SECTION XI.

THE DECIDED MANIFESTATION OF THE GREAT CONFLICT BETWEEN THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST AND THE SPIRIT OF HIS PEOPLE.

(Matt. xi. 2-xii.)

Just at the time when reverence for Jesus was at its height among the people, when increasing multitudes were streaming to Him, so that He saw Himself compelled to turn His ministry into_ a sevenfold one (supplementing His own activity by six pairs of disciples), the signs of the great conflict between His spirit and the spirit of His people began to show themselves in increasingly suspicious forms.

It was a sign of the most serious kind, that even John the Baptist was for a moment in danger of falling into mistake regarding Him, and that, while in this frame of mind, he was constrained to commence that lengthened course of repeated conflicts which Jesus now had to undergo. While Jesus was teaching in the cities of Galilee, preaching the Gospel and working miracles, John lay in suffering and deep conflict of soul in the prison, into which the arbitrary despotism of Herod Antipas had cast him. His frame of mind is testified by the message which he sent to Christ through two of his disciples, asking Him, 'Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another?' The Evangelist remarks expressly, that he w^as moved to put this question by what he had heard of the works of Christ. Hence it appears that information regarding the works of Christ must have partly encouraged him in the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, but also partly made him uncertain in this belief. When his disciples told him that Jesus ate with publicans and sinners, that He expended so much time on single works of love, and that in general His highest aim seemed to be only to comfort the people, that must have appeared surprising to him, especially at a time when the insolence of a despot had cast the herald of the Messiah into prison. He felt, with reason, that this people, who let their prophets pine in prison, were ripening for severe judgments. He was also certain in his mind that the Messiah should come_ to judgment, but had no clear conception respecting the distinction between Christ's first and second coming. And yet he saw nothing of the judicial activity of Christ; hence his uneasiness. But at the same time, Christ's miracles could not fail to strengthen him in his former faith. So there arose in him an impatient desire that Jesus should come forth openly as the Messiah; and by the question which he openly put, he really seemed desirous of compelling Him to do so.¹

But although the Baptist could not now quite understand the Messiah, to whom he had at God's command borne witness before the people, yet by God's grace, and the entire openness of his great mind, he was thoroughly guarded against defection from Christ. An indication of this was given by the fact that, in expressing his mind, he sent to Jesus Himself. Nay, in a certain sense, John seemed by this question to aim at drawing the glory of Christ to light before all the people. We must keep in mind that Jesus did not come forth openly as Messiah, that He did not work under the title of the Messiah. And John by his message now seemed to press Him to decide, to declare openly that He was the expected Messiah. For he could not expect that Jesus would give a negative answer to his question. Jesus replied to the two messengers, 'Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.' If our Lord expected that this representation of His works would ease John's mind, we may assume that hitherto he had received only such reports regarding Christ's activity as tended to depreciate and obscure it. But as these works were in themselves adapted to bear testimony to the divine mission of Christ, so special consideration was due to the circumstance, that they were precisely such actions as had been ascribed to the Messiah by the prophets.² And yet our Lord's answer was so put, that John did not obtain what he probably desired, which was to cause Him to give an open explanation, which must have had for consequence an uprising of the people for the theocratic Messiah.

Our Lord added the word of warning, 'And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.' This was undoubtedly addressed rather to John's disciples than to John himself. And if it did contain a reproof for John too, it at the same time contained an expression of Christ's certainty that John would continue to maintain the blessedness of fellowship with Him. By the question which he openly put to our Lord before the people, John had endangered Christ's reputation among the people, and still more injured his own. Our Lord was entirely unconcerned about His own reputatation, and therefore thought first of re-establishing the authority of His forerunner, who was assailed by doubts. It was indeed necessary for Him to enter further, with due caution, upon John's question, in as far as it concerned the Baptist himself. Hence, as soon as John's disciples had departed, He addressed to the people these questions regarding the Baptist: 'What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what went ye out to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send My angel before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way before Thee (Mai. iii. 1). Verily I say unto you. Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.' With these words He praised the rock-like stedfastness of John; He intimated with sufficient plainness that the reason why John was not in the king's house, but in the king's prison, was that he was none of the courtiers who wear soft clothing; He represented him as the prophet who, as forerunner of the Messiah, surpassed all prophets, and who, by his consecration from his birth, was the greatest among all born of women (comp. Luke i. 15).

