[ p. 332 ]
CONTROVERSIES WITH THE RULERS
Mk. xi. 12-15*2, 18, 19; Mt. xxi. 14-17; Lk. xix. 47, 48. Mk. xi. 20-26; Mt. xxi. 18-22. Mt. xxi. 23-xxii. 14; Mk. xi. 27-xii. 12; Lk. xx. 1-19. Jo. vii. 53-viii. 11. Mt xxii. 15-46; Mk. xii. 13-37; Lk. xx. 20-44.
Early next morning they took their way back to Jerusalem. Had the Lord lodged at the house of Lazarus, He would have been hospitably entertained and would have breakfasted ere His departure; but in the garden there was no kindly hostess to minister to His necessities, and they left it fasting, meaning to procure food in the city. Amid the excitement of the previous day He had eaten little, and now He was hungry ; and as they descended the mountainside, He observed a fig tree by the wayside some distance off, conspicuous by reason of its abundant foliage, and He welcomed the prospect of immediate refreshment. It was not indeed the season for figs, but, as Pliny remarks in his Natural History, it is a peculiarity of the fig tree that it forms its fruit before it puts forth its leaves, and it was a natural inference that this tree, growing in the rich soil of the oliveorchards, had matured early (Lk. xiii. 6-9). He hastened toward it, only to find it barren, like that fig tree planted in a vineyard which had already served Him as a parable of the Jewish people, so privileged yet so unprofitable. And now by an acted parable He repeats the lesson which He had then [ p. 333 ] taught. “Never more/* said He, “may any one eat fruit of you !”
They passed on and entered the city ; and presently the Lord betook Himself to the outer court of the Temple, always a place of public resort and thronged at that season with the worshippers who had gathered to the Feast and who were eager to see and hear Him. There He resumed His accustomed ministry of teaching and healing, regardless of the Sanhedrin’s decree. The rulers would fain have arrested Him, but they durst not; for, says the Evangelist, “all the people were hanging on His lips.” (Lk. xix. 48) And so for fear of raising a tumult they stood by in impotent wrath. Only once did they venture to interpose. It was when the popular enthusiasm was at its height and the very children swelled the chorus of acclamation by chanting the refrain which yesterday had rung through the streets : “Hosanna to the Son of David !” This within the sacred precincts ! “Do you hear,” cried the Chief Priests and Scribes, “what these are saying ? ” “Yes,” He answered, quoting from the Psalmist with that scornful question wherewith He loved to taunt the Rabbis with ignorance of their own scriptures ; “did you never read : ‘ Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou didst perfect praise ’ ? ” (Ps. viii. 2)
At nightfall He left the city and returned with the Twelve to Gethsemane. It was dark as they climbed the mountain-slope; but as they returned next morning, the disciples remarked with surprise that the fig tree was blasted. They had thought nothing of the sentence which He had pronounced yester-morning, taking it as merely the sort of impatient malediction [ p. 334 ] which escapes one’s lips in a petulant mood. “Rabbi,” cried Peter, “see! the fig tree which you cursed is withered.” It was truly an amazing consequence of a light word, as they deemed it, forgetting that no word of the Master was ever lightly spoken ; and He told them in reply that if only they had faith in their hearts, their words too would be potent. For faith achieves impossibilities, as the Jewish proverb put it, “uprooting mountains.”
Thus conversing, they entered the city and betook themselves to the Temple. His purpose was to continue His ministry there, but He found Himself confronted by a novel and difficult ordeal. The situation was embarrassing for the rulers, and they had consulted how they might deal with it. While He retained His popularity, they durst not meddle with Him, but if only they could discredit Plim with the multitude, then they might do with Him what they would; and so they had devised means to compass this end. They would engage Him in public controversy, plying Him with vexatious questions in the hope of puzzling Him or else betraying Him into some heretical pronouncement which would alienate the popular sympathy and thus leave Him at their mercy. It was a clever stratagem, and it was skilfully executed ; but they found themselves opposed by a skill outmatching theirs, and in each successive encounter they were ignominiously worsted.
