Chapter XV
: HE Bible is the history of man.” “The
Gospels were written to teach the way of salvation.” These are but specimens of popular errors which serve to make those who hold them an easy prey to the sceptics.
Save for a brief preface of eleven chapters, covering a period measured by thousands of years, the burden of the Old Testament is the story of the Hebrew race. And the first book of the New Testament is the sequel and conclusion of the Old. The Gospels are not a set of faulty and erring narratives, written with a common object. Their purpose in the Divine scheme of revelation is to present the Lord Jesus Christ in the four great aspects of His mission and work,! as Israel’s Messiah, Jehovah’s Servant, Son of Man and Son of God. And it is by a true instinct that earnest souls turn to the Fourth Gospel when
lle a Ee eee x “Four discriminated aspects of their common subject,.., but one portrait” (Bampton Lectures, 1864). 194
Cu. XV] MATTHEW AND JOHN 195 epee ener ee ae they seek the path of life; for the words which close the twentieth chapter describe the contents of every page, “These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.”;
I must adhere to the limits I have set myself, and deal only here with Matthew and John. Does any Christian really believe that the striking differences between the two, from first to last, can be explained on the theory that the one apostle was a bigoted Jew and the other a dreamy enthusiast?
And if the Gospels be mere human documents, nothing less than this will account for the facts. Both men received the same teaching throughout the whole period of the Ministry. Both heard those “most sacred of all sacred words” uttered upon the eve of the Crucifixion. Both were re-commissioned in the same terms after the resurrection. And yet as we study the First Gospel — I here repeat as fact and truth what I have already suggested as a sceptical difficulty — ‘“From the first chapter to the last we shall search in vain for a single sentence to raise the narrative above the plane of Jewish interests and hopes.”
Let me give a startling instance of the contrast in the teaching. The Fourth Gospel tells of eternal life as the free gift of God to every sinner who believes in Christ; whereas in the First Gospel the only passages where eternal life is mentioned, * deal with it on strictly Old Testament lines. There are two possible explanations of all this. Either one of the apostles of the Lord — men specially chosen to be His witnesses in a wholly peculiar sense — deliberately set himself to misrepresent his Master’s mission and pervert His teaching; or else he did this innocently, through sheer stupidity and ignorance. Will any Christian dare to identify himself with either of these hypotheses? Can any one — Christian or not — suggest a third?
Yes, a third is possible; but it assumes that the Gospels are zof mere human records. ‘Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.”2 And “the Hebrew Gospel,” as it is
t Matt. xix. 16, 29; xxv. 40-46.
2 Rom. xv. 8. The next verse runs on, “And that the Gentiles. might glorify God for His mercy.” To the people of the covenant His coming was a matter of promise: to Gentiles (who are “strangers from the covenants of promise” — Ephes. ii. 12), it was pure mercy. The Divine accuracy of Holy Scripture never misses distinctions such as this.
Cu. XV.] THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 197
sometimes called, is the Divine record of this “Ministry of the Circumcision.”
With this clew to guide us we shall find that the very same characteristics which, in my case at least, tempted to unbelief, now establish faith. People read the New Testament backwards, and with erroneous preconceptions of its scheme and scope; and when they reach its preface they demand, ‘‘What has a Jewish genealogy to do with the advent of the Son of God as the Saviour of the world?” The answer is, ‘“Absolutely nothing”; and the Gospel which so presents Him omits even the mention of His birth. The Bible opens with the declaration, “In the beginning created God” :! so here, “In the beginning was THE Worp.2 And then, ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” How made flesh it matters not. ‘‘ He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. But as many as received Him to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name.”
The casual reader will miss nothing from these words; and yet the omission I have made is one of the utmost moment. I have quoted the tenth
* Gen.i.1. This is the order of the words in the Hebrew. 2 John i. 1.
and twelfth verses; here is the eleventh: “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” 1
This brief sentence gives the whole purpose and scope of the First Gospel. Now we can appreciate its opening words, ‘‘ The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” He was ‘‘a minister of the circumcision,” the earthly people of the covenant — ‘of whom,” as the Apostle Paul declares, “‘is Christ as concerning the flesh.”2 And he speaks of Him again as “of the seed of David.’3 Hence His genealogy is traced to Abraham, the father of the covenant and the founder of the race, and to David, the head of the royal house.4 Hence, too, the emphasis laid upon the fact of his birth in Bethlehem, the royal city.
