The Withered Hand.
“And He entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man
there which had his hand withered. And they watched Him, whether
He would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse Him.
And He saith unto the man that had his hand withered, Stand forth.
And He saith unto them, Is it lawful on the sabbath day to do good
or to do harm? to save a life, or to kill? But they held their
peace. And when He had looked round about on them with anger,
being grieved at the hardening of their heart, He saith unto the
man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it forth: and his
hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out, and straightway
with the Herodians took counsel against Him, how they might
destroy Him.”—MARK iii. 1-6 (R.V.).
In the controversies just recorded, we have recognised the ideal Teacher,
clear to discern and quick to exhibit the decisive point at issue,
careless of small pedantries, armed with principles and precedents which
go to the heart of the dispute.
But the perfect man must be competent in more than theory; and we have now
a marvellous example of tact, decision and self-control in action. When
Sabbath observance is again discussed, his enemies have resolved to push
matters to extremity. They watch, no longer to cavil, but that they may
accuse Him. It is in the synagogue; and their expectations are sharpened
by the presence of a pitiable object, a man whose hand is not only
paralyzed in the sinews, but withered up and hopeless. St. Luke tells us
that it was the right hand, which deepened his misery. And St. Matthew
records that they asked Christ, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?
thus urging Him by a challenge to the deed which they condemned. What a
miserable state of mind! They believe that Jesus can work the cure, since
this is the very basis of their plot; and yet their hostility is not
shaken, for belief in a miracle is not conversion; to acknowledge a
prodigy is one thing, and to surrender the will is quite another. Or how
should we see around us so many Christians in theory, reprobates in life?
They long to see the man healed, yet there is no compassion in this
desire, hatred urges them to wish what mercy impels Christ to grant. But
while He relieves the sufferer, He will also expose their malice.
Therefore He makes His intention public, and whets their expectation, by
calling the man forth into the midst. And then He meets their question
with another: Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day or evil, to save
life or to kill? And when they preserved their calculated silence, we know
how He pressed the question home, reminding them that not one of them
would fail to draw His own sheep out of a pit upon the Sabbath day.
Selfishness made the difference, for a man was better than a sheep, but
did not, like the sheep, belong to them. They do not answer: instead of
warning Him away from guilt, they eagerly await the incriminating act: we
can almost see the spiteful subtle smile playing about their bloodless
lips; and Jesus marks them well. He looked round about them in anger, but
not in bitter personal resentment, for He was grieved at the hardness of
their hearts, and pitied them also, even while enduring such contradiction
of sinners against Himself. This is the first mention by St. Mark of that
impressive gaze, afterwards so frequent in every Gospel, which searched
the scribe who answered well, and melted the heart of Peter.
And now, by one brief utterance, their prey breaks through their meshes.
Any touch would have been a work, a formal infraction of the law.
Therefore there is no touch, neither is the helpless man bidden to take up
any burden, or instigated to the slightest ritual irregularity. Jesus only
bids him do what was forbidden to none, but what had been impossible for
him to perform; and the man succeeds, he does stretch forth his hand: he
is healed: the work is done. Yet nothing has been done; as a work of
healing not even a word has been said. For He who would so often defy
their malice has chosen to show once how easily He can evade it, and not
one of them is more free from any blame, however technical, than He. The
Pharisees are so utterly baffled, so helpless in His hands, so “filled
with madness” that they invoke against this new foe the help of their
natural enemies, the Herodians. These appear on the stage because the
immense spread of the Messianic movement endangers the Idumæan dynasty.
When first the wise men sought an infant King of the Jews, the Herod of
that day was troubled. That instinct which struck at His cradle is now
reawakened, and will not slumber again until the fatal day when the new
Herod shall set Him at nought and mock Him. In the meanwhile these strange
allies perplex themselves with the hard question, How is it possible to
destroy so acute a foe.
While observing their malice, and the exquisite skill which baffles it, we
must not lose sight of other lessons. It is to be observed that no offence
to hypocrites, no danger to Himself, prevented Jesus from removing human
suffering. And also that He expects from the man a certain co-operation
involving faith: he must stand forth in the midst; every one must see his
unhappiness; he is to assume a position which will become ridiculous
unless a miracle is wrought. Then he must make an effort. In the act of
stretching forth his hand the strength to stretch it forth is given; but
he would not have tried the experiment unless he trusted before he
discovered the power. Such is the faith demanded of our sin-stricken and
helpless souls; a faith which confesses its wretchedness, believes in the
good will of God and the promises of Christ, and receives the experience
of blessing through having acted on the belief that already the blessing
is a fact in the Divine volition.
Nor may we overlook the mysterious impalpable spiritual power which
effects its purposes without a touch, or even an explicit word of healing
import. What is it but the power of Him Who spake and it was done, Who
commanded and it stood fast?
And all this vividness of look and bearing, this innocent subtlety of
device combined with a boldness which stung His foes to madness, all this
richness and verisimilitude of detail, this truth to the character of
Jesus, this spiritual freedom from the trammels of a system petrified and
grown rigid, this observance in a secular act of the requirements of the
spiritual kingdom, all this wealth of internal evidence goes to attest one
of the minor miracles which sceptics declare to be incredible.
The Choice Of The Twelve.
“And Jesus with His disciples withdrew to the sea: and a great
multitude from Galilee followed: and from Judæa, and from
Jerusalem, and from Idumæa, and beyond Jordan, and about Tyre and
Sidon, a great multitude, hearing what great things He did, came
unto Him. And He spake to His disciples, that a little boat should
wait on Him because of the crowd, lest they should throng Him: for
He had healed many; insomuch that as many as had plagues pressed
upon Him that they might touch Him. And the unclean spirits,
whensoever they beheld Him, fell down before Him, and cried,
saying, Thou art the Son of God. And He charged them much that
they should not make Him known. And He goeth up into the mountain,
and calleth unto Him whom He Himself would: and they went unto
Him. And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and
that He might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to
cast out devils: and Simon he surnamed Peter; and James the _son_
of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and them He surnamed
Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and
Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the _son_ of
Alphæus, and Thaddæus, and Simon the Cananæan, and Judas Iscariot,
which also betrayed Him.”—MARK iii. 7-19 (R.V.).
