Notes on the Gospel According to Luke

IT is necessary to apprize the reader of these Notes, &c., that they should be read in connection with the text, and as it is not the intention to give a detailed explanation of every paragraph, the reader is requested to keep his eye on the text between each quotation which appears in inverted commas. It will be remarked that the NOTES are divided into chapters corresponding with the text, in order to facilitate this plan.

The reader should not expect to find in the opening of this book large notices of a mystery not yet made known and which was kept secret since the world began (Rom. 16:25); or diverted from pursuing the enquiry, because Jewish interests so largely engage the mind of the Spirit. We must ever remember that the Church arose consequent on the rejection of Israel; so that, if we would discover when the Church began, we must first ascertain when and how Israel placed itself beyond the pale of forgiveness, at least in this age. The object of the writer in submitting these Notes, &c., to his brethren is simply told. There has been great confusion and misconception in the mind of many saints as to what portion of the gospels applied to the Church, and what to Israel—some asserting that all applied to the Church, others to Israel. These conflicting statements led the writer to examine the subject for himself, and the result of that examination, irrespective of the peculiar notions of any, but looking to the Lord for help in His own truth, he now humbly lays before his brethren, and begs they will patiently peruse it, before they form any untoward conclusion on the subject.

Luke 1

IT is evident, from the dedication, that this gospel was not written to one ignorant of the glad tidings of great joy; and also that none of those already written by the many who took it in hand was suited for the purpose of the writer of this, namely, to certify to the most excellent Theophilus concerning things (λόγων) in which he had been instructed. Not the mere certainty of the subjects, I apprehend, but ἁσφάλειαν, the safety of them; it implies another idea besides truthfulness, and is only used in two other places in the Now Testament, in Acts 5:23, and 1 Thess. 5:3. I think one might very justly expect, from this preface, that every allusion which fell from our Lord, referring however directly or indirectly to the abstruse things of which Paul was especially the minister, would be inserted here, inasmuch as Luke was a fellow-traveler with that apostle; and if even it were disputed that Luke wrote this gospel, it cannot be gainsayed that the writer of the Acts was a companion of the apostle, or that the writer of one was the writer of the other; and therefore, I repeat, we are justified in expecting to find, in this gospel pro-eminently, many notices of the yet undisclosed mystery of the Church.

Man’s forfeiture of blessing has been over his own act; for God leaves him without excuse. Hence, if we are to look for the disclosure of another dispensation in this book, we should first be instructed as to the fullness of the offer of mercy to the one about to be superseded. Consequently, the subject begins by accurately recounting to us in this chapter all the circumstances of the birth of John the Baptist, who was to go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elias, and whom “the scribes said should come.” We get in Zacharias Israel’s condition before God in its best estate—orderly in ceremonials, but distrustful of God’s promises without a sign. We get also in this chapter the birth and origin of the promised Savior; all was purely to Israel. And yet more, there is no allusion to a Gentile, either by the angel to Zacharias or to Mary, nor in the prophetic utterances of Mary or of Zacharias. In their mind all the grace is confined to Israel: no other thought disturbs the full gladness of their soul. They witnessed the glorious favor to Israel, and they believed assuredly of their unhesitating reception of it. Surely, no son of Abraham could read this chapter and not feel that to him and his people did this salvation peculiarly come: if it turned aside from them, it must be from obstruction after its display, and not from a divergence in its issue. There could be no question but the first streak of light fell on Israel. “The day-spring from on high had visited us.” If it diverged, it must be Israel’s fault—and this we shall have to inquire into in the next chapter.

Luke 2

THIS chapter opens the fact that Israel is in bondage to the Roman power, the fourth beast; and, in submitting to the decrees of that power, Jesus is born in Bethlehem, not amid the happy exaltations of a thankful people, but unknown and unthought of, in a stable, in a manger, apart from even the haunts of men, because “there was no room for Him in the inn.” It is a little, but very emphatic notice in the very dawn of the day, showing how Israel would receive Him. None of the shepherds of Israel were looking out for Him as the morning without clouds. Little they felt the grinding rule of Rome. Little did they feel the poverty and apostasy of the nation, when there was no straining of their necks in earnest, anxious expectation of a deliverer. None such as these in Israel. The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. The shepherds of man’s sheep put to shame the shepherds of Israel, and to them is revealed the glories of grace as symbols of the fit characters for such blessing. When Saul did not tend the sheep of God, David, who tended his own sheep well, was chosen to fill his place. Here again is another notice of the un-readiness of Israel to receive the Lord of glory. No scribe or lawyer to announce and proclaim abroad the wonderful manifestations of the mercy of God to Israel! The shepherds fill this place. The sanctioned functionaries are unfit for the task, and God chooses more suitable instruments; “who made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning the child,” but to the Jew only. No intimation, as yet, that this now and heavenly light would radiate to any but Israel. Everything is in Jewish order. On the “eighth day” Jesus is circumcised. “The days of purification according to the law of Moses being accomplished, he is brought to Jerusalem, to be presented to the Lord, and to offer the sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord.” All confined within Jewish limits— but now Jesus being born as a Jew, circumcised as one, presented to the Lord as one—there falls from the mouth of one who waited only to see the Consolation of Israel, that this light which was shed on Israel would traverse beyond the limits of Palestine, and beyond the connection of any one people. Simeon, in the evidence of the Holy Ghost, could survey the wide unlimited range it was yet destined to occupy— “A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.” This is the first notice that any but a Jew should participate in this great blessing. No honest Jew, on reading these chapters, could cavil on the plea that he was not sufficiently considered. No; the Lord again provides an instrument to speak of Jesus to all them who looked for redemption in Jerusalem, or Israel. All must justify God in turning to the Gentiles. Where are their shepherds? Whore are those to comfort the mourners in Zion? Have not those who profess to fill these offices “fed themselves and fed not my flock”? The teachers of Israel were hid in a corner, yet God sought Him out shepherds who would tell abroad His grace, and now Anna, a prophetess, an aged widow, is the organ of comfort to all them “who looked for redemption in Israel.” When the Lord saw there was no man, His own arm brought salvation. Anna, weighed down by years and sorrows, is charged with a message of the comfort to all the mourners wherewith she herself is comforted of God. Never was one so patient and long-suffering as God. If none of the recognized shepherds and elders of Israel can be used of God in the offices they had dishonored and abused, yet He who declared the Father, and faithfully witnessed of His mercy, is found, as His earliest service, sitting in the midst of the doctors or teachers, hearing them, and asking them questions, if haply they might be reformed. “Let it alone this year also till I shall dig about it and dung it,” was to the end the expression of Christ’s service towards Israel.

Luke 3

IN the foregoing chapter we have seen the condition of Israel. Nationally subjects of the fourth beast, and so uncared for by them who assumed to be shepherds that they wandered on all mountains and upon every high hill; they were as sheep that had no shepherd. Here we have the ministry of John. The spirit and power of Elias leads him to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to the fathers, if they would receive it. He took his place in the wilderness—the Jewish land was defiled. He came in the way of righteousness—and yet he cried, in the fullness of God’s purposes, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God.” None can accept his mission but through baptism—old things, for they had corrupted themselves, must be abandoned. They who had a quick sense of sin in them yielded to this confession; but when it had a tendency to be formal, when multitudes came to him, he warned them that men descended from Abraham could not meet the righteousness of God, and that God was not confined to the present children of Abraham, but was able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham—to procure children of faith, when there existed neither ability nor pretension to such a rank. Israel is sought and Israel is warned—but if Elias is not received, the Lord must come and smite the earth with a curse. (Mal. 4:6.) John is cast into prison because he rebuked the unrighteous king; the throne that ought to have been established in righteousness is the first to indicate the nation’s apostasy from God. Yet, though John, in the spirit and power of Elias, is silenced, still Jesus declines not from the path of sorrowing service he came to take. As a descendant from God through a Jewish line, and of mature years, for Levite service, He enters upon it.

Luke 4

THE Lord Jesus has entered on His course. In the desert, apart from the associations of men, and all the palliatives of human misery, in the fertile regions of the earth. The Son of God, born of a woman, born under the law, begins His course. In far different circumstances from the first Adam, He withstands the assault of Satan. In Eden everything the eye rested on proclaimed the goodness and love of an Almighty hand. In the wilderness, where not a green thing assured the heart of the care of God for man—a vast dreary scene—type, morally, of all creation—aggravated to the utmost by the presence of Satan, the malignant author of its ruin, did He unhesitatingly maintain the goodness and worthiness of God. He is faithful to God, let circumstances wear what aspect they may; He could be stripped as Job, as a pelican in the wilderness, and yet His heart would not swerve from confidence in His Father, or His feet decline from the mission of His grace. He is not to be interrupted in His service. He comes forth in the majesty of a conqueror to fulfill His course, and in the power of the Spirit, and is “glorified of all.” He delays not to announce at Nazareth, “whore He had been brought up,” the wonderful service on which He was then entering. He goes into the synagogue, and stands up to read. He reads the beautiful and comprehensive prophecy of the objects of His mission. “All (Israel) was amazed at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth,” but all were incredulous, for truth was not to be valued for truth’s sake, because it fell from the lips of one so humble as Joseph’s son. Jesus is first rejected where He was brought up, where He ought to have been best accepted. When Cherith dried up—when the stream of Israel no longer flowed to cheer the prophet of God—is there no resource? Is there not a member of the human family to minister to the Lord of glory? Israel, where He was brought up, where the blessed features of His grace, from infancy to manhood, were developed—where he was best known-has rejected Him. To whom will He turn? Is there a Gentile widow? Is there a Gentile leper? The Gentile widow of Sarepta is the ready hostess to Elias of that cheer which was denied to him in Israel; the desolate Gentile, with gladness, and glorifying the word of the Lord, received the rejected of Israel. The widowed heart and the leprous mighty man, aptly embodied the characteristics of the family into whose circle the blessed Lord would retire from Israel. Where He ought to have been best known, where He was brought up, He is rejected even to death. He is led to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong.

He passes away from them, but His hands are still stretched out, the star of mercy is still in the ascendant. He teaches on the Sabbath-days, in a city of Galilee, and here encounters the root and power of all man’s enmity and opposition to God. The spirit of an unclean devil lurks in the bosom of man. Satan holds possession—man surrendered to him! Who will evict him? The evil spirit cowers in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth. A man has risen up who will give it no place, but who will destroy it, for He is the Holy One of God. A man now commands Satan to loose his grasp on his fellow-man, and he yields; he must yield, but not without a struggle. Too long he held his sway in the human heart to surrender without resistance. The unclean spirit “had thrown him in the midst and came out of him.” One is brought low in the world by the ejection of Satan; but this is the utmost of his power, for it “hurts him not.” In the beginning of this chapter we have soon our Lord’s personal conflict and victory over Satan; here we see His power over him in man’s heart, the throne of his empire. Like a mighty warrior, Jesus assaults every citadel; having first in single combat proved Himself, He now proceeds to every place of Satan’s power, and every result of it, as one able to meet any and all. In keeping with this I believe is the perfect and immediate cure of Peter’s wife’s mother of a “ great fever;” the power of evil is not only met personally in the wilderness, but as an unclean spirit in man, and still more in its results, as a “ great fever “ conveys. Henceforth the devils know what the world refuse to own, “that He was Christ.” Yet Jesus continues His course to other cities also; His comfort amidst all rejection—” For therefore am I sent.”

Luke 5

THIS chapter opens with the fact that the people pressed on Him to hear the Word; so much so, that He entered into a ship which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land, and He sat down and taught the people. It could not be then from want of hearing that Israel refused the Son, the only Son. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the world, and their words unto the ends of the earth. “Now, when He left speaking,” He gives another proof of His devoted service to Israel. If He is the messenger from God, He will increase the materials for service, by drawing to Himself, out of the mass, men whom He will endue with His own power, in order that they might labor with Him, and if by any means, save some. “How often would He have gathered them as a hen Both gather her chickens under her wing” is the assured conviction every one must rise up with, on reading this gracious history of His services towards Israel.

