And this is ac

Christ's ministry in Jerusalem' and Judæa. counted for by two facts, which must never be lost sight of in studying the Gospels, that the first three Evangelists wrote from Galilean sources of information, and that the Gospel of St. John was supplemental to theirs.

In these two facts we have the key to the diversities between the first three Evangelists and the fourth, respecting both the scene and the duration of the public ministry of Christ.3

§ 2. Returning to this first Passover of A.D. 27, the first, that is, in our Saviour's ministry, for he had doubtless gone up regularly to Jerusalem since the recorded visit at the age twelve, we see him at once exercising the highest authority of a prophet and a reformer, by cleansing the temple. The selfish spirit which had prevailed since the Captivity, in place of the open idolatries of earlier times, had made the very services of the sanctuary the occasion for profaning it. Sheep and oxen and doves were sold within the sacred precincts for the sacrifices, and money-changers traded there upon the convenience of those who came to pay the half-shekel tax for divine worship. Jesus drove them from the temple with an authority of which his " Scourge of small cords was but the sign. The indignation with which he overthrew the tables of the money-changers forms a marked contrast to his gentler command to the sellers of doves to "take these things hence." Still more striking is the contrast between his admonition, "Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise,” and his denunciation of the same conduct on his last visit to the temple:-"It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations; but ye have made it a den of thieves." Those critics, who suppose the two narratives to be a confused account of one event, are insensible to the transition, which the renewed and confirmed selfishness of the offenders forced upon our Saviour, from the reformer urging amendment, to the judge passing a final condemnation."

His proceedings were watched by his disciples and the Jews with equal astonishment. The former, reminded of the words of one of those Psalms which most clearly referred to the Messiah, beheld a new proof of his divine authority. The

2 See Matt. iv. 25, xv. 1, xxiii. 37; Luke x. 38.

4 John ii. 13-17.

Ps. Ixix. 9. See the whole psalm, 3 See Notes and Illustrations (A), for its pre-eminently Messianic charTHE SCENE OF OUR LORD'S MINIS-acter. TRY; (B), DURATION OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY.

Jews were sensible of the same inference, but they resisted its admission. Their very demand for a sign of his authority proved that they understood the claim. His answer looked forward, at this very commencement of his course, to its highest consummation, while it rebuked them more keenly than ever by predicting their share in the end." This was the first occasion on which the Jews made the demand, which they so often repeated, not of evidence to justify belief-this was abundantly supplied by the very spirit of his proceedings, as well as by the miracles which we are presently told that he performed but of a supernatural sign to compel belief; that foolish demand which is made in every age by hearts hardened against moral evidence, and which equally fails to convince them. Jesus replied, as on other occasions, by refusing the demand made in a spirit of defiance, but at the same time intimating that the sign would one day be given, and that to their confusion. For this end their evil spirit toward him was already preparing. They who demanded to know his authority for rebuking their profanation of God's house would be carried on by that evil spirit, not only to courses involving the destruction of that house, but to the destruction of the true temple of which that was but the shrine, the "house not made with hands," which formed in his person the dwellingplace of God. And when their rage had achieved that triumph, he would give them the clearest sign of his authority, by raising up again in three days that edifice, whose glory infinitely surpassed the forty years' work of Herod on Mount Zion. "He spake of the temple of his body." His words had an apparent sense, which was all that their carnal minds could see at present; and even this they willfully perverted by the alteration of one word, in order to make out a charge of blasphemy against him. He said, "Destroy this temple"-in the tone of indignant remonstrance, like, "Fill ye up the measure of your fathers." And the very means they used to fulfill his words was by suborning false witnesses to make him "I say, will destroy it." Hidden beneath this apparent sense, was not only the prediction of the destruction of the temple by the Romans, as the only cure for the pollutions they had brought upon it; but the deeper spiritual prophecy of his own death and resurrection, the end of which would be the establishment of the true temple in heaven; where the seer of Patmos beheld no visible temple, "for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." Even his disciples did not perceive

6 John ii.. 18-22.

Rev. xxi. 23.

this meaning till after his resurrection. "They remembered," as soon as they saw his zeal for his Father's house, the Scripture which marked this as a character of the Christ; but it needed reflection after the event, to call to their remembrance the true import of his life and sayings; and it is that remembrance, recalled by the Holy Spirit, that St. John has recorded for our learning. It is another indication of the progressive character of their faith, that only then "did they believe the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said."

These deeds of authority, and the miracles which Jesus performed at the Passover, gained him for the first time many converts converts at least in outward profession. But here we meet with one of the most striking and affecting records in his whole history. "Many believed (or trusted) in his name; but Jesus did not trust himself to them." It is difficult to express the antithesis involved in the repetition of the word, which our version wholly loses. But it is not difficult to read the lesson of the reserve with which Christ treated these first converts of his public ministry. A reason is given, which both explains his conduct and testifies to his omniscient power of discerning the hearts of men. He saw the elements of instability in some, and of hypocrisy and perhaps even treachery in others, which would surely bring disgrace on his cause; and he would not own them, or attach himself to them, in such a manner as to imperil that cause through them. Probably these converts, in their carnal and selfish zeal, began with the mistake which was afterward repeated by so many of his followers, by looking for an independent kingdom; and he would not commit himself to them as king of the Jews.R

§ 3. But there were a few in whom he did place confidence. The type of these is the ruler Nicodemus, a man by no means free from the prejudices of his nation and his order, but showing the first elements of true faith in his hearty recognition of the divine authority attested by the miracles of Christ. This conviction, which many of his fellow-rulers shared, he had the honesty to avow:- "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher sent from God;" and, though there was something of proud reserve, as well as of moral cowardice, in the manner of his coming to Christ, his sincerity contrasted very favorably with the hollow demonstrations which Jesus had rejected. To him the Lord unfolded for the first time the deepest mysteries of his kingdom: the need of regeneration to enter it; the death

8

John ii. 23-25.

