Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the heart.

Cleanse first that which is within. Not that only, but that first; because, if due care be taken concerning that, the outside will be clean also. If the heart be well kept, all is well-for out of it are the issues of life; the eruptions will vanish of course. If the heart and spirit be made new, there will be a newness of life; here, therefore, we must begin with ourselves: first cleanse that which is within. We then make sure work, when this is our first work. 2. They are compared to whited sepulchres (vers. 27, 28.),-fair without, like sepulchres which appear beautiful outward. Some make it to refer to the custom of the Jews to whiten graves, only for the notifying of them, especially if they were in unusual places, that people might avoid them, because of the ceremonial pollution contracted by the touch of a grave. Numb. xix. 16. And it was part of the charge of the overseers of the highways, to repair that whitening when it was decayed. Sepulchres were thus made remarkable. 2 Kings xxiii. 16, 17. It rather alludes, however, to the custom of whitening the sepulchres of eminent persons, for the beautifying of them. It is said here (ver. 29), that they garnished the sepulchres of the righteous; as it is usual with us to erect monuments upon the graves of great persons, and to strew flowers on the graves of dear friends. Now, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was like the ornaments of a grave, or the dressing up of a dead body-only for show. The top of their ambition was, to appear righteous before men, and to be applauded and had in admiration by them. But they were foul within, like sepulchres full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness: so vile are our bodies when the soul has deserted them! Thus were they full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Hypocrisy is the worst iniquity. It is possible for those that have their hearts full of sin, to have their lives free from blame, and to appear very good ; but what will it avail us to have the good word of our fellow-servants, if our Master doth not say, "Well done?"

VII. They pretended a deal of kindness for the memory of the prophets that were dead and gone, while they hated and persecuted those that were present with them. This is put last, because it was the blackest part of their character. God is jealous for his honour in his laws and ordinances, and resents it if they be profaned and abused; but he has often expressed an equal jealousy for his honour in his prophets and ministers, and resents it worse if they be wronged and persecuted : and therefore, when our Lord Jesus comes to this head, he speaks more fully than upon any of the others (vers. 29-37); for he that toucheth his ministers, toucheth his anointed, and toucheth the apple of his eye.

Having shown the wickedness of the Pharisees, our Lord next pronounces their doom. He represents their condition as very sad, and in a manner desperate-How can ye escape the damnation of hell? Christ himself preached hell and damnation, for which his ministers have often been reproached by those who care not to hear of it. The damnation of hell will be the fearful end of all impenitent sinners. This doom, coming from Christ, was more terrible than coming from all the prophets and ministers that ever were; for he is the Judge, into whose hands the keys of hell and death are put, and his saying they were damned, made them so. Of all sinners, those who are of the spirit of the scribes and Pharisees are least likely to escape this damnation; for repentance and faith are necessary to that escape; and how will they be brought to these, who are so conceited of themselves, and so prejudiced against Christ and his gospel, as they were? How could they be healed and saved, who could not bear to have their wound searched, nor the balm of Gilead applied to it? Publicans and harlots, who were sensible of their disease and applied themselves to the Physician, were more likely to escape the damnation of hell than those who, though they were in the high road to it, were confident they were in the way to heaven.

e

34¶Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and 'some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, "from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. 36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, 'and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would "I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens "under her

d Chap. xxi. 34, 35; Luke xi. 49. e Acts v. 40, vii. 58, 59, xxii. 19. h Gen. iv. 8; 1 John iii. 12. á 1 Chrón, xxiv. 20, 21. Psal. xvii. 8, xci. 4.

Luke xiji. 34.

Chap. x. 17; 2 Cor. xi. 24, 25. g Rev. xviii. 24. 12 Chron. xxiy, 21. m Deut. xxxii. 11, Ï2.

wings, and ye would not! 38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, 'Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

o Psal. cxviii. 26; Chap. xxi. 9.

Jesus Christ designs yet to try them with the means of grace-I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, ver. 34. The connection is strange. "You are a generation of vipers, not likely to escape the damnation of hell;" one would think it should follow, "Therefore you shall never have a prophet sent to you any more ;" but no,-" Therefore I will send unto you prophets, to see if you will yet at length be wrought upon, or else to leave you inexcusable, and to justify God in your ruin." He foresees and foretells the ill usage that his messengers would meet with among them,→ “Some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and yet I will send them." Christ knows beforehand how ill his servants will be treated, and yet sends them, and appoints them their measure of sufferings; yet he loves them never the less for his thus exposing them; for he designs to glorify himself by their sufferings, and to glorify them after their sufferings have come to end. He will counterbalance them, though not prevent them.

