PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture : St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 245,559 words · 344 reading sections
The Martyrdom Of John
The criminality of the daughter largely depends upon her age, of which we have no knowledge. Perhaps she was too mere a child to understand the degradation of the dance, or the infamy of the request which her, we hope, innocent and panting lips were tutored to prefer. But, more probably, she was old enough to be her mo…
556 wordsSECTION 122The Grave Of The Dead John And The Grave Of The Living Jesus
'And John's disciples came, and took up the body, and buried it, and went and told Jesus.'--MATT. xiv. 12. 'And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy.'--MATT. xxviii. 8. There is a remarkable parallel and still more remarkable contrast between these two groups of disciples at the graves o…
828 wordsSECTION 123The Grave Of The Dead John And The Grave Of The Living Jesus
Not only did the disciples of Christ keep united, but their conceptions of Jesus underwent a remarkable change, after His death. We might have expected, indeed, that, when memory began to work, and the disturbing influence of daily association was withdrawn, the same idealising process would have begun on their image o…
658 wordsSECTION 124The Grave Of The Dead John And The Grave Of The Living Jesus
There is no better historical evidence of a fact than the existence of an institution built upon it, and coeval with it. The Christian Church is such evidence for the fact of the Resurrection; or, to put the conclusion in the most moderate fashion, for the belief in the Resurrection. For, as we have shown, the natural …
676 wordsSECTION 125The Grave Of The Dead John And The Grave Of The Living Jesus
III. Again, we may remark that such a belief could not have originated or maintained itself unless it had been true. Our previous remarks have gone no farther than to establish the belief in the Resurrection of Christ, as the basis of primitive Christianity. It is vehemently alleged, and we may freely admit that the s…
897 wordsSECTION 126The Grave Of The Dead John And The Grave Of The Living Jesus
What new solutions the fertility of unbelief may yet bring forth, and the credulity of unbelief may yet accept, we know not; but we may firmly hold by the faith which breathed new hope and strange joy into that sad band on the first Easter morning, and rejoice with them in the glad, wonderful fact that He is risen from…
764 wordsSECTION 127The Food Of The World
The world has guessed and feared, or guessed and hoped, but always guessed and doubted the life beyond. Analogies, poetic adumbrations, probabilities drawn from consciousness and from conscience, from intuition and from anticipation, are but poor foundations on which to build a solid faith. But to those to whom the Res…
709 wordsSECTION 128The Food Of The World
Take an illustration from the beginning of miracles where Jesus manifested forth His glory, at the marriage in Cana of Galilee--that great miracle in which our Lord hallowed the ties of human affection, and consecrated the joy of united hearts. The necessity is felt before He supplies it. The servants fill the waterpot…
669 wordsSECTION 129The Food Of The World
Precisely as in the miracles in general, so in the work of Christ as a whole, the field of supernatural intervention is rigidly confined, and fits in with the established order of things. The Incarnation and Sacrifice of our Lord are the purely supernatural work of the divine Power and Mercy. He comes, enters into our …
782 wordsSECTION 130The Food Of The World
It is further noticeable how these apostles were prepared for the work which they had to do. The first lesson which they had to learn was the almost ludicrous disproportion between the resources at their command and the necessities of the crowd. 'How many loaves have ye? go and see.' And this is the first lesson that w…
677 wordsSECTION 131The Food Of The World
Mark again that the disciples seem themselves to have partaken of the bread before they parted it among the multitudes. That is our true preparation for the work of feeding the hungry. The Church which feeds the world is able to do so, only because, and in proportion as, it has found in Christ its own sustenance and li…
764 wordsSECTION 132The Food Of The World
Hence its universal adaptation to mankind. It alone of all so-called faiths overleaps all geographical limits and lives in all centuries. It alone wins its trophies and bestows its gifts on all sorts and conditions of men. Other plants which the 'Heavenly Father hath not planted' have their zones of vegetation and die …
910 wordsSECTION 133The Food Of The World
The refusal to engage in such service is one fruitful cause of the low state of spiritual health in which so many Christians pass their days. They seem to think that they receive the bread from heaven only for their own use, and that they have done all that they have to do with it, when they eat it themselves. And so c…
757 wordsSECTION 134The King'S Highway
'And straightway Jesus constrained His disciples to get into a ship, and to go before Him unto the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. 23. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. 24. But the ship was now in th…
670 wordsSECTION 135The King'S Highway
