[ p. 291 ]
AT BETHABARA
Jo. x. 41, 42. Mt. xix. i£-xx. 16; Mk. x. 1-31; Lk. xviii. 15-30 (xvii. 7-10).
It was not to rest that the Lord went to Bethabara but rather to prosecute His ministry more freely. His going thither was known to the people of Jerusalem, and they trooped down after Him, eager, as cf.Mk.xu. the common folk always were, to hear His 37 * gracious message. Nor were they disappointed. Unembarrassed by the enmity of the rulers, He preached to the multitude and healed their sicknesses, and many were won to faith. It was a great ministry, and it made a great impression. Naturally the people recalled the Baptist’s ministry there three years before and the testimony which he had borne to Jesus ; and they recognised how far it was transcended by the wonders which they were now witnessing. “John,” said they, “wrought no sign, but everything which John said of this man was true.”
Even at Bethabara, however, the Lord was not unmolested. Tidings of His ministry there reached the ears of the rulers at Jerusalem, and a company of Pharisees appeared on the scene. Their purpose was to engage Him in controversy in the hope of puzzling Him and so discrediting Him with the people. They approached Him and propounded a question : “Is it allowable to put away one’s wife ‘ for any reason ’ ? ” It was a quotation from their law of divorce which, as [ p. 292 ] we have seen, bore very hardly upon women, permitting a husband to put away his wife “for any reason”— if she were a bad cook, if he disliked her, or even if he fancied another woman more. It is remarkable how highly the Jews of that period valued this facility in dissolving the marriage tie, one Rabbi claiming it as a special privilege granted to the Israelites and denied to the Gentiles. Interference with it would be keenly resented; and those Pharisees, aware how strenuously our Lord, ever the champion of the oppressed, had protested against it, were sure that He would condemn it now and thus alienate the popular sympathy (Cf. Mt. v. 31,32; Lk. xvi. 18).
He recognised their purpose and skilfully frustrated it. “Have you not read,” He answered, with fine irony charging those Rabbis with ignorance of the Scriptures which they professed to interpret, “that the Creator originally ‘made them male and female’ and said ‘Therefore will a man leave his father and mother, and the twain will be one flesh’ ?” (Gen. i. 27, ii. 24.) Here is the divine ideal of marriage. It is an ordinance of the Creator for the fulfilment of His creative design, and its desecration is therefore a violation at once of the divine and the natural order. That was the primal raison d’etre of marriage, and it was a sufficient answer to the Pharisees’ question and a heavy condemnation of their practice.
They durst not challenge His answer, since that were to challenge Scripture ; but they fell back upon the fact that the Law of Moses conflicted with the primal ordinance inasmuch as it sanctioned divorce.(Dt. xxiv.) “Why then,” said they, “did Moses command ‘Give a bill of divorcement and put her away’ ? [ p. 293 ] Their hope was that He would censure that law of Moses and thus expose Himself to a charge of heresy. And what was His answer? He justified that later enactment as a concession on the part of Moses to the weakness of his contemporaries. It is told of the Athenian legislator Solon that he once said of his laws that they were not the best he could have given but they were the best the Athenians could receive. And even so was that law of Moses a concession to the unspirituality of a generation incapable of attaining to a lofty ideal. “Moses in view of the hardness of your hearts permitted you to put away your wives, but this is not the original ordinance.” It was not “allowable to put away one’s wife ‘ for any reason.’” “I tell you that whoever puts away his wife save for unfaithfulness and marries another, commits adultery.” That is the only valid reason for divorce ; and it is valid inasmuch as unfaithfulness annuls the marriage-contract, and in that case divorce is merely the recognition of a fait accompli.
His verdict was unchallengeable, yet even the Twelve were discomfited by the enunciation of an ideal so exacting and so alien from the common practice ; and when they got home to their lodging, they somewhat petulantly remonstrated with Him. “If,” said they, “this be the only reason for a man dealing with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.” “It is not every one,” He answered, “that can receive this saying, but only such as have the gift.” He meant that saying of theirs about the expediency of celibacy, and He proceeded to explain that the religious value of celibacy lay in the motive which prompted it. There was no religious value where a man was unfitted for marriage [ p. 294 ] whether congenitally or by misadventure; but there was value in it where, like St. Paul, one voluntarily denied himself that he might the more fully devote himself to the service of the Kingdom of Heaven (Cf. i Cor. vii. 32-35.). “One,” concludes our Lord, “who can receive it, let him receive it” ; and the epigram was a sufficient answer to their petulant remonstrance. If they shrank from the trials which matrimony might bring, then indeed it was not expedient for them to marry ; but in such celibacy there was nothing meritorious, nothing pleasing to God.
