by the Pharisees He
withdraws from Judea into the borders of Tyre

Its Purpose and Character 23
and Sidon (xv. 21); He returns and evades His
pursuers by crossing and recrossing the, lake of
Gennesaret (xv. 39) ; until finally, the purpose of
His earthly life accomplished, He ascends to
Jerusalem to die (xix. 1).
The characteristic of rejection governs the
death as well as the life of Christ. Matthew re
cords but one cry on the cross ; it is that desolate
wail; My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me (xxvii. 46). In another gospel there follow
Him to Calvary a great company of people
and of women, who bewail and lament Him
(Luke xxiii. 27) ; and when the sad deed is con
summated, all the people that came together to
that sight smite their breasts and return (xxiii.
48); but in Matthew no penitent thief prays,
"Lord, remember me"; no word of sympathy
from any human voice is heard; on the contrary
those that pass by revile Him (xxvii. 39) ; and the
chief priests mocking Him, with the scribes and
elders, cry: He trusted in God, let Him deliver
Him now if He will have Him (xxviii. 43). Only
in this gospel do the enemies of Christ carry their
malice beyond the crucifixion, and set a seal and
guard to prevent His resurrection (xxvii. 62, 65).
This gospel necessarily excludes the idea of
success. Chirst is rejected, and the disciple must
be as His master (x. 24, 25). Hence there is a
remarkable absence of motive or encouragement
founded on what will be accomplished. In
Luke, when Peter is called to follow Christ, a
miraculous draught of fishes foretells success in

24 The Gospel of Matthew
catching men; but this incident is omitted by
Matthew (Luke v. 4-10; Matt. iv. 18-20). In the
commission to the apostles in the tenth chapter
the one thought is, you will share the treatment
your Master receives, but your Heavenly Father
sees all, knows all, and will at the end reward
all; just as Christ's only assurance to His disciples
when He sends them to all nations is : Lo, I am
with you (xxviii. 20). Of Christ Himself no suc
cess in this age is asserted. Matthew has no
prediction like that in John: I, if I be lifted up
from the earth, will draw all men unto Me (xii.
32) ; it is simply stated: This gospel of the king
dom shall be preached in all the world for a wit
ness to all nations and then shall the end come
(xxiv. 14). Of the forerunner, Matthew says:
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Pre
pare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths
straight (iii. 3); but he does not add what is
found in Luke : Every valley shall be filled, and
every mountain shall be brought low; and the
crooked shall be made straight and the rough
ways shall be made smooth, and all flesh shall
see the salvation of God (iii. 5, 6).
This feature of the rejection of Christ by the
nation gives tone to all our Lord's teaching in the
gospel. Here only do we find the declaration,
Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which
Ieadeth unto life, and few there be that find it
(vii. 14). In Luke the injunction, Strive to enter
in, is enforced on the ground that now the gate
can be entered and the time comes when it will

Its Purpose and Character 25
be shut (Luke xiii. 24) ; in Matthew the reason for
the exhortation is a truth which finds expression
only here: Wide is the gate and broad is the
way, that Ieadeth to destruction, and many there
be which go in thereat (vii. 13). Only in this
gospel are we told that many are called but few
chosen (xxii. 14); that in the closing period of the
age the love of the majority shall wax cold (xxiv.
12); that many will claim in that day, Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and
in Thy name have cast out demons, and in Thy
name done many wondrous works, to whom
Christ will say, I never knew you (vii. 22, 23) ;
here only do we read of the tares that are to be
gathered out of the wheatfield in the time of
harvest and burned (xiii. 30); of the net, that
gathered of every kind, which when it was full,
they drew to shore, and gathered the good into
vessels and cast the bad away (xiii. 47, 48) ; of
the foolish virgins (xxv. 2) ; of the man without
the wedding garment ; and of the outer darkness
into which the despisers of the gospel shall be
cast (xx. 12, 13).
In the trial and condemnation of our Lord as
recorded by Matthew, the nature of the Messiah-
ship and the fullness of the national rejection are
clearly seen. The trial is mainly that before the
Sanhedrin, as Luke is occupied with that before
Pilate. The charge relates to His divine Sonship
and His alleged purpose to destroy the temple
(xxvi. 59, 66) ; we hear nothing of the social ac
cusation found elsewhere, of perverting the na-

26 The Gospel of Matthew
tion and forbidding to give tribute to Csesar
(Luke xxiii. 2). Only in this gospel, and here
twice, does Pilate formally put the solemn ques
tion, Whom will ye that I release unto you,
Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ ? Twice
they decide to take Barabbas, and, Matthew sig
nificantly adds, destroy Jesus (xxvii. 17, 22).
After the disclaimer of Pilate, we find only in
Matthew those fearful words by which the na
tion assumed the whole guilt of the crime : Then
answered all the people, His blood be on us and
on our children (xxvii. 25).
This gospel of rejection is necessarily Christ's
rejection of the nation. Only here do we read :
The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof
(xxi. 43). Here only does Christ, portraying the
return of the unclean spirit to his former habita
tion making the last state of man worse than the
first, say, Even so shall it be also unto this wicked
generation (xii. 45). Here only does He declare
that the horrible assertion, He doth not cast out
demons but by Beelzebub the prince of the
demons (xii. 24), was the exponent and proof of
a depravity so thorough and complete, that when
God and the devil stood before them they could
not tell one from the other — they had lost the
power of discriminating between heaven and
hell, between infinite compassion and demoniac
hate; and that this terrible moral condition of
heart and tongue was on the very verge of
, remediless ruin (xii. 33-37). Here only does he

Its Purpose and Character 27
quote the prophecy of Isaiah: By hearing, ye
shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing,
ye shall see and not perceive: for this people's
heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of
hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at
any time they should see with their eyes and hear
with their ears, and should understand with their
heart, and should be converted, and I should heal
them (xiii. 14, 15). Here only does he say of the
religious teachers of the Jews : Every plant that
my father hath not planted, shall be rooted up
(xv. 13). All the parables spoken in public after
the thirteenth chapter — of the two sons (xxi.
28), of the householder (xxi. ^j), and of the
marriage of the king's son (xxii. 2) — set forth the
national sin and destruction. The closing
miracle is the blasting of the fig-tree, the emblem
of the fate of the nation, covered with green
leaves, the promise of fertility, but bearing no
fruit (xxi. 19). The last public discourse is an
arraignment of the heads of the nation; with
burning indignation He portrays their character
and history, bids them in words found only in
Matthew, Fill ye up the measure of your fathers
(xxiii. ^2); and with the terrible inquiry, Ye
serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye
escape the damnation of hell (xxiii. 33) ? pro
nounces their doom, and departs forever from
the temple (xxi. 1). Compare all this with the
last sentence in Luke's account of the public
ministry of Christ: And in the daytime He was
teaching in the temple, and at night He went out

28 The Gospel of Matthew
and abode in the mount of Olives ; and all the
people came early in the morning to Him in the
temple for to hear Him (xxi. 37, 38). j
The refusal of the nation to receive their Mes
siah results in "a new covenant, a new election,
a new legislation, a new community." When
the world in former times had rejected God, He
raised up a nation of which He should be Head
and Lawgiver. When this nation rejects Christ,
He calls a people to whom He shall stand in
still closer relation as Head and sole Lawgiver.
He gathers a small company of disciples who at
tended Him constantly (iv. 18-22; v. 1; x. 1),
and who finally recognize His divine character
(xvi. 16). When this is accomplished He is ready
for the cross. In His address to the Father, in
the seventeenth chapter of John, He says : I have
finished the work Thou gavest Me to do. I have
manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou
gavest Me out of the world. I have given unto
them the words which Thou gavest Me, and
they have received them, and have known surely
that I came out from Thee, and they have be
lieved that Thou didst send Me. As Thou hast
sent Me into the world, even also have I sent
them into the world. And the glory which Thou
gavest Me I have given them, that they may be
one, even as we are one. When they have
rightly apprehended His nature and mission, He
makes known to them His intention to constitute
a church — an ecclesia, a selection of individuals
— comprising those persons to whom Christ is

Its Purpose and Character 29
revealed by the Father : I will build My church
upon this rock — the divinely imparted knowl
edge of Christ (xvi. 17-19). This is the nation
to which the kingdom of God shall be given, for
it will bring forth the fruits thereof (1 Peter ii. 9).
No Evangelist but Matthew mentions the
church, and he announces its constitution, mem
bership, duties, discipline and ordinances. The
commands to administer and observe the rites of
baptism (xxviii. 19) and the communion (xxvi.
26, 27), are given only in this gospel. Here only
is found the sacred formula used at the initiating
ordinance of the Christian church: In the name
of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost (xxviii. 19).
f 4. The gospel according to Matthew is thus,
by its very nature, Official and Organic, having
primarily to do with these two nations — that
from which the kingdom of God is taken (xxi.
43), and that to which it is given (1 Peter ii. 9);
/the one outward, carnal, Jewish, the other spir
itual, holy, Christian ; the one rejected, the other
founded and proleptically organized. Christ
comes to the nation. He deals, as God dealt
throughout the Old Testament, with an organic
body acting through lawfully constituted and ac
knowledged representatives. The parables are
all organic or official ; the duties inculcated are all
organic; the final scene is the judgment of the
nations; and the commission at the close "of the
gospel is the official one: Go ye, therefore, and
disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name

30 The Gospel of Matthew
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost, teaching them to observe all things what
soever I have commanded you (xxviii. 19, 20)0
The official relation of John the Baptist is con
stantly noticed, the great stages of Christ's work
being preceded by a statement of the position of
John (iv. 14; xi. 2; xiv. 12; xvii. 11-13). The
denunciations in this gospel are of the national
authorities, as elsewhere they are of character
and conditions (Matt, xxiii.; Luke vi. 24-26).
Here the woes are pronounced against the repre
sentatives and guides of the people. No gospel
but this tells us that in the last days many false
prophets shall arise and shall deceive many (xxiv.
1) ; none but this warns us against false teachers,
ravening wolves in sheeps' clothing (vii. 15),
blind guides straining out a gnat and swallowing
a camel (xxiii. 24), shutting up the kingdom
against men (xxiii. 13). J
The impersonal character of Matthew's narra
tives is one of his most marked characteristics.
Of our Lord's unofficial relations to individuals,
our gospel makes no mention until the rejection
has been consummated by the death on the Cross
(xxvii. 56, 57). Before that time there is no ac
count of those personal friendships and affections
which appear in Luke so abundantly and in John
almost exclusively. Here there is no reference to
the family in Bethany (Luke xii. 38; John xii. 2);
no loving catalogue of the names of the women
who followed with the twelve, and ministered
to Him of their substance (Luke viii. 2, 3) ; no

Its Purpose and Character 31
commendation, as in other gospels, of the poor
widow who threw her two mites into the treas
ury (Mark xii. 41-44; Luke xxi. 1-4). The
anointing of Mary is inserted to explain the con
duct of the Sanhedrin in seizing Christ at the
Passover contrary to their previous intention, but
the name of Mary is not given (xxvi. 1-16).
One of the main objects of this gospel is, to
show that the great facts of the Christian age
have not thwarted the divine purposes, nor com
pelled the adoption of principles previously un
known. God's dealings with the called are
throughout consistent and coherent. Christianity
is ideal as well as historic and actual. In the
kingdom of heaven the law and the prophets are
completed. The uniformity of God's work in
the past, the present, and the future, is shown
throughout the gospel. The genealogy of our
Lord contains the names of four Gentile women,
three of them stained by heinous crime, who by
faith and grace obtained a place in the royal line,
and whose blood flowed in the veins of all the
Jewish kings (i. 3, 5, 6). In the first chapter of
this gospel, the fact is thus set forth, that God
interwove the two great principles of the New
Dispensation — grace and faith — into the very
warp and woof of the Abrahamic people. By
these, strangers and foreigners sought and se
cured a place in the household. In the second
chapter, The Magi, the Gentiles, recognize and
honor Christ (ii. n), while the rulers and theo
cratic guides of the nation pass Him by in con-

32 The Gospel of Matthew
tempt. A refuge is provided in Egypt from
Jewish malevolence (ii. 14, 15). It is a Roman
centurion whose faith was such as he had not
found in Israel (viii. 10). It is one of the ac
cursed race of the Canaanites who draws from
our Lord the exclamation: "O, woman, great
is thy faith" (xv. 28). It is the mixed multitudes
fed by Christ — the four thousand — who glorify
the God of Israel (xv. 31). It is Pilate's Gentile
wife who sends the warning: Have thou noth
ing to do with that just man (xxvii. 14); and
the only recognition of Christ's innocence by
those who stand around the cross in this gos
pel, is on the part of the Roman guards (xxvii.
54)- Thus does this gospel which has in its first
sentence the call of Abraham, and in its last the
end of the age, set forth the continuity of God's
dealings and the accomplishment of His designs.
The phrases "that it might be fulfilled" and "to
the end of the age" are among its prominent
and constantly recurring peculiarities. The ref
erences to the Old Testament and the verbal
citations from it in Matthew, far exceed in num
ber those found in any other Evangelist; but,
with a single exception, they are not such as
would be employed to prove to an unbeliever,
by the fulfillment of prophecy, the Messiahship
of Jesus. Many commentators deny that in the
great majority of these predictions there is any
direct reference to the Messiah. They are ad
dressed to believers in Christ; they vindicate by

Its Purpose and Character 33
reference to Old Testament facts and principles
His lowly condition, His apparent powerlessness,
His reception by inferior and despised classes.
The one exception is the prophecy of Micah
cited by the Sanhedrin in answer to Herod's in
quiry as to the birthplace of Christ. This is given
by Matthew not to prove the Messiahship, but to
condemn the Sanhedrin out of their own mouth
(ii. 4-6); they pointed the Gentiles to a Christ
whom they themselves neglected, and threw the
clear light of Scripture on the path in which they
refused to walk. The uniform character of the
other quotations will be obvious as you recall
them : Out of Egypt have I called My Son (ii. 1 5) ;
He shall be called a Nazarene (ii. 2^) ; The people
which sat in darkness saw great light, and to
them which sat in the region and shadow of
death, light is sprung up (iv. 15); He shall not
strive nor cry, neither shall any man hear His
voice in the streets : A bruised reed shall He not
break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till
He send forth judgment unto victory (xii. 19, 20) ;
For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their
ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have
closed, lest at any time they should see with
their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should
understand with their heart, and should be con
verted, and I should heal them (xiii. 15); I will
open My mouth in parables; I will utter things
which have been kept secret from the founda
tion of the world (xiii. 35) ; Tell ye the daughter
of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee,

34 The Gospel of Matthew
meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the
foal of an ass (xxi. 5); Out of the mouth of
babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise
(xxi. 16); The stone which the builders re
jected the same is become the head of the corner
(xxi. 42).
God's word does not return unto Him void.
His promises have a far wider, better, more glo
rious fulfillment than ever man imagined. The
first book of the Old Testament records the call
ing out of a nation from which the Messiah should
come; this first book of the New Testament re
cords the calling out of a nation in which the
Messiah shall dwell. The tabernacle and temple
are destroyed, but the Divine Presence which
they promised, and represented in shadow, is
here in blessed reality : Lo, I am with you alway,
unto the end of the age. On the Galilean moun
tain are uttered the words of which the voice out
of heaven, which John heard in the isle of Patmos
(Rev. xxi. 3), is only the echo: Behold, the tab
ernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell
with them, and they will be His people and God
Himself will be with them and be their God.
There is in our gospel no account of the ascension
— that belongs to another point of view. Here
the final and abiding thought, as the church com
mences her world-wide mission, is the fulfillment
of the Old Testament promise, the name with
which this gospel begins and ends — Jesus, Im-
manuel, God with us.
£The relation of the gospel according to Mat-

Its Purpose and Character 35
thew to the succeeding evangelists deserves a
word. The great necessities of man's spiritual nature
are righteousness, sanctification, redemption, life.
This is the order of the gospels. Matthew is the
gospel of righteousness, the supreme attribute in
the nature of God. The exposition, explanation,
and enforcement of the nature, claims and rela
tions of righteousness are the constant themes of
our Lord's ministry in this gospel, and His public
teaching here ends with the picture of the right
eous judge receiving the righteous into everlast
ing habitations.
In Mark Christ is made unto us sanctification.
The gospel is occupied exclusively with service,
unceasing, fervent, occupying the whole being.
It closes as it begins with the Lord working.
Mark xvi. 30.
Luke is clearly the gospel of redemption. In
it God visits and redeems His people, remember
ing His holy covenant, that His people, delivered
from their enemies, may serve Him without fear
all the days of their life. Redemption by grace
and faith is the keynote of the gospel, while the
songs of the redeemed in Luke's gospel have
been echoed by the church in all ages. The gos
pel closes with the disciples continually in the
temple praising and blessing God. Luke xxiv. 53.
There is no need of words to show that John
is the gospel of life. This culmination and
crown of God's dealings is so constantly pre
sented by the evangelist and the Lord Himself,

36 The Gospel of Matthew
that the statement need only be heard to com
mand assent. I am come, says Christ, that they
may have life and that they may have it more
abundantly. John x. 10.J

The Gospel of Matthew — An Exposition

THE GENEALOGY AND BIRTH OF CHRIST
Matthew begins his history of the Jewish king
with a genealogy showing his national and royal
descent; he is David's son, Abraham's
Chap. i. son, heir of the promise and of the
throne. The genealogy is given in
three stages, representing the great epochs in
God's preparation of the nation for their coming
Messiah ; — from Abraham to David, from David
to the Babylonian Captivity, from the Captivity
to Christ. The thrice repeated "fourteen" is
not an arithmetical but a symbolical number, as
are all numbers in the Bible when they are em
ployed to describe God's dealings with His peo
ple. Of this, the term "the twelve tribes" in
the New Testament is a familiar instance. In
such cases the number given is not intended as a
definite statement, but indicates character, pur
pose or relation. The one hundred and forty-
four thousand in Revelation xiv. 3 is not the ex
act total of those who have learned the new song
but the twelve times twelve thousand, the com
pleted host of the redeemed from among men,
who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
These three fourteens indicate what God did in
the training, discipline and preparation of the na
tion for the advent of the Messiah at the begin
ning of the nation, at the height of its pros-
39

40 The Genealogy and [chap. i.
perity, at its decadence; the manifestation and
working of the priestly, kingly, prophetic char
acter. To one who will study them they reveal
some of the methods used to bring about that
fullness of time when He should send forth His
son, born of woman (Gal. iv. 4). A part of this
preparation was to convince men of the absolute
need of the personal presence of a Redeemer; a
part to prepare the nation and the world for His
coming and the spread of the gospel. Into the
particulars involved in this genealogy we cannot
now .enter; suffice it to say, that at its close the
condition of the Jewish nation was such as to
cause all true Israelites to send forth one constant
and earnest cry for the redemption of the prom
ised land and the promised people. The civil
and religious condition is told in Luke iii. 1 ; a
heathen emperor from afar sways the sceptre of
absolute dominion over the holy land, a land
which should have no ruler but. God ; an Edomite
sits on the throne in Jerusalem; the country
which should be one, indissoluble and undivided,
is split into fragments under foreign satraps fre
quently at variance with one another. The re
ligious condition is told in the double priesthood
of Annas and Caiaphas, while the character of
those who sit in Moses' seat and wield his au
thority is portrayed in those fearful delineations
of their course and doom pronounced in our
gospel by the lips of the Lord Jesus. If there is
one Who can save his people from their sins, it
is time for him to come.

