"Jesus saw two brethren, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And He saith unto them, Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."-- Mat_4:18-19.
IT IS thus that Christ adapts Himself to the understanding and the heart. He caught these fishermen with bait suited to them. Notice the undoubting certainty of His promise to make these two brothers fishers of men, casting their drag-net not into the waters of the sea of Galilee, but into the great ocean of humanity. How impossible it would have been to convince Peter then that within four years he would make the great haul of three thousand souls (Act_2:41). We never know what awaits us when we leave all to follow in obedience to the Master's Call!
"Follow Me!" Our Lord is always making this challenge (John_21:19-22). It means bearing the cross, but we must be willing to follow Christ until, like Him, we fall into the ground and die--die to our own ambitions, our love of power and influence, our own strength and gifts, that we may make way for God to work through us. We must learn not to obtrude ourselves, but to lie hidden. The first, the second, and the third condition of successful fishing is to be hidden from sight. The best line and bait for catching men are those where the human element is out of sight, and our one aim is to serve Christ's purpose, and to glorify Him.
There must be a leaving of our nets and boats, and even those who are nearest and dearest (Mat_4:20-23). It must have been something of a wrench for these brothers to leave their nets and fishing to follow Christ. But the attraction of His Personality prevailed. There is no difficulty in persuading men to surrender the lower and inferior article, if you can unfold to them the immense value of the Pearl of great price. Then they will gladly sell all that they have to buy it.
Those pretended shepherds who came not as the Scriptures had appointed were robbers seeking only their own advantage.
Jesus came according to prophecy, in the right and ordained manner.
John the Baptist knew Him and opened the door for Him.
Outside an eastern village there was a stone enclosure, within which the flocks of the inhabitants were penned at night.
When the owner of any one of the flocks desired to lead forth his sheep the porter admitted him, and he soon separated his own sheep from the rest
The shepherd has only to call his own sheep, and they rise and follow. No one can deceive them; if a stranger were dressed in their shepherd’s clothes, they would detect him by his voice.
https://youtu.be/xFPqADMFAig
The elect of God were not duped, but waited till the true Christ came.
Best token of goodness! Noblest deed of love!
The false shepherds were all for gain, but Jesus loved us, and gave Himself for us.
Mutual knowledge exists between Jesus and his people. He never mistakes one of them, neither do they follow a pretender under the supposition that he is their Lord. Grace bestows discernment upon the saints, and they know their leader from all others.
The Gentiles were not folded, and were like stray sheep. They are now by grace united with the chosen Jews in one flock.
As God, our Lord Jesus held his life absolutely at his own disposal, and no power could compel him to die, but he became our sin-bearer, and for our sake the servant of the Father, and therefore, to carry out his office, he even laid down his life for us. Blessed be his glorious name for evermore.
Smooth words, but full of malice; they did not, however, deceive the resolute man to whom they were spoken.
25
That was enough for him, and he could not be beaten out of it. Surely the man who had opened eyes which had never seen the light before could not be a guilty person.
26-27
He turned from his defensive position and warmly assailed his questioners. They were so determined to cavil that he refused to go over his story again.
30-33
This was splendid reasoning. The man’s eyes were opened in more senses than one.
34
Railing and persecution are the old arguments of those who are silenced, but refuse to be convinced. We must expect such things just in proportion as our enemies feel the power of our words.
35
Happy is it for us that Jesus is sure to come to us when we are cast out by men for his sake.
38
Being no Socinian, the divinity of Jesus was clear to him, and he acted accordingly. If the eyes of Unitarians were opened, they also would worship Jesus.
39
The process is going on—the wise are made fools, and the fools are made wise. Men who boast of what they know have their folly rendered more conspicuous, while self-distrusting honest-minded confessors of their ignorance are taught of God.
Lord, make us to be among those whose eyes rejoice in thy light.
40-41
If they really could not see, they might be excused, but, sinning against the light of which they boasted, they were guilty indeed.
Now when I arrived at Troas [to preach] the good news (the Gospel) of Christ, a door of opportunity was opened for me in the Lord,
Yet my spirit could not rest (relax, get relief) because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave from them and departed for Macedonia.
But thanks be to God, Who in Christ always leads us in triumph [as trophies of Christ's victory] and through us spreads and makes evident the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere,
For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which exhales] unto God, [discernible alike] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing:
To the latter it is an aroma [wafted] from death to death [a fatal odor, the smell of doom]; to the former it is an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living and fresh]. And who is qualified (fit and sufficient) for these things? [Who is able for such a ministry? We?]
For we are not, like so many, [like hucksters making a trade of] peddling God's Word [shortchanging and adulterating the divine message]; but like [men] of sincerity and the purest motive, as [commissioned and sent] by God, we speak [His message] in Christ (the Messiah), in the [very] sight and presence of God.
2 Corinthians 2:12-17
CHRIST’S CAPTIVE.
IN this passage the Apostle returns from what is virtually, if not formally, a digression, to the narrative which begins in 2Co_1:8 f., and is continued in 2Co_1:15 f. At the same time he makes a transition to a new subject, really though not very explicitly connected with what goes before - namely, his independent and divinely granted authority as an apostle. In the last verses of 2Co_2:1-17., and in 2Co_3:1-4, this is treated generally, but with reference in particular to the success of his ministry. He then goes on to contrast the older and the Christian dispensation, and the character of their respective ministries, and terminates the section with a noble statement of the spirit and principles with which he fulfilled his apostolic calling. (2Co_4:1-6)
Before leaving Ephesus, Paul had apparently made an appointment to meet Titus, on his return from Corinth, at Troas. He went thither himself to preach the Gospel, and found an excellent opportunity for doing so; but the non-arrival of his brother kept him in such a state of unrest that he was unable to make that use of it which he would otherwise have done. This seems a singular confession, but there is no reason to suppose that it was made with a bad conscience. Paul was probably grieved that he had not the heart to go in at the door which had been opened to him in the Lord, but he did not feel guilty. It was not selfishness which made him turn away, but the anxiety of a true pastor about other souls which God had committed to his care. "I had no relief for my spirit," he says; and the spirit, in his language, even though it be a constituent of man’s nature, is that in him which is akin to the divine, and receptive of it. That very element in the Apostle, in virtue of which he could act for God at all, was already preoccupied, and though the people were there, ready to be evangelized, it was beyond his power to evangelize them. His spirit was absorbed and possessed by hopes and fears and prayers for the Corinthians; and as the human spirit, even when in contact with the divine, is finite, and only capable of so much and no more, he was obliged to let slip an occasion which he would otherwise have gladly seized. He probably felt with all missionaries that it is as important to secure as to win converts; and ii the Corinthians were capable of reflection, they might reflect with shame on the loss which their sin had entailed on the people of Troas. The disorders of their willful community had engrossed the Apostle’s spirit, and robbed their fellow-men across the sea of an apostolic ministry. They could not but feel how genuine was the Apostle’s love, when he had made such a sacrifice to it; but such a sacrifice ought never to have been required.