The mischief of the Rabbinical marriage-law was not merely its injustice to womankind but its desecration of the home. “It is a small matter to have our palaces set aflame compared with the misery of having our sense of a noble womanhood, which is the inspiration of a purifying shame, the promise of life-penetrating affection, stained and blotted out.” The degradation of woman is a wrong to her children, and in our Lord’s eyes a child was a sacred thing. Was it a recognition of the lesson which He had taught by His protest against that evil law that presently brought to Him a company of parents, fathers and mothers both ? They had their children with them, some of these babes in their mothers’ arms; and when the Evangelists say that they “brought” them, they employ a sacred word, signifying that they “presented” them to Him like an offering. They brought their children to Him that He might bless them. The disciples encountered them, and they resented the intrusion and would have turned them away had not the Master observed what they were about. “Let the children come to Me,” He cried, “and do not keep them back ; for of such is the Kingdom [ p. 295 ] of Heaven“.” He bade them kindly welcome, and took the little things in His arms and laid His hands on them and blessed them.
As we have seen, not a few of the rulers had been impressed by our Lord’s ministry at Jerusalem. It does not indeed appear that any Sadducee was ever moved by His message, but it was natural that it should appeal to the Pharisees. For Pharisaism was the Puritanism of that day, and despite its grievous faults of intolerance, formalism, and hypocrisy it comprehended all that was best and most that was godly in the national life. It was in its essence nothing else than a quest after reconciliation with God. “How can a man be just before God ?” is the ancient and abiding question of the human soul; and the answer of Pharisaism was: “By keeping His commandments.” (Job ix. 2) This sufficed unspiritual souls, but such as, like Saul of Tarsus, “knew the plague of their own hearts ” it left unsatisfied. When they had kept all the commandments, they realised that something was yet lacking; and then they redoubled their zeal, seeking what more they might do in the way of legal observance and works of righteousness and earning themselves the derisive appellation of the “Tell-mewhat-I-must-do-and-I-will-do-it Pharisees.”
To such our Lord’s Gospel appealed, telling as it did of peace with God and the blessed hope of eternal life. They would fain have approached Him and taken counsel with Him, but they feared the displeasure of their colleagues. Now, however, that He had left the city and was prosecuting His ministry at Bethabara, they might resort thither and wait upon Him unobserved ; and one day as He was leaving His lodging [ p. 296 ] with the Twelve, He espied a stranger travelling down the highway from Jerusalem. He was a young Pharisee who had listened to Him in the Temple-court and heard of His doings among the people, and had come in quest of Him in the hope of learning from His lips the blessed secret. He ran toward Him and knelt before Him. “Good Teacher,” he asked, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? ”
“Teacher ” or “Rabbi ” was the designation of the wise doctors of the Law, and so reverential was it that it always stood alone, needing no enhancement. In styling our Lord “Teacher” His visitor paid Him abundant honour, but he addressed Him as “good Teacher,” confessing Him more than a Rabbi. “Why,” asked Jesus, “do you call Me ‘ good ’ ? No one is good but God alone.” It was not a rebuke ; it was a challenge. “Consider what your language implies: do you really mean it ? ”
Then He answered the question. “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments.” All his days the young man had been keeping the commandments so far as he knew them. “What commandments ? ” he asked, hoping to learn of some further observances, some hitherto untried way of obedience. “Tell me what I must do, and I will do it.” The Lord repeated second table of the Decalogue, those five commandments which define our duty toward our fellow-men, adding that other which comprehends them all: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Ex. xx. 12-16; Lev. xix. 18)
It was a cruel disappointment to the eager seeker. It seemed as though he were being thrust back upon the old weary path. “Teacher,” he cried, “all this I have [ p. 297 ] observed ever since my youth. What is it that I still lack ? ” His distress touched the Lord’s heart, and it is written that ” He looked upon him and loved him,” signifying that, after the fashion of a Rabbi when a disciple pleased him, He kissed the young man’s forehead. “There is one thing that you lack,” said He. “If you would attain your end, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven ; and come, follow Me.”
What did He mean ? It is told of a Nitrian monk in the fourth century that his sole possession was a copy of the Gospel, and on reading these words he sold it and gave the price to feed the poor. It was indeed an act of generous devotion ; nevertheless it was a misconstruction of the sacred precept. For here our Lord is not formulating a universal rule. The principle is that whatever there may be in a man’s life that is dearer to him than his soul’s salvation, this he must sacrifice. It is not the same thing with all. With one it is an impure passion, with another worldly ambition, with another pride, with another cowardice; and the requirement is that whatever it may be that binds a man to earth, that fetter he must break. The young ruler was rich. His wealth was the one thing which held him back from a full consecration, and the Lord demanded its surrender. “Resign your possessions,” He said, “and, heedless of shame and suffering, cast in your lot with Me.” “That man,” says Richard Baxter, “who has anything in the world so dear to him, that he cannot spare it for Christ, if He call for it, is no true Christian.” The young ruler had thought that he cared supremely for eternal life; but the Lord showed him that there was something for which he cared [ p. 298 ] more. ” His face fell, and he went away grieved ; for he had much property.”