Birth of Jesus Christ 41
chap, ii.]
In a few words, the advent, nature, office,
work and relation of the Saviour are declared.
He is of divine and human origin, begotten by
the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. His
work is the salvation of His people, and His re
lation to them is declared by His name — Imman-
uel, God with us. The close of the first chapter
indicates the forward step of the gospels. In the
Old Testament God is for His people; in the
gospels He is with His people; in the Epistles
He is in His people. These three — God for us,
God with us, God in us — are the method and
end of the divine dealing ; holiness eternal in the
heavens, incarnate on the earth, embodied in the
saints. THE INFANCY OF JESUS
In this gospel there are three presentations of
the Messiah to the nation. The first is that of
the infant king, to whose birth the
Chap. ii. attention of the civil and religious
rulers is called by the Magi. In the
second the approaching advent of the king and
kingdom is proclaimed by the appointed herald;
Christ presents Himself to the people in the
thickly settled districts of Galilee of the Gentiles,
remote from Jerusalem. The scene of the third
is in Jerusalem itself, into which city Christ rides
in royal state, assumes the title and prerogatives
of the Messiah, receives the acclamations of the
multitude, confronts the rulers, and by word and
work demands the recognition of His office.

42 The Infancy of Jesus [chap. n.
The gospel of Matthew covers, as does no
other book, the whole Christian age. In this
second chapter the characteristics of this age are
foreshadowed. It is to be an age in which the
kingdom of God, taken from the Jews shall be
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof. David, Isaiah and Haggai exultingly
predict that to Him the gold of Sheba, the wealth
of the Gentiles, all the desirable things of the
nations shall be brought. The history of Chris
tianity is the record of the fulfillment of these
prophecies. By the gifts and prayers and labors
of Gentiles the coming of the kingdom of God
has been hastened and more and more as the
consummation approaches shall the purpose and
plan of God in this respect be seen.
Most appropriate is it therefore that in this
gospel the birth of Christ shall be announced to
the Jews by Gentile Magi; that the hatred of
Herod and the contempt of the Sanhedrin shall
not cause the infant Messiah to fail of royal and
priestly gifts; gold and frankincense and myrrh.
The attempt of Herod to cause the death of
Christ is the opening chapter of that unrelenting
enmity which culminates in the death on the
cross; while the Magi are the first of a long
series of those who bring their choicest gifts to a
Saviour whom the world does not honor. AH
of God's sons are brought out of Egypt, out of
the land of bondage and darkness. The babes
of Bethlehem begin that sorrowful procession
which may fitly have for its banner the words of

The Forerunner 43
chap. III.]
Christ " I came not to send peace but a sword."
No religion has brought such suffering on the
innocent as Christianity, no persecutions known
to history are so bitter and cruel as those caused
by the presence of Christ. Bethlehem is the
birthplace not only of Jesus, but of the holy army
of martyrs. The chapter closes with Christ in His
permanent relation in this age, a Nazarene,
despised and rejected by men. Around Christ's
cradle cluster all the characteristics of the world's
treatment of the coming Christianity, and this
chapter is the microcosm of Christ's work, of its
accompaniments and results from the point of
view of Matthew's gospel.
THE FORERUNNER
The second presentation is announced by John
the Baptist, proclaiming in the wilderness of
Judea, the approach of the king and
Chap. iii. of the kingdom. The reception of
the herald will determine the recep
tion of the king. The relation of John the Bap
tist to Christ is shown by the nature of the re
spective work of each, by the connection of the
crises of John's life with the great epochs of
Christ's ministry, and by the reply always made
by our Lord when His official foes demand the
credentials of His Messiahship. The imprison
ment of John and the consequent enforced retire
ment from his work is given as the reason for
Christ's withdrawal into Galilee; the death of
John at the hands of Herod is coincident with

44 The Forerunner
[CHAP. III.
the change in our Lord's miracles and teaching;
while the uniform reply of Christ to the demand
for His authority is, ' ' The baptism of John, was
it from heaven or of men ? " The divineness of
the Baptist's ministry must be recognized before
Christ's work can be understood. Repentance
must precede faith. The object of God in the
Old Dispensation was to show mercy, but mercy
has no meaning to those who have no conscious
ness of guilt. Our Lord's reference to John the
Baptist in His controversies is not for the sake of
confounding His accusers. Repentance must
precede faith, for the Saviour cannot be accepted
unless there be the conviction of the need of a
Saviour. The divinely appointed method of profession
of allegiance to the coming king is by submission
to the ordinance of baptism which is a declara
tion of a personal acceptance of a personal Saviour,
a death to the old life and an entrance on a new.
No one can claim admission to the kingdom on
the ground of natural birth, of fleshly relation, or
descent from Abraham. John declares that the
initiatory rite of the New Dispensation will be ad
ministered only on production of proof, satisfac
tory to the administrator, that there has been a
personal compliance with the command to re
pent. The requirement to bring forth, therefore,
fruits meet for repentance, does not mean, In
future live in accordance with your profession,
but, Produce, here and now, evidence that you
have repented. " And all the people, when they

The Baptism of Jesus 4c
CHAP. III.]
heard it, and the publicans, justified God, having
been baptized with John's baptism; but the Phar
isees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God
with regard to themselves not being baptized by
Him " (Luke vii. 29, 30).
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS
While the herald is discharging his office, Jesus
appears and requests baptism. Why is Jesus
baptized ? Why is His baptism accompanied by
such wonderful portents and tokens of the divine
approval ? It is sometimes said that Jesus was
baptized as an act of obedience to the command
of God. This cannot be. The whole life of
Jesus had been marked by continual obedience to
His Father. Never had there been a waking hour
which was not in accordance with the Father's
will. What is there about this act which calls
forth this marvellous expression of heaven's in
terest, and heaven's delight? Why does the
Holy Spirit descend and abide on Christ ?
The answer to these questions is found in the
purpose of our Lord's baptism. It is Christ's
formal entrance on His official work. In this rite
He devotes Himself to the accomplishment of sal
vation by death, burial and resurrection. This
sacrifice and consecration bring from the opened
heavens the words, "This is My beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased." So Christ says,
"Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I
lay down My life, that I may take it again"
(John x. 17).

46 The Temptation [CHAP. iv. 1-16.
Three things are necessary for the work on
which Christ now enters — revelation, inspiration,
and approval. These He has; the heavens are
opened to Him; the Spirit abides on Him; the
consciousness of the divine delight in the work
is His evermore. These three things, in our
measure we want. THE TEMPTATION
Immediately after His formal assumption of the
i Messianic office Christ is led by the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Chap. iv. Why does such a temptation follow
1-16. His baptism, and what place does it
hold in the work of salvation ?
It is sometimes said that our Lord passed
through this experience that He might be able to
sympathize with those of His followers who are
tempted. But this cannot be; Jesus had lived
thirty years exposed to all the temptations of an
ordinary human life. He does not now need to
learn what temptation is. The history of Christ
after His baptism is a history, not of preparation
for His work, but of the work itself. Whatever
preparation there is in and by the work is objec
tive, not subjective, official, not internal.
/ We have already said that the Bible is a history
of the contest between Christ and Satan, for man
and his dwelling place, predicted in the third
chapter of Genesis. The temptation recorded in
the fourth chapter of Matthew is the opening bat
tle in this great conflict. / Christ Himself tells us .

The Temptation 47
CHAP. IV. I-l6.]
that He must first bind the strong man before he
can make a spoil of his goods. Ejce to face
Christ meets the great adversary andiovercomes
him. Accordingly all these temptations are Mes
sianic temptations. They are addressed to right
ful desires and instincts; they are emphatically
temptations to sin, which in its essence is the
attempt to satisfy a right desire in a wrong
way.
_jGhrjst sustains a Jjjreefold-relation ; He is Son
of Man, SoTTbTGod, and the Messiah. Each of
these in its turn is made the ground of attack.
First, Christ is tempted as the Son of Man.
The temptation is addressed to the instinct of
hunger — the first, the most innocent, the most
necessary of human desires. Without it, life
would be impossible, and the purpose of life
would be unattained. Christ is tempted to sat
isfy His hunger in a way that God has not ap
pointed. God has ordained that men cannot live
on stones. The history of the world is the his
tory of human effort to turn stones into bread.
It was the first temptation presented to man, and
the first by which man was overcome. Our first
parents had the power of eating the forbidden
fruit and yielded to the temptation to gratify their
desires ; Christ is urged to save His life and to sat
isfy His hunger by His miraculous power. His
reply is, I am a man ; I am subject to all the laws
and limitations which belong to the condition into
which I have come. I will not step off the plat
form of humanity and unhumanize myself. Life

48 The Temptation
[CHAP. IV. I-l6.
is no life if it is not sustained and guided by the
word of God.
if Christ had yielded to this temptation He would
\ave made redemption impossible. Salvation is
accomplished by Christ bearing our sins and taking
our infirmities. Had He begun His career deliver
ing Himself from suffering, by miraculous power,
, the cross with its agony could never have been.
¦5 If He could thus escape suffering in the wilder
ness, so could He on Calvary. Satan would undo
the incarnation, and thus prevent Christ's saving
.His brethren, like whom in all things it was neces
sary He should be (Heb. ii. 17).
In the second temptation the ground is changed.
Our Lord is taken to the holy city, to the temple,
placed on the pinnacle of the temple, and a Scrip
tural promise is the ground of appeal. It is the
temptation to Christ as the Son of God ; the temp
tation in holy things. This temple temptation is
the subtlest and most dangerous of all. The first
temptation endeavored to destroy Christ's hu
manity; this to destroy Christ's divine sonship.
He is urged to act on His own impulses, not to be
dependent on God's directions but to do some
thing which will put the truth of God's words to
the test. This is the temptation to Christians to
measure the love of God to them by their freedom
from temporal suffering. They say, can God
love me and yet allow me to be the recipient of
so much pain, to be the victim of such calamities ?
It is the temptation to suppose that because we
are children of God He must keep us from those

The Temptation 49
CHAP. IV. I-l6.]
ills which are the common lot of man; the temp
tation to regard ourselves as free from the obliga
tion to obey the ordinary laws of gravity. How
often men fall from the height of the temple !
Men say these persons were hypocrites ; their fall
shows it. No, they were not hypocrites; they
did live in the holy city, they knew what it was
to be on the pinnacle of the temple, with its far-
reaching view and clear atmosphere. They
thought that this position precluded all danger,
and so they fell. "I have committed it all to
Jesus," said a- minister, "and He will not suffer
me to make a mistake." Ah, my brother, you
are in the most dangerous position in the world.
A man who supposes that he holds such a
relation to God that he may cast himself down
with impunity is in awful peril. Rather let him
say, " Hold thou my way, O God,
Myself I cannot guide ;
Nor dare I trust my erring steps,
One moment from Thy side."
The third temptation is presented to Christ as
the Messiah. He has come to recover this world.
The devil offers to surrender it on one condition
— that Christ adopts Satan's methods. This will
spare the Messiah the pain of Calvary, the humil
iation of rejection, the long delay incident to the
course which God has proscribed ; it will give
immediate possession without cost or suffer
ing.

50 The Temptation [chap. iv. 1-16.
This is the temptation which has slain the
church. She listened to the siren song which
offered her the world, if she would adopt worldly
methods. The offer was accepted, and the de
livery was made; the church ascended the throne
of the Csesars and sung the song of triumph.
She was no longer the bride waiting the return
of her absent husband; she sat as a queen and
saw no sorrow. Her song was " The kingdoms
of this world have become the kingdoms of our
Lord Jesus Christ, a king and a priest is on the
throne; the prophecies are accomplished, and the
earth sings, Alleluia." We read precisely this on
the pages of Eusebius and the old historians.
So now the church is continually tempted to
gain power over men by worldly means. We
are bidden to listen to the demands of the world,
to shape Christianity in accordance with the ideas
of those who are not members of the church, to
comply with the cry of those who surrounded
the dying Lord, "Come down from the cross,
and we will believe Thee."
These three temptations are to the man, to the
Christian, to the church. They include all the
temptations which come to the Christian — temp
tations to his natural instincts, temptations to
his spiritual desires, temptations to his efforts to
bring the world to Christ. The wilderness, the
temple, the mountain; solitude, sanctity, society;
these three. In all, the captain of our salvation
triumphed and triumphed for us, and Satan left
Him for a season.

The Galilean Ministry 51
CHAP. IV. I2-25.]
THE ENTRANCE ON THE GALILEAN MINISTRY
Our Lord began His official work by present
ing Himself as the Messiah to the official repre
sentatives of the nation at the reli-
Chap. iv. gious centre — the Temple, in the re-
12-25. Iigious metropolis, Jerusalem — during
the national feasts, at which the at
tendance of all the male citizens of the nation
was required. The history of this portion of
Christ's life is found in the gospel according to
John. The scene of Christ's ministry in Matthew
and Mark, with the exception of the last week in
our Lord's life, is in Galilee; in Luke, in Galilee,
Samaria and Perea; John confines himself mainly
to Jerusalem. The synoptics make no mention
of the opening ministry in Jerusalem but begin
with the Galilean ministry. The reason for this
is found in the different objects of the synoptics
and John.
The imprisonment of John the Baptist closes
His ministry. The fate of the herald foreshadows
the fate of the Messiah, the rejection of the one
being the rejection of the other. With the im
prisonment of John, Christ changes the place
and the mode of His work. He withdraws
from the metropolis, and in the remoter regions
of the country pursues a course which, so far as
possible, shall not attract public attention. He
calls to Him twelve disciples who are to be His
constant companions,. to listen to His teachings,
to be associated with Him in the most intimate

52 The Galilean Ministry [CHAP. IV. 12-25.
relations, that in this way they may know Him,
may comprehend His purposes and understand
His methods, so that when He leaves the world
they shall take up His work, reveal Him to others,
and continue the revelation to the end of the age.
These twelve constitute the nucleus of an ecclesia,
a selection, a church, which is to be His body,
whose members are to sustain the relation to
Him which He sustains to the Father. The full
report of the wonderful work wrought in Galilee
may be found in the seventeenth chapter of the
gospel according to John, the greatest revelation
of God's designs and method contained in the
New Testament. There is no chapter in the
New Testament which deserves or will repay
profounder study than this.
The Galilean ministry is hence the type of the
ministry of the church in this dispensation. Let
us study its characteristics as here portrayed.
(1) It is a ministry to those who are in dark
ness. The people sitting in darkness see a great
light, and to those sitting in the region and the
shadow of death light arises. To those who are
in the darkness of sin we are to bring Christ, the
light of life. We are sent not to call the right
eous, but sinners to repentance.
(2) It is a ministry of preparation for a coming
kingdom. As ye go, say, Repent, for the king
dom of heaven is at hand. The church is now
in its pupilage; it is kept here in this world, ex
posed to trials and temptation, subject to con
tinual instruction, that it may become complete

The Galilean Ministry 53
CHAP. IV. I2-25.]
and mature, its members perfect in Christ Jesus,
filled with all the fullness of God, built up a holy
temple, fitted for the work which is to be en
trusted to the saints.
(3) It is a personal ministry. Christ walks by
the sea of Galilee and calls, not now the nation
as in the Jerusalem ministry, but individuals.
Preeminently is the church a company of indi
viduals, each one personally called by the Saviour,
each one personally accepting the Lord Jesus as
his Saviour. In Christianity there must always
be a personal acceptance of a personal Saviour
by a personal sinner.
(4) It is a teaching ministry. And Jesus went
about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,
and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. All
holiness is the fruit of truth. Eternal life cannot
be communicated nor sustained by external
means. Christians are born again by the word
of truth, and they must grow by the pure milk
of the word. This is all that gives importance
to a creed. No belief is of any worth only as it
is the stepping-stone to holiness. Right views
of Christ are important because they are essential
to growth in grace. The ministry which pro
fesses to impart religious life by external touch
is not the Galilean ministry. Christians are re
generated and sanctified by the truth.
(5) It is a successful ministry. Our Lord
healed all who were brought to Him of whatever
disease they had. Demoniacs, lunatics, paralytics
— there was no form of death which He could

54 The Kingdom of Heaven Portrayed [CHAP. v.
not dispossess. It is important to remember what
is meant by success. Christ did not sweep all
sickness from the land of Judea. He did not
make disease impossible. Nay, there were places
where He did not many mighty works because
of their unbelief. Christianity does not pretend
to accomplish everything which the world says
it ought; it does not profess to deliver every one
from the ills under which he groans; it does not
promise that state of things which the world
craves and which it would account success. Its
offers are explicit and it fulfills all its promises;
Christ saves from sin on one condition, submis
sion to Him ; He does not save any man or any
company of men if they do not accept Him.
The purpose and object of Christ's teaching and
work in Galilee was to found the church. The
features of the Galilean ministry are the features
of the ministry of the church ; it is to those in dark
ness, preparatory, personal, teaching, successful.
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN PORTRAYED
The steps necessary to entrance on His official
work having been taken, our Lord in this gospel
begins His ministry by a public, formal, and offi
cial statement of the nature, the laws, and the
subjects of the kingdom which He comes to es
tablish. These last are presented in their char
acter, influence, conduct, and destiny. The law
of the kingdom is righteousness. This is dis
cussed in its relation to law, to motive, to this
world, to other subjects of the kingdom and is

The Kingdom of Heaven Portrayed ^
CHAP. V.]
summed up in what is commonly called the
golden rule, which again is declared to be the
end of the law and prophets. At the beginning
of His career, Christ draws the picture of the
person who is to be the result of His work. This
is the ideal man whom the Saviour is to make
actual by saving him from sin.
(i) The character is sketched in seven beati
tudes. The first is the consciousness of utter
spiritual poverty. The man stands
Chap. v. before God in a state of absolute
destitution, a beggar, with no power
to alter his condition or to make himself better.
This position is the indispensable condition of
entrance to the kingdom. While it is the indis
pensable condition, it is the only condition.
Nothing else is required. One may be rich or
poor, learned or ignorant, moral or immoral,
white or black, if before God he confesses him
self an absolute pauper, without goodness and
without the means of obtaining any, if he is
willing to take God's grace as a free gift, be
stowed by undeserved and unmerited mercy, he
enters the kingdom. This is the one, sole con
dition of admission, but it is within the reach of
every one. No man on earth, be he who or what
he will, is excluded.
(2) This moral pauperism, the result of sin, is
no matter of indifference to the seeker. The
presence of sin as well as its remembrance is a
matter of profound grief to him. He recognizes
its character and its deplorable results and mourns

56 The Kingdom of Heaven Portrayed
~" [CHAP. V.
because of his guilt and his present condition. Sin
to him is not a light thing; there is no sorrow like
the sorrow caused by the consciousness of sin. It
pervades the whole character, and as long as sin is
found in him or in others, the man is a mourner.
(3) God is fitting this man for a place in His
kingdom. In order to do this two things are
necessary. He must have his life conformed to
the divine character by doing what God requires,
and he must be moulded into divine life and
loveliness by the chiselling of the divine hand.
Obedience and discipline are the two factors in
fitting him for his new destiny. The meek are
to inherit the earth ; hence they obey God's com
mandments without asking why ; they submit to
God's discipline without complaint or resistance.
They know the active and the passive side of this
grace of meekness, rejoicing in the cooperation
of the human and divine in the wonderful work
which the king has taken in hand. They do not
inquire, "What good will obedience do me?"
Nor do they resist God's providences; they only
ask, " What will the Lord have me to do ? " And
when afflictive providences come, their cry is, It is
the Lord, let Him do what seems good in His sight.
(4) This man's whole being is engaged in the
pursuit of righteousness. Ordinarily we hunger
for food and we thirst for drink. But for right
eousness every desire and thought of the soul is
engaged; this man shall be filled; righteousness
satisfies every want and instinct of the human
heart.

