SECTION I. FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF CHRIST'S DEATH
Matt. 16:21-28; Mark 8:31-38; Luke 9:22-27.
Not till an advanced period in His public
ministry--not, in fact, till it was drawing to a close--did Jesus speak in
plain, unmistakable terms of His death. The solemn event was foreknown by Him
from the first; and He betrayed His consciousness of what was awaiting Him by a
variety of occasional allusions. These earlier utterances, however, were all
couched in mystic language. They were of the nature of riddles, whose meaning
became clear after the event, but which before, none could, or at least did,
read. Jesus spake now of a temple, which, if destroyed, He should raise again
in three days;[12.1] at another time of a lifting up of the Son of man, like
unto that of the brazen serpent in the wilderness;[12.2] and on yet other
occasions, of a sad separation of the bridegroom from the children of the
bridechamber,[12.3] of the giving of His flesh for the life of the world,[12.4]
and of a sign like that of the prophet Jonas, which should be given in His own
person to an evil and adulterous generation.[12.5
At length, after the conversation in Cesarea
Philippi, Jesus changed His style of speaking on the subject of His sufferings,
substituting for dark, hidden allusions, plain, literal, matter-of-fact
statements.[12.6] This change was naturally adapted to the altered
circumstances in which He was placed. The signs of the times were growing
ominous; storm-clouds were gathering in the air; all things were beginning to
point towards Calvary. His work in Galilee and the provinces was nearly done;
it remained for Him to bear witness to the truth in and around the holy city;
and from the present mood of the ecclesiastical authorities and the leaders of
religious society, as manifested by captious question and unreasonable
demand,[12.7] and a constant espionage on His movements, it was not difficult
to foresee that it would not require many more offences, or much longer time,
to ripen dislike and jealousy into murderous hatred. Such plain speaking,
therefore, concerning what was soon to happen, was natural and seasonable.
Jesus was now entering the valley of the shadow of death, and in so speaking He
was but adapting His talk to the situation.
Plain-speaking regarding His death was now not
only natural on Christ's part, but at once necessary and safe in reference to
his disciples. It was necessary, in order that they might be prepared for the
approaching event, as far as that was possible in the case of men who, to the
last, persisted in hoping that the issue would be different from what their
Master anticipated. It was safe; for now the subject might be spoken of plainly
without serious risk to their faith. Before the disciples were established in
the doctrine of Christ's person, the doctrine of the cross might have scared
them away altogether. Premature preaching of a Christ to be crucified might
have made them unbelievers in the fundamental truth that Jesus of Nazareth was
the Christ. Therefore, in consideration of their weakness, Jesus maintained a
certain reserve respecting His sufferings, till their faith in Him as the
Christ should have become sufficiently rooted to stand the strain of the storm
soon to be raised by a most unexpected, unwelcome, and incomprehensible
announcement. Only after hearing Peter's confession was He satisfied that the
strength necessary for enduring the trial had been attained.
Wherefore, "from that time forth began Jesus to
show unto His disciples how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many
things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be
raised again the third day."
Every clause in this solemn announcement demands
our reverent scrutiny.
Jesus showed unto His disciples--
I. "That He must go unto Jerusalem." Yes! there
the tragedy must be enacted: that was the fitting scene for the stupendous
events that were about to take place. It was dramatically proper that the Son
of man should die in that "holy," unholy city, which had earned a most
unenviable notoriety as the murderess of the prophets, the stoner of them whom
God sent unto her. "It cannot be"--it were incongruous--"that a prophet perish
out of Jerusalem."[12.8] It was due also to the dignity of Jesus, and to the
design of His death, that He should suffer there. Not in an obscure corner or
in an obscure way must He die, but in the most public place, and in a formal,
judicial manner. He must be lifted up in view of the whole Jewish nation, so
that all might see Him whom they had pierced, and by whose stripes also they
might yet be healed. The "Lamb of God" must be slain in the place where all the
legal sacrifices were offered.
2. "And suffer many things." Too many to
enumerate, too painful to speak of in detail, and better passed over in silence
for the present. The bare fact that their beloved Master was to be put to
death, without any accompanying indignities, would be sufficiently dreadful to
the disciples; and Jesus mercifully drew a veil over much that was present to
His own thoughts. In a subsequent conversation on the same sad theme, when His
passion was near at hand, He drew aside the veil a little, and showed them some
of the "many things." But even then He was very sparing in His allusions,
hinting only by a passing word that He should be mocked, and scourged, and spit
upon.[12.9] He took no delight in expatiating on such harrowing scenes. He was
willing to bear those indignities, but He cared not to speak of them more than
was absolutely necessary.
3. "Of the elders and chief priests and scribes."