9

9 John iii. 1, 2.

of the Son of Man and only-begotten Son of God for the salvation of all who should believe in him; and the condemnation of the world for its willful unbelief. In this discourse the Three Persons of the Trinity are all revealed in their working for man's redemption: the Father loving the world so as even to give his Son to die for man; the Son coming down from heaven to be lifted up on the cross, and ascending to heaven again; and the Spirit renewing the hearts of those who should enter the kingdom of heaven. The detailed exposition of our Lord's discourses, however, does not fall within the plan of this work.10

11

12

§ 4. Our Lord's discernment of the premature and unstable professions of the many who believed on him would be a sufficient reason for his retirement from Jerusalem to the country districts of Judæa, where he gradually, but surely, gathered converts, who were baptized, not by himself, but by his disciples. His converts soon exceeded those of John, who still continued to baptize, and who was now at Ænon, near Salim, a spot which numerous streamlets make very convenient for an encampment. The people were now perplexed by something like an appearance of rivalry between the two new teachers; and one of the Jews,13 who had engaged in a controversy upon purifying with John's disciples, came to him to ask, seemingly in a somewhat taunting spirit, how it was that he, to whom he had borne witness near the Jordan, was apparently superseding him in his ministry. John took the occasion to bear to Christ a final testimony, no less remarkable for its explicit statements of Gospel truth than for its profound humility and self-renunciation. Reminding both parties to the controversy that he had always insisted on the superiority of Christ to himself, as being the very purpose of his mission, he marks this as the divinely appointed order:-"HE must increase, I must decrease." 14 And to this law he not merely submits, but derives from it unbounded satisfaction. Likening himself to the bridegroom's friend (or paranymph) at a wedding, rejoicing at the bridegroom's voice, while Christ rejoiced over his pure spouse, the Church about to be re

10 John iii. 1-21.

"John iii. 22: comp. John iv. 2. The word "tarried" seems to imply a considerable time.

12 John iii. 23, 24. See p. 216. The words "John was not yet cast into prison" form the only notice of the Baptist's imprisonment in St. John's

Gospel; a mark of its supplemental character.

13 John iii. 25. The best MSS. have the singular, μετὰ Ἰουδαίου (not 'Iovdaiwv). 14 John iii. 30. So must (de) is used in Matt, xxvi. 54; Mark viii. 31, ix. 11, 12; Luke xxiii. 17, xxiv. 7, 44; John xx. 9; Acts i. 6.

deemed, he declares, "This my joy therefore is fulfilled." Though himself destined to remain outside of the Christian Church, he concludes his testimony by pointing to his disciples and all his hearers the way within it. The limits of his own mission, strictly defined from the first, were now reached; and he sends them, for the measureless gifts of God's Spirit, to Him who had come from heaven and was above all, promising everlasting life if they believed on the Son, and denouncing the abiding wrath of God on unbelievers.15

5. Having thus stood faithful against the greatest temptation, probably, that ever assailed a mere man, the same temptation to which an angel had yielded, of rivalry with the Son of God, John could carry a good conscience into the prison to which he was soon afterward consigned. Thus far we have only seen John preaching and baptizing in the wilderness and near the Jordan; but it would seem that, as he advanced up the river into Galilee, the interest which Herod Antipas always retained in the Jewish religion led him to wish to hear the prophet. John appeared before him in a guise unlike the delicate attire of the courtier, with his wild Nazarite locks, and his prophet's mantle of camel's-hair, such as Elijah had when he showed himself to Ahab. In the court, as in the wilderness, he went straight to the object of his mission, repentance and reformation from positive sin. Herod had married Herodias, the self-divorced wife of his half-brother Philip; and, regardless alike of the king's favor and the woman's vengeance, he said, "It is not lawful for thee to have her!" For this offense, Herod, instigated by Herodias, and casting to the winds all the better feelings that had led him to send for John, added to all the crimes which he had had such an opportunity to renounce, that of shutting up John in prison. How reluctant he was to proceed further, both from respect for John and fear of the people, who held the Baptist for a prophet, and how his conscience troubled him for this step, we shall soon see.

16

§ 6. Meanwhile the Pharisees, who may be supposed to have aided Herodias in exciting her husband against John, prepared to attack Jesus in his turn, for they had been alarmed by hearing that he made and baptized more disciples than John. Jesus heard of their plots and of John's imprisonment about the same time; and he resolved to remove from Judæa

15 John iii. 24-36.

Antipas and Herodias, see chap. v. §

16 Matt. xiv. 3-5; Mark vi. 17-20; 3, p. 102. Luke iii. 19, 20. Concerning Herod