Simon Peter is now to be delivered and borne across the barrier that separated his people from the mercy so pressed on them. All the night he had toiled, and like his nation, had taken nothing; but at the word of the Lord, he was ready to let down the net. And now he is taught the vanity of earthly accumulations, for such a multitude of fishes does he enclose, that “the net brake;” and so little does the help of the partners avail, that when they came and filled the ships, “ they began to sink.” Dread eternity now opens before them. Of what value is this multitude of fishes? What gain to a man to secure the whole world, and lose his own soul? In this dismal hour he would look to Jesus; but sins which before could be borne with, now rise in awful contemplation before him, and he would escape the presence of Jesus, for the majesty of His holiness glared on his awakened conscience. For me Jesus came, so that all Peter’s woe is met with “Fear not,” and that from henceforth his occupation would be a higher one, even to catch men; to catch some of the wandering sheep of the house of Israel, and witness to them of the great Shepherd who, alone and unassisted, traversed this valley of Baca, to seek and to save that which was lost. The Jew cannot excuse himself that none received Christ; for Simon and his partners, James and John, “left all and followed Him;” on every side he must be left without excuse. We next see the Lord Jesus ready to identify Himself with Israel in its lowest physical condition: he touches the leper, and heals one whom all others would shrink from as loathsome and contaminating. And little therefore was the wonder that great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. But He cannot commit Himself unto them. He withdraws into the wilderness and prays.

The next scene discloses how little the doctors of the law, and the great professionists of religion, really understood the blessedness of His mission. When the palsied man, whose total inability portrayed the Jew in his real estate, heard from the lips of Jesus the first and fondest desire of God— “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee” —the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this that speaketh blasphemies? In vain had they come from Galileo, and Judea, and Jerusalem, if their eyes were so blind, and their ears so dull of hearing, that they so think and speak of the Lord of glory. But He who can dry up the springs of evil and weakness within, and then originate now life and power, can also invigorate the nerveless members of the body, and make it, instead of a burden, a burden-bearer; at this the lesser blessing, but suited to their carnal expectations, they were amazed, and glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today.” But they were in nowise convinced; for when, immediately afterwards, Jesus is found in the company of publicans and sinners, the scribes and Pharisees murmured against His disciples, saying, Why do ye eat with publicans and sinners? How blind to their own condition! Jesus meekly and blessedly replies, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” They can neither understand His power to forgive sin, nor His grace to associate with sinners. The natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God, and hence the parable of putting a piece of a new garment on an old. It would be but labor in vain; the rent would be made worse, and no unity, for the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. New wine also must be put into new bottles, and both are preserved. Deeply painful as it was to this gracious Missionary from God to discover how vain it was with the present materials to build again the tabernacle of David that was fallen down—nay, that the builders would refuse Him who ought to be the head of the corner—yet He can bear to see it, and, better still, though affected by it, to continue faithful to His mission, only letting drop now and again that He was prepared for rejection, and that His rejection might turn Him aside, yet it would never estrange His heart from the children of His people.

Luke 6

IN this chapter we find the path of rejection no longer concealed. The second Sabbath is marked by the Lord’s entrance into circumstances similar to those under which David suffered, in the first journey of his rejection, from the hand of Saul. The disciples, the Lord’s companions in His rejection, being hungry, rubbed the ears of corn in their hands as they passed through the cornfields on the Sabbath day. He who entered the world with no better reception than a manger, found ere long no place in it to lay His head. The ruthless Saul of His day pressed the companions of the rejected Jesus to unusual expedients to relieve their utter need. The scribes and Pharisees would value the day of rest (when the Lord of it had none) more than the Lord Himself. They would rest in their wretchedness and infirmities; He would not “rest till He had finished the thing.” (Ruth 3:18.) He would remove the hindrances; He sought God’s rest, not man’s rest. He would not rest till He could cast His eye to the utmost limit, and reassure the heart of God again with, “Behold, all is very good.” Thus He first rested; thus He will eternally rest. He is now working on to that wondrous point, and hence on the next Sabbath He heals a remarkable symbol of Israel’s state of incapacity, “the withered right hand.” “The arm clean dried up” (Zech. 11) too Plainly told the powerlessness of the nation. The scribes and Pharisees could keep a Sabbath in utter unconsciousness of their condition. The Healer of the breach, the Restorer of paths to dwell in, would lay the foundation for everlasting rest; and hence, on the man with the withered hand, He enacts the mercies He was ready to administer to the whole house of Israel. His word, “stretch forth thy hand,” to him their representative, was but indicative of His mind to the entire constituency, and by them ought to have been hailed as such; but instead of this, they were filled with madness, and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. Thus they despised the first dawning’s of the Sabbath of God. Jesus retires above the world to the mountains, to seek abstraction with God. The more rejected and painful His path, the more did His soul seek, alone and apart from all here, solace with God.

Another day dawns, and the faithful servant enters on His duties again. He now associates with Himself a distinct and remarkable number of disciples, whom He calls messengers or apostles. The service must not fail from want of’ hands, or be denied from want of witnesses; and again He stands on “the plains” of this world to re-exhibit His graciousness and tender mercies; for to the great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon, “there went virtue out of Him and healed them all;” “and they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed.” He then turns to His disciples, and enunciates the principles of His kingdom; not as to what grace effects for us, but what is required of us as heirs of this kingdom; they rather declare our responsibility than our capability—the law of the kingdom, not the grace of the kingdom—and opens it to everyone worthy of it. The good tree and the good man are to be valued, irrespective of everything; the corrupt tree and the evil man are to be rejected, irrespective of any original claim; and this practically we learn in the opening of the seventh chapter.

Luke 7

A ROMAN centurion, a Gentile, seeks the Lord for blessing. He engages the elders of Israel, “to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants,” &c. (Rom. 9:4), to be the ministers of Christ to him; for in the full sense of it, as a branch of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, he had no right to be grafted into the root and fatness of the olive tree. He presumes not to seek blessing from Christ but through the Jew. And what does Jesus find here? “I have not found,” saith the rejected of Israel, “so great faith; no, not in Israel;” and where did He find it? In a Gentile. Let not the Lord of glory despond, though His own will not receive Him; yet through His grace, the heart of many a stranger will bid Him a true and an eternal welcome.

Yet Israel must learn the fullness of His mercy, and therefore the next day He raises from the dead the last hope of the widowed heart. He comforts the widow and restores her last hope, though she had endured the withering pang that death had for ever extinguished it. Oh that the widow of Israel who desolate sits on the ground could but understand these things! At least the conviction steals over them, and they reiterate the words of the prophet, that God had visited His people; “and this rumor of Him went forth throughout all Judea, and throughout all the region round about. Surely they were left without excuse! Yet there was a veil on their hearts—the desperate reluctance that is in man to give credit to the unselfish love of Christ, and of this even John the Baptist seems to partake. He who had gone before Jesus in the spirit and power of Elias, now needs to be confirmed himself. The unsuccessfulness of his own testimony, the apparent un-profitableness of all his labors, no doubt did lead his soul to waver as to the Lord’s identity. He himself in prison, so contrary to the expectations of one who came to fill the place of Elias, was doubtless assured that in a little time Jesus would so increase as to counteract all opposition. But now, disheartened, he sends two disciples to learn and gather fresh evidence, and confirm his heart touching the nature and object of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth. In reply to this enquiry, Jesus enumerates the nature and extent of His works, adding this warning: “And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” Let none of your preconceived notions as to my service, and the effects of it, divert you from recognizing and acknowledging me; let not my rejection at the hands of Israel lead you to question my claims, or from the effects of it on my position, to be found assenting with them in their evil deeds. John was not to waver from his first happy thoughts, as the friend of the Bridegroom. True, true, men said “he hath a devil;” and of Jesus, “on whom he had seen the Holy Ghost descending and remaining on Him,” they say, “Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.” To the men of this generation every service proved ineffectual. Of them it could be said, “We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.” What then? “Wisdom is justified of all her children,” and of one of them we have an example in the following scene: The Pharisee here represents the better sort of public acceptance accorded to our Lord, acknowledging Him as a remarkable character; and though unconvinced of His pro-eminent station, yet not ready to appear hostile to Him, nor join in his rejection. As such, he receives Him as his guest, but so as to exhibit how little his heart honored Him as a distinguished one; and though, perhaps at personal sacrifice, he is the host of the Son of God, yet he loses the blessing obtained by one of wisdom’s children, because he “knew Him not.” Israel’s acceptance of Christ did not exceed the Pharisees. The woman that was a sinner represents the Church; she sought to Christ because of her sins, not because of other and temporal expectations. She served Him because she was forgiven, not that she might be honored by Him: her love taught her a service which the learned self-righteous Jew either neglected or was ignorant of. In the house of the Jew, at his very table, the unwelcome sinner is saved, and bid “go in peace.” The Church of God, despised and unwelcome, sprung into life and blessing in the very precincts of Jewish hospitalities, and I believe is here darkly shadowed. It is a scene which does not occur in the other gospel narratives.

Luke 8

THIS chapter opens with the account of the still larger ministrations of this blessed servant throughout every city and village, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God, and in company with the twelve who were to be witnesses of these things, and of His manifold labors in service towards Israel. “Certain women,” “a remnant according to the election of grace,” followed Him, and ministered “of their substance” to the destitute heir of all Jewish inheritance. There, in the presence of many which “were come to Him out of every city,” He utters the parable of the sower; and this kind of teaching at once discloses to us God’s judgment of Israel nationally. They are now to be dealt with as “seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.” If you hear without a heart to heed, your hearing will only harden you the more. So it was with Israel; but the Lord contents Himself that the seed will not fall always in unsuited and unproductive soil, but that honest and good hearts will be found which, having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. The seed will not be confined to the barren unfruitful spot. “God is no respecter of persons.” (Acts 10:34.) “But in every nation,” wherever, in the largeness of the grace of the sower, the seed should be sown, and wherever it grew, it would be accepted of God. God “lighted a candle” on the earth, that all they which enter in may see the light; therefore take heed how you hear, for you are responsible, and will be called to an account for it. If you “have,” you shall have more; you have something to build on; if you “have not,” you shall even lose the semblance of it. In a word, the Lord now says, I shall no longer recognize family or class relationships. My own mother and brethren I recognize not as such from nature, but my mother and brethren are those which hear the word of God and no IT. “From henceforth,” said the faithful revealer of the thought here mysteriously announced, “know we no man after the flesh.” Such was the peculiar self-denying path the Lord now opened to His disciples, which He more practically instructs them in by the vicissitudes they endure in passing over “the lake.” He is asleep, as if personally unconnected with their circumstances. His disciples awoke Him by the agonizing cry, “We perish!” so little prepared were they for the path of “faith” over the sea of life; and here they first learned that Jesus commands the winds and water, and they obey Him. To remove the hindrances to the growth of this faith in the human heart is, I apprehend, the Spirit’s object in placing before us the following acts of our Lord. We have here man as he is by nature; a legion of perverse, ungovernable, and senseless passions: all educational restraints, “chains and fetters,” no barrier to the spring tide of their desires: a fool, one that saith to everyone, I am a fool.

“He wore no clothes,” and the haunts of the dead, “the tombs,” were his abode. But the word of Jesus, the word that can control the winds and the waves, can emancipate poor man from this grievous thralldom; and many such are found sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind. Yet how unpopular His gracious work to the covetous Gadarenes of this world! “They besought Him to depart from them!” Blessed gentle Jesus returned where the people received Him. He is a ready visitant to them waiting for Him. And there too He gives a fuller illustration of His grace to answer the faith of the most wretched. The ruler of the synagogue, a person of considerable note among the Jews, enlists the sympathies of Jesus for his only daughter, who “lay a dying,” and beseeches of Him to come into “his house.” Jesus accedes to the request of the supplicating Jew, who, in the spirit of his nation, seems to recognize no power in Christ but in person. Jesus is on His way to assuage the bitter cry the hand of death was wringing from His people; but as He went, as He journeys along to the great day of Israel’s final, complete, and death-released deliverance, He is not unmindful or insensible to the touch of faith from the most despised and unheeded. A woman, who, whatever her condition had been, is now destitute and penniless, all her living having been spent in her search after health. Twelve long years of sickness and expenditure only found her, having spent all her living upon physicians, and neither could be healed of any. Job-like, wealth was gone, and health was unattainable; not a shred of earthly hope remained. Jesus, the fountain of grace and mercy, is on His journey; she, by the eye of faith, knows Him. Unseen, she touches Him, and immediately a stream of mercy imparts life and vigor to her. “She was healed.” Another striking type of the Church, who, without hope or enjoyment on earth, by faith finds all her life and blessing in Jesus, not as appropriating Him exclusively to herself, for that is high-mindedness, but, as He passes on to the ruler’s house, through faith engaging His best services—yea, while the blessings of His grace and affiliation are ringing in her ears, the doubts of the extent of His power are uttered by the Jew in unhappy discordance around, while she, of no earthly hope, drinks largely, through faith, of the fountain of life. The Jew, in unbelief, cries out, “Thy daughter is dead, trouble not the Master;” death has laid his rude hand on what was most dear to me, and, alas! there is none to help— “our hope is lost.” (Ezek. 37:11.) But, behold! Jesus pursues His way, un-riveted from His purpose, through storms of unbelief and scorn, till that wondrous hour when He shall take the virgin daughter of Israel (now sunk in the sleep of death) by the hand, and shall sound “ Arise,” and, before wondering multitudes, her spirit shall come again, and she shall arise straightway. But on this scene for the present the curtain falls, and the charge is, “that they should tell no man what was done.”