Not of them alone, for Gentile rulers and the people of Israel were to have a
hand in evil-entreating the Son of man as well as Jewish ecclesiastics. But the
parties named were to be the prime movers and most guilty agents in the
nefarious transaction. The men who ought to have taught the people to recognize
in Jesus the Lord's Anointed, would hound them on to cry, "Crucify Him, crucify
Him," and by importunities and threats urge heathen authorities to perpetrate a
crime for which they had no heart. Gray-haired elders sitting in council would
solemnly decide that He was worthy of death; high priests would utter oracles,
that one man must die for the people, that the whole nation perish not; scribes
learned in the law would use their legal knowledge to invent plausible grounds
for an accusation involving capital punishment. Jesus had suffered many petty
annoyances from such persons already; but the time was approaching when nothing
would satisfy them but getting the object of their dislike cast forth out of
the world. Alas for Israel, when her wise men, and her holy men, and her
learned men, knew of no better use to make of the stone chosen of God, and
precious, than thus contemptuously and wantonly to fling it away!
4. "And be killed." Yes, and for blessed ends
pre-ordained of God. But of these Jesus speaks not now. He simply states, in
general terms, the fact, in this first lesson on the doctrine of the
cross.[12.10] Any thing more at this stage had been wasted words. To what
purpose speak of the theology of the cross, of God's great design in the death
which was to be brought about by man's guilty instrumentality, to disciples
unwilling to receive even the matter of fact? The rude shock of an unwelcome
announcement must first be over before any thing can be profitably said on
these higher themes. Therefore not a syllable here of salvation by the death of
the Son of man; of Christ crucified for man's guilt as well as by man's guilt.
The hard bare fact alone is stated, theology being reserved for another season,
when the hearers should be in a fitter frame of mind for receiving
instruction.
5. Finally, Jesus told His disciples that He
should "be raised again the third day." To some so explicit a reference to the
resurrection at this early date has appeared improbable.[12.11] To us, on the
contrary, it appears eminently seasonable. When was Jesus more likely to tell
His disciples that He would rise again shortly after His death, than just on
the occasion when He first told them plainly that He should die? He knew how
harsh the one announcement would be to the feelings of His faithful ones, and
it was natural that He should add the other, in the hope that when it was
understood that His death was to be succeeded, after a brief interval of three
days, by resurrection, the news would be much less hard to bear. Accordingly,
after uttering the dismal words "be killed," He, with characteristic
tenderness, hastened to say, "and be raised again the third day;" that, having
torn, He might heal, and having smitten, He might bind up.[12.12
The grave communications made by Jesus were far
from welcome to His disciples. Neither now nor at any subsequent time did they
listen to the forebodings of their Lord with resignation even, not to speak of
cheerful acquiescence or spiritual joy. They never heard Him speak of His death
without pain; and their only comfort, in connection with such announcements as
the present, seems to have been the hope that He had taken too gloomy a view of
the situation, and that His apprehensions would turn out groundless. They, for
their part, could see no grounds for such dark anticipations, and their
Messianic ideas did not dispose them to be on the outlook for these. They had
not the slightest conception that it behoved the Christ to suffer. On the
contrary, a crucified Christ was a scandal and a contradiction to them, quite
as much as it continued to be to the majority of the Jewish people after the
Lord had ascended to glory. Hence the more firmly they believed that Jesus was
the Christ, the more confounding it was to be told that He must be put to
death. "How," they asked themselves, "can these things be? How can the Son of
God be subject to such indignities? How can our Master be the Christ, as we
firmly believe, come to set up the divine kingdom, and to be crowned its King
with glory and honor, and yet at the same time be doomed to undergo the
ignominious fate of a criminal execution?" These questions the twelve could not
now, nor until after the Resurrection, answer; nor is this wonderful, for if
flesh and blood could not reveal the doctrine of Christ's person, still less
could it reveal the doctrine of His cross. Not without a very special
illumination from heaven could they understand the merest elements of that
doctrine, and see, e.g., that nothing was more worthy of the Son of God than to
humble Himself and become subject unto death, even the death of the cross; that
the glory of God consists not merely in being the highest, but in this, that
being high, He stoops in lowly love to bear the burden of His own sinful
creatures; that nothing could more directly and certainly conduce to the
establishment of the divine kingdom than the gracious self-humiliation of the
King; that only by ascending the cross could Messiah ascend the throne of His
mediatorial glory; that only so could He subdue human hearts, and become Lord
of men's affections as well as of their destinies. Many in the church do not
understand these blessed truths, even at this late era: what wonder, then, if
they were hid for a season from the eyes of the first disciples! Let us not
reproach them for the veil that was on their faces; let us rather make sure
that the same veil is not on our own.
On this occasion, as at Cesarea Philippi, the
twelve found a most eloquent and energetic interpreter of their sentiments in
Simon Peter. The action and speech of that disciple at this time were
characteristic in the highest degree. He took Jesus, we are told (laid hold of
Him, we suppose, by His hand or His garment), and began to rebuke Him, saying,
"Be it far from Thee, Lord;" or more literally, "God be merciful to Thee: God
forbid! this shall not be unto Thee." What a strange compound of good and evil
is this man! His language is dictated by the most intense affection: he cannot
bear the thought of any harm befalling his Lord; yet how irreverent and
disrespectful he is towards Him whom he has just acknowledged to be the Christ,
the Son of the living God! How he overbears, and contradicts, and domineers,
and, as it were, tries to bully his Master into putting away from His thoughts
those gloomy forebodings of coming evil! Verily he has need of chastisement to
teach him his own place, and to scourge out of his character the bad elements
of forwardness, and undue familiarity, and presumptuous self-will.