Let me repeat all this in borrowed words. “The record of St. Matthew, ever recognised as the Hebrew Gospel, is the true commencement of the New Testament, showing how it grows out of
* Our English idiom cannot express the meaning here: the margin of R.V. gives one of the “schoolboy translations” that so often mar that work. The French is more apt: “Il est venu chez soi, et les siens ne Mont point regu.”
? Rom. ix. 5, R.V. 3 2 Tim. ii. 8.
‘ As regards the difference between the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, see Appendix, Note IV.
Cu. XV.] CANON BERNARD ON MATTHEW 199
the Old, and presenting the manifestation of the Son of God not as a detached phenomenon, but as the predestined completion of the long course of historic dispensations. It is the Book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of Davzd, the Son of Abraham. It founds itself on the ideas of the old covenant. It refers at every step, especially in its earlier chapters, to the former Scriptures, noting how that was fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. It is a history of fulfilment, presenting the Lord as the fulfiller of all righteousness, the fulfiller of the Law and the Prophets, not come to destroy, but to fulfil. It sets Him forth asa King and Lawgiver in that kingdom of heaven for which a birthplace and a home had been prepared in Israel: and thus corresponds to that period in the historical course of events when the word was preached to none but to the Jews only.”!
And now it only remains for me to give, in this new light, a brief sketch of the contents of
* Canon Bernard’s Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, being the “Bampton Lectures,’ 1864. This book, long out of print, but now happily reissued, is one of the most valuable of the Bampton series. Such another, though of a wholly different character, is Dr. Hatch’s volume of 1880. Though The Organisation of the Early Christian Churches is one of the greatest theological books of the age, it appears to be systematically “boycotted” by High Church and Low Church alike.
zoo THE BIBLE AND MODERN CRITICISM
Matthew’s Gospel. The briefest will suffice; for others will find, as I did, that once the key is in their hands, they can open the treasure for themselves. One proviso, however, is essential. The Old Testament teems with prophecies and promises relating to the Jewish race. But the way some people dispose of these is to appropriate most of them to the Gentile Church of this dispensation, and to dismiss the rest as Hebrew poetry. And with this sort of “interpretation” of Scripture I can make no terms. Those who adopt it may skip the rest of this chapter: it will have no meaning for them. Between the second chapter of Matthew and the third, there is an interval of more than thirty years. The third chapter speaks of the Baptist’s mission, and records the baptism of Christ. The Old Testament closes with the promise, ‘“‘ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet”; and the opening page of the New Testament tells of the ministry of him who came “in the spirit and power of Elias.” John was Elijah, ¢f they would receive him.’ ‘The baptism of Christ is an enigma to those who attach a pagan meaning to the
* Matt. xi. 14, R.V. (margin). On this passage see by all means Dean Alford’s note, as a correction to the prevailing scepticism on this subject.
Cu. XV.] PREACHING THE KINGDOM 201
ordinance. His purpose was to identify Himself with the true remnant of the nation. Then followed ‘the Temptation”; and “from that time” His ministry began. The Lord Himself took up the Baptist’s testimony, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”! Literally, ‘‘the kingdom of the heavens” — an expression used three and thirty times in Matthew, and never once again in the New Testament.2 The fulfilment was at hand of all that God had prophesied and promised of a time when the heavens would rule over the earth — a reign of righteousness and peace.
The closing verses of the fourth chapter receive but little notice, and yet their importance in the narrative is immense. ‘He went about ALL Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing ati manner of sickness and ALL manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto Him ai sick people ...and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people” from every part of all the land.
