. '¦I give Heft iJSaote: 5tP5n> the Eternal Wo'rd, He that speaketh, not merely here by the prophets, but in the most absolute sense from the beginning PREFACE. and from eternity. To both these places in Isaiah,1 the Lord refers in Jno. xviii. 20 and viii. 25. The sublime and mysterious answer, in the latter passage particularly, to the Sii tis et; of the Jews, is only rightly understood when we regard the Lord as asserting Himself in the absolute iyd> el/u, ^pf 13^ to be the \a\mv, and as referring to His words, which all must hear. Oh that all those, who, like these Jews, are still for ever put ting questions, could understand and hear this answer, and all that the Truth sent from the Truth had to say and to judge con cerning them and the world. Had it not been too bold, I would fain have prefixed this title to my book, — The words of the Word. If, as one of the Fathers says, every act in the history of the Eternal Word incarnate, is itself Word and Doctrine — how great is the claim upon our attention, when we hear it said of Him : — He opened His mouth and spake ! There is deeper significance in any one word of the Lord Jesus, which He Himself said, (Acts xx. 35), than in all the sayings of the Apostles and Prophets. His Xoyoi are the most express outbeamings of the A.070?. But have we these words, just as He spoke them ? This is the question of modern criticism, which refuses to take for granted what should, however, be taken for granted by all who believe in a Revelation of the Son of, God ; — namely, that His words cannot have fallen to the ground, cannot have dropped and been lost through the sieve of erring human composition.8 Yes, we possess that which He spake ! Not indeed in the letter of the verba ipsissima, but through the mediating witness of the Evangelists, elevated in the Spirit. Yet are they truly and essen tially the ipsissima, as His teaching for the world and the Church. Thou shalt know them to be such, if the same Spirit under whose influence the Gospels are written, shall explain to thee and illustrate their letter. John, the fourth Evangelist, who adheres with the least tenacity of all to the literal, original expression, gives us nevertheless, as is manifest to every one, the words of the Word in their most spiritual and living reality. Each Evangelist 1 For the exposition of which, I may appeal to my " Isaiah, not Pseudo-Isaiah" (Barmen 1850.) 2 That, to borrow Hase's expression, a " supernatural preservation of these archives" must be classed among " those unknown propitious circumstances" which established the authority of the Gospels. ^ a * PREFACE. has his peculiar gift from the Lord, his own peculiar plan and aim in his Spirit-moved spirit ; but through the combination of all the Holy Ghost has so wrought out one wonderful scheme, that the whole of what these four Evangelists present to us as the utter ance of the Son of God incarnate, carries with it its own evi dence in its perfect harmony. Alas, that it should be said of us, sed nos non habemus aures, sicut Deus habet linguam — oh, that we could but read and hear ! We must assuredly read as men, what the Lord has humanly spoken, and consigned to human record. But to every man who reads as of the truth (John xviii. 37), it is given to hear and to see the glory of the incarnate, word : for in these Gospels His manifestation, His life, His teaching, are truly transfigured into an ever-living and life-giving Spirit-word. It was of necessity that the word should first be made flesh, but equally so that the flesh should become spirit again : and it is as such that the Word now speaks to the world. This is the essential principle of life ; from which — as an incorruptible seed — the Faith and the Church derive their being. Could we imagine — I speak as a fool — the Church of Christ utterly vanquished, and expelled from the face of the earth ; yet, if one of these four gospels — and let that one be even St Mark's — were to fall into the hands of conscientious and sincere readers, out of this that Church must of necessity, and assuredly would, spring up anew. The theological investigation and exposition even of the ortho dox has to this very day been far too much occupied with inqui sition into the tradition-threads which bind together the human and the divine, with the harmonizing of the histories and so forth ; leaving far too much in abeyance the task of penetrating to the substance — the words of the Lord Jesus. We are too much disposed, if not to ravel that which God has woven into its thread again, at least to pry too curiously into warp and woof, into its minutest fabric and texture. But just as this answers no good purpose, generally speaking, in the ktIctis, so will it not avail in the ypacpij which itself is a icaivi) KTt'crt?. It is because this is not sufficiently remembered, that while we have commen taries enough upon the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, &c, we have very few indeed upon the words of the Lord which they contain. The latest, most extravagant criticism of the Gospels,— which PREFACE. 5 to the many thousands of those who hang upon the lips of their Master, and live from day to day upon His words of eternal life, is nothing less than sheer madness ; — this frenzied infidelity is utterly unable now to hear, by reason of the raging of its fever- fantasies. Could these victims of delusion but begin to give heed to what He says to them, from his first MeTavoelTe to all that He signified in that great cry 'Eya> el/ai — then would the history itself in this light soon become clear and self-convincing. All right understanding of the origin of the Gospels, as far as we may understand it, must rest upon the living, believing, apprehen sion of their contents, which are unlike aught else in the world's history. Without the most profound exegesis of the words of our Lord, all the labour of the harmonists must be exposed to perpetual error. We find, for example, in the latest and best of them, that of Ebrard, an occasional separation of things essen tially united, or sometimes an incorrect identification of discourses uttered at various times.1 1 Once more, and more earnestly than ever, must we in the second edition protest against Rauh's method of defence against Baur (Deutsche Zeitschrift fiir Christi. Wiss. u. s. w.), which with its homceopathy is little likely to cure this criticism run mad. It is itself merely the same sophistry, though practised on the other side ; the same perverse method of dealing with the word — first rending it asunder, then patching it together again. Poor Synoptics ! how must they suffer for the honour of John ! " The confused and fortuitous synoptical narration — evidencing but faint traces of any connexion — broken threads !" Such is the style in which they are spoken of. " In helpless, perplexing nakedness" this thing or that appears in their account. A "perfectly misleading answer of the Lord, following some external sound, has wandered away" to the place where it now stands, and the Johannsean connexion is absolutely necessary in order to our " understanding, in any degree, the Synoptical narrative." " Things somewhat similar are easily enough joined together," and so many things are " drawn one to another, which have no internal connexion." We are told of " reminiscences, which have passed out of buried con troversies into the traditional form of gnomic sentences, or rather, these Sayings have been collected together out of traditions, true in particu lar cases, but widely dispersed." The " traces of connexion " which are allowed to exist, are just enough to bind together the whole into one mechanical conglomerate. Let me be laughed at or not, let men shrug their shoulders or not, I rebuke in the name of the Spirit of Truth that license of our youngest Licentiates which leads them so far astray as to censure and sit in judgment upon the Recorders on whose word the whole Church rests. Does not all ecclesiastical experience down (o 6 PREFACE. To my believing brethren, therefore, I would fain administer a useful hint :— Look well at what now lies under your shears ; take heed lest sometimes, if not often, you be tempted incautiously to clip it even as others do. And as to these others % Unhappy men, they will be likely enough to say concerning me and my book, if it happens to meet their eyes : — Here is one coming out ¦)f his dark corner again with all hardihood, who seems to know wthing of what we have long since made plain, who is bold enough and simple enough to put faith in the so-called discourses of our Lord — that marvellous medley which has been compounded under the inscriptions KaTa, MaT0aiov, Mdpicov, &c. (we know this and can explain it all, as if we had been there \) Yes, dear Sirs, you may indeed say this ; but what conflict it would cost your conscience to read for yourselves, let your conscience answer. Permit me, on the other hand, to tell you in all friendliness — There are those who have given patient and industrious atten tion to every thing that has sprung from the lofty wisdom of y our unbelief, but whose faith in the testimony of God's Spirit in Holy Writ, has not seldom found its most effectual invigora- tion and its most convincing argument in the self-contradictory folly of your books — the darkness of which has only served to make their own light the brighter and more precious. It will now be once more made evident that I, for my own insignificant part, belong to the number of those who, enjoying this very day demonstrate that precisely this mechanical conglomerate, these broken threads, these helpless, perplexed and naked relations and sayings which in themselves are so inexplicable, do most mightily take hold of the living and simple believer, and so inexhaustibly instruct him, that he needs no help of any of the theologians ? Therefore, we hold it better to say, that wherever there is any actual deviation from specific historical truth, any transposition, dislocation, &c. (of which instances do occur, but far, far less frequently than is now-a-days gene* rally supposed ; always occurring, moreover, in non-essentials, and never involving the slightest falsification)— the Holy Ghost, the true and only traditor of this tradition, has intentionally and significantly so ordered it, with that Wisdom which we, the learned, should be willing to learn from, since it is continually and most undoubtedly justified of those simple ones, its children. I may presume, that some little theoretical and scientific justification of it, also, for the learned, may be derived from my books, if their suggestions and views are admitted by unpre judiced minds. PREFACE. themselves the kernel, and inviting others to its enjoyment, will not allow themselves to be involved in the contests which are everywhere raging, about the mere shell ; who would rather sit as convivse than as investigating and over-curious coqui, at the Lord's well-spread table ; who rather take the medicine than chemically analyze it. Let others inspect the swaddling-clothes of Immanuel with even greater anxiety than the wise men of the East, my regard is fixed upon Himself, who is folded within them. But in saying this, I cannot forget that both swaddling-clothes and manger, though woven and built by sinful hands, were con secrated for Him and through Him. • That I, in like manner, hold fast the rigid inspiration of the Word in which we find and possess the Christ, yet not in the mechanical fashion of that orthodoxy which seems sometimes to gaze in blank amazement at Him who was born of woman, as if He had fallen from heaven in his swaddling-clothes ; — this I must finally and most earnestly beg every one to observe, on account of the persevering injustice with which I have been treated on this particular.1 * To construct a detailed historical harmony of the Gospels I regard as a thing impossible, inasmuch as the testimony of the Spirit leaves behind and transcends the mere common and subor dinate historical truth ; and has something far better to teach us than merely when and wherej and with what relations one to another, this and that was spoken or done. Who ever asks with such fond pertinacity about the date of any saying of Plato or Goethe ? But to acknowledge this, and in consequence to concede willingly to sound criticism more than they at any cost are willing to do, is certainly a better defence against that pseudo- criticism which now rushes in to the assault, laboriously seeking out untruthfulnesses, in that which as to all essentials is pure truth itself, and contains not a single