We have reached a crisis in the labours of the Lord, when hatred which has
become deadly is preparing a blow. The Pharisees are aware, by a series of
experiences, that His method is destructive to their system, that He is
too fearless to make terms with them, that He will strip the mask off
their faces. Their rage was presently intensified by an immense extension
of His fame. And therefore He withdrew from the plots which ripen most
easily in cities, the hotbeds of intrigue, to the open coast. It is His
first retreat before opposition, and careful readers of the Gospels must
observe that whenever the pressure of His enemies became extreme, He
turned for safety to the simple fishermen, among whom they had no party,
since they had preached no gospel to the poor, and that He was frequently
conveyed by water from point to point, easily reached by followers, who
sometimes indeed outran Him upon foot, but where treason had to begin its
wiles afresh. Hither, perhaps camping along the beach, came a great
multitude not only from Galilee but also from Judæa, and even from the
capital, the headquarters of the priesthood, and by a journey of several
days from Idumæa, and from Tyre and Sidon, so that afterwards, even there,
He could not be hid. Many came to see what great things He did, but others
bore with them some afflicted friend, or were themselves sore stricken by
disease. And Jesus gave like a God, opening His hand and satisfying their
desires, “for power went out of Him, and healed them all.” Not yet had the
unbelief of man restrained the compassion of His heart, and forced Him to
exhibit another phase of the mind of God, by refusing to give that which
is holy to the dogs. As yet, therefore, He healeth all their diseases.
Then arose an unbecoming and irreverent rush of as many as had plagues to
touch Him. A more subtle danger mingled itself with this peril from undue
eagerness. For unclean spirits, who knew His mysterious personality,
observed that this was still a secret, and was no part of His teaching,
since His disciples could not bear it yet. Many months afterwards, flesh
and blood had not revealed it even to Peter. And therefore the demons made
malicious haste to proclaim Him the Son of God, and Jesus was obliged to
charge them much that they should not make Him known. This action of His
may teach His followers to be discreet. Falsehood indeed is always evil,
but at times reticence is a duty, because certain truths are a medicine
too powerful for some stages of spiritual disease. The strong sun which
ripens the grain in autumn, would burn up the tender germs of spring.
But it was necessary to teach as well as to heal. And Jesus showed his
ready practical ingenuity, by arranging that a little boat should wait on
Him, and furnish at once a pulpit and a retreat.
And now Jesus took action distinctly Messianic. The harvest of souls was
plenteous, but the appointed labourers were unfaithful, and a new
organisation was to take their place. The sacraments and the apostolate
are indeed the only two institutions bestowed upon His Church by Christ
Himself; but the latter is enough to show that, so early in His course, He
saw His way to a revolution. He appointed twelve apostles, in clear
allusion to the tribes of a new Israel, a spiritual circumcision, another
peculiar people. A new Jerusalem should arise, with their names engraven
upon its twelve foundation stones. But since all great changes arrive, not
by manufacture but by growth, and in co-operation with existing
circumstances, since nations and constitutions are not made but evolved,
so was it also with the Church of Christ. The first distinct and format
announcement of a new sheepfold, entered by a new and living Way, only
came when evoked by the action of His enemies in casting out the man who
was born blind. By that time, the apostles were almost ready to take their
place in it. They had learned much. They had watched the marvellous career
to which their testimony should be rendered. By exercise they had learned
the reality, and by failure the condition of the miraculous powers which
they should transmit. But long before, at the period we have now reached,
the apostles had been chosen under pressure of the necessity to meet the
hostility of the Pharisees with a counter-agency, and to spread the
knowledge of His power and doctrine farther than One Teacher, however
endowed, could reach. They were to be workers together with Him.
St. Mark tells us that He went up into the mountain, the well known hill
of the neighbourhood, as St. Luke also implies, and there called unto Him
whom He Himself would. The emphasis refutes a curious conjecture, that
Judas may have been urged upon Him with such importunity by the rest that
to reject became a worse evil than to receive him.(7) The choice was all
His own, and in their early enthusiasm not one whom He summoned refused
the call. Out of these He chose the Twelve, elect of the election.
We learn from St. Luke (v. 12) that His choice, fraught with such
momentous issues, was made after a whole night of prayer, and from St.
Matthew that He also commanded the whole body of His disciples to pray the
Lord of the Harvest, not that they themselves should be chosen, but that
He would send forth labourers into His harvest.
Now who were these by whose agency the downward course of humanity was
reversed, and the traditions of a Divine faith were poured into a new
mould?
It must not be forgotten that their ranks were afterwards recruited from
the purest Hebrew blood and ripest culture of the time. The addition of
Saul of Tarsus proved that knowledge and position were no more proscribed
than indispensable. Yet is it in the last degree suggestive, that Jesus
drew His personal followers from classes, not indeed oppressed by want,
but lowly, unwarped by the prejudices of the time, living in close contact
with nature and with unsophisticated men, speaking and thinking the words
and thoughts of the race and not of its coteries, and face to face with
the great primitive wants and sorrows over which artificial refinement
spreads a thin, but often a baffling veil.
With one exception the Nazarene called Galileans to His ministry; and the
Carpenter was followed by a group of fishermen, by a despised publican, by
a zealot whose love of Israel had betrayed him into wild and lawless
theories at least, perhaps into evil deeds, and by several whose previous
life and subsequent labours are unknown to earthly fame. Such are the
Judges enthroned over the twelve tribes of Israel.
