Mark 9

Mark 9:1-13

XVI “And He said unto them, verily I say unto you, there are some here of them that stand by, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God come with power.”- Mark 9:1.

Mark 8:27-38 - Mark 9:1-13. THE stories which we grouped in our last meditation gave a graphic revelation of the conditions obtaining at the end of the second period of the ministry of the Servant of God, which was practically also the end of His more formal and public propaganda. The multitudes were interested, and were prepared to receive His gifts. They were prepared, moreover, to crown Him and follow Him in the establishing of a material kingdom, in which He would supply their needs. The rulers on the other hand, were definitely and desperately hostile to Him. The disciples were dull of spiritual apprehension, needing to be warned against the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. At this time in the ministry of our Lord He might fittingly have employed the words of the great Servant of Jehovah, as found in the prophecy of Isaiah:

“Who hath believed our message? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? For He grew up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised, and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as One from Whom men hide their face He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”

The paragraph now under consideration tells the story of a crisis in the ministry of our Lord, and of a new beginning. In the teaching ministry of Jesus there were two distinct stages. The burden of His early teaching was that of declaring His Messiahship, and of bringing men to understand that He was the Messiah, in fulfillment of prophecy. The second matter of importance in the teaching ministry of our Lord was that He should show men that Messiah must go by the way of suffering and death, to His crowning. Men who were familiar with the ancient prophecies knew full well that the two aspects had been suggested. At the time, however, they were so strangely puzzled by this fact, that there were those who declared that there would be two Messiahs, one, a suffering Messiah, and the other, one who should come in glory, and establish a Kingdom.

In this paragraph we are at the parting of the ways, at the hour of crisis, when He ended the first phase of teaching, and began to devote Himself, within the narrower circle of His disciples, to the second stage. This particular verse has been selected as text because I believe it to be central to the whole paragraph. With slight variation the statement which our Lord made upon this occasion is found in exactly the same contextual relation in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

The statement opens chapter nine in Mark’s Gospel; and of its placing there, Dr. Morison says:

“It was in a mood of mental somnolence that Hugo de Sancto Caro concluded the eighth chapter with the thirty-eighth verse, and carried forward into a new chapter the verse before us.”

Here is one illustration of the unfortunate division of our Bible into chapters. By its system of paragraphing the Revised Version attempts to remedy the blunder, and yet the supreme mistake was a chapter division at all, at this point. Observe the sequence of events. Jesus journeyed north until Caesarea Philippi was reached; and there at some one point, as Mark says, somewhere among those villages, came the sudden halt, and the challenge to His disciples: “Who do men say that I am?” The answers were given, and then He challenged that narrower circle of His own, “Who say ye that I am?” Then came the hour toward which the Lord had been moving, the victory for which He had been working, the hour of illumination, when one man. Peter, made his great confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That confession was immediately answered by our Lord with another confession, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Mark does not record this, but Matthew in his Gospel, which is supremely that of the Kingdom, tells the story of that word of Jesus.

Immediately following these confessions of Peter and of Jesus, a new note in the teaching of our Lord was sounded. He “began … to show unto His disciples, how that He must . . . suffer”; and the use of the word began there, and the emphasis I place upon it, are warranted. Never before had He talked of His coming Cross or suffering. Never before had He spoken of the resurrection which should crown the Cross. Never before had He spoken of the second advent. All this teaching began then. The supreme note of the teaching was that of the Cross.

This gave rise to the fear, born of love, in the heart of Peter that made him say, “Be it far from Thee, Lord”; and called forth the sudden, startling, stern answer of the Lord to the man whom He had commended for his confession: “Get thee behind Me, Satan: thou art a stumbling-block unto Me for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.” Then followed the teaching of the disciples and the multitudes in the presence of the Cross, His insistence upon the necessity for the Cross; and at the end of that whole incident, the words: “I say unto you, There are some here that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God come with power.”

Then there were six days of silence, followed by the transfiguration mount; and after that the descent from the mount, and the conversation by the way.

Thus the text selected is seen as central. It gathers up and emphasizes that teaching of Jesus; first that the Kingdom is to come in power note the confession about the Church-but supremely that the Kingdom can only come in power by the way of the Cross. “There are some here of them that stand by”-a special reference in His mind undoubtedly to His own apostles, although others would be included “who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God come” not in perfection, not in finality, but “in power.” This was a reference undoubtedly to the fact that those who had said they were afraid, and shrank from the Cross, should yet come to understand that the Kingdom comes in power only by way of the Cross.

We are at once reminded of a paragraph in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which has the closest spiritual relation to this word of Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:18-25). From the paragraph we select these phrases: “The word of the Cross . . . is the power of God.” “Christ crucified . . . the power of God.” “Verily I say unto you, There are some here of them that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God come with power.”

Our Lord was declaring, not that these men who were round about Him could ever see the Kingdom come in its perfection in the present life. He was declaring to them, startled, amazed, mystified as they were by the strange new thing He was saying, that by that very process from which they were shrinking, and naturally so, the Kingdom of God would come with power.

Now this is still a stumbling-block, not to the Jew alone, but to many others; still foolishness, not to the Greek only, but to many others. This view of the way through which the Kingdom comes continues to baffle the philosophy of the age and the world. These are “the things of God,” to which the “ things of men” are opposed. This is God’s way to victory. Men cannot understand it even yet. Still too often His disciples mind the things of men rather than the things of God.

In order that this meaning and value of our text may be apprehended, let us consider the ideas of the text in the light of its context; first, the idea of the Kingdom; secondly, the idea of the Kingdom coming in power; concluding with an inquiry as to how these men really saw it come in power.

The Kingdom idea runs throughout the whole of this story.

We are inclined to think, or we sometimes speak as though we were, that our Lord at this point departed from what evidently had been the master passion of His ministry, that namely, of the establishing of the Kingdom of God in the world. We seem to imagine that this reference to the Church, and to the Cross, and to a second advent were all removed from the theme of the Kingdom. It is of supreme importance that we recognize that they are closely related to the purpose of the Kingdom of God. When our Lord challenged these men, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” it was a Kingdom passion that moved Him. With singular daring, and arresting intention, He made human opinion concerning Himself the supreme thing in His ministry. He did not ask what men thought of the things He had done.

He did not ask what men thought of the things He had said. He asked, “Who do men say that I am?”

In view of all that followed, in view indeed of all that had preceded, wherein we have seen Him moving forward with singular authority and dignity, we immediately recognize that He was seeking to discover whether men would recognize Him as supreme. When the answers came He was not satisfied until He asked the inner circle, “Who say ye that I am?” and one man had confessed Him supreme. That is the real value of the confession. Thou art not John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, a prophet; Thou art not one looking for Another; Thou art the Other for whom all have looked; the last and final One, to the brightness of Whose coming, longing eyes have long been lifted, Messiah, anointed King, and Priest. It was for that confession the Lord was seeking. His question was the question of the King.

