That long, satisfying, and even exhilarating day had gone sour. The great crowd, thrilled with their repeated experiences of the powers ot the Messianic kingdom, were now sorely dissatisfied, for Jesus, so obviously the right man to be King of the Jews, resented the selfish and political flavour of their enthusiasm. The twelve, too, were bitterly disappointed with their Master’s unco-operative attitude, and were beginning to question whether indeed they were following the right man. Nor were they slow to recognize that Jesus’ insistence on their departure had no practical purpose at all except to get them away from this conflagration of political enthusiasm which appealed to them so much.

Indeed, from one angle this surge of enthusiasm greatly appealed to Jesus himself. But he knew that the spirit of it was wrong. The crowd wanted him to be King of their Kingdom. They were not seeking first God’s Kingdom and His Righteousness.

The slowly widening space between the boat and the shore as the disciples pulled unwillingly on their heavy oars was symbolic of a growing gap between the Lord and his most faithful followers.

At last they were lost to sight in the gathering darkness. Jesus meanwhile was high on the hillside, alone in prayer to his Father. As the big Passover full-moon climbed from the horizon, he was able to pick the boat out, making heavy weather of it in that choppy sea. Nevertheless Jesus left the disciples to it. Since they were infected with the crowd’s eager confident spirit, which would seek national salvation through rebellion against Rome, it would perhaps be no bad thing if they were left to realise in one of the smaller hardships of life just what sort of futile struggle such a movement must mean for them.

A Bad Crossing

The amazing thing is that the fishermen amongst them, recognizing what a desperate job it would be to get the boat across to Capernaum that night, did not flout their Lord’s orders and either lay to or come back to shore until the rising gale had blown itself out. There must have been some dominant spirit among them who insisted: “Boys, Jesus says we are to get across to Capernaum. So there’s nothing else for it. We must keep going regardless of the weather”.

Until they were halfway across (Mt) conditions were not too bad. But then the wind strengthened, and progress was almost impossible. They were “toiling in rowing”, says Mark, appropriating a word which contemporaries used of getting evidence through torture.

Scared Disciples

Jesus knew of their predicament, but it was not until the fourth watch — between 3 and 6 in the morning — that he broke off his prayer to come to them walking on the water (Ps. 77:19). When they picked him out by the light of the Passover full moon, they stared (Jn) in amazement and fright. As the distance narrowed, they knew for sure that it was Jesus. Yet, even though he had promised to rejoin them (Jn. 6:17 RV), unmindful of his other astonishing miracles, they could not believe that this really was he — walking on the sea! It must be his ghost! They were sure of it (Mk). Did-this mean that, when they left him on the beach, the crowd had turned resentful and lynched him, because of his unreasonable refusal to co-operate with their schemes? And now, because they too had wanted to join in this eager move to make him King of the Jews he was come to haunt them. Perhaps one of them thought of that remarkable passage in Job: “Hast thou walked in the search of the depth? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?” (38:16, 17)

Letting out involuntary cries of terror (Mk) they stopped their rowing and their baling out, to stare, fascinated and scared as never before, at the awesome sight as, minute by minute, Jesus came nearer to the boat.

Just as it dawned on them that this apparition was not coming directly towards them, but meant to pass them at some distance (Mk), Jesus called out: “Take heart, it is I, be not afraid”.

Peter’s Eagerness

Peter’s response was immediate and positive: “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come to thee on the water”. In that “if“ there is no hint of doubt in his own mind. But he knew that with the rest it was different (cp. the “if” in Mt. 4:3; 27:40; Lk. 23:39). Such as Thomas would only believe when Jesus came on board.

The apostle’s eagerness to emulate his Lord’s marvellous powers has been read as rather small-minded presumption on his part. And doubtless it was so interpreted by his fellows. Surely some said: ‘Don’t be a fool, Peter. Do you have to tempt Providence that way?’ But indeed the apostle’s word deserves a better interpretation than that: ‘Lord, I know it is your very self. But let me prove it to these others’. As the next day was to show (Jn. 6:60, 66, 67), the policy and message of Jesus were now creating an unpopular reaction not only with the multitude but even with his own chosen twelve. So Peter’s gesture was not the cocky self-assurance of an egotist but a deliberate demonstration of loyalty in face of the coolness of the rest. Here also was an expression of his characteristic eagerness to be close to his Lord (Mt. 17:4; Lk. 22:33, 54; 1 Pet. 5:1; Jn. 20:6; 21:7). That his intentions were altogether admirable is also to be inferred from the Lord’s response — the single encouraging word: “Come”.

In a moment Peter’s legs were over the side of the boat, and he too, to the utter astonishment of the rest, was walking towards his Master. “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also” (Jn. 14:12). But then, a moment later, his eyes came away from the figure of Jesus and in terror they took in the violence of the wind (Mt) as it whipped the spray into the air and piled the waves as high as the apostle himself. All at once that initial burst of confidence was gone. He was no longer on the water but in it. Cephas, the stone, was sinking like a stone.

His fellow disciples saw him disappear helplessly in the tumultuous waters, and gave him up for lost in that foaming turbulence. Momentarily he fought his way to the surface, and let out a shout for help: “Lord, save me”. Forthwith Jesus was close to him, catching hold of his outstretched hand, and within a couple of seconds Peter had resumed his power to walk the waves with his Master. “When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up” (Ps. 94:18; 73:2). The time was to come when Jesus, unable to reach out a hand to rescue his apostle, would save him by a look instead (Lk. 22:61). “Christ lets us sink, but does not let us drown” — unless we want to.

Thus Peter walked, and sank, and walked again. It was an experience he was to repeat in the sequel to his great confession (Mt. 16:16, 23; 17:4), in the time of his vehement denials (26:35, 74, 75) and later in the great crisis at Antioch (Gal. 2:12; Acts 15:10, 11).

But now, as together they walked back to the boat, Jesus reproached his disciple: “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” That past tense — ”didst” — is eloquent of Peter’s marvellous renewal of confidence. The rebuke was addressed, not to his presumption in wanting to walk to Jesus on the water, but to his sudden loss of faith in the doing of it.

A Lesson to be learned

It is a lesson disciples of the Lord in this age have been astonishingly slow to learn — that the act of faith ranks highest of all in the estimation of Christ. Here is a yardstick by which a man may estimate the Tightness of his actions. Any policy which leads him to depend on faith in God rather than his own planning and worldly wishes is specially acceptable in His sight. There is much patient endeavour and dutiful service undertaken in the cause of Christ, in the doing of which the strain on faith is negligible. High above these ranks the faith, which many would call rashness or presumption, the faith which takes a leap in the dark. Whenever a man is prepared to get out of the boat and essay to walk on the water, he should not be criticized or censured, but encouraged and helped, no matter how ill-judged his venture may appear to be. The Lord did not say to Peter: “Wherefore didst thou come?” And the one who sets out to attempt any such exploit, depending on Christ, must learn also that once he is committed to an abnormal course of action, there is to be no going back, no occasion for disappointing heaven with “little faith”. Yet — note the further lesson — even in such moments of human infirmity which bring little credit to his cause, the Lord will not let his disciple down.

It is at this point in the story, when Jesus now came to the boat at Peter’s side that John’s narrative inserts a quite astonishing detail: “They were willing therefore to receive him into the ship”. The words seem to imply that up to this moment the disciples were not willing to have him on board. But as a further hint of cleavage between Jesus and the twelve (or some of them), this passage is of great value. Along with others (Study 97) it serves to show how the greatest day in the Lord’s ministry had ended with acutely strained relations not only with the multitude but also with his own closest followers.

Transformation

As Jesus and Peter clambered on board, the roar and howl of the gale ceased, and there was a dead calm. It added one more element to the impact made by all these astonishing happenings on the apostles. As though anxious to make amends for their wrong attitude hitherto, some of them offered homage to Jesus, saying: “Of a truth thou art the Son of God” (Mt). It is doubtful whether this title (anarthrous in Greek) has anything like the force of the similar phrase in Peter’s later confession (16:16). On this Alfred Morris has very neatly observed that after their Lord’s thrusting aside of royal honour, Nathanael, who was there in the boat, did not add, as in his earlier confession: “Thou art the King of Israel”.

Mark’s Greek uses every device available to picture their amazement: “they were utterly astounded (RSV) beyond measure, and wondered”. The next verse makes it clear that this was the cumulative effect not merely of what they had just witnessed but also of the earlier wonder of the feeding of the multitude: “they considered not (i.e. they did not understand) about the loaves”. They did not grasp the spiritual significance of the miracle (nor did they, next day, when Jesus expounded it in their hearing).

Indeed, until this moment “their heart was hardened”. It is difficult to see how this can mean anything except a feeling of resentment against Jesus, because, with the power at his command to work these great wonders, he was obviously determined not to fall in with their nationalistic aspirations or those of the populace.

In the midst of their bewilderment the twelve suddenly became aware that their boat was practically in port. From the details of the record (Mt. 14:24; Jn. 6:19) it is possible to infer that with all their struggle at the oars through the night, they had gained only about half a mile. Now, immediately (Jn), the rest of the trip was accomplished.

More Healing

Nor was this the last miracle in that amazing sequence. As Jesus came ashore there was instant recognition (Mk), and forthwith messengers were dispatched in various directions to inform the people in the different localities nearby (Mk). Consequently as Jesus moved on steadily to get into Capernaum itself, it was possible for those who were eager to bring their sick folk to him to have up-to-the-minute information where he might be found.

Many especially sought to be healed by getting close enough to Jesus to be able to touch the fringe of his robe (Ps. 133:2) — this because the story of the healing of the woman with the issue had gone round, and many in their superstitious ignorance assumed that this was part of the ritual to be gone through in order to bespeak the blessing of this man of God. Remarkably, Jesus did not rebuke their attitude: “As many as touched him were made whole”. Very evidently there was in the Son of man more compassionate tolerance of ignorance than would be found in many of his disciples today. The verb tenses (Mk. 6:56) are very expressive, implying that one after another the people were beseeching him that they might touch the border of his garment for an instant, and — Jesus not forbidding them — this happened time after time; and all who did so were healed. Considering the bad situation which the compassion of Jesus had brought about the previous afternoon (Mk. 6:34; Mt. 14:14), this latest willingness to give aid to those in need is an eloquent witness to the Lord’s compulsive sympathy for all who suffer.

Another Acted Parable

At this point it is worthwhile to look back over the whole sequence of events packed into this twenty-four hours, in order to recognise the marvellous fore-shadowing of greater things which it represents:

• Jesus separates his disciples by water.
• There in the wilderness they are joined by a multitude.
• He teaches and heals them.
• Then he feeds them miraculously with Bread of Life.
• It is a Passover meal ministered to them through the apostles.
• Twelve baskets of fragments are carefully gathered up — for the benefit of others not yet brought near to Christ.
• Then comes night.
• Jesus is in a high mountain, alone, and praying.
• Meantime the disciples are storm-tossed, and making no headway.
• Then, as the new day is about to dawn, Jesus comes to them walking on the water.
• As soon as he joins them the storm ceases, and immediately the ship is at the port they have been striving for.
• Recognized by the people, Jesus heals the sick whom they bring to him from all the region roundabout.

This is not just a “sign” but a whole series of signs. No other book ever written has features of this sort.

As a kind of postscript, it may be interesting to consider whether in this sequence there is room for the mis-recognition of Jesus, for Peter’s walking on the water, and for the willingness of the disciples to have Jesus in the boat.

And there should be special significance in the five loaves and two fishes.

Notes Mt. 14:22-36

22.	While he sent the multitude away. More correctly, “until”. This emphasizes the reason for getting the disciples out of the way.
	Sent away is, literally, “bade farewell”, either implying the Lord’s reluctance to leave the crowd (contrast v. 16); or that he was now losing popular support for good (Jn. 6:66).
23.	Into a mountain — to pray. Cp. other occasions of prayer: Lk. 5:16; 6:12; 9:28; Mk. 1:35.
25.	Went unto them. Literally: “came away” (from his prayer).
27.	It is I. Literally, I am. It is doubtful if there is any intention of appropriation of the Covenant Name of God. But probably, afterwards, the disciples made this association of ideas; see v. 33; Job. 9:8. Cp. Lk. 24:39 Gk.
28	In a section of the gospel where Mt. and Mk. go in step in their records, here Mk. (i.e. Peter) studiously omits the walking on the water.
32.	The wind ceased. Or was it that, as at another Passover, the crossing of the Red sea (Ex. 14:21, 30), there came a sudden dramatic reversal of what had been so adverse?

Mark 6:48

48	He saw them toiling. Cp. Ex. 3:7; Ps. 56:8.
	Would have passed them by. Cp. Lk. 24:28 and “He is risen indeed” (H.A.W), ch. 11. Here was a test for them; Jn. 11:6.
	Gk: he wished to pass by seems to contradict the very purpose of his coming to them.

Jn. 6:15

15	Again; i.e. he had been on the hillside with the crowd, then came down to the shore to see the disciples off, and now goes right away into the hills again.

It may be helpful to pause here and recapitulate, with apologies for repetition, certain significant details associated with the feeding of the five thousand.

It has frequently been observed that that miracle, a marvel provoked by Christ’s compassion for the suffering of the loyal multitude, had just the opposite effect from that which the miracle deserved; the people’s reaction was completely contrary to what he sought.

Instead of seeing in this wonder a further reason for dedicated discipleship, the crowd tried to impose its will upon its leader: “They were about to come and take him by force that they might make him king”.

Jesus, instead of finding his appeal to the people made easier, had to face afresh in an aggravated form the old temptation that he had grappled with and vanquished in the wilderness: “All these things (the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them) will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me”.

Disciples under strain

But quite as serious as the attitude of the crowd was the impact of this challenge of worldly ambition upon the minds of his disciples. The words of the gospel writers are eloquent of strain and conflict: “Straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side” — thus Mark. And John adds: “When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone” — ”to pray”, says Mark.

All the Lord’s natural sympathies were on the side of this Jewish restlessness against Roman domination. Often he must have speculated on the dramatic changes he would love to bring in if only the reins of power were in his hands. There would be a clean sweep of all the political and religious abuses which irked his spirit; the poor would be helped and encouraged by an elimination of social injustice; the great days of David would be renewed to a dispirited people; an unequalled surge of true godliness would enrich the tone of the nation. These transformations, and many more of like character, he would speedily bring about — if only he were King of the Jews.

Faced, then, with this temptation, Jesus must fall back on his best line of defence, or suffer defeat and disgrace at the hands of the Enemy.

What was to be his true calling? — social reform for the masses, or redemption for repentant sinners? Since those days many a well-intentioned disciple has been lured away into making a false choice.

Even in this emergency the Lord’s first thought was for his disciples. The terrific surge of popular feeling had already swept them off their feet. Unless they were quickly hauled right out of this roaring torrent of uncontrollable enthusiasm, they were lost men. So with peremptory gesture he hustles them into the boat before they can take active part with the forces of patriotism and unfaith. Then with hard set face and long lean stride, he breasts the mountain slope to seek the sanctuary so needful and so sure.

All this is simple inference and commonplace conclusion from the facts of the narrative.

A Continuing Crisis

This incident was only the beginning of a crisis which beset Jesus for some time to come and which nearly robbed him of his chosen band of disciples, me twelve were as eager as the multitude to have Jesus as King of the Jews there and then, and his vigorous repudiation of any such intention could well lead to estrangement on the part of these whom he would fain have to continue with him in his temptations.

There are enough hints in this part of the gospel narrative to suggest that at this particular time it was touch and go. The Lord was in serious danger of losing not only popular support but also the loyalty of his chosen few.

Walking on the Water

For instance, during that very night, whilst this band of bewildered and disappointed men bent to their oars against the gale, and argued fiercely as they rowed, Jesus came to them walking on the water, “and willed to pass them by!” Surely he who had compassion on the multitude would not be callously heedless of the toil and terror of his own. Can it be that on this occasion Jesus deemed himself unwelcome in their midst? “And when the disciples saw him walking on the water (Jesus must have been .recognized?), they were troubled saying. It is a spirit” (Mt. 14:26). But when reassured, “they were willing (John adds) to receive him into the ship”.

Why this detail in the narrative? Surely it may be taken as axiomatic and utterly unnecessary of mention that they were willing to have him with them. Is there here the implied idea-that only a short while before they would have been unwilling to have him? Were they resentful of their Master’s hopeless lack of worldly opportunism in refusing so emphatically to head a new Maccabean revolt? The text suggests something of the sort: “They understood not the miracle of the loaves: for their hearts were hardened” (Mk). When Pharaoh hardened his heart against Moses, it was not that he failed to recognize Moses’ divine mission but rather that he wilfully and stubbornly refused to conform to that mission. The twelve likewise, it would seem, were peevish about their Master’s rejection of kingly honour and dignity. They failed to recognize, because they did not wish to recognize, that the miracle of the loaves implied a teaching mission and not red revolution. Had not Jesus multiplied the food and given it to them that they might distribute to the multitude? What else could this mean?

Wavering

On the following day there was the same atmosphere of strain and estrangement’ in the synagogue of Capernaum. Jesus discoursed on bread of life, on death and resurrection: “The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world… Many therefore of his disciples, when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying: who can hear it?… From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?” His question is charged with yearning and anxiety; it speaks volumes about the indecision of these men who in that very hour should have been his strongest supporters. And the very form of Peter’s reply suggests a man frantically striving to stifle doubts by vigorous over-emphasis: “To whom shall we go? (to Barabbas?). We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the son of the living God”. How the heart of Jesus must have gone out to Peter for those words! And yet had not Peter hinted at his own doubts by the very way he began: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” So the possibility of going away was not altogether excluded from his mind.

Of one piece with all this is Peter’s unique part in the stirring episodes of the previous night; “Lord, bid me come unto thee on the water”… as who would say: These others may doubt your leadership and authority, yet will not I!

It is only when viewed in this light that Peter’s action is seen to be no braggart flouting of the commandment: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”. And how Jesus must have loved Peter for it!

Pharisee Criticism

It was immediately after these stirring events that the Pharisees made the first of a series of attempts to drive a wedge between Master and disciples. “And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen hands, they found fault” (Mk. 7:2).

Jesus sensed grave danger, and he flew to their defence with a caustic vigour not normally characteristic of him. “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men… making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye” (Mk. 7:6, 7, 13).

The outcome of this tirade was unusual if not unique in the ministry of Jesus: “Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?” (Mt. 15:12). Do you realize, they say, what you have done? You have actually made enemies of the most important people in the country. Why did you do it?

But Jesus was not to be deterred from his polemic. The hen gathering her chickens under her wings! “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Mt. 15:14).

Let them alone! Keep right away from them! This is the key to the whole situation. Jesus, feeling his lead of his disciples to be seriously weakened, was sparing no effort to save them from Pharisaic corruption.

And again it is Peter only among the twelve who is on the side of his Lord: “Declare unto us this parable”, he says. But it is as though he addressed his fellow disciples: ‘Boys, you can let your indignation against the Master cool off. He is not really talking about literal food at all. It’s another of these strange sayings of his, just a parable like the one we had after yesterday’s feeding of the multitude. And the Pharisees are upset because they have misunderstood him too!’ But well-intentioned Peter was as far from the truth of the matter as he well could be, as Jesus was soon at pains to make plain. Thus the cleavage between Master and disciples continued.

The Canaanite Woman

If Jesus was to save his little flock they must be sealed off — for a time, at least — from all these violently disturbing and subversive influences. So he led them away into “the borders of Tyre and Sidon”. And there God provided a most astonishing lesson of faith for these men whose loyalty was now strained to the limit.

A Gentile woman came seeking help for her stricken daughter. But the disciples, still seared by the flame of nationalism, were in no mood to be patient with a mere Gentile — and a woman, too! And Jesus, for a different reason, shared their sentiment. He had his own lost sheep of the house of Israel — these twelve! — to care for. And it was still fresh in his mind how his compassion for the multitude had led to such bewildering and unhappy results. “Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and to cast it unto the dogs”.

“Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs”. The ready answer which flashed at him bore witness not only to a quick wit but also to a penetrating insight. This astonishing miracle which I ask, she says, is only a mere crumb compared with what you con provide. Then what was her understanding of the full meal provided for “the children”? What else but the forgiveness of sins? No wonder that out of deep thankfulness an encouraged Jesus responded: “For this saying go thy way: the devil is gone out of thy daughter”. She had given more than she got!