The Kingdom of Heaven Portrayed 57
CHAP. V.]
(5) We come now to the divine side, for all
Matthew's sevens are divided into four and
three, the human and the divine. Filled with
righteousness, the man is now prepared to ex
ercise the divinest prerogative of sovereignty —
mercy — the special prerogative of a king. In
its rightful exercise, it must rest on righteous
ness. The exercise of mercy, except by right
eousness, is wrong. It cannot be mercy in its
full, clear, shining character, if there be not the
fullest conception of righteousness accompany
ing the act. Otherwise it is moral indifference
or sentimentalism.
(6) Happy the pure in heart, for they shall see
God. The metaphor is taken from the custom of
Oriental monarchs, who dwell in seclusion and
hold intercourse with their subjects only by
means of a vizier or trusted officer admitted to
the royal presence. "Pure" among us is ordi
narily restricted to a single virtue. In the Scrip
ture it has its old sense, "without alloy." The
pure in heart is the man who has but one inten
tion, who has no double purpose, no side aim,
but has an eye single to the service and will of
his master. This man is admitted to the presence
of God; day and night he is consciously in His
presence; he lives but for this one end, to please
God. In a world which is full of God, where
few men see Him, the pure in heart behold Him
everywhere and in all things. Nature, history
and providence, as well as the Bible, are to such
manifestations of God.

58 The Kingdom of Heaven Portrayed [CHAP. V.
(7) Happy the peacemakers; for they shall be
called the sons of God. "To be called" in the
New Testament means shall be, and shall be
recognized as being. God's highest work is to
make peace; peace between God and man; peace
between man and man. Because He is the God
of peace He brought again from the dead our
Lord Jesus Christ; and those who engage in this
work of making peace are united to Him in the
closest relationship. So on this seven-runged
ladder the poor beggar, destitute and helpless,
mounts until he becomes a member of the divine
family. Destitute, sorrowing, meek, hungry, he
is forgiven, a trusted official, a son. Grace stands
at the foot of the ladder, mercy is in the middle,
peace at its head ; so the benediction of the be
loved disciple sums up these beatitudes : " Grace,
mercy and peace from God the Father and from
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in
truth and love, be with you."
It will be seen that all these beatitudes describe
permanent characters or states, and that they are
all within the reach of every man.
What is the relation of this kingdom to the
world and to the Mosaic dispensation ? That the
world will resent and oppose the teaching of the
beatitudes and the character they present is in
evitable. The graces which are the tokens and
the glory of Christianity are despised by the
world. It has for them only contempt and hatred ;
blessed are those whom the world persecutes.
But for all that, Christians are the enlightening

The Righteousness of the Kingdom 59
CHAP. V.]
and preserving power. Reason is not the light
of the world; the Bible is not; embodied holi
ness, holiness incarnated in the daily life is the
only manifestation that can give the knowledge
of the truth. The church is the light of the
earth and the salt of the world.
This kingdom of the heavens is what was
aimed at by the law and the prophets. Its es
tablishment is not their destruction, but their
completion and fulfillment. It will bring into
being a righteousness far superior to those who
regard their method of keeping the law as the
highest expression of the divine character.
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE KINGDOM
Having shown the character, influence and re
lations of the subjects of the new kingdom, our
Lord states the nature of the righteousness of the
kingdom and its various manifestations and rela
tions. What is the law by which the new man
is to regulate his conduct?
Necessarily life is the first thing to be con
sidered. Our first duty to ourselves and others
is to conserve and sustain life. The Mosaic code
provides for this in its first command in this por
tion of the law, Thou shalt do no murder. This
is not the law of the kingdom. The new man
must refrain from every variance with his
brother's life in the fullest sense of that term,
and if such variance exists or is brought to his
knowledge it must be removed even before the
performance of religious duties.

60 The Righteousness of the Kingdom [CHAP. V.
Next is organized life. The family is the unit
of society. Without civil organization' life can
not perform its functions ; in the family is not
only the foundation and bond of organized so
ciety, but every duty we owe God and the state
must first be practiced in the family. In the
kingdom of heaven every thought which dis
turbs the sacredness of this institution is forbid
den. No sin so destroys society and at the same
time the moral character of the individual as the
sin against the relation of the sexes.
Speech is man's highest endowment, the truest
exponent of character and the means of the great
est influence for good or evil. In the kingdom,
speech is to utter truth and the truth only.
In this present age, we shall often be brought
in contact with those who do not recognize the
laws of righteousness. How shall we conduct
ourselves toward the man who refuses to deal
justly with us ? We are not to resist by violence
the wrongdoer. The motive of all our actions
toward others should be their good, and they
cannot be made good by physical force.
To crown all and explain all, we are to be
under the dominion of a love which embraces all
men, and which necessitates the manifestation of
that love by forgiveness, by seeking their good
and doing it whenever we have power. Our
model in all things is God Himself.
It will be seen that our Lord in this Sermon on
the Mount does not repeal the Mosaic code. That
remains as binding and as obligatory as ever.

The Righteousness of the Kingdom 6i
CHAP. V.]
Murder is still unlawful. The code of the civil
state stands now as heretofore for those who are
not the subjects of the kingdom. Neither is the
sermon intended as a rectification of the wrong
ideas of the Jews with regard to the old law.
Christ spends no time in this way. He is laying
down the moral principles which apply to those
only who are His subjects. This discourse is a
statement of principles, not a collection of rules.
Obedience to the rules will often violate the prin
ciple. In the discussion on fasting, for example,
Christ says: "When thou fastest anoint thy
head and wash thy face," because this was the
method in Christ's time of carrying out His in
junction so to fast as not to appear to men to be
fasting. But he who in our age and country
obeys this rule violates the principle of which the
rule was the manifestation. These precepts " are
positively mischievous to those who are trying to
obey them as rules, instead of using them freely
as aids to the apprehension of great ethical and
spiritual laws." The man of the kingdom is not
to be the child of Judaism governed by specific
precepts, but to have as his rule of conduct that
ideal of perfection which is found in God Him
self. One essential part of the growth of the
Christian in grace and knowledge is this applica
tion of principles in the determination of ques
tions of practical conduct which continually arise.
The rule, "Resist not the evil man; whosoever
shall impress thee to go one mile go with him two, "
is not the rule by which John Hampden governed

62 The Motive of Righteousness [CHAP. VI.
his conduct in his resistance to the unlawful im
position of ship money. The payment of that tax
was nothing to him, but it meant everything to
thousands of his fellow-subjects, and the great law
of love which determines and decides the conduct,
compelled him to take the attitude of resistance
so as to save them from oppression and suffer
ing. When love compels us to resist, we are to
resist. The contrast between the law of civil society
and that of the kingdom is clearly seen. The one
has to do primarily with actions, the other with
the heart; the one aims at conduct, the other at
character. The one deals with precepts, the
other with principles. The one derives its mo
tive from the result of the conduct, the other has
God as its model and spring. The one deals
with penalties, the other with rewards; the pen
alties are temporal, the rewards spiritual. The
end of the one is the protection of man's life,
property and rights ; of the other the creation of
a perfect character in righteousness. The Mosaic
.commonwealth was the perfection of civil society ;
the kingdom of heaven is the perfection of man.
THE MOTIVE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Moral philosophers tell us that the motive of
an act largely determines its moral quality.
What is to be the motive of the
Chap. vi. righteousness of the kingdom ? This
is discussed by Christ under the three
divisions of religious service, that which relates

The Claims of Righteousness 63
CHAP. VI.]
to our neighbor — almsgiving; that which relates
to God — prayer; that which relates to ourselves
— fasting, as the typical example of abstinence
from whatever hinders growth in the divine life.
In all these, God is to be the sole thought.
Self in all its forms is to be left out of view.
Here again, as in the former section, we are
given principles, not rules. All benevolence is
not to be hidden from the knowledge of others.
Whenever we can so let our light shine before
men that they may glorify our Father in heaven,
we are to obey that injunction of Christ. We
are not forbidden to pray in public, if by lead
ing in a prayer meeting or in the family, or in
the pulpit We can advance the cause of Christ.
We are not forbidden to let it be known that we
are fasting, if in proper circumstances those with
whom we are united think that the times demand
approach to God by His people in this man
ner. What is forbidden is the performance of
any religious act for our glory or advantage
instead of having before us solely the glory of
God. THE CLAIMS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Until the kingdom comes in its fullness, we
are to remain in this world, subject to its cares,
exposed to its temptations, sur-
Chap. vi: 19. rounded by its atmosphere. What
is to be our relative relation to this
world and to that to which we belong ?
We are to lay up our treasure in heaven, not

64 The Judgment of Righteousness [CHAP. VI.
on earth. This will prevent the occupation of
the heart by this world, the darkening of the
moral sense, the enslavement of the will.
Anxiety for the things of this life is unnecessary
and profitless. God knows, God loves. God is
able to provide all; trust Him. Seek first His
kingdom and His righteousness and all shall be
added to you.
THE JUDGMENT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Then comes the crown and capsheaf of all.
The man who would be perfect will govern his
life strictly by his conception of
Chap. vii. God's requirements, but he will
refrain from condemning his fellow-
servants who do not adopt his standard and
methods. He knows he has not that omnis
cience and that perfect understanding of right
eousness which are necessary for just judg
ment. So he does that most difficult of all things
— he judges himself rigidly, but refrains from
judging others. Many good men carry with
them a pocket judgment-seat, and whenever the
course or actions of a fellow-Christian are men
tioned, they mount the seat and pronounce judg
ment. No man can do this without becoming
blind to his own faults, the intensity of his gaze
on his neighbor preventing the scrutiny of his
own actions. But if God puts you in a place
where it is necessary for you to decide the ques
tion of moral character, do not be indifferent to
moral distinctions. If He makes you the custodian

The Judgment of Righteousness 65
CHAP. VII.]
or guardian of holy things, do not give them to
the dogs. If church ordinances are committed to
your administration, do not suffer them to be de
filed. And if you ask how you are to walk on
this narrow line, how you are to refrain from
judging without being insensible to moral dis
crimination, ask, and it shall be given you ; seek,
and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened
to you. God deals with us as we do with our
children. We teach them first to ask for that
which we intend to give them. "Say please,"
and we should be ashamed of ourselves if we did
not give when "please" had been said. But
there comes a time when the good is not ob
tained at once by simple asking; we must seek
if we are to find. Then there is a good whose
place we know, but a shut door bars our en
trance; knock, and it shall be opened. Ask,
seek, knock; the trained child of God is led in
these three steps in their order.
The discourse closes with three directions.
If these are followed, everything in the sermon
will be secured and every peril escaped. First,
be sure that you enter into life ; second, be sure
that you be not misled by erroneous teaching;
buy the truth, and sell it not; third, see to it
that you are not content with profession without
practice. Enter the kingdom at every cost; re
ject carefully every error and embrace every
truth; transmute every truth into life. There is
no requisite to a perfect life which is not in these
concluding directions. Our Lord afterward puts

66 The Miracles of the Kingdom
[CHAP. VIII.
all these in their order in a single sentence — the
ten words of the gospel — I am the way and the
truth and the life.
THE MIRACLES OF THE KINGDOM
"Beautiful! Can he do it?" was the excla
mation of an intelligent heathen, after hearing
a Christian missionary describe a
Chap. viii. Christian man. The inquiry was
pertinent and all-important. The
hearers of Christ listened with admiration and
delight to the Sermon on the Mount, as it un
folded that perfectly righteous character which
man and the earth so much need. Can Christ
produce this character ? In the ten miracles re
corded in the eighth and ninth chapters of the
gospel according to Matthew the question is an
swered. A study of New Testament miracles will show
their nature and design — what they are, and why
they are wrought. Such an examination evinces
that the gospel miracles are not, as is often sup
posed, displays of supernatural power intended
to prove Christ's commission. Had He wrought
the miracles in physical nature for which the
Jews continually clamored and which Christ per
sistently refused, He would have shown them no
credentials of a divine commission, least of all
would such miracles have given the Jews any
reason to believe in His ability to deliver from
sin. The possession of physical power, though
it be almighty, gives no indication of the moral

Sanctification, Redemption, Life 67
CHAP. VIII.]
character of the miracle worker. Physical might
may compel outward compliance, but I should
despise myself if I gave it the homage of my
heart. The miracles of Christ all run between
clearly defined lines; they are all miracles of
salvation; they prove that He is a Saviour by
showing that He can do that which He offers
to do.
There are three results of sin which must be
removed if the salvation of man is secured. Sin
has excluded the sinner from the service of God,
from fellowship with God, and it ends in death.
The first eight miracles recorded in the two chap
ters under review deal with these manifestations
and effects of sin in their order.
SANCTIFICATION, REDEMPTION, LIFE
In the Jewish ritual, leprosy was the symbol of
sin. The victim of the disease was constitution
ally and permanently unclean, prohibited from
association with the people of God, from enter
ing the tabernacle or temple, from engaging in
public worship, from presenting any sacrifice or
offering, and is doomed to death. An unclean
leper is the first person to accost our Lord as He
descends from the mountain, with the challenge
of faith— Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst cleanse
me. The answer is prompt and decisive; I will;
be cleansed. The meaning and purpose of the
miracle are shown in the accompanying words,
See thou say nothing to any one, but go, show
thyself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses

68 Sanctification, Redemption, Life [CHAP. VIII.
directed, and be restored to a place among the
servants of God.
But after one is enrolled among God's servants,
sin disqualifies for service. The paralysis of sin
affects all the powers, and the helpless sufferer is
grievously tormented. Again faith manifests its
power and with a word the paralysis departs.
The fever of sin runs riot in the veins. Christ
enters the house of Peter, touches the hand of the
patient; she arises and ministers to Him.
. Appropriately now are announced the princi
ples of service. The offer of service could not
be better expressed than in the words afterward
used by the Holy Spirit as descriptive of those
who stand nearest the throne (Rev. xiv. 4):
Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou may-
est go. The answer of Christ gives for the first
time in this gospel the intimation of the offering
which He is to make of Himself in which all His
servants must be identified with Him. Do you
know where I am going ? I am going to My
death. Foxes have holes, and the birds of the
air have haunts where they may escape their
pursuers, but the Son of Man has no place where
He may hide Himself from His foes ; He must die.
The first principle of service is that for Christ the
life must be given up. The second principle is
clearly brought out by the request: Permit me
first to go and bury my father — the highest pos
sible Oriental duty. The answer is that Christ's
claims are paramount to every earthly obligation.
If we become God's servants, He will break the

Sanctification, Redemption, Life 69
CHAP. VIII.]
yoke of all other masters. Always will the time
come, if we are faithful, when He will say : I
call you no longer servants, but friends. Sin has
destroyed the fellowship of God and man; the
renewal of that fellowship is man's highest priv
ilege; it is that which is nearest to God's heart,
and it must be included in Christ's work. The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of
God must end and be crowned in the fellowship
of the Holy Spirit. The three miracles of service
are followed by three of fellowship.
Man was made in the image of God and was
crowned monarch of all nature. When he fell
he was discrowned and brought under the do
minion of his former servants, the winds and the
waters holding him in terror and sweeping him to
destruction. Christ rebuked — mark the word —
the winds and the sea, and there was a great
calm. There is a worse thraldom than that of physical
nature ; the sinner is in subjection to the evil one,
and the ruin wrought by evil spirits is fearful ;
Christ casts out the demons and the possessed
are clothed and in their right minds.
The crowning bondage is that of sin. Can sin
be forgiven ? Can it be so removed that the re
membrance shall not interpose between God and
man, so swept away that there is no barrier to
the closest fellowship ? Christ's miracles answer
the question; the Son of Man has power on earth
to forgive sin; the paralytic goes to his home
with all his powers restored.

70 Sanctification, Redemption, Life [CHAP. VIII.
In every age and country, eating together is a
sign and condition of social fellowship. The
Saviour and the sinners recline at the same table.
The Pharisees behold this unprecedented act with
astonishment ; Christ vindicates Himself by three
great truths; the condition of the sinner — sick;
the purpose of the old dispensation — mercy; the
object of His coming — repentance. The new dis
pensation is no continuation or mending of the
old; the new method of God demands its own
expression and its own rites.
The final question remains. Sin ultimates in
death; it is death. Can Christ deliver from
death ? A poor victim of an incurable disease
touches the fringe of His garment and at once
health glows in her veins. When death has
done its work can Christ break its hold ? A dead
child lies in a chamber; He enters, takes her by
the hand, and she is restored to life. Three mir
acles of service, three of fellowship, two of life.
Will this ever be seen ? Not now, for blind
ness in part has happened to Israel, but their
eyes shall one day be opened. The time will
come when blind Israel shall cry : Son of David,
have mercy upon us. Believe ye that I am able
to do this ? will then be the decisive question — a
question now asked for the first time in this
gospel. The cure of the dumb man demonized
completes this series of ten miracles : demonized,
blind, dumb, sin in heart and body closing all
sight of God and all expression of divine things ;
, when these are removed, man is saved.

