XIX. (1) HE DEPARTED FROM GALILEE. — The verse covers a considerable interval of time which the materials supplied by St. Luke and St. John enable us to fill up. From the former we get the outlines of what has been called, as being “beyond Jordan,” our Lord’s Peræan ministry, from Luke 9:51 to Luke... [ Continue Reading ]
IS IT LAWFUL FOR A MAN TO PUT AWAY HIS WIFE FOR EVERY CAUSE? — See Note on Matthew 5:32. So far as the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount had become known, it gave a sufficiently clear answer to the inquiry of the Pharisees. It is, however, quite conceivable that it had not reached the ears of thos... [ Continue Reading ]
HAVE YE NOT READ...? — The answer to the question is found not in the words of a code of laws, but in the original facts of creation. That represented the idea of man and woman as created for a permanent relationship to each other, not as left to unite and separate as appetite or caprice might promp... [ Continue Reading ]
AND SAID, FOR THIS CAUSE. — In Genesis 2:24 the words appear as spoken by Adam; but words so uttered, prompted by the Holy Spirit, and stamped with the divine sanction, might well be looked on as an oracle from God, the expression of a law of His appointment.... [ Continue Reading ]
WHAT THEREFORE GOD HATH JOINED. — Strictly interpreted, the words go further than those of Matthew 5:32, and appear to forbid divorce under all circumstances. They are, however, rather the expression of the principle that should underlie laws, than the formulated law itself, and, as such, they asser... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY SAY UNTO HIM. — The question comes apparently from the advocates of the laxer school. They fell back from what would seem to them a vague abstract principle upon the letter of the Law. Was Moses, the great lawgiver, sanctioning what God had forbidden? Would the Prophet of Nazareth commit Himsel... [ Continue Reading ]
MOSES BECAUSE OF THE HARDNESS OF YOUR HEARTS. — The force of the answer lies (1) in emphasized substitution of “suffered” for “commanded.” The scribes of the school of Hillel had almost turned divorce into a duty, even when there was no ground for it but incompatibility of temper or other lesser fau... [ Continue Reading ]
WHOSOEVER SHALL PUT AWAY HIS WIFE. — The questions to which the law thus proclaimed gives rise have been discussed in the Note on Matthew 5:32. One serious difference has, however, to be noticed. Where in the earlier form of the precept we read, “cuseth her (the woman put away for any cause but adul... [ Continue Reading ]
IF THE CASE OF THE MAN. — The words seem to indicate that the laxer view of the school of Hillel was the more popular one even with those who, like the disciples, had been roused to some efforts after a righteousness higher than that of the scribes or Pharisees. They looked forward to the possible d... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL MEN CANNOT RECEIVE THIS SAYING. — As the words stand, “this saying” might refer either to the rule which our Lord had laid down on the subject of divorce, or to the comment of the disciples on that rule. What follows, however, determines the reference to the latter. Looking at marriage from a si... [ Continue Reading ]
THERE ARE SOME EUNUCHS. — The words are singularly startling in their form, and bear upon them an unmistakable stamp of being a true report of teaching which, in its depth and originality, went beyond the grasp of those who heard and reported it. What they teach is, that only those who are in some s... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN WERE THERE BROUGHT UNTO HIM LITTLE CHILDREN. — St. Luke (Luke 18:15) uses a word which implies infancy. The fact that they were brought (we may assume by their mothers) indicates that there was something in our Lord’s look and manner that attracted children, and impressed their parents with the... [ Continue Reading ]
SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN, AND FORBID THEM NOT ... — St. Mark adds that Jesus “was much displeased,” and represents Him as reproducing almost verbally the teaching of Matthew 18:3. The tenderness of His sympathy was kindled into indignation at the rough indifference of the disciples. As in thousands of... [ Continue Reading ]
HE LAID HIS HANDS ON THEM. — St. Mark records, as before, the act of caressing tenderness: “He folded them in His arms, and laid His hands upon them.” The words and the act have rightly been regarded, as in the Baptismal Office of the Church of England, as the true warrant for infant baptism. More t... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD, ONE CAME AND SAID... — The vagueness with which a man who must have been conspicuous is thus introduced, without a name, is every way significant. He was, like Nicodemus, “a ruler of the Jews” (Luke 18:18), _i.e.,_ probably, a member of the Sanhedrin or great Council, like Joseph of Arimathæ... [ Continue Reading ]
