JESUS WARNED OF HEROD'S DESIGN.m

On the day of the discourse last noted, certain Pharisees came to Jesus with this warning and advice: "Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee." We have heretofore found the Pharisees in open hostility to the Lord, or secretly plotting against Him; and some commentators regard this warning as another evidence of Pharisaic cunning -possibly intended to rid the province of Christ's presence, or designed to drive Him toward Jerusalem, where He would be again within easy reach of the supreme tribunal. Ought we not to be liberal and charitable in our judgment as to the intent of others? Doubtless there were good men in the fraternity of Pharisees, and those who came informing Christ of a plot against His life were possibly impelled by humane motives, and may even have been believers at heart. That Herod had designs against our Lord's liberty or life appears most probable in the answer Jesus made. He received the information in all seriousness, and His comment thereon is one of the strongest of His utterances against an individual. "Go ye," said He, "and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected." The specifying of today, tomorrow, and the third day, was a means of expressing the present in which the Lord was then acting, the immediate future, in which He would continue to minister, since, as He knew, the day of His death was yet several months distant, and the time which his earthly work would be finished and He be perfected. He placed beyond doubt the fact that He did not. intend to hasten His steps, neither cut short His journey nor

m Luke 13:31-33.

n In the revised version the last clause reads "for Herod would fain kill thee."

o Paul the apostle had been a Pharisee of the most pronounced type. (Acts 23:6; 26:5.)

cease His labors through fear of Herod Antipas, who for craft and cunning was best typified by a sly and murderous fox. Nevertheless it was Christ's intention to go on, and soon in ordinary course He would leave Perea, which was part of Herod's domain, and enter Judea; and at the foreknown time would make His final entry into Jerusalem, for in that city was He to accomplish his sacrifice. "It cannot be," He explained, "that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem."

The awful reality that He, the Christ, would be slain in the chief city of Israel wrung from Him the pathetic apostrophe over Jerusalem, which was repeated when for the last time His voice was heard within the temple walls.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 26.

I. Christ's Ministry Following His Final Withdrawal From Galilee. John tells us that when Jesus went from Galilee to Jerusalem to attend the Feast of Tabernacles, He went "not openly, but as it were in secret" (7:10). It appears improbable that the numerous works recorded by the synoptic writers as features of our Lord's ministry, which extended from Galilee through Perea, into Samaria and parts of Judea, could have attended that special and, as it were secret, journey, at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. The lack of agreement among writers as to the sequence of events in Christs' life is wide. A comparison of the "Harmonies" published in the most prominent Bible Helps (see e. g. Oxford and Bagster "Helps") exemplifies these divergent views. The subject-matter of our Lord's teachings maintains its own intrinsic worth irrespective of merely circumstantial incidents. The following excerpt from Farrar (Life of Christ, chap. 42) will be of assistance to the student, who should bear in mind, however, that it is professedly but a tentative or possible arrangement. "It is well known that the whole of one great section in St. Luke from 9:51 to 18:30-forms an episode in the Gospel narrative of which many incidents are narrated by this Evangelist alone, and in which the few identifications of time and place all point to one slow and solemn progress from Galilee to Jerusalem (9:51; 13:22; 17:11; 10:38). Now after the Feast of Dedication our Lord retired into Perea, until He was summoned thence by the death of Lazarus (John 10:40, 42; 11:1-46); after the resurrection [raising] of Lazarus, He fled to Ephraim (11:54); and He did not leave His retirement at Ephraim until He went to Bethany, six days before His final Passover (12:1). "This great journey, therefore, from Galilee to Jerusalem,

Luke 13:34, 35; compare Matt. 23:37-39.

so rich in occasions which called forth some of His most memorable utterances, must have been either a journey to the Feast of Tabernacles or to the Feast of Dedication. That it could not have been the former may be regarded as settled, not only on other grounds, but decisively because that was a rapid and secret journey, this an eminently public and leisurely one.

"Almost every inquirer seems to differ to a greater or less degree as to the exact sequence and chronology of the events which follow. Without entering into minute and tedious disquisitions where absolute certainty is impossible, I will narrate this period of our Lord's life in the order which, after repeated study of the Gospels, appears to me to be the most probable, and in the separate details of which I have found myself again and again confirmed by the conclusions of other independent inquirers. And here I will only premise my conviction

"1. That the episode of St. Luke up to 18:30, mainly refers to a single journey, although unity of subject, or other causes, may have led the sacred writer to weave into his narrative some events or utterances which belong to an earlier or later epoch.

