The Son needs no 'ransom for His soul,' which, being translated, is but this: the purity and the innocence of Jesus Christ, which is a manifest fact in His biography, is only explicable when we believe that we have before us the Incarnate God, and therefore the Perfect Man. And the Son needs no temple for His worship. His whole life, as human, was a life of communion and prayer with His Father in heaven. And just because He 'dwelt in' God's 'bosom all the year,' for Him ritual and temple were nought. Sense-bound men needed them; He needed them not. 'In this place,' said He, 'is one greater than the temple.' He was all which the temple symbolised. Was it the dwelling-place of God, the place of sacrifice, the meeting-place of man with God, the place of divine manifestation? 'The temple of His body' was in deepest reality all these. In it dwelt the whole fulness of the Godhead. It was at once sacrifice and place of sacrifice, even as He is the true everlasting Priest. In Him men see God, and meet with God. He is greater than the temple because He is the true temple, and He is the true temple because He is the Son. And because He is the Son, therefore He is free from all dependence upon, and connection with, the outward worship of ceremony and sacrifice and priest and ritual.
Now, dear brethren, let me pause for one moment to press upon you and upon myself this question: Do I welcome that Christ with the full conviction that He is the Son of God? It seems to me that, in this generation, the question of questions, as far as religion is concerned, is the old one which Christ asked of His disciples by the fountains and woods of Caesarea Philippi: 'Whom say ye that I, the Son of Man, am?' Can you lift up your face to meet His clear and all-searching eye, and say: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God'? If you can, you are on the way to understanding Him and His work; if you cannot, His life and work are all wrapped in darkness for you, His death robbed of its truest power, and your life deprived of its surest anchor.
II. Now, there is a second lesson that I would gather from this miracle--the voluntary submission of the Son to the bonds from which He is free.
He bids His disciple pay the tribute for Him, for a specific reason: 'Lest we should offend them.' That, of course, is simply a piece of practical wisdom, to prevent any narrow or purblind souls from stumbling at His teaching, by reason of His neglect of this trivial matter. The question of how far religious teachers or any others are at liberty, when they are not actuated by personal motives, to render compliance with ceremonies which are of no value to them, is a wide one, which I have no need to dwell upon here. But, turning from that specific aspect of the incident, I think we may look upon it as being an illustration, in regard to a very small matter, of what is really the essence of our Lord's relation to the whole world and ourselves--His voluntary taking upon Himself of bonds from which He is free.
Is it not a symbol of the very heart of the meaning of His Incarnation? 'For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood He also Himself likewise takes part of the same.' 'He is found in fashion as a man.' He chooses to enter within the limits and the obligations of humanity. Round the radiant glories of the divinity, He gathers the folds of the veil of human flesh. He immerses the pillar of fire in a cloud of smoke. He comes amongst us, taking on His own wrists the fetters that bind us, suffering Himself to be 'cribbed, cabined, and confined' within the narrow limits of our manhood, in order that by His voluntary acceptance of it we may be redeemed from our corruption.