Luke 9

WE have seen in the last chapter that, though great was the manifestation of mercy to Israel, yet so unfit were they for the disclosure, so little ready to appreciate it, that the marvelous service of Jesus to Jairus’ daughter (so typical of His heart’s desire and purpose toward the whole house of Israel) is not to be made public. The charge is “that they should tell no man what was done;” and yet this chapter unfolds to us, not One declining any more to serve a people so unworthy of it, but, on the contrary, enduing His twelve disciples with power to counteract and remove their sorrows. Grace, like a flowing stream, only accumulates an expression of its power as every fresh barrier is raised against it. This was largely shown to the Jew. Twelve new currents of blessing must now permeate their land, carrying with them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases, to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. And so great is the effect of this combined movement that the tetrarch on his throne is “perplexed.” He had beheaded John, once happy harbinger of all this mighty blessing. The tender budding of it as a bitter frost he had nipped. He who from his throne had all but crushed it in its infant state, now bears testimony to Christ’s wondrous mission, and, conscience-smitten, desires to see Him. Can any Jewish caviler say: “Jesus gave not sufficient evidence of Himself to the house of Israel”? Their King who, without remorse, did imbrue his hands in the blood of Christ’s herald, is now so convinced that he desires to see Him—Him the personification of all the power he had contumaciously rejected in the execution of John the Baptist! The virus of rejection originates with the throne. The tide of conviction now reaches the throne. The apostles having returned from their mission, and given in a detail of their task, Jesus leads them “aside privately into a desert place belonging to a city called Bethsaida.” Whether “the house of provision” or not we shall shortly see, for thither Jesus is followed by the people when “they knew it,” and He receives them in all the fullness of His grace, and, still unwearied in His service towards them, “spoke unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing;” but here He also teaches the emptiness of all earthly pretension. At Bethsaida, “the house of provision,” there is no sustainment for the followers of Christ. As at Nain, “the beautiful place,” the dark hand of death had changed the scene only to be repaired by Him who can make all things new. So here, He Himself is the fountain of supply. If earth and earthly things fail, Jesus can meet, and more than meet, the need of His people. Twelve baskets full of fragments attest the more manifold blessings which will flow from Mm than from the most honored place in Israel.

Now, the question must be propounded to His disciples—the future nucleus of blessing— “Whom say the people that I am?”

This occurs when the Lord is “alone” from man, and abstracted unto God. The answer declares the effect of His services to Israel.

He was said to be “John the Baptist, or Elias, or one of the old prophets,” but none but Peter knew Him. None but he said “the Christ of God;” but none yet must didactically remove the veil from the heart of Israel. The disciples are “commanded to tell no man that thing,” but rather to learn for themselves the path of unearthly expectation which following Him would demand. And to sustain them in this path, not by what earth could provide, not from the supplies of the failing Bethsaida of this world, but from a heavenly sphere, does He reveal to them, “ere they should taste of death”(as unreached by that wide-spreading, unsparing scourge, as unconscious “whether in the body or out of the body,” 2 Cor. 12: 3), the glory of God’s kingdom.

On the mountain, in prayer with God—above the earth, and separated in spirit from it—does He reveal to Peter, John, and James, the power of glory. The fashion of His countenance is altered, and His raiment white glistering. Moses, for whose body the devil contended, and Elias, for whom fifty sons of the prophets three days did seek, are manifested in glory. In personal intimacy with Jesus, they talked with Him of the great results of His sorrowing service here—His ἔξοδον, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem. The disciples betray how little they are prepared for such a scene; they are either heavy with sleep, or they only awake to prove a wrong judgment. To assimilate this wondrous glory to something earthly, Peter places the Lord of glory on an equality with Moses and Elias, perhaps comparing the scene to a feast of tabernacles, the most celebrated of earthly festivals. But a cloud intercepts all earthly hopes and plans, and a voice out of the cloud proclaims that Jesus is chief.

“This is my beloved Son, hear Him.” The right estimate of Jesus is learned in the glory; and Peter afterwards, speaking of this scene, describes it as “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.... His majesty.” (2 Peter 1:10.) The majesty of Jesus, learned in the glory by men as yet unreached by death, discloses to us, then, only that high place of attainment in which the apostle says, “Of such an one will I glory.” (2 Cor. 12:5.) No earthly connection, service, or gift, entitled him to glory; elevation into this scene alone entitled him; but then he was not only unearthly, but unconscious of a link with earth.

This revelation was necessary to sustain the disciples in the path of unearthly expectation which He had been unfolding to them; and hence, when they return again on that path, an incident occurs which exposes the nature and violence of the power arrayed against them. “When they came down from the hill,” a man of the company beseeches Him for his only child—the earthly hope of the father centered in this child. But this condition is: “A spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out, and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him.” There are two important features in this scene which does not present themselves in other cases of Satanic possession. The suppliant here is not the sufferer: the sufferer appears to have seasons of respite. This manifestation of suffering, and the inability of the disciples to remove it, call forth from the Lord a censure on this generation for faithlessness and perverseness, the two great causes of our difficulty in encountering the power against us on earth; and because of them, Satan affects us in the humiliating manner here described. On the way to Jesus, “yet a coming,” he gains us no reprieve. It is no easy thing to, be rid of Satan. We must not expect deliverance without being “thrown down and torn.” When Satan has done his worst, when you are humbled and torn before men, then you know the comfort and rest of the healing of Jesus. Jesus knew what His disciples would have to suffer if they would learn, from glory, to hear the beloved Son. This is here depicted for them, and then He tells them to let these sayings (λόγους) sink down into your ears, for I myself will have to pass through bruisings and tearings. “The Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men.” “But they understood not this saying,” but only offer fresh evidence of how little led they are above earthly hope, for they reason among them “which of them should be greatest.” Oh, how slowly we all learn our place and portion! How needful for the disciples, as for us, to receive a Spirit which would bring to remembrance the teachings of Christ!

A helpless babe is a disciple’s proper earthly condition: assuming nothing, neither important enough to forbid anybody, nor affecting power even in judgment on those who will not “receive” the Lord of glory. Our place is to follow Him, as the lowest and most unprovided for in creation. As to earth, “the foxes and the birds of the air” have the advantage. Neither respect for “the dead,” nor affection for the living, “at home at my house,” must divert the sincere follower of Christ from the plough of service he has put his hand to. Such ought to be the miserable expectancy of Christ’s servant on earth. Alas! how few have learned it.

Luke 10

As we might have been prepared for, this chapter declares the long and fullest sound of the trumpet ere judgment be pronounced—seventy additional instruments, answering to the number who shared with Moses the burden of the stiff-necked and rebellious Israel of his day. Their perverseness in that day made it necessary, and so now. The harvest must not lie un-gathered for want of hands. “Into every city and place whither He Himself would come,” there must be a twofold announcement of His mercy. They are warned of His approach. If they reject, they must do so deliberately. The Lord could already pass sentence on some cities where “mighty works had been done.” The Chorazin, the Bethsaida, and the Capernaum of this world have already deserved condemnation. As the return of the twelve in the former chapter was an occasion for the Lord to explain to them a large page of their yet future history, so might we expect another of still greater interest and matter to be unfolded here. The seventy return with joy, gratified with the fact “that the devils are subject unto us through thy name.” Little yet, doubtless, had they learned the extent of Satan’s power; for the reply of Jesus is, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” We know what is the terrific effect of lightning on the inhabitants of earth. “But yet, saith the Lord, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the powers of the enemy (heavenly or earthly), and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Though this assurance might appear the highest of all blessings, yet there was a higher.

“In this rejoice not ... .but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (τοῖςοὐρανῖς.) Your names inscribed in a region afar and above all here, is the real source of joy. And in the sense of this Jesus exults in the purposes of God being so accomplished, that “ the babes,” the powerless un-intellectual class, have revealed unto them what the magnates of wisdom and prudence, the highly esteemed among men, knew nothing of; and therefore, “privately,” the disciples are told by Him that “blessed are the eyes which see the things which they see, for that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them” — “the mystery which was kept secret since the foundation of the world,” and of which they themselves as yet knew scarcely anything.

The stern demands of law are all answered by grace. The more it demanded from us, the more does Jesus, by substitution, for us. The greater the difficulty we had to encounter through it, the greater the service Jesus performed for us. The more my responsibility to my fellow man from the law, the more do I gain from Jesus, born of a woman, born under the law. Thus grace resolves all the difficult questions that the law can raise; and Jesus but describes Himself when He recounts the traits and acts of the good neighbor. Who but Jesus, as an unbidden friend, an unwelcome servitor, a Samaritan, would visit the Jerusalem wanderer, the self-immolated sufferer, the victim of human malice, without money or clothes, and almost lifeless—when neither priest nor Levite, the boasted appendages of the law, could aught avail—would come “where he was,” be it into the darkness of death? “He had compassion on him, and went to him” (side by side with him on the cross of Calvary), and “bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine; “ and on that living power which bore this gracious neighbor to the sufferer’s side, was now the sufferer to be conducted and raised out of this scene of sorrow. He “set him on His own beast,” and brought him to an inn—the abode of travelers and strangers—and then, having cared him to be trusted to no other hands at first, He on the morrow consigns him to “the host” (the proprietor of all needful supplies by the way), defraying the probable expense, but chargeable with all, cost what he will!— “And whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee.” If the host has great and arduous services in the absence of Jesus, His coming again will crown his labors with rich rewards. May the saints understand their service!— “If ye love me, feed my sheep.”

From the next little scene we gather the nature of the best services we can render. Jesus is “received” into Martha’s house. Who so great a stranger here? Who so way-worn and friendless? Surely, a most desolate One, yet, for love’s sake, “received.” Well, reception is one thing, right hospitality is another. Doing one thing well often leads us to do the next thing indifferently. Martha understands not the nature of the services this desolate servant of God would value most. Mary has learned this. “She sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word.” The service most grateful to Jesus will be so, in like manner, to His Spirit in His people. And, doubtless, the patient lover and student of Christ’s word will, towards the wearied traveler, exceed in hospitalities more than the more apparently laborious and external attentions of Martha.

Luke 11

WE should ever remember, in tracing this interesting subject, that the great Teacher of the Church is very patient, minute, and comprehensive, in His mode of instruction; and I think the more we trace the slow trail of our progress in truth, the less will we wonder at the dullness of the disciples, or be surprised at the apparent repetition of principles already proved. The Holy Ghost is, in this book, meeting the entire question, and practically it will be found a much more difficult lesson than many apprehend to practically take a heavenly standing with a happy conscientious rejection of all the claims an earthly one may appear to have on us.

