PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture : St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 245,559 words · 344 reading sections
Self-Mutilation For Self-Preservation
II. So much, then, for the first of the points here. Now a word, in the second place, as to the sharp remedy enjoined. 'Cut it off and cast it from thee.' Entire excision is the only safety. I myself am to be the operator in that surgery. I am to lay my hand upon the block, and with the other hand to grasp the axe and…
769 wordsSECTION 182Self-Mutilation For Self-Preservation
III. And now, lastly, a word as to the solemn exhortation by which this injunction is enforced. Christ rests His command of self-denial and self-mutilation upon the highest ground of self-interest. 'It is better for thee.' We are told nowadays that this is a very low motive to appeal to, that Christianity is a religio…
725 wordsSECTION 183Self-Mutilation For Self-Preservation
And, on the other hand, the complete man, complete in everything except his spiritual nature, is a fragment in all his completeness; and yonder, there will for him be a solemn process of stripping. 'Take it from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents.' Ah! how much of that for which some of you are flinging away…
320 wordsSECTION 184The Lost Sheep And The Seeking Shepherd
If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth Into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray!--MATT. xviii. 12. We find this simple parable, or germ of a parable, in a somewhat more expanded form, as the first of the incomparable three in…
747 wordsSECTION 185The Lost Sheep And The Seeking Shepherd
The first thought I gather from the parable is that all men are Christ's sheep. That sounds a strange thing to say. What? all these men and women who, having run away from Him, are plunged in sin, like sheep mired in a black bog, the scoundrels and the profligates, the scum and the outcasts of great cities; people with…
681 wordsSECTION 186The Lost Sheep And The Seeking Shepherd
The straying of the half-conscious sheep may seem more innocent, but it carries the poor creature away from the shepherd as completely as if it had been wholly intelligent and voluntary. Let us learn the lesson. In a world like this, if a man does not know very clearly where he is going, he is sure to go wrong. If you …
742 wordsSECTION 187The Lost Sheep And The Seeking Shepherd
II. So much, then, for one of the great pictures in this text. I can spare but a sentence or two for the other--the picture of the Seeker. I said that in the one form of the parable it was more distinctly the Father, and in the other more distinctly the Son, who is represented as seeking the sheep. But these two do st…
801 wordsSECTION 188Persistence Of Thwarted Love
'If so be that he find it.'--MATT. xviii. 13. 'Until he find it.'--LUKE xv. 4. Like other teachers, Jesus seems to have had favourite points of view and utterances which came naturally to His lips. There are several instances in the gospels of His repeating the same sayings in entirely different connections and with …
748 wordsSECTION 189Persistence Of Thwarted Love
And, brother, that method of winning--I was going to say, of _earning_--our love comes straight in its appeal to every single soul on the face of the earth. Do not say that thou wert not in Christ's heart and mind when He willed to be born and willed to die. Thou, and thou, and thou, and every single unit of humanity w…
697 wordsSECTION 190Persistence Of Thwarted Love
II. And now, in the second place, a word as to the possible thwarting of the search. 'If so be that He find.' That is an awful _if_, when we think of what lies below it. The thing seems an absurdity when it is spoken, and yet it is a grim fact in many a life--viz. that Christ's effort can fail and be thwarted. Not tha…
682 wordsSECTION 191Persistence Of Thwarted Love
We do not need to _do_ anything to put Him away. I have no doubt that some of us, as soon as my voice ceases, will plunge again into worldly talk and thoughts before they are down the chapel steps, and so blot out, as well as they can, any vagrant and superficial impression that may have been made. Dear brethren, it is…
692 wordsSECTION 192Forgiven And Unforgiving
'Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven.' --MATT. xviii. 22. The disciples had been squabbling about pre-eminence in the kingdom which they thought was presently to appear. They had ventured to refer their selfish and ambitious dispute to Christ's arbitrament. He…
723 wordsSECTION 193Forgiven And Unforgiving
But I would point out that the amount is stated in terms of talents, and _any_ talent is a large sum; and there are ten thousand of these; and the reason why the account is made out in terms of talents, the largest denomination in the currency of the period, is because every sin against God is a great sin. He being wha…
731 wordsSECTION 194Forgiven And Unforgiving
The same imperfection in the analogy applies to the next point in the parable--viz. the bankrupt debtor's prayer, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.' Easy to promise! I wonder how long it would have taken a penniless bankrupt to scrape together two and a quarter millions of pounds? He said a great deal mo…
793 wordsSECTION 195Forgiven And Unforgiving