No sooner was Jesus back by the lake than he found himself once more beset with crowds. And again moved with compassion, he fed the people with bread of life. In all probability these were Gentiles (Study 101), or he would scarcely have dared provoke a repetition of the difficult situation created by his earlier miracle.

The Pharisees again

After this he and the twelve crossed the sea again, only to encounter an aggressive delegation of Pharisees and Sadducees. These astute men had already grasped a truth which the disciples were loth to receive, that Jesus was not now set on kingship or any form of temporal power, and realizing that this gave them a tactical advantage they were bent on using it to the full. Hence the repeated arrogant demand for a sign from heaven.

Such a sign would be appropriate enough to an assertion of kingly authority, but it did not become his present work in Israel (Mt.12:16-21).

So he dealt with their challenge curtly, and hastily re-embarked with the twelve. Clearly enough the retreat was not on his own account but to take the disciples right away from the danger zone of these evil men with their pseudo-authority and specious argument.

Nor was this sufficient. He must needs warn them point-blank of the danger in which they stood by reason of their unwarranted reverence for these men: “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees”.

Again he was misunderstood. “And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?” Not only was there a lack of spiritual understanding but also still a stubborn unwillingness to accept his authority. “Have ye your heart yet hardened?” He was still nominally Master and Lord, but they neither did nor believed the things that he said.

Two Remarkable Miracles

It was immediately before and after this incident that there came two miracles of healing which in their details are quite without parallel in the rest of the gospels. The one is accompanied by an elaborate ritual of healing, in marked contrast to the single word or touch of power which represented the Lord’s normal method, whilst in the other the cure was gradual rather than instantaneous. Here are the words:

“And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain” (Mk. 7:32-35).

“And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit in his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly” (Mk. 8:22-25).

What are these miracles if not acted parables of the enlightenment of his blind and deaf disciples whose unseeing eyes and unhearing

ears he had lately found such a cause of personal distress? “And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened”. It was another expression of the intense and frequent prayers Jesus had offered that these, his chosen, might truly have their ears opened and their minds enlightened to understand him better.

In the second miracle there is the unusual element of gradualness. Was there something especially stubborn about this physical affliction or about the man’s frame of mind, or was the power of Jesus less intense at this time, that this cure must be wrought in stages? Hardly so.

A much more reasonable view is that Jesus deliberately did it in this way that the healing might provide a vivid picture of what at this time constituted his biggest problem and anxiety — the obtuseness of his disciples. And the gradualness of the cure expresses doubtless the Lord’s own conviction that he could not expect any sudden solution to this difficulty. The only thing to do was to persevere in a patient educating of the twelve to a better point of view. Hence the journeys to Tyre and Sidon and, shortly afterwards, to the region of Caesarea Philippi: “he was teaching his disciples” (Mk. 8:31; 9:31 — the continuous form of the verb is significant).

This very method and purpose is reflected in a further detail. In both of these miracles — and in these only — did Jesus first take the afflicted man into solitude “out of the town”, “away from the multitude”.

And another puzzling detail is common to these two miracles! In each case Jesus spat! Why? One may safely consign to the waste-paper basket the trivial babblings of the commentators about the therapeutic value of spittle or about a concessive gesture to the quack methods of the times. Already there can be no doubt that this unusual procedure (elsewhere to be found only in Jn. 9:6, another acted parable) was part of the symbolism of both transactions. What did Jesus mean by it?

In other parts of Scripture spitting is associated with shame and contempt. Nearly always it is a token of reprobation or deliberate indignity. Certainly there is no instance where it carries the idea of anything good, wholesome or praiseworthy. “I hid not my face from shame and spitting” (ls. 50:6). “The Son of man shall be spitefully entreated and spat upon” (Lk. 18:32). “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed?” (Num. 12:14).

Then in these two exceptional miracles was not the spitting of Jesus an indication of his displeasure at the continuing blindness and deafness of his disciples? How is it, he must have asked himself almost impatiently on many an occasion, that these men who have known such privileges should show such a disappointing response?

Loyal Peter rebuked

About this very time Peter was once again a comfort and a strength to the discouraged Leader. When Jesus sought to sound their opinions concerning himself it was Peter’s heartening confession of faith in the ultimate Messiahship of Jesus which provoked such a glowing response from his gratified Master: “Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona”. The words are to be read as an expression of Jesus’ profound relief that in one at least of the twelve there was faith enough to look past his recent refusal of temporal power to a future day of divine glory.

Nevertheless Peter’s zeal was not all encouragement and comfort. Within a very short time he was being sternly bidden: “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men”.

Can it be that there was more behind this remarkable volte face on Peter’s part — and on his Master’s too — than is often suspected? Jesus had begun to speak of his impending suffering and death in Jerusalem. “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee”, responded Peter with warmth and eagerness. Before Jesus rebuked him, “he turned about and looked on his disciples”. Why? Possibly because Peter in speaking for himself had spoken for all. But in that case why should the denunciation be reserved for Peter only?

It is much more likely that Peter, aware of the uncertain loyalty of his fellow-disciples — although himself in no wise sharing it, was warning: “Lord, unless you abandon all such thoughts you will soon have no disciples left at all!” The unspoken wavering loyalty of the others Jesus rebuked with a look. This well-meant but disastrous policy of expediency and compromise, now openly advocated by Peter, Jesus saw as the work of the devil.

It was immediately after this that he spoke so emphatically of the need for every follower of his to take up the cross of self, even as he, in order that there might be reward in the day of glory. First, shame and suffering, then divine glory. So it must be, for Master and disciple alike. It was this lesson above all others which his chosen few were reluctant to learn. And as in every class some pupils respond more readily than others to the lead of the teacher, so also it was with these.

Here, surely, is the explanation why Jesus chose Peter, James, and John only to be with him at the Transfiguration whilst the rest remained at the foot of the mountain. Here, too, perhaps, is a reason for the indictment of the others when Jesus rejoined them: “O faithless generation, how long shall I suffer you?” But it is difficult to be sure of one’s interpretation in some of these details.

This part of the gospels builds up a consistent picture of a group of men loyal but unhappy, following and yet protesting, believing and yet dubious, willing but at the same time resentful. “Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not?”

In three and half years Jesus made few converts. It was no small achievement that he converted the disciples. “Them whom thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost save the son of perdition”.

In this intensely busy time in the ministry of Jesus, the reader is sometimes left wondering when he found time for sleep or any kind of rest. Consider this sequence — a busy morning beset by crowds (Mk. 6:31), crossing Galilee, more teaching and healing throughout the afternoon (Mt. 14:15), the feeding of the multitude, he goes into the hills for prayer (did he snatch an hour or two of sleep also?), before dawn he walks three or four miles across the water to join the disciples, from the time of arrival in port (just about daylight?) he is beset with people who seek to be healed, and now (later the same day) he spends what must have amounted to a considerable time teaching and reasoning in the synagogue at Capernaum. As feats of physical stamina, apart from anything else, these days of Jesus take one’s breath away.

Of the great multitude who had been fed by him on the other side of the lake, many had probably continued their Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem, many more must have found their way to their own homes, but a considerable number had got back to Capernaum almost as quickly as Jesus. The overnight gale had forced many boats from the vicinity of Tiberias (not far from Capernaum on the western shore) to seek shelter on the eastern side. Thus they were available next morning as ferry boats for considerable numbers of people who, finding that Jesus had gone away, wanted to get home to Capernaum.

The Crowd puzzled

Many of these, crowding into the synagogue because they heard that Jesus had already gone there, openly expressed their mystification as to how he had crossed over from the eastern shore. They had seen the disciples go off without Jesus. They knew there had been no other boat to pick him up. They were sure he had not been ferried over during the morning, as they had been. Surely he had not walked round the northern shore in record time! How had he done it? “Rabbi, when earnest thou hither?” Surely not a passage through the water, like Moses and Joshua! They scented another miracle, and this made them keener than ever in their desire to see him King of the Jews.

Two Discourses?

From this point John frames his narrative as though reporting a long discourse by Jesus in the synagogue, interrupted by questions and objections from his hearers. Careful scrutiny reveals, however, that there are two sections which plainly belong to each other and which are altogether different in theme and style from all the rest. Omitting these, one is left with a continuous coherent discourse on the theme: Bread of Life. At the same time there is little doubt that these two paragraphs belong to the same occasion. This is shown by their common use of the refrain: “and I will raise him up at the last day “ (v. 39, 40, 44, 54).

It seems not unlikely, then — though, of course, one cannot be sure about this — that in the synagogue Jesus delivered a formal discourse which John reports in the two parentheses (v. 37-40, 44-47), and that during another part of the service members of the congregation had opportunity to ask questions and put their point of view (it is known that this was a feature of some synagogue services in ancient days).

An alternative view is that the parentheses were actually spoken to the twelve when the encounter in the synagogue had concluded. They have much that could be appropriate to such a situation. But, then, the words are also very appropriate to the attitude of the crowd in the synagogue, and this would explain why John chose to insert these two sections where he did.

In this review, for convenience, consideration of the parentheses will be omitted here and instead will be dealt with separately in the next study.

Unspiritual Attitude

Jesus ignored the people’s enquiries about his crossing the lake and addressed himself instead to their motive: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles (signs, emphasizing the meaning of them), but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled”. Of course they had seen his miracles. Indeed, by this time they had seen many of them. But they did not see them as anything but wonders. To the spiritual significance of them, as signs, they were blind.

There is both rebuke and a hint of scorn in the way Jesus put this, for he used a word normally applied to the foddering of animals, thus implying that they were interested in him only because he had filled their bellies.

It was the first of about ten allusions in this discourse to Psalm 78 (see note at end of this study) and its withering censure of the unspiritual attitude of Israel to the marvels of God’s providence in delivering them from Egypt (the first Passover) and caring for them in the wilderness.

This theme — Moses, Passover, manna in the desert — became the dominant theme in the Lord’s lengthy discourse this day. From the very first his tone was austere and reproving. The previous day’s experience had come as a mighty shock to him. It had startled him to find that the higher appeal of his teaching had made no impression on the multitude whatever. Apparently it had gone right over their heads. All they could think of was the immediate material gain which could accrue to themselves from the miracles of Jesus, and the political revolution (again material advantage!) which was bound to succeed if only they could get him to lead it.

Manna and manna

So Jesus tried hard to lift their aspirations and their attitude to himself on to a higher plane. They had just enjoyed God-given food in the wilderness. Israel’s similar experience of manna in their wilderness provided a splendid illustration: “Do not keep working or striving for the food which perishes, but for that food which lasts, continuing even to eternal life. I, the Son of man, will give you that, for I have been sealed by the Father” (6:27). The manna which Israel gathered did not last, it “bred worms and stank” (Ex. 16:20). But there was other manna which never corrupted — that which was laid up before the Lord in an earthenware jar covered with gold.

The purpose behind this incorruptible manna was “that they may see the bread wherewith I fed you in the wilderness” (Ex. 16:32). How they were to see it is explained in “Exploring the Bible” (H.A.W.), p. 91. Jesus echoed that key word in his discourse (v. 36). The lintel of the door of that Capernaum synagogue (or, just possibly, its successor) has been found. Carved on it is a representation of the pot of manna which was “sealed” before the Lord. The LXX version uses “sealed” as an equivalent for “laid up in store before God” (Dt. 32:34).

That manna and its container both represented Jesus, a man with ordinary human nature which was not ordinary, the mortal and corruptible soon to become immortal and incorruptible in the presence of the Father (and hence, of course, “the hidden manna” of Rev. 2:17). The allusion to “the Son of man” was designed to take their minds also to Daniel’s picture (7:13) of a Son of man brought to the heavenly glory of the Ancient days to share His immortality and then giving his people deliverance and an indestructible kingdom of heavenly glory (contrast Jn.6:15). “Which the Son of man shall give you” was designed to look back to Daniel 7:27: “And the kingdom and dominion… shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High”-in striking contrast with their own intentions to win freedom for themselves (Jn. 6:15).

The Works of God

But the key phrase in the Lord’s challenge was the first: “Work not…” Self-justification before God through one’s own work and efforts was ingrained in the Jewish outlook, as indeed it always has been, and still is. They were and they continue to be, “children in whom is no faith”, except for faith in their own power to redeem themselves.

In spite of Jesus’ allusion to the Messianic kingdom to be given them by their Messiah (himself), they thought only in terms of taking the kingdom from the Romans by their own efforts, just as Israel under Joshua had defeated all Gentile efforts at resistance: “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?’ — such works as were done in those ancient days.

In reply Jesus laid down the first necessary condition. Just as in Egypt the first essential was unquestioning acceptance of the authority of first Moses and then Joshua-Jesus as their God-sent leader, so now: “This is the work of God, that ye believe and go on believing (Gk) on him whom he hath sent”.

Here, and not for the first time, Jesus was presenting a new definition of righteousness which the human mind assimilates only with difficulty. It is ingrained in all human thinking, and especially in Jewish thinking, that good works are essentially unselfish activity on God’s behalf or unselfish beneficence to one’s fellow-men. Jesus, and after him the apostles, had to insist over and over again that what, more than anything else, makes a man acceptable to God is faith in Christ and in God’s Purpose centred in him. Such a faith is, in the sight of God, and therefore intrinsically, a higher righteousness than acts of pious service or humanitarian goodness can ever be.

In the more restricted context in which these words were first spoken Jesus probably meant: The first condition for national redemption is unfaltering acceptance of my authority and leadership.

Challenge

They took him up on this immediately: “What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?” After the miracle of the feeding of the multitude they had compared him to Moses: “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world” (v. 14). Now, less sure of the truth of this, they screwed up their demands for unshakable proof. Any doubts about Moses’ authority from God had been stifled by a series of shattering plagues on the land of Egypt and a mighty theophany at Sinai. Let Jesus do the same against their Roman overlords and in their presence, and they would follow him readily enough. They had had from him lots of unostentatious spiritual signs. Let him give them one massive national political sign, and they were behind him to a man.

After all, by itself the feeding of five thousand people once was hardly comparable with the marvellous provision in the time of Moses, when all Israel had been fed more than ten thousand times: “Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat”. They quoted (and misused) Nehemiah’s enthusiastic summary of Israel’s great experience (9:15), thus hinting at another deliverance from captivity, such as happened in Nehemiah’s day.

The True Bread

Jesus responded to their challenge in startling fashion; ‘It was not Moses who gave your fathers the bread from heaven, but my Father. Your Nehemiah passage says so. And that provision of food was only a type of something greater. He is now giving to you the true Bread from heaven. For this true Bread is of divine origin, as the manna was, and he is offering Life to all Israel’ (v. 32, 33).

“Bread of God” was a designedly ambiguous expression. In this context those hearing Jesus would inevitably take it as allusion to the manna in the wilderness, but in the Law the same phrase was used repeatedly for the sacrifices offered in the sanctuary (e.g. Lev. 3:11; 21:6, 8, 17, 21, 22; 22:25), and-in harmony with this idiom — the altar was spoken of as “the table of the Lord” (Mal. 1:7, 12). Thus, the discourse of Jesus was taking on overtones of sacrifice — a theme which was to come out much more strongly before he was done.

But the ingrained materialism of the people would not allow them to go beyond the most literal meaning. They had asked for yesterday’s miracle to become a permanent institution. Now, still thinking only of their bellies, with incurable unspirituality they pressed once again for unceasing bread and circuses: “Lord, evermore give us this bread”.

Two Similar Discourses

There are marked resemblances here to the conversation with the woman of Samaria. Jesus had said to her: “Whosoever drinketh of this water (from Jacob’s well) shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (4:13, 14). Here he had already warned them “Labour not for the meat which perisheth (such as Moses gave to your forefathers), but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life…“ She had begged: “Lord, give me this water, that I thirst not, nor come hither to draw”. Similarly, they insisted: “Lord, evermore give us this bread”. In reply to which he promised an appetite which was self-assuaging: “He that cometh to me shall never hunger” — just as he had assured the Samaritan woman: “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”. Doubtless John framed his reporting of these discourses specially to stress these similarities, and thus to demonstrate that spiritually the Jews were no better than Samaritans. Indeed the synagogue would soon demonstrate that they were a lot worse (6:60, 66; 4:40-42).

Greater than Moses

The Lord’s attempt to wean their attention from material advantage to the spiritual blessings he could offer, now brought about a dramatic change in the people’s attitude: “/ am the bread of life: he that keeps on coming to me shall never hunger (v. 41, 51), and he that believeth on me (as the smitten Rock) shall never thirst”. It was a point blank claim to be greater than Moses, providing superior benefits to manna in the wilderness and water from the smitten rock. Jesus brought in here what was to become one of the great words of John’s writing: alethinos, which means “true”, not in contrast to what is false or a lie, but which distinguishes between the type which foreshadows and the greater intrinsic truth to which the type points (e.g. 1:9; 15:1; 1 Jn. 5:20; Rev. 3:7, 14). The bread given by Moses, that marvel of power and loving-kindness, was only a type. The true Bread was now being continuously offered (like daily manna) by a provident heavenly Father — if only they would gather it.

Yet even as he made these claims Jesus knew that there was no hope that he would be accepted for what he truly was. Their vision of the Messianic kingdom was too mundane, too materialistic, for they had no thought of regeneration, the personal fitness qualifying them for Messiah’s blessings. So, very sadly, he added: “But I said unto you, that even though ye have seen (my miracles) ye do not believe”. The past tense “said” may be an allusion to his disapproval of their attitude, already expressed in verse 26, or — more probably — to what he had said to them the previous day because of their unsatisfactory reaction to his feeding of the multitude. It was the same reproach which he had addressed to the rulers in Jerusalem (5:37-44) because of their stubborn determination to reject or misinterpret the evidence of his miracles.

However the blunt warning left them untouched, for in their hopelessly inadequate unspiritual attitude they were reinforced by their religious leaders. At this time it was evidently the policy of these Pharisees and legalists to keep Jesus under continual supervision (Mt. 15:1; Mk. 7:1 follow on immediately from this). Possibly they even saw to it that frequent opportunity came his way to teach in the synagogues because they were confident that sooner or later his own words would so thoroughly condemn him that they would have a watertight case against him before the Sanhedrin or the Roman authorities.

Pre-existence?

Now they felt they had something to fasten on to. “I am the bread which came down from heaven” reminded them of the extravagance of his earlier claim to be the Son to whom the Father had committed all judgment (Jn. 5:22) How could they let this go without censure? So they “murmured at him”. It is the same word which the LXX uses to describe the murmuring of Israel against Moses before they were given manna for the first time (Ex. 16:6-9; Num. 11:4, 10). To the people the Lord’s assertion had meant no more than a claim to have a divine mission. The Scripture they had quoted to him: “He gave them bread from heaven to eat”, was not taken to mean that the manna had been literally brought from some heavenly storehouse by angels, but simply that by divine provision the manna was made to appear when it was needed. Similarly, the fourfold claim (6:38, 50, 51, 58) to be “bread from heaven” meant a mission and a message with God-given authority. The present tense in v. 33 is also worth noting: “He which is (now) coming down from heaven” (cp. v. 50). But Jesus as a man had been amongst them for thirty years and more. When orthodox contemporaries argue from these words for a personal pre-existence of Jesus in heaven, this is now their error may be exposed.

Criticism

But to these men of consequence, bent on pressing home a damaging criticism, Jesus was apparently claiming to be greater than Moses. By what right dare he say, “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father is (now) giving you the true bread from heaven”? Every separate phrase here horrified them. Who did he think he was? “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” They had taken good care to investigate his origins (as far as they could!). Then why should he talk as though he had some specially close relationship to God in heaven? It had been the same with the manna in the wilderness. There was, and still is, a commodity called manna produced in the wilderness — an exudation from the tamarisk tree — and Israel, seeing the heavenly food for the first time, had promptly confused it with this natural product: “It is manna (which we are already familiar with)” (Ex. 16:15). And later they were to complain; “Our soul loatheth this light bread” (Num. 21:5). Now, with the true Bread set before them, they were more than willing similarly to denigrate the gift of God. “How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?” They did not ask “Why?” but “How?”- was this mighty claim made by divine inspiration or as a wicked fraud? They had their own confident answer to this ready.

Bread of Life

Jesus rebuked their carping attitude with a reiteration of his claim: “I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and they died”. The curt phrase would quickly remind these critics why they died — because they rejected the call to faith which came to them from Jesus-Joshua (see Num. 14:7-9). With the scornful expression: “your fathers”, Jesus now rejected these faithless descendants of faithless men.