They had been caught in a similar storm once before, but then He had been on board, and it was daylight. Now it was dark, 'and Jesus had not yet come to them,' How they would look back at the dim outline of the hills, where they knew He was, and wonder why He had sent them out into the tempest alone! Mark tells us that…
739 wordsSECTION 136The King'S Highway
III. We have the terror and the recognition. The disciples were as yet little lifted above their fellows; they had no expectation of His coming, and thought just what any rude minds would have thought, that this mysterious Thing stalking towards them across the waters came from the unseen world, and probably that it w…
687 wordsSECTION 137Peter On The Waves
'And Peter answered Him and said, Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on the water.'--MATT. xiv. 28. We owe this account of an episode in the miracle of Christ's walking on the waters to Matthew alone. Singularly enough there is no reference to Peter's venturesomeness and failure in the Gospel which is general…
735 wordsSECTION 138Peter On The Waves
Let us take the warning from this venturesomeness of a generous, impulsive, enthusiastic religious nature, and remember that the most genuine faith and religious emotion need to be sobered and steadied by reflection, and by searching into our own motives, before we venture upon the water, howsoever much we may wish to …
819 wordsSECTION 139Peter On The Waves
Our faith is sure to fail when we turn away our eyes from Christ to look at the tempest and the dangers. If we keep our gaze fixed upon Him, the consciousness and the confidence of His all-sustaining power will hold us up. If once we turn aside to look at the waves as they heave, and prick our ears to listen to the win…
842 wordsSECTION 140Peter On The Waves
The manner of the answer is noteworthy. It is determined by, and adapted to, his weak faith. He could not be upheld now as he had been a moment ago, before his fear had weighted him, by the exercise of Christ's will only. Then Christ could hold him up without touching him, but now the palpable grasp of the hand was nee…
448 wordsSECTION 141Crumbs And The Bread
'Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. 22. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23. But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came …
809 wordsSECTION 142Crumbs And The Bread
II. There is the disciples' intercession answered by Christ's statement of the limitations of His mission. Their petition evidently meant, 'Dismiss her by granting her request'; they knew in what fashion He was wont to 'send away' such suppliants. They seem, then, more pitiful than He is. But their thoughts are more fo…
754 wordsSECTION 143Crumbs And The Bread
As it would seem, her distress touched no chord of sympathy; and from the lips accustomed to drop oil and wine into every wound, came words like swords, cold, unfeeling, keen-edged, fitted and meant to lacerate. We shall not understand them, or Him, if we content ourselves with the explanation which jealousy for His ho…
897 wordsSECTION 144Crumbs And The Bread
V. The final verses of our lesson give us a striking contrast to this story. Jesus is again on the shores of the lake, after a tour through the Tyrian and Sidonian territory, and then eastwards and southwards, to its eastern bank. There He, as on several former occasions, seeks seclusion and repose in the hills, which …
291 wordsSECTION 145The Divine Christ Confessed, The Suffering Christ Denied
'When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Phllippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am? 14. And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 15. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16. And Simon Pe…
792 wordsSECTION 146The Divine Christ Confessed, The Suffering Christ Denied
Why should this great question have been preceded by the other? Probably to make the disciples feel more distinctly the chaotic contradictions of the popular judgment, and their own isolation by their possession of the clearer light. He wishes them to see the gulf opening between them and their fellows, and so to bind …
891 wordsSECTION 147The Divine Christ Confessed, The Suffering Christ Denied
Built on men who hold by that confession, the Church is immortal; and the armies who pour out of the gates of the pale kingdoms of the unseen world shall not be able to destroy it. Peter, as confessor of his Lord's human-divine nature, wields the keys of the kingdom of heaven, like a steward of a great house; and that …
665 wordsSECTION 148The Divine Christ Confessed, The Suffering Christ Denied
How vividly the scene of Peter's rash rejection of the teaching is described! The apostle, full of eager love, still, as of old, swift to speak, and driven by unexamined impulse, lays his hand on Christ, and draws Him a little apart, while he 'begins' to pour out words which show that he has forgotten his confession. '…
866 wordsSECTION 149The Divine Christ Confessed, The Suffering Christ Denied
Verse 27 confirms all the preceding by the solemn announcement of the coming of the Son of Man as Judge. Mark the dignity of the words. He is to come 'in the glory of the Father.' That ineffable and inaccessible light which rays forth from the Father enwraps the Son. Their glory is one. The waiting angels are 'His.' He…
372 wordsSECTION 150Christ Foreseeing The Cross