First, while He was teaching, there approached Him a deputation of the Sanhedrin, composed of the Chief Priests—Caiaphas the acting Chief Priest with Annas and the other Chief Priests emeriti —representing the [ p. 335 ] party of the Sadducees, and the Scribes and Elders representing that of the Pharisees, and haughtily challenged His credentials. “By what authority/’ they demanded, “are you doing these things ? And who gave you this authority ? ” It was surely a reasonable question. They were the constituted rulers of the Jewish people. The administration of the Temple belonged to the Priests, and teaching was the business of the Rabbis ; and thus in presuming to teach in the court of the Temple without official sanction He was usurping the prerogatives of both. Their primary design was to impress the people by an assertion of their official dignity and arouse their resentment of so flagrant a disregard thereof; and they would hope moreover that in defending His action He would reiterate His high claim to divine authority and thus convict Himself of blasphemy. (Cf. Jo. x. 30)
It was a sudden onslaught, but He encountered it with that prompt dexterity, that ready resourcefulness which He exhibited in every sudden emergency. “I will ask you a question,” said He. “Answer Me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. The Baptism of John—whence was it ? from Heaven or from men ? ” It was a complete checkmate. The Baptist had testified that Jesus was the Messiah, and if they acknowledged his divine commission, then why had they not believed his testimony ? And had they denied it, defaming that mighty prophet who had so stirred the nation, they would have excited a storm of popular indignation. It was an awkward dilemma, and they maintained an embarrassed silence. “Answer Me,” He insisted, and [ p. 336 ] they took refuge in a humiliating profession of uncertainty : “We do not know.” “Neither,” retorted He with crushing scorn,” do I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
It was more than a clever evasion. It was a sharp home-thrust; and He pointed it with a parable. “What think you ? A man had two sons. He came and said to the first: ‘My son, go and work to-day in the vineyard.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ he answered. And he did not go. He came and said likewise to the second; and he answered: ‘I will not.’ By and by he repented and went. Which of the two did the father’s will ?” “The latter” they faltered, pronouncing their own condemnation. For that first son with his hollow profession was an image of themselves. The Baptist’s message had been a proclamation of the Saviour’s advent, and though at first they had been impressed (cf. Jo. v. 35), they had in their self-righteousness resented his call to repentance; and while the sinners whom they despised had turned at his call from their evil way, they had rejected his message and the Saviour whom he proclaimed. “Verily I tell you that the taxgatherers and the harlots are going before you into the Kingdom of God.”
With this stinging sentence He turned to the people who were crowding round and had witnessed the encounter, and spoke a parable to them. He told how a landlord, desirous of making good use of his land and thereby not only enriching himself but benefiting others (Cf. Is. v. 2), turned what would else have been waste ground into a vineyard, sparing no outlay to render it productive. [ p. 337 ] He planted it with vines, fenced it round to keep out mischievous beasts, constructed a winepress for crushing the precious juice out of the ripe grapes (Cf. Ps. lxxx. 12,13; Song. ii. 15), and built a tower where, after the fashion still prevailing, sentinels would be stationed to keep watch night and day while the fruit was maturing and raise the alarm if marauders appeared. It happened that, when he had just completed it, he had to leave home and reside abroad for a time; and, that his vineyard might not lie idle during his absence, he let it to several husbandmen on an agreed rental.
It was a fine opportunity for the husbandmen. If they farmed the vineyard industriously and well, they not only would easily pay the rent but might enrich themselves and, like the landlord before them, acquire vineyards of their own. But in those days of political and social disquietude wild revolutionary ideas— exemplified by the maxim that “a rich man was either a rascal or the heir of a rascal” (dives aut iniquus est aut iniqui haeres)—were abroad and had captivated discontented minds averse from honest industry. These husbandmen regarded their landlord as an oppressive capitalist; and when he sent three of his servants to receive the rent at the ingathering of the first season’s harvest, they violently attacked them. One was heavily cudgelled, another was killed outright, and the third was pelted with stones. Unwilling to take severe measures, he sent another and larger deputation; and, emboldened by impunity, they repeated the outrage. Still his patience held out, and he decided to give them yet another chance and sent his son to deal with them. They misconstrued [ p. 338 ] his forbearance, taking it for weakness and thinking that he was afraid of them ; and when the young master appeared, they said : “Here is the heir ! Let us kill him and take possession.” They dragged him out of the vineyard and murdered him, fancying that the good old landlord would be terrorised and they would be left in unchallenged possession. Cowards themselves, as bullies always are, they thought he was a coward too.