When Paul could bear the suspense no longer, he said good-bye to the people of Troas, crossed the Thracian Sea, and advanced into Macedonia to meet Titus. He did meet him, and heard from him a full report of the state of matters at Corinth; (2Co_7:5 ff.) but here he does not take time to say so. He breaks out into a jubilant thanksgiving, occasioned primarily no doubt by the joyful tidings he had just received, but widening characteristically, and instantaneously, to cover all his apostolic work. It is as though he felt God’s goodness to him to be all of a piece, and could not be sensitive to it in any particular instance without having-the consciousness rise within him that he lived and moved and had his being in it. "Now to God be thanks, who always leads us in triumph in Christ."
The peculiar and difficult word in this thanksgiving is θριαμβευοντι. The sense which first strikes one as suitable is that which is given in the Authorized Version: "God which always causes us to triumph." Practically Paul had been engaged in a conflict with the Corinthians, and for a time it had seemed not improbable that he might be beaten; but God had caused him to triumph in Christ-that is, acting in Christ’s interests, in matters in which Christ’s name and honor were at stake, the victory (as always) had remained with him; and for this he thanks God. This interpretation is still maintained by so excellent a scholar as Schmiedel, and the use of θριαμβευειν in this transitive sense is defended by the analogy of μαθητευειν in Mat_28:19.
But appropriate as this interpretation is, there is one apparently fatal objection to it. There is no doubt that θριαμβευειν is here used transitively, but we have not to guess, by analogy, what it must mean when so used; there are other examples which fix this unambiguously. One is found elsewhere in St. Paul himself, (Col_2:15) where θριαμβευσας αυτους indubitably means "having triumphed over them." In accordance with this, which is only one out of many instances, the Revisers have displaced the old rendering here, and substituted for it, "Thanks be to God, which always leads us in triumph." The triumph here is God’s, not the Apostle’s; Paul is not the soldier who wins the battle, and shouts for victory, as he marches in the triumphal procession; he is the captive who is led in the Conqueror’s train, and in whom men see the trophy of the Conqueror’s power. When he says that God always leads him in triumph in Christ, the meaning is not perfectly obvious. He may intend to define, as it were, the area over which God’s victory extends. In everything which is covered by the name and authority of Christ, God triumphantly asserts His power over the Apostle. Or, again, the words may signify that it is through Christ that God’s victorious power is put forth. These two meanings, of course, are not inconsistent; and practically they coincide.
It cannot be denied, I think, if this is taken quite rigorously, that there is a certain air of irrelevance about it. It does not seem to be to the purpose of the passage to say that God always triumphs over Paul and those for whom He speaks, or even that He always leads them in triumph. It is this feeling, indeed, which mainly influences those who keep to the rendering of the Authorized Version, and regard Paul as the victor. But the meaning of θριαμβευοντι is not really open to doubt, and the semblance of irrelevance disappears if we remember that we are dealing with a figure, and a figure which the Apostle himself does not press. Of course in an ordinary triumph, such as the triumph of Claudius over Caractacus, of which St. Paul may easily have heard, the captives had no share in the victory; it was not only a victory over them, but a victory against them. But when God wins a victory over man, and leads his captive in triumph, the captive too has an interest in what happens; it is the beginning of all triumphs, in any true sense, for him. If we apply this to the case before us, we shall see that the true meaning is not irrelevant. Paul had once been the enemy of God in Christ; he had fought against Him in his own soul, and in the Church which he persecuted and wasted. The battle had been long and strong; but not far from Damascus it had terminated in a decisive victory for God. There the mighty man fell, and the weapons of his warfare perished. His pride, his self-righteousness, his sense of superiority to others and of competence to attain to the righteousness of God, collapsed for ever, and he rose from the earth to be the slave of Jesus Christ. That was the beginning of God’s triumph over him; from that hour God led him in triumph in Christ. But it was the beginning also of all that made the Apostle’s life itself a triumph, not a career of hopeless internal strife, such as it had been, but of unbroken Christian victory. This, indeed, is not involved in the mere word θριαμβευοντι, but it is the real thing which was present to the Apostle’s mind when he used the word. When we recognize this, we see that the charge of irrelevance does not really apply; while nothing could be more characteristic of the Apostle than to hide himself and his success in this way behind God’s triumph over him and through him.
Further, the true meaning of the word, and the true connection of ideas just explained, remind us that the only triumphs we can ever have, deserving the name, must begin with God’s triumph over us. This is the one possible source of joy untroubled. We may be as selfish as we please, and as successful in our selfishness; we may distance all our rivals in the race for the world’s prizes; we may appropriate and engross pleasure, wealth, knowledge, influence; and after all there will be one thing we must do without-the power and the happiness of thanking God. No one will ever be able to thank God because he has succeeded in pleasing himself, be the mode of his self-pleasing as respectable as you will; and he who has not thanked God with a whole heart, without misgiving and without reserve, does not know what joy is. Such thanksgiving and its joy have one condition: they rise up spontaneously in the soul when it allows God to triumph over it. When God appears to us in Jesus Christ, when in the omnipotence of His love and purity and truth He makes war upon our pride and falsehood and lusts, and prevails against them, and brings us low, then we are admitted to the secret of this apparently perplexing passage; we know how natural it is to cry, "Thanks be unto God who in His victory over us gives us the victory! Thanks be to Him who always leads us in triumph!" It is out of an experience like this that Paul speaks; it is the key to his whole life, and it has been illustrated anew by what has just happened at Corinth.
But to return to the Epistle. God is described by the Apostle not only as triumphing over them (i.e., himself and his colleagues) in Christ, but as making manifest through them the savor of His knowledge in every place. It has been questioned whether "His" knowledge is the knowledge of God or of Christ. Grammatically, the question can hardly be answered; but, as we sere from 2Co_4:6, the two things which it proposes to distinguish are really one: what is manifested in the apostolic ministry is the knowledge of God as He is revealed in Christ. But why does Paul use the expression "the savor of His knowledge?" It was suggested probably by the figure of the triumph, which was present to his mind in all the detail of its circumstances. Incense smoked on every altar as the victor passed through the streets of Rome; the fragrant steam floated over the procession, a silent proclamation of victory and joy. But Paul would not have appropriated this feature of the triumph, and applied it to his ministry, unless he had felt that there was a real point of comparison, that the knowledge of Christ which he diffused among men, wherever he went, was in very truth a fragrant thing. True, he was not a free man; he had been subdued by God, and, made the slave of Jesus Christ; as the Lord of glory went forth conquering and to conquer, over Syria and Asia and Macedonia and Greece, He led him as a captive in the triumphal march of His grace; he was the trophy of Christ’s victory; every one who saw him saw that necessity was laid upon Him; but what a gracious necessity it was! "The love of Christ constraineth us." The captives who were dragged in chains behind a Roman chariot also made manifest the knowledge of their conqueror; they declared to all the spectators his power and his pitilessness; there was nothing in that knowledge to suggest the idea of a fragrance like incense. But as Paul moved through the world, all who had eyes to see saw in him not only the power, but the sweetness of God’s redeeming love. The mighty Victor made manifest through Him, not only His might, but His charm, not only His greatness, but His grace. It was a good thing, men felt, to be subdued and led in triumph like Paul; it was to move in an atmosphere perfumed by the love of Christ, as the air around the Roman triumph was perfumed with incense, The Apostle is so sensible of this that he weaves it into his sentence as an indispensable part of his thought; it is not merely the knowledge of God which is made manifest through him as he is led in triumph, but that knowledge as a fragrant, gracious thing, speaking to every one of victory and goodness and joy.