iota of that which is actually false. Ingeniously and diligently to investigate that historical element of which we have no record, may, in profane literature, be a blameless pastime of learned curiosity ; but to neglect and perplex that which is given us in Holy Writ through such bye- 1 That unjust treatment still continues — eight years after this was first written. Probably I may be able to exhibit, after a while, more clearly, in what way my rigid and yet not mechanical view of Inspiration is on either hand distinguished from the old and the new doctrine. PREFACE. play of inquisitiveness, must ever be a perverted Trdpepyov where man ought earnestly to seek what he has to do. So also while adjusting and arranging the minute specialities which are before us, to sacrifice the contemplation and ever-growing knowledge of those great momentous matters which are plainly revealed, and thus with the best intention through too much labour upon the shell, to neglect to taste, or to be diverted from enjoying the kernel, is scarcely less a perversion than that. There is for thoughtful criticism an un controverted and real remainder in which we have ample scope ; so ample, that our very reason requires, and much more our Faith, that we should not adven ture upon further subtle investigations until that which we have — I do not say is fixed upon its sure external foundations, for it is given to us for a higher purpose than that but— has passed into our whole perception and life. Seek we, in this matter also, the kingdom of God and His righteousness, so shall the needful critical knowledge be added unto, us ; and our position with relation to the Great Fact of Eedemption in Christ be more like that of the Apostles. That Jesus of Nazareth, as the Son of God come in the flesh, did, in His generation, so live, so teach, so suffer, so die, so rise again, as the four Evangelists with all their differences unite perfectly in relating, is a truth, attested to be the most certain of all certain truths by the whole history of the world before Him and since, by Israel's permanence among the nations, as well as that of Christianity itself. The entire mystery of all history finds in this its centre and only solution. Similarly the longing, and questioning, and seeking of every man's inner spirit, finds here its simple fulfilment and answer, — here, where all the lines so wonderfully converge, and every thing significantly tells us that the Revelation of the Divine penetrates all human indivi duality. Simply to accept this is no false simplicity but the highest wisdom, which reverently hearkening in the obedience of faith, to the Eternal Wisdom, is rewarded by the right perception of the Truth which is unto salvation. From this point of view it appears to be in most cases alto gether a matter of indifference, whether this or that was spoken and done here or elsewhere. Wherever it is matter of import ance, the Providence of God has ordered that it shall be authen- PREFACE. tically plain before us, and be easily found by that modest and earnestly-seeking investigation, for which in His condescensio n scope has been left. But, otherwise, we should thankfully receive what through God's grace is written for us, remembering that the true meaning, which the Eternal Wisdom calls us to seek, lies rather in the how it is written than in the how it took place. The spirit and design of this exposition is purely and properly exegetical; and all who, like myself, adhere firmly to this, may be justified in making it their glory. To be inveighed against by enemies, and blamed by friends, for reading and understanding the Old Testament as Christ and His Apostles read and understood it, is an honour for which one may meekly thank his God. When Theology shall direct its aim to that point where "Prophecy and Fulfilment *' meet together and are united in their interpre tation (more entirely and firmly than in Hofmann' s book, which does not fulfil the sounding prophecy of its title) ; then will it find no more reason to blame any simple apostolical "va irXi]- pasdfi, or any such reading of the ancient Scripture, as those of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But to be rebuked and set aside, as if acting upon one's own caprice and imposing the meaning instead of expounding, it when one only aims to let the King of Truth speak, as He is pleased to speak with evidence which breaks through all obscurity and concealment : to be rebuked for this, that one would rather take to his ears and to his heart the wonderful words of the Eternal Word in all their immediate power as they are uttered and beam forth from Himself, instead "of their so much prized translation into the poor and narrow language of man, with all the concomitant perversions, and end less disputations (through which process of so-called exposi tion the very essence of the text is ofttimes lost) : — to be blamed for this would be indeed a most grievous affliction, and yet one must be prepared for it. That discussions and treatises concerning the recognition of the one object of Exegesis should be exceedingly in vogue among those to whom that all-holy object as exhibited in the Gospels is not yet established as such, is as natural as it is use ful. Let every man labour according to his call. It is quite necessary, indeed, that the settlement of the object of Faith — 10 PREFACE. "here speaks the Son of God, who preserves and illustrates to us through His Spirit, all that He spoke in the flesh " —should precede the exposition of those sayings as His. Then only when this criticism has reached its positive goal, does Exegesis properly begin. But we find naturally enough among those who take the other position with respect to the Word, a system of compromise with doubt, through which even orthodox men sometimes are led to deny the Faith in particulars which they acknowledge on the whole, and to mix matters with their expo sition, which have no more relation to it than philosophical prolegomena on the being and attributes of God would have to the Lord's Prayer ; and then to speak upon the Word and round about the Word, in a spirit of confused and undecided half rejec tion and half acceptance of its contents. But it is natural enough, on the other hand, that we should decline to term this Exegesis, which speaks out of the Word which is given to us. Our exegetical stand-point is not that of seeking and finding, still less that of missing here and rejecting there : but that of having. The great 122H °^ tne revelation of God in the flesh, of the spirit in the letter, has become to us of all certainties the most certain. Let us be permitted on our part, while so much license is being given, to speak as we believe and because we believe ; out of the Word, not round about it ; according to its own peculiar system, not according to the system of any Science, Theology, or Philosophy, nor of any dogmatic or confession ; not translating it into any heterogeneous form of speech or of thought, and not raising again upon every point the discussion of the possession of our sure and certain foundation. Nor let it be thought unbecoming, that in order to such hearing and accep tance, we offer with all solemnity what should be heard and received by the entire man. All sound exposition of the Divine word of salvation must, at least, have a hortatory element, for that Word itself is hortatory throughout : in these pages there is not the smallest paragraph which simply ministers food to our critical curi osity. Nothing seems to us more unnatural than a certain dead, dry handling of the Word of life — never speaking from the heart to the heart — which is called the " purely scientific." But just in this manner does our falsely-boasted Science in its latest fashions — which, after all, are more or less scanty and pitiful, with their PREFACE. 11 " atio-tk" and their " Jahve" — run along its course side by side with the living Confession of the Lord in the Faith of His church. The Bible has never failed, since it was given, to speak for itself without the assistance of the learned ; and it produces in its believers a believing apprehension of itself, without which it would long ago have gone the way of all waste paper.] In its application to preaching use in the Church, it has ever preserved its living power, and ever will : — there is the Exegesis of the Spirit at home. If the mere Professor (who sits so comfortably upon his master's chair, whereas he ought to feel himself obliged to stand in the pulpit before " the Established Church" [sic.J of the only Master and Lord) cannot use his wisdom in preaching, nor minister therewith to those who do preach, then is that very fact the most decisive testimony against such wisdom.1 For the Bible is not, once and for all, a mere old document for the learned, but a text for the preacher to the Church and the world, ever and inexhaustibly new. Here do those emanationes scriptwrce, which Bacon referred to, flow freely forth ; not in the wranglings of commentaries, whose Mischna and Gemara confound and ob scure the student with the text itself, so that the word, before it can be read, is utterly prevented from speaking by its own ex position. I have not, as already said, neglected commentaries, whether faithful or heterodox ; but I have, with still more diligence, for now about thirty years, sought out, collected, and put to the most living use in my own heart and ministry, the immediate emana tions of the living Word. I avow publicly before God and the world that all the theology and criticism of the age, whether infidel, or one-fourth, one-half, three-parts orthodox, has since then only served to strengthen and confirm me in my joyful boast : — I know in whom I believe. I know that what I read and possess in the Word will remain when the world passes away ; and that its slightest sentence will prove a better dying pillow 1 " A minister who for many long years has drawn edification from the Word of God for his people, may well have sometimes a stray thought, of which a Professor of Theology need not be ashamed" — so says Theremin in his Evening-hours, with significant irony. I will be more bold and severe, and maintain, that the Professor of Exegesis often puts forth notions at which the preacher instructed in the living use of Scripture may blush. 12 PREFACE. than all else that man could conceive or possess. 1 know that to interpret to the world the words of the Lord Jesus is the loftiest task of human teaching or writing. The Lord is my witness that I approached it, in the publication of this book, with solemn diffidence, being deeply conscious that here and there error might too probably have intruded. Much even now may have escaped my most conscientious revision, which found (I must confess) little to retract ; but these " Discourses of the Lord Jesus" have, as a whole, since then received the legitima tion of a large circle of the faithful, whose acknowledgments in many ways rendered, of the grace and truth which they contain, I can thankfully lay at the Lord's feet. In his name, then, let this book once more go forth, and let all men everywhere, who cannot accord with what they deem my too rigid adherence to the written Word, hear once more a testi mony, which, thank God, is still unchanged : — I read the canoni cal text of the Bible as written through the Holy Ghost ; but I so read it, not because I have framed for myself beforehand any inspiration dogma, or have devoted myself as a bond-slave to the old dogmatic ; but because this Word approves itself with ever- increasing force as inspired to my reason, which, though not indeed sound, is through the virtue of that Word daily recover ing soundness. It is because this living Word in a thousand ways has directed and is ever directing my inner being, with all its intelligence, thought, and will, that I have subjected to it the freedom of my whole existence. The great and fundamental deficiency of nearly all learned exegesis, with which mine must for ever differ, is its misappre hension of the depth and fulness of meaning which, in accordance with its higher nature, necessarily belongs to every word of the Spirit. Though believed to be the Word of God, it is treated superficially and on principles of partial and one-sided deduction, just as if it were the word of man. In the endeavour to under stand it that depth is not explored where, from the one root of the " sensus simplex," the richest fulness of references spring up and ramify in such a manner, that what upon the ground and territory of its immediate historical connexion, presents one definitely apprehended truth as the kernel of its meaning, does nevertheless expand itself into an inexhaustible variety of senses PREFACE. 