The Propagation of the Kingdom 71
CHAP. X.] THE PROPAGATION OF THE KINGDOM
The kingdom, its nature, subjects and laws
having been proclaimed in the Sermon on the
Mount, and the power of Jesus Christ
Chap. x. to create the character sketched hav
ing been shown, we come to the
measures adopted for the propagation of the
kingdom. The twelve disciples are charged
with this duty and commissioned to preach the
good news of salvation to the end of the age.
Their instructions are found in the tenth chapter.
At first sight the chapter might be considered
as a series of directions without any specific
arrangement, unconnected aphorisms for the
preacher for all time. A little study will show
that this discourse, like all of Matthew's dis
courses, is marked with unity, order, and prog
ress, every verse belonging to the place where it
occurs and holding vital relation to its paragraph
and to the whole. The divisions are three,
clearly marked, each division restricted to its
own period, and each possessing its own char
acteristics. The first covers the time between
the ordination of the apostles and the death of
Christ; the second, the forty years between the
day of Pentecost and the destruction of Jerusa
lem; the third embraces the remainder of the
dispensation. The first, from verse five through verse fifteen,
in every clause shows the period to which its
instructions are limited. The persons to whom

72 The Propagation of the Kingdom [CHAP. X.
the apostles are sent, the message which they
are to deliver, the work which they are to per
form, the provision which they are to make, the
persons with whom they are to associate, the
result of their presence, all evince unmistakably
that this paragraph ends with the earthly life of
Christ. The apostles are forbidden to go to any
but Jews; among the Jews they are to seek only
the good people, they are charged with a mes
sage in which there is nothing but joy, they are
to accompany their preaching by working mira
cles, they are to make no provision for their own
support, and wherever they are received they
bring peace. Some of these directions were
explicitly revoked by Christ before His de
parture, and all of them were implicitly re
pealed. In the next paragraph the atmosphere changes
at once. The apostles are sent as sheep among
wolves. They shall be the object of the fiercest
persecution by both Gentiles and Jews. They
will be scourged in the synagogues and con
demned before heathen magistrates. Instead of
bringing peace to the homes they enter, they will
cause the fiercest family divisions and all men
shall hate them for Christ's sake. When called
to defend themselves before hostile tribunals they
are promised the special aid of the Holy Spirit.
The reason for this is that the church is as yet in
its infantile state. It can suffer and die, but it
cannot argue or plead. There has not been time
nor opportunity t0 survey the grounds of faith,

The Propagation of the Kingdom 73
CHAP. X.]
and so it has become an axiom among students
of the early years of Christianity that the patience
and endurance of these early disciples were
admirable, but their intellectual presentation of
the faith for which they laid down their lives is
of little account.
If now we are asked how we know that the
section from verse sixteen to verse twenty-four
belongs to the forty years between the day of
Pentecost and the destruction of Jerusalem, the
answer is obvious; only during those forty years,
have Jew and Gentile united in persecuting Chris
tians. Never since the overthrow of the Jewish
commonwealth has a synagogue witnessed the
scourging of a believer in Jesus. The direction
of Christ is to hasten from one place to another
because they would not have gone over the cities
of Israel until the Son of Man be come. But
there has been no city of Israel on the round
globe since the fall of Jerusalem. It is to be
noted, also, that this season was one of intestine
family divisions. This must have been so when
Christianity everywhere sought its first converts
in Jewish families. To this day there is no such
bitterness caused by conversion to the Christian
faith as that consequent on the turning to Christ
of a member of a Jewish family. Persecutions
there have been since, animosities aroused, but the
peculiar family strife is characteristic of the first
forty years of Christianity.
The remainder of the chapter is devoted to the
age in which we now are, the age which is to

74 The Propagation of the Kingdom [CHAP. X.
end with the coming of Christ. The mark of
this period is complete identification with Christ
as shown first in the community of treatment.
Next, and as a consequence, identity of teaching;
the preachers of the gospel are to make known
everything that Christ has revealed to them.
This they were forbidden to do during His life
time. They were strictly charged then to tell no
man that He was Jesus the Christ; they must
keep to themselves the visions they had of His
coming glory. Now they are to utter in the
light what they have heard in the darkness, to
tell from the house-tops that which has been
whispered in privacy, to uncover whatever has
been covered. Their preaching is to be a reve
lation, an experience and a message; it will have
necessarily three vital relations — to God, to them
selves, to those to whom they speak. They are
to go forth, without any promise of success,
without any assurance of results, but always
knowing this, that God loves them, God cares
for them, God allows nothing to affect them
which He does not notice, that everything hap
pens in accordance with God's arrangement, that
by God's own appointment the effect of their
preaching will be what Christ came to bring —
not peace but a sword; and that finally the
rewards of the coming life will be apportioned
by the standard of faithfulness and love to Christ.
Everything will finally be determined by its re
lation to Christ. The section closes as it begins,
with the identity of Christ and the Christian.

The Reception of the Kingdom 75
CHAP. XI.] THE RECEPTION OF THE KINGDOM
The king has outlined his kingdom, has shown
his ability to establish it, has taken measures for its
propagation ; how is the kingdom being received ?
Christ's hearers are divided in this chapter into
four classes. The first — those who have believed
that Jesus is the Messiah— is repre-
Chap. xi. sented by John the Baptist, whose
embassy to Christ has given rise to
much discussion. Some think that prison fare
and Christ's apparent abandonment of John to
his fate had caused him to waver in the testi
mony he had borne to the Messiah. Others
think that John's inquiry is not for his own sake,
but to establish the faith of His disciples. But
Christ's answer is addressed to John, and His
discourse to the multitudes after the departure
of the disciples is exclusively of John. He vin
dicates the sturdy herald from the supposition
that the cause of the embassy is to be found in
John's fickle character; he was no reed shaken
in the wind. His inquiry could not be accounted
for on the ground that he had succumbed to the
hardships of prison life ; the fare and garb of a
prisoner would have no effect on one who from
his infancy had known only the diet and cloth
ing of the wilderness. It was not because he
was no prophet; he was the grandest ever born
of woman ; what was the reason for the message ?
To John He was the Christ. Observe the words
of the evangelist: "Now, when John had heard

76 The Reception of the Kingdom [CHAP. XI.
in the prison the works of the Christ" — this is
the only place in his narrative where Matthew so
names Him — "he sent by His disciples, saying:
Art thou the Coming One, or are we to look for
another ? " — one of another kind ? John had tes
tified of one coming with a fan in his hand, thor
oughly to cleanse his floor and gather the wheat
into his garner, and burn up the chaff with un
quenchable fire. So sang the Minor Prophets
who foretell John's advent and message. But to
John's eyes Jesus is doing nothing of this. The
axe might be lying at the root of the trees, but
Jesus had not lifted it. Instead of sweeping
away the ungodly, He is going about Galilee,
teaching in the synagogues, opening the eyes of
blind beggars, healing lepers, casting out demons
from a Gadarene. What matters it whether
there is one blind beggar more or less in Galilee,
whether an old woman is relieved for a time
from the sickness to which in the end she must
succumb ? Is this the work to which John pre
dicted the Messiah would set His hand? Are
there to be two Messiahs ?
Our Lord's answer to John's inquiry is first a
statement of what He is doing, adding: "Happy
is he who is not caused to stumble by the course
I am pursuing;" He vindicates John from the
aspersions which might be cast on his person
and office, declaring him the greatest of man
kind; the reason for John's perplexity is found
in the fact that the kingdom of heaven is in
every way a matter of pure revelation; no one

The Reception of the Kingdom 77
CHAP. XI.]
can tell beforehand how it is to be established;
great as John is, the least member of that king
dom after it has come will know more about it
than the wisest and best before its methods have
been declared by the lips of the king. Salvation
for the race is to be secured by self-abnegation
and death, and then the judgment will come: but
this has been kept secret from the foundation of
the world. The time for the revelation is not yet.
The next class are "this generation" who are
determined not to conform themselves to the
kingdom, but are determined the kingdom shall
conform to them. With violent hands they seize
on it, trying to shape it so as to conform to their
carnal ideas. Until John, the prophets and the
law were the sources of information of the di
vine will and purpose. If they would receive
John, he would be the Elijah to lead them into
the New Dispensation. But they had no ears to
hear. They determined to have things their own
way, and when John called on them to repent,
they said: No, the kingdom is coming, we are
ready for it, it is time for rejoicing. When
Christ came and said, Rejoice, they said: No,
we will not rejoice that sinners are forgiven, we
do not want them forgiven; they must not be
received into our society. We are better than
they; we do not need forgiveness, and we wiil
not allow others to be forgiven.
The next class is the avowed unbeliever —
Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum — unmoved by
Christ's presence or works. In God's sight there

78 Antagonism to the Kingdom [CHAP. XII.
is a guilt greater than that of the flagrant im
morality of Sodom — the guilt of rejecting Christ.
The last class is that of the babes in spirit,
who, not counting themselves wise and discern
ing, are ready to hear and receive the revelation
from above. To such Christ comes, and they
come to Him, weary and heavy laden, to find
the rest which He alone can give. Ah! this rest!
— rest to the intellect, weary and baffled in its
efforts to ascertain the truth, not knowing what
to believe ; rest for the conscience, burdened with
a load of guilt; rest for the heart, disappointed
and bleeding; rest for the will, clamorous and
unsubdued; rest, the very rest of heaven, into
which the soul enters, to know the peace of
God which passes understanding ! Identified with
Christ, wearing His yoke, bearing His burden, of
His fullness they all receive and grace for grace.
These, then, are the four classes of hearers,
and these include all ; those who misunderstand,
those who pervert, those who reject, those who,
in the spirit of little children, accept as it is
revealed to them by the Father.
ANTAGONISM TO THE KINGDOM RESULTS IN THE EX
CLUSION OF ALL TIES OF THE FLESH
The thoughtful reader of the New Testament
is often surprised when his attention is first
called to the fact that the immediate
Chap. xii. occasion of the determination by the
Jewish rulers to put Christ to death
is stated in all the gospels to be His relation to

Exclusion of all Ties of the Flesh 79
CHAP. XII.]
the Sabbath. What there is in His Sabbath teach
ing to arouse such hostility does not at once ap
pear, particularly if the common explanation is
accepted, that our Lord was correcting erroneous
teachings of the rabbis, and showing that works
of necessity and mercy are lawful on the Sab
bath. But, in the first place, there is nothing in
this to arouse the wrath or fear of the Jews, and
in the second place, this is not the teaching of
Christ. He does not say : Who of you shall see
a sheep which has fallen into a pit, shall see an
ox or an ass in a stall, but, Who of you shall
have one sheep, shall have an ox or an ass in a
stall ? The question is, who is Christ, and what
relation does He bear to the Jewish nation ? He
claims that they are His people, that as Son of
Man He is greater than their greatest king, greater
than the temple, greater than the sacrifices, greater
than the Sabbath ; that all these were ordained
for the sake of redemption, that God might
through them show mercy ; that His object was
to give, not to receive, and that necessarily the
Redeemer was greater than all the means of re
demption. Thus in John, the healing of the im
potent man on the Sabbath determined the Jews
to put Christ to death because He claimed that
He was doing just what God was doing on His
Sabbath, making Himself equal with God. He
asserted that the Jewish people were His people,
and as the owner of the sheep is bound to de
liver it from the ditch into which it has fallen, as
the owner of animals is bound to care for them

80 Antagonism to the Kingdom [CHAP. XII,
on the Sabbath day, so He must, if faithful to His
relation, act fittingly, appropriately, becomingly,
on the Sabbath, for this is what the word "good"
means in the assertion that it is lawful to do
good on the Sabbath day.
The Jewish Sabbath was the one peculiar and
distinctive ordinance of the nation. Other na
tions practiced circumcision, offered sacrifices,
had temples and performed religious rites similar
to those of the Jews, but the Sabbath was the
Jewish national flag. In it they claimed a pecul
iar relation to God as their creator, redeemer
and rest. As the nation grew in national feel
ing and pride, in the conception of separation
from all other peoples and superiority to them,
it became more and more tenacious of the Sab
bath. It saw in that institution the keynote
to all the other great observances of the year,
with the exception, perhaps, of the Passover.
"Wherever the Jew went, its observance be
came the most visible badge of his nationality.
The passages of Latin literature which indicate
this are too well known to require citation."
(Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," article,
"Sabbath.") The religious leaders of the Jews had already
broken with Christ, as we learn in the ninth
chapter, on the question of the forgiveness of
sins and the treatment of sinners. As Christ in
terprets the Messianic principles, what advantage
is there in the righteousness which distinguished
these religious leaders from transgressors? If

Exclusion of all Ties of the Flesh 81
CHAP. XII.]
sin is to be forgiven and sinners treated as if they
had not sinned, the righteous have neither dis
tinction nor superiority. If now the Jewish na
tion is to be deprived of its distinction from other
nations, what is the use of being God's people ?
So, as Caiaphas afterward plainly stated, they
concluded that it was better for one man to die
than that the nation perish, and they determine
to put Christ to death. When our Lord heard of
this, He withdrew from thence, not because He
could not meet and overcome them; He did not
fear such bruised reeds or smoking flax, He
could blast them with a breath of His mouth;
but for the sake of the Gentiles who are to be
brought to believe in Him, He will not strive
nor cry, nor shall His voice be heard in the
streets. Then is brought to Him a man who is the sym
bol and representative of a nation, possessed by
an evil spirit, blind and dumb. He healed him
so that the man both spake and saw. This acted
parable convinced the common people that the
son of David stood before them ; He had power
to deliver Israel from its spiritual bondage, its
blindness and its dumbness. But the Pharisees
saw in this wondrous work only an evidence of
diabolism. By the prince of the demons He
casts out demons. Such an accusation is evi
dence of moral depravity so utter that salvation
is impossible. Language is not only the expo
nent of character, but it performs a most impor
tant part in making character. Drive back the

82 Antagonism to the Kingdom [CHAP. XII.
wrong thought, deny its existence, and it be
comes a matter of sorrow and regret. Utter it,
and by its expression you have given it life and
made it permanently a part of yourself. If sin
were never incarnated in speech, it would have
no dwelling-place. The young man who has
never spoken an impure word has done a great
deal to form a pure character. "By thy words
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou
shalt be condemned."
The enemies of Christ make a demand, which
they will make again and again, for a material
sign. Christ tells them that manifestation of
physical power would prove nothing as to the
possession of spiritual power. Their very de
mand shows their bondage to materialism. Be
cause a being has great physical strength, though
it be infinite, is no reason why I should love him,
or trust him, or admire or venerate him. Christ
will give them but one sign, the sign of life. Sin
is death; He has come that men might have life
and might have it more abundantly. He will
give the sign of His life-giving power in His res
urrection. That will be the mighty manifestation
of His work; if there be no resurrection, there is
no salvation.
The declaration of Christ of the impossibility
of the salvation of His opponents is no arbitrary
judgment. They had shown themselves incapa
ble of all moral discrimination. When incarnate
love stood before them, doing its mighty works,
they thought it was Satan. They did not know

Exclusion of all Ties of the Flesh 83
CHAP. XII.]
heaven from hell, sin from holiness, God from
the devil. How could they be saved ? What was
there to which to appeal ? What basis on which
to build ? Their case was hopeless. The old
demon of idolatry which had been the sin of
their fathers had been driven out; but worse
sins had entered and housed themselves — pride,
self-righteousness, arrogance — just the demons
which prevent the acceptance of a Saviour. So
the nation was doomed. The seventy years of
Babylonish captivity, which had cured the nation
of idolatry, must be succeeded by a dispersion
numbered by centuries instead of years, and
.sufferings compared to which the Babylonian
treatment was a pleasure. Ah! what sin
;has this nation committed which is as much
greater than idolatry as the centuries of a scat
tered and peeled people in all lands is worse
than the seventy years of the captivity in
Babylon ?
It has become manifest that the Kingdom of
Heaven cannot be established on the lines of the
flesh — of natural relationship. The flesh has had
a fair trial and has failed. Christ disrupts the
ties of the flesh and establishes a new relation
ship. The Kingdom of Heaven is to know no
man after the flesh ; its relations are to be spirit
ual; the ties which bind men to Christ and to
each other are to be of a heavenly nature.
"Whosoever shall do the will of My Father who
is in Heaven, the same is My brother and sister
and mother."

84 The Mysteries of the Kingdom [CHAP. XIII.
THE MYSTERIES OF THE KINGDOM
With the thirteenth chapter begins a revelation
of the utmost importance in the history of our
Lord's work. The preceding por-
Chap. xiii. tion of the gospel has been occupied
with the presentation of the king
and His kingdom. That the proclamation of the
kingdom, be it ever so explicit and attractive, and
that the presentation of the king, accompanied
with the completest proof of His preeminence and
power, will not ultimate in His reception by
either rulers or people, has become evident.
What has been done thus far has issued in the
virtual rejection by the king and by the nation.
Christ now turns to another method — a method
unknown to the highest wisdom of the world, a
stumbling-block to the Jews and to the Greeks
foolishness, but to those who are called, the
wisdom of God and the power of God, the
hidden wisdom which God predestined before
the ages to our glory — a crucified Christ.
This great mystery, the mystery of the king
dom, Christ proceeds to unfold. A mystery in
the New Testament is a truth peculiar to Chris
tianity, undiscoverable by human reason, made
known by revelation. In revealing the mysteries
of the kingdom, Christ opens His mouth in par
ables, and utters things which have been kept
secret from the foundation of the world. Up to
this time He has declared His kingly character
and authority; He is greater than David, than

The Mysteries of the Kingdom 85
CHAP. XIII.]
Solomon, than the temple; He has power to for
give sins. Now He is to reveal Himself as the
Christ; the treasure which He seeks can be
gained only by selling all that He has. This
abandonment of everything for the pearl of great
price finds its culmination in His death on the
cross, where literally He is stripped of all that He
possessed, and His life is taken from Him. How
full and pregnant that single clause — He sold all
that He had — is known only after the sacrifice on
Calvary. The way to the throne is a path which
never dawned on the mind of man until the Lord
revealed it in this chapter.
So the process of the kingdom no man ever
anticipated. It has pleased God to put a wide
interval between the sowing and the reaping. It
has pleased Him also, to have the same infelici
ties accompany the spiritual sowing which are
inseparable from the farmer's methods. Some
of the seed is utterly lost; some excites hope
only to disappoint it; some is faithless to its
promise, and only one class out of four rewards
the toil of the husbandman with an abundant re
turn. Still further, this last class is not one of
unmixed good; tares grow up with the wheat
and continue until the final harvest. When
Christianity becomes great and powerful, filling
the whole organized earth and sitting on the
throne of the Caesars, every foul passion of hu
manity grasps the sceptre; pride, ambition, sin
ful desire of all kinds satisfy themselves with the
spoils which are seized in the name of Christ.