The very word "savor," in connection with the "knowledge" of God in Christ, is full of meaning. It has its most direct application, of course, to preaching. When we proclaim the Gospel, do we always succeed in manifesting it as a savor? Or is not the savor-the sweetness, the winsomeness, the charm and attractiveness of it-the very thing that is most easily left out? Do we not catch it sometimes in the words of others, and wonder that it eludes our own? We miss what is most characteristic in the knowledge of God if we miss this. We leave out that very element in the Evangel which makes it evangelic, and gives it its power to subdue and enchain the souls of men. But it is not to preachers only that the word "savor" speaks; it is of the widest possible application. Wherever Christ is leading a single soul in triumph, the fragrance of the Gospel should go forth; rather, it does go forth, in proportion as His triumph is complete. There is sure to be that in the life which will reveal the graciousness as well as the omnipotence of the Savior. And it is this virtue which God uses as His main witness, as His chief instrument, to evangelize the world. In every relation of life it should tell. Nothing is so insuppressible, nothing so pervasive, as a fragrance. The lowliest life which Christ is really leading in triumph will speak infallibly and persuasively for Him. In a Christian brother or sister, brothers and sisters will find a new strength and tenderness, something that goes deeper than natural affection, and can stand severer shocks; they will catch the fragrance which declares that the Lord in His triumphant grace is there. And so in all situations, or, as the Apostle has it, "in every place." And if we are conscious that we fail in this matter, and that the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ is something to which our life gives no testimony, let us be sure that the explanation of it is to be found in self-will. There is something in us which has not yet made complete surrender to Him, and not till He leads us unresistingly in triumph will the sweet savor go forth.
At this point the Apostle’s thought is arrested by the issues of his ministry, though he carries the figure of the fragrance, with a little pressure, through to the end. In God’s sight, he says, or so far as God is concerned, we are a sweet savor of Christ, a perfume redolent of Christ, in which He cannot but take pleasure. In other Words, Christ proclaimed in the Gospel, and the ministries and lives which proclaim Him, are always a joy to God. They are a joy to Him, whatever men may think of them, alike in them that are being saved and in them that are perishing. To those who are being saved, they are a savor "from life to life"; to those who are perishing, a savor "from death to death." Here, as everywhere, St. Paul contemplates these exclusive opposites as the sole is, sues of man’s life, and of the Gospel ministry. He makes no attempt to subordinate one to the other, no suggestion that the way of death may ultimately lead to life, much less that it must do so. The whole solemnity of the situation, which is faced in the cry "And who is sufficient for these things?" depends on the finality of the contrast between life and death. These are the goals set before men, and those who are being saved and those who are perishing are respectively on their way to one or the other. Who is sufficient for the calling of the Gospel ministry, when such are the alternatives involved in it? Who is sufficient, in love, in wisdom, in humility, in awful earnestness, for the duties of a calling the issues of which are life or death forever?
There is considerable difficulty in the sixteenth verse, partly dogmatic, partly textual. Commentators so opposite in their bias as Chrysostom and Calvin have pondered and remarked upon the opposite effects here ascribed to the Gospel. It is easy to find analogies to these in nature. The same heat which hardens clay melts iron. The same sunlight which gladdens the healthy eye tortures that which is diseased. The same honey which is sweet to the sound palate is nauseous to the sick; and so on. But such analogies do not explain anything, and one can hardly see what is meant by calling them illustrations. It remains finally inexplicable that the Gospel, which appeals to some with winning irresistible power, subduing and leading them in triumph, should excite in others a passion of antipathy which nothing else could provoke. This remains inexplicable, because it is irrational. Nothing that can be pointed to in the universe is the least like a bad heart closing itself against the love of Christ, like a bad man’s will stiffening into absolute rigidity against the will of God. The preaching of the Gospel may be the occasion of such awful results, but it is not their cause. The God whom it proclaims is the God of grace; it is never His will that any should perish-always that all should be saved. But He can save only by subduing; His grace must exercise a sovereign power in us, which through righteousness will lead to life everlasting. (Rom_5:21) And when this exercise of power is resisted, when we match our self-will against the gracious saving will of God, our pride, our passions, our mere sloth, against the soul-constraining love of Christ; when we prevail in the war which God’s mercy wages with our wickedness, -then the Gospel itself may be said to have ministered to our ruin; it was ordained to life, and we have made it a sentence of death. Yet even so, it is the joy and glory of God; it is a sweet savor to Him, fragrant of Christ and His love.
The textual difficulty is in the words εκ θανατου εις θανατον, and εκ ζωης εις ζωην. These words are rendered in the Revised Version "from death to death," and "from life to life." The Authorized Version, following the "Textus Receptus," which omits ejk in both clauses, renders "a savor of death unto death," and "of life unto life." In spite of the inferior MS. support, the "Textus Receptus" is preferred by many modern scholars-e.g., Heinrici, Schmiedel, and Hofmann. They find it impossible to give any precise interpretation to the better attested reading, and an examination of any exposition which accepts it goes far to justify them. Thus Professor Beet comments: "From death for death: (comp. Rom_1:17) a scent proceeding from, and thus revealing the presence of, death; and, like malaria from a putrefying corpse, causing death. Paul’s labors among some men revealed the eternal death which day by day cast an ever-deepening shadow upon them [this answers το οσμητου]; and by arousing in them increased opposition to God, promoted the spiritual mortification which had already begun" [this answers to οσμη εκ θανατου]. Surely it is safe to say that nobody in Corinth could ever have guessed this from the words. Yet this is a favorable specimen of the interpretations given. If it were possible to take εκ θανατου εις θανατον and εκ ζωης εις ζωην, as Baur took εκ πιστεως εις πιστον in Rom_1:17, that would be the simplest way out of the difficulty, and quite satisfactory. What the Apostle said would then be this: that the Gospel which he preached, ever good as it was to God, had the most opposite characters and effects among men, -in some it was death from beginning to end, absolutely and unmitigatedly deadly in its nature and workings; in others, again, it was life from beginning to end-life was the uniform sign of its presence, and its invariable issue. This also is the meaning which we get by omitting εκ: the genitives ζωης and θανατου are then adjectival, -a vital fragrance, with life as its element and end; a fatal fragrance, the end of which is death. This has the advantage of being the meaning which occurs to an ordinary reader; and if the critically approved text, with the repeated εκ, cannot bear this interpretation, I think there is a fair case for defending the received text on exegetical grounds. Certainly nothing but the broad impression of the received text will ever enter the general mind.
