THE chapter division here is infelicitous; for “at that season,” as He enunciated these predictions and warnings, there were present “ some “ who told Him of the terrible judgments on the Galilean by the hand of Pilate, their blood being “mingled with their sacrifices,” or in other words, judgment and death in the hour and with the act from which they looked for blessing and acquittal. This, alas! but too aptly illustrates what the Jew in his self-will was hanging on to. “I tell you,” said One who knew them, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Also in the fate of the eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell, is foreshadowed to them their destiny, except they repent. When the greatest blessing is rejected, as it was assuredly at Siloam, then the direct judgments would be perpetrated. The parable that follows explains how fully the Jew deserved excision. The Lord can appeal, “What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done?” And there was no want of patience, year after year He looked for fruit and found none! But mercy is not yet exhausted; the Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, and knew and answered to His heart, did say, “Let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it.” This last trial should be made ere the natural branches be cut off; and we have an evidence of this, and the manner of it, in the next miracle. The Lord was teaching on the Sabbath-day; they must not put the shadow for the reality. He would lay the foundation for the latter; consequently the infirmity of one who was “bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself,” at once engages His sympathies and power. When He saw her, He called and said, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.” But how is this service, a sample of His purpose towards Israel, received by the nation? “The rulers of the synagogue,” blind as to their real condition, and, as is ever the case, pertinaciously upholding a form when the power of it was gone, answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath-day. Miserable Sabbath, when such infirmity was occurrent! How unlike the Sabbath of God! Jesus was laboring to make all “straight,” and introduce again on an eternal basis God’s day of rest and complacency in unbroken bliss over the wide universe. But the Jew resisted, for he was too blind to see, and too fat of heart to feel his infirmity. Jesus convicts them of waiving obligations when their own selfish interests are concerned, which are denied to a daughter of Abraham. God’s glory is concerned in the rescue of the one; our own in that of the other. We might seek our own rest, even religiously so, and overlook the characteristics of God’s rest; but yet no real keeping of a Sabbath until we enter into the rest of God. At this juncture the Lord discloses to us His judgment of the kingdom of God on earth. He put little confidence either in the confusion of His adversaries or in the rejoicing of the people, for the resemblance of their whole condition passes before Him. It was not possible to find a likeness to it in nature. It would not be confined within natural limits. I should think that the parables of “the mustard seed” and “leaven” here refer to the Jewish economy, though I believe they have a different signification in a different connection in other places in Scripture. The Lord sees and unfolds to us what Judaism had grown to, of unnatural size in both similitudes; in the one it became a covert for the fowls of the air, and in the other the increase was not solid or genuine. I cannot gainsay that Judaism or earthly religiousness in a former time or now will ever be sure to issue after a like manner and bear a similar representation. (Verse 22.) The Lord continues His progress through “cities and villages,” still unwearied in His work, but at the same time “journeying toward Jerusalem.” “Then said one unto Him,” less patient than his Master—perhaps troubled at the little effects such blessed service was producing, “Lord, are there few that be saved?” In answering this, the Lord takes occasion first to confirm His disciples in a jealous watchfulness over themselves, and then pronounces in solemn sentences the sad consequences of rejecting Him, at the same time intimating that the kingdom of God shall comprise within it all Jewish greatness, “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets,” and that from the four corners of the earth should guests flow into it, to the eternal reproach of those who now were unbelieving, though amidst the very foundations of the kingdom, and in the presence of the great Architect of all. Though they could say, “We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our street;” yet they would be last though they were the first offered blessing, and they who were the last would exceed the first. But while the Lord thus comforts Himself, and looks beyond all present failure with a heart prepared for it, He hears the “same day” from the lips of the Pharisees, the great religionists of the day, that the king, the false king of Israel, was ready to kill Him (the true and rightful King). The Pharisees only say, “Get thee hence, for Herod will kill thee.” Under the shelter of this they seek to accomplish their own malevolent desires, even to get rid of Christ—too un-candid, like many a one, to say for themselves what they so readily say for Herod. But the Lord, in answering him, answers them. He first declares that
He will run His course until He is perfected, until the resurrection. He will cast out devils and do cures to the end, but His project must continue till the third day, because a prophet cannot perish out of Jerusalem. He must fulfill His mission ere He reaches the metropolis of rejection. Most failure where was most blessing, like Gilgal and Bethel, so was Jerusalem; “better for them not to have known the way of righteousness” than, like the sow that was washed, to have wallowed in the mire. Yet, wonderful grace! the very lowness of their condition seems only to arouse afresh the sympathies of this blessed revealer of the Father’s heart. He cries, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that stonest the prophets, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her chickens,” and what then? hear it every Jew— “AND YE WOULD NOT!” Hear your judgment: “Your house is left desolate,” but it shall be only until you learn to value ME, “until you shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.”—(To be continued, if the Lord will.)