A mere comparison of the lists refutes the notion that any one Evangelist
has worked up the materials of another, so diverse are they, and yet so
easily reconciled. Matthew in one is Levi in another. Thaddæus, Jude, and
Lebbæus, are interchangeable. The order of the Twelve differs in all the
four lists, and yet there are such agreements, even in this respect, as to
prove that all the Evangelists were writing about what they understood.
Divide the Twelve into three ranks of four, and in none of the four
catalogues will any name, or its equivalent, be found to have wandered out
of its subdivision, out of the first, second, or third rank, in which
doubtless that apostle habitually followed Jesus. Within each rank there
is the utmost diversity of place, except that the foremost name in each is
never varied; Peter, Philip, and the Lesser James, hold the first, fifth,
and ninth place in every catalogue. And the traitor is always last. These
are coincidences too slight for design and too striking for accident, they
are the natural signs of truth. For they indicate, without obtruding or
explaining, some arrangement of the ranks, and some leadership of an
individual in each.
Moreover, the group of the apostles presents a wonderfully lifelike
aspect. Fear, ambition, rivalry, perplexity, silence when speech is called
for, and speech when silence is befitting, vows, failures, and yet real
loyalty, alas! we know them all. The incidents which are recorded of the
chosen of Christ no inventor of the second century would have dared to
devise; and as we study them, we feel the touch of genuine life; not of
colossal statues such as repose beneath the dome of St. Peter’s, but of
men, genuine, simple and even somewhat childlike, yet full of strong,
fresh, unsophisticated feeling, fit therefore to become a great power, and
especially so in the capacity of witnesses for an ennobling yet
controverted fact.
Characteristics Of The Twelve.
“And He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and that He
might send them forth to preach, and to have authority to cast out
devils: and Simon He surnamed Peter; and James the _son_ of
Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and them He surnamed
Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder: and Andrew, and Philip, and
Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the _son_ of
Alphæus, and Thaddæus, and Simon the Cananæan, and Judas Iscariot,
which also betrayed Him.”—MARK iii. 14-19 (R.V.).
The pictures of the Twelve, then, are drawn from a living group. And when
they are examined in detail, this appearance of vitality is strengthened,
by the richest and most vivid indications of individual character, such
indeed as in several cases to throw light upon the choice of Jesus. To
invent such touches is the last attainment of dramatic genius, and the
artist rarely succeeds except by deliberate and palpable
character-painting. The whole story of Hamlet and of Lear is constructed
with this end in view, but no one has ever conjectured that the Gospels
were psychological studies. If, then, we can discover several well-defined
characters, harmoniously drawn by various writers, as natural as the
central figure is supernatural, and to be recognised equally in the common
and the miraculous narratives, this will be an evidence of the utmost
value.
We are all familiar with the impetuous vigour of St. Peter, a quality
which betrayed him into grave and well-nigh fatal errors, but when
chastened by suffering made him a noble and formidable leader of the
Twelve. We recognise it when He says, “Thou shalt never wash my feet,”
“Though all men should deny Thee, yet will I never deny Thee,” “Lord, to
whom should we go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life,” “Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God,” and in his rebuke of Jesus for
self-sacrifice, and in his rash blow in the garden. Does this, the best
established mental quality of any apostle, fail or grow faint in the
miraculous stories which are condemned as the accretions of a later time?
In such stories he is related to have cried out, “Depart from me, for I am
a sinful man, O Lord,” he would walk upon the sea to Jesus, he proposed to
shelter Moses and Elijah from the night air in booths (a notion so natural
to a bewildered man, so exquisite in its officious well-meaning absurdity
as to prove itself, for who could have invented it?), he ventured into the
empty sepulchre while John stood awe-stricken at the portal, he plunged
into the lake to seek his risen Master on the shore, and he was presently
the first to draw the net to land. Observe the restless curiosity which
beckoned to John to ask who was the traitor, and compare it with his
question, “Lord, and what shall this man do?” But the second of these was
after the resurrection, and in answer to a prophecy. Everywhere we find a
real person and the same, and the vehemence is everywhere that of a warm
heart, which could fail signally but could weep bitterly as well, which
could learn not to claim, though twice invited, greater love than that of
others, but when asked “Lovest thou Me” at all, broke out into the
passionate appeal, “Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I
love Thee.” Dull is the ear of the critic which fails to recognise here
the voice of Simon. Yet the story implies the resurrection.
The mind of Jesus was too lofty and grave for epigram; but He put the
wilful self-reliance which Peter had to subdue even to crucifixion, into
one delicate and subtle phrase: “When thou wast young, thou girdedst
thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest.” That self-willed stride,
with the loins girded, is the natural gait of Peter, when he was young.
St. James, the first apostolic martyr, seems to have over-topped for a
while his greater brother St. John, before whom he is usually named, and
who is once distinguished as “the brother of James.” He shares with him
the title of a Son of Thunder (Mark iii. 17). They were together in
desiring to rival the fiery and avenging miracle of Elijah, and to partake
of the profound baptism and bitter cup of Christ. It is an undesigned
coincidence in character, that while the latter of these events is
recorded by St. Matthew and St. Mark, the former, which, it will be
observed implies perfect confidence in the supernatural power of Christ,
is found in St. Luke alone, who has not mentioned the title it justifies
so curiously (Matt. xx. 20; Mark x. 35; Luke ix. 54). It is more
remarkable that he whom Christ bade to share his distinctive title with
another, should not once be named as having acted or spoken by himself.