But they misjudged him. The Lord’s hearers, with the fondness for a story so characteristic of orientals, had listened with keen interest; and here He pauses and asks their verdict on the case, “What will the master of the vineyard do to those husbandmen ?” They did not perceive the drift of the parable—that it was a picture of the Jewish people and their behaviour to God. He had sent them a succession of prophets, and these they had persecuted and sometimes martyred ; and now He had sent them His Son, and Him they were about to crucify. This would be the consummation of their guilt, and it would seal their doom—that doom which was presently executed when God cast off His ancient people and bestowed their abused privileges on the despised Gentiles. “What,” asked our Lord, will the master of the vineyard do to those husbandmen ?” “Wretches!” they cried. “He will wretchedly destroy them, and will let the vineyard to others, such as will pay him his fruits at their seasons.”
They did not realise that they were passing judgment on their nation and pronouncing its condemnation ; but the rulers did, and they hotly protested. “Never’” [ p. 339 ] they cried. He “looked upon them” with His calm, searching gaze. “Did you never,” said He, “read this scripture ?—
‘The stone which the builders rejected — (Ps - cxviii. 22,23)
this is made the head of the comer.
This is the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvellous in our eyes.’”
It is a sentence from that psalm which was sung by the repatriated exiles as they repaired to the Feast of Tabernacles in the new Temple which they had so painfully built under Zerubbabel and Joshua (Cf. Ezr. iii). They had constructed it, so far as they might, of the ruined fabric of the old Temple; and the story is that there was a stone of the gateway, defaced yet hallowed by ancient associations, which had been replaced despite the remonstrance of the architects. It met the eyes of the worshippers as they entered, and the sight of it flooded their hearts with sacred and tender memories. Despised by the builders, it was precious to God, and He had used it for His glory. And even so might it not be with the despised Gentiles ?
It was for those haughty Priests and Rabbis a humiliating issue of the encounter which they had so cavalierly provoked, all the more humiliating by reason of its publicity. So far from discrediting Jesus in the popular esteem they had enhanced His reputation, and they could only gnash their teeth and retire. 1 Their discomfiture merely sharpened their animosity, nor were they long in devising a fresh attack. It was the Scribes, the guardians of the Sacred Law, who [ p. 340 ] conducted it. It happened conveniently that they were just then engaged with a case of conjugal infidelity (Cf. Lev. xx. 10; Dt. xxii. 22). The legal ordinance was that both the adulteress and her paramour should be put to death ; and here they saw an opportunity of embarrassing our Lord. They haled the wretched woman to the court of the Temple and, setting her before Him as He sat teaching, stated the case and requested His judgment upon it. “Teacher,” said they, “this woman has been caught in the very act of adultery, and in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such. What then do you say ?”
What could He say ? If, true to His character as “the Friend of sinners,” He advocated mercy, they would accuse Him of subverting the Sacred Law; while, if He approved the inhuman ordinance, He would not only offend the popular sentiment but expose Himself to the taunt of inconsistency, since He had a Magdalene among His followers. They eagerly anticipated His verdict, but He refrained Himself. He stooped down and scribbled on the pavement, “as one does,” observes an ancient interpreter, “who is unwilling to answer an untimely and unworthy question.” It was not embarrassment; it was burning indignation at their heartlessness But they took it for embarrassment and exultantly pressed for an answer. He lifted His glowing face. “That one of you,” He cried, “who is sinless, let him first cast his stone at her.” Then He stooped down again and resumed His nervous fingering.