He imputes the sin of their fathers to them, because they imitated it,-That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, vers. 35, 36. Though God bear long with a persecuting generation, he will not bear always; and patience abused, turns into the greatest wrath. The longer sinners have been heaping up treasures of wickedness, the deeper and fuller will the treasures of wrath be; and the breaking of them up will be like breaking up the fountains of the great deep.

He laments the wickedness of Jerusalem, and justly upbraids them with the many kind offers he had made them, ver. 37. See with what concern he speaks of that city,-O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! The repetition is emphatical, and bespeaks abundance of commiseration. A day or two before, Christ had wept over Jerusalem, now he sighed and groaned over it. Jerusalem, the vision of peace (so it signifies), must now be the seat of war and confusion; Jerusalem, that had been the joy of the whole earth, must now be a hissing, and an astonishment, and a bye-word; Jerusalem, that has been a city compact together, shall now be shattered and ruined by its own intestine broils; Jerusalem, the place that God has chosen to put his name there, shall now be abandoned to the spoil and the robbers. Lam. i. 1, iv. 1. But wherefore will the Lord do all this to Jerusalem? "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward."-Lam. i. 8.

The sin of killing the prophets is especially charged upon Jerusalem; because there the sanhedrim, or great council, sat, who took cognizance of Church matters; and therefore a prophet could not perish but in Jerusalem. Luke xiii. 33. It is true, they had not now a power to put any man to death, but they killed the prophets in popular tumults-mobbed them (as Stephen), and stirred. up the Roman powers to kill them. At Jerusalem, where the gospel was first preached, it was first persecuted (Acts viii. 1), and that place was the head-quarters of the persecutors; thence warrants were issued out to other cities, and thither the saints were brought bound. Acts ix. 2. stonest them. That was a capital punishment, in use only among the Jews. By the law, false prophets and seducers were to be stoned (Deut. xiii. 10); under colour of which law, they put the true prophets to death.

¶ Thou

Christ pronounces the doom of Jerusalem (vers. 38, 39),—Therefore behold your house is left unto you desolate. Both the city and the temple, God's house and their own, all shall be laid waste. But it is especially meant of the temple, which they boasted of, and trusted to; that holy mountain because of which they were so haughty. Christ was now departing from the temple, and never came into it again, but by this word abandoned it to ruin. They doated on it, would have it to themselves; Christ must have no room or interest there. "Well," saith Christ, "it is left to you; take it, and make your best of it; I will never have any thing more to do with it." They had made it a house of merchandise, and a den of thieves, and so it is left to them. When Christ went, the glory departed. Their city also was left to them, destitute of God's presence and grace; he was no longer a wall of fire about them, nor the glory in the midst of them. "The destruction of Jerusalem took place about forty years after these words (ver. 36, &c.) were spoken." Ye shall not see me, &c. The day of your mercy has gone by. I have offered you protection and salvation, and you have rejected it. You are about to crucify me, and your temple is about to be destroyed; and you, as a nation, to be given up to long and dreadful sufferings. You will not see me as a merciful Saviour, offering you redemption any more, till you have borne these heavy judgments. They must come upon you, and be borne, until you would be glad to hail a deliverer, and say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessed be he that comes, as the Messiah, to bring deliverance.

This has not as yet been accomplished; but the days will come when the Jews shall be gathered in, and receive Christ as their Saviour.

CHAPTER XXIV.

1 Christ foretelleth the destruction of the temple: 3 what, and how great calamities shall be before it: 29 the signs of his coming to judgment. 36 And because that day and hour is unknown, 42 we ought to watch like good servants, expecting every moment our Master's coming.

A

ND Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. 2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

a Mark xiii. 1; Luke xxi. 5. b 1 Kings ix. 7; Jer. xxvi. 18; Mic. iii. 12; Luke xix. 44.

e Mark xiii. 3. d 1 Thess. v. 1.

When he left the temple, his disciples left it too, and came to him. They came to him to be instructed in private, when his public preaching was over; for the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. They came to him, to show him the buildings of the temple. It was a stately and beautiful structure-one of the wonders of the world; no cost was spared, no art left untried, to make it sumptuous. It was richly furnished with gifts and offerings; to which there were continual additions made. Mark says (xiii. 1), that they particularly pointed out the stones of the temple, as well as the buildings. "In that temple," says Josephus, the Jewish historian, "were several stones which were forty-five cubits in length, five in height, and six in breadth;" that is, more than seventy feet long, ten wide, and eight high. These stones, of such enormous size, were principally used in building the high wall on the east side, from the base to the top of the mountain. They were also, it is said, beautifully painted with variegated colours. They showed Christ these things, and desired him to take notice of them.