All prophetic references to Messiah looked upon Messiah as King, through Whom should come the establishment of the Divine Kingdom. This is the real meaning of the word. Christ is but the Greek form of Messiah, or anointed One. Messiah is not a name; Christ is not a name. When we speak of the One Whom we worship as Christ, let us remember that is a title, and not a name; marking the eternal Son of God for one mission and one work. It is the title of an office, the office of supremacy, of Kingship, of the One Whose business it is to ransom men, and realize the Kingdom of God.

All this is patent also if we listen to the confession of Jesus. “Upon this rock I will build My ecclesia, My church.” “My ecclesia.” This was a word in common use at that time, used of the Hebrew nation as constituting a theocracy, and used in every Greek city with regard to the governing body in the city. It is a word saturated with the ideas of authority and kingship.

When our Lord said, “Upon this rock I will build My ecclesia,” He really inferred, Upon this rock I will build My Kingdom. The reference is to the Kingdom realized, the functions and the purpose of the Kingdom revealed through the instrument to be known as His Ecclesia, His Church. The master passion in the heart of Jesus here, as always, was that of the Kingdom, and its establishment.

So also, the function of the Church is essentially revealed: “Upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” The Church is a conquering Kingdom, bringing all kingdoms into subjugation to itself. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom”; by the Church the moral standards of life are erected and revealed to all kingdoms, until coming into harmony with it, they become the one Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. The supreme idea is that of the Kingdom.

The Kingdom throughout all this period, was not seen in power, but in weakness; an ideal, but not realized; a vision, but not a victory. In the answers that they gave to Him, reporting the things said concerning Him, is a revelation of the failure of the Kingdom ideal. The vast multitudes of men had not seen the Kingdom, and although here was one soul illuminated, so that he confessed Him Messiah, in his halting a moment afterwards was a revelation that the Kingdom seen, was not yet with power. In the “must” of the new unveiling of Jesus, when He said that He must go to Jerusalem, was a revelation of the Kingdom in weakness, for notice with what carefulness He named the opposition that confronted Him in Jerusalem: elders, chief priests, scribes. That was no careless grouping, but the naming of all the authorities within the city; elders, the civic rulers; chief priests, the religious rulers; scribes, the moral rulers. All the authority within the city-civil, religious, moral-was massed against Him.

The Kingdom was in weakness; and as He Who represented it, in Whom it was brought, Who had come for its revelation and establishment, moved to the centre of national life, to Jerusalem, He came into the realm of hostility and suffering, and He must suffer, and be killed. The Kingdom in weakness, is the picture presented to us here.

Yet once s more glancing over the picture from another standpoint, the way of the coming of the Kingdom in power is revealed. First, this is seen in the declaration of the Lord Himself. As I hear Him speak and interpret the thing He said in the light of subsequent events, I know that there is a deeper meaning in the “must” of Jesus. When He said the Son of man must go to Jerusalem and suffer, He was not declaring that He was hemmed in by circumstances; He was not declaring that He was the victim of forces that were against Him. Partially, yes, we may have admitted it; but there is a deeper note. The “must” of Jesus is something profounder than that.

In the next book to the Gospel stories, the book of the Acts, I find the first recorded address of this very man, Peter, who made his confession of Christ, and then shrank from the Cross and was so sternly rebuked. In that first address delivered on the day of Pentecost, I find an account of the Cross, strangely full of light. Speaking to these men in Jerusalem, within a few minutes or hours after the illumination of Pentecost had come to him, Peter thus spoke of the Cross: “Him, being delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay.” Now mark the words of Peter. That to which he referred in the second place was that which has been first in our consideration. Ye rulers of Israel did crucify and slay by the hands of men without the law; that is by Gentile hands, ye crucified Him, and slew Him. Yes! but Peter had now seen something more than that in the Cross, and so he declared that He was “delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” In the “must” of Jesus there was recognition not of the compulsion of circumstances, but of the compulsion of the will of His God, and of His cooperation with God. Into the “must” of Jesus there is gathered the strange and mystic light which reveals Him even at this juncture, not as One going as a Victim to be murdered, but as the one Priest, proceeding as a Victor over all circumstances including the death to which He went, in order that He might accomplish a purpose, and build a Kingdom, and realize the will of God.

That value of the “must” is borne out by the fact that He interpreted His death by His resurrection. When they presently descended from the mount of transfiguration, they inquired what this resurrection from the dead should mean. That was the arresting thing to them. Strangely enough they never seemed to grasp its significance, or to have been able to believe in it, as something to come immediately. Even after He had answered their inquiry, they were inclined to think of resurrection as Martha did. When Jesus said to her, “Thy brother shall rise again,” she said, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” By which she meant, Do not try to comfort me with a far-off resurrection; I want him now!

I think these disciples had the same attitude toward the resurrection. They believed in it as a far-off event.

We must never forget this fact, that there is no instance in these New Testament records of Jesus referring to His Cross, but that at the same time He also referred to His resurrection. The Son of man must go up to Jerusalem, and suffer, and be killed, and the third day rise again. That is not the language of a man who says: I am beaten by circumstances; but I must be loyal to a principle; I must go on, though I die. No! It was the calm, strong, amazing language of One Who saw death interpreted by resurrection; of One Who must suffer and die and be raised again. In the mystic language of our Lord, even though as yet we have not come to the full realization of it, we begin to hear the thunder of His power, and find the Kingdom coming in power.

Then in all the teaching that followed-His stern rebuke of Peter; the statement He made to the multitudes as to the necessity for following Him by the way of the Cross if they would be in cooperation with Him in the building of the Kingdom; and the final and resultant words concerning His second advent in the glory with His Father and with the angels in all these things, we catch the tones of power, and see that our Lord knew and declared that the Kingdom would only become dynamic by the way of the Cross.

Then followed that wonderful event of the transfiguration. The disciples saw the Lord transfigured. It would be better, perhaps, if we changed the word “transfiguration,” anglicizing the Greek word; and read it thus, They saw the Lord metamorphosed. “Transfiguration” is a perfectly accurate word, only we are apt to think of it as though they saw Him with light falling on Him. On the contrary, He Himself was metamorphosed, changed completely in some strange mystery of glorification and realization.

The disciples saw Moses and Elijah talking with Him. Mark does not tell us this; but another of the evangelists. They heard Him talking with them of the exodus that He was about to accomplish; that is, of this going to Jerusalem, and dying, and rising again. Then the disciples said, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” We have been forever criticizing them, and trying to say what they meant when they said that; all the while forgetting that the evangelist tells us that they did not know what they were doing; and did not know what to say, so they said that!

But now observe most carefully that they heard a voice, which said to them, “This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him.” There had been six days of silence, because He had brought them face to face with the Cross, and they had shrunk from it. I think this was quite natural. Who could understand this strange mystery that One could build a Kingdom by dying, that One could gain a victory by being defeated, that One could come to crowning by the way of the Cross? Who could understand? We hardly yet believe it! It was revolutionary!

This is surely what they were thinking on the mount. Lord, not that Cross to which Thou art going; let us stay here! Let us build three tabernacles here. Let us stay in this light, in this glory, in this holy conversation. Yet the conversation was of the exodus; and if they had stayed there, the exodus had never been accomplished? The Divine voice rebuked them: “This is My beloved Son: hear ye Him.” The supreme and sacramental glory of the mount of transfiguration was not “that of its flashing splendour, but of the conversation concerning the Cross, and the ratification of that conversation and purpose by the Divine voice.

These men saw the Kingdom come in power in His dying, in His rising, and in that immediate spiritual coming again, which took place in their experience on the day of Pentecost.

They saw the Kingdom coming in power in His dying. Grant their terror, their sense of defeat; and yet remember what they saw. During these days they saw things that they hardly saw at the time; but they knew afterwards that they had seen them. Impressions were made upon their souls, the value of which was not immediate, but which came after. In all these last and tragic events they saw the unconquered King. In every incident from that moment of foretelling, to the final act and fact of death, they saw Him moving with authority, with power, with dignity.

Take this illustration. One of their own number, Judas, was plotting and planning with the priests for the arrest of his Lord; and in the dark and terrific business we are told that the priests said to Judas, “Not during the feast.” Judas took the thirty pieces of silver, the bargain being made, and went with the money, oh! ghastly thing! into the very presence of Jesus, charged by the priests not to betray Him until the feast was over. While Judas was plotting with the priests, Jesus was talking to His disciples, and He said: “After two days the passover cometh, and the Son of man is delivered up to be crucified.” When Judas came into the presence of Jesus, after a little while Jesus looked at him and said, “That thou doest, do quickly”; and he went out, and betrayed Him at the feast. Not the priests arranged the hour of His dying, but Jesus Himself.

This same activity in power runs all through. They saw Him in the garden, in the intervals of their sleeping, heard His words as He came back to them through the hours of His agony. They were all kingly words. They saw that strange thing happen in the garden, which we hurry over in our reading too carelessly. When the guard came to arrest Him, led by Judas, Jesus said, “Whom seek ye?” They replied, “Jesus of Nazareth.” He said, “I am”; and those soldiers fell backward in His presence. Why?

I am not going to answer the question. I have no details, but I pray you, mark it. These disciples saw this strange sight. Something happened that made these men fall back; and then something more wonderful happened, for they bound Him and took Him away. Through the trial they watched Him, some of them, and saw Him kingly, saw Him in the midst of the mock trial solemnly affirm His Messiahship, His Kingship; kingly to the end, until in the final act He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit.” As we listen we remember words He uttered long before, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.” The men about the Cross had killed His body, but His spirit was commended to God, and He died as a King. We remember once again words that He uttered: “No one taketh My life away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.

I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.” These are the things of the Kingdom in power, strange things, mystic things, things that raise questions, things the full value of which the heart of man challenges, and wonders whether they can be so. These are the things of power; the strange mystery of a kingly dying in agony and pain, and yet in triumph. So they saw the Kingdom of God coming in power; not in finality, but in power.

Then upon the resurrection I need not dwell. About that resurrection Paul said He “was declared the Son of God with power … by the resurrection of the dead”; and Peter declared: “He begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” In those resurrection days, in the commissions He uttered, and in other appearances, He made them see the Kingdom, no longer as an ideal outside them, but as a power operating within them; until as He had told them in the upper room, He came again, in the coming of the Paraclete.

He so came, and these men began to preach, and they saw the Kingdom without weakness, hi strength prevailing amongst the men listening, who had been hostile. Then they knew that this coming of the Kingdom in power, was by the way of the Cross.

These men saw the Kingdom of God come, not in perfection. That has been our mistake in reading our text, as we have interpreted it by the transfiguration mount. Not in perfection, and not finally; but in power; with mastery and force mastering the things against it, and proceeding toward its final glory.

Thus, and thus only the Kingdom still comes in power; only by the way of the Cross; and as the Cross is borne by those who name the Name. It is not easy to believe, and it is less easy to practice. Do we not, even within the Christian Church, often need to hear the rebuke of Jesus as He says to us: “Thou mindest not the things of God but the things of men”? We are seeking to establish the Kingdom by the methods of men, by their policies, and their programmes, and their machinery. The Kingdom of God can never be so established. The Kingdom of God only comes in power by the way of the Cross.

There is one terribly solemn suggestion in this text. Our Lord was speaking in the presence of the multitudes, yet surely with special reference to His own, and He did not say, All shall see the Kingdom of God come in power. He said, “Some here . . . shall in no wise taste of death.” Judas never saw the Kingdom in power. There is an attitude of heart toward the Lord that cuts off from seeing the Kingdom come in power; and even though we may not become our own executioners in the literal sense in which Judas did, we may live our life, and yet never see anything of the power in operation. If we know what it is to come so near to Him as to be able in very deed, to share His sufferings, then through us the Kingdom may come in power.

Mark 9:14-29

XVII “And He answereth them and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you”- Mark 9:19. Mark 9:14-29. THIS cry came welling up from the heart of Jesus. In it pain and indignation merge; and the cause of each is revealed. There is evident pain in the plaintive inquiry, “How long shall I be with you?” In it the same note is discernible as in that old-time song of the vineyard, in which Isaiah declared that God concerning His people, asked with equal plaintiveness, “What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?” After about three years of public ministry, our Lord broke out into this question, “How long shall I be with you?” The plaintive inquiry was immediately followed by another, which is vibrant with the sense of wrong and indignation, How long shall I tolerate you? The question suggests most solemnly, that there is a limit to His patience.

The cause of everything is revealed in the opening exclamation, “O faithless generation.” He spoke of the whole age in which His ministry was being exercised. The word was not one of rebuke to His disciples alone; though they were included. The word was not a rebuke only for the man who brought his boy; he also was numbered with those of the generation. The word was not one of rebuke for the scribes alone; though of them it was true. The whole atmosphere in the midst of which the Lord exercised His ministry, the very spirit of the age, was that of faithlessness, unbelief; “O faithless generation.”

The words of this text are central to the paragraph. Before them, massed in brief sentences, we have a picture of the things that Jesus found in the valley as He left the mount of transfiguration. He found disputing scribes, a distracted father, a demon-possessed boy, and defeated disciples. After the exclamation of the text we have the story of what He did with all these. He silenced the scribes, He comforted the father, He healed the boy, He instructed the disciples. So, passing into this atmosphere of unbelief, there welled up out of His heart these words, O faithless generation, how long will it be necessary for Me to be with you, ere you will understand or consent to believe?

Nay, how long will it be possible for Me to remain in such an atmosphere, and carry on My ministry; how long can I bear with you, and where shall the limit be set to this intolerable unbelief? How long shall I tolerate you?

All this was the immediate sequel of the transfiguration. Here is one of the points of singular agreement between these Gospel writers. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell the story of these things as immediately following upon the transfiguration scene and experiences. In the reading of each Gospel, we descend swiftly and abruptly as it seems, from the height of glory and wonderful radiance, to the depth of degradation. We have stood with Him upon the holy mount, and have seen Him transfigured; and the glory has been too bright for the feebleness of a sinner’s sight; so bright that even the three disciples were dazed, and said things that they themselves did not understand, so bright that we have never yet been able perfectly to understand the thing that happened on that mountain. Then in the valley we come face to face with one of the supreme illustrations of degradation that the New Testament affords, and the revelation is the more striking the more carefully we consider it.

On the holy mount the voice of God had spoken concerning Jesus, and it had said, “This is My beloved Son.” On the mountain height we saw the Only-begotten Son of God in glory. Descending to the valley, we hear the father say to Jesus, This is my child, my only child; literally, This is my only-begotten son. On the mount of glory, the Only-begotten Son of the Father; in the valley, the only-begotten son of a man, demon-possessed. The Lord is seen passing down from the glory, into that atmosphere of unbelief, and meeting that boy. It is in that way we must look at the valley scene.

Therefore we pause to consider the mountain in the background; that we may more clearly and accurately observe the valley in the foreground; and both, in order that we may discover the relation between the mountain and the valley.

Going back to the paragraph which gives the account of the transfiguration, we look at that mountain scene again in comradeship with those three men; yet also in the illumination of the Holy Spirit Who came to them afterwards, and enabled them to tell the story of the mount. Peter in his Letter declared that the holy mount had meant to them the fulfillment and ratification of ancient prophecies, for there they had seen the operation of the coming power of God through Christ. Omitting the sacred title of Christ, and the supreme title, Lord, I here resolutely use the name of His humanity, the name given to Him by Divine command, and by His mother’s love, the name by which He had been known, and necessarily familiar through boyhood and young manhood, the name by which these disciples, ere there broke upon them the sense of His glory, had perpetually called Him, Jesus! There on the mountain height, the perfected spirit of Jesus having gained complete mastery over all temptation, physical, spiritual, and vocational, changed the tenement ‘of the body, and fitted it for the super-earthly life. Until we have understood that clearly, we have never seen the glory of the holy mount. The happening upon the mount was part of the private life of Jesus, rather than the public ministry.

He had withdrawn Himself from the place of the crowds to Caesarea Philippi, there to challenge His disciples as to the result of His mission. We must dismiss that old legend or opinion that Jesus was transfigured on Mount Tabor, which was not in this neighbourhood, and upon the crown of which even at that time, a city was built.

He was certainly transfigured on Mount Hermon, that is on one of the heights of that mountain a little farther to the north than Caesarea Philippi, in a place of loneliness. He had escaped from the crowds; He had even at last left at the foot of the mountain nine of His disciples, taking only three with Him. We are impressed by the privacy of the transfiguration scene. I think personally that so far as the real value of what happened then is concerned, no disciple need have been present. It was something lonely and peculiar in the life of Jesus. There was value in the fact that they were there, for them in the after-time, and perhaps for them also at the moment.

I do not share the general view that these men were taken there because they were the chief disciples and the best. More probably they were taken because they were the weakest of the twelve.

Remember it is not the strongest saint who is taken to the place of special vision. The strongest saint can do without the vision. It is much easier to go to the mount, and see the glory, than to stay down in the valley, amid that crowd of scribes.

Part of what these men were privileged to see,-for they did not see everything clearly,-that glory falling there upon Jesus irradiating Him, was not the shining forth of Deity, for Deity has no shining forth that is spectacular, or that can be apprehended by the eyes of sense. The only way in which the glory of Deity can ever be seen by men, is as it is veiled, hidden within humanity. The glory of the Deity of our Lord was not manifested there, but along the quiet ways, and in the compassionate ministries, in all the little things of life.

What then happened upon the mount? In that hour of the transfiguration, Jesus of Nazareth came to the full and ultimate perfecting of His human nature. In that hour we see the true finality of human life, so far as this world is concerned, as within the original plan of God. To illustrate in the simplest way. Had Adam never wandered from the pathway of the Divine command, or sinned, or fallen, he had never died; but having come to the end of probationary life, and completed his course, he would have been metamorphosed, changed, in this same manner, and prepared for the super-earthly life that lies beyond;-that life about which we know so little, and which in anxious moments sometimes we doubt altogether, but which surely exists, infinite in its mystery. Jesus at this hour came to that point of the perfecting of His human personality.

By an infinite mystery God created a new Man in the creation of Jesus. By the mystic and awful purity of the Divine Conception He was sinless in His birth. Through all the years of youth and manhood up to this moment He had faced all the temptations to which man must be subject, mastering them, being victorious over them;-physical temptation, spiritual temptation, and the last and subtlest of all, vocational temptation. The last breath of that temptation had come to Him when Peter had said, God have mercy on Thee, not this way of the Cross! With stern and resolute heroism Jesus had said, Get thee hence, Satan, thou art an offence unto Me. That was the last victory over vocational temptation.

Then, immediately passing to the mount, His life perfect, complete; every temptation having been met, and mastered; the whole citadel of His manhood held through all the prior period of years, inviolate; He was transfigured before them. The spirit of the Man, Jesus, always supreme, now that life was completed and rounded out, changed the tenement of His body, and fitted it for the super-earthly life. There ended the human life of Jesus, in so far as the life of Jesus was a revelation of a Divine purpose, of a Divine ideal, a pattern of humanity in itself.

What did He look like that day? How little we know. The descriptions are all graphic, and most suggestive. Of the men who wrote, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, neither was an eye-witness. They received their impressions from others, and confined their attempts at description to His features and garments. Luke simply says that the fashion of His countenance was altered.

Matthew says, “His face did shine as the sun.” As to His garments Matthew says they became white as the light; Mark says they were glistering and white, so that no fuller on earth could make a like whiteness; and Luke says they were white and dazzling. The metamorphosis of the Person of Jesus was so wonderful, that in subsequent days, the writers of the story could only gain from eyewitnesses these descriptions: that the fashion of His countenance was changed, His face did shine as the sun; and that the strange and mystic glory of the Presence saturated His garments with light and glory so that they were dazzling and glistering. There is nothing to be added to it; it remains a mystery. Here, however, is the fact of the Man coming to the fulfillment of His human life.

Observe in the next place, that in that hour of the ultimate victory of Jesus as within His own personality, the supreme interest of His heart was revealed; for in that hour of His perfecting He was admitted to the company of the spirits of just men made perfect. Moses and Elijah were seen there holding conversation with Him. Having passed into the condition for the super earthly life, in His manhood He entered into fellowship with those who had gone before Him. What then was the supreme interest of His heart? In that hour when He came to a marvellous perfecting; when once in the history of the human race, there had been revealed God’s meaning in humanity when it is sinless; the supreme interest of His heart was o the exodus that He was about to accomplish. His heart even, then in its selflessness was weaned from the lure of the life of glory which He had gained and was, in an infinite compassion given bade to the valley, the world, and the darkness.

In the moment of His own supreme victory, He saw the earth subjugated, mastered by evil, suffering as the result of that mastery; or as one of these men upon the mount, John himself did afterwards write in his Epistle, the whole world was lying in the evil one, beleaguered, imprisoned, oppressed, ruined. He talked with Moses and Elijah of the exodus. Himself, of that race, but separate from it by His own perfection, did in that hour of His ultimate crowning, assume responsibility for that race, and talk of the fact that He would break a way through, break down the prison gates, cut the bars of iron asunder, divide the sea, lead the exodus. He talked of His coming Cross and resurrection. The supreme and master passion of the heart of the perfected Man was for the perfecting of the men who suffered, and the bringing back of the Kingdom to God, its rightful King.

In that hour the voice of God was heard, and it must be interpreted by the whole atmosphere of the occasion. “This is My beloved Son,” is the ratification of the perfection of His life. He, the Son, perfected by faith, was at once the File-Leader and Vindicator of the faithful; and to this witness was borne in that transfiguration light and glory. Then the command to the disciples, “Hear Him,” was in order to their perfecting by faith. All authority to teach had been given to Him. He had been speaking of the exodus. “Hear Him” said the Divine voice. These men had been afraid to hear Him six days before, when He spoke of this very Cross; declined to discuss that which was now the subject of His Conversation with Moses and Elijah. Thus they were brought back to that very point, and commanded to hear Him.

From that mountain height they descended to the valley; and the cry that escaped His heart in the presence of all that He saw was this: “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?”

Look then a little more particularly at what He saw of unbelief. The supreme interest of this valley; scene is that of unbelief, revealed in different phases. There were the scribes, willful and persistent unbelief; there was the father, unwilling unbelief; there was the boy, irresponsible unbelief; and there were the disciples, unconscious unbelief. The whole atmosphere was an unbelieving atmosphere.

The scribes questioned the disciples, the force of the word really being that they disputed with them. It was a most mean and paltry business, so far as these scribes were concerned. Then Jesus asked a question, “Why question ye with them?” and the father of the boy went on to tell Him the story of his boy. That was the subject of their question, of their disputing. The disciples were defeated. Here was an evidence of inability.

Jesus being away, these people gathered round the disciples, laughed at them and mocked them, questioned them and disputed with them. Here was an evidence that their own unbelief was warranted! The very last scene before our Lord moved toward Caesarea Philippi was one with these men, who had demanded a sign, which He had declined to give. Now Jesus being away, these nine disciples were left, and they were failing. Our Lord had already given sign after sign, had they had the eyes to see, the hearts to understand, or the wills to believe; but they were not willing to do so. Our Lord came back into that atmosphere of critical, willful, persistent unbelief.

The father, aware of the efforts of the disciples and their failure, said to Jesus, “If Thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us”; and uttered that last cry, very beautiful and heroic, “I believe; help Thou mine unbelief”; all which nevertheless revealed his unbelief. He did not want not to believe; he would rather have believed; but he did not believe. He made a venture; he had the will to believe; but he did not believe. Our Lord came into that atmosphere.

Then the boy, with his irresponsible unbelief. It is admitted that the boy did not believe in Jesus; he could not, for he was under the dominion of a demon. There was incapacity for the exercise of faith. A boy, an instrument of faith and vision and hope; spoiled, blighted, blasted, ruined; unable to believe. No blame attached to the boy, but the fact is nevertheless a tragic one. Spoiled humanity! The highest function of humanity is belief, that activity of spirit that proceeds upon the pathway of reason, until it comes to some great promontory, and then spreads its wings, and upon the basis of its earlier journeying, takes eternity into its grasp.

Then there was the unbelief of the disciples. Six days had passed, and they had been six days of practical silence between these men and Jesus. If we are to thoroughly understand this scene, we must go back to the things that preceded them. Six days before, these men had passed under a cloud, when our Lord began to speak of the necessity for His suffering, His dying, His rising; His coming passion and exodus. They were not volitionally rebellious against Him, but they were unable to accept His teaching; and their inability had cut the nerve of their power. Be it remembered these men had cast out demons; when He sent forth the twelve; they came back rejoicing because they had cast out demons.

Here, however, something had happened; something had come in between them and their power. They were still loyal to Him, remaining in the valley at His command; waiting there, desiring still to carry on His enterprise; but in the presence of this boy they were paralyzed, helpless. What had happened? All unconsciously to themselves at that moment when faith had failed them, and they had not followed Him even though they had not understood Him, there had been the paralyzing of their power. That is what our Lord meant when He told them afterwards that the reason of their failure was that of their little faith, as Matthew tells us; and the full secret of success was that of prayer, as Mark declares.

Once more, and finally, as we watch, our Lord in that valley of unbelief, so cold, so chill, so disappointing, that even out of His heart there sprang that wail, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I tolerate you?” let us observe most carefully that all that He did followed upon the experiences of the mount. The choice there made, was not to enter upon the ultimate realization of His own human life. Through that victory in His life He turned back to the race of men to share their burdens and carry their sorrows and their sins, and make Himself, O wondrous Man! responsible for all the causes of their human suffering and their pain. When we watch Him descending from the mount of transfiguration, let us remember that it was a new descent, within the measure of His humanity, as wonderful as the first descent. Read again the great chapter of the Self-emptying of the Son of God in Philippians; that wonderful chapter in which we see Him in His eternal right, in the form of God.

Then we read, He did not think this equality with God a prize to be snatched at, and held, for the purpose of Self-aggrandizement, but emptied Himself. The supreme and ultimate wonder of this fact is a glory which blinds us whenever we try to look upon it, this Self-emptying of Deity in some awful mystery that we cannot fathom. Now behold Him again on the transfiguration mount. He emptied Himself of all the rights of His humanity, and set His face toward the shadows and the darkness of the valley. All the activity in the valley was inspired and energized, not by the victory of the mount, but by the Self-emptying of the mount; not by the fact that He did there come to the ultimate in His humanity, but by the fact that having come to the ultimate He took that humanity, perfected, completed, transfigured, glorified, and bore it down again to the level of the valley, and to the deeps into which humanity had fallen. Now we begin to understand His power.

He will first silence the questioning scribes by a question. “What question ye with them?” said He to the scribes, and they said no more. He then gave these men another opportunity to believe. First He wrought the wonder. If the hour ever come when He can no longer tolerate a generation, when He can no longer bear, we may rest assured it will be in the hour which is so dire and dark and awful, that God Himself can do nothing more! There is the possibility! Do not look at it in some wide area.

Let Us take it to our own souls. There is the awful tragic possibility in our life that willful unbelief can be so blind, so persistent, and so rebellious that at last Christ will have to say, No longer! But He will never do it until He has given us the ultimate opportunity. These scribes were laughing at the disciples, and criticizing them because they were feeble, calling in question the power of the Lord. Into their midst He came down, and worked the wonder. It was another opportunity for them.

Is there anything more beautiful than His dealing with the father? How He called forth his faith when he was in an agony. In a method of speech that was almost rude perhaps-which method we miss in translation he said to Jesus, “If Thou canst do anything, have compassion.” ‘Brought into the presence of the Master of the disciples who had failed, he doubted if He could do anything. Jesus looked back into his eyes and said, “If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth.” Bear in mind, that man had certainly heard the words of our text, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I tolerate you? “Now when the man said, “If Thou canst,” Jesus said, “If thou canst!

All things are possible.” Then the man, never more beautiful than now-no hypocrite this, no man pretending to believe,-said, “I believe.” That was the dawning of faith. He was not sure; so he added, “Help Thou mine unbelief.” That is the grandest faith possible, the finest exercise of faith. Whereas faith is always crying, Lord, I believe; behind are the lurking questionings and the wondering doubts; and instead of letting faith master us, we cry out, Lord, help our unbelief! So surely as a soul is learning the lesson of this story, so rapidly results shall follow. The Lord honours the will to believe. The man believed in the best way possible; and the Lord immediately responded.

He won an honest faith that day, and the man was compelled thus to tell all the truth about his mind and soul. “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” Immediately, the Master turned to his boy, and cast the demon out.

We have seen the tragedy of a boy made for faith, unable to believe, demon-possessed. Now see the things that happened. He cast the demon out; and the boy lay there, pale, pinched, looking dead. Then Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up, and he arose. I think that boy believed in Jesus afterwards. The Lord gave him back his boyhood, his youth, his hope, his capacity for dreams, visions and faith; and I think to the end of time, that boy’s faith was centered upon the One Who had given him his chance.

Then He patiently instructed His disciples, told them, as Matthew records that the reason they failed was because of their little faith. The faith that faltered at Caesarea Philippi was paralyzed in the valley, until He came back to them; and so He declared that, “This kind can come out by nothing, save by prayer”; prayer being used there, in its finest and truest sense; prayer is the activity of faith; prayer is that resting of the soul in Jesus, which rests at last in the will of God, and prompts the power of God. So these men were recalled to faith, and instructed as to its true exercise.

“O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?” In that inquiry we hear the pain of Jesus. Unbelief gives Him, sorrow because it harms man. Is not His pain most poignant in the presence of the little faith of His own? Not those disputing scribes outside the Christian Church to-day, who are striving to prove our incapacities, and laugh at us for our failure; but we who are inside with such little faith that we seem to work no miracles, and do no spiritual wonders; we grieve His heart most of all.

Then I should be untrue to the one thing that is searching my own soul, unless I gave attention to the last question, terrible, bitter, “How long shall I tolerate you?” There are necessary limits to His bearing with unbelief. Sometimes it seems as though He were asking that question about me; and about the Church! Then let us together say to Him: Lord, we believe. Help Thou our unbelief!

Mark 9:30-50

XVIII “ Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another.” Mar_-9:50 b. Mark 9:30-50. IN our last meditation we considered the events which followed immediately upon the experiences of the holy mount. In the valley we saw the demonized boy, the distracted father, the defeated disciples, and the disputing scribes; and our Lord’s dealing with all. He cast out the demon, gave the boy back to his father, instructed His disciples as to the secret of their failure, and silenced the disputing scribes.

The first paragraph in our present meditation tells what immediately followed. Jesus and His disciples left the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi. He led them through Galilee, evidently along by-paths, and the less frequented roads, for the express purpose of giving them further teaching concerning all that lay before Him of suffering, death, and resurrection. They listened to Him, but did not understand, and were evidently afraid to ask Him.

The measure of their failure is illustrated in the story which follows. It is evident therefrom that in the intervals of His teaching they had been disputing among themselves as to their respective greatness. This is one instance of many in the Gospel stories, recording the doings of these last days in the mission of Christ, revealing the unutterably sad fact, that when their Lord attempted to draw these men into sympathy with Himself, as He walked the via dolorosa-His face steadfastly set toward Jerusalem, His passion baptism, and the consummation of His mission-they broke in sooner or later upon His conversation, either by asking a similar question, or by their own disputes concerning which should be counted the greatest. One can almost imagine that the fact that Peter, James, and John had been with Him on the holy mount, had given rise to the dispute. It may be that when they came back to the nine who had been left in the valley, they assumed some air of spiritual superiority, because they had been with Him on the mount. Be this as it may, we are told that they disputed amongst themselves which should be the greater; and at last, when they came to Capernaum, the Lord Himself raised the subject. All that follows in this paragraph is related with this subject, and all finds culmination in the text: “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another.” In it then, we have His final words in this relation.

In order that we may better understand their value, we must take time to set this story clearly before our minds beginning with the Lord’s inquiry when they came to Capernaum. In the early days of His Galilean ministry He made Capernaum the base of His operations, and there is every reason to believe that the house where He sojourned was that of Simon Peter. When they were in the house He asked them, “What were ye reasoning on the way?” They were silent, and did not answer Him, for they had disputed one with another in the way who was the greatest. Immediately that He asked the question, they knew that their disputing had been unworthy, and so they were silent. Then, accepting the shame that was evidenced in their silence, the Lord proceeded to teach them, and first of all stated the whole fact as to respective greatness within the ranks of His disciples, and in His Kingdom in this word: “If any man would be first he shall be last of all, and minister of all.” This was not a suggestion on our Lord’s part that if a man were ambitious he should be relegated to some place of obscurity, but it was a revelation of the true secret of greatness in His Kingdom. Not the man who masters others, but the man whom every one masters, and is thereby compelled to serve, is the greatest within the Kingdom.

Having so said, He gave them the beautiful illustration that we all so much admire. He took a little child and put him in the midst of them; and then taking him in His arms He continued His conversation. He took a little child not specially prepared for the occasion, not a catechumen who was prepared for the hour but an ordinary boy, perchance the boy of Simon Peter, and then continued, “Whosoever shall receive one of such little children in My name, receiveth Me: and whosoever receiveth Me, receiveth not Me,” but God, “Him that sent Me.”

In the Revised Version at this point, correctly, there is a new paragraph. The new paragraph, however, does not mean that the subject is changed. “John said unto Teacher, we saw one casting out demons in Thy and we forbade him, because he followed not us.” John was not making a boast in something he had done. He confessed to failure. John, in many regards the most wonderful of the apostles, the man of keenest insight, quickest intuition, recognized here immediately that he had been doing something wrong. If indeed it be true that to receive a little child, an ordinary everyday child, is to receive Christ, and to receive God, said John within himself, What did I do when I forbade that man who in the Name was casting out a demon? Verily the light, had broken in upon him.

Our Lord first answered the confession of John: “Forbid him not: for there is no man who shall do a mighty work in My name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me. For he that is not against us is for us. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink, because ye are Christ’s, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.” Then, resuming the discourse where it had been interrupted, He said, “And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on Me to stumble, it were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” Continuing in most solemn and searching teaching, He enforced this principle, until at last He reached the words, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another.”

In the light of the context then, let us consider this injunction, observing the two things: “Have salt in yourselves,” and “Be at peace one with another.” The instruction is the revelation of a sequence. First then, the salt that produces peace; and secondly, the peace that is produced by salt.

We recognize at once, that we are in the presence of one of the paragraphs of the New Testament which has caused difficulty and perplexity to expositors. This is specially so with regard to the previous verse to our text: “For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it?” The injunction, “Have salt in yourselves” grows out of this declaration and this inquiry. We may get nearer the heart of our Lord’s meaning as we allow the text to be interpreted by the things already said, even though at first it seems as though there was little connection. “Have salt in yourselves.” A little while before He said, “Every one shall be salted with fire.” That was not a new beginning, but something that followed upon words such as these, “unquenchable fire,” “Gehenna.”

The explanation of the meaning of our Lord’s use of the figure of salt may be derived from the previous statement, “Every one shall be salted with fire.” The term “fire” interprets the term “salt” for this particular occasion. There are other occasions where the term “salt” may be used with another signification, though in the last analysis I should hardly be prepared to admit that; for I believe at its heart it is always allied to the meaning it has here. Fire destroys the perishable, and perfects that which is imperishable. Our Lord in the previous teaching had referred to Gehenna. Let us remember that He was speaking in the hearing of men to whom that connoted one particular idea. They knew perfectly well that He was using a most drastic figure of speech, one that was terrific in its suggestiveness.

The valley of Gehenna, a gorge outside Jerusalem, was historic. In the valley of Tophet, Solomon had first erected an altar to the worship of Moloch. At a later and more depraved period in the history of the kingdom of Judah, Ahaz and Manasseh had offered human sacrifices to Moloch in that very valley, until the reformation period came under king Josiah. One thing which Josiah did in the course of his reformation was to defile the valley where Moloch had been worshipped, casting refuse there, making it from that time through all the successive years the place where all the evil things of the city were cast out for destruction. The purpose of Gehenna then, was the purification of the life of the city. Those smouldering fires, destroying vulgarity and obscenity, were in themselves witnesses of the necessity for the sanitation of Jerusalem.

This was a drastic figure, and our Lord was not the first who made use of it. When this began cannot be said, but Tophet, Gehenna, was the perpetual figure employed for the place of punishment beyond this life, the strange and mysterious realm in the universe of God, made necessary for the purification of that universe; hell itself, with all the old meaning of the word delivered from its base and corrupt materialism; hell, as Jesus said, where “their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” That was the reference, first of all to a place geographical and actual, as a civic necessity, and secondly and consequently, to a place and state moral and spiritual, and as equally a necessity in the Divine economy. In other words, fire as our Lord used it here, was the symbol of the principle that makes no peace with evil. The fire of Gehenna is the holiness of God. Said Jesus at last to these disciples, Have that fire burning within yourselves, and so be at peace one with another. “Every, one shall be salted with fire.” Fire destroys the perishable, but perfects that which is imperishable.

Change the figure to salt, and see how near we are to the thought. Salt prevents corruption and preserves soundness. Behind the word “soundness” is the thought of sanitation, and involved in the word “sanitation” is the condition of health; and at the heart of the word “health” is the principle of holiness. Salt prevents disintegration, and corruption, and preserves soundness and health. Salt is also of the fire nature; a subtle, penetrative, permeative flame that searches out every element of destruction, and holds it in check, and annihilates it; in order that there may be opportunity for the growth and development and enlargement of that which makes for health. “Have salt in yourselves.”

To come nearer to the Lord’s meaning when He laid this charge upon His disciples, we must recognize that the moral and spiritual values are revealed in the previous teaching. There is first that which is relative, and then that which lies behind it and is personal, apart from which the relative is impossible of realization.

Notice first the relative teaching. “Whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on Me to stumble, it were better for him if a great’ millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” Christ was here cabling for such passion for service in order to the perfecting of others, that sudden and violent extinction is counted preferable to causing a little one to stumble. He was holding up before the eyes of His astonished disciples an ideal, that seemed for the moment to have very little application to their disputing by the way. I think as He talked, the boy was still in His arms, and that though spiritually here He may have come to the consideration of the life of the little ones who had but recently believed in Him, He was not far away from the child, nor the child from Him. With that ordinary boy, suddenly arrested, apprehended, caught up in His arms, He said: Rather than make this little child stumble, it were better for a man if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.

Then He immediately passed from that description of relative passion for service to the individual condition that makes it possible. He declared in effect that such passion is generated by the personal intolerance of evil which prefers maiming, to deflection from the way of truth. The hand, the actual deed; the foot, the approach or direction toward evil; the eye, the sight or desire that inspires the approach, and issues in the deed; all must be dealt with. Our Lord here calls for such passion for purity within the soul, that if necessary it shall be maintained by maiming and mutilation. The supreme thought running through all the teaching is that of the necessity for purity, at all costs. “Have salt in yourselves”; let there be burning within you the very fire which makes conflict with sin and with evil. It is as though the Lord had said: Unless this awful fire of Divine holiness burn within you as a passion that destroys within your lives all evil things, there will be no escape from the ultimate Gehenna, in which that fire is forever consuming.

