evangelist at the outset supplies us with a key that opens all its
meaning:--"Certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous
and despised others," were clustering round the Teacher, and mingling
with his disciples. He spoke this parable for the purpose of crushing
their pride: he will not suffer sin upon them. For their instruction and
reproof, these examples are selected and described.
It is not necessary to suppose that the parable pointed exclusively to
those who were Pharisees, or exclusively to those who were not: it
concerned all who were self-righteous, to whatever sect they externally
belonged. We know that within the circle of Christ's devoted followers
much of this spirit still lingered. Peter enumerated the sacrifices
which he and his comrades had made for their Master, and bluntly
demanded what reward they might expect for their fidelity. It is
expressly to his own disciples that the Lord, on another occasion,
addresses the warning, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is
hypocrisy." For our benefit, then, even though we be true
Christians--for our benefit, and not only for some particular sect, is
this instruction given.
"Two men went up into the temple to pray." The temple was the
acknowledged place of prayer; to it the devout Jews went at the hour of
prayer, if they were near; toward it they looked if they were distant.
The appointment was a help to prayer in the preparatory dispensation: it
would be a hindrance if it were maintained still. Not in that one place,
but in all places, the true worshippers pray to the Father.
"The one a Pharisee, and the other a publican." The two characters are
represented in deep relief: there is no confusion, and no ambiguity.
Each is exhibited in his own colour, and the two are sharply
distinguished from each other.
Nor are these two men in all their features diverse: there are points of
likeness as well as of difference. It is as profitable to observe
wherein they are like as wherein they are unlike. The distinction does
not lie in that the one was good while the other was bad: both were
evil, and perhaps it would be safe to say, both alike evil. In the end,
the one was a sinner forgiven, and the other a sinner unforgiven; but at
the beginning both and both equally were sinners. Their sins as to
outward form were diverse; but in essential character the sinfulness was
in both the same. The Pharisee said and did not; the publican neither
said nor did. The Pharisee pretended to a righteousness which he did not
possess; the publican neither professed righteousness nor possessed it.
While one maintained the form of godliness, but denied its power, the
other denied both the form and the power of godliness. At first there is
nothing to determine our choice between the two men as to their state
before God: the one was a hypocrite, and the other a worldling. Both
alike need pardon, and to both alike pardon is offered in the Gospel.
"The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin;" but no effort of our
own will cleanse us from any. With the forgiveness that comes through
Christ, the Pharisee would have been accepted; but wanting it, the
publican would have been cast out. The hinge on which the essential
distinction between these two men turned was not the different
quantities of sin which they had severally committed, but the opposite
grounds on which they severally placed their trust.[96]
[96] There is a strong resemblance between this pair and the two
sons who were severally asked by their father to work in his
vineyard.--Parable X.
Both go at the same time to the same place to pray, and both adopt in
the main the same attitude in this exercise; they stood while they
prayed. This was the ordinary attitude; but kneeling and prostration
were also practised. Each of these postures has its own peculiar
appropriateness; either is a seemly and a Scriptural method of bringing
the position of the body into significant harmony with the desire of the
soul. Among those attitudes which are true and right, we are at liberty
to adopt that which is in our circumstances most convenient and seemly.
Alas! there has always been a tendency in man to lay a yoke upon himself
and his fellow. Why should we judge one another where our Master has
left us free? We may safely lay it down as an absolute rule, without
stipulating for even a single exception, that the best position for
praying in is the position in which we can best pray.[97]
[97] This question has begun of late to attract a considerable
measure of attention in the Presbyterian Churches of this country.
It needs a wise treatment, and, alas! we lack wisdom. For
convenience and order, all the members of a worshipping assembly
ought evidently to adopt the same method; but this is not a matter
for arbitrary ecclesiastical enactment. The Pharisee and the
publican both stood while they prayed; but their prayers seem to
have been short. To enact that the congregation must stand during
prayer, and then to keep them praying for twenty minutes or
half-an-hour, which is sometimes done, seems to be in effect turning
prayer into penance.
