The Banished One Bearing Our Banishment
“Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.” — John x. 23.
The places which. Jesus chiefly resorted to, during his life on earth, are unknown in Old Testament history. Bethany, and Nazareth, and Capernaum, and Nain, and Emmaus, are not mentioned in the lives of the saints before his coming. Their names rise up newly to the reader, and they have no sacred memories of any kind attached to them. They were not consecrated spots in any sense. Yet to these the Lord betook himself.
The chief places known, in the story of Israel’s ancient saints, are passed by, in New Testament history. Hebron, the city of Abraham; Beersheba, the dwelling of Isaac; Bethel, the sanctuary of Jacob; Gilgal and Shiloh, old seats of worship, seem as if avoided; and even Bethlehem itself appears not to have been visited by the Lord during his ministry. The places that Israel counted holy he turned aside from; and even Jerusalem he only visited during the day, retiring from it at night to Bethany, like one cast out, and not allowed the shelter of its roofs.
For this there misrht be many reasons. It was the Father’s will. He chose, in his sovereign wisdom, the places for his Son to visit and to dwell in. And it was according to this will that the Son. of God ever acted. “Not my will, but thine be done.” In choosing these unknown places for his Son, He shewed that it was not former privileges, rlc: ancient sanctitv, nor a venerable name, that could avail anything with him, or attract his favour. Christ was not born in Jerusalem; he was not sent to Bethel, because there Jacob had been, and there the heavens had been opened above him; nor to Shiloh, because for ages God himself had dwelt there. But he was sent to new places, where, so far as we know, the foot of patriarch, judge, prophet, king, had never been; shewing that no city was to be so favoured as to exclude others, and that all cities, as well as all souls, had a share in his divine regards. Nor were they the better and more reputable cities that were chosen for his abode; for Nazareth was one of the worst. Thus was it seen that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.
But specially do we see in this avoidance of what might be called the “holy cities,” the actings of One who was “despised and rejected of men,” treated by man as an outcast, and by God as one who was bearing our sin, and therefore, like the leper, kept apart from what was either ritually or traditionally holy. Our reproach was on Him, in life as well as in death. He was not to be allowed to die within Jerusalem, but must suffer without the gate; so He
D was kept apart from all these places which had special sanctity connected with their names.
He visited Jerusalem indeed, but he did not dwell there. He frequented the temple; but never entered either the holy place or the most holy. It is only in the outer court, or in some of the great porches connected with it, that we find him. Beyond these he went not at any time. In the verse before us, we find him in Solomon’s porch. This porch was at the eastern side of the temple, erected by Solomon, and fortunate in escaping the ruin which had once and again overtaken the other parts of the building. It was “winter” at this time. It was just the very middle of December; for the feast of the Dedication was celebrated on the loth of that month. The inclemency of mid-winter, — its rains, and perhaps its snows, — had led the Lord to seek the shelter of this porch; for, as a true man, he felt earth’s heat and cold, needing a shadow from the former and a covering from the latter, just as we do. Under this spacious porch he was walking to and fro, — perhaps to increase the vital heat, — when the Jews gathered round him, and began the conversation which our passage records.
That part of the scene which alone I ask you to notice, is his keeping outside the holy place and the most holy, as though he might not enter there, but remain, like one of the multitude, in the outer court, which even “publicans and sinners” might enter. For this there were several reasons.
1. Personal. — He belonged to the tribe of Judah, not to that of Levi. It could not be personal uncleanness that kept him without the veil; but only Levi’s family had access to the holy place, and only Aaron’s family could enter the holiest of all. He could not, then, enter the chamber which was the emblem of God’s immediate presence without a breach of law; and he “came not to destroy, but to fulfil the law.” It “became him to fulfil all righteousness.”
2. Ceremonial. — The holy of holies could only be entered with blood; and he had none to present. The lamb, the goat, the bullock, all belonged to others. The time had not yet come for his having to do with blood. Things that differ must not be confounded; the shadow must not be mixed up with the substance; the sacrifice must still be left in Levitical hands, and the altar must not be served by a son of Judah.