This chapter opens with a desire expressed by the disciples to be taught to pray as John taught his disciples. They were led to this, I suppose, both from realizing, in some measure, the barrenness of present things, and from seeing what a continual resource it was to their Lord and Master. Prayer always implies circumstances of need and privation. Praise is the language of enjoyment and satiety. The latter was ever the more ostensible with the Jew, because when righteous they were in scenes of abundant blessings. Prayer therefore implies a departure from these; and John, who was to take the kingdom by violence, making a last effort in the flesh, endeavoring to produce righteousness from it by the severity of bodily exercise, taught his disciples to pray, for the wilderness was his sphere while waiting for “Him who should come.” The Lord yields to the desires of the disciples, and gives them a prayer suited to their then understandings. In fact this prayer lots us into the amount of light and knowledge possessed by them at this moment. It is evident they had not the Holy Ghost as an abiding unction of thought in their souls at this time, for “the Holy Ghost was not yet given” (John 7:39); and they are here, in verse 13, told that if they pray for the Holy Spirit their heavenly Father will give it. Well, then, this prayer was suited to their present knowledge, or else it would have been an unintelligible prayer; and indeed the sentiments generally in the prayer establish this point. The forgiveness of sin is here only contingent on their extending the same toward those who may trespass against them: not the fullest idea of the largeness of God’s forgiveness to us; though practically one may lose the sense of forgiveness when one departs from the principle of forgiveness, for (as with all God’s blessings) it has a reciprocation.. I do not think this prayer gives any leading to a heavenly hope. A faithful Jew, feeling the ruin about him, could unhesitatingly utter it, under the full conviction that when the kingdom would come, the will of God would be done on earth as now in heaven. But though the Lord gives them a prayer suited to their then circumstances and knowledge, yet He would not have them to be contented with it; but He explains to them the nature of real prayer. If we know God as a friend, no circumstance or delay on His part to answer and relieve us should cause us to discontinue seeking blessing from Him. This was a great point for a Jew, nay, for any to learn, that one is never to judge of God by what one sees of His favors, but from what one knows of His power. It was so with the example here. The needy man sought from his friend, and persisted even when friendship seemed to have gone, because he knew he could be then supplied, and his need knew no refusal. Let the disciples be prepared for any and every adverse circumstance which may arise in this world. Let them maintain their judgment of the grace and power of God, in spite of all the contradiction appearances may raise against it. Let them but ask, and continue asking.

The next occurrence, I have no doubt, is intended by the Holy Ghost to teach us the real hindrance to our utterance before God. The devil has no interest in either speaking to God or of God. When his power is dominant we must be dumb; but Jesus casts out the unclean spirit, and the dumb spake: another subject of wonder to “the people,” as all the effects of Christ’s power on us ever are, as well as another ground for misconstruction and rejection of His grace. Some of them said, “He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils.” “And others” would not trust Him till they would prove Him— “tempting, sought a sign from heaven.” Their opposition increases in proportion as His grace and power are manifested. The Lord meets their thoughts first by the unreasonableness of them. “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.” Secondly, that His work was not unusual in Israel; and whatever judgment they pass on Him, they must pass on their own children; and if they judge their act as of God, then let them recognize how near the kingdom of God had come unto them in the person of Jesus.

Jesus then declares that He will have no half measures; that as long as Satan, “the strong man armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in safety;” but of that there must be an end when a stronger than he comes upon him. He will overcome him, take from him all his armor wherein he trusteth, and divide the spoil. Satan has used all natural things, with which the Jew abundantly was blessed, as instrumental against God. “They waxed fat, and kicked.” All these shall be now sunk in the cross. From the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop which grew on the wall, all nature must be merged in the blood of the sacrifice. And if you are not with Christ, you must be against Him; you must not be so listlessly; you must gather with Him, or you are scattering. The mere deliverance from an unclean spirit does not ensure complete surrender to God. Israel was now much reformed, yet its future history is shortly told. It was set in “dry places;” the greatness of Canaan had departed, and yet they were “seeking rest,” and, finding none, they would return to their own home, and then and there associate with themselves a more malignant power of evil than ever, and so their last state would be worse than the first. Seeking rest in “dry places,” whether by a Jew or a Gentile convert, is ever followed by the same results. The earth is the dry place; if you seek rest, you must seek it beyond earth. May the saints remember this, or surely they will yet have to learn it! As He spake these things, a woman of the company, in the spirit of popery, in veneration for the descent of Christ, blesses not Him, but the channel through which He came. This was too truly the spirit of many in Israel, highly venerating the earthly lineage of Christ, and in doing so, overlooking the aim and object of all His labor and mission, allowing His greatness only to shed a halo around His human origin. This thought is corrected by the Lord announcing that still more blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it. No natural blessing, however great, can transcend an humble following of the word of God. Jesus came through the Jew; they were thus highly distinguished among men, but they can be surpassed by a Gentile follower of the word of God.

To those who sought a sign the Lord gives a sign, first premising that it is an evil generation which seeks a sign, because they have no faith; that there shall no sign be given but the sign of Jonas, the prophet. Ere Jonas testified to the Ninevites, he sank in the waters of death; thus was the Son of man to be a sign to this generation; and subsequently a Gentile queen shall rise up in judgment against this generation and condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon—the wisdom of Christ in glory, as Solomon symbolizes—and yet this generation lightly esteems a greater than Solomon amongst them. In like manner, a Gentile people shall rise up in the judgment against this generation, because they repented at the preaching of Jonas, and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. Israel would be surpassed by a Gentile, is the great fact established here. Who is to blame for this? Surely not He who lighted the candle. God has lighted His candle for light-sake, and all who come in shall see the light. It will be publicly manifested, and for public benefit. It is not kept in a secret place or under a bushel; it is not to be confined to the narrow limits of Palestine. If you do not see it, your eye is not single; you are not fully set upon it; if you were, your whole body would be luminous with the purpose of your soul, with the deep engagement of your heart, and light will increase. Not only will your body be full of light, having no part dark, but it will omit vivid light from it, as a candle by its bright shining. Such would be the blessed effect of learning the grace of Christ, which I apprehend a Pharisee assumes as descriptive of his doctrine; for, as Jesus spake, “a certain Pharisee besought Him to dine with him.” The Lord accepts the invitation, and then takes occasion to expose the inconsistent and delusive doctrine of the Pharisees. Their pretensions to light and power were hollow and limited. The Lord washed not before dinner. He regarded not one act here more clean or sacred than another; the meal needed as much to be sanctified as the person. All earth was corrupt before Him. Restriction implied that some things were better than others, but the doctrine of Christ is, “To the unbeliever is nothing pure.” If you will have all things pure, give all present things (τὰἐνόντα) in alms. If you will place yourself on the ground of merit, then here is your responsibility, here is your requirement, giving all present things as alms to those from whom you can expect no return—expecting no gain from them in this present time. But on the course and practices of the Pharisees nothing but judgment awaits. Woe unto the Pharisees, unto them who assumed to give the best expression of righteousness among Israel! Woe unto the scribes, classed with the disciples they produced, and woe also to the lawyers! The nation and their guides must now hear their sentence. Mercy towards them is exhausted. From this generation must be required the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world. Are they smitten with remorse and penitence at these awful denunciations? No; they only seek to aggravate their destiny in their fruitless efforts against the Son of God; they exposed the terrible enmity of their hearts against Him, as well as the hollowness of their professions, in that they urge Him and provoke Him expressly for the purpose that He might commit Himself, and so give them ground for accusation against Him. Alas! such teachers of the people! Watching for evil, not for God!

Luke 12

“In the mean while,” whilst the scribes and Pharisees were thus so unworthily employed, “an innumerable multitude of the people were gathered together,” and the Lord uses the opportunity for impressing on His disciples to beware, in particular, or “first of all,” “of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” The Pharisees, by their assumption of godliness, were deceivers of the people; they were greater enemies to the truth, by pretending to be what they were not, than if they had been openly vicious. No greater danger to true religion than the leaven of hypocrisy; malice is only masked. There is no power of it in the heart. It is merely adopted as a cloak for the evil within; and hence what the disciples are first of all warned against shall mark the full blown apostasy of Christendom, “having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” It is the design to make religion conspicuous and acknowledged, which never can be in a world which rejected Christ. But there will be a full disclosure of all motives. Mere privacy will not avail; yet on the other hand you are not, if “friends” of Christ, to fear to confess His name; you are not to assume a character without power, nor again shrink from a testimony which you can afford; you are not to seek the gaze of men for religiousness, nor shrink from confessing His Name through fear of men. If your body is full of light, it will not fear them who kill the body; this will be one bright ray from it. Covetousness will not be your snare, for you will have learned that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” —a Jewish idea, and one to which all nature is wedded—but ye will learn to “take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.” Abandon all natural calculations, such as all the nations of the earth seek after. Know it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. The word “kingdom” did not sound strangely on Jewish ears; they all expected a kingdom; and truly what is here promised shall be realized, though I apprehend that in the next verse a new thought was introduced, and cue which embodied the place and hope of the saints now. Here they are told to “sell” all their property on earth, and give it to those needing it, and lay up treasure in a region utterly unknown or unheard of to a Jew, save as the throne of God; and the value of this doctrine is enforced by the remarkable words, that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” If Jesus be rejected to the heavens, and Jesus is your treasure, then your heart will be there; or in other words, you will be set down together with Christ in the heavenlies; and the natural consequence of having such a hope and interest beyond this scene will be that “your loins will be girt and your lights burning,” marked by an alacrity in moving onwards, and your course luminous with the light of the body described in this chapter.

From verse 36 to 40 I am very much disposed to think the return to Israel is spoken of. The Lord’s return here being placed subsequent to “the wedding,” strongly disposes me to this thought, and in the perfect keeping with the fact that the Lord always only casually and subsidiarily referred to the Church, while the open and general narrative manifestly bears on Israel. This is still more confirmed by Peter’s question, “Speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all?” To this I believe the Lord replies, giving strict reference to the Church as now. “A faithful and wise steward,” οἰκονόμος, leads you at once to a house and its domestic economy. In the preceding parable we have servants and the master of the house, their service “watching,” efficient if they are ready to answer to the knock of their returning Lord, in which the house-master, οικοδεσπότης, is especially interested. Here the service is not watching, but feeding and caring for the domestics in the absence of their Lord. Whoever observes this service is blessed when the Lord returns; his reward shall be great, though I think the word “enter” is not expressed in the original. The Church, as the habitation of God through the Spirit, should be known here as in domestic relationship; and then in proportion as one is faithful and wise will he care and nurture his fellows. The principle is only declared here, that is, service to one another in a domestic scene. If the Lord’s return is appreciated, service to His people here will be proportionately observed, but if apostasy creep in, the judgments on Christendom will be very great. The word stripes, πληγων, is translated “plagues” in the Revelation. The thought of this judgment leads our Lord to disclose the issue of His mission on earth. “I am come,” saith He, “to send fire on the earth.” We road in another place, “The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” (2 Peter 3:10.) Premonitory notices of this terrible issue were already to commence. Natural domesticity would be outraged. The fairest scene on earth, the social hearth, would be marred by the malignancy of Satan, no longer to be restrained. The Lord having thus glanced at the earth’s destiny and the progress to it, with His unwearied grace chides the people for not forming a more truthful judgment of the purposes of God. In natural things they were wise enough. Why then so dull as to matters so momentous? And He concludes by showing them the only mode for escape, and if that be neglected, incarceration till they have paid the last farthing must be their doom.

Luke 13

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.)

Luke 14

IT is quite evident, from the closing verse of the preceding chapter, that Israel’s rejection of Christ as their King was already full and manifest; consequently, we should be prepared to find in this chapter larger revelations of the characteristics of anybody which might succeed them. And not only so, but we are warranted to expect here a fuller exposure of the prejudices which led to this rejection. The chapter opens with spewing us our Lord in social intercourse with one of the highest professors— “a chief Pharisee,” one of the class in which the true lines of Judaism were deeply and broadly marked. In them it was magnified, and, as the best specimen of the Jews’ religion, it became our Lord, as was ever His practice, not only to test them in their best and most boasted estate, but also to give utterance to His first warnings from the same ground, and with them the characters and principles He would henceforth seek after. “The Sabbath day” is also chosen, because it had been a pledge to Israel of God’s purpose to set them in unbroken rest, of which the day was in itself an oatmeal,; but if the earnest was lost and the pledge forfeited, then the formal keeping of the day would give rise to painful and humiliating thoughts, rather than happy and self-satisfied ones. But not so with them. Nay, rather their sin was that they regarded the pledge more than; the purpose, and the shadow than the substance; they were contented with form without power. Hence the Lord continually brings before them types of their varied infirmities on that day, at once slowing them the imperfectness of their boasting, and that He was alone able to effect and establish a real Sabbath.

The infirmity here is that of “a certain man which had a dropsy; “the peculiarities of that disease are plainly descriptive of an insatiable desire for any acquisition which, while momentarily allaying it, really aggravates it, and in the end destroys the system subject to such conflicts. The thirst, the burning thirst of Israel for carnal blessings, was aptly pictured in this dropsical man. Every acquisition, as each drink with him, only increased their malady; temporary reliefs eventuated in fatal reactions. The hand of Christ can arrest this grievous disorder; and what He here so graciously effects for this poor sufferer, He is ready to do for the whole Israel of God. “He took and healed him.” God’s Sabbath will be a day of rest from many a deadly desire, and then no proud religionist will “hold his peace,” from owning the beneficence and grace of the mighty hand which achieved it.

