2. The two earlier parables of judgment refer to those who are in confessed relationship with God. The parable of the Ten Virgins represents the relationship of friendship, — that of people who would share in the joys of God's home, as friends at a wedding feast; the parable of the Talents represents a less intimate relationship — that of service; the talents are com- mitted to their proprietor's " own servants." Now the scene changes, and we are brought out to the larger world of the nations; the judgment of those who do not know Christ as their Friend or consciously serve Him as their Master is hero typified.
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4o3 UNTO ME
The Judge.
1. The Judge is " the Son of Man." The significance of that title is thus drawn out by Dr. Sanday : " The ideal of humanity, the representative of the human race. . . . Jesus did deliberately connect with His own Person such ideas as these. . . . This deeply significant title ... at the centre is broadly based upon an infinite sense of brotherhood with toiling and struggling humanity, which He who most thoroughly accepted its conditions, was fittest also to save."
It is the conception which fits most closely to St. Paul's thought of Jesus as the Head of the race, the second life-giving " Adam," the consummation of humanity, in whom all that is human is gathered up, the new Father of the Race, for at His birth, perhaps by virtue of His birth of a virgin, there came into the stream of human life a fresh impulse of creative power, as some swift-flowing clear and wholesome stream pours itself into a sluggish and polluted river. He has bound humanity to Himself, and Himself to humanity, in His incarnation, multiplying the bonds of union in His love. None is so near akin to each of us as He, not even brother or child ; therefore none is faint and weary among us, none is wrong or oppressed, but He feels the pain and the heartache. It is this first that gives truth to His words, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me." He is the Son of Man because He stands in a unique relation to the human race.
^1 Not with people as social accidents have sorted them — as rich or poor, as wise or foolish, as lords and ladies or humble folk, has He that close affinity which makes Him call us all His " brethren " ; but deep within these wrappings of rank or circum- stance He who shares our nature reads the characteristic features of our manhood — common infirmity, common need, common pains, and common mortality. In these it was that He took part. In these, as often as He sees them, He still claims to have a share. Whatever sharpens in your bosom the sense that your neighbour is your brother-man must likewise sharpen the sense that he is a born brother to the Son uf God. Is it not, then, due to this deep underlying unity of His nature with all our race, a race
ST. MATTHEW xxv. 40 409
which, sundered by many things, is one in its sorrows, that Jesus Christ bids us discern Himself in every man who hungers, bleeds, weeps, or dies ? With that most human of all things, suffering, the badge, not of a tribe, but of our whole race, has He most com- pletely identified Himself, who is Himself the Ideal Man and the Eepresentative Sufferer for all mankind. " Ye did it unto me ! " 1
^j Not long since, a lady stood on our southern coast and saw a dear sister drown. She could neither give help nor procure it ; she could only stand still and suffer. And it is told to this day how they both died together, one in the sea, and the other on the land. As the remorseless current choked life in the one, grief palsied the heart of the other. Not a blow was struck, not a wave touched her feet, but that awful sympathy which links our souls became insufferable, and went to her heart as fatally as an assassin's steel.2
*H The first evangelist, who delights to grace his narrative of the ministry of Jesus with citations from the Hebrew scriptures containing oracles that have at length found their fulfilment, be- thinks himself of that weird description of the suffering servant of Jehovah in the writings of Isaiah, and the text which appears to him most apposite is : " Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Surely, indeed ! The oracle is happily chosen. What strikes Matthew's mind is the sympathy with human suffering displayed in Christ's healings. He could easily have found other texts descriptive of the physical side of the phenomenon, e.g., the familiar words of the 103rd Psalm, " who healeth all thy diseases." But it was the spiritual not the physical side of the matter that chiefly arrested his attention: therefore he wrote not " that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by David, saying, who healeth all thy diseases," but " that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our diseases," translating for himself from the Hebrew to make the text better suit his purpose. The evangelist has penetrated to the heart of the matter, and speaks by a most genuine inspiration. For the really important thing was the sympathy displayed, that sympathy by which Jesus took upon Himself, as a burden to His heart, the sufferings of mankind. That was the thing of ideal significance, of perennial value, a gospel for all time. The acts of healing benefited the individual sufferers only, and the benefit passed away with themselves. But the sympathy has a meaning for us as well as for them. It is as valuable to-day as it was