Yet He continues, 'Notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.' On hearing this eulogium, the Jews might reply to Jesus: If then John is so great, whence this offence or this doubt concerning thine authority? Hence He had now to use the strongest expressions to make clear to them the distinction between the Old Testament divine economy and the New Testament kingdom of God. Even the least in the New Testament economy stands above John, inasmuch as he participates in this new birth of the life of Christ, which is not an ordinary birth of woman, but an operation of the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as he is born again through the power of the birth of Christ, and therefore can wait, bear, and suffer with Him in His New Testament spirit, and overcome through the cross.

Since the Lord had first designated the Baptist as the precursor of the Messiah, and yet declared that the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. He expressed by implication His own Messianic dignity, for He presented Himself as the founder of this new kingdom. All this was suitable to the occasion when John openly asked if He was the Messiah; and our Lord could not depart from His resolution not to appear under the title of Messiah.

After He had so strongly expressed the contrast between John's standpoint and the new life of the Spirit, according to which John continued to be the last of the old economy, He finds it necessary to bring forward the other side also, according to which John belonged to the dawn of the new time: 'And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.' Thus the birth-pangs of the new time have already begun with John, and he is the first of the two great breach-makers through whom the kingdom of heaven breaks through, and is brought to manifestation. He then intimates that the time of John was the time of prophesy: 'All the prophets and the law prophesied until John '(prophetically announced and prepared the way for the new time). And then He observes that the fulfilment was drawing near: 'And if ye will receive it, this is Elijah who was to come (Mai. iv, 5). He that hath ears to hear, let him hear! 'By this hint He gave the best possible intimation to the people that the time of fulfilment, the time of the Messiah, had already begun to dawn. He named to them the first violent one with whom the kingdom of heaven had begun to break through: they should conjecture who was the second with whom the breach is decided.

Jesus thus showed that the contrast in which John stands to Him is no hostile contrast. John, notwithstanding his troubled frame of mind, which forms such a contrast to our Lord's cheering and kindly proclamation of the Gospel, is at bottom one with Him. He carries out this thought still further; but in carrying it out. He represents a new conflict, in which He finds Himself in immediate opposition to the spirit of His people. And this is worse than the former; for it is the very ground from which that former and transitory conflict arose — it is abiding, and brings to Him death, to the people destruction. 'Whereunto shall I liken this generation? 'Thus He began His complaint. 'It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced: we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.' He then shows that the people had acted in this way: 'For John came neither eating nor drinking (as an ascetic in a penitential form), and they say. He hath a devil (of melancholy). The Son of man came eating and drinking (participating in the festive enjoyments of life), and they say, Behold a man gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend (or companion) of publicans and sinners.' The radical perversity of the people in both cases was the idea, that their prophets should accommodate themselves to their humours, and dance to their piping, and that they were to rule their rulers. This perversity had taken two forms: the people made a demand upon John to be joyous with them; and then, again, upon our Lord to engage in penitential fastings with them. The band piping for a dance doubtless alludes to the merriment and sinful joys at Herod's court, which had put John into prison because he would not join in them; nay, one might find in these words a prophetic reference to that dance of Herodias' daughter, which brought him to death; while the band of mourning women represents the Pharisees and John's disciples, who sought to make it matter of reproach to our Lord, that He ate with publicans and sinners.3 He then adds: 'But Wisdom is justified of her children,' — must submit to be vindicated against alleged crimes; and for this vindication, she must first bear her defenders.