Hereupon Christ foretells the utter ruin and destruction that were coming upon the temple. The temple shall not only be stripped, and plundered, and defaced, but utterly demolished and laid waste-Not one stone shall be left upon another. At the time this was spoken, no event was more improbable than this. The temple was vast, rich, splendid-it was the pride of the nation, and the nation was at peace; yet in the short space of forty years all this was exactly accomplished. Jerusalem was taken by the Roman armies, under the command of Titus, A. D. 70. The account of the siege and destruction of the city is left us by Josephus, a historian of undoubted veracity and singular fidelity. He was a Jewish priest. In the wars of which he gives an account, he fell into the hands of the Romans, and remained with them during the siege and destruction of the city. Being a Jew, he would of course say nothing designed to confirm the prophecies of Jesus Christ; yet his whole history appears almost like a running commentary on these predictions respecting the destruction of the temple. The following particulars are given on his authority :

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

After the city was taken, he says that Titus "gave orders that they should now demolish the whole city and temple, except three towers, which he reserved standing. But for the rest of the wall, it was laid so completely even with the ground by those who dug it up from the foundation, that there was nothing left, to make those believe who came hither that it had ever been inhabited." Maimonides, a Jewish writer, has also recorded, that "Terentius Rufus, an officer in the army of Titus, with a ploughshare tore up the foundations of the temple," that the prophecy might be fulfilled, Zion shall be ploughed as a field." Mic. iii. 12. This was all done by direction of Divine Providence. Titus was desirous of preserving the temple, and frequently sent Josephus to the Jews, to induce them to surrender, and save the temple and city; but the prediction of the Saviour had gone forth, and notwithstanding the wish of the Roman general, the temple was to be destroyed. The Jews themselves first set fire to the porticoes of the temple. One of the Roman soldiers, without any command, threw a burning firebrand into the golden window, and soon the temple was in flames. Titus gave orders to extinguish the fire; but amidst the tumult, none of his orders were obeyed. The soldiers pressed to the temple, and neither fear, nor entreaties, nor stripes, could restrain them, Their hatred to the Jews urged them on to the work of destruction.-

The disciples, not disputing either the truth or the equity of this sentence, nor doubting of the accomplishment of it, inquire, When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? (ver. 3.) Some think these questions do all point at one and the same thing-the destruction of the temple, and the period of the Jewish Church and nation, which Christ had himself spoken of as his coming (chap. xvi. 28), and which would be the consummation of the age (for so it may be read), the finishing of that dispensation. Others think their question, When shall these things be? refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the other two to the end of the world; or Christ's coming may refer to his setting up his gospel kingdom, and the end of the world to the day of judgment. I rather incline to think, that their question looked no farther than the event Christ now foretold; but it appears by other passages, that they had very confused thoughts of future events; so that perhaps it is not possible to put any certain construction upon this question of theirs.

But Christ, in his answer, though he does not expressly rectify the mistakes of his disciples (that must be done by the pouring out of the Spirit), yet looks farther than their question, and instructs his Church, not only concerning the great events of that age, the destruction of Jerusalem, but concerning his second coming at the end of time, which here he insensibly slides into a discourse of; and of that it is plain he speaks in the next chapter, which is a continuation of this sermon.

ye

P

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, "Take heed that no man deceive you. 5 For 'many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For "nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows. 9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. 10 And then shall many *be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. 11 And 'many false prophets shall rise, and "shall deceive many. 12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 13 "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. 15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by 'Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, ("whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16 Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: 17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 19 And 'woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath-day: 21 For "then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. 23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. 24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, "if it were possible, they shall deceive the very

[ocr errors]

e Eph. v. 6; Col. ii. 8. 18; 2 Thess. ii. 3; 1 John iv. 1. f Jer. xiv. 14, xxiii. 21, 25; ver. 24; John v. 43. g Ver. 11. h2 Chron. xv. 6; Isa. xix. 2; Hag. ii. 22; Zech. xiv. 13. i Chap. x. 17; Mark xiii. 9; Luke xxi. 12; John xv. 20, xvi. 2; Acts iv. 2, 3, vii. 59, xii. 1; 1 Pet. iv. 16; Rev. ii. 10, 13. k Chap. xi. 6, xiii. 57; 2 Tim. i. 15, iv. 10, 16. Chap. vii. 15; Acts xx. 29; 2 Pet. ii. 1. m 1 Tim. iv. 1; ver. 5, 24. n Chap. x. 22; Mark xiii. 13; Heb, iii. 6, 14; Rev. ii. 10. ix. 35. p Rom. x. 18; Col. i. 6, 23. q Mark xiii. 14; Luke xxi. 20. r Dan. ix. 27, xii. 11. s Dan. ix. 23, 25, u Dan. ix. 26. xii. 1; Joel ii. 3. Isa. lxv. 8, 9; Zech. xiv. 2, 3.

