[4403] Ps. lxxxii. 6.
[4404] In Rabbinic writings the word for Law (Torah, or Oreya, or Oreyan) is very frequently used to denote not only the Law, but the whole Bible. Let one example suffice: Blessed be the Merciful Who has given the threefold Law ({hebrew}, Pentateuch, Prophets, and Hagiographa) to a threefold people (priests, Levites, laity) by the hands of a third (Moses, being the third born of his parents) on the third day (after the preparation) in the third month (Sivan),' Shabb. 88 a.
[4405] We need scarcely call attention to the evidence which it affords of the Judæan authorship of the Fourth Gospel.
[4406] We would call attention to the words The Scripture cannot be broken' (ver. 35) as evidential of the views which Jesus took of the authority of the Old Testament, as well as of its inspiration.
[4407] St. John x. 37.
[4408] Thus, according to the better reading.
[4409] So Meyer.
[4410] The circumstance, that, according to the Gospels, no miracle was wrought by John, is not only evidential of the trustworthiness of their report of our Lord's miracles, but otherwise also deeply significant. It shows that there is no craving for the miraculous, as in the Apocryphal and legendary narratives, and it proves that the Gospel-narratives were not cast in the mould of Jewish contemporary expectation, which would certainly have assigned another rôle to Elijah as the Forerunner of the Messiah than, first, that of solitary testimony, then of forsakenness, and, lastly, of cruel and unavenged murder at the hands of a Herodian. Truly, the history of Jesus is not that of the Messiah of Judaic conception! __________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER XV. THE SECOND SERIES OF PARABLES - THE TWO PARABLES OF HIM WHO IS NEIGHBOUR TO US: THE FIRST, CONCERNING THE LOVE THAT, UNASKED, GIVES IN OUR NEED; THE SECOND, CONCERNING THE LOVE WHICH IS ELICITED BY OUR ASKING IN OUR NEED.
(St. Luke x. 25-37; xi. 5-13.)
THE period between Christ's return from the Feast of the Dedication' and His last entry into Jerusalem, may be arranged into two parts, divided by the brief visit to Bethany for the purpose of raising Lazarus from the dead. Even if it were possible, with any certainty, chronologically to arrange the events of each of these periods, the variety and briefness of what is recorded would prevent our closely following them in this narrative. Accordingly, we prefer grouping them together as the Parables of that period, its Discourses, and its Events. And the record of the raising of Lazarus may serve as a landmark between our Summary of the Parables and that of the Discourses and Events which preceded the Lord's final appearance in Jerusalem.
These last words help us to understand the necessary difference between the Parables of this and of the preceding and the following periods. The Parables of this period look back upon the past, and forward into the future. Those spoken by the Lake of Galilee were purely symbolical. They presented unseen heavenly realities under emblems which required to be translated into earthly language. It was quite easy to do so, if you possessed the key to the heavenly mysteries; otherwise, they were dark and mysterious. So to speak, they were easily read from above downwards. Viewed from below upwards, only most dim and strangely intertwining outlines could be perceived. It is quite otherwise with the second series of Parables. They could, as they were intended, be understood by all. They required no translation. They were not symbolical but typical, using the word type,' not in the sense of involving a predictive element, [4411] but as indicating an example, or, perhaps, more correctly, an exemplification. [4412] Accordingly, the Parables of this series are also intensely practical. Lastly, their prevailing character is not descriptive, but hortatory; and they bring the Gospel, in the sense of glad tidings to the lost, most closely and touchingly to the hearts of all who hear them. They are signs in words, as the miracles are signs in works, of what Christ has come to do and to teach. Most of them bear this character openly; and even those which do not, but seem more like warning, have still an undertone of love, as if Divine compassion lingered in tender pity over that which threatened, but might yet be averted.