It was an effective stroke. It transformed the scene. A moment ago they were standing there as accusers of the trembling culprit; now they stand convicted [ p. 341 ] by conscience, that stern Judge within their breasts. With never a word they stole away, “beginning,” it is written, “with the older men till the last was gone.” It was natural that the older should go first, since they best knew the plague of their own hearts; but the reason why the order of their going was remarked is that it was a reversal of the judicial procedure in the Sanhedrin, where the members gave their votes “beginning with the youngest.”
The Lord was left alone amid the encompassing throng with the woman before Him—they two together, misera et misericordia , as St. Augustine has it, that piteous one and Incarnate Pity. He raised His face. “My woman,” said He, “where are they—those your accusers ? Did no one condemn you ?” “No one, Lord,” she replied. “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.” [1]
Their discomfiture exasperated the Rabbis, and on their withdrawal from the court of the Temple they took counsel and devised another stratagem. They enlisted their disciples, the students who, like Saul of Tarsus a little earlier, “sat at their feet” in the Rabbinical College; and associating with them several of the Herodians, those Sadducean courtiers of Herod Antipas (cf. Mk. iii. 6), the Tetrarch of Galilee, who were then at Jerusalem attending the Feast, commissioned them to approach the Lord in the guise of troubled inquirers. In those days the Jews were vassals of Rome, and not merely was the imperial taxation a grievous burden to an impoverished [ p. 342 ] people but, being imposed by a heathen tyrant, it was an offence at once to their patriotism and to their religion. They fretted at it, nor were the Zealots alone in advocating resistance to the odious exaction. How could the Rabbis more surely entrap our Lord than by submitting this vexed question to His decision ? It would wear an aspect of good faith on the lips of their disciples, ardent youths nurtured in the patriotic and religious atmosphere of Pharisaism ; and hardly less on the lips of the Herodians, who, though Sadducees, were jealous of the honour of the native dynasty.
The deputies betook themselves to the court of the Temple and, deferentially approaching Him, propounded their problem with a fulsome adulation which even to one less keen-sighted would have sufficed to betray their insincerity. “Teacher,” said they, “we know that you are true, and teach the way of God in truth ; and you care for no one, for you do not look at men’s face-value. Tell us then what your opinion is : Is it allowable to give tribute to the Emperor or not ? Are we to give it or not to give it ?” Had He answered “No,” they would have delated Him to the Roman governor as a sedition-monger (Cf. Lk. xxiii. 2.); had He answered “Yes,” He would then have incurred popular odium by supporting the alien impost He saw the snare, and He brushed it aside. “Show Me,” said He, “the tribute coin” ; and they handed Him a denarius. He held it up and exhibited the Emperor’s medallion and the inscription : CAESAR AUGUSTUS DIVI F. PATER PATRIAE. “Whose,” He demanded, “is this image and inscription ?” “The Emperor’s” they replied. “Then,” [ p. 343 ] said He, “pay what is the Emperor’s to the Emperor, and what is God’s to God.”
It was more than a deft evasion. Observe His argument. In those days when the Jews were so widely dispersed, it was a wise ordinance of the Jewish law that “wherever any king’s coinage obtained, there his authority should be acknowledged.” The Roman denarius was current in Judsea, and its daily use was an acknowledgment of the Emperor’s sovereignty and his title to tribute. See how our Lord expresses this. The question put to Him was : “Is it allowable to give tribute to the Emperor ? ” and He answers : “Pay what is the Emperor’s to the Emperor.” According to their own law the imperial tribute was not theirs to give or to withhold. It was a debt, and they were bound to pay it. So much for the civil aspect of the question ; and what of its religious aspect ? “God is our King, and submission to the Emperor is disloyalty to Him ” : so argued the zealous patriots, forgetting that God’s is a spiritual Kingdom and the debt which they owed Him a spiritual tribute.
