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 Last Pleading Of Love
The incident before us carries another solemn lesson--how simple and easy a thing it is to repel that pleading love. What did Judas do? Nothing; it was enough. He merely held his peace--no more. There was no need for him to break out with oaths and curses, to reject his Lord with wild words. Silence was sufficient. And…
786 wordsSECTION 302The Real High Priest And His Counterfeit
But let us not end with such words. Rather, dear brethren, let us yield to His patient beseechings; let Him teach us our evil and our sin. Listen to His great love who invites us to plead, and promises to pardon--'Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as whi…
659 wordsSECTION 303The Real High Priest And His Counterfeit
Only Matthew and Mark tell us of the two witnesses whose twisted version of the word about 'destroying the Temple and rebuilding it in three days' seemed to Caiaphas serious enough to require an answer. Their mistake was one which might have been made in good faith, but none the less was their travesty 'false witness.'…
652 wordsSECTION 304Jesus Charged With Blasphemy
But Jesus' answer, while plainly claiming to be the Messiah, expands itself in regard to the claim to be 'Son of God,' and shows its tremendous significance. It involves participation in divine authority and omnipotence. It involves a future coming to be the Judge of His judges. It declares that these blind scribes and…
781 wordsSECTION 305Jesus Charged With Blasphemy
Again, when He infringed Rabbinical Sabbath law by a cure, and they said, 'This Man has broken the Sabbath day,' His vindication was worse than His offence, for He answered, 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' And then they sought the more to kill Him, because He not only brake the Sabbath, but also called God Hi…
848 wordsSECTION 306Jesus Charged With Blasphemy
So, brethren, I put into the witness-box Annas and Caiaphas and all their satellites, and I say, 'What need we any further witnesses?' He died because He declared that He was the Son of God. And I beseech you ask yourselves whether we are not being put off with a maimed version of His teaching, if there is struck out …
679 wordsSECTION 307Jesus Charged With Blasphemy
Now I want to know whether that characteristic, which runs through all His life, and is inseparable from it, can be vindicated on any ground except the ground that He was 'God manifest in the flesh.' Either Jesus Christ had a greedy appetite for excessive adoration, was a victim to diseased vanity and ever-present self…
679 wordsSECTION 308'See Thou To That!'
These rejectors, when they said, 'He speaketh blasphemies,' were sealing their own doom, and the ruined Temple and nineteen centuries of wandering misery show what comes to men who hear Christ declaring that He is the Son of the living God and the Judge of the world, and who find nothing in the words but blasphemy. On …
693 wordsSECTION 309'See Thou To That!'
But be this as it may, we have here to do with the sudden revulsion of feeling which followed upon the accomplished act. This burst of confession does not sound like the words of a man who had been actuated by motives of mistaken affection. He knows himself a traitor, and that fair, perfect character rises before him i…
679 wordsSECTION 310'See Thou To That!'
My dear friend, there is no penitence or remorse which is deep enough for the smallest transgression; but there is no transgression which is so great but that forgiveness for it may come. And we may have it for the asking, if we will go to that dear Christ that died for us. The consciousness of sinfulness is a wholesom…
842 wordsSECTION 311'See Thou To That!'
Now I pray you, brethren, to remember that, whether our consciences try to shuffle off responsibility for united action upon the other members of the firm, or whether we try to excuse our individual actions by laying blame on our tempers, or whether we adopt the modern slang, and talk about circumstances and heredity a…
836 wordsSECTION 312'See Thou To That!'