The Lord now enunciates a fundamental characteristic of those really blessed. He denounces the ruling passion, the aspiration of the Jew, “when He marked how they chose out the chief rooms,” and shows them the uncertainty of unauthorized elevation, and then enforces the new and grand basis of all blessing: “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted”—lay claim to nothing on the ground of merit—have no confidence in flesh— “be not high-minded, but fear” —were now the strange and unwelcome doctrines sounded in the ears of a people whom natural blessings and glory in the flesh had alienated from, instead of attaching to, God; and to a class without claim, or pretension, or ability to recompense, should the Pharisee (if duly consistent to his profession) extend his hospitality. God was about to do so. Instead of priests, without maim or imperfection, to minister before Him, now “the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind,” are to be His guests, in all the familiarity of social intercourse, not on the ground of merit, but simply their need commanding His grace and favors. One of the company is evidently interested at our Lord’s allusion to the day of recompense, the resurrection of the just, and exclaims with all the earnestness of conviction: “Blessed is he that shall cat bread in the kingdom of God.” But the Lord’s reply declares how few will appreciate the offer of it, and how none of those who have earthly interests to engage them will accept of it. It is not the question whether they are lawful or not; they satisfy the heart, and, therefore, the feast of God is disregarded. But though the Jew, the recipient of many blessings from God, may disregard the larger and highest blessing He can offer; nay, may forget Himself while they revel in His gifts; yet God’s grace will find recipients for its exhaustless glories. “The streets and the lanes,” the thoroughfares of “the city,” must be “quickly” searched for; “the poor, the maimed, the halt and the blind,” the destitute sons of earth, are suited guests for a heavenly feast;—the way-worn, homeless, friendless Jacob, with a pillow of stone his only repose, can appreciate heavenly glories, and truly estimate the marvelousness of the scene which was exhibited to him. Such were the class God would now seek; and not only should the city be searched for guests, not only should the poor of Israel be gathered in, but also, from “the highways and hedges,” from all the nations of the earth, should a company be pressed, numerous enough to fill the house of God. Let them be found where they may, there must be no limit to their numbers, till that house, as large as the heart of God, shall be filled.

But upon the “bidden” who rejected the invitation, upon them is this condemnation: “They shall not taste of my supper.” This, doubtless, is the present condition nationally of Israel.

We now see the natural effects of these doctrines of grace upon the multitude. There went great multitudes with Him. The marvelousness and adaptation to our need of God’s grace is deeply attractive, and as long as the fullness and freeness of it are alone proclaimed, so long will the multitude be ready hearers; but our Lord, who knows how to sow the seed, turns to them and announces the path each soul must traverse that will be His disciple or learner of Him. “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Every natural tie must be severed if any will be a true learner of the rejected Jesus; and not only so, but he must “daily,” every day he tarries here, endure sufferings like his Master, and following wherever He may lead, not expecting rest here, but where He has found it. A disciple has two objects to accomplish: the first is represented by building a tower—a tower is a safe and secure retreat from surrounding danger. A disciple will require no ordinary zeal and expenditure to acquire a place of safety and defense from the inroads of the world, the flesh, and the devil. He must maintain a bold, uncompromising, determined front against them; this can only be at great personal sacrifice and devotedness, and one does well to count the cost ere he enters on an object he is not prepared to complete, for unfinished undertakings always expose us to reproach, as attempting things too great for us and above our ability to accomplish. In an attempt when one stakes everything, a miscarriage is fatal. You assume a power which facts deny you.

The second object is not defense, but aggression. A disciple should not only be safe from attack, but able to make successful sallies against the enemy—he must be a warrior as well as a tower; but if a successful one, he must consult whether he, with a limited force, is able to encounter an adversary with a superior one; but if not, ere any collision has occurred, when the enemy is a great ways off he sendeth an embassage and desireth conditions of peace. How inglorious and ineffectual his effort and pretension! Yet so likewise, “whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” No other preventive against such fearful and humiliating failures but entire self-renunciation in devotedness of heart and soul unto Christ. The only good in salt is its savor; let it lose that, and it is good for nothing. Let disciples fail in their objects; and they are worthless. Israel is not “fit for the land nor for the dunghill,” the lowest place of the earth, (see 1 Sam. 2:8,) but they “cast it out;” and let this be a warning to all. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

Luke 15

IN unison with the principles our Lord was unfolding, do now all the publicans and sinners draw near to Him; they perceived they were welcome, that there was grace to receive them. They who needed blessing could appreciate the largeness and fullness of the offer of it, and they who did not, “the Pharisees and scribes, murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” The gracious Lord wearies not in reiterating to them the manner of His grace, and, in fact, in vindicating it. The great point established by the two parables is, that it became the Shepherd of Israel to look for a lost one, and, faithful to His trust, to spare not Himself till He finds it; cost what it may, the sheep must be found; and, doubtless, the greater the task, the greater the joy in accomplishing it; there is great joy in finding the sheep, for it had wandered into dark and dangerous places. This is intrinsically the grace of God, to “rejoice more over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine which need no repentance.” God loves the heart that needs Him. The woman, searching for the piece of silver, tells the same tale, only with this difference, that the power which is effectual in the search is in the hand of another. The Son of God, as the Shepherd, searches—the Holy Ghost in the Church searches—and the Father, in the open arms of His love, receives the found one. This the narrative of the prodigal son fully ‘elates.

The Jew had never understood the heart of the Father. One treading on the threshold of such blessing could say: “Show us the Father and it sufficeth us.” (John 14.) The only-begotten Son had declared it, and it is only in the Spirit of the Son we can understand it. The deeply interesting details of this grace are disclosed here. The two-fold response it produces is illustrated by the “two sons.” “The younger son” early desires independence, and seeks at a distance from hue Father to enjoy it: abundance of gifts bound not his heart to the giver, but they abide not always. Every element separated from its source is terminable. He forsook the fountain, and he began to be in want. Such was Israel when, having wandered from God, they sought for help from Egypt and Assyria. He “JOINED himself to a citizen of that country,” and they took away all his labor, (see Ezek. 23:29,) and left him naked and bare; “and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks.” “No man gave unto him.” Now, on the verge of destitution, when there was no eye to pity, when every human aid and means are sped—then, in that moment of bitterest anguish, a thought (unseenly sent, but surely felt) of the Father’s love enters his soul; the one he had slighted, above whom all others were preferred, is now to be sought as his only friend; no question as to acceptance—no one knows the Father and doubts it. You may not know the measure of it, but as to the fact there can be no question. It simply depends on His goodness and my need; if either is questionable, then may the acceptance be. This is the great point pressed here—the Father’s arms, open and advancing towards the returning and desolate wanderer.

Though I do not doubt that in its main features this narrative presents the return of Israel in the latter day, as described in Hosea 13, yet I apprehend that a new purpose of present mercy is taught here, as affecting the desolate and hopeless wanderers of Israel of this day. The restored one here is not established in his forfeited, but redeemed inheritance; he is introduced into a place and portion not ever appertaining to him. The Father’s house is to be the future sphere of all his glory and enjoyment. Wondrous grace! Where sin abounded, grace much more abounded. To him who forfeited his large estates of natural blessings, and now a desolate beggar—even to him are the doors of God’s everlasting house thrown open. God commands His servants now to carry out the full intentions of His love. Paul understood this commission; he desired “to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” God will accomplish His purpose. “They began to be merry.” This hapless one is rescued from the direst want, to abide with God in holy everlasting joys; but, instead of all with one voice acknowledging and applauding this unheard-of mercy, there are found within the nearest ties of nature the most hostile and averse to it. The elder brother is the open enemy of grace; for the mere reputable, well-conducted and prudent of the earth, have no appreciation of this new and wondrous acceptance and elevation. He could not catch the air of the anthem of grace; he could not sing the new song with the risen, heavenly, but once lost prodigal; “he would not go in.” Such were the Pharisees of our Lord’s day; but even to such the hand of mercy is still stretched out. The Father, in the person of Jesus, has come out, and entreated the self-satisfied Jew—offered him a participation in this glorious grace—grace that he does not understand—grace that he never expected or desired; the utmost of his wish only reached to “make merry with his friends.” Into his heart it never entered that God would share His joys with him. God graciously vindicates His own course, an unanswerable one to any Jewish caviler, adding the promise yet surely to be fulfilled to Israel “Son, thou art ever with me, and all I have is thine.” Even God, the gracious God, could say no more!

Luke 16

IN the preceding chapter, we have learned the gracious purpose of God toward the lost one, the rebellious son. Here we are instructed respecting the Jew in the capacity of steward, and how grace even meets him there, if he would but understand his impending and deserved discharge; nay, his Lord, at personal loss, would mitigate an inevitable sentence, and, in the hour of degradation, lay a groundwork for future and abiding honors. Could a Jew, could any say that they have dispensed God’s gifts with a faithful, un-wasteful hand? The son wastes his substance in riotous living. The steward wastes it by inattention and unfaithfulness. Whatever be our standing, we have not requited God for His goodness to us. We are convicted. We can only say, one and all: “What shall I do?” In this extremity, grace opens a path not only for safety, but unfailing maintenance. We have no property save what belongs to our Lord. We have no title to the mammon of unrighteousness—possession does not establish right; we only hold it by sufferance. Such is our humiliating title and claim to all earthly accumulation. The grace of God canvasses not our title—it overlooks it. It bears with our trespass, and only desires that we so improve our possessions-ours without title or right, nay, distinctly our Lord’s—that when we are called finally to give an account of our stewardship, we may have so traded on our Lord’s rights, that there will be many to own our good works, and sanction honor and reception to us for our services through them.

But if we are unfaithful in our dispensing the mammon of unrighteousness, which God regards as the least, we will be unfaithful in a greater, and consequently we must not expect to be entrusted with true riches, with that which is our own, but only in proportion to our faithfulness in the least. And if your heart is devoted to mammon, to which you have no right, it cannot be devoted to God; you cannot serve both. You must regard it as the least of all God’s gifts; and, therefore, it must never take a high place in your desires, much less be placed in the same view with Him the bountiful source of all.

All these sayings, which in the first verse of the chapter we find were addressed to the disciples, are quite unpalatable to the Pharisees, for their hearts were set on unrighteous mammon; “they were covetous;” they were not ready to be debtors to mercy alone. This further rejection only leads our Lord with greater plainness to declare the result. He denounces self-justification before men, and assures those popularity-loving religionists that human estimation is God’s abomination; that the law and the prophets were until John, but now the “kingdom is preached,” and every one (Jew and Gentile) is pressing into it; that no tittle of the law shall fail; that the law which binds a man to his wife cannot be abrogated. Let the wife be whom she may on the earth, Christ can have no queen there but Israel; but Israel is not without sin if she is wedded to another. And, furthermore, let your eye take a survey of the end: see whether poverty is preferable now, with rest and consolation by and bye, or riches now and torment hereafter. Is it better to be accepted of God, or enriched in the earths? On which was set the heart of Israel? A despised beggar here may be highly accepted in the kingdom of God. There, in Abraham’s bosom, in the richest hospitalities, in the closest friendship, may such an one be placed. Here he may desire “to be fed from the crumbs of the rich man’s table, and the dogs may lick his sores;” (kindness from Gentiles;) but there the rich and luxurious one, who passed Lazarus here without sympathy or notice, will then select him as alone fit to minister to him and assuage his bitter suffering. Little had been his means here for establishing a character for charitable sympathy, yet unquestioned testimony is borne to his possession of it by his once proud, rich and heartless neighbor, but now an expatriated sufferer. Strict propriety, as in the “elder brother,” does not ensure the warm son-like affection the repentant younger one glows with. A beggar, reputedly destitute of earthly means, can outstrip in heart and principles for service the richest and the most largely gifted with human subsidies. Social nearness to Abraham, as the bosom figuratively expresses, is within reach of the least blessed on earth; and the blessing of the barn and the store, which some so earnestly desired as their inheritance, did not ensure that one which alone gave value to all others. It is well to notice here, that the word heaven is not mentioned in this passage, nor do I apprehend that the future state is taught in it, but the fact that the presently unblessed Jew may not be so by and bye. It is a word of comfort to the poor of the flock, and of warning to those who sought present “consolation.” It is plainly a word to Israel, though it opens a door to them who could boast of no earthly portion; and if “the dogs” symbolize the Gentiles, their act but exemplifies our duty, and it moreover unfolds to us more plainly the characteristics of the people who should supersede the present religionists.