In our Lord's denunciation of the cities of Galilee, the Evangelist next presents to our view a particular form which the conflict between Christ and the Jewish people had taken. Then began He to upbraid the cities wherein most of His mighty works were done, because they repented not: 'Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for yon. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee' Our Lord had poured forth from His heart thousands of blessings on these cities. By their unbelief they had changed them into a curse, which was already beginning to show its effects in incipient judgments. With prophetic spirit, Jesus announced these judgments. His word has been fulfilled; the sites of these cities are now unknown.

But it was with the greatest pain that He pronounced these judgments; for all the efforts of His compassion seemed expended in vain on the whole people of the land in which He dwelt — on Capernaum, His chosen residence — on Bethsaida, the home of three of His disciples, among whom was Peter. And this makes more wonderful the sublime elevation of His soul over this great sorrow of heart for His country in prayer to the Father: 'I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight.'

He had by this prayer fortified the confidence of His victory over the whole world, and, as if in triumph. He could tell the disciples: 'All things are delivered unto Me of My Father; and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.' And if He should be persecuted by the world as a defenceless man, so much the more will He joy and rejoice in the consciousness that the power over the whole world lies in His heart and must one day become manifest in the world; and if He is more or less misjudged by the whole world, even this gives Him a lively sense of the fact that the Father knows Him wholly — that He is hid in the heart of God as a most precious secret, and God in His heart as a blessed secret — that the world cannot know Him until the Father glorifies Him before the world, and that this world will know God only when it submits to have this knowledge revealed to it by Him.

But how infinitely far removed from proud self-exaltation is this heavenly triumphant feeling! This is humility in divine grandeur, that while in this frame of spirit, He exclaims, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.'

That first conflict between Christ and the cities on the Sea of Galilee had in the first instance only a negative form; they showed a want of receptivity for His Spirit, they received Him not. But it was just in this undecidedness and lukewarmness that the positive enmity of the Pharisees could take root, and strengthen itself into a power which became more and more audacious in persecuting Him. This enmity was manifested in a series of violent conflicts.

The very first conflict shows what pains the Pharisee party took to entrap our Lord. He was going one Sabbath-day at that time through the corn-fields. His disciples were hungry, and began therefore to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. This fact did not escape the Pharisees, and it seemed to them to afford ground for a reproach. 'Behold,' said they, 'Thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath-day.' Jesus overthrew their hypothesis by two examples from the Old Testament. The first was intended to explain to them the law of necessity: 'Have ye not read what David did when he was an hungered, and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them that were with him, but only for the priests? '(see 1 Sam. xxi. 6). Thus the law of necessity in the case of hunger is so great, that even king David, the ideal of these opponents of Jesus, ventured without hesitation to break, in this case, the ordinance of the temple. In respect to the breaking of the ordinance of the Sabbath, He gave them an explanation regarding that in His second example: 'Or have ye not read in the law, how that (hence according to the laid) on the Sabbath-days the priests (themselves) in the temple (even) profane the Sabbath (as they must attend to the temple-service, see Num. xxviii. 9), and are blameless? 'In the first example, the motive for suspending the ordinance was hunger; in the second, the exigencies of the temple-service. Thus the ordinance of the Sabbath might be set aside by the ordinances of the temple, and these again by the demands of hunger. The requirements of the temple stand above the requirements of the Sabbath; in this lay the pith of the proof; hence our Lord concludes with the declaration: 'But I say unto you, That in this place is One greater than the temple.' If then the temple conceded to hungry men bread forbidden under a penalty in other cases, the temple may set aside the Sabbath law; and much more may He do so who is the true temple, in whom God dwells, in contrast to the symbol upon Mount Moriah. He then rebukes the want of love on the part of the accusers of His disciples: 'But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice (Hos. vi. 6), ye would not have condemned the guiltless.' He calls the accused the guiltless; and He has yet another ground for their being so, which, with sublime self-consciousness, He freely declares to His proud opponents: 'For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day.' In Him the true Sabbath has appeared, which the Jewish Sabbath only represented symbolically and made legal preparation for, and from which the true Sabbath-peace proceeds.