Conscience may be misguided as well as lulled. It may call evil good, and good evil; it may take honey for gall, and gall for honey. And so we need something outside of ourselves to be our guide, our standard. We are not to be contented that our consciences acquit us. 'I know nothing against myself, yet I am not hereby…
501 wordsSECTION 313The Sentence Which Condemned The Judges
And Jesus stood before the governor: and the governor asked Him, saying, Art Thou the King of the Jews? And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest. 12. And when He was accused of the chief priests and elders, He answered nothing. 13. Then said Pilate unto Him, Hearest Thou not how many things they witness against Thee? …
722 wordsSECTION 314The Sentence Which Condemned The Judges
The one avowal was all that Pilate was entitled to. For the rest Jesus locked His lips, and He whose very name was The Word was silent. What was the meaning of that silence? It was not disdain, nor unwillingness to make Himself known; but it was partly merciful--inasmuch as He knew that all speech would have been futil…
783 wordsSECTION 315The Sentence Which Condemned The Judges
IV. While he was fighting against the impression of that message, the rulers were busy in the crowd, suggesting the choice of Barabbas. It was perhaps his wife's words that stung him to act at once, and have done with his inner conflict. So he calls for the decision of the alternative which he had already submitted. Hi…
675 wordsSECTION 316The Crucifixion
'And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, 34. They gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when He had tasted thereof, He would not drink. 35. And they crucified Him, and parted His garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the …
736 wordsSECTION 317The Crucifixion
What a gap there is between verses 34 and 35! The unconcerned soldiers went on to the next step in their ordinary routine on such an occasion,--the fixing of the cross and fastening of the victim to it. To them it was only what they had often done before; to Matthew, it was too sacred to be narrated, He cannot bring hi…
695 wordsSECTION 318The Crucifixion
II. The mockeries of people and priests. There would be many coming and going on the adjoining road, most of them too busy about their own affairs to delay long; for crucifixion was a slow process, and, when once the cross has been lifted, there would be little to see. But they were not too busy to spit venom at Him as…
745 wordsSECTION 319The Crucifixion
Nor was the third taunt more fortunate. These very religious men had read their Bibles so badly that they might never have heard of Job, nor of the latter half of Isaiah. They had been poring over the letter all their lives, and had never seen, with their microscopes, the great figure of the Innocent Sufferer, so plain…
759 wordsSECTION 320The Blind Watchers At The Cross
'And sitting down they watched Him there.' --MATT. xxvii. 36. Our thoughts are, rightly, so absorbed by the central Figure in this great chapter that we pass by almost unnoticed the groups round the cross. And yet there are large lessons to be learned from each of them. These rude soldiers, four in number, as we infe…
834 wordsSECTION 321The Blind Watchers At The Cross
In so far as it was possible that these men might have known something of what they were doing, in so far were they to blame; but remember what a very, very little light could possibly have shone upon these souls. If there is no light there cannot be any shadow; and if these men were, as certainly they were, all but ab…
717 wordsSECTION 322The Blind Watchers At The Cross
Oh! dear friends, we all of us, as the apostle says in one of his letters, have had this Christ 'manifestly set forth before us as if painted upon a placard upon a wall' (for that is the meaning of the picturesque words that he employs). And if we look with calm, unmoved hearts; if we look without personal appropriatio…
443 wordsSECTION 323Taunts Turning To Testimonies
'... The chief priests mocking Him ... said, 42. He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. 43. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him.' --MATT. xxvii. 41-43. It is an old saying that the corruption …
679 wordsSECTION 324Taunts Turning To Testimonies
But let their error lead us into truth, and let us grasp the relation of the two apparently contradictory facts. 'He saved others,' that is certain. He did not 'save Himself,' that is as certain. Was the explanation 'cannot'? The priests by 'cannot' meant physical impossibility, defect of power, and they were wrong. Bu…
751 wordsSECTION 325Taunts Turning To Testimonies
II. The Cross shows us the King on His throne. To the priests it appeared ludicrous to suppose that a King of Israel should, by Israel, be nailed upon the cross. 'Let Him come down, and we will believe Him.' They saw the two facts, they misconceived their relation. There was a relation between them, and it is not diff…
734 wordsSECTION 326Taunts Turning To Testimonies
III. Now, lastly, the Cross shows us the Son, beloved of the Father. The priests thought that it was altogether incredible that His devotion should have been genuine, or His claim to be the Son of God should have any reality, since the Cross, to their vulgar eyes, disproved them both. Like all coarse-minded people, th…
598 wordsSECTION 327The Veil Rent
'Behold, the veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.'--MATT. xxvii. 51. As I suppose we are all aware, the Jewish Temple was divided into three parts: the Outer Court, open to all; the Holy Place, to which the ministering priests had daily access to burn incense and trim the lamps; and the Ho…
850 wordsSECTION 328The Veil Rent