13 for the teaching of the world in all ages, and especially in the Church,, where the Holy Spirit Himself continues to unfold His germinal word even to the end of the days. While this applies to every word of the Spirit in its several measure, to the Words of the Word, it applies without measure, tp an extent which eternity only will disclose ! Many of Christ's utterances make upon the most obtuse mind the overpowering impression of a mysterious, superabounding amplitude of meaning. If others, even the most part of them, appear in their slight drapery of pro verbial, rabbinical, parabolical forms of language so humanly simple ; yet approach them closely, contemplate them in their ever new applications to various times, and they will be so trans figured before you, that you will cease to deem it incomprehen sible that the Church, through the process of centuries of reading and preaching, has never grown weary of them, orthat this Word, in its unchangeable might, has triumphantly lived down all the fleeting words of men. If all that enlightened preachers have found for their preaching, or believing readers have found for their edification, in any one parable or any one single ecclesias tical Pericope, could be collected and comprised in fit words — that would be the entire Exegesis — so far as this might be possible before the words in futurity shall unfold perfectly its own yet more perfect meaning. In the words of Christ all the scattered and intersecting rays of truth extant in humanity are collected and blended into the full and perfect light of day. 'Eya> tt)v aXijdeiav Xeyco, iya> elfit rj aktfdeia — He cries, standing in the midst of Israel, and in the centre, therefore, of all nations. The preparatory, pro phetic Word, finds its end and goal in the Word of Christ : the apostolical word rests upon Him as its foundation, and is in Him already in its rudiments performed. To grasp and illustrate in all their significance the entire relations of His perfect Revela tion, — to Judaism, such as it was when the Lord came, com pounded of the truth of God and man's inventions ; — and to the elements of truth scattered in Heathenism which He con firmed, as well as to all the errors of the Gentileswhich He con demned, — is the right Province of sound Theological Science, True Philosophy, that is, the self-consciousness of humanity and its history, can only reach its perfection through a profound un- 14 PREFACE. derstanding of these. For Christianity, or to speak more correctly Christ, is not indeed that Deus ex machina which inspires the false speculation of historical inquiry with so much affected horror : but that which old Hippocrates with all his art- was after all constrained to do homage to (at the close of his irepl leprj'i voaov), as the point to which all the eminent in Science come back, though without at first understanding what he meant, — that irdvTa 6eia ko.1 avdpcairtva nrdvTa, finds its full realization only in Him, who is the Godman ; whose ffinjrtQ (Mic. v. 1) according to His humanity mount upwards to Adam, as accord ing to His divinity they go up to the bosom of the Father. The Son of God enters into history as the Son of man ; and all his tory has been made by the Finger of God to prepare for Him, and to aspire towards Him. But to embrace this wider field in our comprehension, which indeed before the fulfilment of the mystery of God and the second revelation of all the secrets of that which we too readily dignify with the name of " history," can only approximately be done, is not the more immediate design of exegesis in its stricter sense ; although this alone will ultimately set the seal of completeness upon the interpretation of the entire manifestation of Christ, and more especially of His Word. , In the mean time true exposition suffers ' the light which is concentrated in the sun of personal truth to shine immediately upon it, and understands Matt. iv. 17 with out the help of any rabbinical Qi)2ffi>n JTD^fij as also Matt. xxviii. 19. Jno. xvi. 13 to 15, without the l^ip Qlfc$ THN and riajN yi}% 0pB3>4 yip) of tne Cabala, and without the Pia- tonic Trias. Hearkening with open ears, it immediately attests that only which Christ testifies : every man can then, according to his ability, go forth from Christ to understand the world and history, and returning back again find rest in him. Let this be understood as spoken in explanation to those, who find wanting in our book the usual derivations into Christianity from its connexion with the teachings of the age. We deny not that connexion, but we much prefer to regard the derivation as pro ceeding in the opposite direction, not from the age, but into it. Let the word of Christ explain itself. This is and must ever be a matter of fundamental importance, and we would fain hope PREFACE. 1 5 at least to assist many a reader to gain this central point for its understanding. But that for sinful man with his infirm reason, there is now no other understanding of divine things than that of Faith, in the sense of the scholastic Fides prseeedit intelleetum, and of the Pauline alj^/jutKorrl^eiv irav vorj/jta et? 1-771/ vwaKorfv tov XpicrTov, so that the private judgment must submit itself to the heart's experience through faith — let him dispute either with God or the devil who is inclined to do so ; let him contend against it in his Edom-wisdom who has a mind to be dashed to pieces by this stone of stumbling. To show that on the other hand faith also has- an ever-increasing understanding of its own, and need not be abashed before any pseudo-reason whatever, (which, indeed, it alone can help out of its irpuiTov \jrevBo<; into the yivwo-Keiv Trjv akrjdeiav), is the proud design of this little contri bution of ours — a design which, in the name of the Most Lowly, known to heaven and earth, and in opposition to all the proud, we dare openly to avow. But as to' those whobelieve in the Lord, and yet through a pernicious pseudo-science, either cannot or will not bow to that miracle of the Holy Ghost — the sure transmis sion of His life and words in the Gospels, which are the central word of the whole invisible Scripture, may the Spirit of Truth bear more and more convincingly His own witness to His own testimony, which tolerates no correction of man. They are but hints, after all, which are now offered — with all their diffuseness they are nothing more. For the author is deeply conscious that upon no one single word has he done more than very partially draw out that fulness of meaning, which is vaster than the ocean and deeper than the abyss. Yet it may be hoped that the reader will find many things that will abide with him, and bear to be further worked out. The apology which in the first edition stood here for the imperfect form and presentation of the work on account of little and fragmentary leisure, may be repeated, as far at least as concerns the first part ; for this second edition goes forth amid the duties of a very unpro- picious official situation. Yet have I, as it will be seen, done my best to review, revise, and to supplement the whole, with especial reference to what has appeared since or was overlooked at first, as far as this could be done without too much altering or enlarging the book. 16 PREFACE. To those of my dear readers who call the Lord Jesus their Lord in faith, 1 give my brotherly greeting. All others may the Lord Himself greet at the outset with His own most solemn words, words which blend His loving-kindness with their severity : — 'Eav yap fii) irio-TevcrnTe, oti, eyco ii/ii, dirodavelcrOe iv Tat? dp,apTiai'i v/awv. Do they still ask, Si) Tt? el ; there is both answer and advice in his reply : — Tr/v dpxhv o, ti Kal XaXw ifuv. Hear these' His words to you, so shall you apprehend who He is, and what you are, and further learn to cry — Lord to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God ; that thou art indeed Christ, the Saviour of the world. i 17 ) THE FIRST WORDS. Not, indeed, absolutely the first. The words of that most marvellous, most holy childhood, in which the Divinity, gradually beaming already through the veil of the purest, most lovely humanity, comes forth from its profoundest mystery into mani festation, an ever-continuous birth of the Eternal Spirit into the Human Spirit, the human soul ; — who could comprehend, and retain, and record? Joseph stood at reverent distance, Mary felt and anticipated all that -the purest, most simple faith was capable of — and yet but little. The angels more remotely* learned the wisdom of God, while they worshipped before the swaddling-clothes in which the Lord, who should bruise the ser pent's head, first moves. Satan began to question and make the experiment whether he has nothing in this One too^ and could not understand this new thing. The Mighty One grew up se cretly into the consciousness and possession of His inherited dig nity—secretly even, at first, to Himself. Just as Christ first fully understood the development of his youth, when He looked back upon it from His manhood, after he had come to the full know ledge of Himself ; in like manner will it be vouchsafed to His Church, arrived at maturity, to understand the first earthly history of her Lord, which is reserved for her heavenly study. For nothing befel Him, which was not to be fully and perfectly known. Then will Mary remember and relate all. But for the time that now is, we have the mature Christ "in His word, fulfil- ing His office among us. One word of the Child we have recorded for us, as a note and witness of the hidden portion of His growth and development : — that one word of great moment, in which his relf-recognition first distinctively breaks forth from *2 18 THE FIRST WORDS. the depths of His childhood's unconsciousness. Thus it is the last peculiar word of His childhood, but at the same time, the First, which the Son of the Father speaks. In this we find much, here below, to meditate and observe upon — both as to what preceded and what followed it — as far, that is, as we may now understand it. It was entrusted by Mary's lips for record to St Luke, whose gospel in its two first chapters already goes beyond St Matthew and St Mark, reaching forth towards St John's introduction concerning the Word made flesh. THE FIRST WORDS TO HIS PARENTS CONCERNING; HIS FATHER. (Luke ii. 49.) Solitary floweret out of the wonderful enclosed garden of the thirty years, plucked precisely there, where the swollen bud, at a distinctive crisis, bursts into flower. To mark that, is as suredly the design and the meaning of this record. The child Jesus sought to know Himself, and His whole life of childhood was this seeking : here He begins to find out His own mystery, and it is not merely a first word to His parents and to us, but also a first word of the Eternal Spirit in the human spirit of the person of the God man. This is attested; in ver. 50, which signifies that this was the first " My Father" which had fallen from the lips of the child. The history connected with this word must be referred, to, in order to its being rightly understood. It is pre-eminently objec tive, simply traces the occurrences- as they transpire, and thus says in the best manner, and exhibits most lucidly, what on this occasion was to be said and exhibited. It is not even mentioned at all at the outset that His parents took the ooy, Jesus with them to Jerusalem ; yet there is a latent proof in the " twelve years," as indeed in the whole narrative, that this was the first time. Scripture is very sparing of words, where the right reader already catches the right meaning. We learn from other/ sources, that the youth of Israel in that period were reputed rTJifln XEV A11 tnings from his circumcision onwards proceed in the ordinary course with this extraordinary child. LUKE II. 49. 