While the Pharisees were busy devising this attack upon our Lord, the Sadducees were not idle. Though they combined in common enmity against Him, they were naturally inveterate adversaries in politics and religion alike. In religion what chiefly differentiated them was the doctrine of immortality. “Sadducees,” it is written, “say that there 8 is no resurrection, no angel or spirit, while Pharisees confess both.” (Ac. xxiii. 8) The blessed hope of a life hereafter was discovered late in the progress of revelation, first establishing itself in the Jewish mind amid the sufferings of the Babylonian Captivity as the one sufficient [ p. 344 ] vindication of God’s hard dealings with His people. It is proclaimed by the Prophets and Psalmists ; but nowhere in the earlier Scriptures is it expressly affirmed, and hence the Sadducees rejected the later writings and acknowledged only the Books of Moses.
Here was an opportunity for puzzling our Lord and putting Him to public confusion. A party of Sadducees, not ill pleased by the failure of their Pharisaic rivals and confident of scoring an easy triumph by pouring scorn on that idea of a resurrection which they deemed so preposterously incredible, now approach Him. “Teacher,” said they, quoting the ancient levirate law, “Moses said : ‘ If one die without children, his brother shall do a husband’s part by his wife, and raise up seed for his brother.’” (Dt. xxv. 5,6) Then they presented a case—a purely fictitious case, since that law, designed of old when there was no thought of personal immortality, to prevent a man’s name from being “blotted out of Israel,” had long fallen into desuetude. It was the case of a man who died childless. He had six brothers, and they all in succession took his wife and all died without issue by her. She survived them all, and then she too died. “At the Resurrection then,” was their problem, “whose wife will she be ? For all the seven had her.”
It was an absurd question ; for even had the levirate law been still in force, no difficulty would have arisen, since the six brothers were none of them the woman’s husband : they simply performed an husband’s part by her, and she belonged throughout to her deceased husband. The case was an invention and a stupid invention, and the Lord might justly have swept the question contemptuously aside. But He answered it and exposed [ p. 345 ] the folly which prompted it. “You err,” said He, “not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.”
Here is a twofold indictment, and in establishing it He begins with the latter count—their ignorance of the power of God. Their error lay in their measurement of the possible by the actual. They were like that Siamese prince of whom the philosopher tells in his Chapter of Probability . A Dutch ambassador, entertaining him with the particularities of Holland, “amongst other things told him that the water in his country would sometimes be so hard in cold weather that men walked upon it, and that it would bear an elephant, if he were there. To which the king replied,
‘ Hitherto I have believed the strange things you have told me, because I looked upon you as a sober fair man; but now I am sure that you lie/” For that prince his own experience in a torrid clime was the measure of the universe ; and even so it was with the Sadducees. They construed the unseen and eternal in terms of the seen and temporal, oblivious that the earthly is but the shadow of the heavenly. Our human affections are immortal, and “the marriage of true minds” is an eternal union ; but in the hereafter it will be a spiritual intimacy, absolved from the limitations of sense. “You err,” said our Lord, not knowing the power of God. For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor do the marriage office.” The hallowed union is indeed imperishable, but it will be “marriage” no longer (Rev. ii. 17). Even as of old a life-transforming experience was signalised by the gift of a new name, and as it is written that a new name will be given to each heir of eternal glory, so too will it be with this and all those [ p. 346 ] sweet and tender affections which even here are our most precious possessions. They will endure in Eternity, but so transfigured and ennobled that the old names will no longer suffice.
“What new name hae they gi’en thee, love.
In the far-near countree,
That nane can ken but them wha get ?
O whisper it to me !
“In the near far o’ our young life
Thy name was changed to mine.
Oh, when I reach thy far-near hame.
May my new name be thine !”
And now He turns to the other count of His indictment—their ignorance of the Scriptures. Though they rejected the later writings, they acknowledged the Pentateuch ; and was there indeed no testimony to the Resurrection there ? “Have you not read in the Book of Moses (Ex. iii. 6) in the passage about the Bush how God spoke to him ? ‘I am,’ said He, ‘the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ He is not a God of dead men but of living.”