The question that rises to the Apostle’s lips as he confronts the solemn situation created by the Gospel is not directly answered. "Who is sufficient for these things? Who? I say. For we are not as the many, who corrupt the Word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ." Paul is conscious as he writes that his awful sense of responsibility as a preacher of the Gospel is not shared by all who exercise the same vocation. To be the bearer and the representative of a power with issues so tremendous ought surely to annihilate every thought of self; to let personal interest intrude is to declare oneself faithless and unworthy. We are startled to hear from Paul’s lips what at first sight seems to be a charge of just such base self-seeking laid against the majority of preachers. "We are not as the many, corrupting the Word of God." The expressive word rendered here "corrupting" has the idea of self-interest, and especially of petty gain, at its basis. It means literally to sell in small quantities, to retail for profit. But it was specially applied to tavern-keeping, and extended to cover all the devices by which the wine-sellers in ancient times deceived their customers. Then it was used figuratively, as here; and Lucian, e.g., speaks of philosophers as selling the sciences, and in most cases (οι πολλοι: a curious parallel to St. Paul), like tavern-keepers, "blending, adulterating, and giving bad measure." It is plain that there are two separable ideas here. One is that of men qualifying the Gospel, infiltrating their own ideas into the Word of God, tempering its severity, or perhaps its goodness, veiling its inexorableness, dealing in compromise. The other is that all such proceedings are faithless and dishonest, because some private interest underlies them. It need not be avarice, though it is as likely to be this as anything else. A man corrupts the Word of God, makes it the stock-in-trade of a paltry business of his own, in many other ways than by subordinating it to the need of a livelihood. When he exercises his calling as a minister for the gratification of his vanity, he does so. When he preaches not that awful message in which life and death are bound up, but himself, his cleverness, his learning, his humor, his fine voice even or fine gestures, he does so. He makes the Word minister to him, instead of being a minister of the Word; and that is the essence of the sin. It is the same if ambition be his motive, if he preaches to win disciples to himself, to gain an ascendancy over souls, to become the head of a party which will bear the impress of his mind. There was something of this at Corinth; and not only there, but wherever it is found, such a spirit and such interests will change the character of the Gospel. It will not be preserved in that integrity, in that simple, uncompromising, absolute character which it has as revealed in Christ. Have another interest in it than that of God, and that interest will inevitably color it. You will make it what it was not, and the virtue will depart from it.
In contrast with all such dishonest ministers, the Apostle represents himself and his friends speaking "as of sincerity." They have no mixture of motives in their work as evangelists; they have indeed no independent motives at all: God is leading them in triumph, and proclaiming His grace through them. It is He who prompts every word (ως εκ θεου). Yet their responsibility and their freedom are intact. They feel themselves in His presence as they speak, and in that presence they speak "in Christ." "In Christ" is the Apostle’s mark. Not in himself apart from Christ, where any mixture of motives, any process of adulteration, would have been possible, but only in that union with Christ which was the very life of his life, did he carry on his, evangelistic work. This was his final security, and it is still the only security, that the Gospel can have fair play in the world.
Your Lord is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did He choose you? He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did He buy you with His own blood? He cannot endure that you should think that you are your own, or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that He would not stop in heaven without you; He would sooner die than you should perish, and He cannot endure that anything should stand between your heart’s love and Himself. He is very jealous of your trust. He will not permit you to trust in an arm of flesh. He cannot bear that you should hew out broken cisterns, when the overflowing fountain is always free to you. When we lean upon Him, He is glad, but when we transfer our dependence to another, when we rely upon our own wisdom, or the wisdom of a friend-worst of all, when we trust in any works of our own, he is displeased, and will chasten us that He may bring us to Himself. He is also very jealous of our company. There should be no one with whom we converse so much as with Jesus. To abide in Him only, this is true love; but to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow Christians to secret intercourse with Him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord.
He would fain have us abide in Him, and enjoy constant fellowship with Himself; and many of the trials which He sends us are for the purpose of weaning our hearts from the creature, and fixing them more closely upon Himself.
Let this jealousy which would keep us near to Christ be also a comfort to us, for if He loves us so much as to care thus about our love we may be sure that He will suffer nothing to harm us, and will protect us from all our enemies.
Oh that we may have grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone, with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!
“I will sing of mercy and judgement.”
- Psa_101:1
Faith triumphs in trial. When reason is thrust into the inner prison, with her feet made fast in the stocks, faith makes the dungeon walls ring with her merry notes as she cries, “I will sing of mercy and of judgement. Unto thee, O Lord, will I sing.” Faith pulls the black mask from the face of trouble, and discovers the angel beneath. Faith looks up at the cloud, and sees that
“‘Tis big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on her head.”
There is a subject for song even in the judgments of God towards us. For, first, the trial is not so heavy as it might have been; next, the trouble is not so severe as we deserved to have borne; and our affliction is not so crushing as the burden which others have to carry. Faith sees that in her worst sorrow there is nothing penal; there is not a drop of God’s wrath in it; it is all sent in love. Faith discerns love gleaming like a jewel on the breast of an angry God. Faith says of her grief, “This is a badge of honour, for the child must feel the rod”; and then she sings of the sweet result of her sorrows, because they work her spiritual good. Nay, more, says Faith, “These light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” So Faith rides forth on the black horse, conquering and to conquer, trampling down carnal reason and fleshly sense, and chanting notes of victory amid the thickest of the fray.
There is one eternal God, the Lord, who is holy love. Through His self-revelation He has disclosed to His people that He is Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yet He is not three deities but one Godhead, since all three Persons share the one Deity/Godhead. The biblical teaching of the Trinity is, in a sense, a mystery; and the more we enter into union with God and deepen our understanding of Him, the more we recognize how much there is yet to know. Based on the biblical teaching, the traditional Christian confession is that God is One in Three and Three in One.
The Unity of God.
God is one. The OT condemns polytheism and declares that God is one and is to be worshiped and loved as such.
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deut 6 v 4-5). He said through Isaiah,
"There is no God apart from me" (Isa 45 v 21). And this conviction of the unity of God iks continued in the NT (see Mark 10 v 18; 12 v 18; 12 v 29; Gal 3 v 20; 1 Cor 8 v 4; 1 Tim 2 v 5.
The Father is God.
God is the Father of Israel (Isa 64:8; Jer 31:9) and of the anointed king of His people (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7; 89:27). Jesus lived in communion with His heavenly Father, always doing His will and recognizing Him as truly and eternally God (Matt 11:25 - 27; Luke 10:21 - 22; John 10:25 - 28;
Rom 15:6; 2 Cor 1:3; 11:31). Before His ascension, Jesus said He was going to His Father (with whom He had a unique relation) and to the Father of the disciples (John 20:17). He taught His disciples to pray "Our Father......."
and to live in communion with Him.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah,
Is the Incarnate Son of God. The disciples came to see that Jesus was the long expected Messiah of Israel (Matt 16:13 - 20; Mark 8: 27 - 30). Later they came to see also that to be the Messiah of Israel (Matt 16:13 - 20;
Mark 8:27 - 30). Later they came to see also that to be the Messiah, Jesus must also be God made man (see John 1:1 - 2, 18; 20:28; Rom 9:5;
Titus 2:13; Heb 13:20 - 21; 2 Peter 3:18; Rev 1: 5-6; 5:13; 7:10).
The Spirit Is Also God.