'From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.'--MATT. xvi. 21. The 'time' referred to in the text was probably a little more than six months befo…
651 wordsSECTION 151Christ Foreseeing The Cross
I think that people dogmatise a great deal too glibly as to what they know very little about, the interaction of the divine and the human elements in Christ, and on the one side are far too certain in their affirmation that His humanity possessed in some reflected fashion the divine gift of omniscience; and on the othe…
730 wordsSECTION 152Christ Foreseeing The Cross
But that is apart from my purpose. Mark then, that our Lord's recognition of this necessity for His suffering is, on the first and plainest aspect of it, His recognition that His suffering was necessary on the ground of filial obedience. All through His life we hear that 'must' echoing, and His whole spirit bowed to it…
753 wordsSECTION 153Christ Foreseeing The Cross
III. Now note further, how we have here also our Lord's willing acceptance of the necessity. It is one thing to recognise, and another thing to accept, a needs-be. This 'must' was no unwelcome obligation laid upon Him against His will, but one to which His whole nature responded and which He accepted. No doubt there w…
779 wordsSECTION 154Christ Foreseeing The Cross
And then note, still further, how, without the Cross, these other truths are not the whole gospel. There were disciples then, as there have been disciples since, and as there are to-day, who were willing to accept, 'Thou art the Christ'; and willing in some sense to say 'Thou art the Son of God,' but stumbled when He s…
259 wordsSECTION 155The King In His Beauty
'And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, 2. And was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light. 3. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him. 4. Then a…
805 wordsSECTION 156The King In His Beauty
What was the purpose of the Transfiguration? Matthew seems to tell us in that 'before them.' It was for their sakes, not for His, as indeed follows from the belief that it was the irradiation from within of the indwelling light. The new epoch of His life, in which they were to have a share of trial and cross-bearing, n…
726 wordsSECTION 157The King In His Beauty
Their presence also teaches us that Jesus is the life of all the living dead. Of course, care must be exercised in drawing dogmatic conclusions from a manifestly abnormal incident, but some plain truths do result from it. Of these two, one had died, though mystery hung round his death and burial; the other had passed i…
735 wordsSECTION 158The King In His Beauty
We may note, too, Christ's passage into the cloud. Moses and Elijah, being purged from mortal weakness, could pass thither. But Jesus, alone of men, could pass in the flesh into that brightness, and be hid in its fiery heart, unshrinking and unconsumed. 'Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? His entrance …
715 wordsSECTION 159The Secret Of Power
'Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20. And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief.'--MATT. xvii. 19, 20. 'And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out.' That same power was bestowed, too, on th…
716 wordsSECTION 160The Secret Of Power
But first, let me say very briefly, that I would not be understood as, by the selection of such a text, desiring to suggest that we have failed in our work. Thank God! we can point to results far, far greater than we have deserved, far greater than we have expected, however they may be beneath our desires, and still fu…
661 wordsSECTION 161The Secret Of Power
We have a gospel which never can grow old. Its adaptation to the deepest needs of men's souls remains constant with these needs. These vary not from age to age. No matter what may be the superficial differences of dress, the same human heart beats beneath every robe. The great primal wants of men's spirits abide, as th…
711 wordsSECTION 162The Secret Of Power
We have a Lord, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. 'Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world.' We have not merely to look back to the life and death of Christ in history, and recognise there the work, the efficacy of which shall endure for ever. But whilst we do this, we have also to think of th…
725 wordsSECTION 163The Secret Of Power
And what in us is to blame? Some of us will answer--Our modes of working; they have not been free enough, or not orderly enough, or in some way or other not wisely adapted to our ends. Some will answer--Our forms of presenting the truth; they have not been flexible enough, or not fixed enough; they have been too much a…
784 wordsSECTION 164The Secret Of Power
Consider, too, how the same faith has a natural operation on ourselves which tends to fit us for casting out the evil spirits. Given a man full of faith, you will have a man tenacious in purpose, absorbed in one grand object, simple in his motives, in whom selfishness has been driven out by the power of a mightier love…
763 wordsSECTION 165The Secret Of Power
III. Our faith is ever threatened by subtle unbelief. It would appear that the disciples were ignorant of the unbelief that had made them weak. They fancied that they had confidence in their Christ-given power, and they certainly had in some dull kind of fashion expected to succeed in their attempt. But He who sees th…
