Nor could even the additional promise of Christ: But of you even the hairs of the head are all numbered,' [3093] surprise His disciples. But it would convey to them the gladsome assurance that, in doing His Work, they were performing the Will of God, and were specially in His keeping. And it would carry home to them - with the comfort of a very different application, while engaged in doing the Work and Will of God - what Rabbinism expressed in a realistic manner by the common sayings, that whither a man was to go, thither his feet would carry him; and, that a man could not injure his finger on earth, unless it had been so decreed of him in heaven. [3094] And in later Rabbinic writings [3095] we read, in almost the words of Christ: Do I not number all the hairs of every creature?' And yet an even higher outlook was opened to the disciples. All preaching was confessing, and all confessing a preaching of Christ; and our confession or denial would, almost by a law of nature, meet with similar confession or denial on the part of Christ before His Father in heaven. [3096] This, also, was an application of that fundamental principle, that nothing is covered that shall not be revealed,' which, indeed, extendeth to the inmost secrets of heart and life.
What follows in our Lord's Discourse [3097] still further widens the horizon. It describes the condition and laws of His Kingdom, until the final revelation of that which is now covered and hidden. So long as His claims were set before a hostile world they could only provoke war. [3098] On the other hand, so long as such decision was necessary, in the choice of either those nearest and dearest, of ease, nay, of life itself, or else of Christ, there could be no compromise. Not that, as is sometimes erroneously supposed, a very great degree of love to the dearest on earth amounts to loving them more than Christ. No degree of proper affection can ever make affection wrongful, even as no diminution of it could make wrongful affection right. The love which Christ condemneth differs not in degree, but in kind, from rightful affection. It is one which takes the place of love to Christ - not which is placed by the side of that of Christ. For, rightly viewed, the two occupy different provinces. Wherever and whenever the two affections come into comparison, they also come into collision. And so the questions of not being worthy of Him (and who can be positively worthy?), and of the true finding or losing of our life, have their bearing on our daily life and profession. [3099]
But even in this respect the disciples must, to some extent, have been prepared to receive the teaching of Christ. It was generally expected, that a time of great tribulation would precede the Advent of the Messiah. Again, it was a Rabbinic axiom, that the cause of the Teacher, to whom a man owed eternal life, was to be taken in hand before that of his father, to whom he owed only the life of this world. [3100] [3101] Even the statement about taking up the cross in following Christ, although prophetic, could not sound quite strange. Crucifixion was, indeed, not a Jewish punishment, but the Jews must have become sadly familiar with it. The Targum [3102] speaks of it as one of the four modes of execution of which Naomi described to Ruth as those in custom in Palestine, the other three being - stoning, burning, and beheading. Indeed, the expression bearing the cross,' as indicative of sorrow and suffering, is so common, that we read, Abraham carried the wood for the sacrifice of Issac, like who bears his cross on his shoulder.' [3103]
Nor could the disciples be in doubt as to the meaning of the last part of Christ's address. [3104] They were old Jewish forms of thought, only filled with the new wine of the Gospel. The Rabbis taught, only in extravagant terms, the merit attaching to the reception and entertainment of sages. [3105] The very expression in the name of' a prophet, or a righteous man, is strictly Jewish ({hebrew}), and means for the sake of, or with intention, in regard to. It appears to us, that Christ introduced His own distinctive teaching by the admitted Jewish principle, that hospitable reception for the sake of, or with the intention of doing it to, a prophet or a righteous man, would procure a share in the prophet's righteous man's reward. Thus, tradition had it, that a Obadiah of King Ahab's court [3106] had become the prophet of that name, because he had provided for the hundred prophets. [3107] And we are repeatedly assured, that to receive a sage, or even an elder, was like receiving the Shekhinah itself. But the concluding promise of Christ, concerning the reward of even a cup of cold water' to one of these little ones' in the name of a disciple,' goes far beyond the farthest conceptions of His contemporaries. Yet even so, the expression would, so far as its form is concerned, perhaps bear a fuller meaning to them than to us. These little ones' ({hebrew}) were the children,' who were still learning the elements of knowledge, and who would by-and-by grow into disciples.' For, as the Midrash has it: Where there are no little ones, there are no disciples; and where no disciples, no sages: where no sages, there no elders; where no elders, there no prophets; and where no prophets, there [3108] does God not cause His Shekhinah to rest.' [3109]