So, then, our Lord here implies the principle that God's mercy to us is to set the example to which our dealings with others is to be conformed. 'Even as I had mercy on thee' plainly proposes that miracle of divine forgiveness as our pattern as well as our hope. The world's morality recognises the duty of forgiveness. …
597 wordsSECTION 196The Requirements Of The King
'And, behold, one came and said unto Him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 17. And He said unto him, Why callest thou Me good? there is none good but One, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. 18. He saith unto Him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shal…
679 wordsSECTION 197The Requirements Of The King
Where had he got hold of the thought of 'eternal life'? It was miles above the dusty speculations and casuistries of the rabbis. Probably from Christ Himself. He was right in recognising that the conditions of possessing it were moral, but his conception of 'good' was superficial, and he thought more of doing good than…
653 wordsSECTION 198The Requirements Of The King
So Christ answers the question by quoting the second half of the Decalogue, which deals with the homeliest duties, and appending to it the summary of the law, which requires love to our neighbour as to ourselves. Why does He omit the earlier half? Probably because He would meet the error of the question, by presenting …
933 wordsSECTION 199The Requirements Of The King
III. Then comes the collapse of all the enthusiasm. The questioner's earnestness chills at the touch of the test. What has become of the eagerness which brought him running to Jesus, and of the willingness to do any hard task to which he was set? It was real, but shallow. It deceived himself. But Christ's words cut dow…
728 wordsSECTION 200Nearest To Christ
That is a lesson which commercial nations, like England, have need to lay to heart, not as a worn-out saying of the Bible, which means very little for us, but as heavy with significance, and pointing to the special dangers which beset Christian perfection. So real is the peril of riches, that Christ would have His dis…
899 wordsSECTION 201Nearest To Christ
I. So, then, if we rightly understand these words, and take them without the unfortunate comment which our translators have inserted, they contain, first, the principle that some will be nearer Christ than others in that heavenly kingdom. As I have said, the words of our Lord do not merely imply, by the absence of all…
715 wordsSECTION 202Nearest To Christ
If so, if already eternal life in the bud standeth in the knowledge of God in Christ, what makes its fruitage and completeness? Surely, not physical changes or the circumstances of heaven, at least not these primarily, however much such changes and circumstances may subserve our blessedness there, and the anticipation …
709 wordsSECTION 203Nearest To Christ
II. Still further, these words rightly understood assert that truth which, at first sight, our Authorised Version's rendering seems to make them contradict, viz. that Christ is the giver to each of these various degrees of glory and blessedness. 'It is not Mine to give, save to them for whom it is prepared.' Then it is…
707 wordsSECTION 204Nearest To Christ
Christ is the bestower of the royalties of the heavens as of the redemptions of earth, and it is His to give that which we crave at His hands, when we ask pardon here and glory hereafter. 'To him that is athirst will He give of the water of life freely,' and to him that overcometh will He give the crown of glory. III.…
963 wordsSECTION 205Nearest To Christ
Nor can such a place be given by mere arbitrary will. Christ could not, if He would, set a man at His right hand whose heart was not the home of simple trust and thankful love, whose nature and desires were unprepared for that blessed world. It would be like taking one of those creatures--if there be such--that live on…
944 wordsSECTION 206Nearest To Christ
And as His work is the Father's preparation of the place for us by the Son, the issue of His work is the Father's preparation of us for the place, through the Son, by the Spirit. 'He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.' If so, then what follows? This, among other things, that wishes are vain, for heav…
268 wordsSECTION 207The Servant-Lord And His Servants
'Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.'--MATT. xx. 28. It seems at first sight strangely unsympathetic and irrelevant that the ambitious request of James and John and their foolish mother, that they should sit at Christ's right hand and His left in His kingdom, should have been occas…
767 wordsSECTION 208The Servant-Lord And His Servants
No taint of bye-ends was in that service; no sidelong glances at possible advantages of influence or reputation or the like, which so often deform men's philanthropies and services to one another. No more than the sunbeam shines for the sake of collateral issues which may benefit itself, did Jesus Christ seek His own a…
713 wordsSECTION 209The Servant-Lord And His Servants
Now, I know far better than you do how wretchedly inadequate all these poor words of mine have been to the great theme that I have been trying to speak of, but they may at least--like a little water poured into a pump--have set your minds working upon the theme, and, I hope, to better purpose. 'The Son of Man came ... …
707 wordsSECTION 210The Servant-Lord And His Servants
