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THE FIRST YEAR OF HIS MINISTRY
AT THE PASSOVER
Jo. ii. 12-22 (Mt. xxi. 12, 13 ; Mk. xi. 153-17 5 Lk. xix. 45, 46), 23-iii. 21.
After the wedding Jesus betook Himself to Capernaum on the north-western shore of the Lake of Galilee, some fifteen miles distant from Cana; and not only His five disciples but Mary and her sons accompanied Him. It was natural that the four fishermen should go thither, since their homes were at Capernaum ; but what took the others ? Mary and her family dwelt at Nazareth, and Nathanael belonged to Cana. What took them to Capernaum ? It may be inferred from the presence of the four fishermen at the wedding that the bridegroom belonged to Capernaum and they attended as his friends ; and if Mary and her family and Nathanael attended as intimates and perhaps relatives of the bride, it was natural that they should escort her to her new home.
Jesus had another reason for going to Capernaum. He had chosen that busy town as the headquarters of His ministry, and He went thither to arrange for His settlement. He stayed but a few days. It was now the spring of the year 26 A.D., and the Feast of the Passover, falling that year on March 21, was approaching. It was the custom for all devout Israelites to betake themselves to Jerusalem for the holy celebration ; and Jesus presently set forth with His five [ p. 56 ] disciples on that sacred errand, retracing the route which they had so lately travelled. Ever since His twelfth year He had made the annual pilgrimage; but now He goes up on a high errand—no longer to participate as an ordinary worshipper in the sacred solemnity but to present Himself as the Messiah and claim the faith of the multitude assembled not alone from all the Holy Land but from every country where Jews had their abode.
Immediately on His arrival He found an effective opportunity. The greedy priests, who belonged to the courtly and unpatriotic order of the Sadducees, had, professedly for the convenience of the worshippers but in truth for their own enrichment, instituted and maintained for generations in the outer court of the Temple a market for the sale of sacrificial victims and the exchange of foreign money into the Jewish currency (Cf. Zech. xiv. 21 R.V.). It was a sordid desecration of the hallowed precincts; and it was widely and keenly resented not alone by the people but by the Pharisees, the guardians of traditional orthodoxy and the jealous rivals of the Sadducean order, and thus a protest against the iniquity was assured of much sympathy. On entering the sacred court Jesus was confronted by the offensive spectacle. Snatching a loose tether. He twisted it into a scourge and drove the cattle from the court. In the confusion the money-changers’ tables were overturned and their coins scattered about the pavement. “Take these things hence !” He cried. “Make not My Father’s house a house of merchandise.’ [1]
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When the court was cleared, He faced the priests who were standing by discomfited, and indignantly denounced them. “Is it not written,” He cried, “‘My House shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (Mk. xi. 17) Nor would He leave it doubtful what He meant when He styled the Temple “His Father’s House.” (Is. lvi. 7. Jer. vii. 11) He was the Son of God.” It was a public declaration of His Messiahship ; and it disquieted “the Jews,” as St. John terms them, meaning after his wont the Jewish rulers representing both the Sadducees and the Pharisees. It revived the perplexity which the Baptist’s announcement had already created in their minds. Could this be indeed the Messiah ? they asked ; and presently they approached Him and craved an attestation of His claim. It was, as we have seen, the general expectation that the Messiah would approve His title by some startling demonstration of His divine commission; and so they asked Him : “What sign do you show us for doing these things ?”
It was a repetition of the Tempter’s suggestion in the wilderness that He should precipitate Himself from the Pinnacle of the Temple in view of the wondering multitude ; and having faced it then. He unhesitatingly rejects it now. He granted a sign indeed, but not the sort of sign they craved. “Demolish this sanctuary,” He said, “and in three days I will raise it.” It was a cryptic saying… “The Sanctuary” was properly the central shrine, situated in the inner court of the Temple, with its two chambers, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The term in the original signifies “the [ p. 58 ] habitation” or “dwelling-place,” the place of the Divine Presence; and it was figuratively employed ot the body, first as the habitation of the soul and then as abode of the Indwelling Spirit. (Cf. I Cor. iii. 16,17, vi. 19; 2 Cor. vi. 16) It is in this last sense that Jesus here employs it; but the rulers missed His meaning. It seemed to’ them a wild blasphemy. “Forty and six years, said they, reckoning from the year 20 B.C. when the building of Herod’s Temple was begun, “has this Sanctuary been in the budding; and will you raise it in three days ?” (Mt. xxvi. 61, xxvii. 40; Mk. xiv. 58, xv. 29; cf. Ac. vi. 14) So His mystic saying was understood bv the rulers and even at the moment by His disciples; and three years later, when He was arraigned before the Sanhedrin as a blasphemer, it was alleged against Him.
In truth it was a prophecy of His Death and Resurrection; and it is only one of several evidences which the Evangelists record that from the very outset of His ministry He had a clear prevision of the road which, according to the Scriptures, He must tread. At every stage of His progress through the world the shadow of the Cross lay dark and grim upon His path. (Cf. Jo. iii. 14; Mt. ix. 14,15; Mk. ii. 18-20; Lk. v. 33-35; Lk. xxiv. 25-27) Calvary was His earthly goal, but beyond it shone the Eternal Glory.