The seeming triumph of this first circuit of the
= See Matt: ii. 25 iv.17 3 Xx. 7:
2 See Appendix, Note V.
Ministry led to the proclamation of the principles of that kingdom which He preached — the spiritual and moral atmosphere which must prevail where God rules. For such is the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount. Men are always ready for Divine blessing if only they can have it on their own terms. If after working such miracles the Lord had proclaimed a holy war, the nation would have rallied round Him. Or had He proclaimed His “brotherhood” with fallen man — had He preached a “gospel of humanity” — their heathen conquerors even might have hailed Him as a deliverer and carried Him in triumph to the deserted palace of the Czsars; for never, perhaps, before or since, was the pagan world so full of weariness and despair as in the hateful reign of Tiberius.!
But His purpose was far different. Christendom has taught, throughout its history, that by His advent He fulfilled the law and ignored the prophets; His contemporaries looked to Him to fulfil the prophets while accepting their own interpretation of the law. But the Sermon on the Mount makes it as clear as light that if the
* During the period of the Ministry, Tiberius was absent from Rome. He had withdrawn to the island of Caprez, where he gave himself up to an orgy of sensuality.
Cu. XV.] THE LORD’S MIRACLES 203
heavens are to rule the earth, the will of God must be “done on earth as it is done in heaven.”!
The narrative next records a series of miracles of special significance. There was One in Israel who could put His hand upon a leper and yet be undefiled2; who could heal the sick by a word,3 or by a touch4; who could command the winds and waves,5 and control the powers of hello; who could not only heal the body, but cure and save the soul.7 And asa crowning public proof that His power reached to the under world, He could even raise the dead.8
This was the period of His personal ministry. He afterwards commissioned the Apostles, giving them the same powers He Himself had exercised, and entrusting them with the same testimony, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Hence the limit placed upon their ministry; for ‘the
t That the question should even be raised whether the Sermon on the Mount should guide men now in government is proof of the hopeless ignorance of Scripture which prevails. It is teaching for the governed in the days of the kingdom. Its principles are eternal, but some of the definite precepts of this “kingdom” teaching were expressly cancelled by our Lord Himself (see, e.g. Luke xxii. 35, 36). The common belief appears to be that the Lord’s presence or absence is an element of no importance whatever. But that is not His view of the matter!
2 Matt. viii. 3. 3 Ibid. viii. 13. 4 Ibid. viii. 15.
5 Ibid. viii. 26. 6 Ibid. viii. 28-32. 7 Thid. ix, 2.
Ibid. ix. 25. 9 Ibid. x. 8.
kingdom of heaven” is the Messianic kingdom in its earthly aspect.
Chapter xii. records the crisis which changed the entire character of His public ministry. The religious leaders of the nation had seen His miracles and heard His words — they had received all the public proofs of His Messiahship; and what was their response? They “went out and took counsel against Him how they might destroy Him.”! The Lord’s answer was to “withdraw Himself;” and though the multitudes which crowded after Him still proved His power to heal, instead of bidding them, as in the past, to tell others of His fame, He “charged them that they should not make Him known.” The chapter closes with words of awful judgment upon that ‘wicked generation” that had thus rejected Him.2
His rejection gave a new character also to His teaching. Till then it had been open: now it became veiled in parables. The rejection of the light brings judicial blindness. The parables were given that all might hear the new phase of “kingdom” teaching, but that only those whose eyes and ears were spiritually open should know and understand it.3
* Matt. xii. 14. BaViernass 3 Matt. xiii. 10-17.
Cx. XV.] PARABLES OF MATTHEW XIII. 205,
No greater contribution has ever been made to theology than will be his who fully and intelligently elucidates the teaching of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. It contains seven parables. The first is the preface to the rest, and governs them all. The Divine description of their subject and scope is “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.”! There was nothing secret about the kingdom foretold in prophecy and preached by the Lord and His apostles. But a heavenly kingdom in which a king reigning in righteousness gives place to a sower sowing seed, is an utter enigma. The theories of expositors here are no answer to the ridicule of rationalists. But the Divine explanation of the “mystery” silences both the ridicule and the theories.