He was, he repeated, offering them true bread “which a man may eat thereof, and not die… if a man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever” (cp. Ps. 22:26). At this point they would surely realise that he alluded to his own teaching. Yet there were some among them so perversely literal-minded that they were resolved to make nonsense of what he said. When Jesus went on: “and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”, he meant, as in many other places (e.g. 7:4, 7; 12:19), the saving of the Jewish world; and he must have been so understood, or there would have been uproar in that synagogue (as at Nazareth) at mention of a mission to Gentiles.

Mention of my “flesh” in the sense of “the flesh I will provide” (v. 52) sent their minds to Israel glutted with quails in the wilderness (Num. 11:18, 31). “How can this man give us flesh to eat?”

Division

At this point contention actually broke out amongst the Pharisees present: “The Jews strove among themselves”. It is the first of a series of indications that the work and claims of Jesus had split the party of the Pharisees down the middle (e.g. Jn. 9:16, 40; 10:19-21; 12:42; 8:31; 3:2; 7:12; Lk. 13; 31?). The word “strove” normally implies physical fighting. It was probably used here by John to remind his readers that it was “two men of the Hebrews striving together” (Ex. 2:13) which led to Israel’s rejection of Moses so that his experience foreshadowed “the reproach of Christ” (Heb. 11:26).There is an acute appropriateness about the inclusion of this detail here, for — as the rest of this Passover record goes on to make very clear-this discourse on Bread of Life proved to be the turning point in Christ’s ministry.

“Flesh and Blood”

In his reply to their niggling objections Jesus pulled them abruptly away from an over-literal interpretation of his words: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you”. None of them could be such a fool as to take him literally now. But the words jarred on their minds, for had not the Law dinned into them that God would “set his face against that soul that eateth blood”, for “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:10, 11)? Yet four times over Jesus insisted that eating his flesh and drinking his blood is the only true life (v. 53-56). What did he mean?

The expressions “the flesh” and “flesh and blood”, both of which were used by Jesus in this discourse, occur often in the New Testament in a non-literal sense. “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven”, Jesus was to say to Peter after his confession (Mt. 16:17). “Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood… but I went into Arabia”, wrote Paul in reminiscence of his early days in Christ (Gal. 1:16). Here allusion to literal flesh and literal blood is out of question. ‘Human nature’ is what is meant.

Similarly, “the flesh”, by itself, often signifies the weakness and frailty of human nature (cp. 1 Jn. 4:2, 3). Romans 8 is a chapter with lots of clear examples; “Them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit…they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh…the mind of the flesh is enmity against God…we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh…” and so on.

So, when Jesus appropriated these expressions to himself, he was first of all declaring the wonderful truth that, although Son of God, he truly and fully shared fallen human nature with all its innate propensity to evil. In this way he took the curse of Adam’s race upon himself (Heb. 2:14, 18; 4:15).

But yet there was a difference, for in Christ’s human nature — his flesh and blood — sin met its match. His was a flesh and blood where righteousness triumphed. And in his resurrection flesh and blood became transformed into incorruptible divine nature.

Against this background of ideas, the idiom used by the Lord to his wilfully blind critics clearly meant that the only way to life is to forsake ordinary flesh and blood for Christ’s flesh and blood — to let go the nature one is born with in exchange for the new nature which he offers. As Jesus was born of both human and divine parentage, and was called to live a life in which flesh and Spirit were always at odds, so also the new-born disciple of Christ finds himself with a comparable double nature. From the time that he is born again, flesh and spirit contend for the ascendancy.

Then, for a man to “eat Christ’s flesh, and drink his blood” is to assimilate and share the kind of flesh-spirit life which he himself lived (cp. the idiom in Ez. 3:3; Jer. 15:16; Pr. 9:5; Rev. 10:9, 10). That was a life in which the Spirit was victor. This too is a life of similar victory — what Jesus himself called “eternal life”, such as is assured of resurrection at the last day (v. 54).

The True Life

There is no other way to “eternal life” and resurrection. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (v. 53). It is not sufficient that Jesus shall have “taught in our streets” (Lk.13:26). It is not sufficient to have eaten the symbol of his flesh countless times and to have drunk the token of his blood. It is not sufficient to belong to the right community — Israel were the Covenant people, but “your fathers did eat manna, and died: it is he (the individual believer) that eateth this bread that shall live for ever” (v. 58).

A man eats food for one of two reasons. Either he is in desperate need of it to keep himself alive, and he craves it above all else; or he eats out of pure enjoyment, because the food is so pleasant to his palate. Both of these have their place in the proper partaking of the Bread of Life. As is the natural, so also is the spiritual. The first motive dominates, but graduates into the second.

“These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum” (v. 59), and thereby bade farewell to present success in his ministry. The decision was taken. The crowd wanted him for his wonders and miracles and the physical benefit they got from them. But there must be an end to futile appeal to superficial multitudes. From now on he would concentrate on the faithful remnant who were willing to take his message to themselves with intense personal seriousness. They would learn to “eat his flesh and drink his blood” by appropriating to themselves the life of self-denial which becomes life indeed.

The strange phrase just quoted was used by Jesus four times in quick succession (v. 52-56); and “meat indeed…drink indeed” means true spiritual reality by contrast with symbol or type, such as the manna or the smitten rock.

There can be little doubt that Jesus chose to use this figure which he employed with such eloquent repetition because he now foresaw that the outworking of his ministry could have only one result—failure, rejection, shame and death. His flesh was to be given for the life of the world.

By one simple device John bade his readers see the miracle of the feeding of the multitude, and this discourse springing out of it, as carrying deep sacramental significance. In his account of the Last Supper he has omitted any record of the actual institution of the memorial rite, which the synoptists all give in detail. Thus he bids his readers go back for its equivalent to “the place where they did eat bread, offer that the Lord had given thanks” (v. 23).

	Psalm 78		John 6
7,32	The works of God	28,29	The works of God
8,9	spirit not steadfast…went back	66	Many…went back and walked no more with him
11	Forgot his wonders	26	Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles
18,19	Asking meat for their lust. . Can God furnish a table?	30,31	What sign shewest thou?…Manna in the desert
20	Bread…can he provide flesh?	35,52	I am the Bread of Life…How can this man give his flesh to eat?
22	Believed not in God	36	Ye also have seen me, and believe not.
23	Opened the doors of heaven	33	He which cometh down from heaven
24,25	Manna…the corn of heaven	31,32	Manna…the true bread from heaven
29	They did eat, and were well filled	26	Because ye did eat…and were filled
31	The wrath of God upon them	49	Your fathers…died
36,37	They lied unto him…	34	Lord, evermore give us this bread
39	Flesh…a wind (spirit) that passeth away	63	The flesh profiteth nothing… the words that 1 speak they are spirit and they are life
41	They turned back…and limited the Holy One of Israel	66	Many went back
56-72	(A prophetic parable of the selection of “David” and the casting off of Israel)	69	RV. The Holy one of God

Notes: Jn. 6:22-59

23.	After that the Lord had given thanks. The phrase became a kind of technical term in the early church for the
	Breaking of Bread. Here it prepares the way for v. 53-56.
	The Lord. In John this title is used only in 4:1; 6:23; and the Resurrection record. Why? Were the two earlier places seen as foreshadowing Baptism and the Breaking of Bread, both of which have their roots in the Resurrection?
25.	Rabbi. They were in the synagogue; v. 59. But note the deterioration of the people’s attitude to him — from v. 25, 34 to v. 41, 42, 52, 60, 66, 71.
27.	Labour not (cont. v.) for the meat which perisheth. They were already hungry again.
	Shall give unto you; v. 32, 51; 4:14.
	Sealed. The word also carries the meaning consecrated; Rev. 7:3; 9:4.
30.	Believe thee. There is a subtle difference between this and the normal phrase: believe into.
33.	He which cometh down from heaven. The Gk. is ambiguous. It could read: “that which”, with reference to the manna; hence v. 34; cp. v. 31, 50.
36.	Seen me. This verb very commonly refers to the experience ot seeing divine power at work.
42.	We know. This present tense sorely implies that Joseph was still alive.
48.	Bread of life. Note the sequence:
	v26	Loaves
	v32	Bread from heaven
	v33	Bread of God
	v35, 48	Bread of life
	v51	The living Bread
50.	Cometh down from heaven. This continuous present tense strongly disallows of any “pre-existence argument being based on this verse or its context: cp. v. 33.
51.	The living bread. Here there is sharp contrast, of course, with the corruptive manna.
	My flesh, cp. 1:14. The synoptists’ equivalent is “body, blood”.
53.	No life in you; 15:4; 20:31.
54.	Eateth my flesh. Here and in v. 56, 57, 58b Jesus switches to a different word for “eat” to indicate a sacramental partaking of Bread and Wine, which otherwise goes without specific mention in John’s gospel. Only in this way is the omission to be explained. A contrasting word for “eat” is used in v. 58a.
56.	Dwelleth in me, and I in him. One commentator over aptly says: “We abide in him because we are his members: but he abides in us because we are his temple”. See 1 Jn. 3;24; 4:15,16 — both places referring to the Breaking of Bread (see “First Epistle of John”, by H.A.W.).
56.	The living Father. The heavenly Father has eternal life, and therefore I have eternal life; so whoever abides in me has eternal life.
57.	Sent me. See on 1:6.
	Live by the Father…by me. In both places, “because of”; i.e. because of the redeeming Purpose initiated by the Father and being fulfilled in the Son.
59.	In the synagogue. Probably a mid-week assembly, for would such a crowd have crossed Galilee on a sabbath?

The second part of this discourse contains a number of features hardly appropriate to the present mission of the twelve. There are warnings of bitter antagonism, of Gentile persecution, and of the break-up of families brought about by the gospel. Even life itself might be in danger. All this makes a different picture from that of delighted success which the disciples had to talk about when they came saying: “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name” (Lk. 10:17; 22:35-37).

So, very probably, it is correct to conclude that, according to his usual method, Matthew has assembled here other words of Jesus spoken in the Olivet prophecy and at other later occasions (cp. v.18-21 with Lk. 21:11-15; Mk. 13:12), including maybe otherwise unreported discourses of the Forty Days after his resurrection. This assembling together of material on a common theme without regard to chronological sequence is characteristic of Matthew. It is well illustrated by his chapters on miracles (8, 9) and also on parables (13).

It is advisable, then, to bear in mind that most of what now follows was intended by the Lord as exhortation and guiding principles—verses 16-23 specially for the Twelve, and the rest for disciples generally when they would be called upon to face much bitter opposition and would not have the heartening presence of their Lord to fall back on.

Warning against Enemies

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep (Lk: lambs) in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men…” (v.16, 17). These are telling similes. They compress much valuable advice into few words. But the first and most ‘surprising thing of all is that Jesus sent his followers out on this mission, knowing them to be lambs! Here is his answer, by anticipation, to those who would insist that before a man can become a missionary for Christ he must learn the job by slow patient application in more sheltered fields. There is little or no sign that the apostles acquired ability for the work in this way. The impression given in the gospels is that they were, so to speak, thrown in at the deep end. When in faith a man is prepared to take Christ at his word, the Lord does not leave him in the lurch.

As in not a few of the Lord’s parables, there is an element of unreality about this figure of speech, for it can have been but rarely that a sheep found itself in the midst of a pack of wolves. But it would not be an uncommon thing for one wolf to be ravaging a flock of sheep (Jn. 10:12). However, the figure was true enough to the spiritual circumstances.

But although these men went in their simplicity and inexperience, they were warned to be on the alert against evil in all its insidious forms: “Be ye wise as serpents”. Careful readers of the Genesis story will have noticed that the serpent insinuated doubt in the mind of the woman by simply asking questions (Gen. 3:11). It is a method which might well be copied, for a better purpose: Be as wise as the serpents you encounter, but as harmless to others as the Holy Spirit is (e.g. in my miracles). One writer has well observed that in time of danger the serpent’s first care is to provide protection for its head. As is the natural, so is the spiritual. When under attack, the Lord’s missionaries will first be on guard for their Head-the well-being of the cause of Christ will be their first concern. And all the guile of the most subtle beast of the field will be necessary, for antagonism will come from men, who ore the Serpent. Circumstances, however adverse, are not to be feared. But men are not as persecutors, but as a spiritual peril.

Paul weaves an unmistakable allusion to this saying of Jesus into what is almost a running commentary on the serpent in Eden:

Both Jesus and Paul were fearful that the Fall in Eden would be just as disastrously repeated in the New Creation. And it was.

Jewish and Gentile Persecutors

“They will deliver you up to councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues”. Unlikely as it may seem, this came literally to pass. “I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee”, Paul was to remind his Master in later days regarding that evil time when Benjamin ravined as a wolf (Acts. 22:19; Gen. 49:27). And it was even earlier than that when Peter and the others had their first taste of the bullying and browbeating which a Jewish council could lay on (Acts. 5:29-41). But the very fact that Jesus spoke of his men being punished in the synagogues for their faith carried with it the implication that they were to use the synagogues as their best opportunity of witness. Instead of an extreme separation, which would set the brethren inside their own spiritual stockade, they were to go on being Jews, but always witnessing fearlessly concerning Jesus their Messiah.

The warning: “Beware of men: for they will deliver you up (s.w. betray; v. 4, 21) to councils”, strongly suggests that the Lord foresaw much evil arising from secret enemies within the ecclesia, a kind of ‘fifth column’ working for the enemy (cp.13:25, 28; Gal. 2:4; Acts 20:29; and many other passages of this character).

A staunch insistence on Truth meant that clashes with Gentile rulers were also inevitable: ‘Ye shall be brought before governors and kings (the Caesars) for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles” (cp. Ps. 119:46). This was, of course, one of the main reasons, though by no means the only one, why Christ would allow his infant church to face the afflictions which hostile unbelievers were to bring upon it. There is good reason to believe that the main purpose behind Paul’s “Caesarem appello” was to provoke a test case which would establish the legality of the Christian Faith in Roman law.

In all such circumstances there was to be no paralysing anxiety as to what argument or evidence it would be best to advance, nor in what style it should be put forward. “It shall be given you in that same hour (as it was to Moses; Ex. 4:12) what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father, which speaketh in you”.

This is stated quite explicitly to have been the experience of Peter (Acts 4:8) and of Stephen (6:10; 7:55). Paul also knew and claimed it for himself: “I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words pf truth and soberness” (26:25). In the New Testament and the LXX the Greek word translated “speak forth” invariably carries the idea of inspired utterance (or a false claim to inspiration, and that of course would be unthinkable in Paul’s case).

It has been very wisely observed that if God would guarantee His servants a Spirit-guided utterance when they were on trial for their Faith, He would all the more certainly guide by His Holy Spirit the writing of the fundamental documents of the early church … gospels, history, epistles with authoritative rulings on doctrine and Christian behaviour. So this promise is in itself a firm evidence of the inspiration of the New Testament.

The Test — then and now

Hatred and persecution, Jesus promised, would come to be the normal lot of his followers (Is.66:5). Within a hundred years “Away with the atheists” and “The Christians to the lions”, became familiar cries. But today there is practically no sign of this persecuting spirit. Then it was palpably true that “he that endureth to the end, shall be saved”.

What “end” did Jesus refer to?

a.	The end of life — saved in the day of resurrection; v. 28.
b.	The end of the Jewish age — saved from the tribulation of A.D. 70; 24:16, 21.
c.	The last days — saved from its horrors.

Which of these? Or some other “end”?

Today a man is dragged away from his faith in Christ by more subtle means than violent persecution. No longer is his power of physical endurance put to the test. But his ability to stand up to the softening influences of material prosperity, his dogged holding on to faith in face of cocksure scientific gnosticism, his integrity in resisting the eroding effects of a civilisation gone morally rotten — these are the insidious tests provided by cancerous foes which destroy the red corpuscles in his blood and rot the marrow of his bones.

So today, as then, it is still true that “he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved”. Today, perhaps more than ever, “blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me”.

The church of Christ today could well do with the bracing tonic of persecution. Nothing is more obvious than this. Yet it would be wrong to seek or to provoke hostility. In the early generations, before the time of Constantine, there came surges of almost hysterical enthusiasm for martyrdom. Christians foolishly courted it, prayed for it, and resisted reasonable attempts of their brethren to save them from the worst.

“Flee”

The precept and example of Jesus were all against this, “When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another” (v. 23). He did this himself when rebuffed by a Samaritan village (Lk. 9:51-56). When bitter hostility erupted in Nazareth or in Jerusalem, he got .away as quickly and quietly as possible (Lk. 4:28-31; Jn. 8:59; 10:39, 40). When the Sanhedrin resolved on strong measures against him, he promptly moved out of their territory (Jn. 11:53, 54; but contrast Jn. 10:11-13, when there is a flock to be cared for).

So the early brethren were right when they “scattered abroad” because of the persecution raised by Saul of Tarsus (Acts 8:1). And they were right in insisting on the hasty and even undignified flight of Paul when the Jews were after his blood: “the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket” (Acts 9:25). “The brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea” (17:10). On both occasions it was obviously very much against the inclination of Paul’s ardent nature. However, there were plenty of other cities to preach to: “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come”.

But when silence became the price to be paid for safety, then was the time for the disciple to be resolute, no matter what the danger: “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye: for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts.4:19,20). And when flight was of little use, because the same hostility in high places was to be met with everywhere (as happened eventually in the Roman Empire), then there was nothing for it but to stick one’s toes in, and doggedly testify regardless of consequences. Is it conceivable that such circumstances should happen again, in the twentieth century?

Like Master, like servant

Jesus added an observation which was doubtless intended to be of special comfort to his followers in time of trial: “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord”. Since Jesus himself had already encountered no little censure and contumely, and was to suffer much more acutely in the days ahead, it was only to be expected that his followers, lacking his personality and power, would be treated with contempt (Jn. 15:20).

Jesus added, with a marked touch of irony: “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord”. Enough, indeed! And since the verb here really means “become”, his point is all the more pungent. As though the disciple could ever become as his Master in anything! Filling up that which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ (Col. 1:24) is about the best that he may aspire to. Not that there was anything lacking or inadequate about his sufferings. But there is a good deal lacking even in the sufferings of a Paul, denying them comparison with all that Christ endured. Then how much more must this be true for any other disciple! “If they have called the master of the house Baalzebub, how much more shall they call them Baalzebub who are of his household?” (Mt. 10:25). Nowhere do the gospels record that the Lord’s critics got so far as actually calling him Baalzebub, but evidently they had found no difficulty in escalating from the original contemptible smear (Mk. 3:22). These enemies being so much less in awe of the follower than of the Leader, it must be evident long before trials ensue that disciples can expect only short shrift from their persecutors.

Unflinching Witness

This discouraging prospect notwithstanding, they were never to flinch from their greatest responsibility of taking the message about Christ to all people everywhere: “There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops” (v. 26, 27). Paraphrased, this would appear to mean: ‘There are important truths which I have not been able to teach you as yet, but in due time all these will be made known to you. And then, what you thus learn through my private instruction and the guidance of the Holy Spirit you must make known fully and freely to all!’

“What I tell you in darkness”, may be an allusion to the Shekinah Glory of God shining forth to the high priest on the Day of Atonement in the darkness of the Holy of Holies. In that case, “speak ye in the light” continues the idea, with reference to the high priest going forth to pronounce to the assembled people the blessing of sins forgiven. Certainly, the gospel now entrusted to the disciples was a message every bit as gracious.

The parallel commandment: “What ye hear in the ear, that proclaim ye upon the housetops”, followed by the Lord’s triple exhortation to “Fear not them that kill the body,” is apparently built on the corresponding message in Isaiah, written originally to strengthen Messiah, that he might “set his face like a flint” and “not be ashamed”: “He wakeneth me morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious…Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his Servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God” (ls. 50:4, 5, 10). The next chapter continues: “Fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings…I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die…and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor?” (51:7, 12, 13).

The similarity of theme here to the encouragement Jesus now offered to the preachers of his gospel is very evident through all this section of the prophecy.

“Fear them not”

The perspective in which the Lord taught the disciples to view the most extreme forms of persecution provides a sterling test of faith: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul”. Very bluntly these words say: ‘Death does not matter. Men cannot take away your life for ever. Therefore do not fear them even for a moment’.

In sharp contrast to this: “Rather, never cease to fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”. The common misuse of these words in easily exposed by the answering of a simple question: Where is the body destroyed? Answer: In the grave. Then this defines the Gehenna of which Jesus spoke. And the “soul” is destroyed there also. The words mean that he (Jesus) can and may destroy a man’s life utterly in the grave, by sending him to it for ever. “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:18). This means that Jesus has the authority not only to unlock the grave and bring forth whom he chooses, but also to lock the grave eternally on those whom he reprobates. He only is to be feared, and then only regarding the exercise of this power.

