Matthew 20:17-19

JESUS FORETELLS HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION

Matthew 20:17-19; Luke 18:31-34; Mark 1:32-34. “And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was leading them, and they continued to be excited, and following, they were afraid.” Our Lord is still over in Perea, east of the Jordan, walking along toward Jerusalem, accompanied by the vast multitudes. The disciples know that if He goes back to Jerusalem, something decisive will take place, as only a dozen days previously He had fled away from there for His life. As the Passover is now at hand, and the metropolis will be thronged with the people of Israel, not only from Judea and Galilee, but from their dispersions in all heathen lands, they know that His enemies are determined to do everything they can against Him. As it is said here that they were much excited and afraid, doubtless they were apprehensive that the thousands from Galilee, where He had spent by far the greater part of His ministerial life, would be at the Passover, and as His enemies were so hostile against Him, in all probability a bloody civil war would break out, in which they were all likely to lose their lives. Meanwhile the hopeful side of the matter was, that He would be crowned King there in Jerusalem, in the presence of the vast multitudes from all parts of the earth, who might fall in line and propagate His kingdom, and permanently establish Him on the throne of David.

“And again taking the twelve, He began to speak to them the things which were about to happen to Him, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will deliver Him to the Gentiles, and they will mock Him, and will scourge Him, and spit upon Him, and will kill Him; and on the third day He will rise.” Luke says: “And they understood nothing of these things; and this word was hidden from them, and they knew not the things spoken.” This is the third time our Savior has told them plainly that He is going to be arrested, arraigned, condemned, scourged, crucified, and will rise the third day. Now you see that Luke here says that they understood none of those things, and we see in the subsequent history that they were utterly ignorant of His impending fate till it took place. Now why did Jesus tell them three times, and the Holy Spirit withhold it from them? N. B. The Holy Spirit is not only the Author of the Word, but the Revelator of that Word to every person who ever understands it. It was really important that Jesus should tell them all about it, as He did three times, distinctly, by way of emphasis. The importance of this revelation is seen in the fact that it was a most important item in the prophetical curriculum, which constitutes the basis of Christian faith in all ages.

Therefore it must be revealed. Now why must it be withheld from them till after His resurrection? Do you not know that if they had understood it, they would have mustered the countless hosts to whom He had preached during the three years of His ministry and have prepared for war, in order to defend their beloved Leader and preserve His life? Thus a terrible civil war would have broken out in Jerusalem while the city was thronged with the myriads from all parts of the earth attending the Passover, and a grand army would have rallied to prevent them from killing Him, thus defeating the great end for which He came into the world; i.e., to suffer and die to redeem the lost millions of Adam's fallen race. Hence you see the pertinency on the part of the Divine administration, that the Holy Spirit should withhold these tragic, sublime, and wonderful events appertaining to their Master, so that they should not understand them till after they had all transpired. The same fact is true in all ages, despite all the efforts of human learning to fathom and comprehend the Bible. While these are not to be depreciated, it is an incontestable fact that we only know the Word as it is revealed to us by the Holy Ghost. After the Constantinian apostasy, during the Dark Ages, when the Church was monopolized by Romanism, and retrogressed into semi-paganism, every great, cardinal, spiritual truth having evanesced, and the Holy Spirit apparently retreating away and leaving her in the dismal midnight of ignorance and superstition, even collapsing so egregiously into human infatuation and folly as to become a secret society, like Freemasonry, her mystic rites only known to her muttering priests, and locked up in a dead language, incomprehensible by the laity, amid this dismal night of ignorance, superstition, and idolatry, she remained a thousand years, till the light again broke in, God raising up Wyclif, a Roman Catholic priest, justly denominated the Morning Star of the Reformation; followed by John Huss, of Bohemia, whom the Roman Catholics burned, and threw his ashes into the Rhine, on whose waters they floated down, impinging on many lands, germinating quite a crop of martyrs, who sprang up spontaneously, like mushrooms in the night; and like the armed men who sprang up from the dragon's teeth which Cadmus sowed in Greece, so a magnificent crop of martyrs were soon testifying amid the flaming fagots in different European countries; finally, Luther comes to the front, the hero of the Reformation, the multitudes falling in line, getting their eyes open to the glorious truth of justification by the free grace of God in Christ, received and appropriated by faith alone, independently of Church rites, priestly manipulations, and clerical absolutions, presenting a rank and file too formidable for the papistical power to overawe by thundering anathemas, bulls of excommunication, or the fires of Inquisition. We may here observe that during this long period of a thousand years, while the dismal Pagan night darkened the escutcheon of the historic Church, ignorance, superstition, priestcraft, prelacy, and popery, with their human institutions, autocracy, and tyranny having supplanted, and, to all human observation, obliterated every vestige of experimental godliness from the historic Church, yet God had a people in the world who knew Him experimentally, and walked with Him in the beauty of holiness, despite the terrible persecutions waged against them by the Catholic Church, A. D. 251. The Novatians, the holiness people of their day and time, withdrew from the Catholic Church on account of her corruptions. The same people in later centuries were denominated the Waldenses and Albigenses, and despite all efforts to exterminate them in blood, survived several centuries; and finally the movement received a new impetus under the leadership of the Moravians, who were instrumental in the sanctification of John Wesley, who, in the providence of God, became exceedingly prominent in the great holiness movement of his day. While Luther was evidently a sanctified man, yet he never gave the doctrine or the experience any especial attention, having all he could possibly do to rescue the primary truths of justification, regeneration, and adoption from the black grip of Satanic oblivion, long fastened on them by the tyrannical intrigues of Romanism. I am satisfied that God had His way with Luther and his compeers, using them, pursuant to His own will and purpose, in the restoration of these grand fundamental doctrines of experimental salvation. As Wycli? was the morning star and Luther the rising sun of the great justification revival, in a similar manner George Fox, the founder of Quakerism; John Bunyan, the Baptist; and John Knox, the Presbyterian, were the morning stars of the great sanctification revival, whose sun arose with Wesley and his compeers. As the great doctrine of entire sanctification, so prominent in the apostolic age, had gone into eclipse with oncoming Romanism, and had slumbered in oblivion more than a thousand years, God raised up these mighty men to rescue from oblivion, formulate, and elucidate the profound and majestic-truth of Christian perfection. These heroic saints of bygone ages have faithfully and courageously done their work, and are now resting in glory. While experience is substantially identical in all ages, not so with exegesis. The Bible is our text-book, and the Holy Ghost our Teacher; but some of us are very slow scholars. The Holy Ghost is leading us on, and teaching us as we are able to receive it. Wesley and his coadjutors profited by the work of Luther, as Wesley was actually converted while listening to the reading of Luther's preface to the Pauline Epistles; but the labor of their lives was not on justification, but Christian perfection.

