But for the fuller understanding of the words of Christ, the Jewish modes of thought, which He used in illustration, required to be briefly explained. It was common belief, that in the day of the Messiah redeemed Israel would be gathered to a great feast, together with the patriarchs and heroes of the Jewish faith. This notion, which was but a coarsely literal application of such prophetic figures as in Is. xxv. 6, had perhaps yet another and deeper meaning. As each weekly Sabbath was to be honoured by a feast, in which the best which the family could procure was to be placed on the board, so would the world's great Sabbath be marked by a feast in which the Great Householder, Israel's King, would entertain His household and Guests. Into the painfully, and, from the notions of the times, grossly realistic description of this feast, [2606] it is needless here to enter. One thing, however, was clear: Gentiles could have no part in that feast. In fact, the shame and anger of these' foes on seeing the table spread' for this Jewish feast was among the points specially noticed as fulfilling the predictions of Ps. xxiii. 5. [2607] On this point, then, the words of Jesus in reference to the believing Centurion formed the most marked contrast to Jewish teaching.
In another respect also we mark similar contrariety. When our Lord consigned the unbelieving to outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth,' he once more used Jewish language, only with opposite application of it. Gehinnom - of which the entrance, marked by ever ascending smoke, [2608] was in the valley of Hinnom, between two palm trees - lay beyond the mountains of darkness.' [2609] It was a place of darkness, [2610] to which in the day of the Lord, [2611] the Gentiles would be consigned. [2612] On the other hand, the merit of circumcision would in the day of the Messiah deliver Jewish sinners from Gehinnom. [2613] It seems a moot question, whether the expression outer darkness' [2614] [2615] may not have been intended to designate - besides the darkness outside the lighted house of the Father, and even beyond the darkness of Gehinnom - a place of hopeless, endless night. Associated with it is weeping [2616] and the gnashing of teeth.' In Rabbinic thought the former was connected with sorrow, [2617] the latter almost always anger [2618] - not, as generally supposed, with anguish.
To complete our apprehension of the contrast between the views of the Jews and the teaching of Jesus, we must bear in mind that, as the Gentiles could not possibly share in the feast of the Messiah, so Israel had claim and title to it. To use Rabbinic terms, the former were children of Gehinnom,' but Israel children of the Kingdom,' [2619] or, in strictly Rabbinic language, royal children,' [2620] children of God,' of heaven,' [2621] children of the upper chamber' (the Aliyah) [2622] and of the world to come.' [2623] In fact, in their view, God had first sat down on His throne as King, when the hymn of deliverance (Ex. xv. 1) was raised by Israel - the people which took upon itself that yoke of the Law which all other nations of the world had rejected. [2624]
Never, surely, could the Judaism of His hearers have received more rude shock than by this inversion of all their cherished beliefs. There was a feast of Messianic fellowship, a recognition on the part of the King of all His faithful subjects, a joyous festive gathering with the fathers of the faith. But this fellowship was not of outward, but of spiritual kinship. There were children of the Kingdom,' and there was an outer darkness' with its anguish and despair. But this childship was of the Kingdom, such as He had opened it to all believers; and that outer darkness theirs, who had only outward claims to present. And so this history of the believing Centurion is at the same time an application of the Sermon on the Mount' - in this also aptly following the order of its record - and a further carrying out of its teaching. Negatively, it differentiated the Kingdom from Israel; while, positively, it placed the hope of Israel, and fellowship with its promises, within reach of all faith, whether of Jew or Gentile. He Who taught such new and strange truth could never be called a mere reformer of Judaism. There cannot be reform,' where all the fundamental principles are different. Surely He was the Son of God, the Messiah of men, Who, in such surrounding, could so speak to Jew and Gentile of God and His Kingdom. And surely also, He, Who could so bring spiritual life to the dead, could have no difficulty by the same word, in the self-same hour,' to restore life and health to the servant of him, whose faith had inherited the Kingdom. The first grafted tree of heathendom that had so blossomed could not shake off unripe fruit. If the teaching of Christ was new and was true, so must His work have been. And in this lies the highest vindication of this miracle - that He is the Miracle. __________________________________________________________________