IV. Love 18 AN ESSENTIAL CONDITION OF TRUE FAITH. Faith works by love. How mistaken is it to limit faith to intellectual assent! Devils believe, but love not, and are weak. Faith and love are other words for the might of God in the soul. “Oh, my brothers, God exists! Believing love will relieve us of a load of care! ”—will lift mountains’ weight from the spirit, and make our ideals a present reality. But the unloving, unforgiving soul remains fettered in itself, unreleased, unfree, and weak.—J.
Vers. 27—33.—Critics criticized. I. THe sprit OF FAULT-FINDING NEVER LACKS Foop. The action is wrong ; or, if it is right, it is done from a wrong motive, or done by the wrong person. “ Ill will never said well.”
Il. Iv asks FOR REASONS, BUT BEFUSES TO GIVE THEM. It will call others to account, and refuse to give account of itself. The arbitrary temper is directly opposed to the “ sweet reasonableness of Christ.”
TI. THe UNTRUE MAN THINKS ONLY OF POLICY ON HIS ANSwERS. The true man thinks of the fact, and tries to get at it and state it. The other, of how much he can afford to tell; how much ’twere well to keep back. “Truth should be the first question with men, not consequences.”
IV. THERE 18 A USE IN SILENT CONTEMPT. Ohrist, so ready to discuss with candid inquirers and give instruction, here holds his peace. Sometimes the rule is, “ Answer a Jeol according to his folly ;” sometimes, “ Answer him not according to his folly.” Truth and the good of souls must be our guide, “ Incompetency may be exposed and assumption resisted for the sake of truth.”—J.
Vers. 1—11. Parallel passages: Matt. xxi. 1—11; 14—17; Luke xix. 29—44; John xii, 12—19.—Our Lord’s public entry into Jerusalem. I. JouRNEY FROM JERICHO. Jerusalem is at an elevation of three thousand six hundred feet above Jericho in the Jordan valley. The distance between the two cities is upwards of fifteen miles. Travel-stained and weary with this uphill journey, gradually ascending all the way, our Lord stayed over sabbath with the family of Bethany, where he got rested and refreshed. Bethany, which St. John calls “the town of Mary and her sister Martha,” is fifteen fur- longs, or nearly two miles, from Jerusalem, and gets its name from the fruit of the palm trees that once flourished there, signifying “house of dates.” It is now called Zi- Asariyeh, from the name of Lazarus, and in memory of the miracle wrought in raising him from the dead. Next day, being the 10th of Nisan, or 1st of April—the day on which the Paschal lamb was set apart—was the day chosen by him, who is our true Paschal Lamb, for his public entry into Jerusalem, there to be sacrificed for us, Of the caravan of as Sa that accompanied our Lord and his disciples in the journey from Jericho, some proceeded onward direct to the holy city ; others had pitched their tents in the wooded vale of Bethany; and others, again, on the western slopes of Olivet, opposite to and in full view of the city. Those who had advanced to Jerusalem had, it is probable, brought word thither of the approach of the Prophet of Nazareth.
IL. Pusuic rrocussion. The life and ministry of cur Lord were fast drawing to a
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142 ‘4HE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. [on. x1, 1—33.
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close, The time of his departure was at hand. There is no longer need of enjoining secrecy with regard to his miracles, or of concealment in respect of his office, lest public excitement might ensue, or lest his work might be interfered with or interrupted by the opposition of euemies, befure the seed of truth, which he had sown by his discourses and parables, should get time to take root in the public mind. Publicity rather than secrecy is now needed. The great Passover Lamb is to be sacrificed, and so the Priest is on his way to the place of sacrifice; the Prophet is going up to the house of God to renew the work of reformation, to rectify abuses, to restore, or at least exhibit, the purity befitting the service of the sanctuary, and to teach daily, as he did, in the temple. Above all, the King is going up to his capital, the daughter of Zion is to receive her King with rejoicing. Hitherto he had indeed gone about continually, doing good, yet with little or no outward show; save by the crowds that followed for healing or hearing, and on some rare occasions and with some signal exceptions, he had been little recognised, being rather “despised and rejected of men.” Now the time has come for him to announce his Kingdom and claim the honour of a King. The public avowal of his dignity, the official declaration of his Messiahship, and the formal proclamation of his kingdom, now behoved to be made. He was now going to assert his right to reign. Now, for the first and only time, he assumes somewhat of royal state in entering his metropolis. Nor yet was there anything very great or very garish in this exhibition of royalty ; the whole was carried out in lowly guise. Christ was indeed a King, but King of the realm of truth; and his entrance into Jerusalem was a royal procession—a right royal one, though in a spiritual sense. He was King, but not such a King as the multitude, and even his disciples, expected. He was not a King coming with chariots and horses, with battle-bow or weapons of war, as earthly rulers and worldly conquerors; but “ just, and bringing salvation.” He was the spiritual King of an unworldly, but universal and unending kingdom.
IJ. OmniscleNCE APPARENT IN HIS ORDERS. In the directions which our Lord gives his disciples, probably Peter and John, to go to the village over against them—perhaps Bethphage, which means “house of figs”—there are several particulars so precise, minute, and striking, that they imply superhuman knowledge. How else could he tell them beforehand (1) that immediately on entering the village they would find an ass and her colt ; (2) that they were not loose, but tied, and so ready to be employed by their owner ; (8) that that colt had never been tamed, or broken in, and that no man had ever sat on its back; (4) the exact position in which the colt would be found—not in the courtyard, but outside ; at the door, yet not in the public street, but on a road that ran round (éugd5ov) the rear of the house or village; (5) that in case of any demur on the part of persons standing by, they should inform them for whose use it was required ; and (6) that the ready consent of the owner would be obtained—“ and straightway he will send them”? Another reading of this latter clause has the future, and adds daw, so that the sense is, “‘ He [Christ] will seud it back again.”