With a fire like that of Peter, but no such power of initiative and of
chieftainship, how natural it is that his appointed task was martyrdom. Is
it objected that his brother also, the great apostle St. John, received
only a share in that divided title? But the family trait is quite as
palpable in him. The deeds of John were seldom wrought upon his own
responsibility, never if we except the bringing of Peter into the palace
of the high priest. He is a keen observer and a deep thinker. But he
cannot, like his Master, combine the quality of leader with those of
student and sage. In company with Andrew he found the Messiah. We have
seen James leading him for a time. It was in obedience to a sign from
Peter that He asked who was the traitor. With Peter, when Jesus was
arrested, he followed afar off. It is very characteristic that he shrank
from entering the sepulchre until Peter, coming up behind, went in first,
although it was John who thereupon “saw and believed.”(8)
With like discernment, he was the first to recognise Jesus beside the
lake, but then it was equally natural that he should tell Peter, and
follow in the ship, dragging the net to land, as that Peter should gird
himself and plunge into the lake. Peter, when Jesus drew him aside, turned
and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, with the same silent,
gentle, and sociable affection, which had so recently joined him with the
saddest and tenderest of all companions underneath the cross. At this
point there is a delicate and suggestive turn of phrase. By what incident
would any pen except his own have chosen to describe the beloved disciple
as Peter then beheld him? Assuredly we should have written, The disciple
whom Jesus loved, who also followed Him to Calvary, and to whom He
confided His mother. But from St. John himself there would have been a
trace of boastfulness in such a phrase. Now the author of the Fourth
Gospel, choosing rather to speak of privilege than service, wrote “The
disciple whom Jesus loved, which also leaned back on His breast at the
supper, and said, Lord, who is he that betrayeth Thee?”
St. John was again with St. Peter at the Beautiful Gate, and although it
was not he who healed the cripple, yet his co-operation is implied in the
words, “Peter, fastening his eyes on him, _with John_.” And when the
Council would fain have silenced them, the boldness which spoke in Peter’s
reply was “the boldness of Peter and John.”
Could any series of events justify more perfectly a title which implied
much zeal, yet zeal that did not demand a specific unshared epithet? But
these events are interwoven with the miraculous narratives.
Add to this the keenness and deliberation which so much of his story
exhibits, which at the beginning tendered no hasty homage, but followed
Jesus to examine and to learn, which saw the meaning of the orderly
arrangment of the graveclothes in the empty tomb, which was first to
recognise the Lord upon the beach, which before this had felt something in
Christ’s regard for the least and weakest, inconsistent with the
forbidding of any one to cast out devils, and we have the very qualities
required to supplement those of Peter, without being discordant or
uncongenial. And therefore it is with Peter, even more than with his
brother, that we have seen John associated. In fact Christ, who sent out
His apostles by two and two, joins these in such small matters as the
tracking a man with a pitcher into the house where He would keep the
Passover. And so, when Mary of Magdala would announce the resurrection,
she found the penitent Simon in company with this loving John, comforted,
and ready to seek the tomb where he met the Lord of all Pardons.
All this is not only coherent, and full of vital force, but it also
strengthens powerfully the evidence for his authorship of the Gospel,
written the last, looking deepest into sacred mysteries, and comparatively
unconcerned for the mere flow of narrative, but tender with private and
loving discourse, with thoughts of the protecting Shepherd, the sustaining
Vine, the Friend Who wept by a grave, Who loved John, Who provided amid
tortures for His mother, Who knew that Peter loved Him, and bade him feed
the lambs—and yet thunderous as becomes a Boanerges, with indignation half
suppressed against “the Jews” (so called as if he had renounced his
murderous nation), against the selfish high-priest of “that same year,”
and against the son of perdition, for whom certain astute worldlings have
surmised that his wrath was such as they best understand, personal, and
perhaps a little spiteful. The temperament of John, revealed throughout,
was that of August, brooding and warm and hushed and fruitful, with low
rumblings of tempest in the night.
It is remarkable that such another family resemblance as between James and
John exists between Peter and Andrew. The directness and self-reliance of
his greater brother may be discovered in the few incidents recorded of
Andrew also. At the beginning, and after one interview with Jesus, when he
finds his brother, and becomes the first of the Twelve to spread the
gospel, he utters the short unhesitating announcement, “We have found the
Messiah.” When Philip is uncertain about introducing the Greeks who would
see Jesus, he consults Andrew, and there is no more hesitation, Andrew and
Philip tell Jesus. And in just the same way, when Philip argues that two
hundred pennyworth of bread are not enough for the multitude, Andrew
intervenes with practical information about the five barley loaves and the
two small fishes, insufficient although they seem. A man prompt and ready,
and not blind to the resources that exist because they appear scanty.
Twice we have found Philip mentioned in conjunction with him. It was
Philip, apparently accosted by the Greeks because of his Gentile name, who
could not take upon himself the responsibility of telling Jesus of their
wish. And it was he, when consulted about the feeding of the five
thousand, who went off into a calculation of the price of the food
required—two hundred pennyworth, he says, would not suffice. Is it not
highly consistent with this slow deliberation, that he should have
accosted Nathanael with a statement so measured and explicit: “We have
found Him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of
Nazareth, the Son of Joseph.” What a contrast to Andrew’s terse
announcement, “We have found the Messiah.” And how natural that Philip
should answer the objection, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
with the passionless reasonable invitation, “Come and see.” It was in the
same unimaginative prosaic way that he said long after, “Lord, show us the
Father, and it sufficeth us.” To this comparatively sluggish temperament,
therefore, Jesus Himself had to address the first demand He made on any.
“Follow me,” He said, and was obeyed. It would not be easy to compress
into such brief and incidental notices a more graphic indication of
character.
Of the others we know little except the names. The choice of Matthew, the
man of business, is chiefly explained by the nature of his Gospel, so
explicit, orderly, and methodical, and until it approaches the
crucifixion, so devoid of fire.
But when we come to Thomas, we are once more aware of a defined and vivid
personality, somewhat perplexed and melancholy, of little hope but settled
loyalty.