86 The Mysteries of the Kingdom [CHAP. XIII.
When the wild birds of the air descend on the
sacrifice, there is no Abraham to drive them
away (Gen. xv. 2). Paganism and Judaism
clothe themselves in the garments of the cruci
fied, and sitting ostentatiously under the cross,
spattered with His blood, divide His garments.
The history of Christendom is the comment and
explanation of this parable of the mustard seed.
Still farther, so unique is Christianity, so com
pletely a heavenly creation, that if a woman
mingles with it a foreign substance just so far as
that substance exerts its unchecked influence,
just so far it destroys a revealed Christianity.
This is the human side. Look at the divine
side — the kingdom as God sees it. It is treasure
hid in a field — the world. I stood the other day
on a New England hill. Through the plain be
fore me rolled one of those beautiful rivers pecul
iar to that country. As far as the eye could
reach was a farming country, dotted with the
houses of prosperous husbandmen. But my
attention was particularly attracted to a thriving
city built on both sides of that river. It was a
picture to be remembered for a lifetime, with its
busy streets, its teeming life, its thousands of in
habitants, its products manufactured for all parts
of the world. I can remember as a boy when
there was nothing of the kind in the landscape,
and no hint of such a city. One day a man came
there who saw the possibilities of the future.
He bought the farms, associated with himself
like-minded men, and the result is before you.

The Mysteries of the Kingdom 87
CHAP. XIII.]
The owners of the farms had not the knowledge,
the skill, the capital, for such an enterprise.
They received for their farms enough to render
them independent for the rest of their days, and
the city sprang up. So one day will be seen the
city of the blessed, the treasure hid in the field.
From some height the eye shall trace the golden
streets which stretch forth in the city of our God,
from radiant summits shall we gaze on that in
heritance of the blessed which it has been the
joy of Christ to prepare for His chosen. The
pearl of great price, so precious that Christ must
sell all that He has to buy it, expresses the place
His Church has in His esteem and affections.
Then you will see that the method of the king
dom with all its delay and imperfections was no
accident, but a part of God's eternal purpose;
the net is divinely ordained to be cast into the sea
to gather of every kind, leaving the separation
and rectification of all until the judgment-day.
Christ justifies this process of the kingdom, so
new, so startling, and unexpected, by three con
siderations. First, by an appeal to God's univer
sal methods in nature. In sending you out to
labor under these unwelcome conditions, God
is doing what He has always done with men
who are working for the future. Every farmer
who has sown a field of grain has done it under
the same limitations and with the same infelici
ties which will attend you; the principles of your
work are those which underlie all human action.
Second, this is predicted in the Scriptures.

88 The Mysteries of the Kingdom [CHAP. XIII.
Third, this is in accordance with the teachings
of history. The new is no contradiction of the
old; the scribe instructed in the kingdom of
heaven will bring out of His treasure things new
and old, in harmonious combination. The
typical teacher is one who is not ashamed of the
old, nor afraid of the new, but loves and honors
both. Our Lord uses the term " parable " in Matthew
in a more restricted sense than in the other gos
pels. Here it is confined to the setting forth of
spiritual truths under the forms of ordinary hu
man life, and its purpose is to gain the assent of I
the hearer to truth which would be rejected if
presented in simple and naked statement. Byj
¦ the parable they see while yet they do not see,
and thus having gained their assent, the way is (
opened for the truth in due timejq_b^r_ecjeiyjedj
and acknowledged. fTheTIgKt is not brought to
be hidden, put under a bushel or under a bed,
but to be placed on a candlestick; the disciples
are one day to proclaim on the house-tops what
they now hear in the ear.
This chapter contains the essential truths of
Christianity ; they are uttered now for the first
time; they pertain to the deepest secrets of the
divine procedure; the disciples do not under
stand them as yet; we shall see them developed
and explained as we proceed; meanwhile it is
worth noticing now that we enter here on a
study of the Christ accomplishing His purpose
by humiliation, sacrifice and death, giving Him-

The New Order of Miracles 89
CHAP. XIV.]
self for His people; the king appearing, with the
exception of the vision restricted to Himself and
three others on the Mount of Transfiguration,
only in His eschatological discourses until His
entry into Jerusalem to die. We shall soon see
as decided a change in the character of His
miracles as in the form of His teaching.
THE NEW ORDER OF MIRACLES
The first answer of the civil authority to John's
message was his imprisonment; upon this began
Christ's Galilean ministry, iv. 12.
Chap. xiv. The death of John by the command
of the reigning authority is the final
answer; this is the precedent to the death of
Christ. The causal connection between these
will be seen when we remember that the Hero-
dian family was the embodiment of the idea of a
state church ; the attempted realization of Jewish
nationality, the rival of the kingdom which our
Lord came to establish. " Side by side with the
spiritual ' kingdom of God,' proclaimed by John
the Baptist, and founded by the Lord, a kingdom
of the world was established, which in its ex
ternal splendor recalled the traditional magnifi
cence of Solomon. The simultaneous realization
of the two principles, national and spiritual,
which had long variously influenced the Jews,
in the establishment of a dynasty and a church,
is a fact pregnant with instruction. In the full
ness of time a descendant of Esau established a
false counterpart of the promised glories of Mes-

90 The New Order of Miracles [CHAP. XIV.
siah." This national kingdom after the flesh
was the foe which first confronted Christ, in
which centred the opposition to Him, and which
at last crucified Him (John xi. 47-50).
Our Lord now begins a series of miracles
which set forth His spiritual character and rela
tions.- His miracles heretofore are manifestations
of what He can do; those are manifestations of
what He is. At the end of a day's teaching He
feeds five thousand men, besides women and
children, with five loaves and two fishes. By this
miracle and the accompanying teaching Christ
declares the nature and means of the salvation
He came to accomplish. It is salvation from the
death of sin by means of spiritual life imparted and
sustained by Him. Not only must He be obeyed,
He must be received. His life must become their
life; they must eat His flesh and drink His blood;
if they do not, His coming will profit them
nothing. If they receive Him spiritually, every
instinct of their nature will be satisfied; His flesh
will be food indeed, and His blood, drink indeed.
At the close of this miracle, the evangelist tells
us that "immediately He constrained His dis
ciples to enter into the boat and to go before
Him to the other side until He should dismiss the
multitudes. And having dismissed the multi
tudes, He went up into the mountain apart to
pray." If we had this account only, we should
wonder why He "constrained" the disciples,
why He sent them away before He dismissed
the multitudes, and why He left the disciples to

The New Order of Miracles 91
CHAP. XIV.]
go on their way alone while He went up into the
mountain to pray. We have the explanation in
the gospel according to John. The enthusiasm
of the multitudes was wrought to its highest
pitch by this new and wonderful manifestation
of the power of Christ. They saw in Him a
leader who could fulfill their highest hopes. We
are often told that the Jews rejected Chrisf as the
Messiah because He did not come in the pomp
and panoply of war, with armies and battalions.
Not at all. They saw in Christ what was worth
a thousand times more. If He could put Himself
at their head, they would have a leader whose
inherent power would insure victory. No op
posing force could successfully resist those who
would flock to His banner. Should any of them
be wounded in battle, His touch would heal
them; should any be killed, His word would
restore life; if they needed provisions, He could
feed thousands with the bread that dropped from
His fingers. Armed with these powers, He must
not evade nor decline the work for which He
was supernaturally endowed. They would take
Him by force and make Him a king. In sym
pathy with this feeling was every patriotic im
pulse of the disciples. They could not but echo
the wish of the multitudes that Christ would
assume the leadership and set up the Messianic
kingdom. So Christ must "constrain" His dis
ciples to get into the boat and go to the other
side, while He sent the multitudes away. He
did send them away, but they would not be put

92 The New Order of Miracles [CHAP. XIV.
off; they followed Him and the next day re
newed their urgent request. He utterly refused
to hold any relation to them other than a spirit
ual one; He told them they were clamoring for
earthly food; He would give them eternal life
and spiritual sustenance. When they found He
was inexorable in His refusal to do anything for
them save to satisfy spiritual instincts, when He
told them the flesh profits nothing, they would
have no more to do with Him. From that hour
His popularity declined. The rulers had pre
viously broken with Him on account of this posi
tion. Now the people leave Him. So every
controversy in the church since that time comes
finally back to this never-ceasing strife between
the flesh and the spirit. It is the key to all the
disputes of Christianity, the solvent of all ques
tions. The warfare is unceasing and relentless.
At the very beginning of an elect family, the one
born of the flesh persecuted Him who was born
after the spirit: so it was in Paul's time, so it is
now, so will it ever be until all warfare ceases.
Into one ear alone could Jesus pour the emo
tions which filled His heart. He must disappoint
and deny all those who begged Him to use for
the accomplishment of the dearest wish of their
hearts the power divinely bestowed on Him. It
is the mountain temptation over again, only this
time urged by all who admired and trusted and
loved Him. How hard such a denial is can be
known only by those who have passed through
the trial. So Jesus retires from the disciples and

Holiness of the Kingdom Defined 93
CHAPS. XV., XVI. I-I2.]
the multitude to hold communion with God. If
it were lawful, one might wish to hear that
prayer, but it is not lawful. Even we, disciples,
know what it is to have communion with God
which our dearest and most loved cannot share.
We can tell to God what we cannot tell to any
human being.
It is perfectly natural that in the ecstasy of His
spiritual communion, in His triumph over nature,
Christ should walk on the water, superior to
all natural laws. Peter, catching that inspiration
which so often accompanied the presence of
Jesus, volunteered to accompany Him. It was
the unconscious prediction of the future. So
was the voyage over the sea of Galilee, the
church, in the night, during the absence of her
Lord, tossing on the troubled waters of this
world, while the first watch passes and He comes
not, and the second and the third; and when He
comes she does not recognize Him until His voice
is heard. But at His presence — parousia! — the
storm will cease, and the ship will be at the
long-desired haven.
THE HOLINESS OF THE KINGDOM DEFINED
In the training of the Jewish nation for the ful
fillment of their vocation as a people through
whom salvation was to come
Chaps, xv., xvi. to the world, it was necessary
1-12. to give them first the idea of
holiness. Holiness is separa
tion. The Jews were children and must be

94 Holiness of the Kingdom Defined
[CHAPS. XV., XVI. I-I2.
taught, as all children are taught, by commands
respecting outward and sensible objects. Their
separation from the idolatrous nations around
them must be by some method which would
enter most intimately into their daily life, which
would be manifest to the senses, and which
would be continually apparent to their neighbors.
Food and dress are the two essentials of life.
Paul seems to think they are the only essentials
(i Tim. vi. 8); so our Lord regards them (Matt.
vi. 25-31 ; Luke xii. 22-28). Hence the distinction
between the Jews and other nations was made
in these articles. Certain kinds of food were
prohibited, and certain articles of dress en
joined. But the mass of the Jews and their religious
guides utterly mistook the purpose of God in
these regulations and made the means the end.
Blind to the great design of God in preparing
them to be a spiritual people for the good of
others, they thought that the distinction between
them and the rest of the world was ordained be
cause they were really superior to other peoples,
and that the forbidden things were forbidden
because of essential uncleanness. How firmly
this notion took possession of them is seen by
the serious trouble which arose in the early
church on the question of eating with the Gen
tiles. Acting on their theory of the inherent un-
holiness of outward things, they added greatly
to the list of requirements, and, of course, by so
doing, nullified the law of God. Whenever any-

Holiness of the Kingdom Defined 95
CHAPS. XV., XVI. I-I2.]
thing is imposed as of divine appointment which
God has not appointed, some command of God
is set aside. This is inevitable. Make a day holy
which God has not made holy, and you destroy
God's holy day.
The blindness of the Pharisees to everything
but externality resulted in a character of awful
depravity. They made broad their phylacteries
and enlarged the fringe of their garments, they
tithed mint, anise and cummin, they cleansed the
outside of the cup and platter, but neglected
mercy and judgment and love — whited sepul
chres, outwardly beautiful, but within full of hy
pocrisy and of iniquity. The regulations of the
Levitical code, differentiating the clean and the
unclean, had been perverted into a means of the
deepest evil. And now, our Lord sweeps them
all away. He calls the multitude, and says, Hear
and understand: not that which goes into the
mouth defiles the man, but that which comes out
of the mouth; this defiles the man. This He
said, making all things clean. Henceforth every
creature of God is good, and nothing to be re
fused, if it is received with thanksgiving; for it
is sanctified through the word of God and prayer
(1 Tim. iv. 5).
The great fact thus declared is immediately
illustrated. A Syro-phenician woman, a Canaan-
ite, one of that accursed race doomed to extermi
nation by the Israelites when they entered on the
promised land, cries to Christ to deliver her
daughter from the dominion of a demon. Her

96 Holiness of the Kingdom Defined
[CHAPS. XV., XVI. I-I2.
request is granted; in her persistent prayer for
the child's salvation, she manifests such posses
sion of the primal grace of Christianity as to
draw the highest encomium from the lips of the
delighted Master. This Canaanite, scion of the
race specially under the ban, wins and receives
the admiration and affection of all who, in subse
quent ages, call on the Lord, and becomes for
all time the model of faith, humility, and af
fection. No wonder that this miracle encourages a
great multitude to bring their burdens and cast
them at His feet. No wonder that strangers and
foreigners as they were, they glorify the God of
Israel. The vital relation of Christ to other peoples
than the Jews is now shown in the feeding of
the four thousand. He is the life and sustentation
of all who, like the Canaanite woman, see in Him
their Deliverer. The words used in connection
with this miracle are carefully discriminated in
both the gospels in which the second miracle is
recorded. In the account of the feeding of the
five thousand, given in all the gospels, the term
for "basket" is the one which designates the
basket peculiar to the Jews ; the term in the ac
count of the other miracle given only by Matthew
and Mark, is the appellation for the travelling
basket or pannier used by other nations.
The Pharisees persist in their bondage to the
external, and again demand, as they have before
demanded, a visible proof of Christ's Messiahship

The Fundamental Methods 97
CHAP. XVI. 13-28.]
by some manifestation in the heavens. He tells
them that God's spiritual dealings are in accord
ance with spiritual laws. They understood the
outward and physical ; of the laws of nature they
knew the sequence and precedents — why were
they blind to the manifestation of God's spiritual
dealings, equally subject to law, equally per
vasive, and equally capable of being interpreted ?
God is working all about them, but they see
neither the indications of approaching day, nor
the signs of approaching wrath. The nation
married to a holy God had proven faithless to its
covenant vows ; sinful and adulterous, they had
given themselves over to idolatry, worshipping
the creature more than the Creator; no sign
should be given them. And He left them and
departed. With the warning to His disciples to
beware of the leaven of materialism which had
brought these religionists to so sad an end,
Christ turns away from His opponents to de
vote Himself henceforth to the unfolding to
His disciples of the new method of the Divine
working.
THE FUNDAMENTAL METHODS OF THE KINGDOM DE
CLARED
The disciples are now prepared for the explicit
statement of the methods by which
Chap. xvi. the kingdom is to be established.
13-28. They are declared for the first
time in the borders of Csesarea Phil
ippi, as follows :

98 The Fundamental Methods
[CHAP. XVI. I3-28.
The nature and office of Christ; vs. 13-17.
The nature and office of the church; vs. 18, 19.
The nature and method of redemption; vs.
21-23. The nature of Christianity; v. 24.
All these are New Testament mysteries, *'. e.,
they are truths that could never have been dis
covered by any process of the human intellect;
they are not known from consciousness, or intu
ition, or reason, or logic; they are divinely re
vealed. They are unique truths. They have
had no previous parallel in human experience or
knowledge, while the principles on which they
rest are in the very warp and woof of man's con
stitution. 1. To the disciples is put that question the
answer to which is henceforward to determine
human character and decide human destiny,
What think you of Christ ?
First is given the opinion of others. The
multitude recognize Him as a teacher clothed
with more than human authority — John, Elijah,
Jeremiah, at any rate, a prophet. Had Jesus
been content with this, He might have remained
in Jerusalem without molestation, for the Jews
were always willing to acknowledge Him as a
teacher more than human. From the beginning
to the close of His ministry, attestations of this
fact are abundant (John iii. 2; Luke xx. 21). His
death came from His persistent claim to be much
more than a teacher sent from God. Peter, in
behalf of the apostles, formally and officially de-

Of The Kingdom Declared 99
CHAP. XVI. I3-28.]
clares His true relation and office : Thou art the
Christ — the Anointed — the Son of the living God.
We have already anticipated the characterization
of this answer by Christ. The recognition of the
anointing of Christ for His redemption work can
come only by divine revelation ; flesh and blood
— that which is merely human — can neither ap
prehend nor impart it.
2. Our Lord now declares that He is about to
bring into existence a body of which the reve
lation of Christ to the soul by the Father shall be
the informing principle. To this body He will
impart eternal life and will give to it the keys of
the kingdom. While all other human associa
tions and ties are sundered by death, over the
existence and relations of the church death shall
have no power. "The saints on earth and all
the dead, but one communion make." To this
body, of heavenly origin, united in heavenly
relations, knowing nothing of the principles
either of earthly union or division, called with a
heavenly calling, with a heavenly inheritance, a
heavenly citizenship, a heavenly hope, and main
taining a heavenly walk, the administration of the
kingdom shall be committed, and for the proper
discharge of its functions, the promise of in
spiration is given; "whatsoever thou shalt bind
on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall have
been loosed in heaven."
3. A still more startling and wonderful revela
tion is made. "From that time," a phrase used

100 The Fundamental Methods
[CHAP. XVI. I3-28.
only once besides in this gospel, at the begin
ning of the Galilean ministry (Chap. iv. 17) Christ
tells them that He must suffer many things from
the elders and chief priests and scribes, and must
be killed, and be raised again the third day.
Redemption is to be gained by the death of the
Redeemer; the cross is the way to the throne.
At this appalling statement, so unexpected and
unwelcome, no wonder that Peter cries, "This
must not be, this must not be." Is this the end
of all our love and hope and trust ? Is the cross
the kingdom of righteousness ? Is defeat victory,
and is death, the curse of sin, the consummation
of the prophecies ?
4. Not only must I die, says Christ, but you
must die also. Life can be saved only by losing
it. If you are to be Christed, Christianed, you
must share with Me this dreaded experience.
You must know what it is to die to yourself, and
to take up the cross. Observe, here comes again
an absolutely new idea. Christ does not speak
of self-denial but of denial of self. Self-denial
is known to every form of human exertion. It
is indispensable to all human attainment, whether
of good or evil. All religions know it and prac
tice it. In all paganism asceticism is an indis
pensable element. Denial of self, not the denial
of one part of self, to gratify another part, but
an utter denial, the death of self for others, is
peculiar to Christianity, for the place of self can
be occupied only by Christ. It is so completely
the death of self that self cannot determine either