19 St Luke simply relates that the child Jesus remained behind, without imputmg blame to the parents or vindicating Him : the sequel sufficiently explains all. They were justified in leaving the youth to his own discretion in Jerusalem, as they had often done elsewhere ; and supposed quite innocently, that He would be found in his own place in the company: — their error lay not in this. But that the youth wholly absorbed by the Temple and all that was to be seen and heard there, would give his thoughts to nothmg else, that He now would belong to it, they considered not before, nor even when it should have been obvious to them, upon their seeking Him. Hence we' may again collect that it was both for Him and for them the first time. The mistaken idea that Jesus taught, contrary to the becoming order of human life generally, and much more of his lowly life, is refuted by ver. 46. He sat as a learner, hearing those who taught and asking them questions.1 Strictly, indeed, and properly, asking, as one who as yet knew not, but whose progress and learning went on into ever-increas ing wisdom, vers. 40—52. His questions were the pure light- questions of innocence and truth, which keenly and deeply penetrated into the confused errors of the Rabbinical teaching. Rightly to question is the highest wisdom which the learner, as such, can possess. For one genuine question of him who seeks in the right direction already contains more realized truth than a thousand disjointed answers of the false wisdom of books and words. Thus does the galilsean youth in His Divine-human simplicity confound the Masters in Israel sitting in the loftiest chairs of the erudition of' the age, and the seat of the learner predicts the future throne of the teacher.3 His light shines forth upon the world now at the first with such simple convincingness, that many of those who were susceptible were astonished at the understanding displayed in His questions, and in the answers which He gave when, as would naturally enough follow, He was ques- 1 Not as Sepp, (Life of Christ) supposes that a chair of instruction had been instantly given Him in the midst of the Teachers, in order to re solve questions and to propose them. 2 " To answer children is indeed an examen rigorosum," says Hamann. But there is herein foreshadowed the future wisdom of Jesus, as Hamann says again : " He who will stop the mouths of scribes and sophists, must— know how to put questions" (Edition of Roth ii. 424.) u 20 THE FIRST WORDS. tioned in return. At least all who gave heed to Him — which many who were scandalised by Him might not as yet, strictly speaking, be disposed to do. Jesus brings with him a knowledge and understanding of the written Word of God derived from the school of home : He finds this to some extent reproduced in Jerusalem, but only as falsified and overlaid by the errors of human teaching. This contradic tion, which at the very first so glaringly manifests itself, stirs mightily his truth-seeking spirit. He had innocently expected to receive from the Masters in the house of God the full and much desired for answer to his accumulated questions, and nothing but truth and wisdom ; but he finds it otherwise, and detects the disparity by that sense of truth which from the beginning recoiled from every error. He could already have taught, but it enters not His mind that He could, He rather asks questions. And what questions, did we but know them ! Many a preinti- mation we may suppose, of his after manner of asking — How is it written, then, in this or in that Scripture 1 Thus by Holy Writ he presses hard upon the precepts of man, even as babes and sucklings1 have done by his Spirit in all ages since ; and thus without designing it, or being even conscious of doing so, He opens out the meaning of Scripture. The main subject of their communications is the Messiah and His kingdom : this theme arouses most fully the ready presentiment with which He came there, and in the course of this questioning, which is but the ask ing after Himself, he finds that great answer which the Spirit alone could give Him, He makes the discovery of Himself, in the first consciousness, not yet mature but now truly commencing — lam He ! This He conceals, in deep and pure humility, from the astonished ones around Him ; but this first reproof of His parents, now least expected, extorts from its profoundest sanctuary, this great utterance. It was the first reproof which He received. They had all along ad-dressed Him as " child" with many a direction and admoni tion, but had never found anything to reprove. The foster-father 1 Hence the Rabbins themselves know, that the Word of God out of the mouth of childhood is to be received as from the mouth' of the Sanhedrim, of Moses, yea of the Blessed God Himself. Bammidbar rabba, 14. luke ii. 49. 27 even now remains standing, as ever, at reverent distance ; the mother alone ventures with a mother's right to speak, yet at the same time in the father's name. She only, indeed, ventures upon a question appealing to His tested integrity as" a child, as if she would say : — What thou hast now done, I understand not for the first time ! Done to us, — this gave an unanswerable pathos to her question ; for He had never given them pain before. Thy father — thus had Joseph till now been spoken of. Never, indeed, had Mary's lips as yet been bold to say to the " Son of the Highest" (Lu. i. 32) concerning the Most High : — Thy Father ! Yet are her words — not we, thy parents, but, Thy father and I — a most exquisitely delicate expression of that sacred secret which had almost faded away in her soul, but the consciousness of which is already prepared to anticipate the great Word which her son is about to utter. And He said unto them : How is it that ye sought me ! Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business ? Instead of acknowledging any error or uttering any regret for their sorrow and anxiety, He gives them a kind and earnest lesson, though without appearing to do so, concerning their whole parental rela tion, especially in time past. There are two counter-questions in answer to the two questions of His mother. First of all, He. puts another wherefore against hers, as He becomes conscious ot the feeling with which they had sought Him. It had been so natural to Him to be and to abide where He was, that He had not thought of their seeking Him at all ; and shows that He regards it ' as quite needless, at least to seek Him sorrowing in grief and anxiety, as if it were possible for Him to be in wrong or in danger. The reproof is thus given back, and in such a way, that the blame (as is too often the case, alas, in the human education of children of sin) is reflected upon the parents.1 But He speaks without any design to shame or correct them; He inno cently asks the question of His parents, as He had done before of the doctors ; and all the shame lay in the circumstance itself. i Joseph and Mary had scarcely been quite free from such blame in the bringing up of the holy child. " They often treated him as only their child, and probably afflicted Him many times by an inappropriate exer cise of their parental authority.'' Roos, Hist, of the Life of Jesus Christ. New edition. 22 THE FIRST WORDS. Incomparably and inconceivably artless, as elevated as it is child like, is that Wist ye not ? That which He here now, while He utters it, begins for the first time to conceive and understand clearly, becomes at the same time so natural to Him, that it is as if He had ever known it, as if it could not be otherwise than it was, as if it must be equally self-explained to every one else. Mary and Joseph assuredly knew who the.child of their charge was. But so naturally had the human side of His development proceeded before their eyes, and so accustomed had they been to this alone, as time passed on, that they may well have sometimes nearly lost sight of that which was Higher and Peculiar in Him. Even now, when they were reminded of it by this impressive cir cumstance, they do not rise above their mere human ideas. And this was their fault : not that they for a while trusted Him, un- cared for, out of their own hands, and not that they at first sup posed that He would re-appear in His right place, but that after wards, when they found it otherwise, they could sorrowing seek Him in any other than that which was His right place. The opposition between His own " My Father" and Mary's " thy father," referring to Joseph, is very distinct. In this de signedly spoken and deeply pondered expression, lies the deep significance of this whole Word. No human lips had ever hitherto pronounced it, for those approximations to it in the Old Testa ment and in the Apocrypha1 are clearly to be distinguished from this My Father. Here already, as ever afterwards, only My Father — never conjoined with us, Our Father ! This My deepens into a most exclusive, personal appropriation, when the Son of the Highest thus responds to His parents : — Ye — sought Me ! Wist ye not that / — % The great truth rises before Him out of Joseph's name of father, that His own true Father is He, whom no one in Israel had ever addressed by that name, and Himself never till now : He, in whose house and Temple He now stands.8 1 Isa. lxiii. ; Mal. ii. 10; Wisd. xiv. 3; Eccles. xxiii. 1, not so much in the sense of a personal relation, as in that which is indicated by Deut. xxxii. 6 ; viii. 5 ; Ps. ciii. 13. 2 With this first word, which was spoken, withal, in the presence of the Doctors of Israel, Konig (Incarnation p. 305) combines that last one also spoken to them, Matt. xxii. 42. From beginning to end Jesus thus sets aside the paternity of Joseph, and testifies His own conscious ness of a supernatural Origin. luke ii. 49. 23 Yet He does not simply say, in my Father's house, but accord ing to the more extensive and undefined ev tok of the Greek, in my Father's matters. The Spirit in the Youth speaks already in the after manner of the Man, — with profound meaning in concise expression. The first and most obvious meaning refers certainly to the place, the House, namely, where they should at once have sought Him, or supposed Him to be, rather, without seeking Him at all ; but when we thoughtfully penetrate through the surface to the heart of the expression, we find much more than this included in it. And the next sense is that of a conclusive justification of His remaining behind in the temple without re ference to His parents' knowledge and permission: — in my Father's will, by His guidance and inward direction. WTien hitherto any specific objection in His mind, conceived rather as a presentiment, might have come into collision with the parental will or the ordinary subordination of childhood, He had subjected and denied Himself; but now, His full age commencing, this also must begin to cease, and from this time forward they must, as He now shows it by a virtual injunction to be His will, leave Him without any further, guidance of theirs, knowing by this token that he is about His Father's business. But this emancipa tion from His earthly parents takes place only as springing from a most firm adherence to His heavenly Father. To be in any thing (sein in etwas), as a proverbial expression among men, denotes the occupation of the whole life in it, the being wholly given up to it. Viewed thus, it gives a yet further answer, how it came to pass that He /remained behind, and is a disclosure of the most secret self-justifying reason of the circumstance: — i" thought of nothing else, it was my meat, the instinctive aim and impulse of my being, that higher law within me, by obeying which I was not disobedient to you, — I must I Here already is the germ of that sacred must, which the Lord so often utters in the subsequent way of His obedience. The contrary among other children might have been more or less marked: — dissipating attention to the wonders of the great city, visitations among friends and acquaintances, thoughts about the journey and the return. But both the thoughts and the actions of the Holy Child were entirely absorbed and wrapped up in this one thing. Thus, as von Gerlach observes, this first utterance is even thus 24 THE FIRST WORDS. early " a word of self-renunciation, of self-sacrificing surrender to God, in holy zeal for Him and His House." Again, if we yet deeper penetrate into the meaning of this Word in relation to the occurrence to which it refers, the ques tion arises, what drew and impelled Him as the youth, for such as yet He was, to the Father ? They found Him occupied in learning and asking questions in the place where God's ivord was to be learned. Then He tells them once more, why He remained, and must have remained there : — OL am in my Father's school for my own instruction. Inasmuch as He does not say, among the doctors, masters, arid wise men, but instead of them names only the Father ; His word may be regarded as containing that great and weighty disclosure of His own previous and subsequent inner education, for .the sake of which principally this record is given to us. Just now, when He begins to be a " son of the law," He first calls God His Father — His master, teacher, educator.1 Jesus was most inwardly taught of the Father, although not without external and human instrumentality. Life, instruction, holy writ, awakened what was within Him ; He seeks His God in the temple, in order to find Him as His Father ; among the masters in Israel He asks questions, in order^that through them He may receive from on high the true answers; and the Father's inner guidance even connects itself with the custom to take the youth of twelve years' old first up to' the feast to present them before the Lord. Thus it was the Father alone who taught Him when His mother early recited or read to Him out of Scripture ; and not otherwise was it with the youth, - the young man, and the man in the Synagogue at Nazareth. And what was it that He learned, upon what were His question ings and investigations set, in that secret education wherein He " heard of the Father" concerning all things, but especially con cerning the Old Testament Scriptures and dispensations ? That one word was the rudimental object of His study, which at the close of His fife's development was unfolded to Him by the Spirit in all its clearness and power: — Thou art my Son! 1 As Henry Alford says very excellently in his English comment. on the New Test. (London 1849)— has so repeatedly mentioned my Reden Jesu, that I am bound in gratitude to make similar reference to him. luke ii. 49. 