It is as though our Lord had said to those first disciples: The only way to escape the ultimate Gehenna of fire, is for that fire to burn within you, of your own volition, thus purifying the soul. It is Christ’s call to resolute and sacrificial purity. When the writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote “Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin,” he did not mean a resistance that makes the blood flow through blows implanted by an enemy. The reference was surely to Gethseniane, when “His sweat became as it were great drops of blood”; the mental pressure and agony being so terrific that all the functions of nature were arrested and revolutionized. Salt! Not some light sentimental word is this, suggesting an application that is merely invigorating and refreshing in some moral sense; but the salt that is fire, of the very fire of hell itself against sin; so that the right hand, the right foot, must be cut off, the right eye be gouged out, in order that the soul may be clean and pure.

Peace among ourselves then is not something that may be arranged for, by taking counsel with one another, in order that we may abandon some conviction that we hold dear. Strong lasting peace, that knows no ultimate disturbance, must be based upon a purity that is produced by salt which is fire; “first pure, then peaceable.” Our Lord by this apparently strange teaching, flashed back upon the disputing by the way ’the light of the Divine estimation of it, and revealed the fact that all such disputing sprang out of the toleration of evil within the soul in some form or another; and that wherever those who name His name, and profess to follow Him, and are walking after Him, dispute among themselves as to greatness, they are revealing some malady far deeper than the symptom would suggest to the casual observer. They are revealing the fact that down beneath the disputation is disease, spiritual and moral, which cannot be treated with rose-water, and needs the fire of salt, terrific in its burning, and destructive of all that is capable of destruction; fire which destroys the perishable, but thank God, gives the soundness of health every opportunity.

Now, glancing back from this word of Jesus to the original cause of the story, to the fact of their disputing, and then to John’s confession, and all that it meant, we gather what the peace is, which salt produces. I shall make two suggestions only.

The action of such salt first produces the transmutation of ambition. Wherever there is the action of this salt there is the death of the absorbing passion for greatness, and the birth of the edifying passion for service. Mark the difference between these things. The passion for personal greatness is always a disrupting element anywhere and everywhere, in all human life and society. Wherever that passion burns there is the destruction of peace, and of a true order. These men were troubled about who was the greatest.

In the place of that absorbing passion for greatness was born, what for lack of a more striking word I have described as the edifying, passion for service. He who would be greatest, let him be least of all, minister of all. When this salt is in the life, when this fire burns within the soul, it indeed

“Burns up the dross of base desire, And makes the mountains flow.” Wherever this salt is active in the life, there is born a passion not for the exercise of authority, but for the rendering of service. Surely no one can read this carefully without being ashamed. No congregation of Christian souls can consider these ideals, and this teaching of Jesus, without coming to the almost appalling recognition of the fact of how little we know of this experimentally. Yet, thank God there have been and still are multitudes of those in whom this salt burns, producing God’s own purity; and in every such case they are those whose one mastering eagerness is to serve; and where there is eagerness to serve, then the little one is received; and where there is eagerness to serve, disputes about greatness finally end. Where there is eagerness to serve there is peace.

But not only does this salt produce the transmutation of ambition. It produces also the enlargement of fellowship. Everywhere this salt operates; there is the death of the sense of the dignity of official privilege. Now this was, the trouble in the case of John. John told the Lord-and the grace of his heart is revealed in the fact that he made confession-that “We saw one,” not attempting to cast out demons, but doing it. “We saw one casting put demons”; not by any of the incantations of the heathen, but “in Thy name; and we forbade him, because he followed not us”! He was irregular, he was not in the true order, he was not in the appointed succession, he was outside!

Oh! the devilishness of it I am not going to withdraw that word the devilishness of this sense of official privilege and dignity. Quick and sharp and stern, like a crack of thunder following a blaze of lightning, came the Lord’s word “Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a mighty work in My name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me. For he that is not against us is for us.” Yet I wonder if I have misinterpreted the tone and temper of Jesus by suggesting that He spoke in any such harsh accents! I do not know, for it seems to me after all that if this were a word of thunder, behind the thunder was all the refreshment and coolness and beauty of a high conception of fellowship. “He followed not us.” No, but “he . . . is for us.” Jesus here used the plural, putting the twelve back into fellowship with Himself; He is for us, not against us.

Wherever this salt burns in the life, there is not only the enlargement of fellowship that results from the death of the sense of the dignity of official privilege; there is also the birth of the recognition of the supremacy of the name. “He that receiveth one such little child in My name.” That is what arrested John, and made him say, “Teacher, we saw one casting out demons in Thy name; and we forbade him.” So our Lord immediately responded, taking up exactly the same thought as He said, “No man can do a mighty work in My name, and be able quickly to speak evil of Me.” Presently He said another thing, which we have rather lost by our translation. “Whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink, in the name that ye are Christ’s.” That is quite literal. We have translated actually as to sense, “Because ye are Christ’s”; but we have lost something of the impact. “Shall give you a cup of cold water to drink in the name that ye are Christ’s, Verily I say unto you!” The dignity and the supremacy of the name was sealed. That man does not follow Me, but if he, in the name, cast out a demon, then that man is included in the fellowship. So the borders of fellowship are flung back, and the company of the comrades of the Crusade is enlarged; but we shall never be willing to admit that, until this salt, this fire, permeates the life and purifies it.

In conclusion note again the command. “Have salt in yourselves”; that is the personal note. “Be at peace one with another”; that is the relative note. The first is superlative, the second is sequential. If we would have true peace one with another, our first business must be to obey the earlier injunction, “Have salt in yourselves.”

Yet look back once more to the statement and question preceding the text, which gives a wider view of the meaning of the experience, on which we can only enter as We go back to the narrowness of the injunction. What then is this statement and this inquiry? “Salt is good; but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it?” This is a larger word, having a wider application. This is a word that is true to the music of that which Jesus had already said in His manifesto, on an earlier occasion. “Ye are the salt of the earth.” In that word of Jesus all the world was taken into account. Then immediately we are reminded that men having salt in themselves, exert an influence of salt in the world; and only as we have salt in ourselves and are at peace one with another can we exert the influence of salt in the world, or become peacemakers.

What do we know of this salt, which is a fire, and oftentimes a pain and an agony, burning with a passion for purity that will make no terms with evil in our lives? It is only upon, the basis of such purity, resulting from such action of the fire of salt and the salt of fire, that we can ever be at peace.