Our holiness brethren who would confine our investigations and elucidations to sanctification, make a great mistake. The Holy Spirit is still opening the Scriptures, and revealing them more and more, to the saints of God. If we should stop with sanctification, we would make no progress beyond our predecessors, whereas the school of Christ is the most progressive institution in all the world. The notable fact that the Holy Spirit is so wonderful opening the Scriptures revelatory of the Lord's second coming, is to me an auspicious omen that the time is at hand. We are now living in the last century of the world's six thousand years, the millennium being the seventh thousand. As the popular chronology is believed by the ablest critics to be too long, many authorities expiring the six thousand years already, we have many reasons to open our eyes to the incoming light shed by the blessed Holy Spirit on those numerous Scriptures revealing the return of Jesus to this world. During the last year I have traveled twenty thousand miles in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. In all lands, and upon all seas, I met the Lord's dear people, looking out for His coming, and believing Him to be very nigh. The Holy Spirit is wonderfully lighting up the Scriptures on the coming of the Lord, Divine healing, and woman's ministry. We so much need the ministry of the sisterhood to help us carry the gospel to the ends of the earth, and expedite the return of our glorious King. It is very pertinent that we should all sit, meek and lowly, at the feet of Jesus, perfectly appreciative and acquiescent in the teaching of the Holy Ghost. If we refuse to move forward responsive to His leadership, we will certainly grieve Him.

Why did He not reveal the great doctrine of sanctification to Luther? Because he and his generation had enough to do to teach and establish justification. Why did He not lead out Wesley to elaborate the coming of the Lord? Because he had all he could do, in his long, laborious, and useful life, to expound and establish the great doctrine of entire sanctification. Now, with the full benefit of the proficiency achieved by our predecessors, shall we make no decisive process in the school of Christ? Shall we stand still, or go round like the blind horse in the treadmill? God's commandment to Israel is, “Go forward.” This will be true indefinitely in the department of Biblical exegesis, which, like God its Author, is absolutely illimitable. We will not only learn during this life, but on through all eternity, and more rapidly after we get to heaven than ever before. God forbid that we should command Israel to stand still when He says, “Go forward!”