"The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee,"
&c. Those expositors are probably right who think that "with himself" is
connected with "stood," rather than "prayed." It is in perfect accord
with the narrative to intimate that he stood by himself--he was not the
man to mingle with the common herd of worshippers; but it does not seem
congruous to intimate that he prayed with himself. His prayer is
addressed to God; he has no doubt much to do with himself while he
utters it, but so has his neighbour the publican. As much as the proud
man deals with himself to contemplate his own goodness during prayer, so
much does the humble man deal with himself to contemplate his own
badness. It is not then intimated that he prayed by himself, but that he
stood by himself while he was praying. He counted that he belonged to
the aristocracy in the kingdom of God, and must get a position apart
from the multitude.[98]
[98] [Greek: Statheis pros eauton], standing by himself, as if it
were [Greek: kath' eauton]. Thus the relation is preserved with the
position of the publican, [Greek: makrothen estôs]. Either stood
alone, but for opposite reasons: the Pharisee stood forward alone,
because he thought other worshippers were not fit to be in his
company; the publican stood back alone, because he considered
himself unworthy to mingle with other worshippers. It may be worth
while to mention, for the sake of the English reader, the order of
the words in the original is, "The Pharisee standing with himself,
thus prayed." You must be guided entirely by the sense in
determining whether to read it, Standing with himself, thus prayed;
or standing, with himself thus prayed.
In yet one other point the two suppliants are like each other; both
alike look into their own hearts and lives; and both permit the judgment
thus formed to determine the form and matter of their prayer. Both
addressed themselves to the work of self-examination, and the prayers
that follow are the fruits of their research.
At this point the two men part company, and move in opposite
directions--the one found in himself only good, the other found in
himself only evil. In both, and in both alike, there was only evil; but
the publican discovered and confessed the truth regarding himself, while
the Pharisee either blindly failed to see his own sin, or falsely
refused to confess it.
The error of the Pharisee does not lie in the form or matter of his
prayer. It is substantially a song of thanksgiving. This is never out of
place; praise is comely. There is not a living man on the earth who has
not ground for giving praise to God every day, and all day. Nor does his
prayer necessarily transgress the strict limits of truth when he says,
"God, I thank thee that I am not as other men." If he had been employed
in numbering the mercies of God--if he had meditated on his privileges,
till he was lost in wonder, that so many benefits had been conferred on
one so worthless, he might with truth have burst into the exclamation,
"I am not as other men." As a true penitent, when employed in
considering his own sin, truly describes himself as the chief of
sinners; so a thankful man, lost in the multitude of God's mercies,
thinks in all simplicity that none in all the world have been so highly
favoured as himself. From his own view-point a true worshipper truly
counts both his sins and his mercies greater than those of other men.
When he confesses his sins he counts and calls them deeper than those of
others; when he recounts the benefits he has received from God, he says
that they are greater than others have enjoyed. Glad praise and weeping
confession correspond to each other in a true heart, as correspond the
height of the sky and the depth of its shadow in still waters. When the
clouds above you become high, the shadow of them beneath you becomes
correspondingly deep. The same man who said, "I am chief of sinners,"
said also, "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift."
It is not, then, for what he has said that the Pharisee is condemned,
even when he announces that he is not as other men. If conscious of
unworthiness, and amazed at God's long-suffering, he had exclaimed, I am
not like other men--I have been spared and instructed, and invited and
taught and led with a paternal tenderness that others do not enjoy, his
thanksgiving would have been sweet incense as it rose to the throne of
the Most High. He presumes to give thanks not for what he has received,
but for what he is and does. Here lies his condemnation. It is not in
the thanks but in the reason for the thanks that the old serpent lurks;
he is delighted not with what God has graciously bestowed on him, but
with what he has meritoriously given to God.
The sense in the original is more comprehensive than that which the
English conveys; other men here mean all others. On one side he places
himself, and on the other side the rest of human kind: the result of the
comparison in his judgment is that he is better than all.
Three of the more articulate and manifest forms of wickedness he
enumerates, in order by the contrast to set forth his own purity.
"Extortioners" are officials having a right to something, who unjustly
force from an oppressed people more than is due; the "unjust" are those
who deal unfairly in the ordinary intercourse of life; and adulterers
are, in fact, and were then accounted the deepest and most daring
transgressors of the laws both human and divine. Probably the Pharisee
was in point of fact free in his conduct from all these vices; there is
nothing in the parable that forbids us in these matters to take him at
his word.
Instead of extending the list of vices of which he felt himself free, he
cuts the matter short by a general comparison between himself and the
publican. The contempt in which the tax-farmers were held by the
stricter Jews shines out in every page of the Gospel, and is well
understood by the readers of the Scriptures. By way of purging himself
from sin in the lump, he says shortly, "I am not as this publican." In
order to condemn the Pharisee on this point, it is not necessary to
suppose that he made a wrong estimate of his neighbour. Granted that
this publican had up to this hour been stained with all these three
vices, and that the Pharisee, knowing his character, formed a correct
judgment regarding it; still his condemnation remains the same; it is
not the part of one sinner to judge and condemn another.
