The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 647

LESSONS. 1. Guilt conce&ls itself by falsehood. Hate sin, love the truth. 2. To offer bribes or to receive them is alike evil. Covetousness is idolatry. 3. The fact of the Lord's resurrection is incontrovertible. Let us cling to it as the ground of all our hopes ; let WI seek to realize its sp ritual power. Vers. 16-20.-Z'M great m«Jting in Galila. I. TIIE APPEARANOB or TBl!I LORD. 1. The place. This was the one only meeting by appointment. The other appearances of the risen Saviour were sudden and unexpected. Both St. Matthew and St. Mark tell us that the Lord, just before his agony, had announced to his apostles that, after he was risen again, he would go before them into Galilee. After the Resurrection the angel first, and, then the Lord himself, had made the same appointment. Evidently it was a meeting of especial importance; the preparation for it, its striking circumstances, the fact that it is the only meeting with the apostles recorded by the first evangelist, invest it with peculiar solemnity. The Lord had chosen some mountain in Galilee as the place of meeting. Thither ea.me the eleven disciples-probably only the eleven. Some have thought that this meeting is the appearance mentioned by St. Panl in 1 Cor. xv. 6, when more than five hundred disciples, most of whom were living when St. Paul wrote, saw the risen Savionr. But it seems altogether improbable that the presence of so great a number should have been left unnoticed, that the evangelist should have mentioned only the eleven apostles, when there was an assembly of more tha.n five hundred gathered round the Lord. 2. The ejfecl of the LorrI's first appearance. They worshipped him. Before the Resurrection we read from time to ti;:ne that others worshipped him; we are not told that the apostles did so. Now they felt the majesty of his Person. "When they saw him, they worshipped." We know not how he appeared, whether suddenly, as at other times, or standing afar off on the mountain-top, or possibly in the air above them. Certainly he appeared in the glory of his resurrection-body-the body~of his glory (Phil. iii. 21), the same, yet not the same, with that body which was born of the Virgin Mary, which had hung upon the cross, which had lain in the tomb of Joseph; the ea.me, as the risen bodies of his saints will be the same with their present corruptible bodies; yet not the same, as the spiritual body will differ from the natural body. The Lord appeared; and the glory of his presence filled the hearts of the apostles with unwonted awe and reverence. They prostrated themselves before him in lowliest adoration, offering up that worship which the kneeling Church offers to the risen Lord at all times, especially on that day which is his; and with deepest thankfulness, with most devoted love, with most fervent adoration on that greatest of festivals, when we commemorate the resurrection of Christ our Lord from the dead. But, the apostle tells us with the characteristic truthfulness and simplicity of Holy Scripture, "some doubted." We are not told what their doubts were. It was not sinful, obstinate doubt ; for the Lord came nearer and dispelled it; he did not repr~ve them.. It may possibly have been doubted ~heJher worship should be offered to him; and, if i;o, the Lord's first words," All power 1B given unto me," may be regarded as an answer to that unspoken doubt. More probably it was doubt of his identity when they first saw him. None of the eleven could then doubt the fact of the Resurrection. But when they first saw the glorious form in thii distance, some of them failed to recognize the Lord ; just as they knew him not at first on the Sea of Galilee, when he ea.me to them walking upon the water; as Mary Magdalene "knew not that it was Jesus," when first she saw the risen Lord. He came nearer in his gracious love, he came and spoke unto them. None could doubt longer, when they saw him close at hand, when they heard the well-known tones of that much-loved voice. So Christian men doubt sometimes now whether the Lord has rea.lly called_them, wh_ether they hav~ the high privi(ege of his presen:ce• He will not leave them m doubt if they love him and keep h!S word. He will come nearer; he will fulfil his blessed promise, manifesting himaelf to them as he doth not unto the world. II. THE LoBD's WORDS. 1. He talked to ehem. The Greek word impliea more than a short, set speech. He said, doubtless, much more than the evangelist has recorded. We know that the Lord did and said many things which are not written in t~is book; but God has provided for the preservation of all that is necessary for our fa1t:1', and for our salvation. "TheBe things are written, that we might believe that Jesus 18 en. xxvm. 1-20.] TilE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 653