Pastor Pastorum Part 16

It is our Lord's way to point the drift of a whole discourse by a pregnant sentence at the end, in which the expositor finds the key to the whole.

Such a saying we have here, in the closing words,

"And wisdom is(182) justified of all her children."(183)

The meaning of the pa.s.sage turns on the sense given to the word "justified." It is employed, near the beginning of the discourse, in the same sense which it has here at the end, and this helps us to understand its particular meaning in this place. I refer to the pa.s.sage:

"And all the people when they heard, and the publicans, _justified_ G.o.d, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of G.o.d, being not baptized of him."(184)

The word "justified" is used in this pa.s.sage in the sense it has when we say "my son has justified all my outlay," or "the event justified all my precautions."

The publicans by accepting the baptism of John shewed that G.o.d's good offices in their behalf were not thrown away, that they had not been regarded with excessive hopefulness or a too indulgent eye; but the Scribes and Pharisees frustrated G.o.d's good purpose in their behalf. So far as they were concerned his measures were of no effect. They would have none of them. The fact was, that, though they talked about G.o.d, they were in fact G.o.d-blind, and when asked to follow His teachers they found special reasons for declining in each particular case. John renewed an ideal which had pa.s.sed out of sight; he appeared in the ascetic garb of the prophets of old; his strict life and his outspoken words disturbed their consciences and they put him aside by the readiest of expedients, they declared that he was mad. Then came our Lord declaring Himself the Son of Man, living as other men did, and consecrating thereby the ordinary course and usages of human life. In His case also the Scribes had an objection to make. A messenger from G.o.d, they thought, would come upon the earth in a different way from other men, and all his doings would be of an exceptional kind: whereas Christ lived to all appearance just as they did themselves. In the same way that courtiers surround a prince by a wall of etiquette in order to elevate him and hold him apart from the people, so would the Scribes have encompa.s.sed G.o.d's messenger with hallowed observances. They were not likely to understand that the closer Jesus kept to the ordinary and universal ways of men which were of natural growth, the more He was at home in the Kingdom of His Father who had made the world and ordered the ways of men.

Christ goes to the root of both these objections. He takes an image drawn from what was always under their eyes. He supposes a crowd of children playing in the market place, while others are sitting somewhat sullenly by. They play at a wedding, and they pretend to pipe and dance, but those who sit by will not stir; and then they change to a funeral, and imitate the wailing of the relatives and of the train of hired mourners, but those whom they wish to gain for playmates will not have this either; _they do not want to play at all_. The people would learn from this image as much as was within their comprehension. They could see that when the Pharisees objected on opposite grounds to two courses, their aversion was really not to either course but to that to which both courses tended. But the last verse, "wisdom is justified of _all_ her children," goes beyond what the people would see at the time; and, indeed, as St Matthew in his version omits the important word _all_, it looks as if he had himself missed the full sense.

The text conveys a lesson of ample tolerance which even in these days, all minds are not stretched wide enough to receive. The point is this. G.o.d has children of more types than one, and all these, in their own different ways, justify G.o.d's thought for them by taking advantage of His help. The ways of Jesus and the ways of John differ widely, but men may reach G.o.d coming round by either way. Some may gain access to the Kingdom through John and others by Jesus; but all who _are_ G.o.d's will get there by some way or other. If the Scribes and Pharisees were winnowed away by this trial it was because the germs of a Divine nature within them had been suffered to perish. They were G.o.d's children no longer, and G.o.d's ways for His children would not succeed with them.

That wisdom is justified of all her children, is a truth carrying to different generations the precise lesson of tolerance it needs. It was not long before the Apostles themselves had occasion to call this very lesson to mind. An exclusive spirit, and the desire to have their privileges all to themselves led them to forbid a man who followed not with them to cast out devils in their Master's name. They are very gently set right. Our Lord is never hard upon errors arising from mistaken notions; he gently checks them at the time and takes early occasion, by a parable, or some lesson of circ.u.mstance, to suggest the proper counter view.

But though the Apostles might profit by this apophthegm, yet it was aimed directly at the Scribes who held that in all questions there must be one right view, all others being wrong; so that toleration of anything that deviated from the accepted view, implied indifference to truth. But it is only "truth absolute" which is _one and exclusive_ and this, in spiritual matters, can only be attained by an unmistakeable _dictum_ of revelation.