WHY CALLEST THOU ME GOOD? — Here again the older MSS. give a different form to our Lord’s answer: “Why askest thou Me concerning that which is good? There is One that is the Good.” The alteration was probably made, as before, for the sake of agreement with the other Gospels. In either case the answe... [ Continue Reading ]
HE SAITH UNTO HIM, WHICH? — Literally, _of what kind?_ The questioner has been trained in the language of the schools, has heard debates as to which was the great commandment of the Law (22:36). Which class of commandments is he to keep that he may win eternal life? THOU SHALT DO NO MURDER. — Our Lo... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THESE THINGS HAVE I KEPT. — There is obviously a tone of impatient surprise in the questioner’s reply. He had come seeking some great thing to satisfy his lofty aspirations after eternal life. He finds himself re-taught the lessons of childhood, sent back, as it were, to a lower form in the scho... [ Continue Reading ]
JESUS SAID UNTO HIM... — St. Mark (Mark 10:21) adds the striking and interesting words, “Jesus beholding him” (better, perhaps, _gazing on him_)_,_ “loved him.” There was something in the young seeker after holiness which drew to him, in a measure altogether exceptional, the affection of the Great T... [ Continue Reading ]
HE WENT AWAY SORROWFUL. — St. Mark adds “sad,” _i.e., frowning,_ or as with a look that lowered. The word is the same as that used of the sky in Mark 16:3. The discipline so far did its work. It made the man conscious of his weakness. He shrank from the one test which would really have led him to th... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL HARDLY ENTER. — The Greek adverb is somewhat stronger than the colloquial meaning of the English. Literally, _shall not easily enter._ The words imply not so much the mere difficulty as the painfulness of the process. Here, as elsewhere, the “kingdom of heaven” is not the state of happiness af... [ Continue Reading ]
IT IS EASIER FOR A CAMEL TO GO THROUGH THE EYE OF A NEEDLE. — Two explanations have been given of the apparent hyperbole of the words. (1.) It has been conjectured that the Evangelists wrote not κάμηλος (a camel), but κάμιλος (a cable). Not a single MS., however, gives that reading, and the latter w... [ Continue Reading ]
WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED? — There is an almost child-like _naïveté_ in the question thus asked by the disciples. They, whether among their own people or among strangers, had found the desire of wealth to be the universal passion. Even they themselves, when they had forsaken their earthly goods, had don... [ Continue Reading ]
JESUS BEHELD THEM. — We can surely conceive something of the expression of that look. He had gazed thus on the young ruler, and read his inner weakness. Now, in like manner, he reads that of the disciples; and the look, we may believe, tells of wonder, sorrow, tenderness, anxiety. Those feelings utt... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD, WE HAVE FORSAKEN. — The question betrayed the thoughts that had been working in the minds of the disciples, and of which, as was his wont, St. Peter made himself the spokesman. They had complied with their Master’s commands. What were they to have as the special reward to which they were thu... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THE REGENERATION. — In the only other passage in the New Testament in which the word occurs, it is applied to baptism (Titus 3:5), as the instrument of the regeneration or new birth of the individual believer. Here, however, it clearly has a wider range. There is to be a “new birth” for mankind a... [ Continue Reading ]
EVERY ONE THAT HATH FORSAKEN. — While the loyalty and faith of the Apostles were rewarded with a promise which satisfied their hopes then, and would bring with it, as they entered more deeply into its meaning, an ever-increasing satisfaction, their claim to a special privilege and reward was at leas... [ Continue Reading ]
MANY THAT ARE FIRST SHALL BE LAST. — The words point obviously not only to the general fact of the ultimate reversal of human judgments, but to the individual case of which the disciples had made themselves the judges. They had seen one who stood high in his own estimate brought low by the test of t... [ Continue Reading ]