Throughout the sacred week He prosecuted the ministry thus impressively inaugurated. There was scanty accommodation within the narrow limits of the city for the multitude of visitors, and most of them lodged outside. Many camped in the open, and this was the custom of Jesus and His disciples. [ p. 59 ] Afterwards and perhaps even now His retreat was Gethsemane, an olive-orchard on the slope of Mount Olivet. Thither He retired each evening, and in the morning He would return to the city and employ Himself in the outer court of the Temple, not merely teaching the people who frequented that place of common resort but working miracles among them, especially miracles of healing. (Mt. xxvi. 36; Mk. xiv. 32; cf. Jo. xviii. 1,2; Lk. xxi. 37,38; Cf. Mt. xxi. 14) These attested His Messianic claim, and it was largely acknowledged. It might seem that He had achieved no small success, but He perceived how truly worthless all that enthusiasm was. It was mere wonderment with no recognition of His spiritual purposes. “Many,” says the Evangelist in an epigrammatic sentence (Jo. ii. 23-25), “admitted His title on beholding His signs which He performed ; but on His part Jesus would not commit Himself to them, because He could read every one and had no need of any one’s testimony regarding man; for He could Himself read what was in man.”
The justice of His misgivings was demonstrated by a remarkable incident. Each day that passed increased the perplexity of the rulers, and they determined to seek another interview with Jesus. They might have approached Him in the Temple-court; but, unwilling to compromise themselves, they rather deputed one of their number to confer with Him privately. Their choice fell upon Nicodemus, a venerable Scribe or Rabbi, a member of the learned order of the Pharisees whose business was the conservation and interpretation of the Sacred Law. To ensure secrecv he waited till nightfall and sought Him under cover of darkness in His retreat on the mountainside.
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Picture the scene: the deep, blue, starlit sky overhead ; the solemn stillness broken only by the rustle of the breeze among the leaves of the orchard; the venerable Teacher of Israel and the young Galilean peasant face to face and the wondering disciples in the background. With studious courtesy Nicodemus unfolded his errand. “Rabbi,” he began, according Him that honourable title which His fame as a teacher merited, “we know”—my colleagues and I—“that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can perform the signs which you perform unless God be with him.”
Of so much they were persuaded: Jesus was “a teacher come from God.” But might He not be more ? Did not His miracles prove Him the Messiah, come to establish “the Kingdom of God” ? That was the question which was perplexing the rulers, and Nicodemus would have presented it; but Jesus interrupted him. “Verily, verily I tell you”—you yourself—“unless one be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” This was the vital issue— each man’s personal relation to God and His quickening grace.
Here Jesus employs a word which bears in the original a double signification, either “from above” or “anew.” It was the former sense that He intended —“born from above” ; but the idea was strange to Nicodemus, and he took the word in the latter sense. “Bom anew” : what could this mean ? It seemed an absurdity. “How can a man be born when he is old ? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born ?”
Jesus patiently explained. “Verily, verily I tell [ p. 61 ] you, unless one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” The reference here is to the Baptist’s message which of late had stirred the nation and troubled the rulers. His requirement was “repentance for remission of sins.” Repentance procured forgiveness, (Mk. i. 4) and to the penitent he administered his rite of Baptism in token that they were forgiven. At the same time he recognised and proclaimed the limitation of his ministry. It was merely a preparation for the better ministry of the Coming Saviour. He required repentance and pronounced the absolution of every sinner who truly turned to God ; but mere repentance and absolution of the past do not constitute a full salvation. For what avails it that we have been “purged from our old sins” unless our hearts and their affections have been so renewed that we shall henceforth hate sin and have done with it ? This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and John had promised that the blessed secret would be revealed when the Saviour came. He would institute a better Baptism—a Baptism which included in its gracious symbolism repentance and remission but added thereto that inward operation which makes the sinner a new creature. “I baptise you with water, but He who is coming after me will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Mt. iii. 11)—the flame of divine love which burns sin out of the soul as the refiner’s fire burns the dross out of the silver.
This is a full salvation—repentance, forgiveness, and renewal; and this is what Jesus meant when He defined “bom anew” as “born of water and the Spirit.” It was a spiritual experience, and after the [ p. 62 ] manner which He loved and practised so largely in after days, He illustrated it by a parable. In Jewish speech the same word, properly “breath”, signified both “wind” and “spirit” ; and as they sat, the soft, sweet breeze was stirring the leafage and fanning their brows. There was an image of the operation of heavenly grace.(Cf. Eccl. xi. 5 R.V.) “Do not wonder,” said He, “at My telling you, ‘You must all be born anew.’ The breath breathes where it will; and you hear the sound of it, but you know not whence it comes and where it goes. So is it with every one who has been born of the Breath.”
It was lost upon Nicodemus. “How can this be ?” he murmured in bewilderment; and his dulness disappointed Jesus. If a Rabbi were so blind to the spiritual significance of familiar experience, so incapable of grasping the very rudiments of His revelation, what would the common folk make of the transcendent truths which He had yet to proclaim ? Still He persisted, and discoursed at length, not to Nicodemus alone but to His disciples as well, of the high ends of His mission. Even the disciples would understand little at the moment, but His words lived in their remembrance and experience illumined them ever more clearly. He spoke of the world perishing like the Israelites when they were bitten by the serpents in the wilderness (Num. xxi. 6-9), and of the errand on which He had come—an errand not of judgment but of mercy. As Moses had lifted the brazen serpent in sight of the perishing people and all who looked at it were healed, so God of His infinite love had sent Him into the world that every one who believed in Him might not perish but have eternal life. And He spoke [ p. 63 ] finally of the responsibility which His message imposed on all who should hear it. The dawn was breaking, and here He found another parable. “This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness more than the light.”
On the reason why the Synoptists place this incident in the Passion-week, cf. The Days of His Flesh , p. xxxv. ↩︎