He comes in the name of |Jesus Christ, Incarnate Son from the Father in Heaven. The way in which the apostles, following Jesus, refer to the Holy Spirit shows that they looked on the Spirit as a Person. In the Acts, the Spirit inspires Scripture, is lied to, is tempted, bears witness, is resisted, directs, carries someone away, informs, commands, calls, sends, thinks a certain decision is good, forbids, prevents, warns, appoints, and reveals prophetic truth (see Acts 1:16; 5:3,9,32; 7:51; 8:29, 39; 10:19; 11:12; 13:2, 4; 15:28;
16:6, 7; 20:23, 28; 28:25).
Paul describes the Spirit as bearing witness, speaking, teaching, and acting as guide (Rom 8:14, 16, 26; Gal 4:6; Eph 4:30).
In John's Gospel Jesus calls
Himself the parakletus (Paraclete), and refers to the Holy Spirit as another parakletus (John 14:16; 15:26 - 27; 16:13 - 15).
God, The Lord, Is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This confession and understanding may be said to be basic to the faith of the writers of the NT, though they rarely express it in precise terms. But in certain passages the doctrine is articulated
(Matt 28 v 19; 1 Cor 12 v 4-6; 2 Cor v 13-14; 2 Thes 2 v 13-14; 1 Peter v 1:2)
There are but two occasions in the Gospels on which we light upon our Savior weeping; only two instances in which we see His tears. It is true that in the Epistle to the Hebrews we have a glimpse into the inner life of Christ, and there we read that He made supplication with tears and strong crying unto God. But into that interior life of prayer when Father and Son had fellowship together, we cannot enter, for it is holy ground. The point to observe is that in His recorded life we only hear of the tears of Jesus twice; once at the grave of a man who was His friend: once when Jerusalem lay spread out before Him. And both, not in the earlier days of youth when the human heart is susceptible and quivering, but in the later season when the cross was near. Goethe confesses in his autobiography that as he grew older he lost the power of tears, and there are many men who, as experience gathers, are conscious of a hardening like that. But our Savior, to the last moment that He lived, was quick and quivering to joy and sorrow, and His recorded tears are near the end. Never was He so conscious of His joy as in the closing season of His ministry; never did He speak so much about it nor so single it out as His most precious legacy. And so with weeping, which in the human heart is so often the other side of joy—it is under the shadow of His last days that it is recorded.
Both Weepings Prompted Not by Suffering,but by Divine Compassion
I am going to speak on the differences between these two Weepings; but first I ask you to observe one feature in which the two are beautifully kin. There are tears in the world, bitter and scalding tears, which are wrung out by personal affliction; tears of anguish, of intense corporeal anguish; tears caused by cruelty or mockery. And the point to be ever observed is that our Lord, though He suffered intensely in all such ways as that, never, so far as we read, was moved to tears. He was laughed to scorn—He of the sensitive heart—yet it is not then we read that Jesus wept. He was spat upon and scourged and crucified; but it is not then we light upon Him weeping. And even in the garden of Gethsemane where great drops were falling to the ground, drops which would have looked like tears to any prying child among the olives, Scripture tells us, as with a note of warning lest we should misinterpret what was happening there, that they were not tears, but drops of sweat and blood. The tears of our Lord were not wrung out by suffering, however intense and cruel it might be. On the only two occasions when we read of them they are the tears of a divine compassion. And whenever one thinks of that, one is impressed again with the wonder of the figure of the Christ, so infinitely pitiful and tenderhearted; so unswervingly and magnificently brave.
The First Tears Were Shed for the Individual, the Second for Many
Now if we take these two occasions on which the weeping of Jesus is recorded, and if, having found their common element, we go on to note the points on which they differ, what is the difference that first would arrest you? Well, I shall tell you what first impresses me. It is that the former tears were shed for one, and the latter tears were shed for many. Jesus wept beside the grave of Lazarus, for one single solitary friend; for a man who had loved Him with a great devotion and given Him always a welcome in his home. There is no such human touch in all the Gospels, nothing that so betrays the heart of Christ, as to be simply told that Jesus wept when He went out to stand before the grave of Lazarus. Here is a heart that has known the power of friendship, that has known the infinite solace of the one; a heart more deeply moved when that one dies than by all the cruelties which men can hurl at Him. And then, having learned of His infinite compassion for those who have had one heart to love and lose, we read that Jesus wept over the city. Picture Jerusalem on that Sunday morning, densely crowded for the Passover. Every house was full and every street was thronged; there were tens of thousands gathered there. And when our Lord, turning the crest of Olivet, saw before Him that crowded city, then like a summer tempest came His tears. Tears for the one; tears for the twice ten thousand: how typical is that of the Redeemer! Never was there a compassion so discriminative, and never a compassion so inclusive. Our separate sorrows—He understands them all, and our hours of solitary anguish by the grave; but not less the problem of the crowd. There are men who are full of sympathy for personal sorrows, but have never heard the crying of the multitude. There are men who hear the crying of the multitude, but have never been broken-hearted at the tomb. Christ has room for all and room for each. He loves the world with a divine compassion. And yet there is no one here who cannot say, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me."
Tears Shed for Death and for Life
The next difference which impresses me is this—and it is a suggestive and profound distinction—it is that the former tears were shed for death, and the latter tears were shed for life. There was something in the death of Lazarus which made a profound impression upon Christ. He was troubled; He groaned in spirit; He wept. Often He had been face to face with death before, with death in some of its most tragic aspects. He had looked on the still, cold face of Jairus' daughter, and had seen the anguish of the widow of Nain. Yet it is only now, upon the road at Bethany, that we see the storm and passion of His soul when faced by the awful ravages of death. Nobody ever fathoms all that death means until its hand has knocked upon his door. It is when someone whom we have loved is taken that we understand its meaning and its misery. And Christ, being tempted like as we are, felt the anguish of it in His soul with intensity. Death had come home to Him—attacked Him at close quarters—carried one of the bastions of His being. How utterly cruel was the last great enemy. The Lord groaned in spirit and was troubled: a storm of passion swept across His soul. He wept for all that death had done and all that death was doing in the world. And so these tears of His are sacramental of all the sorrow of the aching heart when the place is empty, and the grave is tenanted, and the familiar voice is silent.
Now with that dark and dreary scene will you for a moment contrast the other scene? It is a city shimmering in beauty under the radiance of a Sunday morning. Children are playing in the marketplace; women are singing as they rock the cradle; men are at business and regiments are marching—there is movement and there is music everywhere. Friends are meeting who have not met for years for Passover was the great season of reunion, and eyes are bright and hearts are beating bravely in the gladness of these old ties reknit. Out on the Bethany road there had been death; here in the teeming city there was life; life in the crowd—life in the marching soldiery—life in the little children romping merrily; life everywhere, in the indistinguishable murmur which rises where there are ten thousand people who have waked in the sunshine of another morning to the traffic and the concourse of the day. It was all that which swept into the gaze of Christ, and it was that which swept into the heart of Christ that Sunday morning when from the brow of Olivet He looked across the valley to Jerusalem. As a lad of twelve He had looked, and looking wondered, with all the thrilling expectancy of boyhood. Now we read that He looked, and looking, wept. They were not tears for death, but tears for life; tears of divine compassion for the living; tears for the might-have-been—the vanity—the awful judgment that was yet to be; tears for the living who have gone astray and who are hungering for peace and have missed it and who have had their opportunity and failed. There is a sorrow for the dead which may be intense and very tragical. It may wither every flower across the meadow and take all the summer sunshine from the sky. But there is a sorrow deeper than sorrow for the dead—it is the sorrow for the living; and it is much to know that Jesus understood it. The bitterest sorrow has no grave to stand at, no sepulchre to adorn with opening flowers; the bitterest sorrow wears no garb of mourning, and receives no beautiful letters by the post. The bitterest sorrow does not spring from death; it springs from that mystery which we call life; and Jesus felt it to His depths. Thou who art mourning for the dead, for thee there is Jesus by the grave of Lazarus. Thou who art mourning for the living, for thee also is that same compassion. He understands it all. He shares it. Like a great tide it flowed upon Him once, when in the morning from the brow of Olivet, He looked upon Jerusalem and wept.