But fear of “man that shall die” is a blatant breaking of a thrice-repeated commandment (v. 26, 28, 31). Fear even of the horrors of persecution is a sin. Since the greater includes the less, and the ungoverned excesses of religious animosity are among the most extreme evils human nature is capable of, it follows that ideally the disciple of Christ should be able to go through life completely free from fears or anxieties of any kind. Fear and the life of faith are incompatibles.

“Two Sparrows for a Farthing”

Jesus proceeded to make his point afresh by means of a telling illustration: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father”. On another occasion, with similar intention Jesus said, “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?” (Lk. 12:6). These tiny birds were of such trivial value that, if you bought two farthingsworth, they threw in an extra sparrow as ‘this week’s special’. Yet the life of even such an unimportant creature is in the hand of God. Jesus did not say that God would keep that tiny sparrow from harm. But he was at pains to emphasize that nothing of good or of evil (as it might seem to our limited human judgement) could come to it without the will and control of God.

It may be that Jesus had in mind especially the two birds which were to be used in the ceremony of the cleansing of a leper (Lev.14:4-7). In that ritual one of the birds was slain, whilst the other went free, although daubed with the blood of the first one. Even the apparently unimportant decision as to which bird was chosen for death and which for life was a thing altogether in the hand of God. “Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows”. Then, in all circumstances of adversity or opposition, let the disciple lean on his faith and relax in the over-all control of Almighty God. Even in the worst situations fear is out of place.

Time and Chance?

The somewhat odd viewpoint is met with from time to time: True, God knows about the sparrow falling to the ground, but He does not control it. This is one of the trivialities of life which He leaves to “time and chance”.

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that such a philosophy of life is not only altogether foreign to the spirit of these words of Jesus, but it is also quite without support in the rest of the _v Bible. The only passage ever cited to reinforce ‘such a viewpoint (Ecc.9:11) is misused, as its ij context and a careful examination of the word „ translated “chance” very conclusively demonstrate. (For more detail on this, see … “Through Patience and Comfort of the Scriptures” by H.A.W. ch. 1,16).

In every way possible Jesus sought to inculcate an unflagging confidence in the overruling wisdom and power of God. Far from being unimportant and providentially derelict, as the tiny sparrow might appear to be, the exact opposite is true. A long chapter at the beginning of the book of Numbers preserved before God an enumeration of the tribes of Israel coming out of Egypt. A quick glance confirms that the tribal totals of this Chosen Race are rounded off to the nearest fifty. With the chosen in Christ such a scale of accuracy is altogether inadequate: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered”. This is the way the Lord’s redeemed are taught to think of their place in the purpose of God. In time of hardship or persecution it is a philosophy of inestimable value, and not only then, for it disallows that there can be anything in the experience of the saints in Christ too small for the notice of God, too trivial for His providence and guidance.

Personal Witness

But this unlimited confidence in the leading of God is one side of a reciprocal relationship: “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven” (v. 32). The implication of the Greek phrase is: “confess faith in me”. It would be a mistake to consider this as applicable only to those who are preachers of Christ’s gospel, or—with even more circumscribed reference—to those whom he personally appointed and sent out. The repetition of these words in other contexts in Luke and Mark shows that they have far wider reference.

There is no escaping the responsibility laid here on all who would follow Christ. The worthwhile disciple is a talking disciple, one eager to use every opportunity, however, meagre, for witness to the faith that is in him. Clandestine Christian is a contradiction in terms. It is a poor ungrateful faith that keeps itself to itself in return for the forgiveness of sins and all the other countless blessings which a man enjoys in Christ. More than this, such an attitude is foolish, for faith is a quality which feeds on testimony to others as much as on the fellowship which others give.

The build-up of emphasis in the Lord’s repetitions of this Christian duty is most impressive: “him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven” (Mt. 10:32); “him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God” (Lk. 12:8); “I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels” (Rev. 3:5 — combining the preceding two); and negatively: “Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and my words, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels” (Lk. 9:26).

This dreadful converse to the promise of heavenly recognition has present force as well as omen for the future (Mt. 10:33). The logic of it seems to be that there may be many a well-meaning disciple of Christ who goes unacknowledged before the throne of heaven because of his own marked unwillingness to make open avowal of Christ. “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you”. This is the Lord’s own Lex Talionis.

Division

It is, of course, because confession of the name of Christ can have unpleasant consequences that most of the Lord’s men have to struggle against their own reluctance to make known their faith in him. The gospel which tells of peace with God and which should be received by all with joyful eagerness somehow succeeds in stimulating opposite reactions. This is because there is a “bad news of the kingdom” about human nature, which often provokes intense resentment. “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (v. 34). Jesus spoke not of the intention behind his ministry, but of its consequences.

Plenty of the Lord’s followers know how the challenge of the gospel has led to bad feeling in families: “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law: and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (v. 35,36). The words are a straight quotation from a rather obscure passage in Micah (chapter 7), which turns out to be one of the most detailed and complete and impressive Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament. Jesus did not cite the words because they happened to express tersely the idea in his mind; he used them because they were inspired by God to tell beforehand the great work of the Messiah.

The Law of Moses has a rather frightening instruction how to deal with the beginnings of idolatry: “If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying. Let us go and serve other gods… thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him…but thou shalt surely kill him… because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God” (Dt. 13:6-10). But now-the irony of it!-when disciples went to their fellows with the Word of everlasting life, the salvation of their souls, they would experience an almost unbelievable inversion of the commandment. They, with the Hope of Israel on their lips, would have brought against them all the worst rigours of the Law’s penalty for idolatry.

Jesus himself had already found that they of his own household, although doubtless very well-intentioned, had done him and his cause serious damage (Studies 75, 77). Moses had had a like experience, through the jealousy of Miriam and Aaron, and also of Korah and his fellow rebels. There is reason to believe that the apostle Paul knew the same bitter discouragement (Phil. 3:7, 8).

In some families, Jesus foretold, hatred of his name would be so intense as to dry up all spirit of kinship. Rancour and opposition would displace family affection: “Brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father the child: and children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death” (v. 21). In this century extremes of this kind are rare. Nevertheless, it would be possible to compile an impressive dossier of those who have proved the truth of the Lord’s prophecy of rejection and despite by family and closest friends because of the gospel.

This family cleavage for Christ’s sake (the Lord went on) would be accentuated by love of the Truth as well as by hatred for it. He laid it down with almost brutal clearness that if a choice has to be made, then his claims must come first, no matter how strong the ties of family affection. He put the issue in the most comprehensive way possible: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (v. 37). This is a hard saying, by which Jesus tacitly set his own authority higher than the Fifth Commandment. He was echoing the call of Moses after the sin of the golden calf: “Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me”. To those who responded, Moses said: “Put ye every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour”. But now Jesus required the spirit of self-consecration which would treat as secondary those loyalties and affections which are normally of highest intensity and value in a man’s life.

Self Denial

Indeed the disciple must be prepared to say an emphatic “No” to the strongest instinct of all — his own self-love: “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me is not worthy of me” (v. 38). Even before Jesus ever spoke to them plainly about the vile end to which the plotting of the rulers would bring him, this challenge which he made to them would carry a terrible meaning. In those days most people had seen, at some time or another, condemned men being led through the town to be crucified at its Golgotha. Picture, then, a long line of Christian “criminals” with Jesus himself at their head, each of them — like their Leader — carrying the cross on which self is to die in agony and wretchedness. The crowd stares fascinated, some in pity, others shouting their contempt or hatred, but hardly a soul disposed to help them in their plight. Yet they are content to be as they are, because they wish for no other Leader than the one have. They are satisfied that the servant should be as his Lord.

It was an austere challenge truly, which Jesus made to these men of his, that each take up his cross daily (Lk. 9:23). Yet how much more grim and repelling it would appear when they witnessed from “afar off” (Lk. 23:49) just what this meant for Jesus himself. But how heartened they became to respond to his challenge when they saw him alive again on the third day, thus adding meaning to the exhortation: “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (v. 39).

Just as the allusion to bearing the cross of self did not mean the disciple’s literal crucifixion, so also here. The follower of Jesus is called upon to “lose his life” without necessarily having to die. For whilst this Greek word psuche normally describes a man’s natural life, it is also used not infrequently for the propensities, affections and appetites which characterize “flesh” rather than “Spirit”. This, primarily, is the “life” which a man is called upon to put away. Indeed, except he do so, he loses all: “He that findeth his life shall lose it”. What the world would deem a full, rich, satisfying existence is really selfishness. Concentration of ambition and effort on that can end only in utter loss.

The aorist tenses in which Jesus couched his ultimatum strongly suggest the idea of decision, as though giving point to the idea, that, at some time in life (and this not necessarily on the occasion of one’s baptism into Christ — it may be long after that), a deliberate choice must be made between aspirations which Jesus himself esteems and those which are illicit.

The Lord’s Envoys

Jesus now rounded off his exhortation and warnings with an amazing declaration of the high status of his disciples. Even though they should be scorned, despised and harassed by critics and persecutors, and even though called upon to forego all pomp and circumstance in favour of the regimen of a simple life, they must not forget their standing and high privilege in the sight of God: “He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me” (v. 40). The reason why there came such blessing on the new ecclesia in Thessalonica was that they received the word of God from Paul “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God” (1 Th. 2:13). The Galatians similarly “received him as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus” (4:14).

The further expansion of this principle now given by Jesus is susceptible of more than one interpretation: “He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward” (v.41). This might mean that he who receives the message of the gospel from one of Christ’s men, recognizing it for the divine message which it is, shall receive the reward which only the Truth can bring into a man’s life. The widow of Zarephath gave her widow’s mite of food and hospitality to Elijah, believing him to be a true prophet of Jehovah, and was blessed for her faith and generosity (1 Kgs. 17).

Or can it be that Jesus was enunciating for the benefit of his ecclesia in later days the spiritual equivalent of the principle David had laid down for Israel’s campaign: “As his share is that goeth down to the battle so shall his share be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall share alike” (1 Sam. 30:24)? All too easily it can be overlooked that this holds good in spiritual activity for the Lord also. Not all are equipped to be front rank exponents of the Truth of Christ. Nor are all as well endowed as others in opportunity, disposition or circumstances for a life prolific in good works or witness for the Lord. Nevertheless it stands true that when a man uses his time and ability well and worthily in Christ’s service, even though he have no more than one talent to work with, his reward shall be comparable to that of the best.

Even a cup of cold water given to one of Christ’s “little ones” (Mt. 18:10) for the specific reason that they belong to Christ (Mk. 9:41), shall most certainly have due recognition from God. It was for this very reason — a cup of cold water-that David’s men (2 Sam. 23:16) have their place for all time in the Book of Holy Scripture. Jesus now says: ‘What those heroes would do for their great king you are to be ready to do for the least of my disciples’.

This is also the Lord’s re-statement of the promise made to Abraham: “I will bless them that bless thee” (Gen.12:3). Christ’s disciples are the true Israel of God, the most important people in the world. Almighty God takes notice of the disposition of men towards His chosen, and He deals with them accordingly.

Notes: Mt. 10:16-42

16.	Harmless as doves. In Rom. 16:19 Paul’s specific interpretation of this phrase appears to be: Uncontaminated by evil company in the ecclesia!
20.	The Spirit of your Father. .Cp: “l will give you” (Lk. 21:15; 12:11, 12; 2 Cor. 13:3; Pr. 16:1).
21.	Children. The term of special affection! Jesus may have used these phrases in the sense of spiritual fathers and children, as in 1 Jn2:12-14.
22.	From v. 23 this surely applies to saints in Israel.
	He. The pronoun is emphatic: he and no other.
23.	One of the problem passages of the N.T., raising too big an issue to be discussed here. See “Revelation”, by H.A.W., p. 259ff.
24	Lk. 6:40 has a very different context.
25.	It is enough. Cp. the irony in Mt. 6:34; 1 Pet. 4:3 s.w.
	Baalzebub. The name Baalzebul means ’master of the dwelling’ — hence the Lord’s phrasing here.
27.	Note Jn. 18:20, Christ’s own memorable example.
	The version in Lk. 12:2, 3 has future tenses, to be read as Hebraistic imperatives, like the Ten Commandments.
28.	Fear him, as in Gen. 31:42.
29.	In Lk. 12:6, “forgotten” seems to come from Ps. 9:18.
32.	Confess before my Father, as in Jn. 17:9. Mark the sharp contrast between Rev. 3:5 and 3:16.
38.
39	A few examples of this use of psuche: Lk. 12:19; Acts 14:2; Heb. 4:12; 1 Pet. 1:22; Rev. 18:14. And now consider: Jn. 10:15; 1 Jn. 3:16; Mt. 26:38; Jn. 12:27; 15:13.
40.	The sayings in these verses are remarkable for the number of separate occasions Jesus said them:
	v.38: 3 times: Lk. 9:23; 14:27.
	v.39: 4 times: Mt. 16:25; Lk. 17:33; Jn. 12:25.
	v.40: 5 times: Mt. 18:5; Lk. 10:16; Jn. 12:44; 13:20.
41.	A righteous man. This is added because there are false prophets as well as true.
42.	There is a suggestion that these verses belong with v. 5-15, whilst v. 16-39 are part of a later discourse
	A cup of cold water. Contrast Rev. 3:15.
	His reward. Yet this is not to be the motive for the kindness, but: “in the name of (i.e. because he is) a disciple”.

It was a strange complex of historical events which led to the tragic death of John. One of the sons of Herod the Great, Herod Philip, spent most of his life in Rome. He married Herodias, his niece, the sister of the Herod who had the apostle James put to death. Another son of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, who (under the Romans) was the ruler of Galilee, fell in love with Herodias and lured her away from her husband. But this marriage meant abandoning the wife he had already. She went back to her father, Aretas, the king of Arabria Petraea. War followed between the two kings, and Herod’s army suffered a disastrous defeat.

These events boiled up soon after the baptism of Jesus. John deemed it his duty to rebuke Herod for his flagrant disregard of the Bible’s principles of marriage. Such blatant evil, coolly practised by one of its rulers, was not likely to be without effect on the morals of the nation. How could John call the Jews to repentance and at the same time appear to ignore this wickedness in high places? So he not only denounced the king’s behaviour to the crowds who assembled to hear his preaching, he also somehow gained access to Herod’s presence and rebuked him to his face.

John a prisoner

There was no doubt in Herod’s mind that John was a man of outstanding holiness. More than this, he probably believed him to be a prophet of the Lord. But the inevitable and implacable resentment of Herodias had to be appeased somehow, so Herod had John arrested and

thrown into prison in the fortress of Machaerus (Mt. 4:12; 11:2). It seems likely (Mt. 17:12; Mk. 8:15) that the Jewish rulers supported Herodias in bringing influence to bear on Herod. After John’s open denunciation of them (Mt. 3:7), they had no love for the prophet, and would be glad to see him out of the way. Josephus says (Ant. 18.5.2.) that Herod feared John’s influence over the people. That was probably the official reason for John’s imprisonment.

All this happened eighteen months or more before John’s execution. Tristram, a late-19th century traveller, claimed to have explored the ruins of Machaerus and to have found two dungeons with “small holes still visible in the masonry where staples of wood and iron had once been fixed. Presumably one of these was where John spent many miserable months.

The wrath of Herodias was far from being appeased. Mark’s vivid phase means “she had it in for him”. At the very least she wanted John put to death (Mk. 6:19). Herod was willing to do this (Mt. 14:5) in order to please her, but he dare not because of John’s great reputation with the people. The text seems to imply that Herodias made attempts to get rid of John, but these failed because “Herod feared John… and kept him safe” (Mk. see RV).

From time to time John was brought out of his cell to discourse to the king. With unbroken spirit he kept on insisting: “It is not lawful for thee to have her”-on two counts: this was adultery, and it was a union specifically forbidden by the Law of Moses (Lev. 18:16).

Evidently John made such an impression that Herod “did many things” (Mk) which John commanded, but it was not in him to get rid of that “whorish imperious woman”.

Nevertheless, with a strange inconsistency, “he heard John gladly.”

A Second Elijah

The entire situation, bizarre in the extreme, bore an amazing resemblance to the experience of Elijah. Herod was like Ahab — well-intentioned and outstandingly able, but weak and corrupt and quite under the thumb of his unscrupulous wife. Herodias was every bit as masterful and vicious as Jezebel, and just as determined as her colourful prototype to advance the influence and power of her husband. In later years her efforts in that direction were to bring about his ruin and exile. Elijah escaped the wrath of his Herodias by the skin of his teeth. John was not so fortunate.

Although the text does not say so explicitly, it looks as though all the circumstances leading up to John’s death were carefully and cunningly contrived by this implacable adversary.

For nearly two years Herodias nursed her resentment and schemed for revenge. There could be no comfortable married life with her unlawful husband until John was out of the way, for he activated Herod’s conscience too much and too often for comfort.

Birthday Celebration

At last her patience and persistence were rewarded, and her lust for revenge was fully satisfied.

The Bible mentions only two birthday parties, and both of them were thoroughly pagan in character — as of course, almost all birthday parties are to this day, instead of being occasions of thanksgiving to God and opportunities for re-consecration to His service.

Herod’s birthday was celebrated with a feast and a drinking party with his nobles and the representatives of Rome (Mk. 6:21 RVm) who, of course, must always be flattered and consulted. The tables and divans are to be imagined as set out to form a large square. Into the midst of the assembly came Herodias’ daughter, to entertain them with her dancing. This item in the party was not a sudden inspiration on the girl’s part, but one may be sure — carefully schemed and prepared for by her mother. At this time Salome (Shalom!) would be about sixteen. It is known that she had two husbands within the next five years.

Salome’s Reward

The character of the dance and the quality of the appreciation of it may well be imagined. The tipsy king was moved to ridiculous extremes of enthusiasm for Salome’s lewd performance. “Ask what you like as a gift from me, and you shall have it—to the half of my kingdom”. He was not too drunk to have the wit to compare himself to the great Persian king Ahasuerus granting lovely Esther’s request, even to the half of his kingdom (Esther 7:2). But he had sufficiently lost control of himself to go on repeating the fantastic offer, reinforcing it with a wild variety of Jewish and pagan oaths as they came to mind (Mk. 6:26 RV).

In high delight Salome danced away to her mother to ask how she should best take advantage of the king’s munificence. And so completely was she under the domination of Herodias that she was even prepared to fall in with the horrible scheme now put to her. No doubt, over the past year or more she had been cleverly and thoroughly brain-washed by Herodias into a hatred of John the Baptist almost as cold and bitter as her mother’s.

So, without a moment’s loss of time, so that Herod should have little opportunity for second and wiser thoughts, back she went to the banqueting hall. “I want here, right now, the head of John the Baptist on a dish”.

Herod trapped

The horror of the demand brought Herod nearer to being sober than anything else could have done. He was deeply sorry that through his own folly the life of John was now forfeit. More than this, he was vexed that he had allowed himself to fall into what was now clearly seen to have been a carefully contrived trap. In his dilemma a really strong man would have said: “No! what you ask is more than half my kingdom. Put some other request”. And most of those reclining there would have concurred with the decision. By their silence those who could have protested but didn’t made the crime theirs also. But doubtless Herodias had amongst the guests special friends who were acquainted with her evil scheme and she would insist: I “Herod, you have sworn! You cannot go back!” So since Herod was really a weak man, and a I rather fuddled weak man at that, trying to appear strong, he spinelessly concurred, and gave the necessary instructions.

There is here a remarkable similarity to the situation Pilate was to find himself in a year later. He, too, was a weak character who, wishing to spare his victim, nevertheless gave way to external pressure. Like Herod, he granted a feast-time boon, and was trapped by his own offer, so that, very reluctantly, he had to order execution.

Beheaded

It was only a matter of minutes. In the dungeons down below, John, mystified but resigned, said his brief prayer of faith and submitted his neck to the reluctant axe of the executioner. There was a moment of horror as that austere face looked down on Herod .Antipas for the last time, and then the maiden bore away the ghastly reward of her lascivious performance, that her inhuman mother might feast her eyes in triumph on the head of her enemy. Here the gospels describe the “damsel” by a word which suggests “raven”, the ghoulish unclean bird of prey. She was her mother’s daughter! And Herodias, so Jerome records, pierced with a skewer the tongue that had bluntly spoken the divine rebuke of her wickedness.