In a geometrical investigation, we have an infallible logic dealing with definite notions; we therefore get one precise result, and all that differ from this are worthless. But in matters spiritual an element of infinity must be present; notions enter which cannot be defined; men may use the same words in stating their views, but whether these words convey the same conceptions to them all, no one can possibly say. In things spiritual, therefore, no one answer completely excludes all other answers because we never get a perfect solution at all; we only get approximations. In like manner there are insoluble problems in Mathematical Physics to which we can only get answers approximately correct. These being points in a circle round the unattainable centre may be infinite in number.

These hard sayings shew that Christ, when he spoke, looked beyond his hearers into infinite s.p.a.ce and saw there "other sheep who were not of this fold."(185) He must also have felt sure that these words of His would be preserved for after times; for certainly, it was not merely for Galilean hearers that our Lord uttered pregnant words like those I have just discussed.(186) The candle was not lighted to be put in a cupboard.

The hard sayings of our Lord as well as many of His pa.s.sing words, which called forth no notice at the time, are to me part of the witness, everywhere peeping out, of our Lord's prospective view in what He said and did. He must have had in view persons or bodies of men, who would find, some in one of these utterances and some in another, what answered to a want or a question rising in their hearts; and, as a fact, men have in every age lighted on words of our Lord which seemed to be a revelation directed to their own case, the key to the special riddle which vexed their souls. There are herbs and simples growing on the earth, which men for ages have pa.s.sed carelessly by, but some new form of malady has one day appeared, and in the disregarded plant has the needful help been found.

CHAPTER IX. THE SCHOOLING OF THE APOSTLES. THE MISSION TO THE CITIES.

The point we have now reached in the history is marked by a signal change as well in the form of our Lord's teaching as in the outer tenour of His life. His discourses are no longer a string of positive precepts, but they consist largely of parables, commonly closing with a moral put into a striking, not to say a paradoxical, form. His way of life is altered also, it is no longer that of a resident of Capernaum, but that of a wayfarer undertaking considerable journeys, accompanied by the Twelve who had left all to follow Him. Outward circ.u.mstances, such as danger from the side of Herod, may have had influence in bringing this latter change about, but all things fell together to further the kind of education desired for the Twelve. This change from a stationary life to a wandering one was conducive to the growth of certain qualities valuable for the founders of a Church. These qualities we find conspicuously displayed by the Apostles in the Acts, and we may ask whether they had not acquired them in this course of practical education, and also whether our Lord did not frame this course with a view to its educational effects, and the fitting of the Apostles for their work. Was it of pure accident that all this came about?

We can also, although with less positiveness, draw some inferences from the courses which our Lord avoided taking as well as from those which He took. When we are disposed to wonder why our Lord did not take some particular step, it is a good plan to consider what would have come about if He had done so. We shall often find that the proposed course would have had an ultimate effect, very different from that immediate and obvious one which had at first occurred to us. So, by examining the educational consequences which would have resulted from certain courses that were _not_ taken we shall, I think, learn something about what to avoid in education ourselves. Although the education of the Apostles is a purpose ever in our Lord's view, yet it is only now and then that we are plainly told that something was said or done for the Apostles' sakes. This silence as to the effect which is aimed at is, in education, often a necessity. If a pupil is told by his master that he is put through certain studies, not that he may learn the subject, but that he may perfect himself in certain mental motions and improve his capacities, he is apt to be made self-conscious and c.o.xcombical or else, feeling satisfied that his mind and capacities are very well as they are, he gives small attention to what he is told.

From the very first we have seen indications that our Lord was divining the natures of men, selecting them with a forecast to their coming work, and fitting them to receive and promulgate His revelation of G.o.d. But this inner purpose, which, until the Twelve are called, has lain underground, now crops out on the surface and forces itself into view; and we feel bound to ask of every subsequent incident in the sacred History, "How was the Apostles' character influenced by this?"

I have spoken of the "Schooling of the Apostles" for want of a better phrase, but the mental changes wrought in the disciples by their Master's company const.i.tute a very different sort of schooling from what commonly goes by the name. They receive no doctrinal instruction in dogmatic form, they obtain nothing which they can display, they are shewn no new system for dealing with the problems of life, nor are they given fresh views about the Messiah. Those who come asking "What they are to do?" are always told that they already know, or should know, this very well of themselves.

Among the great Teachers of the world there is hardly one, whose chosen pupils have received so few tenets in a formulated shape as those of Christ; and yet the Apostles at the time of the Ascension have undergone a transformation, compared with what they were when our Lord first found them, greater than was ever wrought in men in the same time before.

