It was, indeed, more than a difficulty - an impossibility - to account for it on their principles. There could be no delusion, no collusion, no deception. In our modern cant-phraseology, theirs might have been designated Agnosticism and philosophic doubt. But philosophic it certainly was not, any more than much that now passes, because it bears that name; at least, if, according to modern negative criticism, the inexplicable is also the unthinkable. Nor was it really doubt or Agnosticism, any more than much that now covers itself with that garb. It was, what Christ designated it - unbelief, since the questions would have been easily answered - indeed, never have arisen - had they believed that He was the Christ. And the same alternative still holds true. If this One' is what negative criticism declares Him, which is all that it can know of Him by the outside: the Son of Mary, the Carpenter and Son of the carpenter of Nazareth, Whose family occupied the humblest position among Galileans - then whence this wisdom which, say of it what you will, underlies all modern thinking, and these mighty works, which have moulded all modern history? Whence - if He be only what you can see by the outside, and yet His be such wisdom, and such mighty deeds have been wrought by His Hands? Is He only what you say and see, seeing that such results are noways explicable on such principles; or is He not much more than this - even the Christ of God?
And He marvelled because of their unbelief.' In view of their own reasoning it was most unreasonable. And equally unreasonable is modern unbelief. For, the more strongly negative criticism asserts its position as to the Person of Jesus, the more unaccountable are His Teaching and the results of His Work.
In such circumstances as at Nazareth, nothing could be done by a Christ, in contradistinction to a miracle-monger. It would have been impossible to have finally given up His own town of Nazareth without one further appeal and one further opportunity of repentance. As He had begun, so He closed this part of His Galilean Ministry, by preaching in His own Synagogue of Nazareth. Save in the case of a few who were receptive, on whom He laid His Hands for healing, His visit passed away without such mighty works' as the Nazarenes had heard of. He will not return again to Nazareth. Henceforth He will make commencement of sending forth His disciples, partly to disarm prejudices of a personal character, partly to spread the Gospel-tiding farther and wider than he alone could have carried them. For His Heart compassionated the many who were ignorant and out of the way. And the harvest was near, and the harvesting was great, and it was His Harvest, into which He would send forth labourers.
For, although, in all likelihood, the words, from which quotation has just been made, [3021] were spoken at a later time, [3022] they are so entirely in the spirit of the present Mission of the Twelve, that they, or words to a similar effect, may also have been uttered on the present occasion. Of such seeming repetitions, when the circumstances were analogous, although sometimes with different application of the same many-sided words, there are not a few instances, of which one will presently come under notice. [3023] Truly those to whom the Twelve were sent forth were troubled' [3024] as well as scattered,' like sheep that have not a Shepherd, and it was to deliver them from the distress' caused by grievous wolves,' and to gather into His fold those that had been scattered abroad, that Jesus sent forth the Twelve with the special commission to which attention will now be directed. Viewing it in its fullest form, [3025] it is to be noted: -
First: That this Discourse of Christ consists of five parts: vv. 5 to 15; vv. 16 to 23; vv. 24 to 33; vv. 34 to 39; vv. 40 to the end.