Luke 11:54

THE NEW LIBERTY

‘Seeking to catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him.’

Luke 11:54

No intelligent observer could fail to notice the opposition towards Jesus Christ in certain quarters. While the common people heard Him gladly, those who were in authority at Jerusalem set themselves against Him, and soon began to plot together for His destruction. Our Lord was sitting at meat with a certain Pharisee, who ‘marvelled’ that He had not ceremonially washed before dinner, and this led the Saviour to speak plainly about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who afterwards with the scribes sought to ‘catch something out of His mouth, that they might accuse Him.’

I. The new liberty.—The Pharisees were first of all surprised to see our Lord eating with publicans and sinners. There were two things which struck every observer. To begin with, our Lord allowed a greater freedom, a new freedom, in the practice of godliness; and, secondly, our Lord introduced a new factor into the pursuit of truth, that new factor His own personal authority. They could not get away from it; they could not go near Him without fearing. But while this new factor which Christ introduced into the pursuit of truth, His own personal authority, was the chief ground of the opposition, they found it necessary to avoid a frontal attack. So they attacked the new freedom which Christ allowed in the practice of godliness.

(a) It was, first of all, conspicuous in His own conduct in mixing freely with publicans and sinners.

(b) Then, again, this liberty showed itself in our Lord’s attitude towards the Sabbath.

(c) Again, you see the same liberty in the disciples’ attitude towards fasting.

II. The new authority.—Our Lord, in claiming the larger liberty, bases that claim upon a new authority. It is the new factor of His own personal authority which He has introduced into the pursuit of truth which justifies His larger liberty. But this authority, while exercised on behalf of the larger liberty, never gave the reins to license, for while He pushed aside with one word the whole mass of Pharisaical formalism, He insisted on the deeper purity. ‘Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.’ That one parable, that one epigram, took the foundation away from nine-tenths of the religion of the Pharisees. They looked upon the material world outside as the source of defilement; Christ declared the chief source of defilement was the unclean heart, the spiritual pride and covetousness and self-seeking. And so He taught that their religion should consist not of multiplied ablutions, but in the unceasing cleansing of the heart by that inflow of the river of the Holy Ghost, that shedding abroad of the love of God in the heart by the Holy Ghost, by which even fallen men can be kept pure in heart towards God. And so Christ’s authority was introduced to bring about a deeper purity, a religion of love.

III. Criticism silenced.—And when the Pharisees asked for this authority, when at last they summoned up courage to send their deputation to Him in the Temple court, their elders and chief priests and scribes, and asked, ‘By what authority doest thou these things?’ what does Christ answer? He silenced them indeed. He silenced them by making their conscience work. Had they any right to ask for His authority? If a man can do good in this way, can there be any question where the power comes from? They were convicted. They were silenced. They said, ‘We cannot tell,’ not because they were in ignorance. They knew that John’s baptism was from heaven, that the authority with which Jesus spoke was Divine; they knew it, but they were not prepared to speak the truth, and so they took refuge in convenient agnosticism.

That is so to-day. There is not a man with a conscience who does not know that Jesus Christ is right, who can go into the presence of Jesus Christ and see what Jesus Christ is working to-day in setting men free from the power of every form of sin, without knowing that the power which works these freedom-miracles is of God. Submit yourselves to the power and you will find what it will do for you; criticise, stand aloof from it, and you shall perish like the Pharisees perished.

—Rev. F. S. Webster.

Illustration

‘In Mark’s Gospel we see, still more clearly than in Luke, set side by side, the relentless opposition of the scribes and Pharisees and the enthusiasm of the populace. In the first twelve Chapter s of Mark’s Gospel there are only three which do not contain one or more references to these hostile and vigilant critics. The opposition might be divided into three parts. First of all, there are general objections, generally and naturally raised, because of the new spirit and message of the Gospel. We find these in Chapter s 1, 2, 3, and 6 and 7 and 11 The opposition began that way. Then, in the second stage, was the accusation made by the scribes which came down from Jerusalem, the diabolical suggestion that our Blessed Lord was indeed Satan. And then the third opposition was that of prepared traps and pitfalls. You find these in Chapter s 8, 10, and 11. We can now only deal with those natural objections which sprang from the new spirit and message of the Gospel.