One special function was a.s.signed to the Apostles which sets them apart from all other men. In them was engendered a new quality belonging to spiritual life; they were the trustees of mankind for a new capacity; they were the depositaries of the faculty for realising "the a.s.surance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen."(187) In them Faith, which elsewhere existed only in the germ, was brought to perfection and bore fruit, and scattered seed. Their progress in this quality proceeds by certain steps; these are roughly indicated in the first chapter of this book (pp. 8, 9), but I will name them here again.

First of all, the men who were chosen for the work had a more than usual power of savouring the things of G.o.d. They are brought under the influence of One whom they regard as the Messiah but about whom something of mystery hangs. They conceive for him a pa.s.sionate loyalty, and an affection, of which that inspired by the highest human natures will only serve to give a bare idea; they are with him day by day; they look on his Signs and Wonders, but it seems to them so natural that a Man like Him should work wonders, that they scarcely marvel at them. Inward evil, selfish thoughts and all, disappear when He is by. Again, they are educated to feel that in His company they are safe against outward dangers. This growing confidence(188) was tried and found wanting when they were with their Master on the Lake and the storm arose; the lesson had to be studied a little longer. As soon as it was fully learned they were advanced another stage; the Apostles, in the great practical lesson which is the leading matter of this chapter, were taught that Christ's power reached beyond His presence, that it could even be delegated to them, and that His shelter could be spread over them, though He might be far away. They are sent forth without purse and scrip that they may the better feel that they are in Christ's hand and need give no thought to petty daily cares. The same lesson is afterwards given to the Seventy disciples. The Crucifixion brought about an education of a very different kind, that of affliction and trial; but the Apostles do not, at once, wholly lose their Master, He is withdrawn from them by degrees. After the Resurrection though He no longer lives on the earth a common life with men, yet His disciples feel that He is not absolutely gone; He seems to be still close by, and they may at any moment see His loved and honoured form and hear the words "Peace be unto you." The stranger who joins them on the road may prove to be He; they may catch sight of the Lord's features as He vanishes away.

Then comes the last stage of separation when He is completely lost to eye and ear, and Spiritual Communion only is maintained. Most carefully and by wisely ordered degrees had they been brought to apprehend this Spiritual Communion, and they were actuated by the inner sense of His presence during all the rest of their lives. This it was, this realization of our Lord's words "Lo, I am always with you unto the end of the world," which rendered-and still is rendering-the Christian Church a body living and organic, and not a mere exponent or depository of doctrines, and of traditions about the Lord.

Christ is the Divine core of the true life of Humanity, and He, when one set of views are outgrown, may whisper to the "company of G.o.d's faithful people," and there may be disclosed to them another aspect of that truth absolute which men in the body cannot completely discern or receive.

Soon after the call of the Apostles the fixed residence of our Lord at Capernaum was broken up. Very little consideration will be wanted to see that it was serviceable, with a view to the education of the Apostles, that it should be so.

Up to this time the fisher brethren had gone on working for their livelihood more or less, but now their Master saw that He should be but a short time with them and He would have them all to Himself. Of labour, both bodily and mental, the Apostles should indeed have enough, but so long as they were with their Master-so long as the bridegroom was with them-all this labour must tend to the single object unto which they were to consecrate their lives. We can readily see that so long as Christ was on earth it was their one duty to follow and to hear; they should be engrossed by the sole duty of attending Him and were not to be distracted by sordid cares or by having to labour for their daily bread. They were to learn that the work to which they were called was of a sublime order, and that the business of common life was as nothing by its side. After this time the Apostolic party were supported from their own savings or from the contributions of their friends, or of others interested in the "words of eternal life." The following pa.s.sage belongs to this time:

"And it came to pa.s.s soon afterwards, that he went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of G.o.d, and with him the twelve, and certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto them of their substance."(189)

But as soon as they ceased to labour for their daily bread, they were kept continuously and actively engaged in their Master's service; for they were not to be exposed to the dangers attending the lack of settled occupation.

Thus we find that as soon as they ceased to earn their livelihood they were occupied incessantly, journeying in attendance on our Lord. This matter may be approached at either of its two ends. It may have been our Lord's first care that the Apostles should be freed from secular labour, and the journeys may have been secondary to this purpose; or the journeyings may have been of primary importance, and the Twelve would then necessarily abandon their callings, and have to be supported out of some common fund. In both cases the educational effect was the same.