ver. 5, 11; 2 Thess. ii. 9-11; Rev. xiii. 13. a John vi. 37, x. 28, 29;

y Mark xiii. 21; Luke xvii. 23, xxi. 8. Rom. viii. 28-30; 2 Tim. ii. 19.

o Chap. iv. 23,

t Luke xxiii. 29.

z Deut. xiii. 1;

[ocr errors]

elect. 25 Behold, I have told you before. 26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. 27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 28 For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. 29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, "and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he shall send his angels || with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

b Luke xvii. 24. c Job xxxix. 30; Luke xvii. 37. d Dan. vii. 11, 12. Amos v. 20, viii. 9; Mark xiii. 24; Luke xxi. 21. 25; Acts ii. 20; Rev. vi. 12. Mark xiii. 26; Rev. i. 7. i Chap. xiii. 41; 1 Cor. xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 16.

e Isa. xiii. 10; Ezek. xxxii. 7; Joel ii. 10, 31, iii. 15; f Dan. vii. 13. g Zech. xii. 12. h Chap. xvi. 27 ; Or, with a trumpet, and a great voice.

The disciples had asked, concerning the times, When shall these things be? Christ gives them no answer to that, after what number of days and years his prediction should be accomplished, for it is not for us to know the times (Acts i. 7); but they had asked, What shall be the sign? That question he answers fully, for we are concerned to understand the signs of the times, chap. xvi. 3. Now the prophecy primarily respects the events near at hand,—the destruction of Jerusalem, the period of the Jewish Church and State, the calling of the Gentiles, and the setting up of Christ's kingdom in the world; but as the prophecies of the Old Testament, which have an immediate reference to the affairs of the Jews and the revolutions of their state, under the figure of them, do certainly look farther, to the gospel Church and the kingdom of the Messiah, and are so expounded in the New Testament, and such expressions are found in those predictions as are peculiar thereto and not applicable otherwise; so this prophecy, under the type of Jerusalem's destruction, looks as far forward as the general judgment; and, as is usual in prophecies, some passages are most applicable to the type, and others to the antitype; and toward the close, as usual, it points more particularly to the latter.

Christ foretells the going forth of deceivers (ver. 4), pretending to divine inspiration, an immediate mission, and a spirit of prophecy, when it was all a lie. Such there had been formerly (Jer. xxiii. 16; Ezek. xiii. 6), as was foretold. Deut. xiii. 3. He foretells also the appearance of false Christs, coming in Christ's name (ver. 5),-assuming to themselves the name peculiar to him, and saying, "I am Christ," ver. 24. There was at that time a general expectation of the appearing of the Messiah. They spoke of him as he that should come; but when he did come, the body of the nation rejected him; which those who were ambitious of making themselves a name took advantage of, and set up for Christs. Josephus speaks of several such impostors between this and the destruction of Jerusalem. "The land," says he, "was overrun with magicians, seducers, and impostors, who drew the people after them in multitudes, into solitudes and deserts, to see the signs and miracles which they promised to show by the power of God." Among these are mentioned particularly Dositheus the Samaritan, who affirmed that he was Christ. Theudas, who persuaded many to go with him to the river Jordan, to see the waters divided. The names of twenty-four false Messiahs are recorded, as having appeared between the time of the Emperor Adrian and the year 1682. The Popish religion doth, in effect, set up a false Christ. The Pope comes in Christ's name, as his vicar, but invades and usurps all his offices, and so is a rival with him, and, as such, an enemy to him, a deceiver, and an antichrist.

The proof they should offer for the making good of these pretences is noticed (ver. 24),-They shall show great signs and wonders. Not true miracles-those are a divine seal, and with those the doctrine of Christ stands confirmed; and therefore, if any offer to draw us from that by signs and wonders, we must have recourse to that rule given of old (Deut. xiii. 1-3), "If the sign or wonder come to pass, yet follow not him that would draw you to serve other gods, or believe in other Christs; for the Lord your God proveth you." But these were lying wonders. Yet, so nearly would they resemble true miracles, as to render it difficult to detect the imposition; so plausible would these false prophets make their claim that if it were possible they would persuade even true Christians that they were no deceivers. But that was not possible. They would be too firmly established

« AnteriorContinuar »