Tears Others Shared in and Tears None Could Understand
I close by pointing out one other difference that stands out very clearly in the Scripture. The former tears were such as others shared in; the latter were tears that no one understood. Read that chapter in the Gospel of John again, and you find that Christ was not alone in weeping. Martha and Mary were there, and they were weeping also, and the Jews who had known Lazarus and loved him. There was a kinship in a common sorrow there, a fellow feeling which united hearts, a sense of common loss and ache and loneliness. Now turn to the other scene, and what a difference! It is a pageantry of enthusiastic gladness. The cry goes ringing along the country road, "Hosanna to the Son of David." And it is amid these shouting voices of men beside themselves with wild enthusiasm that the Scripture tells us Jesus wept. At the grave of Lazarus many an eye was wet. Here every eye was dancing with excitement. No one was weeping here; nobody thought of weeping; it was the triumph of the Lord—Hosanna! And all alone, amid that welcoming tumult, in a grief which nobody could pierce or penetrate, the tears came welling from our Savior's eyes. In this our mortal life there are common griefs, touches of nature which make the whole world kin. But how endlessly true is the old saying of Scripture that the heart knows its own bitterness. And in those bitterness's which words can never utter and which lie too deep for any human help, what a comfort to know that our Savior understands! In all the common sorrows of humanity He is our Brother, and He weeps with us. He stands beside the grave of Lazarus still, clothed in the beauty of His resurrection. But in that lonely unutterable sorrow, which is the price and the penalty of personality, we may be sure He understands us also.
Yet it pleased the Lord [Father God] to bruise him,.... The sufferings of Christ are signified by his being "bruised"; See Gill on Isa_53:5, and as it was foretold he should have his heel bruised by the serpent, Gen_3:15, but here it is ascribed to the Lord: he was bruised in body, when buffeted and scourged, and nailed to the cross; and was bruised and broken in spirit, when the sins of his people were laid on him, and the wrath of God came upon him for them: the Lord had a hand in his sufferings; he not only permitted them, but they were according to the counsel of his will; they were predetermined by him, Act_2:23, yea, they were pleasing to him, he took a kind of delight and pleasure in them; not in them simply considered as sufferings, but as they were an accomplishment of his purposes, a fulfillment of his covenant and promises, and of the prophecies in his word; and, particularly, as hereby the salvation of his people was brought about; see John_10:17,
he hath put him to grief; when he awoke the sword of justice against him; when he spared him not, but delivered him up into the hands of wicked men, and unto death: he was put to grief in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful; and on the cross, when he was nailed to it, had the weight of his people's sins, and his Father's wrath, on him; andwhen he hid his face from him, which made him cry out, "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" or, "hath put him to pain": suffered him to be put to pain, both in body and mind:
when thou shall make his soul an offering for sin: not his soul only, but his body also, even his whole human nature, as in union with his divine Person; for it was he himself that was offered up in the room and stead of his people, to make atonement and satisfaction for their sins, Heb_9:14or, "when thou shalt make his soul sin"; so Christ was made by imputation, 2Co_5:21, and when he was so made, or had the sins of his people imputed to him, then was he bruised, and put to pain and grief, in order to finish them, and make an end of them, and make reconciliation for them: or, "when his soul shall make an offering" "for sin", or "sin" itself; make itself an offering; for Christ offered up himself freely and voluntarily; he gave himself an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savour, Eph_5:2, he was altar, sacrifice, and priest.
He shall see his seed; or, "a seed"; a spiritual seed and offspring; a large number of souls, that shall be born again, of incorruptible seed, as the fruit of his sufferings and death; see John_12:24, this he presently began to see after his resurrection from the dead, and ascension to heaven; when great numbers were converted among the Jews, and after that multitudes in the Gentile world, and more or less in all ages; ever since has he had a seed to serve him; and so he will in the latter day, and to the end of time:
he shall prolong his days: live long, throughout all ages, to all eternity; though he was dead, he is alive, and lives for evermore; lives to see all the children that the Father gave him, and he has gathered together by his death, when scattered abroad, and see them all born again, and brought to glory. Some connect this with the preceding clause, "he shall see a seed that shall prolong its days"; for Christ will never want issue, his church will never fail, his seed will endure for ever, Psa_89:29. So the Targum, paraphrasing the words of Christ and his seed,
"they shall see the kingdom of their Messiah; they shall multiply sons and daughters; they shall prolong their days:''
and so Aben Ezra says these words are spoken of the generation that shall return to God, and to the true religion, at the coming of the Messiah.
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand; the work of man's redemption, put into the hands of Christ, which he undertook to accomplish; which was with him and before him, when he came into this world, and was his meat and drink to do; this he never left till he had finished it; so that it succeeded and prospered with him: and this may well be called "the pleasure of the Lord"; it was the good pleasure of his will; it was what he purposed and resolved; what his heart was set upon, and was well pleasing to him, as effected by his Son.
Likewise the setting up of the kingdom and interest of Christ in the world, and the continuance and increase of it; the ministry of the word, and the success of that as the means thereof, may be also meant; for the Gospel will be preached, and a Gospel church still continued, until all the elect of God are gathered in.
The book of the generation (or, birth, the same word in Greek as in Mat_1:18). Literally, ‘book of birth, birth-book,’ i.e., pedigree, genealogy. The title of the genealogical table, Mat_1:1-17, not of the whole Gospel, nor of the first two chapters, nor of chap. 1. Possibly the title of an original (Hebrew) document, used by the Evangelist.
Jesus Christ. This combination is the Gospel in a nutshell, a declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, the great truth, which the following narrative is to establish.
Jesus. The human name (Mat_1:21) = the Hebrew Joshua (comp. Heb_4:8) = the Lord is Helper, Saviour (Exo_24:13; Num_13:16; Neh_7:7).—Christ = The Messiah, the Anointed One; the official title. Applied to the three officers of the Old Testament theocracy: prophets (1Ki_19:16), priests (Lev_4:3; Lev_5:16; Psa_105:15), and kings (1Sa_24:7; 1Sa_24:11; Psa_2:2; Dan_9:25-26). Here all three offices are combined and perfected. Christ is our Anointed Prophet, Priest, and King. That of ‘King ‘was most prominent in the expectations of the Jews.
