The First Confession, and What Led to It

Crisis in the Saviour’s Ministry. Service and discourse in the Synagogue of Capernaum. The Bread of heaven. Symptoms of dissatisfaction. Defection among His own disciples. His appeal to the Apostles, and Peter’s response.

The waning winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray
Melt off, and leave the laud and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity.”

“O Almighty God, who hast built Thy Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner-stone: grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple, acceptable unto Thee through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

E shall now proceed to describe the
morrow’s sequel to this most dramatic
incident in Peter’s life — a sequel in
which his name is specially associated
with the first of two memorable confessions.

Iu order to understand the value of that earlier confession, brief as it was in words, and felling far short of subsequent fuller and nobler avowals, it may be pardonable to advert a little more particularly than would otherwise have been needful, to the crisis which had now been reached in the ministry of his Great Master.

We may picture in thought, what is often the case with that fitful, capricious lake, with which we are now bo familiar, that the night of storm had been followed by a morn of sunshine. These waves, so easily roused by the great winds which revel in the wads all around, are as easily rocked to rest; so that, in a brief hour, the ridges of wild foam are lying placid and calm as a mirror, with the snowy crest of Hermon reflected serenely in their depths. It is then, shall we suppose, in the quiet of the following morning, that the town of Capernaum is in a state of unusual bustle. Boats, large and small, had the previous afternoon come in from different quarters — several of these driven for refuge by the last night’s tempest from Bethsaida-Julias, Gergasa, Magdala, Tiberias, and other border cities. The occupants of these varied vessels, leaving their craft moored on the beach, are seen hastening in one direction — across through the wharves and along the narrow streets towards the White Synagogue, which, with its Greek columns and their capitals of acanthus-leaf, crowns a gentle swell about a quarter of a niile from the shore. A dense, excited crowd are already there, discussing in animated tones, under the marble portico, the strange events of yesterday. Among them are numbers from Northern Galilee, who have for days been streaming down to the approaching feast in Jerusalem, and have pitched their tents outside the walls of the lake-town. Some, from the cities we have just mentioned, had doubtless been present on the previous afternoon at Bethsaida-Julias. They had been among the privileged multitude who had sat on the green turf and ate the loaves and fishes — personal eye-witnesses of the miracle. Others had only heard of these things; tidings had reached them about this second Moses, who, on the shores of their own inland sea, had given a repetition of the wilderness banquet of quails and manna. Attracted not only by the

THE FIRST CONFESSION.

report of the astounding exhibition of supernatural power, but also by the poor, carnal motive of. having their wants supplied without toil or labour, they had hastened to the well-known home of the Wonder-worker, expecting to see Him personally, and themselves to share in some similar material benefit. Perhaps a still farther, purpose may have animated not a few of the motley crowd, viz., to carry into execution the design, which yesterday had failed, of crowning Him as King, and following Him with acclamations to regal Jerusalem.

There is every likelihood, too, that their cravings will so far be satisfied; for Jesus, the Object of all this transient burst of enthusiasm and curiosity, has already, as His wont was, taken His accustomed seat in the upper end of the synagogue, nigh to the ark; and ere the ritual is concluded, some present will avail themselves of the usual privilege of putting to Him a series of questions relative to His claims and pretensions as a messenger from heaven.

The ordinary service begins. The ShSliach, with the attendant Batlanim, their heads muffled in the white keffieli, have taken their appropriated places on the upper platform, close to where Jesus of Nazareth is seated along with His apostles; the women have screened themselves behind the lattice. The responsive Amen follows the liturgy of petition, confession, and blessing, and more especially during the reading of those beautiful psalms which have been used in common for three thousand years, alike in Jewish synagogue and Christian temple. The Chazzdn, the same officer we have alluded to in connection with Peter’s early education, proceeds to the ark, and opening the Cdphereth, or lid of the holy chest, takes out the scroll containing “Moses and the Prophets.” This, unrolled, is handed to the presiding Sheliacb, who in plaintive monotone reads the portion for the day. The scroll, re-adjusted, is deposited in its sacred receptacle, and on the Chazz&n returning to his seat, the Derash — or, in other words, the exposition or sermon — completes the service.

And now that the formal ritual has ended, all eyes are directed to the Great Teacher of Nazareth, and one voice (the spokesman and interpreter of the rest) breaks silence thus: —

“RaV.bi! how earnest Thou hither!”

In His reply, He says nothing about the miraculous walk on the waters, the pathway of tempest and wave by which He had reached Capernaum. He proceeds at once to dissipate their base, carnal expectations and delusions; rebukes and reproaches them for that mean, unworthy motive of self-interest which had induced them to follow His footsteps to the present place of assemblage, hankering after miraculous provision only to satisfy the wants of their lower natures. He declares Himself, not in a carnal, but in a lofty, spiritual sense, to be the true “Bread of God,” and delivers an earnest exhortation couched in words of withering reproof: “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for Him hath God the Father sealed.”