All the three sayings reported of him belong to a dejected temperament:
“Let us also go, that we may die with Him”—as if there could be no
brighter meaning than death in Christ’s proposal to interrupt a dead man’s
sleep. “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and how can we know the
way?”—these words express exactly the same despondent failure to
apprehend. And so it comes to pass that nothing short of tangible
experience will convince him of the resurrection. And yet there is a warm
and devoted heart to be recognised in the proposal to share Christ’s
death, in the yearning to know whither He went, and even in that agony of
unbelief, which dwelt upon the cruel details of suffering, until it gave
way to one glad cry of recognition and of worship; therefore his demand
was granted, although a richer blessing was reserved for those who, not
having seen, believed.
The Apostle Judas.
“And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed Him.”—MARK iii. 19.
The evidential value of what has been written about the apostles will, to
some minds, seem to be overborne by the difficulties which start up at the
name of Judas. And yet the fact that Jesus chose him—that awful fact which
has offended many—is in harmony with all that we see around us, with the
prodigious powers bestowed upon Napoleon and Voltaire, bestowed in full
knowledge of the dark results, yet given because the issues of human
freewill never cancel the trusts imposed on human responsibility.
Therefore the issues of the freewill of Judas did not cancel the trust
imposed upon his responsibility; and Jesus acted not on His foreknowledge
of the future, but on the mighty possibilities, for good as for evil,
which heaved in the bosom of the fated man as he stood upon the mountain
sward.
In the story of Judas, the principles which rule the world are made
visible. From Adam to this day men have been trusted who failed and fell,
and out of their very downfall, but not by precipitating it, the plans of
God have evolved themselves.
It is not possible to make such a study of the character of Judas as of
some others of the Twelve. A traitor is naturally taciturn. No word of his
draws our attention to the fact that he had gained possession of the bag,
even though one who had sat at the receipt of custom might more naturally
have become the treasurer. We do not hear his voice above the rest, until
St. John explains the source of the general discontent, which remonstrated
against the waste of ointment. He is silent even at the feast, in despite
of the words which revealed his guilty secret, until a slow and tardy
question is wrung from him, not “Is it I, Lord?” but “Rabbi, is it I?” His
influence is like that of a subtle poison, not discerned until its effects
betray it.
But many words of Jesus acquire new force and energy when we observe that,
whatever their drift beside, they were plainly calculated to influence and
warn Iscariot. Such are the repeated and urgent warnings against
covetousness, from the first parable, spoken so shortly after his
vocation, which reckons the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other
things among the tares that choke the seed, down to the declaration that
they who trust in riches shall hardly enter the kingdom. Such are the
denunciations against hypocrisy, spoken openly, as in the Sermon on the
Mount, or to His own apart, as when He warned them of the leaven of the
Pharisees which is hypocrisy, that secret vice which was eating out the
soul of one among them. Such were the opportunities given to retreat
without utter dishonour, as when He said, “Do ye also will to go away? ...
Did I not choose you the Twelve, and one of you is a devil?” (John vi. 67,
70). And such also were the awful warnings given of the solemn
responsibilities of special privileges. The exalted city which is brought
down to hell, the salt which is trodden under foot, the men whose sin
remained because they can claim to see, and still more plainly, the first
that shall be last, and the man for whom it were good that he had not been
born. In many besides the last of these, Judas must have felt himself
sternly because faithfully dealt with. And the exasperation which always
results from rejected warnings, the sense of a presence utterly repugnant
to his nature, may have largely contributed to his final and disastrous
collapse.
In the life of Judas there was a mysterious impersonation of all the
tendencies of godless Judaism, and his dreadful personality seems to
express the whole movement of the nation which rejected Christ. We see
this in the powerful attraction felt toward Messiah before His aims were
understood, in the deadly estrangement and hostility which were kindled by
the gentle and self-effacing ways of Jesus, in the treachery of Judas in
the garden and the unscrupulous wiliness of the priests accusing Christ
before the governor, in the fierce intensity of rage which turned his
hands against himself and which destroyed the nation under Titus. Nay the
very sordidness which made a bargain for thirty pieces of silver has ever
since been a part of the popular conception of the race. We are apt to
think of a gross love of money as inconsistent with intense passion, but
in Shylock, the compatriot of Judas, Shakespeare combines the two.
Contemplating this blighted and sinister career, the lesson is burnt in
upon the conscience, that since Judas by transgression fell, no place in
the Church of Christ can render any man secure. And since, falling, he was
openly exposed, none may flatter himself that the cause of Christ is bound
up with his reputation, that the mischief must needs be averted which his
downfall would entail, that Providence must needs avert from him the
natural penalties of evil-doing. Though one was as the signet upon the
Lord’s hand, yet was he plucked thence. There is no security for any soul
anywhere except where love and trust repose, upon the bosom of Christ.
Now if this be true, and if sin and scandal may conceivably penetrate even
the inmost circle of the chosen, how great an error is it to break,
because of these offences, the unity of the Church, and institute some new
communion, purer far than the Churches of Corinth and Galatia, which were
not abandoned but reformed, and more impenetrable to corruption than the
little group of those who ate and drank with Jesus.
Christ And Beelzebub.
“And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not
so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard it, they went out
to lay hold on Him: for they said, He is beside Himself. And the
scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub,
and, By the prince of the devils casteth He out the devils. And He
called them unto Him, and said unto them in parables, How can
Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand. And if an house be divided against
itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan hath
risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but
hath an end. But no one can enter into the house of the strong
_man_, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong _man_;
and then he will spoil his house.”—MARK iii. 20-27 (R.V.).
