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| Examples from the Old Testament, Balaam, Moses, and Hezekiah, to Show How Completely the Instruction and Conduct of Christ Are in Keeping with the Will and Purpose of the Creator.
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Chapter
XXVIII.—Examples from the Old Testament, Balaam, Moses, and
Hezekiah, to Show How Completely the Instruction and Conduct of
Christ4620
Are in Keeping with
the Will and Purpose of the Creator.
Justly, therefore, was the hypocrisy of the
Pharisees displeasing to Him, loving God as they did with their lips,
but not with their heart. “Beware,” He says to the
disciples, “of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is
hypocrisy,” not the proclamation of the Creator. The Son hates
those who refused obedience4621
to the Father; nor
does He wish His disciples to show such a disposition towards
Him—not (let it be observed) towards another god, against
whom such hypocrisy indeed might have been admissible, as that which He
wished to guard His disciples against. It is the example of the
Pharisees which He forbids. It was in respect of Him against whom the
Pharisees were sinning that (Christ) now forbade His disciples to
offend. Since, then, He had censured their hypocrisy, which covered the
secrets of the heart, and obscured with superficial offices the
mysteries of unbelief, because (while holding the key of knowledge) it
would neither enter in itself, nor permit others to enter in, He
therefore adds, “There is nothing covered that shall not be
revealed; neither hid, which shall not be known,”4622
in order that no one should suppose that He
was attempting the revelation and the recognition of an hitherto
unknown and hidden god. When He remarks also on their murmurs and
taunts, in saying of Him, “This man casteth out devils only
through Beelzebub,” He means that all these imputations
would come forth to the light of day, and be in the mouths of men in
consequence of the promulgation of the Gospel. He then turns to
His disciples with these words, “I say unto you, my friends, Be
not afraid of them which can only kill the body, and after that have no
more power over you.”4623
They will, however,
find Isaiah had already said, “See how the just man is taken
away, and no man layeth it to heart.”4624
“But I will show you whom ye shall fear: fear Him who,
after He hath killed,
hath power to cast into hell” (meaning, of course, the Creator);
“yea, I say unto you, fear Him.”4625
Now, it would here be enough for my purpose that He forbids offence
being given to Him whom He orders to be feared; and that He orders Him
to be respected4626
whom He forbids to
be offended; and that He who gives these commands belongs to that very
God for whom He procures this fear, this absence of offence, and
this respect. But this conclusion I can draw also from the following
words: “For I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before
men, him will I also confess before God.”4627
Now they who shall confess Christ will have to be slain4628
before men, but they will have nothing more
to suffer after they have been put to death by them. These therefore
will be they whom He forewarns above not to be afraid of being only
killed; and this forewarning He offers, in order that He might subjoin
a clause on the necessity of confessing Him: “Every one that
denieth me before men shall be denied before God”4629
—by Him, of course, who would have
confessed him, if he had only confessed God. Now, He who
will confess the confessor is the very same God who will also deny the
denier of Himself. Again, if it is the confessor who will have nothing
to fear after his violent death,4630
it is the
denier to whom everything will become fearful after his natural death.
Since, therefore, that which will have to be feared after death, even
the punishment of hell, belongs to the Creator, the denier, too,
belongs to the Creator. As with the denier, however, so with the
confessor: if he should deny God, he will plainly have to suffer from
God, although from men he had nothing more to suffer after they had put
him to death. And so Christ is the Creator’s, because He
shows that all those who deny Him ought to fear the Creator’s
hell. After deterring His disciples from denial of
Himself, He adds an admonition to fear blasphemy: “Whosoever
shall speak against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but
whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven
him.”4631
Now, if both the
remission and the retention of sin savour of a judicial God, the Holy
Ghost, who is not to be blasphemed, will belong to Him, who will not
forgive the blasphemy; just as He who, in the preceding passage, was
not to be denied, belonged to, Him who would, after He had killed, also
cast into hell. Now, since it is Christ who averts blasphemy from the
Creator, I am at a loss to know in what manner His adversary4632
| 4632 So full of blasphemy,
as he is, against the Creator. | could have come. Else, if by these sayings
He throws a black cloud of censure4633
over the
severity of Him who will not forgive blasphemy and will kill even to
hell, it follows that the very spirit of that rival god may be
blasphemed with impunity, and his Christ denied; and that there is no
difference, in fact, between worshipping and despising him; but that,
as there is no punishment for the contempt, so there is no reward for
the worship, which men need expect. When “brought before
magistrates,” and examined, He forbids them “to take
thought how they shall answer;” “for,” says He,
“the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought
to say.”4634
If such an
injunction4635
as this comes from
the Creator, the precept will only be His by whom an example was
previously given. The prophet Balaam, in Numbers, when sent forth by
king Balak to curse Israel, with whom he was commencing war, was at the
same moment4636
filled with the
Spirit. Instead of the curse which he was come to pronounce, he uttered
the blessing which the Spirit at that very hour inspired him with;
having previously declared to the king’s messengers, and then to
the king himself, that he could only speak forth that which God should
put into his mouth.4637
The novel doctrines
of the new Christ are such as the Creator’s servants initiated
long before! But see how clear a difference there is between the
example of Moses and of Christ.4638
| 4638 A Marcionite
objection. | Moses
voluntarily interferes with brothers4639
| 4639 “Two men of the
Hebrews.”—A.V. | who were
quarrelling, and chides the offender: “Wherefore smitest
thou thy fellow?” He is, however, rejected by him:
“Who made thee a prince or a judge over us?”4640
Christ, on the contrary, when requested by a
certain man to compose a strife between him and his brother about
dividing an inheritance, refused His assistance, although in so honest
a cause. Well, then, my Moses is better than your Christ, aiming as he
did at the peace of brethren, and obviating their wrong.
But of course the case must be different with Christ, for he is
the Christ of the simply good and non-judicial god. “Who,”
says he, “made me a judge over you?”4641
No other word of excuse was he able to
find, without
using4642
that with which the wicked, man and impious
brother had rejected4643
| 4643 Excusserat. Oehler
interprets the word by temptaverat. | the defender of
probity and piety! In short, he approved of the excuse, although a bad
one, by his use of it; and of the act, although a bad one, by his
refusal to make peace between brothers. Or rather, would He not show
His resentment4644
| 4644 Nunquid indigne
tulerit. | at the rejection of
Moses with such a word? And therefore did He not wish in a
similar case of contentious brothers, to confound them with the
recollection of so harsh a word? Clearly so. For He had Himself
been present in Moses, who heard such a rejection—even He, the
Spirit of the Creator.4645
| 4645 This is an
instance of the title “Spirit” being applied to the
divine nature of the Son. See Bp. Bull’s Def. Nic. Fid.
(by the translator). [See note 13, p. 375, supra.] | I think that we
have already, in another passage,4646
| 4646 Above, chap. xv.
of this book, p. 369, supra. | sufficiently
shown that the glory of riches is condemned by our God, “who
putteth down the mighty from their throne, and exalts the poor from the
dunghill.”4647
| 4647 Comp. 1 Sam. ii. 8 with Ps. cxiii. 7 and Luke i.
52. | From Him,
therefore, will proceed the parable of the rich man, who flattered
himself about the increase of his fields, and to Whom God said:
“Thou fool, this night shall they require thy soul of thee; then
whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?”4648
It was just in the like manner that the king
Hezekiah heard from Isaiah the sad doom of his kingdom, when he
gloried, before the envoys of Babylon,4649
in
his treasures and the deposits of his precious things.4650
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