If the Twelve after being freed from earning their livelihood had remained in Capernaum, there must have been some part of the day when they were not in actual attendance on their Master; they would have to meet the reproach of idleness, and they might lose some self-respect by feeling that they were eating others' bread; or, in their spare time they might fall into those polemical discussions from which our Lord safeguards them with especial care.

All these evils were obviated by the course which was actually taken. Our Lord left his fixed home at Capernaum, and He and the Twelve adopted a wandering life. These journeys taken in company supplied a need which in all education is a foremost one, that of discipline. They were given duties to perform. When men travel together, faring hardly on rough mountain ways, bound to start together and to keep up each with the rest, whether disposed to do so or not, they soon come to set inclination on one side and to learn what obligation means. There is no kind of companionship which binds men in a closer and heartier fellowship than this journeying together. Thus the Schooling of the Twelve went on, without their guessing it, as they went with their Master, sometimes on foot over the hills, sometimes rowing the boat on the Lake, sometimes providing for His reception in the cities, or marshalling hearers to listen to the word; and sometimes, when mult.i.tudes had to be fed, arranging them, plot by plot, so that they might be reached by those who distributed the food.(190)

This work afforded the very training required. Nothing is more remarkable in the Apostles than their unbroken mental health. The histories of religious communities are full of instances of ecstacies and hysterical delusions; but never do we find among our Lord's followers anything approaching to a spiritual craze. Such crazes are commonly the growth of solitude, and no Apostle while the new ideas are working in him is suffered to be long alone. This health of theirs came in great measure from their being constantly employed about matters of which their hearts were full. The training of the Apostles fulfils all the conditions for sound spiritual health; the Twelve lead lives of out-door labour, with constant change of scene, with varied interests, with occupations to engage their minds; some had the provisioning to see to,(191) some the contributions, some were sent on in advance to secure lodging,(192) and some wrought works of healing in their Master's name. All this was conducive to their becoming self helpful, fertile in practical resource, as well as earnestly devoted to their Master, confident both of His power and of that delegated to themselves. Their way of life brought them also into acquaintance with the various dispositions and ways of men: all of this was essential for their work.

At the same time this regular occupation, though sufficient to prevent any evil spirit finding in them a corner "empty, swept and garnished," yet was not absorbing or exhausting, it left their minds and wills free play; they could fall into groups as they chose, they could talk freely on the way, they could debate on the meaning of a parable, or on the nature and time of coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

After, what seems to have been a short mission journey, with the Twelve, into the villages of Gennesareth, which served to initiate them into their new life and to teach them confidence in their Master, our Lord came back to the Lake coast where a great crowd a.s.sembled, whom He addressed from a boat upon the Lake near the sh.o.r.e.

The crowd that gathered there heard a teaching new to the world both in matter and in form; men who had listened to the Sermon on the Mount might scarcely believe that the speaker was the same; hitherto the lessons to the mult.i.tude had placed before them truths of life, moral and spiritual, put in such a way as to require no effort of the learner to be fully understood; the right or wrong about some matter, with which they had daily to deal, had been set before them in a light in which they had never seen it before. But what they heard now was not apopthegm, not precept, but, on the face of it, only a simple tale. "This" they would say "is all well, but how is it like the Kingdom of G.o.d?" Whether much more might not be learnt, even from these plain lessons, by turning them over a second time in the mind, was a question which only a few asked, and of these few the greater part were probably already among the disciples of Jesus. They were no longer given instruction in a condition ready for use, but only material from which they should extract it for themselves; and to do this they must both use their wits and have hearts alive to G.o.d. I shall speak, further on, of the principle on which our Lord acted in withdrawing from the ma.s.s the opportunities they had had before. He states it himself, in words I have many times cited, "to those who have shall be given"; words which we have not done with yet, but which it would draw me from my point to discuss now.

It was apparently for the sake of the Apostles that this form of teaching is introduced. One of the services it rendered is obvious, it set the hearers thinking. A new form of intellectual exercise was laid before the listeners, something was proposed which they had to solve for themselves; they are given the solution in two cases, and they are provided with other examples on which they are to try their own skill. Beside the stimulus thus given to intellectual activity by the new kind of teaching, it kept before the eyes of the students those lofty conceptions of Divine agency in the world which preachers of the Kingdom of Heaven would require.