The Lord surveyed the retreating form, and then He looked round on His disciples. “With what difficulty,” said He,” will those who have wealth enter into the Kingdom of Heaven !” It was a surprising and indeed discomfiting pronouncement for the Twelve, since they were dreaming of an earthly kingdom and a rich requital of their devotion. Marking their astonishment. He reiterated it with stronger emphasis: “Children, how difficult it is to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven ! It is easier for a cable [1] to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. It seemed to them the destruction of their golden hope. “Who then,” they murmured to one another, “can be saved ?” He looked in their troubled faces with His kindly eyes and bade them trust God for the fulfilment of their hopes. “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for ‘ everything is possible with God.’” (Gen. xviii. 14)
Still they were disquieted, wondering if all their sacrifices were to go for nothing ; and presently Peter appealed to Him, voicing their misgivings. “Look you,” said he, pointing the contrast between their response to His call and il gran rifiuto of that young Pharisee, “we left everything and have followed you : what then are we to have ?” It was indeed an ignoble spirit that inspired the question—the spirit which serves God for the hope of reward and not for the joy of serving and in glad requital of His unmerited grace ; [ p. 299 ] and already on another occasion He had reproved it. “Which of you is there,” He had said, “that has a slave ploughing or shepherding, who will say to him on his coming in from the field: ‘ Come along at once and take your place at table’ ? (Lk. xvii. 7-10) Nay, will he not say to him : ‘ Get ready my supper, and gird yourself and wait upon me till I have eaten and drunk ; and afterwards you will eat and drink ’ ? Is he grateful to the slave for doing his bidding ? So too with you: when you have done everything that you are bidden, say : ‘ We are unprofitable slaves. Only what was our duty have we done. ” It is not thus indeed that God treats His servants ; but it is thus that we should serve Him, recognising how much we owe Him and counting the utmost we can do too small a requital. And the Lord might now have answered His disciples thus. But their discomfiture touched His heart, and He answered them very gently. He assured them that no sacrifice for His sake and the Gospel’s will miss its reward. Here and hereafter it will be richly recompensed. “But,” He added, “many will be first that are last, and last that are first ” ; and then He explained the epigram by a parable, showing that what counts with God is not the service that we render but the spirit which prompts it, not our sacrifices but the love which they express.
Early one morning a prosperous vine-dresser went to the market-place to hire workers. Those were hard times, and the market-place was thronged with men desirous of employment. He got as many as he required at the rate of a shilling for the day—the ordinary day’s wage at that period ; and they started work at 6 o’clock. It had vexed him to see so many men in [ p. 300 ] want of work, and at 9 o’clock he returned to the market-place and hired some more, promising to pay them fairly at the end of the day. He did the like at noon, and again at 3 o’clock. At 5 o’clock he found a group still idle—poor, dejected creatures whom no one would employ—and in sheer pity he hired them too. Glad of work on any terms, if only for a single hour, they hurried off to the vineyard.
Six o’clock—the “loosing-time”—came, and the workers presented themselves at the pay-office. The master was there, and, enjoying the humour of the situation, he had directed his steward to call them forward in the reverse order of their hiring, the 5 o’clock men first, and pay them all the full day’s wage. The early men saw the late-comers getting each his shilling, and they reckoned on getting more; but when their turn came, they got just what they had bargained for. They all grumbled, and one of them spoke out. He looked at his shilling on the counter and, letting it lie, turned to the master. “These lastcomers,” he protested indignantly, “have put in only a single hour, and you have put them on an equality with us who have borne the day’s toil and sweat!” “Mate,” answered the master, “I am doing you no injustice. Did you not agree with me for a shilling ? Take up your pay and begone. May I not do what I will with my own ?”
Surely he might. A bargain is a bargain. The first-comers had agreed to do the day’s work for a fair day’s wage, and they got what they had bargained for. They would indeed have had a grievance had the master offered them less ; but he paid them their due, and it was nothing to them that, out of pure compassion, he [ p. 301 ] paid the late-comers more than they had earned. It was his own money, and he had a right to be generous with it.
The parable was a rebuke of the mercenary spirit which animated the Twelve and which they had expressed in their question : “What then are we to have ?” God would have His workers serve Him with no thought of recompense, not like those first-comers, mere hirelings, who made their bargain ere they started work, but rather like the others who obeyed the master’s bidding, leaving their requital to him, especially “these last” who, conscious of their unworthiness, fell to work with never a thought of requital, thankful that he had regarded them and trusting in his generosity. God’s servants are not hirelings but His fellow-workers.
Camilos, “camel,” in the original text here stands for camilos, a thick rope an example of itacism , that confusion of vowels so common m Greek MSS. by reason of similarity of pronunciation. ↩︎