But as the Pharisee party, who made the outward Sabbath a curse and a burden to the people, would not tolerate works of necessity on that day, neither would they works of love. And this spirit actuated the party in all places. This was shown by our Lord being soon after again assailed in another place by the Pharisees, because He made a man whole on the Sabbath. He came into a synagogue; and, behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. The Pharisees asked Him, saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day? 'They seemed from the outset determined to make an affirmative answer to this question a sin in Him. This time Jesus corrects them by an example, taken, in a way well fitted to make them abashed, from their own manner of acting: 'What man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath-day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath-days.' Moreover, in spite of His antagonists. He did not rest satisfied with delivering His opinion, but turning to the sufferer. He said, 'Stretch forth thine hand! 'The man stretched it forth, a lively sign that in opinion he held with Christ against the Pharisees. And immediately his hand was restored whole, like as the other. But the Pharisees had already forgotten the example of the sheep fallen into a pit: they went out and held a council against Christ, how they might destroy Him.

It is true that Jesus was able still to withdraw Himself from their snares by going to another place, where He was surrounded by many attached bands of adherents; but by this retreat He did not void the third conflict with the Pharisees which arose soon after, and was more serious than the two former. At this period of His ministry, Jesus specially sought to secure the greatest quietness. He healed all the sick who flocked to Him in multitudes, but He charged those who were healed that they should not make Him known. Thus He displayed at that time the greatest activity in His works of love under the protecting veil of concealment, as if He were come for rescue to His people like a blessed angel in spirit-like secrecy. But in this, the peculiar character of His activity was most expressly manifested; and thus was fulfilled what Isaiah had prophesied respecting the activity of God's Servant: 'Behold My Servant, whom I have chosen; My Beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased: I will put My Spirit upon Him, and He shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory; and in His name shall the Gentiles trust' (Isa. xlii. 1 et seq.)

But His enemies were not at rest, and they soon brought again the spirit of disturbance into this sacred circle, in which Jesus was calmly working miracles of grace and life. There was brought unto Him one possessed with a devil, blind, and at the same time dumb. Jesus healed him. The man who had been separated from the outer world, shut up in dark demoniac imprisonment, now spoke and saw again. This miracle almost brought the people to decision. The whole multitude that surrounded Him were seized with a sacred awe, and gave utterance to their feelings by exclaiming, 'Is not this the Son of David? 'But when the Pharisees heard it, they came forth, as on a former and similar occasion,'⁴ with the bold blasphemy, 'This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.' When Jesus perceived their sullen thoughts (discovering their inward sullenness in their countenances), He said to them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: and if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?⁵ He added another remark, in order to make a conclusive reply to their blasphemy: 'And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children (the exorcists, see vol. ii. p. 268) cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges (namely, on their theories, according to which, prayer, the fear of God, and faith were connected with such works). But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you' — has shed its morning beams upon you. He now shows them by a similitude that it must be so: 'Or else, how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.'

He then lays before them a criterion, according to which they must acknowledge themselves to be His enemies; and this criterion, by the divine feeling which animates it, cannot but excite the dark feeling, that standing there as enemies of the Messiah, they are enemies of God: 'He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad.' He felt Himself constrained to follow this up by uttering the awful and solemn warning: 'All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh a word against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.' This word of our Lord denotes the extremity to which sin, from its very nature, tends from the outset. It will become blasphemy' — bold, insulting aspersion of the Living One, even blasphemy of the Holy Ghost — of the highest and clearest revelation of the divine life to the mind. But that is as much as to say, that it wilfully tends to raging spiritual madness, in which man scoffs at the highest experimental knowledge he can have of the Eternal One; in which, on the one hand, he, under constraint, bows the knee in blasphemy before the Eternal, condemning himself by his mind being at variance with his action, and so falling into madness; and, on the other hand, dedicates to death the remains of his better life, the experience he has had of the Holy Ghost, by intentionally seeking to revile and blacken the clearest light of the Holy Ghost, who withdraws from him and leaves him to the darkness of his own delusions. Sin, in its second, strengthened, historical form, as misconduct towards Christ, specially tends to this awful goal (see John xvi. 9). True, the highest summit of this guilt is by its very nature inaccessible; for in proportion as one blasphemes, he no longer sees the Holy Ghost, and in proportion as one perceives Him, he can no longer blaspheme. But the presumptuous unbeliever can come near to this summit, until giddiness of spirit casts him down into an abyss of judgment and spiritual frenzy, which in duration extends throughout the present and the coming æon.⁶