The Son of David. ‘David the king,’ Mat_1:6. From him descended One ‘born King of the Jews’ (Mat_2:2).
His Son of Abraham. The genealogy is traced back thus far, because ‘to Abraham and his seed were the promises made’ (Gal_2:16). The Epistle to the Galatians shows the connection of the gospel and the covenant with Abraham. ‘Son ‘here is almost = ‘seed’ there; both refer to Christ.
Matthew 1:1-17
The genealogy of Christ. Two lists of the human ancestors of Christ are given in the New Testament: Matthew, writing for Jewish Christians, begins with Abraham; Luke (Luke_3:23-38), writing for Gentile Christians, goes back to Adam the father of all men (for other points of difference, see on Mat_1:16). According to his human nature, Christ was the descendant of Abraham, David, and Mary; according to his divine nature He was the eternal and only-begot-ten Son of God, begotten from the essence of the Father. John (John_1:1-18) begins his Gospel by setting forth his divine genealogy. In Him, the God-man, all the ascending aspirations of human nature towards God, and all the descending revelations of God to man meet in perfect harmony. Matthew begins at Abraham: 1. to prove to Jewish Christians that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah; 2. to show the connection between the Old and New Testaments through a succession of living persons ending in Jesus Christ, who is the subject of the Gospel and the object of the faith it requires.
Christ is the fulfilment of all the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, the heir of all its blessings and promises, the dividing line and connecting link of ages, the end of the old and the beginning of the new history of mankind. In the long list of his human ancestors, we have a cloud of witnesses, a compend of the history of preparation for the coming of Christ down to the Virgin Mary, in whom culminated the longing and hope of Israel for redemption. It is a history of divine promises and their fulfilment, of human faith and hope for the ‘desire of all nations.’ In the list are named illustrious heroes of faith, but also obscure persons, written in the secret book of God, as well as gross sinners redeemed by grace, which reaches the lowest depths as well as the most exalted heights of society. Matthew’s table is divided into three parts, corresponding to three periods of Jewish preparation for the coming of Christ (see on Mat_1:17).
Matthew 1:1
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ,.... This is the genuine title of the book, which was put to it by the Evangelist himself; for the former seems to be done by another hand. This book is an account, not of the divine, but human generation of Christ; and not merely of his birth, which lies in a very little compass; nor of his genealogy, which is contained in this chapter; but also of his whole life and actions, of what was said, done, and suffered by him. It is an Hebrew way of speaking, much like that in Gen_5:1 and which the Septuagint render by the same phrase as here; and as that was the book of the generation of the first Adam; this is the book of the generation of the second Adam. The Jews call their blasphemous history of the life of Jesus, ספר תולדות ישו "The book of the generations of Jesus" (o). This account of Christ begins with the name of the Messiah, well known to the Jews,
the son of David; not only to the Scribes and Pharisees, the more learned part of the nation, but to the common people, even to persons of the meanest rank and figure among them. See Mat_9:27. Nothing is more common in the Jewish writings, than for בן דוד "the son of David" to stand alone for the Messiah; it would be endless to cite or refer to all the testimonies of this kind; only take the following (p),
"R. Jochanan says, in the generation in which בן דוד "the son of David" comes, the disciples of the wise men shall be lessened, and the rest, their eyes shall fail with grief and sorrow, and many calamities and severe decrees shall be renewed; when the first visitation is gone, a second will hasten to come. It is a tradition of the Rabbins (about) the week (of years) in which בן דוד "the son of David" comes, that in the first year this scripture will be fulfilled, Amo_4:7. "I will rain upon one city", &c. in the second, arrows of famine will be sent forth; in the third there will be a great famine, and men, women and children, holy men and men of business will die, and the law will be forgotten by those who learn it; in the fourth there will be plenty and not plenty; in the fifth there will be great plenty, and they shall eat and drink and rejoice, and the law shall return to them that learn it; in the sixth there will be voices (or thunders;) in the seventh there will be wars; and in the going out of the seventh בן דוד the "son of David" comes. The tradition of R. Judah says, In the generation in which בן דוד "the son of David" comes, the house of the congregation (the school or synagogue) shall become a brothel house, Galilee shall be destroyed, and Gabalene shall become desolate; and the men of Gabul (or the border) shall go about from city to city, and shall find no mercy; and the wisdom of the scribes shall stink; and they that are afraid to sin shall be despised; and the face of that generation shall be as the face of a dog, and truth shall fail, as it is said, Isa_59:15 --The tradition of R. Nehorai says, In the generation in which בן דוד "the son of David" comes, young men shall make ashamed the faces of old men, and old men shall stand before young men, the daughter shall rise up against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; nor will a son reverence his father. The tradition of R. Nehemiah says, In the generation in which בן דוד "the son of David" comes, impudence will increase, and the honourable will deal wickedly, and the whole kingdom will return to the opinion of the Sadducees, and there will be no reproof. --It is a tradition of the Rabbins, that בן דוד "the son of David" will not come, until traitorous practices are increased, or the disciples are lessened or until the smallest piece of money fails from the purse, or until redemption is despaired of.''
In which passage, besides the proof for which it is cited, may be observed, how exactly the description of the age of the Messiah, as given by the Jews themselves, agrees with the generation in which Jesus the true Messiah came; who as he was promised to David, and it was expected he should descend from him, so he did according to the flesh; God raised him up of his seed, Rom_1:3 it follows,
The son of Abraham. Abraham was the first to whom a particular promise was made, that the Messiah should spring from, Gen_22:18. The first promise in Gen_3:15 only signified that he should be the seed of the woman; and it would have been sufficient for the fulfillment of it, if he had been born of any woman, in whatsoever nation, tribe, or family; but by the promise made to Abraham he was to descend from him, as Jesus did; who took upon him the seed of Abraham, Heb_2:16 or assumed an human nature which sprung from him, and is therefore truly the son of Abraham. The reason why Christ is first called the son of David, and then the son of Abraham, is partly because the former was a more known name of the Messiah; and partly that the transition to the genealogy of Christ might be more easy and natural, beginning with Abraham, whom the Jews call (q) ראש היחס the "head of the genealogy", and the root and foundation of it, as Matthew here makes him to be; wherefore a Jew cannot be displeased with the Evangelist for beginning the genealogy of our Lord at, Abraham.
Mat 1:19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
Mat 1:20But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
Matthew 1:18
The birth of Jesus Christ. Same word as in Mat_1:1 (‘generation’). Here it means ‘origin.’ The more usual word implies a ‘begetting’; the choice of this word indicates something peculiar in this birth, as does the form: ‘Abraham begat Isaac,’ etc., etc.; ‘the birth of Jesus Christ, however, was in this wise.’ ‘For,’ in the next clause, implies: there is need of a particular account, for the circumstances were peculiar. The best critics, however, omit the word.
His Mother Mary having been betrothed to Joseph. ‘Betrothed,’ not yet ‘espoused.’ The betrothal was previous to the discovery. After betrothal unfaithfulness on the part of the woman was deemed adultery.
Before they came together, lived together in one house as man and wife.