The reformation will not arouse Israel from its present state of self-security and ease. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.” I make no comment on the “five brethren,” as I might not be correct in doing so; but there is deep instruction in the conversation between Abraham and the now suffering but once luxurious Jew.

Luke 17

FROM the last chapter, the impression that offences would arise is evidently forced upon us, and hence our Lord at once alludes to it. The greatest offence or hindrance to the believer now, is seeking present consolation and earthly aggrandizement; and the one who leads the Church to seek them and aids them in acquiring such, has wrought great detriment and hindrance to its welfare. The Pharisees, who desired to make a fair show in the flesh and sought acknowledgment from men, would ever be the great hinderers of Christ’s disciples. There is nothing so hard as patiently to continue a despised worshipper of God on His own earth. To have a right on account of Him, and yet to waive that right. The assertion of this right has lowered Christians into the pursuits and plans of the world and into perpetual collision with it for all that is of the world. Alas! we need not say how hindered they have been!

The Lord foresaw all, and consequently proscribes a rule which, if adhered to, would obviate such a calamity. It was simply a zealous watching of each over his fellow—a plain reversal of Cain’s effective selfishness—every one must keep his brother. If thy brother trespass against thee—if he would lead thee to seek a place and name here—if he would induce thee to court the rich man’s portion to that of Lazarus—he has done thee a great hurt, he would hinder thee. Thou must “rebuke him,” and if he repent, if he see his weakness, thou shalt forgive him, even if he seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, “I repent,” thou shalt forgive him. The readiness to forgive must be as great as the proneness to transgress; if we fail in forgiveness, we fail in our proper strength, in our own place with God. The trial and difficulty which these announcements disclose so affect the apostles, that they, in consciousness of their little ability to cope with them, cry out to the Lord: “Increase our faith.” Nothing but confidence in God can sustain the disciple in the path now set before him; but if one has it as much as “a grain of mustard seed,” the smallest seed in nature, of no visible greatness, he would say to the hindrance—the Jewish pretension of which I think “this sycamore tree” is the symbol— “Be thou plucked up by the roots, and be thou planted in the sea,” in untraceable and unexplorable distance, “and it should obey you.”

But all this is your duty as a faithful servant, and we are still to consider ourselves “unprofitable,” though we have fulfilled it. It is not optional with us to obey or not these instructions. It is simply our duty to do so; and the heart that rightly appreciates the love and service of God will eagerly adopt them, and this the healed leper in the next passage illustrates to us.

The Lord is on His way to Jerusalem, and He passes through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. His progress to the city was typical, as is evident, of His yet great triumphant epiphany he is at this moment journeying to that glorious epoch, but on His way, aliens and Gentiles are made partakers of His grace and mercies.

“Ten men that were lepers met Him,” They cried for mercy. “When Jesus saw them,” —when His eye beheld their need—

“He said unto them: Go and show yourselves unto the priests.”

He would not subvert an economy ordained of God; but hearts who have learned more largely of the goodness of God, they can step beyond it. One of the ten here can recognize in Jesus something greater than the law; he can out-step its confined and distant recognition of God, and he can with his own voice, apart from interventionary ordinances, glorify God; and, delivered from the Mosaic terrors of Mount Sinai, he fell down at the feet of Jesus, giving Him thanks; but he was an alien, “a Samaritan.”

The Lord Himself takes note that a stranger alone returns to give glory to God. He who nationally had no right to blessing by faith, obtains everything. He hears the wondrous grace, “Thy faith hath made thee whole; “he enters into all the blessedness typified in Leviticus 14. He felt in himself the virtue and the power of the kingdom of God, and as such is our present pattern, exemplifying to us that faith only can elevate us above the trammels of the law or the yoke of ordinances, without any display, but what passes between our own soul and the unseen presence of the gracious Jesus. All this is lost upon the Pharisees, or unintelligible to them; and hence, “When he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come,” He answered, The kingdom of God cometh not with outward show. The kingdom or reign of God is learned within; there it comes first to exercise its influence. It is not for you to look here or look there, but to know that the power of it already is “among you” in the person of the Son of God. The leper had learned this.

But though now among them, yet He warns His disciples that “the days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it; “they would feel their helplessness and desolation in the absence of their Lord, but yet in their anxiety for deliverance, by His presence, they were not to believe every report of His appearance, for of it there would be no uncertainty, for athwart the heaven it would gleam with all the brilliancy of lightning, but His rejection by this generation must precede that epoch, and this in addition to the “ninny things” which He personally should suffer. Also, the times would be marked by a plain similarity to those of Noe. The days of Noe evidently mean the times before the flood, so must the days of the Son of man mean the times before Christ enters with His saved ones into the everlasting ark of glory. The reference to Lot is plainer, for there we learn that, on a particular day, typical of the day of Christ’s appearance, Lot retreated from Sodom, and the fire of God’s judgments descended upon it; and so shall it be when the Son of man is revealed. And THAT day will be no time for anyone to engage themselves with earthly objects; escape should only engage them. “Remember Lot’s wife;” her heart still lingered in the devoted Sodom; yea, many a one will be left whose companion shall be rescued; proximity to the blessed does not ensure blessing. Thrice woeful to part for ever from your closest companion, and in such an hour; and we need not ask “where?” for wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.

Luke 18

THIS chapter is a continuation of the subject of the preceding one, and sets before the disciples the spirit in which they should pass through the troublous scenes just foretold to them. If they be desolate, their strength and stay gone—if they suffer from the violence of their adversaries, and if the avenging arm of God is still unmoved for them—yet to Him, and Him alone, though there be no indication of His help, though all appearances be against them, must they look for deliverance and succor. The simple remedy for such times is, “that men pray always and not faint;” and the fruit of crying day and night unto Him is, “I tell you He will avenge them speedily”—when the day of vengeance begins. “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth? “a plain intimation that the earth, especially the Jewish hand, shall not be the laud of faith, as became the true sons of Abraham when the Son of man cometh. How little did their present self-satisfaction accord with the spirit of the widow! This the Lord denounces in the next parable. He is not a real suppliant whose confidence is not alone in God, and he is not a true one that is not conscious of his own unworthiness.

The Pharisee depictures Israel’s then present spirit: the publican represents that of the contrite remnant. The real condition of Israel was that of a publican; they were tributaries to the Roman power. The official publicans might have exacted tribute from them, but so did they from the Lord’s inheritance; one and all did this, save “the repairer of the breach,” who, from the fish’s mouth, from the sea, neither by toil nor from the land, provided the tribute money, the evidence of Israel’s condition-but He stood above that condition.

It is evident no one can appreciate blessings rightly from God, who has not at the same time a consciousness of his need and helplessness and his entire unworthiness of relief. The widow shews one, the publican the other, and then follows the “infant,” as showing, though weak in itself, the simple confidence and submission withal, which such an one retains for its careful nurturer. This sample of Christ’s followers, the disciples, who naturally (like many a religionist) expected some appearance of power and rule, are quite ready to discard, and “rebuked them that brought them;” but the Lord sets them forward as a model of the subjects of the kingdom of God. Be a widow as to your sense of need and helplessness, and a publican as to your sense of unworthiness, and an infant, though you are weak, as to your confidence and unresisting submission. A rich; ruler, as the narrative next brings before us, may desire, yea sincerely, to discover a mode of inheriting the kingdom of God. He is a most amiable and very rich man in his best and favored condition; yet, he has a sense of need, the need of the kingdom of God, but not a sense like the widow, of need and no ability to counteract it; he has kept all the commandments he is asked, and these comprise all which refer to our neighbor, save “ thou shalt not covet,” which, as we see from the manner in which Paul uses it in Rom. 7., touches the secret springs; in a word, he was unblemished among men, the personification of the best among Israel. To any thoughtful Jew, it must be deeply interesting what answer the Lord would give to this good rich ruler’s question. Oh! how it tested his convictions of Christ as “good Master,” as of God, when required to sell all that he hath, “distribute to the poor, have treasure in heaven, and follow me,” a poor, a desolate, but a good Stranger. Such are the plain characteristics of an heir of the kingdom, entirely above and beyond all Jewish calculation, so opposed to all natural desires that the hearers in consternation cry out: “Who then can be saved?” That “all things are possible with God” can alone allay such fears. May we all know more practically the effects of that “possibility,” and be able to echo the words of Peter: “Lo, we have left all and followed thee!” To this the Lord replies, announcing a large blessing not to the Jews only, but to every one: “There is no man (save He) who hath left.... for the kingdom of God’s sake, that shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world (or ageτῷαἰῶνι)to come eternal life.” I believe the word “age” is always connected with the history of the earth, and in the coming age will be the manifestation of the sons of God; so that the followers of Christ now not only receive manifold more in this present time, “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places,” (which, though not distinctly alluded to here, is perhaps no forced interpretation of “the manifold more,”) but shall be manifested in living eternity in the age to come.

The Lord, “then” in company with “the twelve,” proceeds on His way “to Jerusalem,” and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. He does not say at what moment, but that they shall be accomplished. The order and the time are not spoken of; the fact is merely stated that they shall be accomplished, and that Jerusalem would be the great theatre of them, so that any which are not yet accomplished will be, doubtless, accomplished, and accomplished there. But while He discloses to them the cruel mockings and bitter treatment He is to receive at the hands of “Gentiles,” unto whom His own people are to deliver Him, “they understood none of these things.” The death and resurrection of Jesus, the cross and the glory, are subjects often incomprehensible to many an old disciple; we are unwilling to see the path Christ trod, lest we be filled with reproach and dismay at our great distance or departure from it. Israel gave Jesus to be crucified by “the Gentiles.” “He is evidently set forth crucified amongst them.” (Gal. 3:1.) They are assuredly glorified with Him. Ali! how blindness in part is happened to Israel. But as a picture of their condition and the mercy that would one day arrest it, though now there was “not a man among them that should make up the hedge,” and therefore “their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God,” (Ezek. 22:30, 31,) we have, “as He came nigh unto Jericho, (“the cursed city in Israel,”) a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging.” This is Israel’s present condition, blind and covetous; but when in deep distress, despite of all rebuking, he shall cry for mercy to Jesus, the Son of David. (Zech. 11:8-10.) The command shall go forth that he should be “brought near,” and according to his desires so shall he receive, and then Israel shall no longer be obstructed by blindness and covetousness, but endued with a power which “the ruler” (such an ornament of their nation) knew nothing of and would not receive. “He followed Jesus, glorifying God,” and as was then in measure, when they saw it, so by and bye with one heart and one voice all the people will give praise unto God.