This fruitful principle will one day shape civil as well as ecclesiastical societies. For the present, our Lord draws a contrast between the worldly and the Christian notions of rank and dignity. 'It shall not be so among you,' says He. And the nobler conception of eminence and service set forth in His disciples, if th…
358 wordsSECTION 211What The Historic Christ Taught About His Death
'The Son of Man came... to give His life a ransom for many.'--Matt. xx. 28. We hear a great deal at present about going back to 'the Christ of the Gospels.' In so far as that phrase and the movement of thought which it describes are a protest against the substitution of doctrines for the Person whom the doctrines rep…
747 wordsSECTION 212What The Historic Christ Taught About His Death
With precise correspondence, if we turn to the other end of His life, we find the equally significant expression in my text which asserts for it, too, that the other necessity to which men necessarily and without their own volition bow was to Christ a matter of choice. 'The Son of Man came to _give_.' 'No man taketh it…
746 wordsSECTION 213What The Historic Christ Taught About His Death
Dear brethren, let me press upon you this plain truth, that no conception of Christ's death which looks upon it merely as the close, by pathetic sufferings, of a life to the activities of which it adds nothing but pathos, approaches the signification of it which inheres in the thought that this was the aim and purpose …
740 wordsSECTION 214What The Historic Christ Taught About His Death
IV. Lastly, the Christ of the Gospels thought and taught that His death had world-wide power. He says here, 'A ransom for _many_.' Now that word is not used in this instance in contradistinction to 'all,' nor in contradistinction to 'few.' It is distinctly employed as emphasising the contrast between the single death …
535 wordsSECTION 215The Coming Of The King To His Palace
'And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 2. Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto Me. 3. And if any man say ought un…
844 wordsSECTION 216The Coming Of The King To His Palace
What is the reason for this contrast? The need for the former reticence no longer existed. There was no fear now of His teaching and ministry being interrupted by popular outburst. He knew that it was finished, and that His hour had come. Therefore, the same motive of filial obedience which had led Him to avoid what wo…
906 wordsSECTION 217The Coming Of The King To His Palace
II. The coming of the King in the temple. The discussion of the accuracy of Matthew's arrangement of events here is unnecessary. He has evidently grouped, as usual, incidents which have a common bearing, and wishes to put these three, of the cleansing, the healing, and the pleasure in the children's praise, as the char…
1,057 wordsSECTION 218A New Kind Of King
'All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass.'--MATT. xxi. 4, 5. Our Lord's entrance into Jerusalem is one of the comparatively few events which are recorded in all the four Gosp…
685 wordsSECTION 219A New Kind Of King
Then, still further, looking at this distinctly exceptional fact in our Lord's life, we see in it a very emphatic claim to very singular prerogative and position. He not only thereby presented Himself before the nation in their collective capacity as being the King of Israel, but He also did a very strange thing. He dr…
669 wordsSECTION 220A New Kind Of King
The symbolism is clear enough. This is a new kind of King. He comes, not mounted on a warhorse, or thundering across the battlefield in a scythe-armed chariot, like the Pharaohs and the Assyrian monarchs, who have left us their vainglorious monuments, but mounted on the emblem of meekness, patience, gentleness, and pea…
661 wordsSECTION 221A New Kind Of King
Let me beseech you, Christian men and women, to lay to heart the duty of Christ's followers in reference to the influence and leavening of public opinion upon this matter, and to see to it that, in so far as we can help, we set ourselves steadfastly against that devilish spirit which still oppresses with an incubus alm…
850 wordsSECTION 222The Vineyard And Its Keepers
Our Judge is the gentle Jesus, therefore we can hope. The gentle Jesus is our Judge, therefore let us not presume. I beseech you, brethren, lay, as these poor people did their garments, your lusts and proud wills in His way, and join the welcoming shout that hails the King, 'meek and having salvation.' And then, when H…
725 wordsSECTION 223The Vineyard And Its Keepers
I. The first stage is the preparation of the vineyard, in which three steps are marked. It is planted and furnished with all appliances needful for making wine, which is its great end. The direct divine origin of the religious ideas and observances of 'Judaism' is thus asserted by Christ. The only explanation of them i…
799 wordsSECTION 224The Vineyard And Its Keepers
Christ treats the whole long series of violent rejections as the acts of the same set of husbandmen. The class or nation was one, as a stream is one, though all its particles are different; and the Pharisees and scribes, who stood with frowning hatred before Him as He spoke, were the living embodiment of the spirit whi…
856 wordsSECTION 225The Vineyard And Its Keepers
