appeal Id me to refer to the common joy that there will be in heaven among all who have laboured for Christ, when the whole harvest of saved souls is finally gathered in. The Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist, who sowed, will all rejoice toge- ther with the apostles, who reaped. — The results of the spiritual harvest are not like those of the natural harvest, temporal, but eternal, so that a day will come when all who have laboured for it in any way, either by sowing or reaping, will sit down and rejoice together to all eternity. Here in this world the sower sometimes doe-i not live to see the fruit of his labour, and the reaper who gathers in the harvest rejoices alone. But work done in the spiritual harvest is eternal work, and consequently both sowers and reapers are sure at last to "rejoice together," and to see the fruit of their toil.
Let it be noted, that in heaven there will at last be no jealousy and envy among Christ's labourers. Some will have been sowers and some will have been reapers. But all will have done that part of the work allotted to them, and all will finally "rejoice together." Envious feelings will be absorbed in common joy.
Let it be noted, that in doing work for Christ, and labouring for souls, there are sowers as well as reapers. The work of the reaper makes far more show than the work af the sower. Yet it \a perfectly c'ear that if there was no sowing there would be no reaping. It is of great importance to remember this. The Church is often disposed to give an excessive honour to Christ's reapers, and to overlook the labours of Christ's sowers.
87. — [Herem...fhat saying true, &c. tfec] Our Lord here quotes a proverbial saying, which appears to me to confirm the view I have already maintained, that the expression of the 35th verse, " Say not ye there are yet four months," &c., refers to a proverb.
The phrase " herein" means literally, " in this," and seems to me to refer to the verse which immediately follows. " That common saying, one soweth and another reapeth, is made good in this way, — is fulfilled by this circumstance, — is verified in the follow- ing manner, viz., I sent you to reap," &c.
The meaning of the proverb is plain. " It is a common saying among men that it often falls to one to sow the field and to another to reap it. The sower and the reaper are not always the same person."
The fi equent use of proverbial sayings in the New Testament deserves notice. It shows the value of proverbs, and the import- ance of teaching them to children and young people. A pointed proverb is often remembered when a long moral lesson is for- gotten.
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38. — [I ifcnf you to reap, <&c.] Our Lord here states the manner in which the proverbial saying of the preceding verse is true. He tells the apostles that they were sent to reap a spiritual harvest on which they had bestowed no labour. Other men had laboured, viz., the prophets of the Old Testament and John the Baptist. They had broken up the ground. They had sown the seed. The result of their labour was that the minds of men in the apostles' times were prepared to expect the Messiah, and the apostles had oniy to go forth and proclaim the glad tidings that Messiah was come.
Pearce maintains the strange notion that our Lord, in this verse, only means, " I sent you away into the city to buy meat. While you were absent I sowed spiritual seed in the heart of a Samaritan woman. She is now gone to call others. These and many more will be the harvest which you will reap, without having bestowed any labour on it." This interpretation seems to me quite untenable.
The past tense in this verse, " I have sent," is used, as a gram- marian would say, proleptically. It means, "I do send you." Such a use of the past tense is common in Scripture, and espe- cially when G-od speaks of a thing about to be done. With God there is no uncertainty. When He undertakes a thing, it may be regarded as done and finished, because in His counsels it is certain to be finished. Our Lord's meaning is, "I send you throughout Samaria, Galilee, and Judaea, to reap the fruit of the labours of the prophets and John the Baptist. They have sowed, and you have now only to reap."
Some think, as Stier and Alford, that when our Lord said, " other men have laboured," He referred rather to Himself than to the prophets. I am unable to see this. It appears to me a forced and unnatural interpretation. I hold decidedly with Chry- sostom, Cyril, Theophylact", Calvin, Zvvingle, Melancthon, Bren- tius, Lampe, and Poole, that it applies principally to the law and prophets. — "If the prophets were not the sowers," saith Augus- tine, "whence had that saying come to the woman, I know that Messias cometh?" — Origen says, "Did not Moses and Elias, the sowers, rejoice with the reapers, Peter, James, and John, when they saw the glory of the Son of God at the transfiguration ?"
Theophylact sees in this verse a strong argument against the heretical view of the Marcionites, Manichees, and others, that the New Testament is contrary to the Old. Here the prophets and apostles are spoken of together as labourers under one com- mon Master, in one common field.
The idea propounded by Bucer, that our Lord alludes here to the heathen philosophers as well as the prophets, seems to me unwarrantable and unsafe.