Personal trust in our Lord's words, cooperating with some intuition of their own, had made them feel sure that G.o.d's Kingdom had come. Now they were told that they might know something of its ways; they are set to ponder on them, but the direction their thoughts are to follow is marked out; they are not left to rove hither and thither in their own imaginations, they are not suffered to pa.s.s disjointedly from notion to notion as in a dream; the puzzle of the parable arrests their attention, and the thread which the circ.u.mstance of it supplies serves as a clue confining their thoughts to move along a certain path. Here again, as we have observed so often, a selective action comes in, for it is the more active intellects that are most drawn towards a puzzle. They find in it something that their minds may work upon and this is what they seek; while the sluggish desire nothing of the kind, but turn aside from anything they cannot at once understand.

Again, if the Apostles solved a parable for themselves and thereby arrived at a new aspect of some Divine truth, this fresh knowledge would be much more their own, and have a far greater effect in forming their minds, than if the solution had come from their Master. A problem solved by the pupil himself does him more good than a dozen of which he reads the solutions in a book. The parable suggested certain parallels between things outward and things spiritual in the world, and, without conceiving anything so abstract as an a.n.a.logy between these two orders of things, the Twelve may have caught a glimpse of the truth, that a workmanship betokening the same hand runs through all provinces of the universe.

When the disciples had thus been filled with new thoughts and new ideas, our Lord withdrew them from turmoil that the ideas might germinate undisturbed, we read

"And on that day, when even was come, he saith unto them, Let us go over unto the other side."(193)

An incident in this little voyage served as a test of the condition of that Faith, the growth of which in the Apostles' hearts was being, I believe, watched anxiously by our Lord.

"And there ariseth a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the boat, insomuch that the boat was now filling. And he himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he awoke, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye fearful? have ye not yet faith?"(194)

This _yet_ is emphatic. This was a miracle of instruction, and it served also as a test of how far the Apostles were fit for the high lesson in store for them, that namely of trusting in the Lord's protection when they were out of His sight. Their behaviour shewed that they had not as yet fully mastered the easier one of trusting in Him when He was by.

First let us notice a trait of nature in the recital which shews the hand of an eye-witness. The words "Master, carest thou not that we perish"

exactly express the irritation of alarm, which turns against those who remain undisturbed. No fabricator would in those days have hit on this trait; and a compiler from tradition, unless he had felt constrained by his authority, might have preferred to pa.s.s it by.

It is not quite clear from the account whether the disciples hoped for superhuman help from our Lord or not. The works of His which had most gained notice had been cures, and that He should have power over the winds and waves had probably never entered their minds. Still, it is obvious, that they turned to their Master in peril, as a child does to its parent, expecting at least to find Him solicitous about them. If our Lord had asked them, as soon as the wind rose, "Shall you, if a storm should come, feel safe because I am with you?" they would have answered, and answered truly, that they would. But their Oriental disposition to panic lay deeper in them than their newly born confidence in their Master, and the sudden emergency brought the depths to the surface. Their trust, we may be sure, advanced after that night both in intensity and breadth.

The miracle in the country of the Gadarenes, into which our Lord went, brings out one point which belongs to my subject.(195) This miracle I regard as a practical ill.u.s.tration of the lesson of the parable of the Tares, inasmuch as both one and the other bear on the great puzzle of G.o.d's tolerance of evil in the world. While the parable and interpretation are yet fresh in the minds of the Apostles, the case of this Demoniac comes before them. It may have struck them-as it must often have struck ourselves-how often after having learnt something one day we come, unaccountably, on an instance or ill.u.s.tration of it on the next. The circ.u.mstance was this, an evil agency was, so to say, taken prisoner by our Lord; should it be deprived of existence, or at any rate of activity at once? Men generally would answer "Yes." They would regard it as something that had escaped G.o.d's eye and which G.o.d's servants ought to destroy whenever they could. This is not Christ's view. Evil is not regarded by him as an oversight of G.o.d. G.o.d has allowed it to exist in the world, and so it has probably some function to perform. It is not to be extirpated with ruthless hand. The tares are to grow until the harvest. On the same principle our Lord will not send the Spirit into the pit. He is the Son of Man, and men he has come to deliver; of the man therefore this evil agency must loosen his hold; but, saving this, he may pursue the vocation he was following when Christ crossed the Lake. Our Lord rescues the _man_, because to do good unto men He was sent, but for property he is not concerned. If the Demon must be about some evil, but will be content with turning to the swine, to the swine he is at liberty to go; he is not sent to them, but neither is he interdicted. The plague on men is, as was observed above, turned into a murrain among swine.(196) The destruction of the swine was the act of the Divine government only in the same sense that the losses by the cattle plague are so now. As we go on we read: