1. THERE were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood 2 Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering, said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered 3, 4 such things? I tell you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they 5 were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. 6 He spake also this parable: A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and

7 he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find 8 none: cut it down; why eumbereth it the ground? And he answering, said unto 9 him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

THE previous discourse of Jesus, severe and full of rebuke, is here closed by a parable, in which the merciful Son of man again brings the side of grace prominently forward. He appears as the Intercessor for men before the heavenly Father; as he who obtains for them space for repentance. This deferring of the judgment of God, so to leave men opportunity to turn, runs through all the Scripture; before the deluge, a period of a hundred and twenty years was fixed; Abraham prayed for Sodom; the destruction of Jerusalem did not follow till forty years after the ascension of the Lord; and the coming again of Christ is put off through the patience of God. O.—If the history of men’s lives were writ as large as the history of nations and of churches, we should often perceive that what is true of the last is also true of the first: we should mark critical moments in men’s lives to which all the future was linked, on which it was made altogether to depend—times of gracious visitation which it was of the deepest importance to know, and not to suffer to escape unobserved and unimproved. T.

1. Of the particular event to which they alluded nothing further is known; and that a few turbulent zealots should have been cut down at Jerusalem by the Roman garrison was too commonplace an event in these troublous times to excite more than a transient notice. The inflammable fanaticism of the Jews at this epoch, the restless hopes which were constantly kindling them to fury against the Roman governor, had necessitated the construction of the tower of Antonia, which flung its shadow over the temple itself. This tower communicated with the temple by a flight of steps, so that the Roman legionaries could rush down at once, and suppress any of the disturbances which then endangered the security of Jerusalem at the recurrence of every religious feast. The main fact which seems in this instance to have struck the narrators, was not so much the massacre as that the blood of these murdered rioters had been actually mingled with the red streams that flowed from the victims they had been offering in sacrifice. F.

2. In thinking that these Galileans were sinners above all, there were certain great truths in their conclusion, as well as certain great falsehoods. Among the truths: that suffering is the result of sin—that when we see suffering we are not to blame God, but sin—that sin and suffering are not only associated, but that they make manifest that God reigns. Among the falsehoods: they judged of inner personal character by outer providential dispensations, contrary to all that God’s Word authorizes—they judged, also, that so sad and awful a catastrophe must have been the punishment of some very signal sin; it may be that there was great guilt in those who perished, but it may be that there was guilt as great, if not greater, in those who remained. Again: they falsely concluded that in this life punishment is meted out exactly to sin, and reward, of course, exactly to righteousness. There is in this world enough of connection between sin and suffering to let us see that the one is the parent of the other; and there is enough of confusion to make us long for the judgment-day when all will be adjusted. Further: they falsely concluded that suffering in all cases is necessarily penal. In the case of Christians it is never penal, but always paternal: “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” We too are prone to see God in calamities but not in blessings. Anything terrible, destructive, we associate with God; but anything prosperous and happy we associate too much with ourselves. J. C.

3. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. In these words, we are exactly taught how rightly to use the calamities which befall others; what their significance is, as regards ourselves—that they are loud calls to an earnest repentance. When we have learned to see in ourselves the bitter root of sin, we shall learn to acknowledge that whatever deadly fruit it bears in another, it might have borne the same or worse, under like circumstances, in ourselves.

5. The resemblance is more than accidental between these two calamities here adduced, and the ultimate destruction which did overtake the rebellious Jews, those who refused to obey the Lord’s bidding, and to repent. As the tower of Siloam fell and crushed eighteen of the dwellers at Jerusalem, exactly so multitudes of its inhabitants were crushed beneath the ruins of their temple and their city; and during the last siege and assault of that city, there were numbers also who were pierced through by the Roman darts in the courts of the temple, in the very act of preparing their sacrifices, so that literally their blood, like that of these Galileans, was mingled with their sacrifices, one blood with another. These two calamities then are adduced as slight foretastes of the doom prepared for the whole rebellious nation. T.—Those around him, some of whom were to witness and to share in the calamity, were living in security, not knowing that the time then present was but for them a season of respite. It was to indicate how false that feeling of security was, to give them the true key to the Lord’s present dealings with them as a people, that

Jesus told them of a fig-tree planted in a vineyard. H.—The reference here to the impending destruction of Jerusalem is far from exhausting our Lord’s weighty words; they manifestly point to a “perdition” of a more awful kind—future, personal, remediless. B.