With what sad calmness does Jesus tell the fate of the son, so certain that it is already as good as done! It _was_ done in their counsels, and yet He does not cease to plead, if perchance some hearts may be touched and withdraw themselves from the confederacy of murder. IV. We have next the self-condemnation from unw…
761 wordsSECTION 226The Stone Of Stumbling
'Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.'--MATT. xxi. 44. As Christ's ministry drew to its close, its severity and its gentleness both increased; its severity to the class to whom it was always severe, and its gentleness to the class from whom…
654 wordsSECTION 227The Stone Of Stumbling
I am not going to enter at all now upon any question about the condition of the 'dark places of the earth' where the Gospel has not come as a well-known preached message; we have nothing to do with that; the principles on which _they_ are judged is not the question before us now. I am speaking exclusively about persons…
694 wordsSECTION 228The Stone Of Stumbling
Christ does something to every one of us. His Gospel will tell upon you, it _is_ telling upon you. If you disbelieve it, you are not the same as if you had never heard it. Never is the box of ointment opened without some savour from it abiding in every nostril to which its odour is wafted. Only the alternative, the awf…
964 wordsSECTION 229The Stone Of Stumbling
I need not dwell on the _negative_ evil results of unbelief; the loss of that which is the only guide for a man, the taking away, or rather the failing to possess, that great love above us, that divine Spirit in us, by which only we are ever made what we ought to be. This only I would leave with you, in this part of my…
1,018 wordsSECTION 230Two Ways Of Despising God'S Feast
'And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, 2. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, 3. And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. 4. Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell t…
796 wordsSECTION 231Two Ways Of Despising God'S Feast
The second point to be noticed is the invitations of the king. There had been an invitation before the point at which the parable begins, for the servants are sent to summon those who had already been 'called.' That calling, which lies beyond the horizon of our parable, is the whole series of agencies in Old Testament …
852 wordsSECTION 232Two Ways Of Despising God'S Feast
The fatal issue is presented, as in the former parable, in two parts: the destruction of the rebels, and the passing over of the kingdom to others. But the differences are noteworthy. Here we read that 'the king was wroth.' Insult to a king is worse than dishonesty to a landlord. The refusal of God's proffered grace is…
803 wordsSECTION 233Two Ways Of Despising God'S Feast
Mark that the feast has not begun, though the guests are seated. The judgment stands at the threshold of the heavenly kingdom. The king speaks with a certain coldness, very unlike the welcome fit for a guest; and his question is one of astonishment at the rude boldness of the man who came there, knowing that he had not…
508 wordsSECTION 234The Tables Turned: The Questioners Questioned
'But when the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked Him a question, tempting Him, and saying, 36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with al…
689 wordsSECTION 235The Tables Turned: The Questioners Questioned
'A second is like unto it,'--love to man is the under side, as it were, of love to God. The two commandments are alike, for both call for love, and the second is second because it is a consequence of the first. Each sets up a lofty standard; 'with all thy heart' and 'as thyself' sound equally impossible, but both resul…
677 wordsSECTION 236The King'S Farewell
'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. 28. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 29. Woe unto y…
926 wordsSECTION 237The King'S Farewell
II. The woe of the sepulchre builders (vs. 29-36). In these verses we have, first, the specification of another form of hypocrisy, consisting in building the prophets' tombs, and disavowing the fathers' murder of them. Honouring dead prophets was right; but honouring dead ones and killing living ones was conscious or u…
744 wordsSECTION 238The King'S Farewell
The woe ends with the double prophecy that that generation would repeat and surpass the fathers' guilt, and that on it would fall the accumulated penalties of past bloodshed. Note that solemn 'therefore,' which looks back to the whole preceding context, and forward to the whole subsequent. Because the rulers professed …
782 wordsSECTION 239The King'S Farewell
So the lament passes into the solemn final leave-taking, with which our Lord closes His ministry among the Jews, and departs from the temple. As, in the parable of the marriage-feast, the city was emphatically called 'their city,' so here the Temple, in whose courts He was standing, and which in a moment He was to quit…
323 wordsSECTION 240Two Forms Of One Saying
'He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.' --Matt. xxiv. 13, R.V. 'In your patience possess ye your souls.'--Luke xxi. 19. These two sayings, different as they sound in our Version, are probably divergent representations of one original. The reasons for so supposing are manifold and obvious on a little …
739 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.