Luke 19

THE Lord, in His progress to Jerusalem, passes through Jericho, and as ere He entered it He illustrates His purposes of mercy toward Israel, for Israel on the other side Jordan saw the might and majesty of Jehovah ere it was so gloriously displayed in Canaan, so here now the true Joshua of His people re-enacts Jericho in moral power, the salvation which the first Joshua typically achieved. The recipient of blessing here represents the national, as the former had the moral, condition of Israel; and, therefore, he is a “chief” publican, (one enriching himself by the degradation of his nation,) and “he was rich;” in other words, “waxing fat;” but he sought to see Jesus who he was, and could not. He had to encounter the same hindrances which were insuperable to his nation— “the press,” or multitude, and his own personal inability to cope with it, “because he was little of stature.” But though conscious of his powerlessness, his desire to see Jesus was not to be denied. When there is true purpose of heart, there will be no difficulty in finding an expedient, and a right one; “he climbs up into a sycamore tree, for Jesus was to pass that way.” A sycamore tree (which is considered the same as the sycamine, in chapter 17.) was the symbol of Israel’s national condition. It was a wild fig tree, as we see from Amos 7:14. (Marginal reading.) The first efforts of an aroused conscience are ever directed to an increased zeal about rites and ceremonies; and as infancy in many things resembles old age, so is it true of the conscience, for an old and enervated one is only engaged with ceremonials, yet it is well to observe strictly all we know, it is strengthening and practicing the mind for every increase of knowledge. Zacchaeus in the wild fig tree illustrates a Jew seeking, from the height of his national condition, to see Jesus, and as a Jew he was right, and Jesus acknowledges it, not by commanding him, no more than He had done to the woman of Samaria, but by telling him to “make haste and come down,” and in his own house, in happy domesticity, to receive him, for “today,” “the day of salvation,” still existing, (see Heb. 3. 4. and 2 Cor. 6:2,) — “I must abide at thy house,” typically we may say “an habitation of God through the Spirit.” The multitude may murmur as they will that Jesus was gone to be “a guest with a sinner” —a sinner indeed, but one who could descend from all his earthly height, and do so hastily. “He made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully.” It is not in a moment, even though in the presence of Jesus, that we forget our own merit, and are entirely interested with our gracious and wonderful guest; but the only answer our Lord ever gives to such legal reasonings is: “To-day is salvation come to this house;” that is, above all good acts, and not for the sake of your good acts, but because of the grace of Him who is come “to seek and to save that which is lost.” But “as they heard these things,” this faint disclosure of the future grace of the rejected Jesus, “he added and spake a parable, because He was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought the kingdom of God should immediately appear.” He would disabuse their mind of such a thought as that the kingdom of God would immediately appear. We should mark the difference between “the kingdom of God being among them,” as was said in a preceding chapter, and that it should immediately appear. With this intention the following parable is uttered, which represents “a nobleman,” one of high birth, going to a far country, “to receive a kingdom and to return.” From this we see that the Lord was to go to a far place to receive a kingdom, and that He was to return, having received it; but ere He is long on His journey his citizens, “the dwellers at Jerusalem,” sent a message after Him in the massacre of Stephen, saying: “We will not have this man to reign over us.” However, in His absence, He has “ten servants,” to each of whom He has delivered “a pound,” with this instruction: “Occupy till I come.” I believe this refers to the service of God’s people. The word ten is a compound of seven and three, and well explained in page 28 of The Prospect, vol. 2. “The pound” is the gift for service, whatever it may be: it is silver,—metal which will stand the fire. But these gifts will be variously exercised, and perhaps the three results mentioned in this passage,—first, “thy pound halls gained ten pounds;” second, “thy pound hath gained five pounds;” third, “thy pound, which I have laid up in a napkin.”—perhaps, I say, these may be typical of the Church’s acknowledgment and use of Christ’s gifts to them, and that the last describes the complete abandonment of recognizing the gift of Christ in service, and, consequently, no service flowing, from “thy pound.” And with this state let me add, there cannot be any true sense or knowledge of Christ as He is really to us, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and a ready help in time of need. God’s gifts are never bestowed on us to be wrapped up as selfish and individual property, or merely between us and Him. It should be given to “the bank,” a common place of exchange, and then at the coming of Christ there would be “usury” from it. Ye are my crown of rejoicing in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming, (1 Thess. 2:13,) is the usury the heart of Christ desires. Nevertheless, the Church will eventually lose none of “the pounds;” that which has a capacity to receive will abundantly receive; and this, we may remark, is a principle true, individually or corporately.

It is evident that the judgments on the inimical citizens occur subsequent to the adjudication of the servants; and Christ has returned, for the order is: “Bring hither and slay them before me.”

The Lord having thus, in a figure, traced His future purposes “when He had thus spoken He went before ascending up to Jerusalem.” He proceeds forewarned and forearmed on His destine path, yet not a whit swerving from every offer of mercy and testimony of His mission to this gainsaying people; and, accordingly when within a short distance of Jerusalem, He prepares for a royal entry into it. Hence, we have here a momentary display of the power of that glorious period,—all willing to receive Him, save “thy citizens.” The ass, “on which never man sat,” is willingly granted by the owner, when told “the Lord has need of him.” In the day of His power, there will be no attempt even to resist His will The reception is favorable and unanimous, and now, “at the descent of the Mount of Olives,” it became enthusiastic; “the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise Gm with a loud voice.... saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Till now there was no opposition; all seemed borne along in one acclamation of joy at the coming of the King; but, as is ever the ease with the natural conscience, trial only partly asserted may be borne with, but when pressed in all it reality, then opposition is at once called forth, and so here. The Pharisees cannot endure, at the entrance of Jerusalem, such plain and public testimony to the title of Christ; the most religious are shocked at the idea of ascribing such honors to Him, and, in their zeal, request our Lord to rebuke His disciples. The Lord’s reply unfolds the results of Israel’s rejection: “If these should hold their peace, the stones (those who have no claim or pretensions, of whom John the Baptist had before warned them) would immediately cry out.” Jesus loved Jerusalem. God’s purpose to establish man in the earth, as His image and glory, must be dear to the heart of Christ, and now, when the destiny of the city passes before Him, he “wept over it,” because the citizens were unconscious and ignorant of the time of its visitation; yet, as long as it remained, which is important to notice, He would labor to repair it and remove every wrong from it, and, therefore, from the temple He cast out them that sold and bought therein, full of that happy hour when it should be truly said: “My house is the house of prayer,” and which he was so desirous to effect, for “He taught daily in the temple;” but the more He offered mercy, so much the more was it rejected. “The chief priests and scribes and chief of the people sought to destroy Him,” but they could not accomplish it, for rejection was not yet national; all the springs of society had not been as yet corrupted by the spirit of envy which moved the heads of the people, for still “the people were very attentive to hear Him.”

Luke 20

IT ill suits the thread of the narrative to be broken by the chapter division, for it is on “one of those days in which He taught the people in the temple” that “ the chief priests and scribes, with the elders, came upon Him,” with the object to damage His influence with the people, as they could not succeed in their more malevolent design. They raise the questions: “By what authority doest thou these things, and who is He who gave thee this authority?”—questions always raised by those who wish to escape from the edge of truth under such shelter, and not by them who earnestly desire to be instructed by it. The Lord in his reply recalls to them their reception of John the Baptist, when He asked them: “The baptism of John, was it from heaven or of men?” If they have not been able to declare openly the source of John’s ministry, neither will they of Him who was to come after him. Strange and faithless guides were they who feared to tell the people what they would have them believe, but they loved their own case better than the people’s benefit; (according to them) false doctrine must always be propagated privily. There is no innate strength and sustainment in it, as there is in truth to confirm and embolden the teacher of it. Oh! how self-convicted they must have been! Where was their authority? and of how much value was it? Hence, the Lord. delivers a parable, which declares the results of all God’s dealings with Israel. No matter how often He sent, or whom He sent, even His beloved Son. No recompense from this rebellious people; and not only this, but they despised the message and ill-treated the Messenger, and, to add to all, they would kill the beloved Son, that the inheritance might be their own, that they might do their own will. And we know how short a time they retained it after they had carried out their direfully ambitious views; and so it is foretold here: “He shall come and destroy these husbandman, and give the vineyard (not the vine) to others;” not at all to Christendom, I believe, for facts are against this. Professors of Christianity have been possessors of Palestine for very short periods, and the prediction merely states that the vineyard should be given to others; but, in connection with this, the present husbandman were to be destroyed, and this destruction was contingent on our Lord’s coming. “He shall come and destroy these husbandmen.” So that I am disposed to think that “others” mean the believing remnant; at all events, they cannot mean the Church, and thus favor the assertion of its present earthly standing. The hearers deprecate this dreaded catastrophe, but Jesus “beheld them,” and shows them that long since it was predicted that “ the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner; “ at one and the same time declaring their sin, the sin of their teachers, &c., as builders in rejecting Him, but yet that He had grace and power to rise above all and take His proper place as “head of the corner.” Let those who trembled at Israel’s apostasy take comfort from this.

The chief priests and scribes are now exasperated to the full purpose of their enmity, for “in the same hour they sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the people; for they perceived that He had spoken this parable against them.” Every art and every device must now be resorted to. “They watched Him and sent forth spies who should feign themselves just men,” and all that they might deliver Him to the Gentiles, “unto the power and authority of the governor.” They act with all the meanness and cowardice which characterize bad designs. These just men tempt Jesus respecting the tribute money, as if they were truly anxious to be informed rightly. He had spoken of Israel’s territory as God’s vineyard; was it then lawful to give tribute to Cæsar, thus owning his title to it To be tributaries to Cæsar was a plain evidence of Israel’s apostasy. Whose image and superscription did their coins bear? Did they not own him and not God? True, they were compelled to pay tribute; but why did all the coins of the realm bear the image of Cæsar? Was this obligatory on them, or was it the adulation of the enslaved? If on all their money they own Cæsar, surely, to render unto him the portion he demanded of it was but reasonable. Let them “render therefore unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s,” but that did not exonerate them from rendering “unto God the things that were God’s.” Nay, if they had done this latter, they would never have been compelled to do the former; but there was then, as there is now, a greater readiness to render allegiance to the power of the world than to Him who is head over all things, and who, being honored, would always make us superior to the power of the world. To advocate implicitly that the world and God should each get their very own, would create a marvel in this day, and put to silence the pretended men of justice, as it had in that day, “for they marvelled at His answer and held their peace.”

But for this blessed faithful servant of God to Israel there is no respite. When one opposer is silenced, another appears on the stage. “Many bulls (well might He say) have compassed me: they gaped on me with their mouths.” The Sadducees, who deny that there is any resurrection, now present themselves to entangle the Lord on the subject of the resurrection—a subject increasingly interesting to Himself, as about so soon to be the glorious manifester of it. Satan was beginning to array all his power against its display. Israel was allowing that to be called in question which was its best hope. Could they bear to have it questioned whether God would bid “the dry bones live?” Alas! for the nation, if there was no resurrection. The revelation from the burning bush, which encouraged and sustained Moses, was that God was the God of the living, and that though the fathers were not, yet shall they still live; and, therefore, as the God of resurrection, no power of death could obstruct His purposes. God is the God of the living; if death has power over you, God is your God, for unto Him life is always directed. What is not directed unto Him is not life. She that liveth in pleasure, is dead while she liveth, for “all live unto Him.” And Jesus was now a living personification of the glories impressed on Moses by that wondrous vision in the desert—the great antitype of the glory of God in a bush, and the bush not consumed—God manifest in flesh—the resurrection itself, and prophet like unto Moses, to deliver them from the grinding rule of another Pharaoh. But He is not received, though even a scribe has to acknowledge that He has “answered well;” and so confounded and silenced are all His adversaries, that “after that, they durst not ask Him any question at all.” Yet Jesus knew that their malevolence was only smothered to break forth in another form with fresh violence, and, therefore, quotes from Scripture the prophecy which was then fulfilled. His mission here was about to close. He is about, according to the will of Jehovah, to take His seat at the right hand of the Father. “How say they that Christ is David’s Son?” Christ will depart and go unto Jehovah, as the Scriptures have said; let all understand this, and He will remain till His enemies are set for His footstool. Here we have unfolded Christ’s present heavenly position, and His future purpose toward Israel— “the citizens,” “His enemies.” Hence, with the program before Him of His return to the Father, and within hearing of Jehovah’s summons, does He now denounce the scribes, who were so called from their supposed knowledge of Scripture: they sought their own glory, “and the house of the Lord lieth waste,” and they “shall receive the greater damnation.”

Luke 21

THERE is properly no division here. Jesus, obeying the call of Jehovah, is on His journey, though it be a sorrowing one, to the joy set before Him, and now on His way out, at the door of the temple, “He looked up.” His eye and heart had ceased, after many a struggle, to take interest in anything there, but He looked up when He came to the treasury, where were deposited offerings for the repair of the temple, which His heart was so entirely set on. “He saw rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.” Their act did not sympathize with His purpose, but “ He saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites: “ her act touched His heart, for it bore apt resemblance to His own destined and incipient one, for He was on His way in deep penury to give all the living that He had to repair and rebuild the temple of God; and this was her act. How different from that of the scribes! It also illustrates the future act of the nation, when in its widowhood and destitution it should readily surrender “the last farthing “for the true temple of God. I think “the two mites” may refer to a “double” suffering; (Is. 40:1.) yet, while the Lord is meditating on the great cost at which the temple would be set up on an external basis, He is interrupted by some who, in little unison with His feelings, spoke of it, “how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts.” This admiration, so discordant to His mind and judgment, draws from Him a plain and succinct account of its coming destiny, even that “the days will come in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another which shall not be thrown down.” They cannot mistake this, and hence the questions: “When shall these things be? and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?” We should remember, in seeking the interpretation of an answer, that it is necessary to keep in mind the question which called it forth, and it unconnected with any other thought. Some of the Jewish people here only defined the pronoun; “they” ask two questions respecting the total destruction of the temple, and, consequently, answers to these questions only ought we to look for or comprehend in the reply. To you who are interested in that sad scene, the first thing you have to guard against is, being “deceived,” and by what? It is not false doctrine. It is by many coming in Christ’s name, and saying, I am assuming power and authority, (earthly of course,) in the name of Christ. This will soon begin, but do not go after them. The mere commotions of nations and your own persecutions, which shall turn to you for a testimony, are no signs of proximity to this terrible moment; but “when you shall see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh,” but “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” If the times of the Gentiles are not expired, Jerusalem must continue to be trodden down by them. When one ends, the other ends; and if one, the times of the Gentiles, still exists, as all must allow, then also must the other; and hence it is vain to expect one to cease, which many attempt, without the cessation of the other. That is, the times of the Gentiles must cease, if in this day the restoration of Jerusalem could be effected; so that they who attempt it only expedite their own removal from the scene, though it is evident they do it not with this object: not only shall there be signs in heaven and on the earth and sun, but also men, whose hearts are failing them with fear, shall see the Son of man (Christ in manhood) coming in a cloud with power and great glory. It is not merely Jews or disciples shall see, but those who are afraid to see Him.

