It is almost impossible for us to conceive how strange and iucompreliensible these tidings must have seemed to His disciples. Like most of the Jews, they could form no idea of a suffering Messiah. They did not under- stand that the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah must be literally fulfilled. They did not see that the sacrifices of the law were all meant to point them to the death of the true Lamb of God. They thought of nothing but the second glorious coming of Messiah, which is yet to take place at the end of the world. They thought so much of Messiah's crown, that they lost sight of His cross. We shall do well to remember this. A right understand- ing of this matter throws strong light on the lessons which this passage contains.
We learn, in the first place, from these verses, that there may he mucli spiritual ignorance even in a true disciple of Christ.
We cannot have a clearer proof of this, than the con- duct of the apostle Peter in this passage. He tries to dissuade our Lord from suffering on the cross. " Be it far from thee," he says, " this shall not be unto thee." He did not see the full purpose of our Lord's coming into the world. His eyes were blinded to the necessity of our Lord's death. He actually did what he could, to prevent that death taking place at all ! And yet we know that Peter was a converted man. He really be- lieved that Jesus was the Messiah. His heart was right in the sight of God.
These things are meant to teach us that we must neither regard good men as infallible, because they are good men, nor yet suppose they have no grace, because