In that ancient scripture, in order to assure Moses of His present and continual mercy, God reminds him of His mercy in bygone generations. It is one of those appeals to history which abound in the Old Testament and are so peculiarly and abidingly persuasive ; but it may seem as though in finding in it an intimation of immortality, our Lord imported into the passage an alien idea. His argument is that had those fathers of old ceased to be when they passed away, God must have said “I was their God.” To [ p. 347 ] our minds it seems a mere verbal quibble, but even so it was a legitimate and cogent argument. For that was the very manner of Jewish exegesis in our Lord’s day. It was precisely thus that His contemporaries handled the Scriptures, and in so reasoning with His adversaries He was meeting them on their own ground and turning their own weapons against them.
But in truth His argument was more, far more, than a dialectical stratagem. When God proclaimed Himself “the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” it was His own eternity that He proclaimed, and their immortality is a corollary thereof. He is “the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever.” All that He ever was He is and shall be evermore; and therefore “all live for Him.” Whatsoever has once had a place in His heart must share His eternity ; else He would be impoverished and diminished. Here as ever it was from God’s side that our Lord looked. He knew what lies behind the veil, and the reasoning of those vain men, so confident in their blindness, awoke His sorrowful compassion. “You err ! ” He cried. “You greatly err ! ”
Among the throng which had watched the encounter between our Lord and those Sadducees there was a group of Pharisees including several Rabbis. It pleased them to witness the discomfiture of their hereditary adversaries ; and so delighted were the Rabbis with His masterly vindication of their cardinal doctrine that they could not refrain from applause. “Teacher,” they cried, “you have spoken nobly.” Presently, however, they recollected themselves. They were not there to applaud Jesus but to put Him, if they might, to confusion, and they would fain again [ p. 348 ] adventure on the field where their rivals had so ignominiously failed. They had bethought themselves of another question for His embarrassment and chosen one of their number to propound it; and he now steps forward. “Teacher,” said he, “which is the greatest commandment in the Law ?”
It appears a harmless question, but in truth it bristled with contention. The commandments of the Law, as the Scribes reckoned, numbered 613—248 affirmative and 365 negative ; and they were further distinguished as “weighty” and “light.” There was much debate how many should be accounted xvii. 14; weighty, but it was generally agreed that all commandments were weighty to which the Penalty of excommunication or death was attached (Cf. Gen. xvii. 14; Ex. xii. 15;19; xxxi. 14; Lev. vii. 20,25; Num. xix. 20); and since these were mainly concerned with circumcision, leaven, Sabbathkeeping, sacrifice, and purification, the distinction fostered that tendency to ceremonialism which had so blighted religion in our Lord’s day.
It was thus a highly contentious question that those Pharisees presented to our Lord, and they confidently anticipated that one so disdainful of their punctilious ceremonial would deliver an aggressive pronouncement. But they were disappointed. He answered : “‘ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might’ : this is the greatest and first commandment (Dt. vi. 4-5; Lev. xix. 18). And there is a second like it: ‘ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” These two commandments he apart [ p. 349 ] in the ancient Law, one in the Book of Deuteronomy and the other in the Book of Leviticus; and thus combined they constitute an admirable summary of religious duty in its double aspect—love of God and love of man. The point to be observed here is that, while He approved it, their combination was not our Lord’s own device. It was a felicitous commonplace of Rabbinical doctrine, and some six months earlier He had commended it on the lips of another Scribe and shown the largeness of its implication (cf. Lk. x. 27). By quoting it so aptly here our Lord not merely affirmed the truth but so affirmed it that controversy was impossible. Had they challenged His reply, His assailants would have been challenging their own doctrine.
It completed their discomfiture that for the purpose which they had in view their spokesman had been ill chosen. He was a Pharisee of the better sort, an earnest seeker after God ; and the truth uttered by those gracious lips touched his heart. “Of a truth, Teacher,” he exclaimed, “you have spoken nobly ! There is one God, and ‘ there is none else beside Him’ ; and to love Him with all one’s heart and with all one’s understanding and with all one’s might’ and ‘ to love one’s neighbour as oneself ’ is far more than all ‘ whole-burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ ” (1 Sam. xv. 22) “You are not far from the Kingdom of God,” was our Lord’s kindly reply. It was a gracious appeal to that seeking soul, and surely it would prevail.