Then come the first symptoms of dissatisfaction which were to end in bold and defiant unbelief. Shiltach and Batlanim and Chazz&n, and some of the leading Jews of the town, backed by malignant emissaries from Jerusalem who were secretly conspiring His ruin, exchange

THE FIRST CONFESSION.

with one another significant glances. These glances sbape themselves in undisguised words, “What 1 this Son of a Galilean carpenter, whose mother and brothers we know well, to arrogate to Himself the title * Bread of heaven,1 and * Giver of Everlasting Life! ’ averring, too, that he that eateth this bread (meaning Himself) would live for ever — that no one had seen the Father but Him — and that the highest ’ work of God ’ was to believe on Him!” The resentment is intensified with every new question and answer. This apparently reached its climax when He asserted His power and prerogative to “raise up at the last day.”

Nor was it the haughty Pharisee and sceptic Saddueee alone that had the curl on their lip and the flash of indignation in their eye.

Jesus too well knew what the result of this plain speaking would be on many who were hitherto favourably disposed to His claims, — who had loved His lofty morality and tender ways, as well as wondered at His mighty deeds. They, too, began to suspect and distrust Him, and to look coldly on His claims. However varied, indeed, the shades of opinion might be — whether passively friendly or inveterately hostile — all that crowded auditory would be at one in pronouncing His present mystical avowals unsatisfactory, and very unlike those expected from their ideal “Anointed One.” Sacred books, which they had put on a par with the Old Testament Scriptures, had superadded brilliant though unauthorised visions of Messiah’s person and reign to the pictures of the true Hebrew seers. The land flowing with milk and honey was to be a land full of wine and royal banquetings — golden platters with birds of Paradise — jars of luscious manna, in comparison with which the manna and quails of the desert were common food. What, to them, were all these high-flown spiritualistic doctrines which He had just uttered? It was neither heavenly bread nor even everlasting life they wanted. Their immediate demand was the advent of the Messiah-Redeemer, to break the cursed Roman and Edomite yoke from their necks, and give them back their inviolate right to vineyard and olive-yard, untaxed by Caesar, and rid of his odious tribute. Many of those present and absent could understand the boon of a free, unbought banquet on the green grass at Bethsaida, and the shout of a king to follow, leading to nobler festivals in His own hill of Zion, and within His temple of Moriah; but they could not comprehend or tolerate this mystic partaking of His own flesh and blood, without which life was declared to be an impossibility. They wished Him to sit on a throne, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. He bad mocked them with some transcendental visions, worthy only of the Essenes of Engedi, or the fanatic dreamers of Egypt or Chaldea. On other occasions, too, so far had He forgot the national prestige, as to speak of the Pagan nations east and west enjoying with the patriarchs the Sabbatic rest of heaven. They could not brook apostate latitudinarianisni like this! Too well did He Himself know and realise that He had reached .a great crisis-hour in His life and ministry. To use a modern expression, His popularity was on the wane. “From that hour many (many He had trusted and confided in) went back, and walked no more with Him “(John vi. 66).” The desertion,” in the words of Dr Kitto,” was so general, that He, who that day might

THE FIRST CONFESSION.

have mounted a throne amid the acclamations of assembled thousands, was, before its close, left almost, if not quite, alone with His chosen few of the apostles.”

It was in this hour of sadness and distress, when, after the toils and labours of the preceding day, and the weariness of a sleepless night, His bodily exhaustion — the infirmities of innocent humanity — weighed down His sensitive spirit; when, too, as we have seen, in the bitterness of His soul, He was mourning the loss of His best and noblest human friend, — it was amid these hard words, and scornful looks, and diminished numbers, and the memory of buried love, He turns with a deep sigh and yearning for sympathy, to the fishermen friends at His side — “Will ye also turn recreant? Will ye also fail, and forsake, and ‘go away?’”1

Peter, who, from his elevated seat in the synagogue, had watched the surging tide of human faces, has his answer ready. Yes; he whose ideas and apprehensions were often material enough — clinging with fond avidity to dreams of temporal glory — showed, at all events, the strength and ardour of his personal devotion to the great Being who had recently spread the feast and stilled the storm, and by these two things had read to himself and his fellow-apostles a lesson in diviner verities. With all the intensity of his loving nature burning to give vent to his own strong convictions, he repels the unworthy creed and imputation of other fickle disciples, and exclaims,” Lord / to wlwm shall we

l John vi. 67. In the original, the “ye” is emphatic, while the form of the question implies that a negative was sought: “Ye do not, do you?” — See Dr Green, p. 21; also, Dean Stanley’s “Sermons on the Apostolic Age,’* in loc. go f Thou hast the words of eternal life. We believe and are sure that Thou art the Holy One of God.” 1

i Nearly all exegetical scholars are now at one in rejecting the commonly-received words of our Authorised Version-.” Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This latter confession we shall speak of in next chapter; but in the present case, it would seem to hare gone no farther than the avowal and recognition of his Master as “The Holy One of God.” — Set Tischeudorf, Meyer, Alford, and others.