"I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess,"--all
that I acquire; it is not capital but income. It is a picture of mere
self-righteousness. His judgment was wrong from the root; he knew
neither his own heart nor God's law. Pharisee as he was, he might have
learned from the prophet Isaiah the true state of the case, "We are all
as an unclean thing; and all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags."[99]
[99] He obtained this self-confidence by comparing himself not with
the law of God, but with others who seemed worse than himself. When
a man compares himself with robbers and adulterers, for whom the
sword and the prison are prepared, he may easily seem to himself
like an angel.--_Arndt_.
"The publican standing afar off," &c. The difference does not lie in
that this was a good man while the other was bad. This is a sinner too;
but he has come to know it, and therein lies the distinction between him
and the Pharisee. His judgment of himself accords with his actual state
and character; he knows and owns the truth regarding his own sinfulness.
There is no merit in this discovery, and in itself it cannot save. If
two men should both take poison, and one of them should become aware of
the fact ere the poison had time to operate; the one who knows the truth
is more miserable than the one who is ignorant, but not more safe. If
there be a physician within reach who can cure, the knowledge of his
danger will send one man to the source of help, while the ignorance of
the other will keep him lingering where he is, till it is too late to
flee. But even in that case it was not the man's knowledge of his danger
that saved him. Another saved him; his knowledge of his own need only
led him to a deliverer.
It is so here. There is no merit and no salvation in the publican's
conviction and confession; although he confesses his sin, he is still a
sinner. His own tears are not the fountain in which his guilt can be
washed away. If there were no Saviour, his penitence would do him no
good; if Christ had not come to save the lost, the lost, though alarmed,
would not have been saved.
If we take care to notice that there was neither merit nor safety in the
man's confession, we may profitably listen to the confession, and learn
what it was.
"He stood afar off." Here we begin to observe external marks of an
inward penitence; he judged and condemned himself. He had the same right
with other worshippers to come near; but a consciousness of his
uncleanness before God compelled him to take the lowest place even among
men. Such was the tenderness of his spirit, that he thought everybody
better than himself. Humility is the exact opposite of pride; as the one
man counted himself better than all, the other counted himself worse
than all. When he obtained a sight of his own vileness before God, his
feeling was that even his brother would be polluted by his presence. As
love of God, when we have tasted his grace, carries love to men after
it, like a shadow; so shame before God, because of sin in his sight,
diffuses humility and modesty through the spirit and conduct in the
ordinary intercourse of life.
He was unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven. He looked down to the
earth; but his heart was rising up to heaven the while. His eyes could
not bear at that moment to look, as it were, on the light of the great
white throne; but his soul ascended, and pressed with violence on the
gate of the kingdom. Against that strait gate his spirit is now
striving; the King of glory from within feels the pressure well pleased,
and opens to let the agonizer in. "Smote upon his breast;" it is like
other signs of grace, precious if it is true, worthless when it is
false. A worshipper will not be heard for his much beating, any more
than for his much speaking: but when it is the true external symptom of
a broken heart within, the knocking on his own breast is reckoned a
knocking at the gate of heaven. To him that knocketh at this lower gate,
the highest will be opened.
His prayer was short and suitable; "God be merciful to me, the sinner"
([Greek: tô hamartôlô]). The contrast continues to the last; as the
Pharisee had compared himself with all mankind, and concluded that he
alone was good; so the Publican in the depth of his shame seems to
count himself the only sinner.
The steps are few and simple by which a sinner finds or misses the way
into eternal life. Not perceiving his own sin, a Pharisee comes to God,
as one who deserves favour; he seeks to enter heaven where the wall of
righteousness frowns in his face, and is cast away. The publican,
conscious of his unworthiness, counting himself altogether evil, flees
from his own sin to God's provided mercy; he tries where the door is
open, and passes in a moment through. I tell you, "This man went down to
his house justified," &c.; he, but not the other.[100] The Pharisee
forgave himself; who is this that forgiveth sin? and who is this whose
sins he forgives? He asked no forgiveness from God, and got none. He
departed from the temple as full and satisfied, or rather as empty and
poor, as he entered it. For aught that we learn to the contrary, he went
on, tithing his mint, anise, and cummin,--went on blindfold till he
stumbled on the judgment-seat.