Hitherto the rulers have been the assailants, but now that they have delivered this succession of attacks only to sustain in each instance a humiliating repulse, [ p. 350 ] our Lord assumes the offensive. He faces that group of Rabbis, professional interpreters of Holy Writ, and puts a question to them. “What think you of the Messiah ? Whose son is He ? ” “David’s” they replied. “Then,” said He, quoting the hundred and tenth Psalm, “how is it that David in the Spirit calls Him ‘ lord’ saying :
“‘ The Lord said to my lord, Sit at My right hand Until I make thy foes thy footstool’ ?”
“My lord ” was of old the reverential address of a son to his father (Cf. 1 Pet. iii. 6), a younger brother to an elder, or a wife to her husband. “If then David calls Him ‘ lord,’ how is He his son ?”
Observe the argument. It is a reductio ad absurdum of the Rabbinical interpretation of that ancient scripture. Read without prejudice, the psalm is easily understood. It is the work of an unknown psalmist, celebrating the prowess of some king of Israel, the psalmist’s “lord,” who owed his triumph to the help of the Lord, the God of Israel. It is possible that the king was David, but the sequel points rather to a later period when the king was, “after the manner of Melchizedek,” at once king and priest.
This is the plain meaning of the psalm, but the Scribes construed it otherwise. Impatient of anonymity, they placed every scripture under the shadow of some great name. This psalm, like most of “the praises of Israel,” they ascribed to “the sweet psalmist of Israel,” (2 Sam. xxiii. 1) entitling it A Psalm of David ; and they also regarded it as Messianic. David, as they conceived, sang prophetically of his Lord, that scion of his royal house who, according to [ p. 351 ] the promise, should arise as the King and Saviour of Israel. Thus they made two assumptions regarding the psalm, one false —that it was written by David , and the other true, though hardly in their sense —that it was written of the Messiah .
It is indeed a prophecy of the Coming Saviour, but here it is most needful to recognise what prophecy was. It was never mere prediction, “the history of events before they came to pass.” As St. Chrysostom put it long ago, “the law of prophecy” is that it always had a double reference—a present and a future. The prophet was God’s spokesman, proclaiming to his contemporaries in time of distress a message of good cheer (Cf. Ex. iv. 16, vii 1), a radiant vision of God’s purposes toward His people if only they proved faithful. It was a message for the hour, but the marvel is that it always transcended the immediate occasion and reached far beyond it. The holy men who spake from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, ever spoke more largely than either they or their hearers knew; and thus in all the ancient Scriptures there is not an ideal, a hope, or an aspiration which was not an anticipation, conscious or unconscious, of the Coming Saviour and which did not find in Him its final and complete realisation.
In this large sense that psalm was indeed prophetic of the Messiah, and the Scribes were right in so regarding it; but had they understood “the law of prophecy” they would have recognised that it had originally a present as well as a future reference, and they would then have perceived how impossible it is that David should have written it. And this our Lord brought home to them by His question : “Since the Messiah [ p. 352 ] is David’s son, how is it that David styles Him ‘ my lord ’ ?” For Jewish minds it was inconceivable that a father should so designate his son, and they could escape from the difficulty only by abandoning one or other of their assumptions regarding the psalm—either its Davidic authorship or its Messianic reference. Either would have involved an acknowledgment of error, and this in presence of the multitude would have been a dire humiliation for those learned interpreters of Holy Writ. At the moment they prudently kept silence, dissembling their discomfiture ; but it rankled in their minds, and afterwards, as the Talmud shows, they revised their interpretation, making the psalm refer not to the Messiah but to Abraham who, they supposed, after his conquest of the five kings was constituted “a priest for ever after the manner of Melchizedek.” (Cf. Gen. xiv) At the moment, however, they held their peace, and neither they nor the Sadducees ventured on a renewal of the controversy.
On the position of this passage (Jo. vii. 53-viii. 11)—a precious fragment of the Evangelic Tradition, being a reader’s marginal comment on Jo. viii. 15 incorporated with the text by later copyists —cf. The Days of His Flesh , Introd. p. xix. ↩︎