Our Lord now calls upon them to give their judgment upon their life according to their fearful conduct. Either, or — 'make the tree good, and with it you have the good fruit; make the tree corrupt, and you make its fruit corrupt also; for the tree is known by its fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man, out of the good treasure of the heart, bringeth forth good things; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.'

In order to make the full import of these words sensible to them, He lays down a proposition which may at first sight seem very hard to believe, but the deep meaning of which becomes always more and more manifest: 'For by thy words thou shalt be justfied, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.'

After this rebuke by Jesus, certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees seemed desirous of putting on an appearance of goodness, or, it may be, to calm their conscience. They professed themselves ready to receive Him as the Messiah if He would fulfil the requisite preliminary condition. By this they understood a sensible sign from heaven, of which they had, from misunderstood expressions of the prophets (e.g., Joel ii. 30 and iii. 15), formed a conception after their own fancies, and which they considered as the necessary attestation of the Messiah. 'Master,' said they, 'we would see a sign from Thee.' But Jesus told them, that instead of the sign descending from above, which they wished to see, they should receive one ascending from beneath. 'An evil and adulterous generation,' exclaimed He, 'seek after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah: for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.'

This was the fearful sign they had to receive, since by their unbelief with respect to Him they sank lower than the heathen. This is what He gives them to reflect upon. He had formerly spoken of the heathen whose judgment should be less than that of the unbelieving Jews; He speaks now of heathen who, by their ready repentance and belief, can be judges of the unbelieving Jew's. Of these He mentions the Ninevites first. 'They shall,' says He, 'rise up in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah (without having seen the sign of Jonah); and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here' Nay, there have been not only such heathen cities who received with repentance the solitary theocratic messenger coming to them from afar, but also heathen souls who, drawn by an obscure report, and following their best presentiments, came from afar to learn the wisdom of the theocrats. Our Lord praises the queen of the south, who visited Solomon, as being such a child of longing. 'She shall," said He, 'rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and,' again making application, 'behold a greater than Solomon is here.'

He now returns to the subject of casting out devils, and puts it to their conscience how much they by their perversity counteract the blessed effects wrought by Him. 'When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.' This was His experience in regard to the Jewish people. "When He, as here, cast out one devil out of the people in the possessed among them, that same devil, with seven others still worse (blaspheming spirits), speedily stood opposed to Him again in His blaspheming antagonists. And in opposition to the accusation that He wrought by the power of Beelzebub, He reminds them that they allow themselves to be ruled by the seven devils, which denote guilty and willing connection with Satan (see vol. i. p. 441-2).

This conflict of Jesus with the scribes and Pharisees was so great, and the decided and strong way in which He came forth against them caused such anxiety to many, that even His mother and brethren lost their self-possession for an instant. They heard of His unparalleled boldness, and came, probably from anxious care, in connection with want of due confidence, to call Him away in order to remove Him for a time from the theatre of His activity (see above, vol. ii. 274). While He was yet speaking to the people, behold, His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him. Some one brought word of this to our Lord: 'Behold, Thy mother and Thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with Thee.' But He gave them plainly to understand that He knew already what they desired, and how far they were in this case estranged from His spirit, and fell below the other believers among His hearers. In this sense He replied, 'Who is My mother? and who are My brethren?' Then He gave the reply Himself; stretching forth His hand towards His disciples. He said, 'Behold My mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.' So closely did He connect Himself during this great conflict with His disciples and followers, who did not yield themselves to the spirit of the people, but to the influence of His spirit, and who thereby entered into closest relationship with Him and became His spiritual family. But by firmly maintaining His higher calling and standpoint, He recalled His relations also into His spiritual family.

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