The death of Christ is, then, the desecration and the destruction of that Temple. Of course it is; because when a nation that had had millenniums of education, of forbearance, of revelation, turned at last upon the very climax and brightest central light of all the Revelation, standing there amongst them in a bodily fo…
848 wordsSECTION 329The Veil Rent
The Cross will reveal God to you only if you believe that Jesus Christ was the Incarnate Word. Brethren, if that death was but the death of even the very holiest, noblest, sweetest, perfectest soul that ever lived on earth and breathed human breath, there is no revelation of God in it for us. It tells us what Jesus was…
892 wordsSECTION 330The Veil Rent
If I might use abstract words, I would say that Christ's death potentially opens the path for every man, which being put into plain English--which is better--is just that by the death of Christ every man can, if he will, go to God, and live beside Him. And our faith is our personal laying hold of that great sacrifice a…
335 wordsSECTION 331The Prince Of Life
'In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. 2. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. 3. His cou…
709 wordsSECTION 332The Prince Of Life
Matthew next notices the angel ministrant and herald. His narrative leaves the impression that the earthquake and appearance of the angel immediately preceded the arrival of the women, and the 'Behold!' suggests that they felt and saw both. But that is a piece of chronology on which there may be difference of opinion. …
818 wordsSECTION 333The Prince Of Life
No wonder that, swiftly, new duty which was privilege followed on the new, glad knowledge. It was emphatically 'a day of good tidings,' and they could not hold their peace. A brief glance, enough for certitude and joy, was permitted; and then, with urgent haste, they are sent to be apostles to the Apostles. The possess…
666 wordsSECTION 334The Prince Of Life
'That is at enmity with joy Can utterly abolish or destroy.' The rush to His feet, and the silent clasp of adoration, are eloquent of a tumult of feeling most natural, and yet not without turbid elements, which He does not wholly approve. We have not here the prohibition of such a touch which was spoken to Mary, but …
815 wordsSECTION 335The Risen Lord'S Greetings And Gifts
Further, this last appearance of the rulers in the gospel is full of tragic significance, and is especially important to Matthew, whose narrative deals especially with Jesus as the King and Messiah of Israel. This is the end of centuries of prophecy and patience! This is what all God's culture of His vineyard has come …
697 wordsSECTION 336The Risen Lord'S Greetings And Gifts
For, as I have remarked, unnatural as it seems at first sight, if we think for a moment, the very simplicity and calm, and, I was going to say, the _matter-of-factness_, of such a greeting, as the first that escaped from lips that had passed through death and yet were red and vocal, is congruous with the deepest truths…
859 wordsSECTION 337The Risen Lord'S Greetings And Gifts
The Lord Christ comes out of the grave in which He lay for every man, and brings to each man's door, in a dialect intelligible to the man himself, the satisfaction of the single soul's aspirations and ideals, as well as of the national desires. His gifts and greetings are of universal destination, meant for us all and …
661 wordsSECTION 338The Risen Lord'S Greetings And Gifts
IV. So, lastly, notice our share in this twofold greeting. When it was first heard, I suppose that the disciples and the women apprehended the salutation only in its most outward form, and that all other thoughts were lost in the mere rapture of the sudden change from the desolate sense of loss to the glad consciousne…
652 wordsSECTION 339On The Mountain
And, again, the risen Christ is the source of a new life drawn from Him and received into the heart by faith in His sacrifice and Resurrection and glory. And if I have, deep-seated in my soul, though it may be in imperfect maturity, that life which is hid with Christ in God, an inward fountain of gladness, far better t…
844 wordsSECTION 340On The Mountain
I. There is a Great Claim. 'All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.' No words can more absolutely express unconditional, unlimited authority and sovereignty. Mark the variety of the gift--'all power'; every kind of force, every kind of dominion is in His hands. Mark the sphere of sovereignty--'in heaven and…
725 wordsSECTION 341On The Mountain
Ah! brethren, Christianity has dark and low views of human nature, and men say they are too low and too dark. It is 'Nature's sternest painter,' and, therefore, 'its best.' But if on its palette the blacks are blacker than anywhere else, its range of colour is greater, and its white is more lustrous. No system thinks s…
660 wordsSECTION 342On The Mountain
It would take us too far to deal at all adequately, or in anything but the most superficial fashion, with the remaining parts of this great commission. 'Make disciples of all nations'--that is the first thing. Then comes the second step: 'Baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost…
709 wordsSECTION 343On The Mountain
And now I must gather just into a sentence or two what is to be said about the last point. There is-- III. The Great Promise. 'I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,' or, as it might be read, 'with you all the days, even to the accomplishment of the age.' Note that emphatic 'I am,' which does not only d…
457 wordsSECTION 344*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook Expositions Of Holy Scripture : St. Matthew Chaps. Ix To Xxviii ***
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154 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.