Not for nothing do the gospels choose an unusual word for Herod’s “birthday”, Classically it meant “a feast in honour of the dead”. Here, surely, is one of the Bible’s most mordant examples of dramatic irony.

The feast went on, but as a birthday party jt was ruined beyond repair. The story of it went round the Roman Empire. One scholar has pointed out that there is an almost certain echo of it in the writings of Persius who died about A.D. 60.

Herod, it may be guessed, spent the next day in recriminations against his wife, in self-excuses, and in religious devotions in the hope that the God of Israel would not make him answer for it.

Disciples of John, who had been permitted to visit him in prison almost as they liked, learned, when next they came to the prison, of the ghastly fate that had befallen him. There was no difficulty about getting custody of the body — and of that gory severed head. (If the head of John had been kept as a grisly memento in the castle, would Herod have considered the possibility of John rising from the dead?) These remains of their revered leader they carried away, perhaps to the family tomb, and, interment completed, they went with haste to tell Jesus.

John and Jesus

It was very soon after this that the impressive stories about Jesus now came repeatedly to Herod’s notice. Hitherto the king had not taken Jesus very seriously.

Now he began to wonder about the prophet of Galilee and his possible connection with John. Various popular guesses were reported to him.

Some who believed (mistakenly) that Elijah had been taken away to heavenly glory said about Jesus: “Elijah has been manifested” (Mal. 4:5).

Others, less definitely, conceded that he might be some other OT prophet, perhaps inclining to identification with Samuel who was famous for his institution of the schools of the prophets. Jesus and his group of preaching disciples seemed to follow the same pattern. And did they not read in Holy Scripture (again, mistakenly) that the dead Samuel had appeared to king Saul, so perhaps John would reappear to Herod.

Herod was a Sadducee (cp. Mk. 8:15 with Mt. 16:6), with a cynical contempt for the widely-held belief in the resurrection of the dead. But he had heard John discourse on this aspect of the purpose of God. And now the sensational accounts reaching him about Jesus combined with his uneasy conscience to give credence to a popular speculation which made nonsense of his Sadducee scepticism: “John has been raised from the dead”. Was there a family likeness between John and Jesus which encouraged this idea?

Herod fastened on this suggestion, and kept on talking about it. How could two such remarkable men appear within weeks of each other? “John I beheaded” (in his self-reproaches he made no excuses), “but who is this of whom I hear such things?” (Lk).

The guess crystallised out into a firm opinion: “It is John whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead”.

Thereupon Herod made repeated efforts to see Jesus (Lk).’ He wanted to see some of the startling miracles he had heard about (Lk. 23:8). More than that, he wanted to say: “It wasn’t really my fault.”

But Jesus, made aware of Herod’s purpose, kept well away, and left Herod to his sleepless nights.

Manaen

How came the gospel writers by the remarkably intimate detail which this account of John’s death includes?

Almost certainly the explanation lies in the mention (in Acts.13:1) of Manaen the teacher in the early ecclesia who “had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch”. There is evidence that this Manaen was probably the son of a rabbinic family which enjoyed the favour of Herod the Great. Then, again probably, he is to be seen as the source of much of the detail in this vivid narrative. He would be present when John and Herod talked together. Through him disciples of John would get permission to visit their leader in prison. It would be through his mediation that these disciples were given John’s body for burial. And it would be to him that Herod would express the doubts and speculations in his mind about Jesus.

Notes Mt.14:1-12

3.	Philip. Not the Philip of Lk. 3:1. But for this one mention in the gospels, this Philip is an unknown quantity.
8.	Instructed. What a sharp contrast with Dt. 6:7 LXX which has precisely the same word.

Mk.6:14-29

20.	RV: much perplexed is tempting, but lacks really good textual support.
	Gladly; s.w. Pr. 9:17 LXX.
23.	Unto the half of my kingdom. Thanks to the evil influence of Herodias, later in life Herod was to lose all his kingdom and suffer banishment to Gaul.
25.	The Gk. text has “the head of John the Baptist” at the end of the sentence as a very dramatic climax.
26.	Exceedingly sorry. Vexed, annoyed; cp. Jn.21:17; Rom. 14:15; Mk. 3:5; Mt. 14:9; 18:31; 17:23; 26:22. It was also used classically for “harassed” (with reference to guerilla warfare) Mt. 26:37; Mk. 10:22; 1 Pet. 2:19.

Seven times in the synoptic gospels, the spring and source of the miracles of Jesus is said to lie in his compassion. It was this which impelled him to extend to sufferers the wonderful divine help which he had the power to give.

In six out of the seven instances, either he pitied the wretched condition of stricken people brought to him or else he felt impelled to bring help to those afflicted by hard circumstance. It is worthwhile to list these, noting the special factors in each case.

1.	There was the leper who followed Jesus into the house, and kneeling before him, shewed his sorry plight, asking in faith for healing. Jesus responded immediately, showing his deep sympathy by the additional and quite a unnecessary action of touching the man’s disfiguring defilement (Mk. 1:41).
2.	Next was the ineffable comfort given to the widow of Nain when her only son was given back to her. “Weep not”, said Jesus, making a clearly implied promise that she should soon have grounds for joy and praise in place of mourning (Lk. 7:13). In the next minute that sorrowful lonely figure was transfigured with a gladness she would not have thought possible.
3.	The two miracles of feeding the multitude are both singled out as examples of the visible compassion of Jesus for the crowd in its distress. Mt. 14:14 tells how, when he crossed the Lake with the twelve, to get them a way to peace and quiet, vast numbers of people followed them round the shore, many even labouring under great difficulties to bring their sick and suffering friends to Jesus. Consequently when he came ashore from the boat, already there were many awaiting him, hoping pathetically that he would use his wonderful powers for their benefit. Without any of the vexation which might well have been warranted, Jesus responded to their prayers and gave the help they craved.
4.	Some time later it was the Lord’s tender feeling for a tired and hungry multitude which led to the feeding of the four thousand: “I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat. I do not wish to send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way” (Mt.15:32). His sympathetic imagination saw not only their present need but also their hardship and misery before they got back to their homes. There was nothing for it but to provide food in large quantity, and at once. And this Jesus did in a way that amazed them all.
5.	The next example followed immediately after the Transfiguration. At first it seemed that Jesus was showing himself to be anything but compassionate. When told about the epileptic boy whom the apostles had failed to heal, he kept the poor distraught father there answering questions whilst the boy rolled on the ground in a violent fit. At last the tortured parent burst out with an appeal there was no thrusting aside: “If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us” (Mk. 9:22). Both father and son were suffering terribly, in different ways. It was an appeal beyond the power of Jesus to resist, even had he in wished to do so. The poor man’s honesty iH about his present mixed-up state of doubt f’i and faith made further delay out of question. As the attack left the boy unconscious and apparently dead, Jesus lifted him up and gave him back, perfectly well, to his father.
6.	Last in this group is the healing of blind Bartimaeus and his blind friend. Their piteous cries as Jesus passed on his way were not to be gainsaid. So, called to the Lord, they told their story, and their faith. Full of pity for their plight, Jesus did what they asked, touching their eyes so that they might know for sure that their healing came from him (Mt. 20:34).
7.	The Lord’s enemies, quick to note how strong his sense of pity for sufferers was, actually traded on it in such a way as to apply a kind of spiritual blackmail-on a sabbath. They deliberately planted in front of him a man bloated with dropsy (Lk.l4:l,2). Jesus’ solution to such a challenging situation was masterly. All the foregoing examples have to do with the physical distress or hardship of those on whom Jesus took pity. There was in him a tenderhearted appreciation of the plight of these afflicted people which made it impossible for him to turn a deaf ear to their pleas for help or to move heedless away from the sight of their suffering.
8.	The remaining example, like one of those already listed, comes in the story of the feeding of the five thousand, but it concerns the spiritual need of the people: “Many ran afoot thither out of all cities, and out went them, and came together unto him. And Jesus when he came out (from the boat) saw much people, and was moved with compassion towards them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things” (Mk. 6:33, 34). The answer to this need was not more miraculous healing, but instruction. And although Jesus had crossed the lake hoping for rest and relaxation for himself and the twelve, his compassion for hungry sheep looking up unfed was a more insistent imperative. Their need was greater than his own.
9.	Like Father, like Son. This overmastering pity of Jesus for men in need was not to be excluded from his parables, where in two instances out of three it is the dominant characteristic of Almighty God forgiving helpless men their sin and bringing them freely and graciously into His favour. There is the parable of the unmerciful servant who pleaded quite impossibly: “Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all”. The response was immediate, and far surpassing even the most abnormal standards of human mercy: “The lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt” (Mt. 18:26, 27). The bad reaction of this fortunate man was as evil as it could have been. It serves, however, to throw into relief the loveliness of the loving-kindness shown to him. It spotlights the compassion of God.
10.	Similarly, in the parable of the prodigal son, a typical human father would have said: ‘He is an ingrate and a waster, a selfish sinful fool. He is my son no longer’. Instead: “when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him” (Lk. 15:20). It is the same irrepressible divine love forthe undeserving.
11.	In another equally eloquent parable the same story is told. The man who fell among thieves was left helpless and hopeless. Then “a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him” (Lk. 10:33). A superb selfless rescue operation followed. The spring and motive power of it all was .. this surge of compassion for one in dire “ need. Thus the key phrase sums up all that Jesus, the Samaritan Saviour, did throughout his ministry and in the climactic suffering to which it led. All his preaching and teaching, all his works of healing, all his patience and personal example, and all that he endured in pain, torment and shame at Golgotha sprang from a deep dominant feeling of pity for helpless men who must be helped. Must!

Jesus now began his last appeal to the northern areas of Galilee and Decapolis. This was to occupy the last few months up to the Passover before he died.

He “went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people” (Mt). The words are almost identical with those describing his earlier campaign in Galilee (4:23).

It is noteworthy that he did not despise the villages, as being too small to provide him with a substantial audience. His policy in this respect is in marked contrast to that of Paul who concentrated, almost without exception, on the big cities of the empire. But of course Paul was not evangelizing a relatively small country; he was set on scattering the seed as far and as fast as possible, knowing that his team of young and enthusiastic helpers were well capable of nurturing the growth.

Jesus likewise had need for vigorous reinforcement of his efforts, and, recognizing this, he set about the training of the twelve.

Both the physical and spiritual condition of the crowds besetting him everywhere moved him to compassion, “because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd”.

The gospels’ word for the Lord’s compassion comes very rarely indeed in the OT, the outstanding place being Pr. 12:10: “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast”. Did Matthew write with his eye on a figurative use of this passage? His sheep metaphor suggests this. So also does the word “fainted’ — literally, ‘flogged, the very word that would be used colloquially today for a worn-out horse. And “scattered abroad” is, more precisely, thrown out’. It has been suggested that this was a sabbath year, bringing shortage of food and lack of employment—hence the specially large crowds and their marked distress.

The sheep-and-shepherd figure was also an allusion to the way in which Joshua-Jesus was appointed to take over the shepherding of Israel from Moses (Num. 27:17; cp. also Mt. 10:6; Ez. 34:5, 23; Zech. 10:2).

Jesus pitied the people the more, seeing their evident physical symptoms as significant of their inner spiritual distress. Earlier in his ministry he had pressed the need upon his disciples: “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are’ white already to harvest” (Jn, 4:35). Nearly a year later the need was still the same — the harvest plenteous, the labourers few (Lk.10:2). The words seem to imply that Jesus was always on the look-out for likely recruits.

So now he bade the twelve take it as their own personal responsibility, first of all by praying about it: “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest” (Mt.9:38). It was another indirect appeal to them to prepare their minds for this work, rather like God’s indirect appeal to Isaiah: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (6:8). And Isaiah was quicker in response than the twelve were.

But, Jesus reminded, the harvest belongs to “the Lord of the harvest”. No attempt must be made to bring it in except on the initiative of the Heavenly Farmer. It must be He who sends forth (the Greek word is a strong one) workers into His field.

Disciples become apostles

It may be taken as fairly certain that the disciples did as Jesus bade them. They prayed about it (no doubt wondering whence God would raise up the right kind of men for onerous urgent work of this sort), only to find a day or two later that, much to their astonishment, they were the “labourers” appointed for God’s harvest in Jewry. Their Master called them aside and proceeded to commission them for their first efforts in this new and exhilarating and rather frightening work. Hitherto they had been disciples. Now, as he “began to send them forth by two and two” (Mk), they were to be apostles. It is possible that “began to send” is meant to imply that the twelve were not all sent and returned at the same time but that this was a continuous process spread over a period, with apostles constantly coming and going.

A not unimportant aspect of this undertaking was its value as training and experience for the twelve as well as the added impetus to the Lord’s ministry.

Now, just as Israel had six cities of refuge (Num. 35:6) and a central altar also for refuge {Ex. 21:13, 14), there was a message of mercy not only from Jesus but also from six pairs of preachers.

First, the Lord endowed his men with divine powers of healing like his own. Perhaps, in token of this, he laid his hands on them or maybe breathed on them, as on a later occasion (Jn. 20:22). This temporary gift of the Holy Spirit power was imparted, doubtless, because he could not be with them in person during this work. The more lasting endowment in later days was for the same reason (cp. Jn. 16:7). Matthew uses (not by accident, one may be sure) the very words with which already, twice over, he had described the miraculous powers of Jesus: “healing all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases among the people” (4:23; 9:35; 10:1). And evidently (Mk.6:13) he instructed them to associate their healings with an outward sign — the anointing with oil — which was in no way necessary in his miracles.

Detailed instructions

Then, systematically, came their instructions: who to preach to, what message they were to proclaim, the vindication of the message, their own personal equipment, how their needs would be met, how to face up to seeming failure. The details are both interesting ana full of instruction for modern preachers of the gospel.

They were to go in twos (Mk. 6:7), the number which has been called the Lord’s ideal committee! (Ecc. 4:9, 10; Ex. 4:16_; Josh. 2:1). This, in any case, seems to have been the natural grouping of the twelve. In the various lists, the names appear to fall readily enough into pairs.

They were to keep strictly to Jewish localities and to seek only Jewish audiences. At present their message was not for Gentiles, nor for Samaritans, even though they had known their Master relax his own rule in these respects. This restriction was a concession to Jewish prejudice. If, at this stage, equal or greater effort was made to win those whom the Jews deemed to be outsiders, there would soon be insurmountable walls of resentment and prejudice between the chosen race and the gospel which they needed as much as anybody in all the wide world, for, as Jesus was careful to emphasize, they were lost sheep (Mt.10:5, 6) every bit as much as the rest.

In this ministry of the gospel the prior rights of Israel were not to be gainsaid. Abraham was God’s Friend. “Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do?”, God had said (Gen. 18:17). And in Jesus’ day He would still have it so. There was little likelihood that the apostles, with Jewish pride almost as strong in them as in any of their fellows, would forget this principle. “Unto you first”, declared Peter emphatically to the crowd in Jerusalem, “God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you” (Acts. 3:26). To you first!

So also Paul and Barnabas: “It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you (Jews): but seeing ye put it from you… lo, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts. 13:46). The Lord’s word to the twelve remained an imperative to preachers of the gospel after his ascension. Paul never forgot to go first to the synagogue.

The Kingdom “at hand”

The theme of the preaching was almost taken for granted by Jesus. It was to be, of course, the kingdom of God. No definition here, for the apostles had known this message from boyhood; and the Jews also, to whom they were to preach, knew it, for was it not the theme of many an inspiring prophecy in their ancient Scriptures? But most in Israel assumed that their share in the wonders of the Messianic kingdom would come automatically just because they had the blood of Abraham in their veins. They had little idea that it was conditional on their own personal response to the good news of the kingdom. That opportunity was now. Faith in the message and a clear-cut personal decision of loyalty to the King now in their midst were of paramount importance. The later part of the Lord’s instructions would make this truth almost brutally clear.

But in what sense was the kingdom “at hand”, for in its fulness the kingdom has not come yet? At least four alternative explanations offer themselves:

a.	If Israel repented, the Messianic kingdom would very shortly be established (Elpis Israel p.301; Nazareth Revisited p.16).
b.	The King of the kingdom is soon coming in person, following up our mission (Lk. 10:1).
c.	The powers of the kingdom are being displayed before you (Lk. 10:9, 11).
d.	Become part of Christ’s New Israel, and you are thus citizens of God’s kingdom (Ex. 19:6; Rom. 14:17).

Healing

In the exercise of the gifts of healing committed to them the twelve (including Judas!) were to be as lavish and open-hearted as they had seen their Master to be. And the reason: “Freely ye have received, freely give”. Since the context here is specifically the use of healing

powers of the Spirit, this would seem to imply that at least some of the apostles had personally experienced the blessing of instantaneous cure by Jesus. Yet the nearest that is known to anything of this kind is the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law when she was struck down by a fever. But it is possible that Ps. 35:13, 14 is a prophecy of how special healing came to Judas!

Evidently the twelve were instructed to exercise their healing power through the symbolism of anointing with oil (though, rather remarkably, there is no instance of this practice being used by the Lord). Here is the simple solution of a difficulty in Jas.5:14: “Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord”. The “church” referred to here was the church in Jerusalem; its elders were the apostles. Note the context — the forgiveness of sins.

No doubt Jesus meant his words about free and generous use of healing power in more than one sense, for it is very evident in many a place in the gospels that he saw his own miracles as acted parables of the spiritual regeneration which he sought to impart also.

No elaborate provision

There is also something symbolic about the instructions regarding the equipment of the preachers: “Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves.” The scrip was either a preacher’s collecting bag, or a kind of rucksack. Josephus mentions (Ant. 17.5.7) that the wearing of two coats was not uncommon. The Lord’s evident intention was that the preacher should not go in dependence on his own strength or resources, much less in an acquisitive spirit, but with faith in God’s providence and confidence in the power of Christ. And in this life of faith they were never let down (Lk. 22:35).

Mark’s version reads: “a staff only”, as though these disciples were to regard themselves as leaders of a new Exodus (Ex. 12:11). But a further detail in Luke unfolds a different idea: “and salute no man by the way” (10:4). When the Shunamite woman came to Elisha pleading for the restoration of her dead child, the prophet sent his servant: “Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not; and if any salute thee, answer him not again: and lay my staff upon the face of the child” (2 Kgs. 4:29). So the Lord’s men were to regard themselves as sent to raise the ‘dead’ — not by their own power, however, but with his

Some writers have made quibbling comparisons here between the gospels, relating to “contradiction” between Matthew’s and Luke’s detail: “no staff”, and Mark’s “a staff only”. The suggestion just made, that they were to see their mission as a conscious extension of that of Gehazi, may help. The staff each disciple took with him was not his own but his Master’s, the symbol of an authority greater than his own. And in the light of Mk. 6:9, “neither shoes” (Mt) probably meant “no spare shoes”. Some expositors suggest a distinction between “take… a staff only” (ie. the one you already have) (Mk) and “provide (ie. acquire)… nor yet staves”. (Mt).

Dependence on God, and not on their own resources, was made the more explicit by the emphatic mode of speech: “neither gold, nor silver, nor brass, in your purses”. Thus the Lord warned against the covetous spirit of Gehazi (2 Kgs. 5:20-23).

It is no easy problem to decide what, if any, should be the influence of such an instruction on the outlook and methods of a twentieth-century preacher of the gospel. There is little danger of over-literal application of this precept, any more than one might be disposed to insist on the use of a staff or the wearing of sandals. But it has to be confessed that the Lord’s preachers in this era have not been outstanding for their exemplification of even the spirit of the words. It is an aspect of the work where there is room for more faith and less of the hard scheming and planning more characteristic of modern business than of the early church.

Hospitality

Jesus added reassurance. God does not hold back the wages of his workers. ¹ He does not allow his faithful servants to starve: “the labourer is worthy of his hire”. These words, as they come in Lk. 10:7, are quoted by Paul in 1 Tim. 5:18, being introduced by the words: “For the scripture saith… “ Thus, even before Paul died, he could quote as a familiar Scripture a passage from Luke’s gospel. This implies very clearly not only that Luke’s gospel was in circulation before A.D. 66 but also that it was recognized as inspired Scripture alongside Deuteronomy which Paul quoted with it. The point is valuable as evidence of the early authority of the New Testament.

In another place (1 Cor. 9:3-15a) Paul expounds at length the principle that there is nothing amiss when preachers of the gospel receive salary or subsistence for their labours.