7. The cumbering the ground implies something more than that it occupied the place which might have been filled by another and a fruit-bearing tree; the barren tree injured the land, drawing off to itself the fatness and nourishment which should have gone to the trees that would have made a return. 8. Allusion is here more immediately made to that larger, richer supply of grace—that freer outpouring of the Spirit, which was consequent on the death, and resurrection, and ascension of the Lord. T.

Section 54.—The Sower. Why Christ used Parables.

The Lake-side at Capernaum.

22. AND he went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last, which shall be first; and there are first, which shall be last. The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence; for Herod will kill thee. And he said unto them, Go ye 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. Nevertheless, I must walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood

35 under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. And verily, I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Nor only to the unforgiven and impenitent soul, drifting helplessly on toward its final doom, is the thought of death a thing of sadness; it is often for a time both a humiliation and a bitterness to the soul, which long before had cast its sins on Christ, and found rest and peace through his blood. Life come to an end, and so little done in it! Sin still so strong, the world still so powerful, self still so dominant, prayer still so hard! We recall past opportunities, and feel how sinfully we have neglected them; this soul and that soul have come in our way, and we did not even try to do them good. How much money we have wasted on selfish vanity; how little we have denied ourselves for the sake of Christ or his kingdom! Talking, listening, planning, beginning! Of that indeed there has been an abundance; but what will there be to show Christ, when he returns, of actual finished work, that will stand the fire? A. W. T.

22. The map is inserted here to indicate the general locality of the Perean ministry, included in Sections 100 to 115. No names of places are given in the gospel records. Only this verse intimates that the ministry was a slow progress toward Jerusalem. J. G. B.

23-30. Christ here signifies that it was not the business of men to pry into what God has hid, but to mind what he has revealed, and to master another difficulty, that of fulfilling his commands; that multitudes who professed his religion would finally appear to have professed it in vain; but that this was not to be matter of idle speculation among men: they are each to take care and practise their own duties; whatever number may be saved, great or small, they knew the way, and but one way there was, to become part of that number. Seeker.

23. Lord, are there few that be saved? Our Lord’s answer involved a disapproval of the inquiry, and a statement of the wholly different manner in which such questions should be approached. Waste not the precious opportunities of life in idle wonderment, but strive. Through that narrow gate none can enter without earnest effort. F.—Strive to enter. There is enough in the gospel to attract and convince at last every man who has a sense of spiritual need and a desire of spiritual deliverance, but it is presented in such form as to try whether the soul really possesses this, and therefore we may have obstacles of various kinds at the very entrance. But let it be remembered that what makes an obstacle is the state of heart of the man himself. And no one will be able to complain of any real wrong from such obstacles. The false seeker is not injured, because he never sincerely sought at all. There was no sense of sin’s evil, no wish to be saved from it, and till this exists nothing can be sought, and nothing found. The true seeker is not injured, for never was such a one disappointed. True need asks and seeks and knocks, increases its appeal with every difficulty, cries after Christ like the woman of Canaan, and wrestles till it conquers at the breaking of the day. Ker.

25. The figure is the usual one—of a feast at which the householder entertains (in this case) the members of the family. These being assembled, he rises and shuts the door, and none are afterward admitted. A.

26,27. We have sat with thee at the same table. Do we not remember listening in our own streets to thy teaching? Surely we are not to be denied admittance? But he shall say. No nearness of external communion with Christ will avail at the great day, in place of that “holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.” Observe the style which Christ intimates that he will then assume, that of absolute disposer of men’s eternal destinies, and contrast it with his “despised and rejected” condition at that time. B.