Human apostasy and sin cannot thwart God’s purposes, but they may and do postpone the fulfilment of them. The disciples themselves came to understand that, on account of their Lord’s. rejection, there was to be another “coming.” 2 These parables give us the’ key to the whole intervening period. The first unfolds the H mystery of an unseen Sower taking the place of a manifested ruler. The next three describe
De — —
Ven. il. 2 Matt. xxiv. 3.
ne ae cps ea ce ae the public effects of the ministry of “the Sower.”
These, together with the prefatory parable, were spoken to the multitude: the final three, together - with the interpretation of the parable of the tares. were spoken privately to the disciples,! and they teach what is essential and secret.
In the earlier phase of the Ministry “sions” were openly given, abundantly sufficient to satisfy the doubts and silence the cavils of the Pharisees.2 But when, after they had thus proved themselves to be ‘‘a wicked and adulterous generation,” they again sought a “sign,” the answer they received was a definite refusal. The only miracle they were to witness now was that of the Prophet Jonah — the death and resurrection of their rejected Messiah.3 And following upon this, He forbade all further testimony to His Messiahship. In this later phase of His ministry He had enjoined silence upon those who benefited by His “signs”; now He forbade even His disciples to tell any one that He was the Christ, and He unfolded to them the mystery of His Passion.4
But exigencies of space forbid my pursuing the subject further in detail. As regards the great prophecy of the twenty-fourth chapter, I will only
2 eee TEEnnEnem ne ee * Matt. xiii. 36. * See, é.g., John ii. 23; iii, 2 RAVE 3 Matt. xvi. 1-4, ‘ Ibid, xvi. 20, 21, R.V. say here that it deals, not with “the end of the world,” but with the consummation of the age ! — the events which are to mark the close of “the evil age which has set in.”?
In conclusion let me restate this part of my argument. If we are to regard Matthew as a merely human book, we find ourselves compelled to account for its peculiar characteristics in either of two ways. Either the writer, albeit he was an apostle of the Lord, and shared all His teaching, remained in utter ignorance of the distinctive truths of Christianity; or else, with a knowledge of these truths, he perversely and wickedly concealed or distorted them.
The critic must make choice between these alternatives. But the Christian refuses both; for he rejects the assumption on which both are based.
* Matt. xxiv. 3 (R.V. margin). The word used in verse 3 is sunteleia (cf. Heb. ix. 26); the word Ze/os is employed in verse 6. Matt. xxiv. has been well described by Dean Alford as “the anchor of apocalyptic interpretation.” I have dealt with it in chapter xiii. of The Coming Prince.
2Gal.i.4. The “age” here intended is that of chapter xiii. (see p. 205, ante), which is to end with the return of Christ to establish His kingdom. And then “the mystery of God will be finished” — the mystery that a God of infinite power and goodness permits evil to prevail in the world (Rev. x. 7; xi. 15). That will not be an “evil age,” and God’s people will not need deliverance from it. ‘The evil age which has set in” is the age during which Christ is rejected.
To him the First Gospel is not a mere human treatise, but a Divine revelation; and grasping the thought that the purpose of that revelation was to present Christ as Israel’s Messiah, he accounts for the extraordinary phenomena of the book in the only way in which they can be reasonably explained, namely, that the Spirit of God so guided and restrained both the mind and the hand of the writer, that his narrative from first to last does not contain a single sentence inconsistent with the Divine purpose with which it was written.
It is not that the Lord’s words were not accurately recorded by the Evangelists, but that, while His teaching covered the whole field of truth, the inspiring Spirit led the writers to discriminate, so that each gave prominence to that aspect of it which he was used to present. A commander-in-chief may lay before his generals his whole plan of battle, but when he issues his. orders each brigadier receives only what it concerns him to know. The infantry are not told what part the cavalry will have to play, and neither is informed where the artillery will be placed. So was it with the Lord and His teaching. In the very same discourses probably He unfolded to the apostles the truth relating to the kingdom of heaven, and kindred truth in relation to the wider sphere of the kingdom of God.t But though these men heard the same words, and though no doubt they discussed them together times without number, the fact remains that when they came to write, these various aspects of truth were kept distinct. If this is to be explained on natural principles, it is a phenomenon which is absolutely without parallel in human experience.
* See Appendix, Note V.