The Lord’s Presence on Earth Called for Special Precepts
In this connection an element claims notice which, obvious and important though it be, is too generally ignored. The presence of the Son of God on earth, and the character of His mission, affected not only the ministry of His disciples, but their conduct generally, and called for special precepts for their guidance. And some of these were afterwards abrogated, either by implication or in express terms. A single example of this may suffice. When the Lord first sent out the disciples, He vetoed even the most ordinary provision for a journey. “Qarry neither purse nor scrip nor shoes,” was
His command.* But in view of His leaving them all this was changed. “When I sent you without purse or scrip or shoes He asked of them lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing. Then said He unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip; and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For He added the things written in the Scriptures concerning Me have an end.”y
The mention of the sword is specially significant. Even to us Westerns the figurativeness of the language is obvious, and yet Peter, Oriental though he was, misunderstood it and took it literally. Now that the Lord was about to leave them they were to resume the position of citizens.t But in a civilised community the citizen is not left to defend himself. That is the duty of the State. The sword is entrusted to the constituted authorities, to be “a terror to evil-doers” and a protection to the * Luke x. 4. + Luke xxi. 35-37.
These precepts, like those of the Sermon on the Mount, were not for the apostles as such, but for the disciples generally. In Luke x. the seventy were expressly addressed. The apostles were recommissioned after the resurrection.
law-abiding. The Lord’s words must not be perverted to justify the Christian’s “taking the law into his own hands.” But they ought to satisfy even the most sensitive conscience that there is nothing un-Christian in appealing for protection to the civil power.