While Christ was upon the mountain with His more immediate followers, the
excitement in the plain did not exhaust itself; for even when He entered
into a house, the crowds prevented Him and His followers from taking
necessary food. And when His friends heard of this, they judged Him as men
who profess to have learned the lesson of His life still judge, too often,
all whose devotion carries them beyond the boundaries of convention and of
convenience. For there is a curious betrayal of the popular estimate of
this world and the world to come, in the honour paid to those who cast
away life in battle, or sap it slowly in pursuit of wealth or honours, and
the contempt expressed for those who compromise it on behalf of souls, for
which Christ died. Whenever by exertion in any unselfish cause health is
broken, or fortune impaired, or influential friends estranged, the
follower of Christ is called an enthusiast, a fanatic, or even more
plainly a man of unsettled mind. He may be comforted by remembering that
Jesus was said to be beside Himself when teaching and healing left Him not
leisure even to eat.
To this incessant and exhausting strain upon His energies and sympathies,
St. Matthew applies the prophetic words, “Himself took our infirmities and
bare our diseases” (viii. 17). And it is worth while to compare with that
passage and the one before us, Renan’s assertion, that He traversed
Galilee “in the midst of a perpetual fête,” and that “joyous Galilee
celebrated in fêtes the approach of the well-beloved.” (_Vie de J._, pp.
197, 202). The contrast gives a fine illustration of the inaccurate
shallowness of the Frenchman’s whole conception of the sacred life.
But it is remarkable that while His friends could not yet believe His
claims, and even strove to lay hold on Him, no worse suspicion ever
darkened the mind of those who knew Him best than that His reason had been
disturbed. Not these called Him gluttonous and a winebibber. Not these
blasphemed His motives. But the envoys of the priestly faction, partisans
from Jerusalem, were ready with an atrocious suggestion. He was Himself
possessed with a worse devil, before whom the lesser ones retired. By the
prince of the devils He cast out the devils. To this desperate evasion,
St. Matthew tells us, they were driven by a remarkable miracle, the
expulsion of a blind and dumb spirit, and the perfect healing of his
victim. Now the literature of the world cannot produce invective more
terrible than Jesus had at His command for these very scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites. This is what gives majesty to His endurance. No
personal insult, no resentment at His own wrong, could ruffle the sublime
composure which, upon occasion, gave way to a moral indignation equally
sublime. Calmly He calls His traducers to look Him in the face, and
appeals to their own reason against their blasphemy. Neither kingdom nor
house divided against itself can stand. And if Satan be divided against
himself and his evil works, undoing the miseries and opening the eyes of
men, his kingdom has an end. All the experience of the world since the
beginning was proof enough that such a suicide of evil was beyond hope.
The best refutation of the notion that Satan had risen up against himself
and was divided was its clear expression. But what was the alternative? If
Satan were not committing suicide, he was overpowered. There is indeed a
fitful temporary reformation, followed by a deeper fall, which St. Matthew
tells us that Christ compared to the cleansing of a house from whence the
evil tenant has capriciously wandered forth, confident that it is still
his own, and prepared to return to it with seven other and worse fiends. A
little observation would detect such illusory improvement. But the case
before them was that of an external summons reluctantly obeyed. It
required the interference of a stronger power, which could only be the
power of God. None could enter into the strong man’s house, and spoil his
goods, unless the strong man were first bound, “and then he will spoil his
house.” No more distinct assertion of the personality of evil spirits than
this could be devised. Jesus and the Pharisees are not at all at issue
upon this point. He does not scout as a baseless superstition their belief
that evil spirits are at work in the world. But He declares that His own
work is the reversal of theirs. He is spoiling the strong man, whose
terrible ascendancy over the possessed resembles the dominion of a man in
his own house, among chattels without a will.
That dominion Christ declares that only a stronger can overcome, and His
argument assumes that the stronger must needs be the finger of God, the
power of God, come unto them. The supernatural exists only above us and
below.
Ages have passed away since then. Innumerable schemes have been devised
for the expulsion of the evils under which the world is groaning, and if
they are evils of merely human origin, human power should suffice for
their removal. The march of civilisation is sometimes appealed to. But
what blessings has civilisation without Christ ever borne to savage men?
The answer is painful: rum, gunpowder, slavery, massacre, small-pox,
pulmonary consumption, and the extinction of their races, these are all it
has been able to bestow. Education is sometimes spoken of, as if it would
gradually heal our passions and expel vice and misery from the world, as
if the worst crimes and most flagrant vices of our time were peculiar to
the ignorant and the untaught, as if no forger had ever learned to write.
And sometimes great things are promised from the advance of science, as if
all the works of dynamite and nitro-glycerine, were, like those of the
Creator, very good.
No man can be deceived by such flattering hopes, who rightly considers the
volcanic energies, the frantic rage, the unreasoning all-sacrificing
recklessness of human passions and desires. Surely they are set on fire of
hell, and only heaven can quench the conflagration. Jesus has undertaken
to do this. His religion has been a spell of power among the degraded and
the lost; and when we come to consider mankind in bulk, it is plain enough
that no other power has had a really reclaiming, elevating effect upon
tribes and races. In our own land, what great or lasting work of
reformation, or even of temporal benevolence, has ever gone forward
without the blessing of religion to sustain it? Nowhere is Satan cast out
but by the Stronger than he, binding him, overmastering the evil principle
which tramples human nature down, as the very first step towards spoiling
his goods. The spiritual victory must precede the removal of misery,
convulsion and disease. There is no golden age for the world, except the
reign of Christ.
“Eternal Sin.”
“Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the
sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall
blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit
hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”—MARK
iii. 28, 29 (R.V.).
Having first shown that His works cannot be ascribed to Satan, Jesus
proceeds to utter the most terrible of warnings, because they said, He
hath an unclean spirit.
“All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their
blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme, but whosoever shall
blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness; but is guilty of
an eternal sin.”