Happily for Peter, he had a Master who, in His
faithful love, spared not the rod when it was needful. Jesus judged that it was
needed now, and therefore He administered a rebuke not less remarkable for
severity than was the encomium at Cesarea Philippi for warm, unqualified
approbation, and curiously contrasting with that encomium in the terms in which
it was expressed. He turned round on His offending disciple, and sternly said:
"Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me: for thou savorest not
the things that be of God, but those that be of men." The same disciple who on
the former occasion had spoken by inspiration of Heaven is here represented as
speaking by inspiration of mere flesh and blood--of mere natural affection for
his Lord, and of the animal instinct of self-preservation, thinking of
self-interest merely, not of duty. He whom Christ had pronounced a man of rock,
strong in faith, and fit to be a foundation-stone in the spiritual edifice, is
here called an offence, a stumbling-stone lying in his Master's path. Peter,
the noble confessor of that fundamental truth, by the faith of which the church
would be able to defy the gates of hell, appears here in league with the powers
of darkness, the unconscious mouth-piece of Satan the tempter. "Get thee behind
me, Satan!" What a downcome for him who but yesterday got that promise of the
power of the keys! How suddenly has the novice church dignitary, too probably
lifted up with pride or vanity, fallen into the condemnation of the devil!
This memorable rebuke seems mercilessly severe,
and yet on consideration we feel it was nothing more than what was called for.
Christ's language on this occasion needs no apology, such as might be drawn
from supposed excitement of feeling, or from a consciousness on the speaker's
part that the infirmity of His own sentient nature was whispering the same
suggestion as that which came from Peter's lips. Even the hard word Satan,
which is the sting of the speech, is in its proper place. It describes exactly
the character of the advice given by Simon. That advice was substantially this:
"Save thyself at any rate; sacrifice duty to self-interest, the cause of God to
personal convenience." An advice truly Satanic in principle and tendency! For
the whole aim of Satanic policy is to get self-interest recognized as the chief
end of man. Satan's temptations aim at nothing worse than this. Satan is called
the Prince of this world, because self-interest rules the world; he is called
the accuser of the brethren, because he does not believe that even the sons of
God have any higher motive. He is a sceptic; and his scepticism consists in
determined, scornful unbelief in the reality of any chief end other than that
of personal advantage. "Doth Job, or even Jesus, serve God for naught?
Self-sacrifice, suffering for righteousness' sake, fidelity to truth even unto
death:--it is all romance and youthful sentimentalism, or hypocrisy and hollow
cant. There is absolutely no such thing as a surrender of the lower life for
the higher; all men are selfish at heart, and have their price: some may hold
out longer than others, but in the last extremity every man will prefer his own
things to the things of God. All that a man hath will he give for his life, his
moral integrity and his piety not excepted." Such is Satan's creed.
The suggestion made by Peter, as the unconscious
tool of the spirit of evil, is identical in principle with that made by Satan
himself to Jesus in the temptation in the wilderness. The tempter said then in
effect: "If Thou be the Son of God, use Thy power for Thine own behoof; Thou
art hungry, e.g., make bread for Thyself out of the stones. If Thou be the Son
of God, presume on Thy privilege as the favorite of Heaven; cast Thyself down
from this elevation, securely counting on protection from harm, even where
other men would be allowed to suffer the consequences of their foolhardiness.
What better use canst Thou make of Thy divine powers and privileges than to
promote Thine own advantage and glory?" Peter's feeling at the present time
seems to have been much the same: "If Thou be the Son of God, why shouldst Thou
suffer an ignominious, violent death? Thou hast power to save Thyself from such
a fate; surely Thou wilt not hesitate to use it!" The attached disciple, in
fact, was an unconscious instrument employed by Satan to subject Jesus to a
second temptation, analogous to the earlier one in the desert of Judea. It was
the god of this world that was at work in both cases; who, being accustomed to
find men only too ready to prefer safety to righteousness, could not believe
that he should find nothing of this spirit in the Son of God, and therefore
came again and again seeking an open point in His armor through which he might
shoot his fiery darts; not renouncing hope till his intended victim hung on the
cross, apparently conquered by the world, but in reality a conqueror both of
the world and of its lord.
The severe language uttered by Jesus on this
occasion, when regarded as addressed to a dearly beloved disciple, shows in a
striking manner His holy abhorrence of every thing savoring of self-seeking.
"Save Thyself," counsels Simon: "Get thee behind me, Satan," replies Simon's
Lord. Truly Christ was not one who pleased Himself. Though He were a Son, yet
would He learn obedience by the things which He had to suffer. And by this mind
He proved Himself to be the Son, and won from His Father the approving voice:
"Thou art my beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased,"--Heaven's reply to the
voice from hell counselling Him to pursue a course of self-pleasing.
Persevering in this mind, Jesus was at length lifted up on the cross, and so
became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him. Blessed now
and forevermore be His name, who so humbled Himself, and became obedient as far
as death!