Filling out this promise of all needful subsistence for his preachers, Jesus went on to explain how God would provide. The apostles would soon find by enquiry who were the outstandingly godly people in any town or village they came to, and they were not to scruple about asking for food and lodging there. They could do this with untrammelled conscience, knowing that they brought with them a far greater blessing than the blessing they themselves sought.

The instructions to the Seventy added also this: “And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give” (Lk. 10:7; cp. Acts. 16:15; 17:5-7; 18:7). In later days, when the gospel went further afield, this counsel would help solve a very tricky problem for the Lord’s evangelists. Not infrequently they would find themselves in Gentile cities and with only Gentile hospitality open to them — this increasingly, as Jewish hostility to the gospel slammed doors in their faces. In such circumstances, Jewish preachers were to forget their Jewishness and live with Gentiles as Gentiles (cp. 1 Cor. 10:27).

But they were not to go “from house to house”. Jesus knew human nature well enough to foresee that no little social mischief might follow from activities of such a nature. Instead, then, “there abide till ye go thence”. By the end of the 1st century abuses made nonsense of this commandment: “If he stay three days, he is a false prophet” (The Teaching of the Twelve, an uncanonical writing).

There should be a formal invocation of God’s blessing on the home offering hospitality: “When ye come into an house, salute it” (Mt) saying, “Peace be to this house” (Lk). It needs to be recognized that in the vast majority of places where this word “Peace” is used in Scripture, it does not mean absence of strife but “peace with God” (ch. 50). Thus the greeting “Shalom” is a most meaningful benediction, and no trite formality: “And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it (Num. 6:23, 26, 27b): if not, it shall turn to you again” (Lk). This can only mean that, just as the bringing of the ark of the covenant imparted perceptible blessing to the house of Obed-Edom (2 Sam. 6:11), so also warm hospitality to those carrying the gospel message was bound to bring the grace of God upon the home that offered it.

This is a principle which must be just as valid today, though it is probably no exaggeration to say that it is rarely thought of in this age. But, then, what servant of the Lord today thinks to invoke a specific blessing from God on the home that offers shelter in Christ’s name? There is teaching here which has, in more ways than one, suffered grievous neglect.

Sullen reception

Jesus continued his commission in a different strain: “If the house be not worthy, let your peace return to you” (Mt)—but, let it be emphasized, without personal bitterness or resentment. Again, behind these words lies a reality of experience. This is no empty platitude. The form of the verb here seems to point to an attitude of mind in one who finds that he is no longer welcome. Then without resentment or bitterness, but with his “peace” returning to him (Ps. 35:13), the preacher is to go elsewhere.

Where, however, there was open refusal to hear the gospel, then: “Go your ways out into the streets, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you” (Lk cp. Lam. 2:7). Some open act of reprobation was not only permissible but a solemn duty, as Jesus was to show in his apostrophe against Chorazin and Bethsaida (Lk. 10:13-15). Apparently, at Antioch in Pisidia, Paul and Barnabas did this in a very literal sense: “They shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Spirit” (Acts. 13:51) — that is, their peace returned to them again.

This act of reprehension had a mordant symbolic meaning behind it. The Law of Moses required that when a house was leprous, the very dust of it must be scraped off and shaken off without the city in an unclean place (Lev. 14:40, 41). Thus the preacher whose message was rejected was to declare openly the unclean and incurable condition of those who despised the word concerning Christ. “Notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you”.

In intensely ominous words Jesus underlined the dire tragedy of such rejection of the Good News: “Verily I say unto you (the disciples), it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city”. Here again, as in so many places, Jesus was condensing the teaching of the prophets. Isaiah had warned that it was only the existence of a faithful remnant which had saved the “men of Sodom” and the “people of Gomorrah” dwelling in Jerusalem. In the time of the decay of the kingdom, Ezekiel and Jeremiah had sought in vain for a man of rightousness to stand in the breach, that God should not destroy the Land, and had found none (Ez. 22:30; Jer. 5:1). So, “the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment” (Lam. 4:6). The just judgment of God will operate in like fashion in the last day, warned Jesus, against men who scorn the message of those bringing the gospel of peace. And if rejection of the gospel after a brief encounter with a learner-preacher brings a judgement comparable to Sodom’s, what of those who obstinately resist the Truth of Christ for half a life-time?

The sombre note injected here into the apostolic commission was doubtless an element in the Lord’s effort to convince the twelve of the greatness of the work now entrusted to them. They were not going as proselytizers, they were not just preachers, they were bearers of a message of Life. A gracious God was using them, untutored Galileans that they were, as His ministers of redemption. Perhaps also these solemn warnings expressed the Lord’s forebodings that the present wave of popularity would recede. It was not possible that a nation which had flouted the message of the prophets would be capable of any radically different attitude to the claims of the Son of God.

Notes: Mt. 9:35 – 10:15

35.	Sickness; s.w. Dt. 7:15. Such deliverance a promised blessing for faithfulness.
1.	Gave them authority etc. and this applied equally to Judas!
5.	Not to the Gentiles — with the implication: Not yet, but later. Cp.the implication in 5:17 that in time the Law would pass away.
6.	Lost sheep. Gk. text implies: they have chosen to get lost. Yet still Jesus is compassionatel
11.	Enquire — who is worthy. Jesus himself did not do this when he came to Jericho. But the fact of Zaccheus in a fig tree told him all that he needed to know.
12.	When ye come into an house. Exp. Gk. Test, suggests not just for hospitality but for preaching; in other words, a home mission; cp. Lk. 10:4.
13.	Not worthy. The Gk. is rather sardonic here.
14.	Not receive you, nor hear. Two inseparable attitudes. Even a fine harvest (9:38) may have thistles in it.
	Shake off the dust. Alternatively, is the figure that of a traveller removing irritating grit from between foot and sandal?
15.	The day of judgment; Lk. 10:12: “in that day”. Cp. Mt. 7:22; 1 Cor. 3:13; 1 Th. 5:4; 2 Tim. 1:12, 18; 4:8.

Mk.6:6-13

7.	Power over unclean spirits is paralleled in Lk.10:9 by “heal the sick”.
9.	Sandals; ie. not shoes, such as the more prosperous might wear.

Lk. 10:1-12

4.	Salute no man. Or, was the Lord alluding to 1 Kgs. 13:9, 16 and its outcome?

All three synoptic gospels record an occasion when Jesus returned to his home town along with his disciples (Mk), and preached in the synagogue there. But there is considerable disagreement as to whether Matthew and Mark are describing the same incident as Luke. There are certain striking similarities-his teaching in the synagogue, the astonishment of the people, their allusions to Jesus as being well-known among them, the Lord’s sardonic reference to a prophet without honour among his own folk, and their ultimate rejection of him. Normally these would be adequate to justify equating the three records. But there is a chronological difficulty. Matthew and Mark set this incident well on in the ministry — in the middle year-whilst Luke has it as the first detailed incident offer the temptation. Even Matthew and Mark are at variance in their placing of this Nazareth incident.

Two considerations lead to the conclusion that Mark’s order of events is to be followed: 1. Even in Luke 4 there is an indication that there had been considerable activity earlier in Capernaum: “Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country” (v. 23). The phrase “as his custom was” (v. 16) confirms this. 2. There is evidence that both Matthew and Luke sometimes abandon chronological order for the sake of a different emphasis in line with the aim and purpose of their gospel. Matthew assembles his material according to topic. Luke also rearranges incidents, though it is not always easy to see with what intention. Perhaps he set this at the very beginning of his account of the ministry because he intended it to be read as a typical sample of the reaction of the nation to the preaching of Jesus, or maybe to explain why Jesus moved his centre of operations to Capernaum (see also Study 27).

There was not a little interest in the town when it was known that Jesus the carpenter was back home and that he was to take the synagogue service on the ensuing Sabbath. “As his custom was” may describe his attendance at the synagogue, for through a period of eighteen years he had never been out of his place there; or it may refer more specifically to his “standing up to read” (though this happens to be the only place in all the Bible where Jesus is spoken of as reading). More likely, the expression alludes to the normal pattern of his preaching at this time in his ministry-a public message delivered by invitation of the ruler of the synagogue.

A gracious Scripture

“There was delivered unto him the roll of the prophet Isaiah”. The Greek word here implies that this followed the routine reading from the Torah. And he found and read the gracious prophecy in chapter 61, because that was appointed for that particular sabbath according to the standard synagogue lectionary of the time- in which case this was the third Sabbath before the Feast of Tabernacles.

As he concluded the Scripture portion and returned the scroll to the chazzan, the entire congregation became the more expectant when

he made to occupy the preacher’s seat: “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him”. Their ears also were eager to catch every word when he startled them with his exordium: “Today is this scripture fulfilled in your ears”.

It seems very likely that at this point he launched into a detailed exposition of what Isaiah 61 was about. His reading of the passage would be from the Hebrew text, with a translation in Greek or Aramaic improvised verse by verse or when it was concluded. The version given by Luke follows the LXX text verbatim nearly all the way, but has a significant addition: “to set at liberty them that are bruised”, culled from Isaiah 58:6. Here is a plain hint that the discourse of Jesus did not stick solely to the original passage. However, this was his main theme. It is worth careful investigation.

Jubilee

The historical setting of Isaiah 61 is one of outstanding interest. The only national observance of the Year of Jubilee recorded in the Old Testament is that which was appointed by God as a sign to Hezekiah of divine deliverance from the Assyrians: “Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof” (2 Kgs. 19:29). More than this, it was to be a sign of the release and return of the 200,000 captives Sennacherib had carried away from the cities of Judah: “And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward”.

It was to this that Isaiah alluded, by the Spirit of the Lord which was upon him: “liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound… the acceptable year of the Lord… that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations… For your shame ye shall have double (blessing)… in their land they shall possess double (harvest)” – according to the promise in Leviticus 25:20,21.

Besides all this, Jubilee was a time when Jewish bond-servants were released from service by their fellow-Jews. And since this time of blessedness came in at the Jewish New Year, it was right and proper that in later generations the synagogue lectionary should appropriate this Scripture for one of the sabbaths just before the Day of Atonement. Hence also the allusion made by Jesus to Isaiah 58, the out-standing prophetic Scripture about the Day of Atonement: “to let the oppressed go free”.

Here, then, was a wonderful symbolic prophecy of God releasing His people from the bondage of sin-forgiving their trespasses, their debts, and at the same time requiring that they each forgive one another the debts owing among themselves.

In the phrase “deliverance (or release) to the captives”, that key-word is what the LXX Version used repeatedly for the Year of Jubilee, in Leviticus 25: 28-33. It is also the usual New Testament word for “forgiveness of sins”.

The loveliness of this message and of the fine prophetic phrases which expressed it were, no doubt, laid before the people that day with a charm and power such as they had never known: “good tidings to the meek … binding up the broken hearted … comfort for all that mourn … beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”. Lovely words to proclaim a lovely theme! Weddings for funerals, comfort and rejoicing instead of hardship and struggle.

There are those who would have it that Jesus stopped where he did in the reading of the Scripture because, regarding “the day of vengeance of our God”, it was inappropriate to say “this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears”, inasmuch as this part of the divine purpose belonged to some forty (or two thousand) years later.

On the other hand, an interruption, which splits a continuous prophecy in two parts, and puts a long time gap between the two at a point where there is no sign of a gap, can hardly be regarded as satisfactory. If this can happen with one prophecy it can happen with others, and the time of reference of any given Old Testament Scripture is reduced to guess-work or to the uninspired insight of any self-confident interpreter (and that is only another way of saying the same thing).

The better approach, already suggested, is illustrated by the New Testament use of Psalm 2. In Acts 4:25-27 that prophecy is given specific reference to the first century. In Revelation 19:15 and 2:27 it is applied to the future age of the kingdom of God. The one is a prototype of the other.

So also with Isaiah 61. The presence of Jesus, endowed with the powers of the Kingdom, gave to the men of Nazareth a wonderful oportuniry to experience a fulfilment of that gracious symbolic prophecy, but its true and greater outworking is reserved for the time when Messiah’s kingdom comes in its fulness.

“This day”

As it turned out, Nazareth would have none of him, so “the day of vengeance of our God”, which Luke does not quote, but which was almost certainly read by Jesus along with all the rest, became the most relevant part of the whole prophecy for these rejectors of the Son of God.

“This day”, Jesus insisted, “is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears”. The earlier portion of the Law assigned for that Sabbath was Deuteronomy 29:9 to 30:20. It included this repeated exhortation: “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil; in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God … But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish …1 call heaven and earth to witness against thee this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live”. Since nowhere else in the gospels is Jesus said to use this emphatic expression: “this day”, it may surely be taken that his discourse echoed Moses as well as Isaiah the prophet.

The telling exposition of this alluring message of salvation, anciently written in Law and Prophet, went home, so that “all bare witness, and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth” (Ps. 45:2). There is a delightful double meaning about Luke’s phrase here. For whilst “grace” is one of the New Testament’s commonest synonyms for “the forgiveness of sins”, it is also used idiomatically in many a place for the gift of the Holy Spirit. In this sense it is apt commentary on the Scripture Jesus read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor…”

Bad reaction

Mark’s record describes how the people were utterly flabbergasted by the power of what they heard: “Whence hath this man these things?” Their minds flew to reports of amazing miracles done down by the lake-side: “What wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?”

But the wave of astonishment which swept through the congregation as the message made its impact very soon gave way to a very different sentiment (Lk. 4:22,28,29). After all, was not this Jesus raised there in their village? Many of them had known this son of Joseph for years. Some of those present had gone to school with him. They had seen him in that synagogue hundreds of times. There was hardly a house in the place which did not own a chair or table, a yoke or a plough, made by him. Then by what right did one so ordinary presume to come among them as though with all the authority of an Isaiah or a Moses?

“Is not this Joseph’s son? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” Those who used that last expression doubtless had long memories and were insinuating an unworthy innuendo about his birth. And since he was only a carpenter and not college-trained, what right had he to assume to himself the authority of interpreting Scripture as though he were a rabbi?

They had forgotten Zechariah’s prophecy of a “craftsman” called Jesus-Joshua who would build the temple of the Lord (6:11-13). All they could harp on in their small-minded way was that this Jesus was an ordinary villager like themselves. Then why should he set himself up as superior to any of them? “Is he not the brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon? and his sisters, are they not all with us?” Most of the family had joined the move to Capernaum, but evidently the three half-sisters of Jesus (1 Sam. 2:5) had married and settled down in Nazareth, and were present in the synagogue at that very moment-or does the Greek expression in Mk. 6:3 imply: “they agree with us”?

Jesus picked up their murmuring: “Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself”. This curt proverb is usually taken as equivalent to our: “Charity begins at home”-an interpretation suggested by the ensuing complaint: “Whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do here in thy country”. But “Heal thyself” more likely has a different point, a more personal barb: “You claim to be Messiah? Then show in yourself some of Messiah’s glory. We see nothing more in you than an ordinary member of an ordinary Nazareth family”. It was the temptation he had faced in the wilderness all over again-the temptation to appeal to the people through sensational superhuman achievements which would capture the crowd.

Or, did their proverb have a different barb?: ‘Jesus, you have a poor reputation here in Nazareth, for we hear of you using your powers to help Gentiles and the unclean! – the son of one of Herod’s noblemen; the servant of a Roman centurion; a woman from Caesarea; a demoniac living in the tombs; blind men, outsiders. Now is the time to mend your reputation with miracles amongst your own folk’. In answer to which Jesus talked of miraculous help brought to an outsider and to a Gentile by the great prophets Elijah and Elisha.

Reasoning calmly and coolly, Jesus laid before them the natural prejudices against him now operating in their minds: “A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country (Nazareth), and among his own kin (his sisters living there), and in his own house (the rest of the family in Capernaum)”.

Jeremiah’s experience with the men of his own home was an acted prophecy of what was to befall Jesus in the place where he grew up: “Even thy brethren and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee; even they have cried aloud after thee” (12:6); “the men of Anathoth seek thy life saying, Prophesy not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand” (11:21).

The widow of Zarephath

Demeaning himself, Jesus reasoned that the pattern of his own ministry was precisely that of other prophets of the Lord, so he was not surprised to be accorded similar treatment. “Of a truth I say unto you, There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah ... but unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Serepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow”. The shape of this sentence seems to imply that the widow was a woman of Israel who, presumably, had married away from the faith of her fathers, or had been unfaithful to her true husband. 1 Kings 17:18 combined with Numbers 5:15 might suggest the latter conclusion. Yet she, of all the sufferers in Israel, was blessed throughout that famine with an inexhaustible supply of food. The explanation lies, of course, in the remarkable faith which led her to prepare the last vestiges of her food supply for Elijah, believing implicitly his assurance that “the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail”. Faith in the man of God was the redeeming virtue then, and so also in Nazareth now.

Naaman

To make his point yet more clear, Jesus went on to cite another extreme example: “There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, but none of them was cleansed save Naaman the Syrian”. It was faith which had come by hearing, which had brought Naaman, believing, to the home of Elisha. And although at first faith staggered at the commandment: “Go, and wash in Jordan seven

times”, he did as he was bidden, believing in the power of the God of Israel, and at the seventh dipping, not before, “his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child”.

The gist of that argument, that these people of Nazareth who should have been closest and most loyal to him, were right now showing themselves to be vastly worse than Gentiles and outsiders, was immediately clear to all in that synagogue. Roused to fury, they rushed on Jesus and dragged him violently out. Quite near, at the back of the town, was a rock face with a forty foot drop. They hustled Jesus out there with the savage intention of throwing him over the edge. The lynching could then be completed by hurling rocks on him from above. This, perhaps, in perverted obedience to a commandment in their Law (Dt. 13:6-10). Or were they saying: ‘He seems to love Gentiles. Then suppose we treat him as our forefathers treated their Gentile neighbours!’ – for the word translated “cast him down headlong” comes in only one other place, describing one of the most barbarous acts in all Israel’s history (2 Chr. 25:12).

Escape

However, this savage intention came to nothing. He escaped out of their grasp, and got away.

Perhaps they chose this unusual form of violent action as a sardonic response to part of the Lord’s own discourse. As already mentioned, the words he had used: “to set at liberty them that are bruised”, were quoted from a prophetic commentary on the Day of Atonement. Presumably, then, this had been the theme of part of the Lord’s exposition to them. On that great day in the Jewish year, one of two goats became the nation’s sin-offering, whilst the other was led off into the wilderness, traditionally to be pushed over a precipice. All this was an acted parable. It laid before Israel, as they remembered their sins at the sanctuary of the Lord, the alternatives of being reconciled to God through the atoning blood of an appointed sin-offering, or of being symbolically thrust out from God’s presence to suffer in a waste howling wilderness.

It may be surmised that in his sermon that day Jesus had similarly put before the congregation in Nazareth the stark alternatives for the nation of enjoying the gracious blessings of a Messianic Jubilee or “the day of vengeance of our God”, the fate of the goat that was sent away to be destroyed.

These very alternatives had been put with almost brutal plainness in their other Bible reading that day: “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil… therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live” (Dt. 30:15, 19).

Now, in high indignation that so ordinary a person as Jesus the carpenter should presume to address them with such assumed divine authority, they thought to turn the tables of his discourse on himself, treating him like the wretched goat destroyed on the Day of Atonement.

Such was Nazareth where Jesus lived for thirty years. There is no mention of the place in the Old Testament or in the Apocrypha or in the Talmud or in the histories of Josephus. Deservedly its name does not exist in history, except as the place which raised Jesus and rejected him.

The escape of Jesus from these violent men has provoked a vast amount of speculation. Says one: It was through sheer force of personality that he made them let him go. To another it was an exercise of the divine power that was in him (though does not the principle behind the first temptation rebut such a conclusion?). Another suggests that “the eyes of the people were holden”, whatever that means. “Perhaps old memories softened them”, says another.

No one seems to have thought of the matter-of-fact possibility that the twelve, rallied by a fiercely loyal Peter, were ready to rescue their Leader by a sudden onslaught when the men of Nazareth let go their hold on Jesus rather than face the incalculable violence of a body of determined men. The Bible’s explanation is, of course: “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up”. But there is nothing unreasonable in seeing the angels at work through the agency of the apostles, as just suggested.

Abandoned

So Nazareth saw Jesus for the last time, until it is ready to say: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”. Matthew concludes his account in a way that could be expected^ “And he could do there no mighty work, save that he laid his hands on a few sick folk, and healed them”. No wonder he could do so little good there if this was the attitude of the people. Probably these few who were healed were neighbours of one of his sisters whilst Jesus was staying at the house.