She was found. Perhaps by herself according to the revelation made to her (Luke_1:26 ff.). If this verse points to a time after her return from visiting Elizabeth (see notes on Luke_1:39 ff.), her condition would soon be apparent.
Of the Holy Ghost. A statement of fact, not a part of the discovery, or Joseph would not have been perplexed. The Third Person of the Trinity is meant. Comp. Luke_1:35. ‘Conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,’ is an article not only in our Apostles’ creed, but in nearly all other creeds of the ancient Church. On the other hand, neither the Scriptures nor the early Church know anything of the supernatural, immaculate conception of Mary. Christ is the sole, the absolute exception to the universal rule of sinfulness; a miracle in history.
Matthew 1:18-25
The circumstances preceding the Nativity; Mary, doubted by her betrothed husband; his design of putting her away privately; her vindication by means of a dream; Joseph’s faith; the name in accordance with prophecy; the actual birth. As the sinless second Adam, and as the Saviour of men, Jesus could not come into the world by ordinary human generation, but by a new creative act of God, or the supernatural agency of the Holy Ghost. Sin is propagated by generation, the active agency of man; and what is born of the flesh is flesh.
God formed the first Adam of the mother earth, the Holy Ghost formed the second Adam out of the flesh of a pure virgin. Even the heathen had a dim conception that the ideal of the race could not be realized without supernatural generations of sages and heroes from a pure virgin (Buddha, Zoroaster, Romulus, Pythagoras, Plato). The heathen myths are carnal anticipations of the mystery of the Incarnation.
Mat 1:22Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Mat 1:23Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Matthew 1:21
And she shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Jesus. For though she was with child, it could not be known any otherwise than by prediction or divine revelation, that she should have a son, whose name should be called Jesus; a name of the same signification with Joshua and Hosea, and may be interpreted a "Saviour", Act_13:23 for the word ישוע Jesus, comes from ישע which signifies "to save." And to this agrees the reason of the name given by the Angel,
for HE shall save his people from their sins. The salvation here ascribed to him, and for which he is every way fit, being God as well as man, and which he is the sole author of, is to be understood, not of a temporal, but of a spiritual and everlasting salvation; such as was prophesied of, Isa_45:17 and which old Jacob had in his view, when he said, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord", Gen_49:18 which by the Jewish (f) Targumist is paraphrased thus:
"Jacob said when he saw Gideon the son of Joash, and Samson the son of Manoah, that they would rise up to be saviours, not for the salvation of Gideon do I wait, nor for the salvation of Samson do I look, for their salvation is דשעתא פורקן "a temporary salvation"; but for thy salvation, O Lord, do I wait and look, for thy salvation is פורקן עלמין "an everlasting salvation", or (according to another copy) but for the salvation of Messiah the son of David, who shall save the children of Israel, and bring them out of captivity, for thy salvation my soul waiteth.''
By "his people" whom he is said to save are meant, not all mankind, though they are his by creation and preservation, yet they are not, nor will they be all saved by him spiritually and eternally; nor also the people of the Jews, for though they were his nation, his kinsmen, and so his own people according to the flesh, yet they were not all saved by him; many of them died in their sins, and in the disbelief of him as the Messiah: but by them are meant all the elect of God, whether Jews or Gentiles, who were given to him by his Father, as a peculiar people, and who are made willing in the day of his power upon them, to be saved by him in his own way. And these he saves from "their sins", from all their sins, original and actual; from secret and open sins; from sins of heart, lip and life; from sins of omission and commission; from all that is in sin, and omission upon it; from the guilt, punishment, and damning power of it, by his sufferings and death; and from the tyrannical government of it by his Spirit and grace; and will at last save them from the being of it, though not in this life, yet hereafter, in the other world, when they shall be without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.
Jesus Christ Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, or anointed prophet, priest, and king, sent from heaven. To what has already been said on the important name Jesus, (See Mat_1:21 (note), and the places there referred to), I shall add the following explanation, chiefly taken from Professor Schultens, who has given a better view of the ideal meaning of the root ישע yasha, than any other divine or critic. He observes that this root, in its true force, meaning, and majesty, both in Hebrew and Arabic, includes the ideas of amplitude, expansion, and space, and should be translated, he was spacious-open-ample; and, particularly, he possessed a spacious or extensive degree or rank: and is applied, 1.To a person possessing abundance of riches. 2.To one possessing abundant power. 3.To one possessing abundant or extensive knowledge. 4.To one possessing abundance of happiness, beatitude, and glory. Hence we may learn the true meaning of Zec_9:9 : Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion - behold, thy king comes unto thee; he is Just, and having Salvation: - הושיע - he is possessed of all power to enrich, strengthen, teach, enlarge, and raise to glory and happiness, them who trust in him. Man by nature is in want and poverty: in abjectness and weakness: in darkness and ignorance: in straits and captivity: in wretchedness and infamy. His Redeemer is called ישועה Jesus - he who looses, enlarges, and endows with salvation. 1.He enriches man’s poverty: 2.strengthens his weakness: 3.teaches his ignorance: 4.brings him out of straits and difficulties: and 5.raises him to happiness, beatitude, and glory. And the aggregate of these is Salvation. Hence that saying, His name shall be called Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. See Schultens Origines Hebraeae, p. 15. Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion - See this prophecy explained on Mat_21:5 (note). Behold, thy King cometh - Not Zerubbabel, for he was never king; nor have they had a king, except Jesus the Christ, from the days of Zedekiah to the present time. He is just - The righteous One, and the Fountain of righteousness. Having salvation - He alone can save from sin, Satan, death, and hell. Lowly - Without worldly pomp or splendor; for neither his kingdom, nor that of his followers, is of this world. Riding upon an ass - God had commanded the kings of Israel not to multiply horses. The kings who broke this command were miserable themselves, and scourgers to their people. Jesus came to fulfill the law. Had he in his title of king rode upon a horse, it would have been a breach of a positive command of God; therefore, he rode upon an ass, and thus fulfilled the prophecy, and kept the precept unbroken. Hence it is immediately added: - Matthew 1:21 Jesus - The same as Joshua, יהושע Yehoshua, from ישע yasha, he saved, delivered, put in a state of safety. See on Exo_13:9 (note); Num_13:16 (note), and in the preface to Joshua. He shall save his people from their sins - This shall be his great business in the world: the great errand on which he is come, viz. to make an atonement for, and to destroy, sin: deliverance from all the power, guilt, and pollution of sin, is the privilege of every believer in Christ Jesus. Less than this is not spoken of in the Gospel; and less than this would be unbecoming the Gospel. The perfection of the Gospel system is not that it makes allowances for sin, but that it makes an atonement for it: not that it tolerates sin, but that it destroys it. In Mat_1:1, he is called Jesus Christ, on which Dr. Lightfoot properly remarks, “That the name of Jesus, so often added to the name of Christ in the New Testament, is not only that Christ might be thereby pointed out as the Savior, but also that Jesus might be pointed out as the true Christ or Messiah, against the unbelief of the Jews.” This observation will be of great use in numberless places of the New Testament. See Act_2:36; Act_8:35; 1Co_16:22; 1Jo_2:22; 1Jo_4:15, etc.