These things are but the harbingers of the day of redemption, a period full of meaning and interest to an embarrassed Jew: that day comes not till preceded by all these sorrows and calamities. God is a righteous God. His grace always reigns through righteousness, and He will ever judge His people. To convey the results of all this in a mystery, plain to the instructed but sealed up to unbelief, He spike a parable. “Behold a fig tree and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is nigh at hand; so likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.” Now, I think it is plain that this parable is no part of the answer to the two questions, but rather what was to happen, consequent on the answer to them being accomplished. I believe the fig tree is a symbol of Israel’s national condition, as the vine of its moral, and the olive of its testimony, and that “all the trees” represent the nations of the earth; there is great advancement among them; there is every indication of summer being nigh; they shall say peace and safety, but destruction is imminent, and man’s kingdom is at an end, for “ the kingdom of God is nigh, at hand.” And let none suppose that this is addressed to the Church; for, as if to guard us against the thought that these things, after the lapse of so many years, could not happen to Israel, the Lord distinctly assures us that this generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled. All the predictions recorded here are either fulfilled, or this generation has not passed away; and if it is asserted that they are fulfilled, why is Jerusalem trodden down of the Gentiles? Why do the times of the Gentiles continue Why? have not men seen Christ in manhood, in power and great glory? for as yet He was seen by them only in weakness, “crucified in weakness;” and, surely, the time has not yet come which shall be a snare TO ALL them which dwell on the face of the whole earth, but as the earth shall be the scene of such terrible judgments, the faithful are exhorted to “watch, therefore, and pray always;” and that the more dissociated they are from earth and its enjoyment, the more sure they will be to ESCAPE the judgments coming on it. It is not that they are triumphantly to pass through, but escape (ἐκφυγεῖν, literally, to “fly out”) “all the things which shall come to pass, and stand before the Son of man.” I can understand how the moral of this can apply to the Church, as well as to the Jewish remnant, to whom it is evident these words are primarily addressed.

Perhaps we have, in our Lord’s division of His time at this moment, for He is the same yesterday and today, some insight as to His present and future engagements; the nights are spent on the mount of Olives, and the days in the temple. This is the night emphatically, and Christ is on the mount, the heavenly mount; there real green olive trees flourish. But when the day has fairly dawned, He will appear in His temple, and “the people will come early in the morning to Him in the temple to hear Him,” for the people shall be willing in the day of His power. (Ps. 110.)

Luke 22

WE have now to trace the sad, sorrowful path, which this blessed servant traversed from the close of His mission to Israel to the right hand of the Father, where there are pleasures for evermore. The path to the glory is through the cross. It is a holy path. It commences with the feast of unleavened bread. “Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh.” The chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him, but still the people are opposed. “They feared the people.” But now a confederacy is formed against the Lamb of God. Satan and Judas, “the chief priests and captains,” (ecclesiastical and worldly power,) are leagued in one. “The passover must be killed.” Jesus is ready to spend all for the blessing of His people. He sends two of His disciples to prepare the Passover. He will take His place as a Jew at that feast, which in His own person He was about to furnish with divine solemnities and everlasting cheer. “A man bearing a pitcher of water “in this dry and barren land, where no water is, is the guide now and then to the guest chamber. “He sat down and the twelve apostles with Him.” They who had seen all His service to Israel and were to be by and bye witnesses of it, are partakers with Him in all the fruits of it. The sorrow is His own.

It is necessary to distinguish here between the Passover and the breaking of bread, which is properly subsequent to the Passover. The Lord says: “With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” From this it is plain that He observed this feast as a Jew in the company of Jews, and that in doing so He was anticipating the time when it would be fulfilled, for He adds: “I will not any more cat of it until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God;” and also, that “the cup” which follows is the fruit of the vine, the moral condition of Israel, of which He will not drink (or, in other words, have no communion with) till the kingdom of God is come. I think, it very important to notice how the Spirit in this book is so careful to describe Israel’s share in the blessings, in order that the Church may distinctly, and without confusion, understand its own. And so here. Israel’s blessing from the Passover is first secured, and then that to the Church. Our feast is the feast of unleavened bread, and hence it is the bread which He breaks for us, for His body is broken for us, and we are His body, built up into it by strength and sustenance flowing to us from His broken body and shed blood. We are to keep the feast, not with old (Jewish) leaven, nor with the leaven of nature, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Popery inculcates a grievous error in asserting that “the mass is a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ.” The argument of the apostle is, (1 Cor. 5.) that the Passover is sacrificed in the person of Christ, and, therefore, it only remains for us to keep the feast consequent on it. Popery has gone back to the “old leaven,” and probably was confirmed in this fatal error by construing what is here observed during the solemnization of the Passover for that feast which followed it.

The remainder of this chapter mainly discloses the elements and causes of the various disorders in the absence of Christ.

The first is, betrayal by a professed friend, from love of gain.

The second is, a strife for pre-eminence.

The remedy for this is, that the Gentiles now are the channels of power and dominion; so, to assume either now is a Gentile standing. But they are to have a kingdom, and “to sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” though not in a moment. Grievous trials await them here. The most forward and zealous of them shall be sifted of Satan, and shall so quail before a woman, that ere the night is passed he shall three times deny his Lord; and this is the third form in which failure will appear.

In Christ’s presence “nothing” was lacked; in Christ’s absence, we must part with everything, to stand in the same power. It is not the question of swords, but of standing in the blessing which Christ’s presence bestowed: swords cannot accomplish this. “The mount of Olives “ is the place to prepare for trial. There a heavenly messenger comforts our Lord. If we sleep on the eve of trial, we cannot meet it as Christ did when it comes. We sacrifice the ear of our antagonist when we encounter him with carnal weapons. Jesus nevertheless repairs our injuries.

Jesus—in the hands of enemies, His own who would not receive Him, through “the power of darkness,” —Jesus—buffeted and slandered before the “council,” which assumed to be gods, His own disciple within His hearing having denied Him—proclaims what is His own joy and the glory of the nation, though they now condemn Him for it: “Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.” Alas! the more fully He revealed Himself, the more fully was He rejected. “His own mouth” is the fullest witness against Him!

Luke 23

TIM chapter details the combination of every earthly power, in spite of the remonstrance of conscience, and, at the sacrifice of all judicial honesty, to crucify the Lord of glory. “The whole multitude (of Jews) led Him to Pilate,” the Gentile governor. He sends Him to Herod, and though “nothing worthy of death is done unto Him,” yet the governor, contrary to his convictions and all justice, is overborne by the “loud voices requiring that He might be crucified.” “And the voices of them and the chief priests prevailed.” “He delivered Jesus to their will.”

“Jesus is led away!” “And there followed Him a great company of people and of women, which also bewailed and lamented Him.” To these, who are the types of the Jewish remnant, the Lord announces the still greater sorrows which will visit their people; for, if their sorrow is genuine in a day of such apparent prosperity,— “in the green tree,”—what shall it be in the dry, when every hope is withered and gone? Jesus is now at Calvary. He is placed between two malefactors. Human enmity and malice have done their worst! His last company on earth, its off-scouring!! From the cradle to the cross there was no room for Him on it!!! The people and the rulers may “deride” and the soldiers may “mock,” but Jesus, amidst the company to which He is reduced, discloses the treasures of His grace to faith. To one beyond earthly hope or human aid are revealed the glories of a heavenly kingdom. His eye was fast closing on all earthly objects; in faith he sought (according to Jewish hope) a place in the future kingdom, but “today,” we may say the day of salvation, shall paradise be opened to one of the poor of the flock, and as a first sample of the family who should be gathered there. The other thief represents Israel in unbelief. Jesus goes unto the Father. His blessed course is ended. A Gentile, a Roman centurion, glorifies God, and witnesses, (let it affect his place and station as it may,) “Certainly this was a righteous man.” He condemns the act which, as a commander of Roman soldiery, he had been the instrument to perpetrate. The Jew planned, the Gentile executed, the crucifixion of Jesus.

The Jew had the law; the Gentile, power: ill was the use both made of them.

The net and language of this centurion is such as every faithful Gentile must now adopt. The power vested in the Gentile crucified Jesus; it perpetrated an unrighteous act. Can I consistently glory in and enrich myself by such power? It is the times of the Gentiles, and the power given to them is not yet re-assumed; so that he who accepts part of it, accepts it as part of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, and as that which under sufficient pressure, as with Pilate, would again crucify Christ. The virus of that iniquity is in it; for, surely, no soldier in the execution of his duty could have prevented it, or attempted to do so.

When does invested power serve Christ? My personal exertions may be used of Him, but not delegated authority. Joseph of Arimathea effects nothing in the council; his attempt to serve there was vain; but, divested of official power, he begs from the Roman governor the body of Jesus. Those who “wait for the kingdom of God” now, will follow his example; they will, without the assertion of power, as a suppliant, remove the body of Christ from Gentile domination, and endue it with its proper character, as “wrapped in linen,” that is, its appearance unto men, and laid in a sepulcher, testifying that we are not alive unto this world, that we are set “wherein never man before was laid;” for the Church’s place is no common one. But they who add “spices and ointments” to give it an earthly fragrance, know not its calling, and their labor is in vain, for it is in resurrection; and this the next chapter opens out.

Luke 24

“ON the first day of the week,” the morning of the resurrection, the loving followers of Christ are taught the needlessness of earthly attractions. Two men in “shining garments” witness unto them that “Christ is not here, but is risen.” In all this scene we are taught the tardiness and reluctance with which we learn the resurrection; the apostles will not believe the testimony of the women. Peter visits the sepulcher himself; he beholds nothing but the “linen clothes,” (all that should be visible if resurrection was in spirit enjoyed,) and he only departs, “wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.”

The disciples going to Emmaus, and the occurrences connected with it, describe to us the progress from Jewish thoughts and hopes to happy communion with Christ himself. The highest enjoyment, the most honored place on earth, is the knowing the presence of Christ in breaking of bread here was the fulfillment of that word: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.” Their hearts practically learned the blessed effects of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus; they passed from every thought to the one grand absorbing one of the presence of the living Jesus; and it is evident that the revelation of Christ, as the living head of the Church, is here in type, as the manner of it to the Jew is foreshown in His manifestation to “the eleven and them that were with them,” though the testimony of “the two,” which is the Church’s testimony, is previously declared.

But Israel is not yet abandoned; all the blessings must flow out to Jerusalem first; all must begin there; but yet they will not be confined to it, for they shall be proclaimed among “all nations.” (or Gentiles.) And though the disciples must. continue in Jerusalem, they, as it became witnesses of the grace of Jesus, are seen “continually in the temple, praising and blessing God,” for God had not yet cast it off. While God owned it, so must they; yet I say, though they are thus righteously so to act, are they taught, by the place and manner of His parting scene, the true place and manner of blessing on earth. He led them out as far as Bethany, i.e. the house of the grace of the Lord. With hands directed upwards, He blessed them. How they are practically led in the same path with Christ, as is foreshown here, namely, from Jerusalem to Bethany, will be our inquiry while meditating on the Acts of the Apostles, which, if the Lord will, I propose to pursue in the next part.

Notes on the Gospel According to Luke

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