[100] He brought with him, what the Pharisee left at home, the book
of his own guilt, and exhibited all that stood against him
there.--_Arndt_.
The penitent Publican went down to his house a justified man; he sat in
the circle of his family, retired to rest at night, rose in the morning
to his labour, at peace with God. On the morrow he looked on the
sun-light without being in terror of the mighty One whose word had made
it shine; he walked abroad on the fields, in conscious, loving
companionship with Him who spread them out and covered them with green;
he looked from the mountain-side on the great sea when "it wrought and
was tempestuous," the confiding child of Him who holds its waters in the
hollow of his hand; and when again he laid his head upon the pillow for
rest to his wearied body, he laid his soul on the love of his Saviour,
as an infant leans on a mother's breast. When the hand that led him
through the wilderness leads him at length down the dark sides of the
swelling Jordan, he looks up with languid eye, but bright, burning
spirit, and whispers to his guide, "I will not fear, for Thou art with
me;" when the judgment is set and the books are opened, he stands before
the Judge in white clothing, accepted in the Beloved; the voice of the
Eternal, tenderly human, yet clothed with divine authority, utters the
welcome,--"Come, thou blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom."
XXX.
THE SERVANTS AND THE POUNDS.
"And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because
he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom
of God should immediately appear. He said therefore, A certain
nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom,
and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them
ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his citizens
hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have
this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was
returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these
servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that
he might know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came
the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he
said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been
faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And
the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds.
And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. And
another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have
kept laid up in a napkin: for I feared thee, because thou art an
austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest
that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto him, Out of thine own
mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I
was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that
I did not sow: wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the
bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?
And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and
give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord,
he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every one which
hath shall be given: and from him that hath not, even that he hath
shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which would
not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them
before me."--LUKE xix. 11-27.
It is necessary at the outset to indicate the relation which subsists
between this parable and that of the talents, (Matt. xxv). Although in
many of their features they are the same, in others there is a decisive
difference. Both show that the Lord bestows privileges on his servants,
and demands faithfulness in return; and both show that the diligent are
rewarded and the unprofitable condemned. But the one supposes a case, in
which all the servants receive equal privileges, and shows that even
those of them who are faithful, may be unequal as to the amount of their
success; the other supposes a case in which unequal privileges are
bestowed upon the servants, and shows that when unequal gifts are
employed with equal diligence, the approval is equal in the day of
account. Both alike exhibit the grand cardinal distinction between the
faithful and the faithless; but in pointing out also the diversities
that obtain among true disciples, they view the subject from opposite
sides, each presenting that aspect of it which the other omits. The
parable of the talents teaches that Christians differ from each other in
the amount of gifts which they receive; and the parable of the pounds
teaches that they differ from each other in the diligence which they
display.[101]
[101] The man who cannot perceive, or will not own that these are
two distinct cases, charged with different, though cognate lessons,
is not fit to be an expositor of any writing, either sacred or
profane. Enough for the critics who persist in the theory, that
these two parables are different, and consequently incorrect,
reports of one discourse spoken only once by the Lord; the conceit
is not worthy of more minute refutation.
The incident connected with Zaccheus, although it occurred on the spot
and at the moment, did not, I think, supply the occasion of this
parable, and does not contain the key of its meaning. The Lord's
interview with that interesting and earnest tax-farmer in the
neighbourhood of Jericho rather constituted an episodical interruption
to the continuity of his thought and the narrative of his journey. He
had passed through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. An
expectation, intense in character though vague in outline, was spreading
through the neighbourhood, that great events would emerge on his
arrival at the capital. It was the crowd already on this account
assembled that gave prominence to the case of Zaccheus. It is not from
that episode that the parable springs; rather, when the interruption
which it caused was over, the current of thought, displaced for a
moment, returns to its former channel, and flows as it had flowed
before. The crowd had assembled before the conversation with Zaccheus
took place, and the cause of the excitement was the expectation that
"the kingdom of God should immediately appear." It was on account of
this expectation that the parable was spoken. The purpose of the Lord
was to correct the popular impression in as far as it was erroneous, and
to turn it to account in as far as it contained a basis of truth. They
expected that Jesus was about to proclaim himself king, and occupy
David's throne at Jerusalem: he teaches them by the parable that his
kingdom is not of this world--that he, the king, will depart from their
sight for a while, and that it behoves his subjects to occupy their
talents and opportunities till he return.