Of The Kingdom Declared 101
CHAP. XVI. I3-28.]
the act or time of any offering. We have no
right to make any sacrifice except as God de
termines. The death of Christ was a voluntary
act on His part; no man took His life from Him,
but He laid it down of Himself; yet He could do
this only at the time and in the way appointed
by the Father.
These great truths are not yet to be declared to
the world. Then charged He His disciples that
they should tell no man that He was Jesus the
Christ. They were not prepared to make known
the wondrous revelations to which they had
listened, and the world was not prepared to
receive them. There could be fitness neither for
the speaking nor the hearing, until the Spirit is
poured out from on high, anointing the herald as
the Master was anointed, and convincing the
world of sin, because they had not believed on
Christ. When the time comes for the promul
gation of the truth, the cross will be the great
factor in all successful work for the Master; as
Christ says, I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto Me. Christ's death for others,
now so appalling in the shadow it casts, will be
the theme of the Christian preacher in all ages, the
only power to break the heart and subdue the
will. In these days, when we are so continually
exhorted to go "back to the gospels," and to
rediscover the human side of Christ, it is well to
remember that the disciples were forbidden to
preach the Christ of the gospels, that it was not

102 The Transfiguration [CHAP. XVI. I3-28.
the conception of Christ's human nature that
saved men, but His divine; that if He had been
content with the acknowledgment of perfect
human virtue and perfect teaching, He would not
have been crucified; and that now, as of old, we
should know no Christ after the flesh, but ever
preach a crucified and risen Lord, not a memory,
but a living Christ. THE TRANSFIGURATION
In His determination to close His earthly career
by death on the cross, Christ finds, as in His
refusal of an earthly kingship, no possible sym
pathy from man. Now, as then, He must turn
to the one ear into which He can pour all the
emotions of His soul. Taking with Him three
disciples, He goes up into the mountain to pray.
From the upper world, two men are sent, with
whom He converses about His approaching ex
odus. As He prays, the spirit of sacrifice of self
which is the cause of that exodus transfigures the
earthly form, so that not only the fashion of His
face changed, but His very raiment becomes
radiant with unearthly brightness. Once more,
as at His baptism, the voice of God is heard from
the opened heavens : This is My beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased. The force of the
Greek tense here cannot be adequately expressed
by an English translation. It denotes a definite
act as the entrance on a state, and here refers, as
before, to Christ's devoting Himself to death:
Therefore does My Father love Me, because I lay

The Kingdom Awaiting 103
CHAP. XVII. 14-20.]
down My life that I might take it again (John x.
17). God loved His Son from eternity for His
holy and lovely attributes, but all these are disre
garded in comparison with the love evoked by
Christ's giving His life for sinners.
In the Second Epistle of Peter, i. 16-18, this
wonderful vision is interpreted in its relation to
the future. It is the prophecy and illustration
of the coming of Christ with power and glory.
THE KINGDOM AWAITING ITS CONSUMMATION
Descending from the mountain, the disciples
meet an acted prediction. The church in the ab
sence of her Lord, is surrounded
Chap. xvii. by a mocking crowd who jeer at
14-20. the failure of Christ's followers
when confronted by an evil world,
and taunt them with their inability to remove the
ills with which man is afflicted. The demons
shall be driven from their possession when the
Lord makes His appearance, but even now the
mountains would vanish if faith were exercised.
Nothing is impossible to him who believes ; but
faith is victorious only when accompanied by
prayer and fasting — communion with God and
victory over self.
For the present, the splendor of the transfigu
ration must remain veiled. Its story must not be
told until the Son of man is risen from the dead.
The privileges of sonship cannot yet be claimed.,
The collectors of the half shekel— the tax for the
support of the temple— come with the question,

104 The Kingdom Awaiting
[CHAP. XVII. 14-20.
Does not your Master pay the half shekel?
Christ is God's son, and they who are identified
with Him in death and life are sons of God, but
the privileges of that relation must be held in
abeyance until their manifestation in glory. The
claim, misunderstood, would cause men to stum
ble. By the miraculous provision of the sum
needed, the sonship is vindicated and the stum
bling prevented.
Christ now begins His instructions to His dis
ciples from the point of view of these new reve
lations. He shows the spirit, the principle, the
law, the rewards and the honors of the life con
sequent on death. The spirit is the spirit of a
little child, the principle is hatred of sin, the law
is the primal law of holiness and the renunciation
of all things for Christ ; the rewards and honors
are participation with Christ.
The presentation of the kingdom began with
righteousness. Righteousness is the point of
view of the Sermon on the Mount, whose ulti
mate expression is, "Do to others as you wish
them to do to you." The principle of the new
life is beyond this; it is sacrifice and service for
others. Hence the starting-point in the develop
ment of the new teaching is not righteousness
but sin. The one end of the Christian as it is of
Christ is salvation from sin.
Sin, then, is the thing the most to be dreaded.
Terrible will be his fate who causes others to sin.
Sin in ourselves must be avoided at the cost, if
necessary, of our most cherished possessions. If

Its Consummation 105
CHAP. XVII. 14-20.]
others sin, we are to take all possible means to
reclaim them ; and if sin is committed against us,
we are to forgive it, that is, to put it away, even
to seventy times seven. Biblical forgiveness is
not primarily the remission of the penalty of a
violated law, but the removal of the sin. It is
the "blotting out as a thick cloud," the "casting
into the depths of the sea," the "casting behind
one's back," it is bringing about a state in which
sin does not exist. We sometimes say, "I will
forgive, but I can never forget;" God says,
"Their sins and iniquities I will remember no
more." By what law shall those who are thus identi
fied with Christ regulate their conduct ? By the
law of primal holiness. The Mosaic law and all
civil laws, dealing with men whose hearts are
not right with God, are obliged to have a stand
ard short of perfection. In a law which man is
to enforce on his fellow by pains and penalties
this is unavoidable. But the law for men who
are a law unto themselves, who shape their con
duct by the law of love, will not allow any de
viation from perfection. No such man can take
advantage of any human law which permits
what is wrong in itself. Civil law, for example,
rightfully limits the time in which the collection
of a debt can be enforced, but the Christian is
not absolved from his obligation by any such
legal enactment. No law of man can affect the
Christian's moral obligations or his moral con
duct.

106 The Kingdom Awaiting
[CHAP. XVII. 14-20.
The relation of such a man to this world's
wealth is next considered. It must be held at
the call of Christ, ready to be sacrificed for oth
ers. It exists, as does its owner, for Christ, for,
"whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or
whether we die, we die unto the Lord." How
much there is by very necessity connected with
the rich man's life, all his relations, his plans, the
measures which are his aim, to enforce the saying
of our Lord as to the difficulty of entrance into
the kingdom, the purpose of this paper will not
allow me to show. Said a Christian man of
wealth, "How much there must be in a rich
man's life to make it difficult for him to be a
Christian, no one but a rich man knows."
What are the rewards of identification with
Christ? The administration of the kingdom,
manifold more than is abandoned, and eternal
life. These rewards are not to be allotted, how
ever, in accordance with the preconceived ideas
of men. God will distribute them as He sees
proper, though in consonance with eternal
justice. The honors of the kingdom — how shall they
be bestowed ? On the same great principle of
identification with Christ in His sufferings and
service for others. He who is the servant and
slave of others, shall share the honors of Him
who came not to be served, but to serve, and to
give His life a ransom for many.

Final Presentation of the King 107
CHAPS. XXI. XXIII.]
THE FINAL PRESENTATION OF THE KING TO THE JEW
ISH NATION
The time has come for the third and final pres
entation of Christ to the Jewish people. He will
appear publicly as God's representa-
Chaps. xxi. tive, assert His Messianic character
xxiii. by word and work, and accept
the public homage of the multi
tude ; His reception or rejection by the city and
nation will determine their fate.
The royal approach to Jerusalem begins with a
great multitude following Him from Jericho, a
city which had peculiar relations to the conquest
of Judea under the first Joshua. The significant
miracle of opening the eyes of the blind, a
miracle which, in Matthew, is always at the close
of a cycle of miracles, and (where the particulars
are recorded) always accompanied by the recog
nition of Christ as the Son of David, and always
wrought by the personal touch of the Lord Jesus,
appropriately closes the Galilean teachings and
begins the triumphal entry. It is a miracle of
power and promise and hope which looks back
ward and forward.
At Bethphage, two disciples are directed to run
across the ravine, and bring the colt on which,
according to prophecy, He may make His
entrance into the city. The enthusiasm of the
multitude will not allow even the feet of the
beast to touch the ground. The rumor of the
approaching procession reaches Jerusalem, and

108 Final Presentation of the King
[CHAPS. XXI. XXIII.
great multitudes pour out to meet Him: these
turn and precede Him, while the multitudes that
go before and those that follow cry, ' ' Hosanna
to the Son of David; blessed is He that comes in
the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest."
The whole city is "shaken."1
Our Lord asserts His Messianic office, as at
His first ministry in Jerusalem, by driving from
the temple those who were perverting it into a
den of robbers. The authorities demand that He
refuse the ascription to Him of the titles and
honors which belong to the promised Messiah.
He replies that God accepts the praise which comes
from the unconscious admiration of infants, and
He will not silence the voices of the children.
Salvation and judgment always walk hand in
hand. Christ ends the day by blasting the fig-
tree, the emblem of the nation, full of promise
but barren of fruit, poisoning the ground, stand
ing like a mountain in the way of the gospel.
All the opponents of Christ in turn now con
front Him. First comes unbelief, challenging
Christ's credentials. The reply is, "Can you
comprehend them ? Only a sinner can recognize
a Saviour. Was the demand of John the Baptist
for your repentance from heaven or earth ? "
They avowed that they could not tell, and by this
acknowledgment declared their unfitness to be re-
1 The word translated in King James by " moved " is found
in this gospel, xxvii. 5 1 ; xxviii. 4 ; Haggai ii. 7 ; Heb. xii. 26.
It is the word from which our English term «« seismic " and its
cognates come.

To the Jewish Nation 109
CHAPS. XXI. XXIII.]
ligious teachers. Their guilt was shown by three
parables in which Christ portrayed their course
toward John the Baptist, toward the Son Him
self, toward the messengers of the gospel. Even
if they should claim a place at the marriage feast,
the absence of the wedding garment would con
demn them.
Unbelief gives way to worldliness with its
question as to Csesar. Then rationalism with its
difficulties about the resurrection. Formalism
follows, questioning the comparative worth of
laws. Unbelief, worldliness, rationalism, formal
ism — the prime foes of Christ and of Christianity
in all ages, ordinarily in this order.
Christ becomes the questioner; He puts to
them that solemn inquiry the answer to which
determines the fate of all to whom Christ is pre
sented, the question which He asked His disci
ples in the borders of Csesarea Philippi, "What
think you of the Christ ? " They are unable to
answer ; it is useless to continue longer in the en
deavor to make them see His true character and
all questioning ceases.
Our Lord now begins His parting instructions.
Addressing the same audience as at the delivery
of the Sermon of the Mount, He tells them first
of their relations to civil society. The seat of
Moses is of divine appointment and they who
occupy it, wicked as they are, must be obeyed in
their proper jurisdiction. Government is ordained
by God ; its authority is not determined by the
moral character of the administrator. In all mat-

no Final Presentation of the King
[CHAPS. XXI. XXIII.
ters which belong to the jurisdiction of the state,
the duty of the Christian is obedience. I bow to
his office, for in it he is the minister of God
(Rom. xiii. 1-7).
But in spiritual relations this submission to
man is forbidden. The injunction of Christ in
verses 8-10 1 is often understood as a prohibition
of the title of father, etc. The meaning is far
deeper. It is a declaration of the essential rela
tions of man to God. Three things constitute a
| Christian — what he is, what he believes, what he
1 does; doctrine, experience, practice. Man needs
1 for his spiritual being three things — life, instruc
tion, guidance; just what our Lord declares in the
ten words of the gospel — "I am the way, and
the truth, and the life." The Roman Catholic
church, the most marvellous religious body on
earth, has caught these three things with its usual
insight and avows its ability to supply them.
The office of the Roman Catholic church is
claimed to be threefold — the priestly office im
parting and sustaining life by means of the sacra
ments, the teaching office endowed with infalli
bility, the guiding office by spiritual confessors.
These three things are just what our Lord forbids
in the passage under consideration. Acknowl
edge no man as Father; for no man can impart
or sustain spiritual life; install no man as an in
fallible teacher; allow no one to assume the office
1 King James is very unfortunate here ; in v. 8, " master "
should be " teacher " ; in v. 10, " master " (a different word)
should be " guide."

Between Our Lord's Departure ill
CHAPS. XXIV. XXV.]
of spiritual director; your relation to God and to
Christ is as close as that of any other person.
A fearful indictment, with its accompanying
sentence and denunciation, closes this portion of
Christ's ministry. The nation's religious leaders
are hypocrites, posing as teachers, fathers, and
guides, while within and without they are the
exact opposite of what they should be. They
keep men from entering the kingdom. The
proselytes they make are worse than their teach
ers, as always must be the case with teachers of
evil. Their conception of sacredness is wholly
external; their efforts after purity include only
the outward; the opposition between their ap
parent and their real character is awful. To
crown all, this wickedness is the culmination of
the sin of generations. Nothing remained but to
complete the iniquity of their fathers and the long
withheld vengeance would fall. At the close of
the sentence the words of the judge change into
the wail of love — love refused and spurned, but
love still filling the heart, weeping over the lost.
THE INTERVAL BETWEEN OUR LORD'S DEPARTURE FROM
THE EARTH AND HIS RETURN
When our Lord uttered His prediction of the
approaching destruction of the Jewish temple,
there was nothing in the magnifi-
Chaps. xxiv., cent structure, nothing in the
xxv. political prospects of the nation,
nothing in their religious condi
tion, nothing in the policy of the Romans toward

112 Between Our Lord's Departure [CHAPS. XXIV. XXV.
the religious systems of the nations they subju
gated, to indicate that such a catastrophe was im
minent, or even among the possibilities. The
Jews were never more attached to their temple,
never held it in higher honor, were never more
wedded to their national religion, while the uni
form course of the imperial empire was to inter
fere as little as possible with the religion of a
conquered nation, so long as it did not threaten
the supremacy of Rome. To no vision but that
of Jesus was the coming overthrow visible. He
saw what seems to occur to no student of history,
that the destiny of a nation, as that of an indi
vidual, is determined by its relation to Christ.
He was sitting alone on the Mount of Olives,
gazing on the city which was so soon to witness
the central facts in His own life, the central facts
in the history of the world, the facts which would
decide the destiny of mankind. His disciples ap
proach Him privately and ask Him to tell them
the time and signs of the consummation of the
age. His reply is given at once, and is of greater
length than any other recorded answer to a ques
tion. We make no attempt at a detailed inter
pretation of His words. Scriptural prophecy dif
fers radically from pagan prediction. That fore
tells events ; biblical prophecy declares principles ;
it is not spoken to satisfy curiosity or to impart
knowledge, only as that knowledge determines
conduct and is transmuted into life. Each word
in this discourse is spoken for the one end always
had in view by Christ — salvation. It has but one

From the Earth and His Return 1 13
CHAPS. XXIV. XXV.]
thought — the preservation of those who are trust
ing in Christ from being misled. In every sen
tence resound Christ's opening words — "Take
heed that no one lead you astray."
The great certainties of this discourse are un
mistakable. The beginning and the end of the
coming dispensation are to be separated by the
interval announced in the parables of the king
dom, an interval corresponding to that which al
ways occurs in the natural world between sow
ing and reaping. How long this interval, and
when its end will come, no one but God knows.
It will try faith and patience to the utmost, and
the trial will prove fatal to the majority. The
dangers to which Christians will be subjected
which will overcome all but the most watchful
are universal hatred and bitter persecutions on the
part of the world, divisions and conflicts within
the church, plausible errors inculcated by teach
ers clothed in prophet's garb, and to crown all,
and more to be feared than all, an invasion of
worldliness which shall smother the love of
Christ. The peril, which specially manifests itself in the
closing period of this interval, arises from the
mistakes which shall be made as to what the
coming of Christ is. Multitudes will claim that
they have discovered or rediscovered Christ ; He
is here, He is there, will be the cry. This is the
consummation of the age; this is the triumph of
Christianity; this is the fulfillment of the Chris
tian hope; such shouts shall fill the air, and many

114 Between Our Lord's Departure [CHAPS. XXIV. XXV.
shall be led astray. No wonder that the love of
the majority waxes cold; you cannot love the
dead as you love the living; you cannot love a
state of things as you love a person; you cannot
love a memory as you love a presence; the heart
demands a heart on which to lavish its affection,
and in which to fasten its trust.
To those waiting and watching, the personal
appearing of the Lord will not be unexpected or
unwelcome. It will not take them unawares, nor
will they be unrewarded. To the rest, it will
come as the lightning flash, unheralded and over
powering. So this discourse of Christ addresses
itself to three classes — the worldly, the unwatch-
ful servant, the faithful and wise servant. For,
although stumbling-blocks abound, false teachers
are multiplied, and love grows cold, there will be
the faithful elect who, enduring to the end, shall
be saved.
With three vivid pictures of the consummation
of the age our Lord closes His eschatological dis
course. The first has to do with the personal re
lations of the church to its Head; the second,
with the relations of the endowments of the
church to its Lord ; the third, with the relations
of the nations to the church and to its King.
While for reasons already stated, we cannot enter
into any detailed interpretation of the predictions
contained in this chapter, there are lessons here
of the utmost importance to Christian living.
This chapter should be so laid to our hearts that
it govern every hour until Christ comes.

