The Pulpit Commentary — Luke — Volume 1 — Section 312

epiritual condition in which this force i, realized; (3) of the ruponsibility with regard lo it which resls on '" individv.ally. I. TeE PROPER AND OBARAOTERISTJO ll'OROE OJI' TRUTH. Christ Is grieved with the generation whoso ropresentatives are with him. He bad wrought in their presence the works of God; he ho.d spoken to them the words of God, And what did they aver? That be was secretly leagued with Beelzebub; In the ministry of love they saw the malignities of hell, the finger, not of God, but of Satan. Those who shrank from such wilful misconstruction clamoured for a sign-some portent in the skies, some miracle so striking as to prove the Divine Source of his mission. And, feeling the pain of this ccntradiction of sinners, he says (vers. 29-32), "Sign, more than the preaching itself? What Jonah was to the Ninevites--tbe testimony against them-that the Son of man shall be. Sign, more than the preaching itself? The heathen Queen of Ethiopia shall condemn them ; for her the preaching of Solomon was enough, and the Greater than Solomon is here. The people of heathen Nineveh shall condemn them, for they repented when the prophet preached; and yet this generation repents not, though the Son of God is himself speaking to it. Sign? 'l'he truth is its own sign. It is open; it may be known and read of all men. It is light (ver. 34), not covered by a. bushel, but set as a candle on a candlestick, that all who come into the house may see it." This is the abiding characteristic of truth. It is light. Pharisees with cabbalistic lore, so-called philosophers, with their doctrine for the initiated, their pretentious knowledge, are not the light-givers. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light." When the soul is interpreted or helped; when God in nature, in providence, or in thought, is declared; when the relations and proportions of facts are discerned; when the order of the uni- verse is apprehended and felt; when, if puzzle and problem are not seen through, the light pierces into what is beyond, and the heart is enabled to say, "I cannot under- stand, I love; "-when thus the truth is known, the truth that is known makes free. It is the freedom of light before which the darkness passes. Let us realize the self- evidencing nature of truth. Signs outward e.nd carnal it does not need. What speaks of Christ in miracle is not the mere wonder. 'l'hat only called attention to the real sign, the object and the manner of the work. The claim of truth consists, not in what adheres to it, but in what it is. We do not need a sign to tell us that the sun shines; the shining is the sign. We do not need a sign to tell us that a candle is lit; the candle- stick shows that. And so with regard to Christianity. As it has eloquently been said, •• The central unquestionable miracle is Jesus himself-One from the cradle to the grave, walking in spotless purity, through all temptation wearing a conscience without a scar, treading the great deep of human life and never wetting his feet with the spray; equally at home with saints in the glory of the mount, aud with men writhing in misery at its base; elect to wipe away the tear of humanity, to bear it undwarfed and undimmed to the heavenly places, yet to whom we can go when the shame burns in the cheek, and the sweat stands on the brow." Ah! yes; and this miracle is still writing its mark on the conscience and life of man. Persons speak dolefully about the decadence of the evaugelical faith, and indeed the signs are mixed; but the evangel of the living Christ is still the power of God-never more than now "The presence of a good diffused. And in t.litIU:lioo evt>r more intense." Not less, but all the more, as the world waxes old, and the needs of men become more urgent and complicated, is this evangel " the light shining in the darkness, and the darkness will never overtake it." II. But now observe THE CONDITIONS ON WHIOB THE ll'ORCE 011' THE TRUTH IS REALIZED. These conditions, as stated by the Lord, are two. 1. There is the quality of the receptive organ. "'l'he light of the body is the eye" (ver. 34). Whatever affects the eye affects the impression of the object beheld. For example, the very com- mon defect known as colour-blind11ess necessarily vitiates the discernment. Any injury to the eye, any disturbance of the wondrously delicate mechanism, mars the vision. All this bas its moral counterpart. "As a man thin.k.eth in his hea.rt, so is he." 'l'be truth presented to the soul may yet not be apprehended as truth by the soul, and the fault lies in the soul itself. 'l'he moral necessarily acts on the intellectual. The intellectual life that springs out of or develops in harmony with a developing spiritual life is the  316 THE GOSPEL ACOORDING TO ST LUKE. fos. :u. 1--IH,