"2. That the order of the facts narrated even by St. Luke alone is not, and does not in any way claim to be, strictly chronological; so that the place of any event in the narrative by no means necessarily indicates its true position in the order of time.

"3. That this journey is identical with that which is partially recorded in Matt. 18:1; 20:16; Mark 10:1-31.

"4. That (as seems obvious from internal evidence) the events narrated in Matt. 20:17-28; Mark 10:32-45; Luke 18:31-34, belong not to this journey but to the last which Jesus ever took-the journey from Ephraim to Bethany and Jerusalem."

2. Jesus at the Home in Bethany.-Some writers (c.g. Edersheim) place this incident as having occurred in the course of our Lord's journey to Jerusalem to attend the Feast of Tabernacles; others (e. g. Geikie) assume that it took place immediately after that feast; and yet others (e. g. Farrar) assign it to the eve of the Feast of Dedication, nearly three months later. The place given it in the text is that in which it appears in the scriptural record.

The

3. Shall but Few be Saved?-Through latter-day revelation we learn that graded conditions await us in the hereafter, and that beyond salvation are the higher glories of exaltation. specified kingdoms or glories of the redeemed, excepting the sons of perdition, are the Celestial, the Terrestrial, and the Telestial. Those who obtain place in the Telestial, the lowest of the three, are shown to be "as innumerable as the stars in the firmament of heaven, or as the sand upon the seashore." And these shall not be equal, "For they shall be judged according to their works, and every man shall receive according to his own works, his own dominion, in the mansions which are prepared. And they shall be servants of the Most High, but where God and Christ dwell they cannot come, worlds without end." See Doc. and Cov. 76:111, 112; read the entire section; see also The Articles of Faith xxii:16-27; and p. 601 herein.

A LESSON IN GOOD MANNERS.

449

CHAPTER 27.

CONTINUATION OF THE PEREAN AND JUDEAN MINISTRY.

IN THE HOUSE OF ONE OF THE CHIEF PHARISEES."

On a certain Sabbath Jesus was a guest at the house of a prominent Pharisee. A man afflicted with dropsy was there; he may have come with the hope of receiving a blessing, or possibly his presence had been planned by the host or others as a means of tempting Jesus to work a miracle on the holy day. The exercize of our Lord's healing power was at least thought of if not openly intimated or suggested, for we read that "Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?” No one ventured to reply. Jesus forthwith healed the man; then He turned to the assembled company and asked: "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?" The learned expositors of the law remained prudently silent. Observing the eager activity of the Pharisee's guests in securing for themselves prominent places at table, Jesus instructed them in a matter of good manners, pointing out not only the propriety but the advantage of decent self-restraint. An invited guest should not select for himself the seat of honor, for some one more distinguished than he may come, and the host would say: "Give this man place." Better is it to take a lower seat, then possibly the lord of the feast may say: "Friend, go up higher." The moral follows: "For

a Luke 14:1-24.

b The question is identical with that asked of Jesus in the synagog at Capernaum preliminary to the healing of the man with the withered hand (Matt. 12:10). c Exo. 23:5; Deut. 22:4; Luke 13:15.

whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."d

This festive gathering at the house of the chief Pharisee included persons of prominence and note, rich men and officials, leading Pharisees, renowned scholars, famous rabbis and the like. Looking over the distinguished company, Jesus said: "When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." This bit of wholesome advice was construed as a reproof; and some one attempted to relieve the embarrassing situation by exclaiming: "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God."e The remark was an allusion to the great festival, which according to Jewish traditionalism was to be a feature of signal importance in the Messianic dispensation. Jesus promptly turned the circumstance to good account by basing thereon the profoundly significant Parable of the Great Supper:

"A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the

d Compare Matt. 23:12; Luke 1:52; 18:14; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5. e Compare Matt. 8:11; Rev. 19:9. The expression "eat bread" is a Hebraism, signifying eating in full as at a feast rather than partaking of bread only.