The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 236

men rnying- About me f I\?'(' 'Whom do they John i. 29, 33, 8!, 4 l, 45, 49, eto.). Dut, think thR1. I Rm?" though glenm succeeded gle"m, in fl11sheH Ver. 19.-They answering ■aid, .Tohn the that r0vealed the Illimilablo; tbe darkness Baptist ; but 1ome eay, Elias ; and others would ever, more or less, close in agnm. "'"Y· that one of the old prophets is risen They could not altogether help it. '!'hey again. It was a etrange anewer, this report wero wituessos of a 'humiliation' whioh of the popular belief concerning J oeus. they could not reconcile with tho notions Tbere had hef'n for a long period among- the they had inherited in roferenoo to the power people expeetations more or Iese defined, and pomp of tho Messiah. And yet it was that certain of the groat national herooe evident that ho wos entirely unlike all other were to reappear ngain to take up tl,cir rabbis. Ho was the Muster of masters, and incomplet.e work, and to play tho part in a mystery over and above. An inner lustre Israel, of heralds of the lookerl-for glorious was continually breaking through. It was King Messiah. The popufar belief respect- glorious; it was unique. His character ing Jpsus was that he was one of these. was trauscendeutly noble and pure. He Some thought of Elijah. The two miracles had not, moreover, obtruded self-assertions or creating the loaves and fiehes for a great on them. He bad left them, in e. great famisl,ing crowd especially suggested this measure, to observe for themselves; and idea. There was a shadowy, buL not an un- they had been observing." It was, indeed, real resemhlance here to the well-remembered on the part of these feeble disciples a pure miracle of Elijah, worked for the Sarepta and lofty expression of the effect produced widow and her son, with the cruse of oil and on their hearts by Jesus Christ's teaching. th~ lmrrel of m,,,d wl,ieh failed not (1 King-a But though these men, afterwards BO great, X\'ii. H). 1.'l,e words of Malachi (iv. 5) hnd attained to this gra.nd conception of pointed in the same direction. The image their adored Master, though they alone, of the recently murdered Baptist was present e.mong the crowd8, through thol sad coloured with some. Herod's words, already com- veil of his low estate, could see shining the mented on, poiut to thia, perl,aps, wide- glory of Divinity, yet they could not grasp spread belief. Jeremiah would be a likely yet the conception of a suffering Messiah, instance of "one of tLe old prophets." and in spite of e.11 the teaching of the Trodition had already asserted that the Master, the cross and the Passion made them spirit of that great one had pa.seed into unbelievers again. It needed the Resurrec- Zechariah; surely another similar transmi- tion to complete the education of faith. gration was p"ssible. Jeremiah, popular Ver. 21.-And he straitly charged them, ti:adition said, had safely hid,lcn the ark and and oomm.anded them to tell no man that tlie taberua.cle a11d the alta.r of incense thing. It would have been no hard task for somewuere in the mountain where Moses the disciples to have gone about with e.n ex- died by the "kiss of God." Already L11d pression of their earnest conviction that the he appeared to the brave and patriotic grent Prophet was indeed the long looked- Judas Maccabmus iu a vision as a man grey- for King Messiah, and thus to have raised Laired and exceeding glorious, as one pray- the excitable crowds to any wild pit.eh of ing for the people as their guardian-prophet, enthusiasm. It was only a very short time e.nd had given the gallant Maceabman hero back tlmt, moved by the miracle of the a golden sword frow God. It was one of loaves, the multitudes wished to crown him these old heroic forms, so loved of Israel, King by force. That was not the kind of once wore in the flesh, that t.he people homage Jesus sought; besides which, any bdieved Jesus to be. such wthusiasm thus evoked would quickly Ver. 20.-But whom say ye that I am 1 have died e.way, and a hostile reaction l'eter &llllwering said, The Christ of God. would have set in when the high l,opes Aud the Master listened, apparently without excited by the idea of King Messiah were c,,mment, to this reply, which told him what contradicted by the life of suffering and self- the people eaid of him, and then went on, denial which Jesus sternly set himself to "Bot you, my disciplee, who have been ever live through to its bitter end. This life he with me, what say, what think !JOU about sketched out for them in the severe le.ugue.ge mef" Peter, as the representative of the of the next verse. others in that little chosen company, Ver. 22.-Sayinr, The Bon of man must auswers, " We believe that thou art more suffer many things, and be rejected of the Uwn any prophet or national hero or fore- elders and chief priests and scribes, and be runner of the Messiah ; we think that thou slain, and be raised the third day. " See art the Me88iah hims;,lf." Dr. Morrison how," as Riggenbach, quoted by Godet, eays very b,·autifully picturBd the disciples' state (' Vie de Jc.us,' p. 318), "Jesus was oL!iged, of milld at tlJs juncture. "No doubt the in the very moment of self-revelation, to veil tru;, light uu tLe 11ubject had often gleamed himself, when he had lighted the tire to tL.ruugL tLe darkness of their mi.ndB (see cove, it again." Thiil d,uk and terribl1 on. IX, 1-62,] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. LUKF:.