3. The next in order of the Discourses recorded by St. Luke [4739] is that which prefaced the Parable of the Great Supper,' expounded in a previous chapter. [4740] The Rabbinic views on the Sabbath-Law have been so fully explained, that a very brief commentation will here suffice. It appears, that the Lord condescended to accept the invitation to a Sabbath-meal in the house of one of the Rulers of the Pharisees' - perhaps one of the Rulers of the Synagogue in which they had just worshipped, and where Christ may have taught. Without here discussing the motives for this invitation, its acceptance was certainly made use of to watch Him.' And the man with the dropsy had, no doubt, been introduced for a treacherous purpose, although it is not necessary to suppose that he himself had been privy to it. On the other hand, it is characteristic of the gracious Lord, that, with full knowledge of their purpose, He sat down with such companions, and that He did His Work of power and love unrestrained by their evil thoughts. But, even so, He must turn their wickedness also to good account. Yet we mark, that He first dismissed the man healed of the dropsy before He reproved the Pharisees. [4741] It was better so - for the sake of the guests, and for the healed man himself, whose mind quite new and blessed Sabbath-thoughts would fill, to which all controversy would be jarring.
And, after his departure, the Lord first spake to them, as was His wont, concerning their misapplication of the Sabbath-Law, to which, indeed, their own practice gave the lie. They deemed it unlawful to heal' on the Sabbath-day, though, when He read their thoughts and purposes as against Him, they would not answer His question on the point. [4742] And yet, if a son, [4743] or even an ox,' of any of them, had fallen into a pit,' they would have found some valid legal reason for pulling him out! Then, as to their Sabbath-feast, and their invitation to Him, when thereby they wished to lure Him to evil - and, indeed, their much-boasted hospitality: all was characteristic of these Pharisees - only external show, with utter absence of all real love; only self-assumption, pride, and self-righteousness, together with contempt of all who were regarded as religiously or intellectually beneath them - chiefly of the unlearned' and sinners,' those in the streets and lanes' of their city, whom they considered as the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.' [4744] Even among themselves there was strife about the first places' - such as, perhaps, Christ had on that occasion witnessed, [4745] amidst mock professions of humility, when, perhaps, the master of the house had afterwards, in true Pharisaic fashion, proceeded to re-arrange the guests according to their supposed dignity. And even the Rabbis had given advice to the same effect as Christ's [4746] - and of this His words may have reminded them. [4747]
But further - addressing him who had so treacherously bidden Him to this feast, Christ showed how the principle of Pharisaism consisted in self-seeking, to the necessary exclusion of all true love. Referring, for the fuller explanation of His meaning, [4748] to a previous chapter, [4749] we content ourselves here with the remark, that this self-seeking and self-righteousness appeared even in what, perhaps, they most boasted of - their hospitality. For, if in an earlier Jewish record we read the beautiful words: Let thy house be open towards the street, and let the poor be the sons of thy house,' [4750] we have, also, this later comment on them, [4751] that Job had thus had his house opened to the four quarters of the globe for the poor, and that, when his calamities befell him, he remonstrated with God on the ground of his merits in this respect, to which answer was made, that he had in this matter come very far short of the merits of Abraham. So entirely self-introspective and self-seeking did Rabbinism become, and so contrary was its outcome to the spirit of Christ, the inmost meaning of Whose Work, as well as Words, was entire self-forgetfulness and self-surrender in love.