What is the nature of this terrible offence? It is plain that their
slanderous attack lay in the direction of it, since they needed warning;
and probable that they had not yet fallen into the abyss, because they
could still be warned against it. At least, if the guilt of some had
reached that depth, there must have been others involved in their offence
who were still within reach of Christ’s solemn admonition. It would seem
therefore that in saying, “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub.... He hath
an unclean spirit,” they approached the confines and doubtful boundaries
between that blasphemy against the Son of man which shall be forgiven, and
the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which hath never forgiveness.
It is evident also that any crime declared by Scripture elsewhere to be
incurable, must be identical with this, however different its guise, since
Jesus plainly and indisputably announces that all other sins but this
shall be forgiven.
Now there are several other passages of the kind. St. John bade his
disciples to pray, when any saw a brother sinning a sin not unto death,
“and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a
sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request”
(1 John v. 16). It is idle to suppose that, in the case of this sin unto
death, the Apostle only meant to leave his disciples free to pray or not
to pray. If death were not certain, it would be their duty, in common
charity, to pray. But the sin is so vaguely and even mysteriously referred
to, that we learn little more from that passage than that it was an overt
public act, of which other men could so distinctly judge the flagrancy
that from it they should withhold their prayers. It has nothing in common
with those unhappy wanderings of thought or affection which morbid
introspection broods upon, until it pleads guilty to the unpardonable sin,
for lapses of which no other could take cognizance. And in Christ’s words,
the very epithet, blasphemy, involves the same public, open revolt against
good.(9) And let it be remembered that every other sin shall be forgiven.
There are also two solemn passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews (vi. 4-6;
x. 26-31). The first of these declares that it is impossible for men who
once experienced all the enlightening and sweet influences of God, “and
then fell away,” to be renewed again unto repentance. But falling upon the
road is very different from thus falling away, or how could Peter have
been recovered? Their fall is total apostasy, “they crucify to themselves
the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.” They are not
fruitful land in which tares are mingled; they bear only thorns and
thistles, and are utterly rejected. And so in the tenth chapter, they who
sin wilfully are men who tread under foot the Son of God, and count the
blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and do despite (insult) unto the
Spirit of grace.
Again we read that in the last time there will arise an enemy of God so
unparalleled that his movement will outstrip all others, and be “_the_
falling away,” and he himself will be “the man of sin” and “the son of
perdition,” which latter title he only shares with Iscariot. Now the
essence of his portentous guilt is that “he opposeth and exalteth himself
against all that is called God or that is worshipped”: it is a monstrous
egotism, “setting himself forth as God,” and such a hatred of restraint as
makes him “the lawless one” (2 Thess. ii. 3-10).
So far as these passages are at all definite in their descriptions, they
are entirely harmonious. They describe no sin of the flesh, of impulse,
frailty or passion, nor yet a spiritual lapse of an unguarded hour, of
rash speculation, of erring or misled opinion. They speak not of sincere
failure to accept Christ’s doctrine or to recognise His commission, even
though it breathe out threats and slaughters. They do not even apply to
the dreadful sin of denying Christ in terror, though one should curse and
swear, saying, I know not the man. They speak of a deliberate and
conscious rejection of good and choice of evil, of the wilful aversion of
the soul from sacred influences, the public denial and trampling under
foot of Christ, the opposing of all that is called God.
And a comparison of these passages enables us to understand why this sin
never can be pardoned. It is because good itself has become the food and
fuel of its wickedness, stirring up its opposition, calling out its rage,
that the apostate cannot be renewed again unto repentance. The sin is
rather indomitable than unpardonable: it has become part of the sinner’s
personality; it is incurable, an eternal sin.
Here is nothing to alarm any mourner whose contrition proves that it has
actually been possible to renew him unto repentance. No penitent has ever
yet been rejected for this guilt, for no penitent has ever been thus
guilty.
And this being so, here is the strongest possible encouragement for all
who desire mercy. Every other sin, every other blasphemy shall be
forgiven. Heaven does not reject the vilest whom the world hisses at, the
most desperate and bloodstained whose life the world exacts in vengeance
for his outrages. None is lost but the hard and impenitent heart which
treasures up for itself wrath against the day of wrath.
The Friends Of Jesus.
“And there come His mother and His brethren; and, standing
without, they sent unto Him, calling Him. And a multitude was
sitting about Him; and they say unto Him, Behold, Thy mother and
Thy brethren without seek for Thee. And He answereth them, and
saith, Who is My mother and My brethren? And looking round on them
which sat round about Him He saith, Behold My mother and My
brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My
brother, and sister, and mother.”—MARK iii. 31-35 (R.V.).
We have lately read that the relatives of Jesus, hearing of His
self-sacrificing devotion, sought to lay hold on Him, because they said,
He is beside Himself. Their concern would not be lightened upon hearing of
His rupture with the chiefs of their religion and their nation. And so it
was, that while a multitude hung upon His lips, some unsympathizing
critic, or perhaps some hostile scribe, interrupted Him with their
message. They desired to speak with Him, possibly with rude intentions,
while in any case, to grant their wish might easily have led to a painful
altercation, offending weak disciples, and furnishing a scandal to His
eager foes.
Their interference must have caused the Lord a bitter pang. It was sad
that they were not among His hearers, but worse that they should seek to
mar His work. To Jesus, endowed with every innocent human instinct, worn
with labour and aware of gathering perils, they were an offence of the
same kind as Peter made himself when he became the mouthpiece of the
tempter. For their own sakes, whose faith He was yet to win, it was
needful to be very firm. Moreover, He was soon to make it a law of the
kingdom that men should be ready for His sake to leave brethren, or
sisters, or mother, and in so doing should receive back all these a
hundredfold in the present time (x. 29, 30). To this law it was now His
own duty to conform. Yet it was impossible for Jesus to be harsh and stern
to a group of relatives with His mother in the midst of them; and it would
be a hard problem for the finest dramatic genius to reconcile the
conflicting claims of the emergency, fidelity to God and the cause, a
striking rebuke to the officious interference of His kinsfolk, and a full
and affectionate recognition of the relationship which could not make Him
swerve. How shall He “leave” His mother and His brethren, and yet not deny
His heart? How shall He be strong without being harsh?