25 He enquired concerning Himself with vehement desire to know the mystery of His own being and the problemof His life, and concerning the will of Him who had sent Him to finish His work. Jno. iv. 34. In the " labour of His childish spirit, to admit into itself and rightly adjust all things," Divine things according to the word of God in the Old Testa ment were of chief concern to Him. " Therein lived the childish consciousness of Jesus, in all the profundity of His secret pre sentiments."1 As He himself had ever, from the beginning, possessed a consciousness of the object of His life, only as yet concealed in His childish capacity ;2 and as this first clear disclo sure (to be followed itself by many such, in advancing clearness and assurance) seems to Him at once as natural as if it had never been otherwise than clear to Him ; so in like manner does He in childish confidence ask His parents — Wist ye not then every thing concerning me long since ? And assuredly, however much such a saying must have astonished them, there was so much in it that was right and true, that they could not but take shame to themselves that they had been troubled about the Son of the Highest, as if any evil could befall Him before the accomplish ment of the mission of His life ; that they should have thought it needful to guard Him, as if, when out of their immediate care, He could possibly stray beyond His Father's hand, and guidance, and protection. With this last meaning His enquiring word comes round again to the obvious reply which the occasion demanded, and gives the reason of His first question : How is it that ye could seek me sorrowing ? Considered ye not that I am always in my Father's hands and care ? But yet once again was this altogether forgotten, under the cross, by the deeply-stricken mother :-— I am not alone, for the Father is with me (Jno. xvi. 23). Let the whole fulness of this significance be once more gathered into this question, which sublimely presupposes the profoundest ruystery as manifest: — knew ye not all this long ago 1 So Braune, in his admirable exposition of the Gospels, which we shall now be glad often to compare and cite. 2 The divine*human self- consciousness under the form of youthful presentiment, present from the beginning, not in any wise superadded later. See Liebner Christology i. 311. 26 THE FIRST WORDS. concerning me ? And His word contains an impressive refe rence to the Past, in order to point the view to the Future ; an explanation concerning the whole life of the child, and its development into the youth, the young man, the man.1 Not as if the mind of the child had specifically conceived all which we deduce from His word, but He speaks prophetically of Himself. The Spirit of Christ in Himself spreads its wings, and that word which spontaneously gushed from the deepest source of His fife in the Father, becomes to the Son a holy text, which He, too, may search into yet more diligently (1 Pet. i. 11). Yet is it a pure and genuine ehild-word, the immediate and unstudied utterance, on the border of childhood, of child-like simplicity ; and thus it discloses the first independent acting of Him who, passing the limit of childhood, abides still in His Father's busi ness. And they understood it not : — This is recorded concerning the first Word of the Word, and of those who, as being nearest to Himself, had every advantage for understanding it ! They pon dered the sacred mystery, and thought not that in catching its most obvious sense, they understood it in its fulness. Even Mary herself, like the rest, appears not yet to understand, before the day of Pentecost, the mystery of the person of Jesus — and who is there below that fully understands it ? Thou, vain ex positor, hast not the heart of Mary, probably nothing of the Pentecostal spirit ; and yet art thou so ready to cry out — I understand the words which He has spoken ? St Luke's supplement in vers. 51, 52 was necessary, in order to obviate misunderstanding. As soon as that word of holy Righteousness was uttered — The Son of the Father is free! it was again in a sense annulled or suspended, in order to His fulfilment of all righteousness in obedience. The Father's teach ing was ever a discipline of obedience (Heb. v. 8) as the Father had inwardly said to Him — Tarry here ! so now He says, Go down with them, and be subject to them ! So that He is not from this time forth placed in another relation even to Joseph, for the last time referred to in the little saving "to them." who is luke n. 49. 27 not " His Father," and yet for the sake of His mother and of His true Father, was to be still honoured as such. The mystery folds itself up again in the self-denial of eighteen years, till the time when a new Word brings out its other, mighty significance : — Thus it behoveth us to fulfil all righteousness ! till the time when, on the open assumption of His Messiahship, the mother has become " Woman," having no longer any authority, and His " My Father" publicly resounds in His House, and before His people, no more to cease till that last Word, which coincides with this first :— Father, into thine hands I And Jesus increased — so that His self-consciousness was not yet strictly speaking perfected and fully developed. As in age, so also He increased through the teaching of the Father, in wis dom, in His obedience through the grace of God which descended upon His humanity before it came, through Him, upon us all. The bud now burst unfolds itself from within ; in the heart of this child there is no foolishness bound up (Prov. xxii, 15) ; no folly in Israel or Nazareth has power to affect Him ; he advances into all that belongs to manhood, but contracts from it none of its iniquity or sin ; all things are constrained to serve Him and minister to His wisdom. The displeasure of God has never rested upon His Holy one, but the complacency of God, His favour goes on ever increasing with His increase in wisdom, until it is consummated at His Baptism. Even His favour with men increases likewise, for He forbears entirely as yet from tes tifying against their folly and their sin ; and therefore the world as yet hateth Him not. (Jno. vii. 7.) " Let us go on in friend ship together," said they in Nazareth. O, what gracious words may have issued from His lips during those eighteen years, which are not recorded ! But the words which, by the Father's ordination, He was to testify to the world, are sealed up till His hour was come. Then one after another bursts forth, each, as it were, a deeper stream from the long pent-up Fountain of Eternal Wisdom and Truth. 28 THE FIRST WORDS. THE FIRST WORD OF CONSECRATION TO HIS OFFICE. (Matt. iii. 15.) The history of our Lord's Baptism, like that of His Cross, is contained in all the four Evangelists ; but the Word which He then uttered is preserved by St Matthew alone, as being strictly a Word of Fulfilment, and therefore belonging especially to the fundamental idea of the first Gospel. John knew the Lord and yet knew Him not. He knew him not, according to his own testimony (Jno. i. 31), as the Messias and the Son of God ; but he knew Him as One, whose whole life from the beginning had silently cried, Which of you con- vinceth me of sin % Since he had been in the deserts, he had probably seen Him but little, yet often enough, as his life could not have been altogether recluse, to have awakened within him the presentiment which now deepens into conviction. His saying in v. 14 proceeded from the Spirit, who ihen descended upon him, and is not to be explained on the ordinary principles of human thought. It is a word which marks the transition at that mo ment taking place within him from presentiment to inward assur ance. The question at the same time breaks out in it which had long lain deep in the heart of the humble Baptist, — But who will baptize me, who am also myself a sinner ? Certainly, accord ing to the ordinance of God, his office and function extended over all, whether they were worse or better than himself, for his mission was to baptize with water ; and therefore- he baptized without hesitation every Simeon or Nathanael as he came. But here was One greater than Nathanael! John knew this not, indeed, until He saw the Spirit descend, according to the sign which had been given him ; yet his spirit goes out towards Him with that anticipatory and presentient feeling, which had moved him in his mother's womb towards the mother of his Lord. Jesus comes in all the spiritual grace of gentleness and humility with sinners to the baptism of repentance ; as John beholds Him, he se~es shining through this deep humility the high Majesty of the MATTHEW III. 15. 29 Holy one ; and that he has an inward token thereof, consitutes His own dignity. He has baptized many,' has seen and in some sense seen through men of all kinds, but no one like this had as yet come before him. They have all bowed down before him : — but before this man, bows down in the irrepressible emotion of his own most profound contrition, the sinful man- in the greatest Prophet. It might well have prompted him to cry: Art thou then a sinner, a man ? To that point his question ventures not to go, it remains suspended between the thought of the man, and the superadded presentiment of the Spirit.1 Enough, however, is clear to be uttered thus : Who am I in thy presence, that I in the office and ministry of Baptism should be placed over Thee ? Then answers the Lord with equal grace and majesty, with as much simplicity as fulness of meaning,2 by another of His dis tinctive first words, — the first official word, with which He pre pares Himself for His anointing, and consecration to His office. He first of all gently sets aside the prohibition and refusal of John, and utters with dignified grace that single word, Suffer it now ! Had He said no more, that would have sufficed to the Baptist, for its plainness and dignity were such as to silence all further questioning. It at once intimated, — I know what I now do ; I am taught from above to submit to baptism, as thou art taught to baptize. Now for a time thou seemest to be the greater, who consecrates the less — soon, as it is fit, will our rela tive position be reversed ! Now — it is only a transitional rela tion (as Neander has well observed) : Now : — my hour is come, is the Lord's thought for Himself : perform thy function upon me, thou shalt afterwards learn what I do, is His meaning with regard to John. This promise, indeed, is already and instanta neously fulfilled, when, in order to remove all the scruples of this upright man, and to terminate this holy conflict of humility in him, by the sublimest and most commanding humility in 1 Presentiment, not full revelation as in Luke i. 43. So far, there fore, Braune is not quite correct, "As formerly the Mothers, so now the Sons stand before each other." Many suppose, contrary to the whole connexion of the text, that the Baptist spoke this after the Baptism and Manifestation ! ! ('A^ow Hieron. dimisit, which Sepp ridi ulously maintains against Luther's false translation.) 