From the Earth and His Return 115
CHAPS. XXIV. XXV.]
In the parable of the virgins, two truths are
prominent. The first is that the test of acceptance
will be not whether one entered on the Christian
course, but whether he continued. The begin
ning of the Christian life is determined by our
coming to Christ ; the end is decided by our con
tinuing in Christ. It is the truth set forth in our
Lord's command and promise, "Abide in Me; if
ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye
shall bear much fruit; ye shall ask what ye will,
and it shall be done for you." It is the truth told
at the initial revelation of the kingdom in the par
able of the sower; the husbandman's success is
not the promise of a fair beginning but the final
harvest. It is the constant warning of Christ,
" He that endures to the end shall be saved." It
is the truth of nature; if a plant does not grow,
no matter what the promise of its first appear
ance, the gardener pulls it up and throws it away.
In every walk of life the same test is applied. It
is not enough that we can refer to the lighting of
our lamps; if oil and light be wanting when
Christ comes, there is no admittance to the
heavenly banquet.
The second truth is that at that day borrowed
religion will not suffice. Our associates and com
panions do us much good, but they cannot sup
ply us with grace. Connection with the holiest
and most useful of men will not insure accept
ance at the last day ; there must be the same per
sonal relation to Christ at the close as at the be
ginning. So Paul writes, "Let every man prove

116 Between Our Lord's Departure [CHAPS. XXIV. XXV.
his own work, and then shall he have confidence
in himself alone and not in another."
The parable of the talents has for its basis the
great gospel truth that grace is bestowed as a
trust. The endowments of the Spirit are not the
personal possession of the recipients but are given
to them to be improved for the glory of God and
the good of others. Paul's discussion of spiritual
gifts in the twelfth chapter of his first Epistle to
the Corinthians begins with the fundamental fact
that the manifestation of the Spirit is imparted to
each man for the profit of others. So Peter
directs, " As every man has received the gift even
so let him minister the same one to another, as
good stewards of the manifold grace of God."
This gives force to the practical exhortation of
the twelfth chapter of Romans; Christians are
members of a body; each has its own office in
the performance of which it will gain ability and
strength. We are taught also in this parable that
the excuses of the sinner are his own condemna
tion; out of his own mouth will he be con
demned. The pleas which he urges are reasons
for obedience to God.
In the august scene with which the account of
this chapter closes, the judgment proceeds on the
great principle of redemption, the identification
of the Christian with Christ. This is the ultimate
thought in all the formal descriptions by our Lord
of the future. The tenth chapter of Matthew and
the seventeenth chapter of the gospel of John are
examples of this. Union with Christ is the first

Preparations for the Delivery 117
CHAP. XXVI. 1-56.]
and last idea of Christianity, and the solemn sen
tences of this final judgment are but the repetition
of the statement announced when the apostles —
the representation of the church — were commis
sioned: "He that receiveth you receiveth Me,
and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent
Me ; " " And whosoever shall give to drink unto
one of these little ones a cup of cold water only,
in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you,
he shall in no wise lose his reward."
PREPARATIONS FOR THE DELIVERY OF JESUS TO HIS
ENEMIES
The death of Christ on the cross was no after
thought on God's part. When Peter, on the day
of Pentecost, charges the Jews
Chap. xxvi. with their awful guilt in crucify-
1-56. ing Christ, he distinctly says:
"This man, delivered up by the
settled counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye
through the hands of men without law did cru
cify and slay." As the death, so the time and
circumstances of the death were ordered by Him
without interfering with the free action of Christ's
enemies or lessening their guilt. We have a
striking illustration of this in the crucifixion of
Christ at the Passover contrary to the intention
of the Jews. The story is told in the first sixteen
verses of this chapter.
Baffled in their attempts to arrest Christ in any
way authorized by law, the religious leaders,
driven to desperation, finally determined to take

118 Preparations for the Delivery [CHAP. XXVI. 1-56.
Him by craft and have Him put to death by the
Romans on the charge of stirring up the people
against the imperial power. But Christ's popu
larity with the masses of the people was such —
for the world seemed to have gone after Him
(John xii. 10) especially among the turbulent Gali
leans, great numbers of whom were at this time
in Jerusalem in attendance on the feast of the
Passover, that the officials did not dare to risk the
explosion which would result from such an arrest
on such a charge, and which would afford Pilate
all necessary excuse for the most summary meas
ures. So they said: "Not during the Feast, lest
there be an uproar among the people."
But Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us, must
be slain at the Feast. The great Paschal Lamb,
the antitype of the numberless victims whose
blood had flowed to predict His death, must lay
down His life as did they, at the time and in the
manner appointed. For fifteen hundred years
had the Passover been kept by a redeemed peo
ple to prepare for the great event which it pre
dicted, and now no craft can interfere with the
divine purpose. How did it come to pass that
God's designs were accomplished, and those of
the Jews frustrated ? How happened it that our
Lord was apprehended, tried, and crucified at the
Passover, contrary to the determination of the
Jews ?
It came by the manifestation of Mary's love
and faith in the house of Simon at Bethany. The
story, precious as it is, would not have been in-

Of Jesus to His Enemies 119
CHAP. XXVI. I-56.]
serted in Matthew's gospel on its own account.
It is told by him, out of its chronological place,
to give the reason why the plans of the San
hedrin failed, and why Christ was apprehended
at the beginning of the Feast.
It was a woman's love, a woman's instinct, a
woman's acceptance of the divine method that
brought about the desired result. Christian his
tory is full of instances of the effective working
of love in many ways all unknown and unantici
pated by the loving one. In this case, Mary, ac
quiescing in what Christ had said of His coming
death, prepares beforehand His body for the
burial. In two respects, this act excited the
anger and indignation of Judas. One is the
lavish waste, as He viewed it, of the money ex
pended for the purchase of the ointment. The
three evangelists who record this incident char
acterize the ointment as "very costly," "very
precious." In Mark its selling value is given as
more than three hundred denaries. We learn
from the parable of the laborers in the vineyard
that a denary was the price of a day's labor. At
this rate more than three hundred denaries would
in our currency be more than three hundred
dollars. While it seems impossible to fathom all
of Judas' motives, and to explain his conduct
satisfactorily, it is evident that his passions were
greatly aroused by this extravagance. The other
special feeling excited by the act of Mary and the
acceptance and approval of it by the Lord was
the evident certainty of the coming death of

120 Preparations for the Delivery [CHAP. XXVI. I-56.
Christ. Stirred to the utmost by these manifes
tations of the nature of the kingdom which
Christ had in view, and of the method by which
the kingdom was to come, his determination was
formed. He hastened to the Sanhedrin, and
bargained with them to deliver Christ into
their hands without the knowledge of the multi
tude. On that night the Jewish dispensation came to
an end. The Passover, its great institution, had
fulfilled its purpose; the Paschal Lamb it pre
pared for and prefigured was the next day to be
slain. The same night saw the inauguration of a
new feast which embodies the fundamental truth
of Christianity, as the Passover embodied the
fundamental truth of Judaism.
The new feast is a memorial of the death of
Christ. "This do in remembrance of Me — for
My memorial." ' As Christianity is unique, so
are its ordinances. What human society, in any
age, ever instituted a feast to commemorate the
death of its founder ? Men celebrate with fes
tivity and rejoicing the birth of their heroes, their
accession to power, the date of the discoveries
by which they enriched the world. Sometimes,
indeed, the death is observed, but always as an
occasion of sorrow, oftentimes of wrath, never
with gladness. In other memorials, only those
who are living at a particular time or in a par
ticular country can take part in the erection of
1 Vid. Lev. xxiv. 7 Sep. for the same word.

Of Jesus to His Enemies 121
CHAP. XXVI. I-S6.]
the monument; all others can only gaze and ad
mire and envy. In the erection of the Christian
memorial every lover of the Lord, down to the
end of time, no matter in what age or land, can
have as intimate a part as the most favored apos
tle. To-day, after the lapse of eighteen hundred
years, the feast is observed as lovingly and rever
ently as ever.
But if it were only a memorial it would suffice
to look reverently on the emblems and meditate
on the truths they represent. It is more than a
memorial, it is a covenant. "This cup is the
new covenant in My blood, which is shed for
you." And so we must eat the bread and drink
the fruit of the vine. The covenants of bread
and blood — covenants entered into by eating and
drinking — were to an Oriental, expressions of a
relation of the most binding character. It sur
vives among us in the fact that we recognize
equality and friendship in their full degree only
with those with whom we eat. In all ages and
with all peoples, this is the symbol of a peculiar
relation. It is still more. The highest aim and purpose
of God is to bring us into communion with Him
self. Union with God, the dream of the Pan
theist, is the attainment of Christianity. So this
ordinance is a communion. " The cup of bless
ing which we bless, is it not the communion of
the blood of Christ? The bread which we
break, is it not the communion of the body of
Christ ? " The ordinance instituted on the eve of

122 Preparations for the Delivery [CHAP. XXVI. I-56.
the death of Christ is thus a commemoration, a
covenant, and a communion. It sets forth the
source, the sustentation, and the fullness of that
life which owes its existence and continuance to
the death of Christ. Christ for us, and Christ in
us, is its continual presentation.
Having sung praises, they go to Gethsemane.
Here is a scene which has no parallel in the re
corded life of Him who gave Himself for us.
Into any examination or analysis of that an
guish which forced our Lord to exclaim: "My
soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,"
we dare not presume to intrude. Sorrow is pro
verbially sacred; there is nothing in human life
whose character is so universally reverenced.
And as our Lord withdraws first from the apos
tles, then from the favored three, to pour His
sorrows into the ear of His Father unheard by
any human being, let no one intrude in any en
deavor to ascertain the contents of that bitter
cup. We stand afar off, with reverence for His
grief, listening with adoring wonder to the words
which He suffers to float to our ears, giving Him
all the love and gratitude which our hearts can
feel that He endured such griefs for us. O ! the
love of Christ which passeth knowledge. It was
the final contest in that great conflict which be
gan with what we style "the temptation," but
inconceivably more awful and trying. It was
the hour and the power of darkness. And we
can well imagine, Gethsemane was far more ter-
, rible than Calvary.

The Condemnation of Christ 123
CHAP. XXVI. I-56.]
THE CONDEMNATION OF CHRIST
We have had occasion to speak of the unique
ness of Christianity, how radically separate and
different it is from all religions. The same
uniqueness characterizes its history. The litera
ture of the world may be searched in vain for a
parallel. Nothing in human composition ap
proaches the absolutely white light of the account
of the death of Christ. "Then Pilate took Jesus
and scourged Him. And the soldiers platted a
crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and put
on Him a purple robe. And they kept coming
to Him and saying, ' Hail, King of the Jews,' and
struck Him with rods. . . . Then they took
Jesus and bearing for Himself the cross, He went
forth into the place called Place of a Skull, where
they crucified Him, and two others with Him,
one on each side, and Jesus in the midst." Could
there be anything more perfectly colorless ? One
is tempted to ask, how was it possible for the evan
gelists to refrain from every word expressing their
sense of the enormity of the deed they were record
ing ? How could they abstain from all expression
of wonder, or indignation, or condemnation ?
Think of another feature. In any detailed nar
rative of a death scene ever written except this,
the chief, not to say the sole, object of attention
is the dying man. What the spectators do or
say, is a matter of little moment. In the detailed
account by Matthew of the death of Christ, our
Lord utters but four words, and of these one is a

124 The Condemnation of Christ
[CHAP. XXVI. 1-56.
repetition: "Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani." Two
long chapters, the longest in the gospel, are filled
with what was done and said by Judas, and
Peter, and the high priest, and Pilate, and Pilate's
wife, and the centurion, and the Sanhedrin, and
the multitude. The reason is, the death of Christ
is unlike any other death. It is the centre of the
world's history, the explanation of all things. It
is the revelation of the heart of God and of the
heart of the world; and as God has His represent
ative here, so must all classes of the world have
their representatives. Within the shadow of
that cross there is nothing acted or uttered which
is not an expression of something vitally allied to
that appalling transaction. Men acted out only
the impulses of their hearts; none the less did
they utter eternal truths. The soldiers who
platted the crown of thorns knew nothing of
that sentence of sin which made thorns and
thistles its product and representation; they had
not the remotest idea that their fingers, as they
plied the thorns into the mock diadem, were ex
pressing symbolically the most important fact in
the world, crowning with sin's symbol Him who
was bearing the sins of the world. Every word
spoken around the cross attested the necessity of
that death. For while the cross is the power
of God unto salvation it is the proof of man's
desert of damnation. It is the revelation of
God's love to man, and the revelation of man's
hatred to God. It is man's condemnation and
deliverance.

The Condemnation of Christ 125
CHAP. XXVI. I-56.]
The first prominent actors brought before us
are Judas and Peter. We shrink from such as
sociation of these names; yet here they are,
and we cannot refrain from the study of their
likeness and difference. Both were apostles;
both sinned against Christ at a time and in a way
that has fastened their sin indelibly to their mem
ory ; both became conscious of their sin in a very
short time; both repented, and here the likeness
ends. Of the one, our Lord spoke the most aw
ful words ever applied to man: " It were good
for that man if he had not been born ; " the other
was honored by the Saviour to open the king
dom of heaven ; to fire the first gun of the cam
paign which shall never cease until the world ac
knowledges its allegiance to Christ; he was per
mitted to live for Him whom he denied and to
die for Him.
Matthew significantly says: "Lo, Judas, one
of the twelve." It must be one of the twelve.
No other could deliver Him up. It was only be
cause Judas had been admitted to the trusted
circle of disciples, to the " sanctuary of Christ's
devotions," only because he had accompanied
Jesus so many times to the place where He
was accustomed to pray with His disciples
that he could tell Christ's enemies where to find
Him. The sign by which Christ is designated to
His captors expresses the relation which Judas
held to the Lord. It is not the kiss on the cheek,
the sign of affection between equals, for this
would not have pointed out the leader, but the

126 The Condemnation of Christ [CHAP. XXVI. 59.
kiss on the hand, the customary token given by
the pupil saluting the teacher, the kiss employed
by Orientals to express respect, obligation, grati
tude. The appellation given by Christ, ' ' Friend, "
is sometimes supposed to express the feeling of
friendship; but this is not the word usually
translated "friend," and it does not convey the
least idea of friendship or affection. In the New
Testament it occurs but four times, all in this
gospel, and always has the idea of disapproval or
censure. It is applied to those who are the sub
ject of complaint in xi. 16, translated "fellows";
to the murmurer in xx. 13; to the man without
the wedding garment, xxii. 12, and to Judas in
this place. Judas approaches Christ, takes His
hand and kisses it effusively, for this is the mean
ing of the word in verse 49. Peter undertakes
to defend Christ with a sword. Christ reproves
him, telling him that kingdoms founded by vio
lence and sustained by physical force must nec
essarily come to their end in the same way.
With this, all the disciples forsake Him and flee.
They would have fought for Him and fallen with
Him, but if there is nothing for them but quietly
to suffer and die, their courage and affection fail.
Afraid to hold the session of the Sanhedrin by
day, lest the turbulent Galileans, exasperated by
the arrest of their prophet country-
Chap, xxvi. man, should excite a tumult among
59. the people, the chief priests, the
scribes and the elders, had been
summoned to the court of the high priest to

The Condemnation of Christ 127
CHAP. XXVI. 59.]
await the issue of the bargain with Judas. When
the traitor had performed his work, and Christ
had been delivered into the hands of the eccle
siastical authorities, the trial began. False wit
nesses came with their testimony, but to them
and their assertions Christ made no reply. Dis
putes about past sayings and doings are always
profitless; in this case they would be so espe
cially. For the death of Christ would have been
shorn of its significance had He been condemned
on the ground of what these witnesses testified.
If the rejection of Christ by the nation and by the
world is to be the sin in which are summed up
all other sins, if it is to hold such a relation to
man that it is at once the essence of guilt and the
ground of atonement, it must be because the na
tion and the world reject their creator and ruler.
He was God's representative and for that men
drove Him from the earth. He who hung on
the cross was God manifested in the flesh, and
therefore the crucifixion is both sin and atone
ment. Christ's claim to be the head of the na
tion, the fulfillment and purpose of all the Mosaic
institutions, His assertion of a nature which en
abled Him to say, "I and My Father are one,"
was the reason and the only reason why He was
put to death. If His Messiahship is accepted by
the people, if the Messianic prophecies all find
their fulfillment in Him, there is before the na
tion a calamity in the estimate of the rulers the
most astounding and deplorable. When the
high priest put Christ on oath as to His nature

128 The Condemnation of Christ [CHAP. xxvi. 59.
and office, our Lord, silent under the accusations
which the witnesses brought against Him,
promptly replies, "I am the Christ, the Son of
God; moreover, ye shall see the Son of Man sit
ting on the right hand of power and coming in
the clouds of heaven." On this they adjudge
Him worthy of death.
Christ gives His divine nature the place which
it occupies in His teachings because it is the ap
prehension of His divine nature that saves men.
We hear a great deal now about rediscovering
the human nature of Christ. It was not the rec
ognition of His human nature but of His divine,
which called forth the benediction of our Lord,
" Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, flesh and
blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father
who is in heaven." The gospel narrative of
the life and death of Christ cannot be understood
without the clear and constant recognition of
what it is in Christ which makes Him our Sav
iour, what it is in us that saves us, what it was
in Christ that made the Jews so hate Him that
they could not stop short of putting Him to
death, and what it is in human character that is
so manifested in the death of Christ that by that
death He condemned sin in the flesh; what that
unbelief in Christ is that makes it so great a sin
that the Holy Spirit in convicting the world of
sin passes by every other form of guilt and
fastens attention on this alone: "He shall con
vince the world of sin, because they believe not
in Me."