3. Typical. — He was himself the true sacrifice, the bearer of sin. As such he lived and died. In all that he did, and in all that he refrained from doing; in the places that he visited, and in the places that he abstained from visiting, he kept this in view. He was loaded with our sin, our curse, our condemnation, our leprosy; and, as such, he must keep at a distance from the holy and the clean. Not merely was he the rejected of men, — thrust outside their dwellings, their cities, their synagogues, having no place to lay his head, treated as a madman, a Samaritan, a devil; but he was the outcast, the condemned One; with the law’s brand upon him; “made sin for us;” made “a curse for us.” As such, his true place was outside the city of God; outside the dwelling of the Holy One. If permitted to resort to Jerusalem, he can only do so as a stranger or wayfaring man, who comes in with the crowd during the day, but retires at night. If allowed to frequent the temple, he can only come as far as the outer court, on the common footing of a sinner, — -just as the publican might do. He might stand and see the daily sacrifice offered; he might watch the shedding of the blood and the consuming of the victim; but only as one of the crowd. He might stand, on the day of atonement, and see the two goats chosen by the high priest; he might listen to the confession of sin over the head of the one, and mark the pouring out of the other’s blood; he might see the high priest take the basin, and carry the blood into the holiest, Himself standing on the outside, and, though the Blessed One, waiting amid the crowd to receive the priestly blessing of another. More than this he might not do. Were he to go beyond the circle thus marking off the limits within which he was to walk, he would not have been acting as the Sin-bearer, nor submitting to be dealt with as an outcast and a curse for us.
Sin had banished us from God, casting us out of his paradise, and hindering us from appearing in his presence. The Son of God came to take our place of banishment, that, by so doing, he might effect our restoration. He became, in all respects, a hanislied man. His birth in the stable of Bethlehem shewed us this. His flight into Egypt shewed it still more; as if, when he did come to earth, he was not to have a safe abode anywhere, save in a land of strangers. His abode at Nazareth, that ungodly city, shewed it again. His having to resort to the far mountain for prayer, instead of to his Father’s house, which was the house of prayer, shewed this also. His never entering the holy parts of the temple, but always remaining outside, shewed this again. And, lastly, his death, “without the gate,” finished the manifestation of his humbled, outcast condition here. He is so completely identified with the sinner, the outcast, the banished one, that he is not only deemed unworthy to live within Jerusalem, but even to die within its walls. As the great sin-offering, he goes without the camp, there to complete his sin-bearing work, and to sum up the testimony which his whole life had given, viz., that he was standing in the sinner’s place, enduring the banishment of the banished one, bearing the curse of the cursed one, submitting to the condemnation of the condemned one; andneverfor one moment contradicting or modifying the testimony, intended to be given by his life, to his sin-bearing character and work; never in anything, great or small, stepping beyond the limits that marked out his mysterious path on earth as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.”
Christ’s exclusion from the holy of holies would not have been a thing so noticeable, were it not that he had, of all others, a right to enter it, — nay, and to abide there. That inner shrine was his lawful and patrimonial dwelling, his true and proper home. No one, not even Aaron himself, could claim the right of entrance as he could. Not, indeed, as David’s Son, but as David’s Lord; not as the Son of Judah, but as the Son of God; not as possessed of ritual or legal warrant; but as the Holy One and the Just.”
For that solemn chamber, where were the ark, and the mercy- seat, and the cherubim, and the glory, was the special emblem of Jehovah’s highest habitation; the type of the presence-chamber in the very heaven of heavens; nay, may we not say, the symbol of that very “bosom of the Father” out of which the only-begotten Son came forth? That holy habitation above had been his abode from eternity; and what, then, more natural than that when he came to earth he should take up his dwelling in that lower sanctuary, which was the shadow and representation of his glorious palace above? Here we should have expected him to have been born and lived while here. And, just as worldly, carnal men would have supposed that the Son of the Highest, when coming to earth, would chose a noble metropolis and a splendid palace for his abode, so spiritual men would have assigned to him the holiest of all, in Jehovah’s temple, as his birthplace and his habitation here.
It would have been most suitable; and surely he had a right to it. The temple itself was his Father’s house, and the best room in that house would be at his service. Others might be shut out; he would not. The veil that was drawn against others would open to admit him. Who could resist his claim, if he had asked admission? His right was indisputable, as the very Son of God. Judea was his, for it was Immanuel’s land. Jerusalem was his, for it was the city of the great King. The temple was his, for it was his Father’s house. The holy of holies was his, for it was the express representative on earth of that very heaven which he had left, when coming to do the Father’s will.
Yet He entered not that inner sanctuary, nor ever went beyond the altar and the laver without, — the court in which the publican stood and cried, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” He saw daily the priests entering the second court, the holy place, yet went he not in. He saw the high priest, once a year, take the blood of the goat, and enter into the holiest of all, yet went he not in. Though conscious of an innate and inalienable right to enter, He yet remained without, as one who, from some mysterious cause, was excluded from his lawful and patrimonial abode.