The last sorry commentary on Nazareth is that as he went away Jesus “marvelled because of their unbelief”. These people whom he knew through and through left him altogether amazed at their obdurate spirit. The only other time that the gospels tell of Jesus marvelling is when he was moved to audible astonishment by the far-reaching faith of the Roman centurion: “I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof: wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word and my servant shall be healed… And Jesus marvelled at him” (Luke 7:6-9). What a contrast!

And what a rebuff to Jesus at the very height of his popularity! He had come unto his own, and his own received him.not (Jn. 1:11). The cold hard shock of this expereince was to be of value to him in the near future when the tide turned with dramatic suddenness.

Notes: Lk.4:l 4-30

14.	The power of the Spirit looks back to v. 1, and also forward to v. 15, 18.
15.	He taught in their synagogues. The pronoun is specially emphatic, perhaps to point a contrast with John the Baptist.
	Glorified of all, as in v. 20, 22. But then comes the stark contrast: v. 28, 29.
16.	Some items in Lk., like this section, are chronologically out of place: 1:66, 80; 3:20; 11:24 ff; 11:42 ff(?); 13:34, 35; 19:41, 37; 21:37, 38(?); 22:21-23, 24-27 (Study 1).
	Brought up. Literally: fed. At Is. 61:1, one of the targums reads: “The Spirit of prophecy hath brought me up”.
	His custom; s.w. Num. 24:1.
16.	To read. Note the implications behind Ps. 40:7; Dt. 17:19. And only once is Jesus expressly said to have written: Jn. 8:6.
17.	The reading from the Law this day, according to the synagogue lectionary, was Dt. 29:9 – 30:20. where note (at 30:19): “that thou and thy seed may live”; cp. v. 26: the widow and her son saved from famine and death.
18.	The Spirit of the Lord is upon me: 3:22; v. 14, 22. The quote, as given here, is LXX slightly modified.
	Heal the broken-hearted. Omitted from modern texts, but certainly there in the Hebrew and LXX. It must have been there (as in Dead Sea scrolls) in the synagogue copy.
	Recovering of sight to the blind. This authenticates the equally valid LXX reading. The Hebrew phrase in 61:1 is ambiguous.
19.	The acceptable year of the Lord (s.w. in v. 24). From this phrase men like Origen and Clement of Alexandria deduced that the Lord’s ministry lasted only one year. Slipshod Bible study!
	B.C. 701 (circa) was a Jubilee. Therefore, working with a 49-year cycle, A.D.27-28 was not. The next Jubilee still to come will be A. D. 1995approx.
20.	Gave it again to the minister. ls. 29:11(?)
21.	Began to say. Then is this report in Lk. 4 only the beginning of what Jesus had to say to them?
	Today. Used emphatically by Jesus only in 23:43.
22.	Gracious words. Literally: words of grace. Is the meaning here (a) forgiveness? as in Rom. 3:24; 5:17 ,20, 21; 6:1; Eph. 1:6, 7; 2:5, 7, 8; Tit. 2:11; Heb. 2:9; (b) a gift of the Holy Spirit? (v. 18) as in Rom. 12:3, 6; 1 Cor. 1:4, 7; Gal. 2:9; Eph. 4:7; 1 Pet. 4:10; Heb. 10:29. Here cp. Ps. 45:2; Mk. 6:2.
	Joseph’s son. Contrary to what is commonly assumed, Joseph was still alive; Jn. 6:42. In Mk. the question: “Whence?” might mean: This wisdom is surely not from Joseph or from Mary. Of course Jesus learned craftmanship from his “father”, the carpenter, but also from his Father: Am. 9:6; Ps. 104:3; Job 38:5-7; Pr. 9:1.
23.	Physician, heal thyself! Later they said just this: Lk. 23:35. And he did what they said: Heb. 13:20.
24.	No prophet is accepted in his own country. Answering a proverb with a proverb. Cp. 1 Sam. 10:12. See also Mk. 3:21; Jn. 7:3-5.
25.	In the days of Elias. He too was “Joseph’s son” (of the tribe of Manasseh).
	Three years and six months. This is not precisely intimated in 1 Kgs. (18:1 is hardly exact enough). Then did Jesus infer this from the “time, times, and a half” of Daniel, arguing back from the literal to the type?
27.	The two examples are fairly closely paralleled by Mk. 7:24 ff and Jn. 4:46 ff
28.	All. Note the force of this repeated “all”; v. 20, 22.
30.	Went his way. “Nazareth” is usually taken to mean Branch-town. But it may also mean Preservation (s.w. ls. 49:8). There is still the problem presented by Jn. 8:59; 10:39.

The unwelcoming excitement created by the episode of the Gadarene swine constrained Jesus and his party to return across the lake. By this time that fishing boat was well known all round Galilee as the travelling headquarters of Jesus of Nazareth. So, as once again they neared Capernaum-“his own city” (Mt)-everyone knew already that Jesus was back again. A great crowd (Mk.) mustered as the ship drew to shore, all waiting to see Jesus, all welcoming their Galilean prophet (Lk.). This short period of a few weeks was the climax of the Lord’s fame and popularity. A few months later he was to be heard uttering the most solemn and complete reprobation of Capernaum and its sister cities that ever were spoken of any place by a man of God (Lk. 10:13ff).

At present all were eager to hear and even more eager to see, for more than anything it was the marvels Jesus wrought which brought the crowds together. Once again the beach was his auditorium. There the crowd pressed all round him. Mark’s expression almost warrants the translation: “they were on top of him”.

Jairus in distress

As he discoursed to them on the lakeside there came an interruption. According to the best texts, all three gospels mark this with a note of special surprise: “Behold!”. It was the approach of Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, which cut short the Lord’s discourse. Here was a man of considerable prestige and authority among the local Jews. It was his responsibility to arrange for the Bible reading and appropriate instruction thereon in the synagogue services. Probably, also, he was the headmaster in the school attached to the synagogue.

It seems likely that Jairus had already had close contact with Jesus. It may well have been he who, on more occasions than one, had authorised Jesus to take the service in the Capernaum synagogue. So it is reasonable to imagine him witnessing the healing of the paralytic man let down through the roof (Mk. 2:1ff). Very probably he was one of the elders of the Jews who sought the help of Jesus on behalf of the dying servant of the Roman centurion (Lk. 7:2-5). And it would be surprising if he had not heard the full story of the healing of the Capernaum nobleman’s son, and indeed of many another miracle Jesus had performed in that locality.

This man came now to Jesus through the crowd. With intense anxiety written on his face he knelt before him and poured out the story of his great need. His only daughter (cp. Lk. 7:12; 9:38), a girl of twelve, had become grievously ill. Now it was all too evident that she was dying (Lk). In deep anguish he prostrated himself at the feet of Jesus, telling again and again (Mk.) in broken sentences charged with sorrow that she was near her end (Mk). Matthew’s report probably means: “Just now we thought her dead”. It says much for the confidence Jairus had in Jesus, and it is a measure of the extreme hopelessness of the poor child’s plight, that her father could tear himself from her bedside to go in search of the only aid that could snatch the sufferer from the cold hands of death.

The agonizing plea for help would have brought some sort of sympathetic response from the hardest heart. When Jairus intensified his prayer for help into an imperative: “Come, and lay thine hands upon her, and she shall live” (Mt.), it was beyond the power of this marvelously compassionate Jesus to do other than comply at once.

So he moved off with Jairus at his side. His close disciples came also. And so too did the crowd. Full of eager anticipation they pressed and pushed, heedless of the hindrance and discomfort they caused him. Thus quite effectively they reduced Jesus’ progress to a mere fraction of his normal walking speed. It all served to intensify the anxiety and frustration of Jairus.

Twelve years without healing

Before the interruption there had been one in the crowd who had been steadily and stealthily edging herself through the throng with set purpose to get close to Jesus. But the denseness of the multitude had made achievement of her objective almost impossible. Now that they were all on the move there was better opportunity, but even so it was no easy task. But she was set on getting within arm’s reach of Jesus.

Poor soul! She was only a young woman (Mt.), yet already for years life had been made miserable by an incurable internal haemorrhage. She, who should have been full of energy and vigour, felt and looked continually pale and listless. More than this, her wretched disability rendered her permanently unclean (Lev. 15:25). It effectively shut her out of society. It left her with little of present enjoyment in life and with no prospect of betterment for the future.

In desperation and eagerness for relief she had gone hopefully from one doctor to another, and these after their kind had “healed the hurt of the daughter of God’s people lightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there was no peace.” Through twelve long years that poor woman had persevered in her search for health, only to “suffer many things of many physicians’ (Mk.).

In those days medical diagnosis was mostly ignorance and guesswork, and the doctor’s pharmacopoeia was a veritable chamber of horrors. One of the more attractive prescriptions for this complaint was “Persian onions stewed in wine”. Other remedies were just unprintable.

No wonder, then, that this pathetic search for health left her “not one thing better, but rather she grew worse”. Mark’s phrase here is eloquent of disappointed expectations. Now, with health in irreparable ruin, she found herself reduced to proverry by the exactions of the sharks and mountebanks who had traded on her plight with their bogus claims and pretentious ignorance.

Faith and resolution

Hearing the almost unbelievable reports about the marvels wrought by Jesus of Nazareth, she pondered and believed. Her faith came by hearing, and hearing by the spoken word (Rom. 10:17) about the Son of God. Here surely was her last and best opportunity of restoration to normal health.

But how was she to go about it? Doubts and difficulties crowded in. It would be almost impossible to get a private interview with the Teacher. And if she did, what guarantee was there that Jesus would agree to heal her? In any case it would mean facing the acute embarrassment of telling him frankly all about her disability. And if she were to see him in the presence of the multitude or of his own disciples it would be even worse to have to tell all the details of her suffering. It might even come about that she would be severely reproved for taking her uncleanness amongst all these other people.

Pondering her problem, her wits sharpened by necessity and desperation, she decided that the only thing was to seek and receive her healing without Jesus even being aware of it. She thought over all that she had heard concerning his astonishing miracles-how he spoke a word and lame people walked, how he touched sightless eyes and they saw, how he laid a gentle hand on repulsive leprosy and the flesh came whole and firm and healthy under his fingers. Especially she thought on that expression so often on his lips: “Thy faith hath saved thee”-and what he meant was faith in himself. Then she would show her faith in her own special way. It would bring her healing-of this she was convinced-and yet she would be saved the acute embarrassment which an open appeal to Jesus would make inevitable: “If, if I also may touch his clothes, I shall be whole” (Mk.). What personal contact with Jesus had brought to others it would surely bring to her also.

So as the crowd round Jesus moved on slowly and excitedly, she summoned all her resolution and her flagging energies to edge surreptitiously closer to him without too much of the pushing or shoving which would bring notice and resentment on herself. At last Jesus was within reach. So, dropping to her knees-a risky device, this, in that dense heedless crowd—she put out a hand between the people who were immediately behind Jesus, and secured a momentary but fervent grip on the blue cord with which his robe was edged.

Healing and confession

It would have been so much easier to reach out and touch his shoulder or to get effective contact with his sleeve. Then why this awkward manoeuvre to grasp the border of his robe? The context in Numbers 15:38-41 explains. Fringes or tassels of blue (the colour of heaven; Ex. 24:10) were to be a constant reminder to godly Jews of their duty to keep the commandments which had come to them from heaven. So it is to be inferred that this poor sufferer was set on showing her total dependence on the virtue of Christ in his complete fulfilment of all that God commanded. Her healing lay in this unique fact and in her faith that only thus can stricken sinners be healed.

Accordingly, in that moment of contact her faith had its reward. There was immediate perceptible change in herself. She could feel (Mk: she knew) in her own body a sudden transformation to normality, so that she was ready to cry out with joy and thankfulness. A year later Roman soldiers were to find contact with the garments of Jesus having a like influence on themselves (Mt. 27:35, 54).

But in that same moment Jesus stopped dead, and speaking up above the buzz of the crowd, he asked: “Who touched my garment?” Those round about looked their surprise. The question was repeated (Mk.), only to elicit denials from all within reach. In her desperate fear of exposure the woman herself joined in the general disclaimer (Lk.), whilst Peter, as uninhibited as ever, spoke what was in everybody’s mind: “Thou seest the multitude thronging thee and sayest thou, Who touched me?” But Jesus persisted, turning round (Mk.) and scrutinizing the face of every woman (Mk.) within a few yards. “Someone did touch me”, he repeated, “for I perceived that power had gone forth from me” (Lk.).

Wild panicky thoughts raced through the woman’s mind. She had her healing, but how could she go against the repeated wish of her benefactor to know who had been healed? Then, too, was it possible that the one who had such marvellous powers to bless might also have the power to cancel out the blessing she had just received? But how could she bring herself to tell before them all what she had done, and why?

And what of the crowd’s bitter indignation when they knew of their contact with one unclean like herself?

But Jesus waited, and asked yet again. How unlike him to show such apparent unkindness, not only to the intensely embarrassed woman but also to frantic impatient Jairus, who saw the last hope (as he saw it) of recovery for his daughter now being frittered away over a triviality (as he saw it).

But Jesus knew that the salvation of a desperate soul was at stake, and he persisted.

So, confused and fearful, the woman spoke up her confession, and as the crowd moved back, she fell down before Jesus. There trembling with fear (Mk), glad in her heart that she was well again, yet terribly apprehensive of the present outcome, she poured out in a torrent of broken phrases all the story of her disease, her suffering, her faith, and her cure, whilst people all around (Lk) strained their ears to catch every word, and then shrank back-from her defilement.

The reaction of Jesus was, of course, just what-if she had had time to ponder it-she would have expected of him. “Daughter, take heart (Mt), your faith has saved you (he meant the word in a double sense). Go in peace, and stay healed of your disease.” And she did. The Sun of righteousness was risen with healing in his wings (s.w. Num. 15:38). That day she saw the Lord as upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the skirt of his robe (s.w.) filled the temple of which she was now a perpetually consecrated part. As the precious ointment went down to the skirts of Israel’s high priest, so now-this woman had proved-there was like fragrance in the robe of the High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. And had he not blessed her in the name of the most high God? So, from that hour (as in Mt. 15:28; 17:18) she had roses in her cheeks. And that blessing: “Go in peace” (Lk) echoed Eli’s benison on Hannah (1 Sam. 1:17), so perhaps it may be inferred that she who hitherto had had no hope of children was now given assurance that one day she would rear a holy family (Lev. 6:27a).

Assuredly, it was her faith which had saved her. There were scores of people in that crowd who had pressed upon Jesus and jostled him, yet to her only was virtue gone out. And she, herself pushed here and there in the throng, was unclean and ceremonially defiling: nevertheless through this Jesus, greater than Moses, there was no contamination for any others. Whilst healing her, Jesus cleansed them all.

Poor Jairus!

All this while Jairus, who had kept hard by Jesus, was in a mounting fever of anxiety and frustration. When he left home it had seemed to him that his beloved child had scarcely an hour to live. If Jesus had been able to shake off the crowd and, with that long easy stride of his, get to the house without a minute’s delay, there might have been time to save her. But now there was the double vexation of a slow-moving undisciplined crowd and this provoking delay to interrogate and re-assure a woman who had, so to speak, jumped the queue of blessedness. By this time desperation and impatience were written in large capitals across the face of Jairus. In these circumstances what human nature could hide it?

Then came the hardest blow of all. Even before Jesus was able to resume his journey to the house, messengers struggled their way through that sea of humanity to gasp out the bad news: “Your daughter is dead”. What use now to plead further the help of the Teacher? “Why troublest thou the Master any further?” It is a hard word meaning “rend, mangle, flay”, inserted into that message by one who loved Jesus and who, knowing him to be hard pressed, would fain spare him all possible strain.

With hopes dashed, the face of Jairus went grey with wretchedness. The wonderful cure of the woman in the crowd had at least buoyed up his confidence that the like power would restore his sick child. But now it was too late.

Too late? Was it? He felt the hand of Jesus on his shoulder and heard the reassuring words: “Do not fear! Only believe, and she shall be saved” (Lk). And, helped by the experience of the past ten minutes and by the strengthening gaze of Jesus, he did believe that, somehow, even now all would yet be well. Seeing this, Jesus spoke to the crowd in a loud authoritative tone that they must stay where they were. Peter, James and John only were to go forward with him to Jairus’ home (Mk). Jesus foresaw that they would be needed there. The rest of the apostles stayed behind to restrain the eager curiosity of the crowd.

Conventional lamentation

It was no small distance to the house, and by the time they arrived, the usual funeral arrangements were well in hand. The house was full of friends and relations besides the normal complement of professional mourners. This open lamentation by “singing men and singing women” (2 Chron. 35:25) was a long-established custom: “Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come … and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters” (Jer. 9:17,18). Even the poorest man in Israel would lament the death of his wife with two pipers and one mourning woman.

Inside the house, Jesus stood and stared (Mk) with increasing disapproval at the simulated mourning and insincere lamentation of the hired professionals. Then he went into action. “Why do you make such tumult (Gk: riot)? Why are you weeping?” (Mk). Why, indeed? Because they were being paid for it! Then Jesus remonstrated: “The girl is not dead, she is asleep” (Mt). His words were a simple reminder of the teaching of the Scriptures, that those in the covenant of the Lord who sleep the sleep of death are quietly at rest until the day of waking up: “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake” (Dan. 12:2). From this day forward the early church invariably referred to the death of those in Christ as a falling asleep. Even the graveyard was given a new name-the word “cemetery” is Greek for “dormitory”. The miracles of Jesus, followed by his own resurrection, made more real the Christian confidence of rising again from the tomb.

Those to whom Jesus spoke so peremptorily, knowing that the child really was dead, responded with a burst of derisive laughter (Lk). Thus they showed that their lamentation was all put on. But at least their scoffing guaranteed the fact of the girl’s death, and so turned to the glory of God by authenticating the miracle when Jesus restored her to life.

Restored!

With a strong word of impatience (Mt) Jesus had them all out of the house in quick time, Peter, James and John making sure of prompt obedience. Then, taking the maiden’s parents and the three apostles who were with him (Mk), he went into the darkened room where she lay. There in the dim light as the rest stood back from that divan, he took her hand already colder than life, and suddenly called out briskly in the vernacular: “Talitha, kumi- My lamb, it’s time to get up” (Mk). By his action in taking her hand and, by his choice of this expression Jesus reminded those half-expectant parents of a Scripture which not only tells that “all flesh is grass” but which also brings the reassurance that “the Lord God will come with strong hand and shall gather the lambs with his arm” (ls. 40:6,10,11). That word “lamb” is the same in Hebrew: it is its only other occurrence.

The word of Jesus was effective at once. Immediately (Mk) “her spirit returned” (Lk and cp. Ecc. 12:7), that is, she was restored to life, and stood up forthwith (Lk). Then, seeing her father and mother, she walked (Mk) eagerly across to them, whilst they received her with caresses and a gladness past all power of human expression. After a little while Jesus intervened, partly for the benefit of the parents and partly for the girl’s own sake, and bade them get her some food. The reason for this is not difficult to discern. Most probably, during the last day or two of her fatal illness the child had eaten almost nothing. Now she was not only restored to life but was positively bursting with health, and her body craved food. Besides this, the simple activity of fetching food would be good for that over-wrought mother whose emotions had oscillated in less than an hour between the most violent extremes. More than this, the sight of their little girl eating with zest and enjoyment and talking happily between mouthfuls, would do more than anything else to convince those two blessed people that they had not been victims of hallucination or hasty misjudgement.

Resurrection and food

Time and again the New Testament makes the act of eating the strongest possible proof of resurrection. It was the Lord’s own most downright demonstration of his own resurrection — he ate fish and honeycomb before the incredulous gaze of his disciples (Lk.24:41-43). Lazarus, risen from the dead, is pointedly mentioned as being at the meal table (Jn. 12:1,2). The apostle Peter and also Luke in his summary at the beginning of Acts both stress that the risen Jesus ate food with his disciples (Acts 1:4 RVM; 10:41). And the saint’s hope of resurrection is couched in terms of the same matter-of-fact idiom: “I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof (of the memorial bread) until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (Lk. 22:16). “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev.3:20). “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7). “Blessed are they that are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9).

It is noteworthy also how often personal contact between the one being raised from death and the agent of resurrection is pointedly mentioned in the Scripture narrative. The New Testament examples of the raising of the son of the widow of Main, of Eutychus and Tabitha, all follow the pattern of the present example of Jairus’ daughter. Elijah’s restoration of the son of the widow of Zarephath, Elisha’s recovering of the Shunamite’s child, and the amazing resuscitation of the man whose corpse touched the bones of Elisha-these are comparable Old Testament examples. No wonder Jesus said: “Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life in you”-the idea is the same, but now on a higher plane.