Jesus reconciles all the conditions of the problem, as pointing to His
attentive hearers, He pronounces these to be His true relatives, but yet
finds no warmer term to express what He feels for them than the dear names
of mother, sisters, brethren.
Observers whose souls were not warmed as He spoke, may have supposed that
it was cold indifference to the calls of nature which allowed His mother
and brethren to stand without. In truth, it was not that He denied the
claims of the flesh, but that He was sensitive to other, subtler,
profounder claims of the spirit and spiritual kinship. He would not
carelessly wound a mother’s or a brother’s heart, but the life Divine had
also its fellowships and its affinities, and still less could He throw
these aside. No cold sense of duty detains Him with His congregation while
affection seeks Him in the vestibule; no, it is a burning love, the love
of a brother or even of a son, which binds Him to His people.
Happy are they who are in such a case. And Jesus gives us a ready means of
knowing whether we are among those whom He so wonderfully condescends to
love. “Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven.”
Feelings may ebb, and self-confidence may be shaken, but obedience depends
not upon excitement, and may be rendered by a breaking heart.
It is important to observe that this saying declares that obedience does
not earn kinship; but only proves it, as the fruit proves the tree.
Kinship must go before acceptable service; none can do the will of the
Father who is not already the kinsman of Jesus, for He says, Whosoever
shall (_hereafter_) do the will of My Father, the same is (_already_) My
brother and sister and mother. There are men who would fain reverse the
process, and do God’s will in order to merit the brotherhood of Jesus.
They would drill themselves and win battles for Him, in order to be
enrolled among His soldiers. They would accept the gospel invitation as
soon as they refute the gospel warnings that without Him they can do
nothing, and that they need the creation of a new heart and the renewal of
a right spirit within them. But when homage was offered to Jesus as a
Divine teacher and no more, He rejoined, Teaching is not what is required:
holiness does not result from mere enlightenment: Verily, verily, I say
unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Because the new birth is the condition of all spiritual power and energy,
it follows that if any man shall henceforth do God’s will, he must already
be of the family of Christ.
Men may avoid evil through self-respect, from early training and
restraints of conscience, from temporal prudence or dread of the future.
And this is virtuous only as the paying of a fire-insurance is so. But
secondary motives will never lift any man so high as to satisfy this
sublime standard, the doing of the will of the Father. That can only be
attained, like all true and glorious service in every cause, by the heart,
by enthusiasm, by love. And Jesus was bound to all who loved His Father by
as strong a cord as united His perfect heart with brother and sister and
mother.
But as there is no true obedience without relationship, so is there no
true relationship unfollowed by obedience. Christ was not content to say,
Whoso doeth God’s will is My kinsman: He asked, Who is My kinsman? and
gave this as an exhaustive reply. He has none other. Every sheep in His
fold hears His voice and follows Him. We may feel keen emotions as we
listen to passionate declamations, or kneel in an excited prayer-meeting,
or bear our part in an imposing ritual; we may be moved to tears by
thinking of the dupes of whatever heterodoxy we most condemn; tender and
soft emotions may be stirred in our bosom by the story of the perfect life
and Divine death of Jesus; and yet we may be as far from a renewed heart
as was that ancient tyrant from genuine compassion, who wept over the
brevity of the lives of the soldiers whom he sent into a wanton war.
Mere feeling is not life. It moves truly; but only as a balloon moves,
rising by virtue of its emptiness, driven about by every blast that veers,
and sinking when its inflation is at an end. But mark the living creature
poised on widespread wings; it has a will, an intention, and an
initiative, and as long as its life is healthy and unenslaved, it moves at
its own good pleasure. How shall I know whether or not I am a true kinsman
of the Lord? By seeing whether I advance, whether I work, whether I have
real and practical zeal and love, or whether I have grown cold, and make
more allowance for the flesh than I used to do, and expect less from the
spirit. Obedience does not produce grace. But it proves it, for we can no
more bear fruit except we abide in Christ, than the branch that does not
abide in the vine.
Lastly, we observe the individual love, the personal affection of Christ
for each of His people. There is a love for masses of men and
philanthropic causes, which does not much observe the men who compose the
masses, and upon whom the causes depend. Thus, one may love his country,
and rejoice when her flag advances, without much care for any soldier who
has been shot down, or has won promotion. And so we think of Africa or
India, without really feeling much about the individual Egyptian or
Hindoo. Who can discriminate and feel for each one of the multitudes
included in such a word as Want, or Sickness, or Heathenism? And judging
by our own frailty, we are led to think that Christ’s love can mean but
little beyond this. As a statesman who loves the nation may be said, in
some vague way, to love and care for me, so people think of Christ as
loving and pitying us because we are items in the race He loves. But He
has eyes and a heart, not only for all, but for each one. Looking down the
shadowy vista of the generations, every sigh, every broken heart, every
blasphemy, is a separate pang to His all-embracing heart. “Before that
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw _thee_,”
lonely, unconscious, undistinguished drop in the tide of life, one leaf
among the myriads which rustle and fall in the vast forest of existence.
St. Paul speaks truly of Christ “Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
He shall bring every secret sin to judgment, and shall we so far wrong Him
as to think His justice more searching, more penetrating, more
individualizing than His love, His memory than His heart? It is not so.
The love He offers adapts itself to every age and sex: it distinguishes
brother from sister, and sister again from mother. It is mindful of “the
least of these My brethren.” But it names no Father except One.