The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 40

both foreigners, and worse thnn wilfulness in David's marrying Bathsheba, Such wilfulness we might expect would thwart the Divine purpose for the race; but instend, it ,Yas onrruled. Gcd's thought ca.unot be frustrated, If man resists, ho will simply be borne along on the current of God's outworking purpose. II. GoD LETS CH.\RACTER TRIUMPH OVER MERE RACE·DJSADILlTIEB, This is illus- trated in the cases of Rahab and Ruth, the fine illustrations of faith in God and of the loyalty of sincere love. That faith ennobled a Canaanite in the sight of God, 'l'bat loyalty of love beauLified a Moabite in the sight of God, And so our Lord taught that the hum bled, penitent, believing "publicans and harlots" entered his kingdom rather thnn Abraham-born Jews, who had nothing to boast of but a pedigree. • III. GENTILES JUVE A CLEAR CLAIM TO THE BENEFITS OF Jl,IEesun's WORK, They have an actual part in bim. The blood of two Gentile mothers is in the Saviour of the world. The Gentiles need rest in no mere permission to share Jewish privilege; they can claim their rights in Jesus. He is" a Light to lighten the Gentiles."-R. T. Ver. 18.-11ie myste,-y of the Incarnation, Christianity starts with a miracle. It is a miracle altogether so stupendous and so unique that its reception settles the whole question of the possibility of the miraculous, He who can believe that God shadowed himself to our apprehension in the likeness of a man, he who can recognize in the Babe of Bethlehem, both the Son of God and the Son of Mary, will find that no equal demand is ever afterwards made upon his faculty of faith. Both Testaments begin with a miracle. A world of order and beauty arising out of chaos is a. miracle as truly as is the birth of a divinely human Saviour by the Divine overshadowing of Mary. We ask how these things were done, but the mystery eludes all human explanations. In the whole circle of causes yet searched. out by man, there are none which help us to trace the mystery. We a.sk why, and then for us the mystery of wisdom and grace is allowed to unfold a little. Two influences affected the truth of the Incarnation in the time of the apostles-Judaism tended to overpress the mere hulllanity of Christ; Gnosticism tended to dissipate the humanity into a mere appearance. L Os Wll.AT PRINCIPLE IS THE INCABNATION FOUNDED? It is essentially a revela- tion, and it rests upon the principle that man can only be taught the truth concerning God, and saved from his sins, by a revelation. Man is made a moral being by receiving a revelation of the will of God. Man is redeemed. by receiving a revelation of the mercy of God. What man precisely needs is a revelation of God's character; it must be shown to him in human spheres, That is the Incarnation, "God manifest in the flesh." II. WHAT FORM DID THE INoABNATION TAKE? We may gain the best ideas by noticing what it was not. 1. God did not put on the mere appearance of humanity. This was the error of the Docela!. To correct this the evangelists give details of our Lord's birth into veritable humanity. 2. God did not assume to himself a. human body. That is, be did not find a. human body, and come into it, as the hermit-crab will find, and enter into, an empty shell, Scripture says he was made man. 3. God did not take any particular class or kind of hnmanity. He was just the world's Babe, the world's Man.-R. T. Ver. 18.-The Ho7y Ghost before Pentecost. We are so accnstomed to associate the term "Holy Ghost" with the descent of the Spirit on the disciples at Pentecost, that it seems stranue 0 to us to find it used by the evangelists even in the early portions of their Gospels. But there is no. proper a~thorit}'.' for con~ecting_ t~e t~rm. exclusively with Pentecost. Properly speakmg, there 1s nothmg peculiar or d1stmct1ve m the term. "Spirit" and "Ghost" are synonyms. "Holy Spirit" may properly be put wherever "Holy Ghost" is found, Nothing is added to our knowledge by using the term "Ghost." \Vhenever God is spoken of in the Scripture as working within things, out of sight, in the spheres of thought and feeling, he is spoken of as. God the Spi~it, or God the Ghostly. The Old Testament is full of statements concemmg the work mg of God's Spirit in creation· in the antediluvians; in the kings; in the prophets. God works in the created. spheres in two ways. 1. In external spheres, and in modes apprehensible by human senses. 2. In internal spheres, and in modes apprehensible by the feeling, the mind, and the will. God's secret workings are to be regarded as cu. I. 1-28.J THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MAT'fllEW. 27