Another acted parable

The two miracles considered in this study are bound together by a very singular fact-that the little girl was twelve years old, and the woman who was healed had been suffering for precisely that period of time (Lk. 8:42,43). This suggests what experience regarding the other miracles of Jesus would already lead one to expect, that these miracles were also intended as signs.

The daughter of the ruler of the synagogue is fairly evidently a figure of Jewry. It will soon be seen that the woman’s experience of suffering and healing may be read as a type of the conversion of the Gentiles. Her permanent uncleanness and inability to get any relief from recourse to doctors is a figure of the natural state of Gentiles who, finding all man-made religions useless, recognise that they are without God, without hope in the world-strangers from the commonwealth of Israel. Her present destitution through many an expensive useless treatment can be seen as a picture of all human dereliction apart from the grace of God. The resolve to seek a cure through coming to Christ expresses the fundamental of salvation-justification by faith. Her grasping of the hem of his garment underlines dependence on the obedience of Christ to the commandments of God (see once again Num.15:38,39). Zechariah foretells how “out of all the languages of the nations some will take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you” – i.e. you are Immanuel (8:23).

The crowd, unaware of the remarkable spiritual benefits going forth from Jesus in their midst represent the heedless nations of the world for whom also these blessings are available if only they shew the same faith.

That the woman came behind Jesus to grasp the benefit of close contact with him foreshadowed the call of the Gentiles to the faith after Jesus was crucified and risen from the dead. It was specially then that virtue went out of him. As the crowd refused at first to believe that any extraordinary miracle had happened, so at present the world around is unable to credit that Christ has special blessings for his inconspicuous faithful remnant. But before long the Lord will insist on a public witness to the fact that his greatest help has been secretly bestowed on those who have believed on him in their humble obscurity, and then he will pronounce yet greater blessing which will endure for all time. As this woman was called “Daughter”, so also will Jesus recognize his Gentile believers as true seed of Abraham.

In view of this correspondence, it is perhaps not surprising that there are marked similarities between this woman’s experience and that of the Prodigal Son, for in that best-known of all parables he likewise pre-figures the Gentiles. He too spent all he had, became unclean, and past all human help. He resolved that he must go for restoration to the only one who could and would be willing to help him. He came unannounced, and yet was known at once. He made his open confession, and was publicly acclaimed as Son, even as this woman was as Daughter. Such parallels do not occur in the gospels by accident.

By contrast with all this, the little daughter of the synagogue may be seen as a type of Jewry in the last days. The child’s sickness portrays Israel’s spiritual condition which none can cure save Christ. The synagogue is helpless. But there is delay in his coming “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in”, and when he does come disaster will already have overtaken the nation-its own faithlessness will have brought all the adversities which lead to what appears to be a final end. Nevertheless in that hour of extremity there will be a faithful few, represented by Jairus (whose name means “enlightened by the Lord”). For the sake of these, Jesus will come in the hour of utter helplessness, he will rebuke those of the Dispersion who believe that there can now be no resurrection of the Hope of Israel, and will restore the stricken people. More than this, he will insist on the provision of sustaining food- he will put his law in their inward parts, and will write it in their hearts. This marvellous restoration from death will be the very climax of a triumphant ministry.

The blind and the dumb

As though to heighten yet further the cumulative impression of marvel and graciousness in this part of the ministry of Jesus, Matthew adds here to his long catalogue of miracles a brief mention of two other acts of healing.

Apparently it was as Jesus left the home of Jairus that he was followed by two blind men. It is necessary to assume that they had some helper to guide them, or how could they have followed him for even the shortest distance?

As they followed they cried out after him: “Thou son of David, have mercy upon us”. Word of the marvels just lately wrought by Jesus made them the more insistent. But there was intelligent faith in their plea also. They recognized Jesus as Son of David. This must mean not only that already Jesus was well-known as the scion of the royal family of Israel, but also that expectations were growing that he would proclaim himself the promised Messiah.

There may be further meaning behind this. Because of David’s frustrating experience over the capture of Jebus (2 Sam.5:8), in tribute to him and in token of their affection for him, Israel thenceforward excluded the blind and the lame from the sanctuary of the Lord set up in that captured citadel. So it may have been with reference to that decision that these blind men (and also those in Mt.12:23; 20:30) called him “Son of David”-as who should say: “We are not scornful enemies. We believe. Then give us our sight, so that we with you may worship in the House of the Lord”.

Perhaps it was because of this strong Messianic spirit, which they gave expression to that Jesus hesitated in granting their plea. Instead of healing them there and then, he apparently took no notice. Perhaps, as with the Canaanitish woman, he sought to test their faith (Mt. 15:26-28). It is possible that, like her, they were Gentiles (see note on v. 27), and for that reason Jesus, sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, had a certain reluctance. Or was he just trying to avoid publicity? Whatever the explanation, their eagerness was not to be gainsaid. They found the house to which he came and got their guide to lead them in to him, there to renew their importunity.

Now, away from the excitement of the crowd, Jesus was more willing to give them attention. “Believe ye that I can do this?” he asked. He knew without asking, but as with the woman whom he healed in the crowd, so also now he sought their open personal expression of faith in

himself: “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom.10:10).

In later days, with one blind man the Lord used spittle (Mk. 8:23). With another, he smeared blind eyes with mud (Jn. 9:6, 7). On this occasion, in response to their fervent assent, he now put his fingers on their eyes, with the words: “According to your faith be it unto you”, and forthwith sight was given them. Whilst they rejoiced at the wonderful new world now opened to them, Jesus laid it very emphatically on them that they must not allow this blessing given to them to create a lot of public excitement: “Ye see! Let no man know (who did this for you)”.

But his words fell on deaf ears. Lack of disciplined obedience marred the fervent faith they had shown in Christ. In their excitement they went out and told the story everywhere. It is difficult to admire their thankless self-indulgence. Even so, nearly all the Roman Catholic commentators applaud their disobedience!

As soon as Jesus and his disciples went abroad again, the crowd saw another sufferer brought to him-this time a man bereft of all power of speech, perhaps as the result of a stroke. When Jesus healed him before them all, their reaction on witnessing this further miracle found expression in a marvellous statement of faith: “He (God) was never so manifested in Israel!” If this reading is correct, it means that there were some here who saw in the wondrous works of Jesus a greater theophany than the Shekinah Glory seen in past ages by Moses and Isaiah and Ezekiel. This was the kind of response to warm the heart of Jesus. It was to this firm conviction that his miracles were designed to lead the nation. The people were being led on to see in Jesus the one who would fulfil yet more completely Isaiah’s gracious Messianic prophecy: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped” (35:5). But how few saw also in Jesus “the way of holiness” (v.8)?

On the other hand the Pharisees, ever on the watch, and alert for every opportunity of denigration, did their utmost to counteract this growing faith in Jesus with a repetition of their foul slander: “He casteth out devils through the prince of devils”.

Notes: Mt.9:l 8-34

18.	While he spake these things (about fasting). The context in Mt. is completely different from that in Mk. Lk. Is it possible that in his discourse (Mk. 5:21), Jesus had come back to this topic? – right attitudes to fasting.
	There came a certain (one) ruler. AV is correct here, and the modern versions: “there came in a ruler”, are wrong. The error arises from telescoping two Gk. words into one.
	Is even now dead. More exactly: ‘she just died’. How reconcile with Mk. 5:23, 35?
	(a) With implied ellipsis: (so we thought), (b) An inference from how she was when he left the house some distance off. (c) Mt’s much abbreviated version anticipates Mk. 5:35.
19.	Jesus arose, that is, from sitting as a teacher.
21.	She said within herself Gk: she kept on saying. This was now her one assurance, her only hope, her sheet anchor.
	His garment. Contrast hers: Jude 23.
22.	Daughter. This is the only known time Jesus addressed a woman in this way. She must have been appreciably
	younger than he, surely only in her twenties.
25.	Put forth. Gk. passive voice probably implies unwillingness to go. This is why Jesus took the three disciples with him.
27.	Blind. One 19th century traveller wrote that in Arabia he found at least one in five with serious eye disease. Note
	the Biblical symbolism:
	a. Retribution for sin in Israel: Dt. 28:29; ls. 59:10; Zeph. 1:17.
	b. Israel made like unto Gentiles: ls. 42:18-20; 43:8; Mt. 15:4.
	c. The healing of the Gentiles: ls. 29:18; Eph. 5:8.
30.	Charged them. A very strong word, full of indignation; Mk. 1:43; 14:5.
31.	In all that country (and v. 26). The phrase probably implies that when Matthew wrote, he was away from Galilee.

Mk.5:21-43

22.	One of the rulers. Some synagogues had more than one; e.g. Acts 13:15.
	Seeing him, as though not aware at first that Jesus was there. How reconcile with the implication (v. 35) that he had set out to seek the help of Jesus?
23.	Healed. Literally: saved. The word is used in this narrative for both physical and spiritual healing (v. 34).
26.	No better; s.w. Gal. 5:2.
28.	Touch but his clothes. Cp. Acts. 19:11, 12; 5:15, 16. Capable of being interpreted as superstition or insight.
29.	Plague. Literally: scourge; s.w. Acts 22:24; Heb.11:36.
31.	Who touched me? Cp, questions intended to lead to repentance, in Gen. 3:9; 4:9; 2 Kgs. 5:25.
34.	Go in peace. See also: Lk. 7:50; 17:19; 18:42.
39.	Sleepeth. The list is a long one, and impressive: Jn. 11:11; Mt. 27:52; Acts 7:60; 13:36; 1 Cor. 7:39; 15:6, 18, 20, 51; 1 Th. 4:13-15; 2 Pet. 3:4.

Lk.8:40-56

41.	Was a ruler. The verb might imply that Luke knew him to have been demoted later (through becoming disciple of Jesus?).
42.	Thronged. An intensification of the word in Mk. 5:13: throttle, choke violently.
	He had. A Hebraism in the Gk. text, to be expected in Mt. but here it is in Lk!
50.	Believe… made whole (saved). Doubtless intended to remind Luke’s readers of Paul’s gospel of justification by faith.
55.	RV: Give her to eat. The complete list is: Mt. 9:25; Lk. 7:14; Acts 9:41; 20:10; 1 Kgs. 17:21; 2 Kgs. 4:34; 13:21; Jn. 6:53. There are symbolic examples in Mt. 17:7; 8:15. Jn. 11:43 seems to be a rather remarkable exception. Why? 12:2?

Luke attaches no indication of place or time to the record of the Lord’s visit to the home of a Pharisee called Simon, and how he was anointed there by an unnamed woman. This impressive story seems to have been inserted here as an ironic commentary on the jibe in the preceding verses: “behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and

sinners” (7:34). Here he is after a manner of speaking, both at once-accepting an invitation to a meal of a wealthy home, and there befriending one who was now a despised but much repentant sinner.

Study 74 will set out the evidence, hardly conclusive and yet persuasive, for identifying the woman of this story with Mary the sister of Lazarus and with Mary Magdelene. Also, there are indications — again, not decisive — that this Simon the Pharisee may have been the father of the Bethany family, referred to also as Simon the leper (Mt. 26:6); and also that (possibly) Judas Iscariot was a brother of the same family.

Significant details

These tentative conclusions will not be assumed in the present study, but are perhaps worth bearing in mind because of their possible bearing on some of the details.

For instance, why should the invitation have been given in the first place? There was obvious reluctance to receive Jesus as a welcomed guest – the usual courtesies were studiously omitted, as though to show to the other Pharisee guests (v. 49) that inviting Jesus of Nazareth to the house must not be taken to mean that Simon was an avowed disciple.

The unprotested presence of such a woman in that dining room, as by right, is also now fully explained.

That her conversion from an evil way of life was very recent is indicated not only by the intensity of her repentance — many tears and deep self-humiliation-but also by Simon’s reprobation: “for she is a sinner”.

The meal was about to be served when there came an unexpected interruption, very embarrassing to some who were present. The woman described evidently knew that although Jesus had been invited, he had also been insulted by the careful omission of all the normal friendly attentions, and these she now proceeded to make good in unique and moving fashion.

Penitence and devotion

She came and stood behind him, raining down hot tears of repentance and gratitude on his feet. Then she knelt and, deftly shaking her long hair loose, she wiped them carefully, eagerly, being only too glad of such an opportunity to express her devotion. Never was a woman’s hair more of a glory to her (1 Cor. 11:15) than on this occasion. Stooping over those feet, which showed how many miles they had walked in Galilee and Judaea, she covered them with kisses of welcome to her home.

Then she called a servant to bring her a costly container of perfumed ointment (the word “brought”, v. 37, is translated “received” in all its other ten occurrences).

The contents of this flask she now poured slowly over the feet of Jesus (they are mentioned no less than seven times in these few verses!), and then gently, lovingly, she massaged it into the skin. And still the tears of penitence and thanksgiving flowed.

In the minds of some present there came recollections of purple passages from the Scriptures — the Book of Proverbs’ description of the whore and her stock-in-trade: “I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon” (7:17); and the Law’s prohibition: “Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow” (Dt. 23:18). And as she even lavished kisses on the Lord’s feet, other words came to mind: “She caught him and kissed him, with an impudent face… the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil”(Pr. 7:13;5:3).

From Simon – four times called “the Pharisee” -there was only an embarrassed silence building up into scepticism: “This Jesus may be a remarkable healer, but he is no prophet. The blind Abijah could identify the wife of King Jeroboam even though she acted a part (1 Kgs. 14:6). And Elisha knew the purposes and deceits of his servant Gehazi (2 Kgs. 5:26). Then why doesn’t Jesus recognize who this is — she’s well-known, too well-known — and what sort of individual she is? And thus he suffers defilement! No prophet, for sure!” and thereafter he called him: “Teacher”.

Here one old commentator adds, rather quaintly: “Not so fast, Simon, thou hast not seen through thy Guest, but He hath seen through thee”. Jesus knew what manner of man this was. He did not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness and with equity.

Had it been anyone else except Jesus, Simon would surely have put a much worse construction on the incident. But with Jesus this was impossible-his irreproachability was too evident; he was unimpeachable.

But the man’s Pharisaic attitude was not to be restrained. So he did not say “this woman who weeps”, nor “who anoints him”, but “what manner of woman it is that toucheth him”. To Simon this risk of defilement was the only consideration of any importance.

Answer by parable

That the woman was now repentant of her sordid way of life meant little to him. He was concerned only with the outward appearance. So whilst the common people had just now “glorified God, saying, A great prophet is risen up among us; and, God hath visited his people” (v. 16), the Pharisee was re-assuring himself:

“This man is no prophet”. And in the later echo of this incident, Judas was to react similarly (Jn. 12:4, 5).

By answering his host’s unspoken thoughts, Jesus proceeded to prove that he was a prophet. With studied courtesy, to make deliberate contrast with the Pharisee’s rudeness, he said:

“Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee”.

“Teacher, say on”.

The reply came with a suavity which accorded ill with the discourtesy already shown to Jesus and with the thoughts now running through his mind. It was of one piece with the man’s Pharisaism.

Then Jesus told the simplest of little parables, about two debtors, both of whom confessed their utter inability to pay, and who were both let off. The moneylender blithely made them a present of it (Gk: charizo). But one debt was ten times as big as the other-roughly £5, 000 and £500, in terms of modern (1984) inflation. Who, then, asked Jesus, would feel the greater sense of relief? Which of them would show the more fervent gratitude to one who was no longer a creditor but a good friend?

Even in this two-verse parable every detail was superbly relevant. The woman’s incurable spiritual leprosy was ten times worse than Simon’s incurable physical leprosy (assuming here the identification with Mt.26:6). But both must have been intensely conscious of their tremendous indebtedness to Jesus. There can have been no healing of either until they confessed their need and that he, and he only, could be their Saviour. Both knew, she far more than he, that they could do nothing comparable for Jesus in return. And what sort of a moneylender was this (see 2 Kgs.4:3; Ps.109:11 s.w.) who turned debts into a gift?

The problem put to Simon in this parable was just too easy, and he shrugged it off with careless indifference. Or could it be that he (no fool!) scented the relevance of this enquiry to the present situation, and his nonchalance was an artificial facade to hide his uneasiness? None the less, he spoke his own condemnation, inevitably so, for, in front of the others, he had to answer.

A withering contrast

Jesus turned now directly to the woman, but continued to address himself to Simon, speaking to him over his shoulder. It was obviously with difficulty that he held down his own indignation. Never was there a more withering recital of simple fact. Never was self-satisfaction more effectively punctured (cp. Lk. 1:53):

“Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears (Ps. 56:8), and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.”

The Pharisee kept silence, looking almost visibly smaller. He heard now the simple unequivocal application of the parable he himself had just helped to interpret.

Whereas his love for the Lord was meagre or non-existent, hers was unspeakably great. And, Jesus argued, her boundless gratitude can be for one reason only–she knows that her massive debt of sin is freely forgiven; and her actions show that she sees in me the means of that forgiveness. This is faith, saving faith. It has saved her, and it will save her to the uttermost.

Her lavish use of ointment may also have proclaimed Jesus as her high priest (Ex. 30:25), even whilst to some it declared her own exceeding sinfulness (Pr. 7:17).

Sins forgiven

Turning to the woman, Jesus now said very simply: “Thy sins are forgiven”. This was not spoken to set any of her doubts at rest. Her act of adoration and love made it evident that she knew her sins to be put away. So the words were said for the benefit of the rest who were present at the table, to underscore the staggering truth that this Jesus who spoke the words was the means of the forgiveness of sins!

The reaction of Simon’s friends matched that of their host: “They began to say within (or, among) themselves, Who is this that even forgiveth sins?” So, reading their critical thoughts also, Jesus added a further assurance of forgiveness.

At this time, who in all the wide world, besides this fragile sinner, was capable of believing such a tremendous fact? Even among his close disciples who followed him, hearing his matchless teaching and observing with awe the marvels he wrought amongst men, was there even one whose insight had taken him so far? The witness of John to publicans and harlots that here was the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world had already faded from people’s memories.

But here was a despised woman who realised the truth of it and appropriated it to herself with a gladness which no words could express.

Then no wonder Jesus added yet further comfort to her soul: “Thy faith hath saved thee; go into peace”.

On the other occasions when he used these reassuring words it was with reference to an impressive miracle-the woman with an issue of blood (4:48), the Samaritan leper (17:19), and blind Bartimaeus (18:42). Thus he encouraged this new disciple to see her conversion as another miracle matching the others.

This pronouncement of the Lord: “Thy faith hath saved thee”, was remembered, for when Mark records the later anointing he refers to the use of “pistic nard”, that is, faith ointment.

But Jesus had also a word of another sort for the Pharisee: “To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little”. Simon’s studied disrespect for Jesus expressed no love for him, but, if anything, the opposite. This, of course, because he deemed himself righteous before God, without need of forgiveness. The sad irony of the situation was that, very truly, he had no forgiveness, although needing it every bit as much as the woman he reprobated. Did he, later, learn differently?

Notes: Lk. 7:36-50

37.	Brought. Besides the meaning already suggested there is also the significant fact that every one of the six LXX occurrences of this word has a context of sexual irregularity.
	An alabaster box. The only other occurrence of this word is in 2 Kgs. 21:3. Is there symbolic meaning here?: Jerusalem, refusing to anoint Jesus as Messiah, is discarded.
38.	Her hair. Is there here an echo of Num. 5:18?
39.	What manner of woman, a word meaning: from what other country. Its NT usage always implies something/somebody strange or off-beat.
40.	Simon. There are 8 other Simons in the NT.
41.	Debtors. Consider Pr. 29:13 LXX: “When creditor and debtor meet together, the Lord is overseer of them both”. See also Ps. 37:21, 22.
42.	Forgave them both. Could this parable have been spoken with reference to the sabbath year (Dt. 15:1, 2 – the Lord’s release)?
45.	Hath not ceased to kiss my feet. And Jesus did not bid her desist!
46.	Anoint — with oil. The rich used ointment, the poor used oil, but this man neither.
47.	Her sins which are many. Here Jesus shows himself to be no sentimentalist, but a realist facing facts.
	For. Misunderstood, this conjunction has been read as meaning: ‘Because you love me, therefore I grant you forgiveness’. But such a reading contradicts the parable. The idea is: ‘I can say this, because she loved much’.