2CCertainly with no such " arbitrariness, departing from simplicity and intended for reproof " as Schleiermacher finds here. 30 THE FIRST WORDS. Himself, He proceeds to testify :—for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. First of all, we cannot but be profoundly impressed by the lofty contrast between this avowal of righteousness and the con fession of sin of all the others, who came to be baptized, ver. 6. And it is strange that Theologians in their search for testimonies of the sinlessness of Jesus, do not find here the first and most luminous dictum probans from His own mouth. This was to John the decisive declaration, which set him perfectly at rest : — Thy presentiment was true, in a deeper sense than thou canst now comprehend, I am He who knoweth no sin, but for that very reason come I in the likeness of sinners to this Baptism. And it is to all the world, that shall receive this word, an all-inclusive testimony of the Lord, concerning His own office and ministry as the restorer of righteousness to sinful men. To fulfil all righteousness :— this has a large and lofty sound in the lips of a man, of an Israelite, who will speak the truth. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us. (Deut. vi. 25.) Because no man ever in Israel could say that, on account of sin which yields not to the commandment, therefore is the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins at the end of the eeonomy of the law. He who now comes to this Baptism, is not a sinner, but a righteous man who neither needs repentance nor pardon. It is He who for us fulfils all righteousness, who, born of a woman and made under the law which was given to the unrighteous, has already hitherto observed and performed all the commandments of the Lord to Israel ; — and for that very reason now subjects Himself also to that Baptism which was ordained of God as the concluding commandment of the Old covenant, through which is the transi tion to the New. He received circumcision, though born with out the foreskin of the heart ; He was redeemed as the First-born, though Himself the Redeemer; in all probability He offered every sacrifice which was required of an Israelite (as we see in one instance, at least, — that of the Passover)^ though Himself the Propitiatory and Paschal Lamb, the archetype and substance, of all these shadows ; He visited the Temple and the Synagogue, He humbly submitted to every custom and ordinance in Israel, MATTHEW III. 15. 31 * and even, when no sin attached to them, to those which were not ordained of God ; so likewise must He be baptized " into the coming Messiah" which is nevertheless Himself, just as He is the Prophet to prepare His own way. In this now, therefore, there is a terminating point, not yet absolutely the last, but cer tainly a typical and preliminary terminating point of His obedience to the Law. In this Baptism, inasmuch as it was the last external commandment of God to Israel, all righteousness was fulfilled by Him. The Lord might now have said again, as He said before I must — for the same innate necessity, in the obedience of the Father, prompted Him now ; it belonged to the same unity of His whole life. Because, however, the question is now especially concerning an external transaction, and because He would obviate the -scruple of John as to the Propriety, the Fitness, the Becomingness of that which was about to take place ; He adopts this expression, It becometh us by all .means ! This embraces, besides the obvious reply to the plain question, a concealed testi mony to the final principle of the whole course of His self-' renunciation and self-substitution in the.likeness of sinners. For all the first words of our Lord, especially, have so profound a background of meaning. The irpeirov is hot simply used as it stands, Eph. v. 3, 1 Tim. ii. 10, in the New Testament, but in the full and sublime sense of Heb. ii. 10, vii. 26. It seemed fit to the righteous Father, that the Son in the sinner's stead should in a human obedience bring back their righteousness : within this boundary of thought did the Son Himself in His humanity ever reverently confine Himself, beyond it he knew and testified nothing. Thus it was also here, when the Baptist, who might not Himself become His disciple, but only send disciples to Him, was counted worthy to receive an early testimony of the mystery of His atonement which he then afterwards repeats — Jno. i. 29. The Preacher of repentance unto the Kingdom of Heaven ex pected, indeed, no earthly Jewish Messiah : he understood as Zachariah's son and the pupil of the Spirit in the wilderness, whatever might be understood by any Israelite, from the word of Prophecy concerning Him who was to come : but here at the very first does the Lord openly announce to him : — Placing 32 THE FIRST WORDS. myself in the likeness of sinners, taking their sins upon me, I shall and will fulfil righteousness for them. So might He have given back the Baptist's word literally : — i" have need (xpetav e^to) to be baptized of thee, I must be baptized with the baptism which is prepared for me (Lu. xii., 50). And so would He have spoken, if He had wished to speak of Himself alone : but He says not now : thus it becometh me — but ms. But how can He say this, and what does He mean ? we ask, and all the more earnestly because we have seen that the pro foundest significance of this saying concerns Himself alone. The most obvious answer is that He thus replies to the separa tion between them which the humble scruple had expressed — 1 of Thee, Thou to me I He designs now, first of all, to induce the Doubter not merely to suffer Him to go down into the Jordan, but also to fulfil the external function of His office upon Him, and baptize Him, even as others. Thus it has this meaning as it regards John : — who art thou then ? The Preparer of the way, the Forerunner. Now I am He that cometh after thee ; thy presentiment is right ; we appertain to one another, each in his office and ministry. In baptizing me, thou fulfillest all righteousness and closest thine office : to be baptized of thee, is my righteousness, and belongs to my ministry and the design of my life. What majesty in this word^ which immediately silences all scruple : and, at the same time, what a marvellous emulation of* humility between the Lord and His servant ; just as after wards in the eleventh chapter, where the Lord who was to come, places His servant by his side as one who was also come, and of whom the Scripture had also spoken ! But even this does not yet exhaust the meaning of this great Word. The baptism of which it speaks, is only in an external and typical sense the concluding point of Obedience for the Ful- filler of all Righteousness : it is truly and essentially the true beginning-point of that Obedience, the consummation of which, in the death of the Cross in order to the Resurrection, it pre- typifies. The Lord does not say — herein, hereby it is incumbent upon me finally to accomplish all righteousness — but thus! That is an expression of comparison, which points forward to the thing compared. This Baptism to which the Mature man comes, MATTHKW III. 15. 33 who till now has loved righteousness and hated iniquity, is His anointing to that Sacrifice of Himself for sinners which now first properly begins. Ps. xiv. 7. As in this baptism by prophetic figure the Righteous One places Himself among sinners, so was He afterwards baptized with the Baptism of death, in which He as the Lamb of God bore our guilt ; which was not to Him the wages of sin, but the highest meritorious righteousness for us all. As now the Father confirms His righteousness by a voice from heaven, so then in the Resurrection the Father justifies Him as His Son again. Rom. i. 4 ; Acts xiii. 33. It follows further, that as now the Spirit descends upon Him, so then also the out pouring of the Spirit for us all ; that Baptism with the Spirit to which John alluded, without obtaining it below, and concerning which he unconsciously spake when he said : — I have need to be baptized of Thee. All this our Lord clearly saw when He came to the Jordan ; and as He finally spoke of His sufferings as a Baptism, so does He now already contemplate in Baptism His sufferings. For now His wisdom is perfect, and He no more needs to increase in it. In that last word of His childhood the beginning of His consciousness concerning His own person broke forth ; when this was grown .perfect and finally sealed, this decisive word of his manhood utters His full consciousness concerning His Work. This honour is reserved for Him, to testify of Himself, before the sign from heaven seals His testi mony. He presents Himself, saying — Behold I come, to do Thy will ; before the • Father's response — This is my beloved Son ! This acceptance and obligation is to Him what the confession of sin is to the sinner. Therein our sins are confessed as done away in His righteousness, and the future baptism, for the true forgiveness of sins, which should be ours by virtue of His Baptism, is fore-announced. And because, finally, the Baptism which He thus prepares for us, finds its consummation only in the essential, actual fellow ship of His death and resurrection ; we remark, that the " us " in which He includes Himself in His humble condescension before John, means in its deepest signification, us all. He utters it as the Son of Man in the name of humanity, as the Forerunner in the name of His own, with whom He here, at the very be ginning contemplating the uttermost end, most entirely unites *3 34 THE FIRST WORDS. Himself.1 He indeed is, pre-eminently, the Fulfiller ; but all who become participators of His Righteousness, fulfil in Him and through Him the same righteousness and in the same way. Thus it becometh us to become like Him, as it became Him in our like ness to overcome sin, and render obedience. This will immediately become manifest in the wilderness of Temptation, where the Son of God not as the Son for Himself, but as Man, as the Second Adam and the True Israel, spoils, by faith in the Word, the power of Satan. THE FIRST WORDS OF VICTORY OVER THE TEMPTER. (Matt. iv. 4, 7, 10 ; Lu. iv. 4, 8, 12.) These three words are, in their ascending connexion, to be reckoned as one ; and, indeed, as a third First Word, approaching still nearer to the goal of His being, and drawn from the yet deeper depth of the mystery of God the Father and His Son. As the Son's first word of all concerning the Father, Lu. ii. 49, embraced the whole inner life of His own most essential person ality; and the second concerning His Righteousness, Matt. iii. 15, the entire work of His active and passive obedience for us; so now the fulfilment of all righteousness in its three great, branches, is maintained and asserted against the Tempter to unrighteousness. His Obedience approves itself in the renun ciation of all Enjoyment, of all Honour, of- all Possession in opposition to the Prince of this world : thus does He overcome him in the abasement of faith, to which he had descended from His Divine Power ; and leads human nature back to God again, through the selfsame way, by which it had fallen from Him. Concerning the Temptation of Christ in itself, its innermost ground in the Father's holy justice, its redeeming might and typical signification for us, and especially the Satanic unity of design in; the three temptations of the wilderness ; we shall 1 " He desired and received baptism in the name of the people," says Nitzsch (Prae. Theol. i. 167) but too concisely. Mark, moreover, what is said there with perfect truth, that He who comes with Water and the Word of the Prophet to fulfil all the types must also come with Blood, then finally and fully with Spirit. MATTHEW IV. 4, 7, 10. 