The Denial by Peter 129
CHAP. XXVI. 69.] THE DENIAL BY PETER
In closest connection with the account of the
condemnation of Christ is the story, so familiar
to all, of Peter's denial of his Mas-
Chap, xxvi. ter. Why is this told ? Surely not
6g. because the incident is an interest
ing one, nor because it furnishes a
warning against self-confidence. The transac
tions here are too solemn and critical for any
episode which has no vital connection with the
great events recorded.
The sacrifice of God's dear son is matter of the
deepest admiration and gratitude only on the
ground that the death of Christ is an absolute
necessity for the spiritual renovation of man. If
man's moral recovery is possible by any or all
other agencies, the death of Christ is without
excuse. Before Christ came, every means of
human improvement was tried. In other than
moral respects, man, intellectual, physical, aes
thetic, was developed in the highest degree.
The attainments of Greece, for example, are the
admiration and despair of all ages. But outside
of Judea, the knowledge of God had disappeared
from the earth, His worship was unknown, and
all over the world the nations were saturated
with the degradations and cruelties of idolatry.
Among other methods, a nation had been selected
to whom God specially revealed Himself. He
separated them from all other peoples, gave to
them laws and institutions which would fit them

130 The Denial by Peter [CHAP. XXVI. 69.
in the best manner to fulfill their destiny of mak
ing Him known; finally, for thirty years He
dwelt among them, and the end was, that while
the unclean spirit of idolatry was cast out from
the nation, seven spirits worse than the first
took possession, and the guilt and doom of this
people were worse than those of Sodom. Still
more, the incarnate Son of God had chosen
twelve men, had associated them with Himself
for three years, so that they had been brought
under the wisest teaching, the most perfect ex
ample, the holiest personal influence, and when
the final trial comes, they all break down, and
break down in the most deplorable way. Not to
dwell on the case of Judas and the other dis
ciples, Peter, the spokesman of the apostles, their
appointed representative, denies with cursing and
oaths all knowledge of Christ. The knowledge
of God which is the great end of God's dealings
with man, that knowledge which is eternal life,
has vanished from the earth in Jew and Gentile,
and now is denied by the man who speaks for
Christ's chosen disciples. Ah! it is more than
proven that it is not enough for man to have
Christ for him, that it is not enough to have
Christ with him, he must have Christ in him.
This can only be by Christ dying and being made
alive for us, and by our dying and being made
alive with Him, and so being made one with
Christ as He is one with the Father. We must
be able to say with Paul, "I was crucified with
Christ; I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,

The Denial by Peter 131
CHAP. XXVI. 69.]
and the life which I live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave
Himself for me." And this is true of the most
moral and upright man in the world. "If any
man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old
things have passed away ; behold, all things have
become new."
When Christ was exalted to the right hand of
God the Father, He received the Spirit that He
imparted to His followers. See what a differ
ence the reception of the Spirit made with Peter
and the rest of the disciples. Contrast their ti
midity and cowardice before the crucifixion with
their boldness and energy after the Day of Pente
cost. Behold the entire transformation! Self-
abnegation has taken the place of ambition; love
has displaced strife. In every act of life the
fruits of the Spirit are manifest. They count it
all joy to suffer for the dear name. They forsake
all that they have, and giving themselves without
reserve to the work of making Christ known,
after lives of self-denial, of dangers, suffering
and persecution, they welcome death by the
hands of those whom they have tried to save.
Christ in them the hope of glory has transformed
and transfigured them, making them shine as
lights in the world.
That pitiful cry of Peter, "I do not know
Him," is the cry of a lost world at the cross of
Christ. It was false as Peter meant it; it was
true, as were all the other words and actions
around the cross, in the truest of all senses.

132 Trial Before Pilate [CHAP. XXVII. 2.
TRIAL BEFORE PILATE
After the condemnation of Jesus by the San
hedrin, He is taken to Pilate. Whatever was the
cause of the persistent determina-
Chap. xxvii. tion of that body to have Christ
2. put to death by Roman law and
Roman method, the result was
that both Jew and Gentile joined in His cruci
fixion. His death was the sin of the world, and
it was necessary that the two great divisions of
mankind be manifest partakers in the guilt.
When questioned by the governor, Jesus
avowed Himself King of the Jews. We learn
from John's Gospel that the answer was ac
companied by so explicit a statement of the
nature of His kingdom that Pilate saw at once
the groundlessness of the accusation brought
by the Jews. Anxious to save Jesus from a fate
which He had done nothing to deserve, the per
plexed governor availed himself of the custom of
conciliating a conquered and restless nation by
releasing a political prisoner at their great na
tional festival. He gave them their choice be
tween a leader of a seditious insurrection, Bar
Abbas — son of a father — and the true Son of
the Father.1 Which do they prefer ? Both had
offered themselves as deliverers of the nation;
1 Bar means " son " ; Bar Jonah, son of Jonah, Bar Timeus,
son of Timeus. Abba is " father." If we may trust Origen,
the majority of manuscripts in his time read " Jesus Barabbas."
Meyer adopts this reading, as did Tischendorf in his earlier
editions.

Trial Before Pilate 133
CHAP. XXVII. II.]
the one from physical bondage by physical force,
the other from spiritual bondage by spiritual
methods. Which will the Jews accept, the false
son of the father or the true, the fleshly or the
spiritual ? It is the choice constantly set before
men between the life-giver and the robber ; be
tween the good Shepherd who gives His life for
the sheep that they may have it more abundantly,
and the thief who comes to steal and kill and
destroy. Foiled in this effort, Pilate is compelled to ask
that question of infinite importance, "What shall
I then do with Jesus ? " the question which meets
every man to whom Christ is offered. If Christ
is not accepted, no matter to what the man may
turn, whether to open and avowed sin, or to
some form of moral life, still the question of
what to do with Jesus remains. No attempt to
evade the necessity of decision will be success
ful. If Pilate assigns the prisoner to execution,
he cannot free himself from guilt by any denial
of responsibility or symbolic washing of hands.
It is the act not the words which determines the
character. Balaam may sing the sweetest song
of the coming blessedness of the people who are
the possession of Jehovah, may offer the prayer
which has been so often reechoed, "Let me die
the death of the righteous, and let my last end
be like His," but if he do not join the righteous in
life, he will be found at the last under the ban
ners of Moab, dying on the battlefield among the
enemies of Israel (Numbers xxiii. 10; Joshua xiii.

134 The Death of Christ [CHAP. XXVII. 36.
22). Men go down to perdition against their clear
convictions, their wishes, longings, knowledge,
prayers, because they do not say, " I will." They
go reluctantly, sorrowfully, holding back all the
time, yet going down because they will not act
in accordance with their knowledge and judg
ment. THE DEATH OF CHRIST
The sentence is spoken and Christ is delivered
to be crucified. Apparently Christ has been on
trial before Pilate, really Pilate has
Chap, xxvii. been on trial before Christ. The
36. verdict which condemned Christ
has long ago been reversed, He has
been acquitted and Pilate condemned, and in this
reversal have all men concurred. The present
estimate by the world of those who are brought
prominently before us in this scene of Christ's
trial and condemnation, shows us how true it is
that every man will finally be judged by his re
lation to Christ. Pilate and Herod and Judas,
widely different in other respects, are all con
signed to infamy because of their attitude toward
the Lord Jesus. They have come to shame and
everlasting contempt before the resurrection.
No parent now ever calls a child Judas, Herod,
Pilate. The names of John and Mary and those
of the obscure Galileans who most loved Christ,
are the choice names of Christendom. How
men treat Christ decides their position, and that
judgment will be universal and eternal.

The Death of Christ 135
CHAP. XXVII. 36.]
Pilate's sentence was carried into immediate
execution. Little did the actors in that tragedy
dream that they were taking a part in the central
act in the world's history; that men's eyes would
be fixed on the cross to the remotest ages. The
words then spoken were destined to resound
while the world stands; all that was said and
done was freighted with the fullest meaning.
The "Seven words of the Cross" have furnished
themes on which Christians have loved to medi
tate and preachers have delighted to dwell. The
import of these words will never be exhausted
however protracted our meditations or profound
our sermons. But the words of the cross are
more than seven. On Golgotha, the reverent
listener hears the voice of Christ, the voice of
God, the voice of man ; for the cross is the reve
lation of the deepest nature of man, of Christ, of
God. He that has an ear let him hear what each
of these speaks. If he hear not these, his ear is
useless. On the cross hangs God's Son and man's King,
the Son of God and the Son of man, God em
bodied in the perfect man. His assertion of these
relations condemned Him to death, and His
claims are not only denied, but mocked and de
rided. The robes of royalty, the crown of
thorns, the sceptre, the salutation, the bended
knee, the inscription on the cross as well as the
crucifixion itself give man's answer to the de
mand of Christ to be accepted as God's repre
sentative and man's King.

136 The Death of Christ [CHAP. XXVII. 36.
Why hangs He there ? Why is a life so re
splendent with the glories of heaven, so devoted
to the welfare of men, so innocent and undefiled,
cut short by violent hands? Why is such a
career made to close in derision and agony?
Ordinarily the death of a fellow-man in the per
fection and maturity of his manhood touches the
heart as does no other event. Why do the Jew
ish leaders, men high in religious and social po
sition, walk around the cross and laugh at the
dying groans of the sufferer, and jeer Him as He
writhes in agony? Why? It is the testimony
of human nature to its own moral character.
The answer of man to the declaration of the
Father, "This is My beloved Son," is "Come
down from the cross and we will believe Thee;
let God deliver Him, if He delights in Him."
We are often reproached for our belief in human
depravity. Listen to the testimony of the cross
on human nature in its relation to God. God
comes into the world and men refuse to obey
Him ; they put Him to death in company with
two malefactors, omitting no possible ingredient
of shame or pain.
Why hangs Christ there? Because only in
this way can men be saved. If He saves others,
He cannot save Himself. He is God's Son, come
to do the will of His Father; He must meet sin
at its worst and overcome it. He is bearing our
sins in His own body on the tree. Man, dead in
trespass and sins, will perish forever unless a
new life is imparted to him. There can be no

The Death of Christ 137
CHAP. XXVII. 36.]
life anywhere except through death. Our daily
lives are sustained only through the death of
whatever it is that ministers to our existence.
Christ imparts life to others by dying Himself.
And in the last analysis, holiness is consecration.
But as we listen, we hear a voice more wonder
ful than either of these, wonderful as they are.
Why is this cross erected ? The answer is that
wonderful verse in John's gospel, "God so loved
the world." " God's love for man sent our Lord
Jesus Christ to the cross." "I came down from
heaven," He says, "not to do My own will but
the will of Him that sent Me." We forget this,
but Christ never does. "Therefore doth My
Father love Me, because I lay down My life that
I might take it again." The scribes and Pharisees
complain of Christ because He receives sinners.
How does Christ justify Himself ? I fancy if we
undertook this, we would speak of the worth of
the soul, of the greatness of eternity, of the
blessedness of heaven, of the terrors of eternal
punishment. What does Christ say? Not one
word of all these: " I save sinners because God
does so love to have them saved." In the blessed
parable in which He defends His course, it is the
joy of the shepherd, of the owner, of the father;
that is the spring of all the joy of others. God
loves men, and if it be necessary for their salva
tion that Christ abandon heaven, He shall abandon
it. If it be necessary that Christ die, He shall die.
If it be necessary that in the hour of extremest
agony, the Father hide His face from Him, it shall

138 The Death of Christ [CHAP. XXVII. 36.
be done. "Herein is love; not that we loved
Him, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to
be a propitiation for our sins."
Sin, holiness, love; these are the words of the
cross. The demand and the promise in the cry,
"Come down from the cross and we will be
lieve Thee," is the world's cry and proffer now.
Men find no fault with Christ or His teachings so
far as human relative duties are affected. It is
the crucified Christ to whom they object. Admit
the necessity of His death, and you declare that
man has no power to save himself. And because
the Christian has seen the absolute necessity of
that sacrifice for his own salvation, and because
he has seen that the death of Christ is the le
gitimate consummation of Christ's self-sacrifice,
his continual cry is: "God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
The world makes another demand: " Let God
deliver Him now, if He delights in Him." The
only proof of God's love, and the only value of
divine relationship which the world recognizes,
is deliverance from suffering. Too many Chris
tians are bowing down to this mean and degrad
ing idol of material prosperity, and are basing
their defence of Christianity on its agency in pro
moting physical comfort. Books are written and
sermons preached to prove that Christianity has
advanced civilization, raised the price of real es
tate, removed the evils which afflict humanity.
To such persons the miracles evince nothing but

The Death of Christ 139
CHAP. XXVII. 36.]
a desire to remove bodily pain. They tell us that
godliness has promise of this life. Most true,
God be thanked! But what is the promise of
godliness ? Bank stock ? horses and carriages ?
real estate ? God flings these to the most worth
less of men. The promise of godliness is godliness
— salvation from sin, spiritual blessings in Christ
Jesus. Holiness has the promise of the life that
now is. As Peter says, God's divine power has
given us all things that pertain to life and godli
ness, precious and exceeding great promised
blessings, through which we have become par
takers of the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world.
The worst of the current theory is, that it com
pletely eliminates the love of God, making it
merely pity or compassion. God's love makes
us bear, not only the evils incident to a residence
in this sinful world, but all those sufferings which
are consequent on the presence of love and holi
ness in a world of sinners; the disciple is no
greater than his Lord, and we cannot escape the
evils which come now as they did in Christ's time
on an uncompromising righteousness in an evil
age. It is those who suffer with Him who shall
be glorified with Him. Christ's head was
crowned with thorns; shall our feet tread on
roses ?
Our Lord would not comply with the demands
of those who rejected Him. He would not go,
as His church should not go, to a sinful world for
instruction. When the hour came He yielded up

140 The Resurrection of Christ [CHAP. XXVIII. I.
His spirit to Him who gave it. The rent veil 0*
the temple declared the acceptance of the perfect
sacrifice that removed the barrier which sin had
erected between God and man, and opened the
way into the inner sanctuary. The quaking
earth and the rending rocks manifested the sym
pathy of nature with its expiring Lord. Death
is conquered by Christ's dying, the realm of the
grave is invaded and its trophies brought forth.
Death evokes a love which has not before been
shown. Affection takes courage, avows itself,
claims the body, puts it into a new tomb, and
sits down to watch it with weak faith but with
most tender and unconquerable love. The
enemies of Christ take precautions against any
removal of the body, but as in all such cases, the
wrath of man is made to praise God.
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
From the verdict of the earthly tribunals, Christ
appeals to the High Court of Heaven. His ap
peal is heard, the decision re-
Chap, xxviii. versed, an angel is sent to roll
1. back the door of the prison house
and bid the condemned go free.
Christ's first manifestation of Himself is in ac
cordance with the great principles of His future
work. Love revealed itself to love. The two
women who had the honor and unspeakable de
light of the first revelation of the risen Christ had
not faith enough to make them believe they
would see the risen Redeemer, but they had love

The Commission 141
CHAP. XXVIII. 16.]
enough to bring them in the first dawn of the
morning with their spices to anoint Him. They
wasted their treasures, but they saw the Lord.
It is not the correctness of our views, nor the
adaptedness of our plans that will win the divine
approval ; the love which prompts the act makes
the mistake a matter of no moment. At the be
ginning of this new life we hear the words so often
recurring in God's gracious dealings with man,
" Fear not." THE COMMISSION
On a Galilean mountain are spoken the last
words of Christ to the disciples. Matthew is the
gospel of the mountain. The
Chap, xxviii. great sections of Christ's teaching
16. start from the mountain-tops. On
the mountain He first proclaims
the kingdom, its nature, its characteristics, its
laws, its subjects. On the Mount of Trans
figuration is the first revelation of supernal glory
through death. On the Mount of Olives He as
sumes His place as the Son of David, and rides
into Jerusalem asserting His royal character and
claims. On the Mount of Olives again, He un
folds the panorama of the troublous times between
His ascension and His personal return. On the
Galilean mountain He declares His universal rule,
announces the commission, and encircles the dis
ciples with His promise, " Lo, I am with you
alway, even to the end of the age."
The Jewish Messiah has become the Saviour

142 The Commission
[CHAP. XXVIII. 16.
of the world; the most restricted religion has
been exchanged for the most comprehensive; the
earthly and temporal has given place to the
spiritual and eternal. And all has been so ac
complished in accordance with the principles in
the Old Testament and in nature on which God
has always acted, that our gospel recording this
most wonderful revolution known to human his
tory, ends as it begins with Jesus Immanuel, God
with us.

Synopsis of the Gospel According to
Matthew

Synopsis of the Gospel According to
Matthew
In this gospel the Kingdom of Righteousness
promised in the Old Testament is presented to
the Jews ; is rejected by them ; Christ rejects the
nation; founds the church.
Hence Matthew is the gospel of the Kingdom ;
the gospel of Righteousness; the gospel of Re
jection; the Jewish gospel. These characteris
tics determine the law of inclusion and exclu
sion. I. The King, Son of David, heir of the
throne; son of Abraham, heir of the promise;
His Jewish genealogy; His human nature; His
divine nature; His name, office, relation. Chap. I.
II. Presented to the Jews. To the heads of
the nation, civil and religious; the results to
Herod, the Sanhedrin, the Magi; to the birth
place of Christ, to the family into which He en
tered, to Christ. Chap. II.
III. The Kingdom offered to the nation. Its
approach announced by the herald; its begin
nings — Christ enters on His redemptive work;
on His contest with Satan ; on His public minis
try of teaching and healing. Chaps. III., IV.
The Kingdom portrayed; its righteousness,
subjects, king and laws. Chaps. V.-VIII.
»45

146 Synopsis of the Gospel
The Kingdom in promise and process, restor
ing man physically, mentally, spiritually; ten
miracles delivering from the corruption, paralysis,
fever of sin; from bondage to nature, evil spirits,
unforgiven sin; from death; from the blind,
dumb, demonized state which prevents the sight,
acknowledgment and reception of these bless
ings. Chaps. VIII., IX.
The Propagation of the Kingdom ; to the time
of Christ's death to the destruction of Jerusalem;
to the end of the dispensation. Chap. X.
The Reception of the Kingdom; misunder
stood ; perverted ; rejected ; accepted. Chap. XL
The Antagonism to the Kingdom ; fleshly ties
disrupted, and spiritual relation established.
Chap. XII.
Mysteries of the Kingdom set forth in parable,
miracle, plain statement, culminating in a decla
ration of the nature of Christ, of the nature and
office of the church, of the nature of redemption,
of the nature of Christianity and the presentation
of the Kingdom on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Chaps. XIII.-XVII. 8.
During the delay of this Kingdom, its power
(the epileptic boy) and its privilege (the half
shekel) are veiled; the duty of the subject of the
Kingdom is shown in His relation to sin ; to the
sinner; to the law of His conduct; to worldly
possessions. The rewards and the honors of
the Kingdom. Two blind men received sight.
Chaps. XIX., XX.
IV. Christ Publicly Assumes the Office and

According to Matthew 147
Work of the King; Makes a royal entry into
Jerusalem; cleanses the temple, blasts the fig-
tree; meets His opponents — unbelief, worldli
ness, rationalism, formalism — silences them ; pro
nounces their doom and departs from the temple.
He portrays the dangers and duties incident to
His coming again, and declares that the eternal
state of the nations shall be determined by their
relation to Him. Chaps. XXI.-XXV.
V. The Preparation for the Delivering up of
Christ. The anointing in the house of Simon the
Leper; the agreement of Judas Iscariot with the
chief priests; the institution of the communion;
the agony in Gethsemane. Chap. XXVI. 47.
VI. The trial, condemnation, crucifixion and
resurrection. The arrest; the trial before the
Sanhedrin; the denial by Peter; the testimony of
Judas; the trial before Pilate; the mocking by
the soldiers; the crucifixion; the accompanying
portents; the resurrection; the appearances of
Christ to the disciples; the meeting in Galilee;
the commission.

end

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