28. Heaven preserves the identity of a personal faith. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are there in their individuality, and with all the sacred associations of their lives. You thrust out. This not by an excluding act of sovereignty, but as a result of incorrigible sin. With tenderest love and care he would save them; but they would not. Salvation is of God: perdition comes of impenitence and unbelief. J. P. T.

31. Came the Pharisees. Since Herod’s relations with the Pharisees were not the most friendly, and since he must have known their hostility to Jesus, it is not likely that they were his instruments in approaching the Saviour. N.—‘Twas Herod who was wishing him to depart; ’twas Pharisees who were wishing to kill him. The Pharisees were only too ready to urge our Lord to leave a land where his life was comparatively safe, for one where, as they well knew, it was now in extremest jeop-

ardy. E.—They did but pretend the malice of Herod, who, if he had desired to rid himself of the Lord’s presence, had other means at his command. We may affirm, with tolerable certainty, that Herod Antipas entertained no such design of killing Jesus as by these Pharisees is ascribed to him here. If so, the Pharisees, who were now in deadliest conflict with the Lord, would have been the last to warn him of his danger, or in any way to assist him in escaping from the snares which were being laid for his life. T.

32. He deservedly bestowed on Herod Antipas the sole word of contempt which is ever recorded to have passed his lips. And if ever there was a man who richly deserved contempt, it was the paltry, perjured princeling—false to his religion, false to his nation, false to his friends, false to his brethren, false to his wife—to whom Jesus gave the name of “this fox.” What has been said of Agrippa is equally true of Antipas, viz., that “he had been the meanest thing the world had ever seen—a courtier of the early empire. He had been corrupted by the influence of the Roman court, and had flattered the worst vices of the worst men in the worst age of the world’s history.” F.

He does not say, I preach the gospel—that would have made little impression upon Herod. In the light of the merciful character of Christ’s actions, the malice of Herod’s snares is laid bare. Beng.—

To-day, to-morrow, the third day. Language expressive of successive steps of his work yet remaining, the calm deliberateness with which he meant to go through with them one after another, to the last, yet the rapid march with which they were now hastening to completion. B.—“I shall put forth my beneficent powers, casting out devils, healing the sick for the present (’to-day’), for the future (’to-morrow’), and only at a remoter period (’the third day’) will my life and course reach their appointed term.” The words are exactly parallel to others spoken on not a very dissimilar occasion, when his timid disciples would have dissuaded him from affronting the dangers of Judea; to whom he replied: “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” “To-day and to-morrow and the third day” will here exactly correspond to the “twelve hours” there, signifying as they do a certain fixed, appointed time.

33. “My danger is not in Galilee, nor yet from Herod. I shall not perish here, but in Jerusalem, your seat, your headquarters, where you reign supreme. When the day of my death, or of my consummation, arrives, you, and not Herod, will be the authors of the murderous deed.” T.

35. Your house. That was God’s, now become yours, being made “a den of thieves;” that is left to you, being soon to be deserted by God. W.—Marvellously has that woe been fulfilled. Every Jewish pilgrim who enters Jerusalem to this day has a rent made in his dress, and says, “Zion is turned into a desert, it lies in ruins!” (Dr. Frankl, “Jews in the East”). Sapir, the Jewish poet of Wilna, addressed Dr. Frankl thus: “Here all is dust. After the destruction of the city, the whole earth blossoms from its ruins; but here there is no verdure, no blossom, only a bitter fruit—sorrow. Look for no joy here, either from men or from mountains.” A wealthy and pious Jew came to settle at Jerusalem; after two years’ stay he left it with the words, “Let him that wishes to have neither aulom haze (’the pleasures of this life’) nor aulom habo (’those of the life to come’) live at Jerusalem.” The translation is Dr. Frankl’s, not mine. F.

34,35. For fuller exposition, read Section 127, verses 37-39.

Section 102.—Dropsy healed on the Sabbath. Humility.

Perea.