35 enter into no detailed description here. It is our purpose only to expound the words of Jesus, and to point particular attention to that which is unfolded in them. But the words of Jesus on this occasion are not new, and distinctively His own ; they are God's words long ago uttered, and taken from the ancient Scriptures, which he as the Fulfiller appropriates to Himself. This is, at the outset, of great significance. The child had grown and become strong in Spirit, had increased in wisdom; the man, arrived at the mature priestly age, and anointed for the Inauguration of His office, is now full of the Holy Ghost, Lu. iv. 1. But as afterwards the first word of the Spirit at the Pentecost was a proclamation of what had been said by the Prophet Joel, so here the First Words of the Lord spoken from the fulness of the Spirit are only quotations from the Holy Scripture ! He has now learned them entirely, He is a Master in the use of them, and will prove Himself such first of all, against the enemy, whom the Word of truth, which he has perverted into a lie, must again beat down. What virtue and dignity in the holy letter, which, filled with the Spirit of Christ, now becomes only Life and Truth ! Christ makes his appeal, when that old " yea hath God said" is brought against Him, not to the heavenly voice which He had just heard, but to the Word of God, written in the book of Moses. The living Eternal Word Himself vests Himself in the written word, which in its deepest foundation is written by Him a.nd for Him. Let men think upon this! Let this be remembered by that theology, which refuses to accept, even from the consciousness of Christ, the entire and full authority of that which was Holy Scripture to Him. But He does not confront Satan with any one of those many and clear words of prophecy which are written concerning the future bruiser of the (Serpent's head. Satan well knows these, but does not understand the mystery hitherto folded up in them, the human abasement and self-renunciation of the Son of God, which is indeed the central mystery of all -Scripture, and tho essential secret of His victory over the enemy. That enemy must first perceive this in its fulfilment. Here in the wilder ness for the first time, he earnestly scrutinises it, at once doubting 3 s * 30 THE FIRST WORDS. and trembling ; but does not thoroughly penetrate it, for he comes again at the Cross with his temptations, and once more foolishly brings forward his already repelled " art thou the Son of God, then save thyself!" The Lord does not permit Himself to meet him with an express — / am He : He was indeed, and would thus have shown Himself Satan's Lord, but would not then have been his conqueror for us. The first word which He opposes to him, says rather — man ! It is taken, as is also the second, from the temptation of Israel in the wilderness, for Israel is a type of the Son of Man, the Servant of God for righteousness, that One to come, in whom alone that nature is consummated into perfect righteousness, which in all men else is evef sinking into deeper sin. Adam stood not, — Israel after the flesh stood not, when'the Lord His God tempted him, but rather like Satan tempted His God : but now comes the second Adam, God's true Servant Israel, through whose obedience the way of life is made known, and actually thrown open — that man truly fives by the power and in the strength of the Eternal Word. As Eve in the beginning rightly opposed the tempter with God had said ! but alas, did not persist therein — even so now the Lord, but He holds firm. Satan knows well the Word of God, and must admit its force ; when in full faith and entire obedience it is used in answer against him, the might of his lying delusion is broken. Satan will challenge the wonderful power of God in nature — and His Son, if He be truly such, should make stones out of bread : but this is not the power which drives him out of that human nature, in which he now sees with doubting astonish ment the eternal Son standing before him. That at least the bold challenger knew full well, and He knew it still better, who was come to be victor in this fight. Christ answered and said, placing Himself as man in the obedience of faith. Thus and not otherwise does God reply, to the Devil, and indeed through Christ, the Son of God and the Son of man. He Himself in His humility — submitting to be tempted in order to conquer— is that living answer of God to Satan, which in holy right resists and casts out Satan's right to humanity. Satan must now learn this, and has not finished learning it yet ; for he has not even yet betaken himself to his darkness again, but continues, and MATTHEW IV. 4, 7, 10. 37 wiir continue to tempt the members of the Head with the same temptation, until he shall also in them all be overcome and con demned. , The first temptation, which through our earthly body is most obvious to universal human nature, is that of seeking the enjoy ment and nourishment of life against the will of God and indepen dently of His gift; to make for ourselves our bread in the misuse of God's power, entrusted to us over the lower nature and the creature. Our own age exhibits the development of this in those mimic miracles which seek the world's dominion by the industry which conquers nature. Adam entering intp this temp tation, would eat as the Son of God, that of which God has said — thou shall not eat of it. That was the case in paradise, even without hunger, and in the midst of the enjoyment of all the fruits of the garden of Eden which were not forbidden : and in that first fall every other was wrapped up. It was exhibited again, especially, when Israel cried in the wilderness : if we are God's people, why have we not bread and flesh at His hands according to our desire? Then did God humble His son Israel, and suffered him to hunger, to show him what was in his heart. The true salvation from this unbelief could not yet then appear, it was only typically made known to the unbelievers, that man doth not live by the creaturely bread, but by the word of God. Here in Christ, who abundantly makes good what fallen man has turned to evil ; who in voluntary abnegation fasts, in entire obe dience hungers, and thus is released from the creature, in which Adam is sinfully held captive ; here in Christ does that ancient word, written concerning manna, find its new and complete sig nificance — that for the sake of which it was before provided in the Holy Scripture. Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proeeedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. Continually, and in a thousand ways, has the Spirit since then used and applied these words among the children of God, and every interpretation which the Spirit truly puts upon it, is included in its meaning. For this He caused it to be written in the prophecy of Moses, and then to be used in reply to the Arch-Liar by the lips of the Fulfiller. We seek now only to indicate briefly the leading prin ciples of its interpretation. 38 THE FIRST WORDS. Bread is in its general acceptation the food of man's life, regularly appointed for him as the creaturely instrument of the Divine word of creation and preservation : — thou shalt live thereof. (The Book of Wisdom (xvi. 26) says instead, — it is not the growing of fruits that nourisheth man). Gen. i. 29, iii. 19 ; Ps. civ. 14. To this stands opposed niPP-"^ NS'ilft~73 tna* 1sj t : • T t most obviously, as was demonstrated in the case of Israel in the .wilderness, any particular word of commandment or will issuing from the power of the Creator and Preserver, which becomes what man may live upon ; — any kind of food given independently of the established order of things, as was the miraculous manna. But such manna itself, again, is only a veil of God's power ; a pledge and symbol which is condescendingly reached forth to weak faith, in order that there may be something in man's mouth. Wherefore does God work miracles, and not leave man only and entirely to live upon ordinary bread, but thus oftentimes create a new thing for him ? That He may make man know that even in the ordinary and natural course it is by no means nature andthe creature which have and give the life, but Himself alone. Even in bread man lives not by bread only, for is not the life more than meat ? Is not the Word, the Will, the Power of God in everything ; so that we do not inhale our very breath from the air, but from the breath of God ? Word stands not as such in the Hebrew text, but is taken here from the old exegetical trans lation. What is the niPP^D NJJ'ift of which Moses wrote? t : • t The breath of the creating effluence from the eternal Power and Godhead, the Spirit, in and of whom all life, even bodily life, consists, Num. xvi. 22 ; Ps. civ. 29, 30. But the Spirit goes out indeed only in one prepared form, and that form is the Word. In the deepest meaning of the essential and only truth, which ever contradicts the lie of Satan, all Tilings in the world, after their kind, are only variously embodied words of the Creator, inasmuch as by His mighty word alone they are upheld in being. (Hence -q"1? and pfj/u.a in the Scripture signify also thing.) T T " God does not speak grammatical vocables, but true essential things. Thus sun and moon, heaven and earth, Peter and Paul, Thou and I, are nothing but words of God " (Luther). Thus the creature lives not by any other creature, any more than it lives MATTHEW IV. 4, 7, 10. 39 of itself j but because, and how and whereof God will. There fore the first meaning of the saying of Jesus here— obvious in its profoundness — is : " I commit the sustentation of my life entirely into the hands of God." Moses in the presence of the Lord needed neither bread nor water for forty days (Ex. xxxiv. 28). The man Jesus died not in forty days' fast ; but then only at length, when the strength of the Spirit returned to Him that there might be place for temptation, felt He hunger. But we penetrate deeper with the question, which is not always one of simple unbelief — how may this be ? and how is this to be understood ? Then may we reasonably ask — what is Man ? Not the body with its earthly, animal soul, but the true and proper man, that is, the living spirit which came forth from God, which only lives in and by the Spirit of God, which con tinually goes forth as Word for the preservation of the creature. Even as the body — the abiding product of its soul — only subsists through a continual formative impulse of corporeity, so do the body and soul of man, as of a living soul in the moulded dust of the earth, subsist only by the Spirit. The outer man lives by the inner, as this again by the Word of God. Shouldst thou say — by bread ! and determine in any case to have it, and in thy hunger to procure it for thyself, even at the cost of disobedience — any way thou canst or the Tempter places it at thy hand — then art thou captive in that idolatry and delusion, which serves the creature with and instead of the Creator (Rom. i. 25). Then art thou in the way to worship the Arch-Liar, who promises to give that of which God ever continues the sole giver and Lord. Thinknot, too, that thou livest at all as man, th&t is, according to thy pure creation as a Son of God, in His image, if thou art finding a so-called life of thine own hand in the greatness of thy way (Isa. Ivii. 10). For thou art dead in trespasses and sins, although the bread and the pleasures of the world should plenti fully abound to thee. Here belongs, further, that most true sense of this sacred saying, according to which it is preached to those who only labour for the perishable bread of this world, and seek not the everlasting bread of God. But this leads us further and further ; and " not alone " vindicates again the true life of man in God, against such as in their error cleave to any institution of 40 THE FIRST WORDS. the means of life, as if it was not God alone in them that gave them efficacy. As a general rule the word of God, externally written and preached, is given for the food of the inner man ; but inasmuch as the living word of God in the word, is the true word, thou mayest, if it be His will, without Scripture and preaching, live by His Spirit ; without intercourse with brethren, be connected with the Church : even without the physical bread of the sacrament, receive nevertheless the heavenly bread. Every manna given by God in the creaturely form, is a witness, that points beyond itself to the immediate outgoing of God's life for the life of man, out of God's mouth into the believing mouth of man. So does the letter of the written word testify here in the believing mouth of Christ, to its own most essential Spirit. And the Lord, at the same time that He avows himself to be man in the life of God, gives to Satan the true and mysterious answer as to who Himself is, and that is the last and profoundest sense which makes the old word His own, and transforms it into a new word, now fully for the first time exhibited in its truth. Christ, verily, is the Original Man, recovered frorii the fall, Adam and the Son of God in one." The Son of God gave Himself to human nature, and incorporated Himself with it ; Satan's temptation would, for he now first half understands" this, detach Him from it again, and thereby destroy His mediatorial nature through somethings that for it would have the nature of sin. Art thou, poor hungry child of man, the Son of God ? Then use thy might ! But He has wrapped up His might in entire self-renunciation, in order to overcome the enemy, and thus does He overcome him in simple human faith. He is Himself the bread come down from heaven to give unto the world everlasting life, and shall He make for Himself bread out of stones for His own proper fife ? Against the Tempter's challenge — art Thou — He only binds Himself more firmly to us all : I am man, I am humanity, I am man kind ! (Just as that us is used in Matt. iii. 15). There is, indeed, a twofold nature in humanity, the earthly Adam and that which came forth from God in him ; but both in their inseparable unity constitute the proper man, and as such he is re-established in-Christ, the God-man. That in Him Adam lives entirely by the Logos — is the last and super-abounding fulfilment of the meaning of this MATTHEW IV. 4, 7, 10. 