861 wordsSECTION 166The Secret Of Power
Again, the atmosphere of scornful disbelief which surrounded the disciples made their faith falter. It was too weak to sustain itself in the face of the consciousness that not a man in all that crowd believed in their power; and it melted away before the contempt of the scribes and the incredulous curiosity of the byst…
679 wordsSECTION 167The Secret Of Power
The first condition of the freshness and energy of faith is constant devotion. The attrition of the world wears it thin, the distractions of life draw it from its clinging hold on Christ, the very toil for Him is apt to entice our thoughts from out of the secret place of the most High into the busy arena of our strife.…
659 wordsSECTION 168The Secret Of Power
Dear brethren, what solemn rebuke these words have for us all! How they winnow our works of Christian activity! How they show us the hollowness of our services, the self-indulgence of our lives, the coldness of our devotion, the cowardice of our faith! How marvellous they make the fruits which God's great goodness has …
378 wordsSECTION 169The Coin In The Fish'S Mouth
'And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest them, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? 26. Peter saith unto Him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free.'--MATT. xvii. 25, 26. All our Lo…
700 wordsSECTION 170The Coin In The Fish'S Mouth
Christ then here claims in some sense, Sonship to Him to whom the tribute is paid, that is, to God, and therefore freedom from the obligation to pay the tribute. But notice, for this is an important point in the explanation of the words, that the plural in our Lord's words, 'Then are the children free,' is not intended…
762 wordsSECTION 171The Coin In The Fish'S Mouth
The Son needs no 'ransom for His soul,' which, being translated, is but this: the purity and the innocence of Jesus Christ, which is a manifest fact in His biography, is only explicable when we believe that we have before us the Incarnate God, and therefore the Perfect Man. And the Son needs no temple for His worship. …
690 wordsSECTION 172The Coin In The Fish'S Mouth
Is it not a parable of His life and lowly obedience? He proclaimed the same principle as the guide for all His conduct, when, sinless, He presented Himself to John for the 'baptism of repentance,' and overcame the baptiser's scruples with the words, 'Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' He comes under the …
677 wordsSECTION 173The Coin In The Fish'S Mouth
And thus, here, He will not only identify Himself with sinful men who need a ransom, and with sense-bound men who need a sacrifice and a temple, but He will so identify Himself with them as that He shall send His power into the recesses of the lake, where His knowledge sees, as clearly as our eyes see the men that stan…
759 wordsSECTION 174Contents
ALEXANDER MACLAREN, D. D., Litt. D. _Chaps. XVIII to XXVIII_ THE LAW OF PRECEDENCE IN THE KINGDOM (Matt. xviii. 1-14) SELF-MUTILATION FOR SELF-PRESERVATION (Matt. xviii. 8, R.V.) THE LOST SHEEP AND THE SEEKING SHEPHERD (Matt. xviii. 12) THE PERSISTENCE OF THWARTED LOVE (Matt. xviii. 13; Luke xv. 4) FORGIVEN AND U…
359 wordsSECTION 175The Law Of Precedence In The Kingdom
'At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2. And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, 3. And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of hea…
779 wordsSECTION 176The Law Of Precedence In The Kingdom
Verse 3 lays down the condition of entrance into the kingdom, from which necessarily follows the condition of supremacy in it. What a child is naturally, and without effort or merit, by reason of age and position, we must become, if we are to pass the narrow portal which admits into the large room. That 'becoming' is i…
862 wordsSECTION 177The Law Of Precedence In The Kingdom
On the other hand, the antithesis of 'receiving' is 'causing to stumble,' by which is meant giving occasion for moral fall. That would be done by contests about pre-eminence, by arrogance, by non-recognition. The atmosphere of carnality and selfishness in which the disciples were moving, as their question showed, would…
650 wordsSECTION 178The Law Of Precedence In The Kingdom
Following the Revised Version we omit verse 11. If it were genuine, the connection would be that such despising contradicted the purpose of Christ's mission; and the 'for' would refer back to the injunction, not to the glimpse into heaven which enforced it. The exhortation is further confirmed by the parable of the ni…
386 wordsSECTION 179Self-Mutilation For Self-Preservation
'If thy hand or thy foot causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee.'-MATT. xviii. 8, R.V. No person or thing can do our characters as much harm as we ourselves can do. Indeed, none can do them any harm but ourselves. For men may put stumbling-blocks in our way, but it is we who make them stumbling-bl…
833 wordsSECTION 180Self-Mutilation For Self-Preservation
Then there is another point to be observed in this case supposed, and that is that the whole matter is left to the determination of personal experience. No one else has the right to decide for you what it is safe and wise for you to do in regard to things which are not in themselves wrong. If they are wrong in themselv…
745 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.