41 word, which thus goes far beyond its application for the instruc tion of poor fallen man. Satan has not yet fully apprehended what was said to him : for it penetrates] too deeply into that eternal original truth, from which he is fallen, and which he no longer desires to understand : yet he is not repelled, but rather stimulated to a renewed and more earnest attack. The Tempter comes again — for this is his manner, and the second temptation proceeds very much like the former. The Deceiver had taken his position upon a word of God (thou art my beloved Son !) though only to pervert it as the deducer of false consequences ; — he still persists in this method. Holdest thou so firmly to that which is written ? Then I know yet another word, which will suit thee well. Dost thou expect, strong in thy faith, the miraculous help of thy God, even as only man ? Then, instead of waiting and hungering here in the wilderness — for thou art, nevertheless, the Son of God, and to that I hold — wilt thou not spring down from the pinnacle of the temple among the people, as if Thou earnest down from heaven, and thus announce thyself with becoming dignity ? Thus both the half-mocking audacity, and the impious enticing cunning of the Tempter became more intense. He knows the letter of scrip ture, and may also use it for temptation, just as he has free access to the holy city and the temple. He takes his word from that psalm of faith's offence and defence against His own hellish might (Ps. xei. 5, 6, 13), which may have already in times past done him much injury; and designs in his malice and presump tion to turn that well-known promise of angel-protection for mor tal man, to the destruction of this wonderful Son of Man, who in this conflict will assume to be nothing more. But the Lord answers him, in words which are for ever the true defence and reply to every one-sided perversion of a saying of Scripture : — it is written again ! This irdXiv means not contra, for no one word of the Bible contradicts any other : but it simply signifies that one Scripture teaches us how to understand and use another. We are only fully armed against the cunning of Satan, who presses upon us with isolated and wrested sentences of the Bible, when we are thoroughly grounded in a clear perception of the inner unity of the whole Scripture, which supplements itself and explains its own meaning. Our Forerunner teaches us here to 42 THE FIRST WORDS. use the word as our weapon in our own succeeding warfare, and teaches us especially to lay hold upon this — again it is written ! Moreover, Satan's perversion consisted not in this, that he would have the figurative expression taken literally, for that is here actually permitted to faith in God's word, and Jesus acknow ledges without contradiction this interpretation ; but the again instructs us in the qualification which averts its abuse. Jesus continues near to his first quotation. The Lord proved in the wilderness His people Israel (Deut. viii. 2), whether they would tempt Him or not, and alas ! Israel many times tempted his God, so that afterwards in warning reference to the Past, it was said to him by Moses — ye shall not tempt the Lord your God (Deut. vi. 16). Wherein consists the tempting of God on the part of man ? It is the complete opposite of the seeking in faith, of the waiting, upon God in the obedience and confidence of trust, a self-willed demand of the mighty help of God ; and, con sequently, unbelief, disobedience, and distrust are its innermost principles. Thus did the children of Israel demand flesh for their souls (that is, according to their own lusts) and said : can God furnish a table in the wilderness ? So limited they the Holy One of Israel (Ps. Ixxviii. 18, 19, 41), and put Him arrogantly to the test : — so now, if He does this according to our will, it shall be well. The manna was before their eyes, and further sup plies might come from the word and command of God : but they anticipated, by the word of their own self-will, the Word of God upon which they should wait ; and this is tempting God. This would the Lord have done now, if He had challenged the angel-guard of His God according to the promise, in order to His passage through the air, which was not His prescribed way accords ing to the Divine guidance. As He might not himself make bread for himself, so neither could he seek such a way. Satan's cunning omitted— in all thy ways ;x our Lord, however, did not think fit to point out and dwell upon this omission : but instead of such discussion, set another decisive word of Scripture over 1 St Luke omits this, though he has tov 8«iq(>vXa£ai o-e. When v. Gerlach supposes thai this omission should have no stress laid upon it, as it was only meant to say, " wherever thou goest" — he most unjusti fiably presses down the everywhere profound word of Scripture to the narrow limits of our ordinary human speech. MATTHEW IV. 4, 7, 10. 43 against that which he had quoted. The Lord knows His own way, the way of humility and not of vain-glory ; the way of wait ing upon His God, and not of premature running and anticipa tion of His will ; — therefor*, the word that is written, remains ever a lamp to His feet. Every sin in its innermost principle is, properly speaking, a tempting and challenging of God : since he, who should obey, tests the Almighty whether the way of his own self-will, shall not prosper. But then, particularly, when the unbelief and dis obedience of self-will presses forward in what is false presumption, though seemingly only a firm confidence in promised assistance, as if God must and should hearken to it ; this is the masked aggravation of sin, to which Satan here allures. Uncalled re formers, daring enthusiasts, even actual miracle-workers of their own will and for their, own honour, have all fallen into this sin, because they have forgotten the Word of the Master spoken here in faith and obedience. What if before the eyes of men they have prospered at first in their airy way, it is not because angels have borne them up, but the Prince of darkness (who would, it may be, have carried the Lord also in safety down, even as he had lifted Him up), yet only to their final fall into the abyss. Christ remains Lord over Satan in the simplicity and assurance of His human way according to the word of God. Power over Hisbodymay the Tempter exercise bythe permission of theFather, His Spirit remains free and firm in obedience to the truth. If, as we perceived, the first answer struck the right point, and pro tested against Satan's fundamental lie, that in the creature of it self a life was to be sought ; the second answer advances still nearer to the crisis, even as the temptation advanced nearer. If the first answer had already sharply and clearly defined the boun dary between the Lord God and His creature (in whose stead, and in whose nature, the Eternal Son here stands) ; the second defines it still more sharply, and gives to Satan a further lesson and one peculiarly appropriate to him, which indeed he may not be able to receive. For it is Satan himself who in the permitted abuse of his remaining angel-power, for deceit and destruction against the Word and will of God, absolutely and now in the most unreserved manner, tempts the Lord his God. Therefore did Christ change the letter of the Scripture, and say : thou shalt not, 44 THE FIRST, WORDS. although it is written in Moses, ye shall not tempt. This is for sooth the Spirit's power^n the weakness of the tempted one, that while he only thinks to cover himself and to hide himself in the sheltering, defending word ; that game humble word approves itself as a sharp weapon of attack and of judgment against the Tempter's pride. Then does the evil one begin finally to mark that in this Man he has to do with the Lord his God, who will maintain over him His right : yet is he unwilling to admit it. He gathers all his might and greatness for one more last and decisive onset ; but the result is that he hears more decisively and openly pronounced that which befitted his own true character. Probably the Lord knew not immediately Himself with what kind of person he had imme diately to do. In manifest bodily appearance Satan cannot, indeed, appear, for such corporeity in him, if it may so be called, would be for us the most frightful horror.. Therefore does He disguise and mask Himself, now as he had from the beginning — yet still comes as a person. Probably the Tempter drew near the first time in human forhi as a good friend and adviser; the second time it may be he showed Himself as an angel of light who might bear Him up in his hands.1 The Lord, without much question ing, had both times replied to the Satanic design in the temptation, and mediately therefore to Satan himself; but now the " God of this world" comes forward in his naked grossness with the horrible and undisguised demand — worship me ! If theu altogether declinest to be the Son of God, then serve me for that recom pense which is in my power and which I will give thee ! He pro mises to give that which is not his, that which at least, when held and received from him, is perverted from glory into ruin : and the price which he demands is what belongs only to God. Then. 1 Lange, indeed, thinks that such mask- work and illusion must have been quite ineffectual upon Christ, the Pure One, just as children are not deceived by such jugglery in tales. But the self-renun-' ciation of Christ, and the Father's counsel to give Him up to temptation, are on such a supposition quite forgotten. Might not the same argument be used against the anguish and the obscuration at Gethsemane and at the cross ? To show all the kingdoms of the world at one glance was, undoubtedly, an illusion, for the letter of St Luke's account knows nothing of " highly coloured description, which turned a high' and extensive prospect .in the wilderness to a symbolical ac count." 2 N MATTHEW IV. 4, 7, 10. 45 does the Lord recognize the Prince of Darkness, the Archfiend, whom He has come to eject out of a world that he had usurped ; and to whom He can now reply in His own might and dignity, as peremptorily as the demand was plain ; get thee behind mej Satan ! This is necessarily the last temptation and victory : for the order observed by St Luke, while it has a meaning of its own, must not regulate here the order of time. For the firsl and the second are so immediately and strictly connected accord ing to St Matthew, that we cannot imagine anything interven ing : and the Repelled One cannot be supposed to have returned again immediately after the third.1 This away from me might have been enough. But the humi lity of the Lord, which itself must have been the keenest con demnation of the Father of pride, does him a superfluous honour, and even adds a reason from Scripture. This word is found, again, near to the former (Deut. vi. 13, 14), but is here, in its entire appropriation, more severed than that from its literal connexion. In the words which had before fallen from the Lord's lips, Ye shall not tempt, had become Thou shalt not tempt, for Himself and at the same time for the Devil ; but now it refers especially and in all its significance to the Devil alone ; according to Christ's conscious purpose, when he fell back in this encounter, upon that great central word and fundamental commandment of the whole Old Testament, yea of the whole Scripture : — thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve? This answer forms one of the sublimest, most comprehensively significant criti cal moments in the history of His kingdom: and is the most distinc- 1 The apostolical authority of St Matthew decides the literal truth of his connection : St Luke arranges the events, evidently, according to another point of view. Tore TrapaKafifidvei, irdXi v uapaKafi^avei, t ore dcplrjo-iv in St Matthew import something more than St Luke's mere