In the early part of this chapter we have an account of the miracle wrought in a desert place, when five thousand men that waited on the ministry of the Lord Jesus were fed with five barley loaves and two small fishes, and of the effect that this wonderful work had on the minds of those that witnessed it. The people, under the fresh impression of what they saw and tasted, came at once to the conclusion “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.” They came to a right conclusion, yet they came to it in a carnal way, and that this was how they came to it was soon made plain. Their first impulse was to take Him by force and to make Him king. This of itself showed how little they were inclined to subject themselves to the authority of Him whom they recognised to be the Prophet. They were ready to run before Him, and in false and fiery zeal to lead Him, instead of consenting or seeking to be led by Him. Such attachment as this He would have none of. He withdrew from them and went to a mountain alone.
His disciples crossed the sea, and on the way He joined them, so that by morning light He was on the other side on the sea from the multitude that had so lately decided that he was indeed the Prophet long expected by Israel. They could not find Him, sought for Him, crossed the sea, and came to Capernaum “seeking for Jesus. Were there nothing told us of them but that they followed Him so laboriously and sought for Him until they found Him we might think that something divine and spiritual led them to take the course they took. Surely there was burning, flaming zeal exhibited in such conduct. At the cost of no small personal inconvenience they had pursued their search until they found Him. Was there not devotion here shown to His person and cause? Surely one might say this at any rate is love to the Prophet. They have recognised Him, and they are prepared to follow Him. He, however, knew what was in man and needed not that any should testify. He knew what manner of people they were and what their spirit was. Their flattering attentions did not find in Him what could be deceived or puffed up. Nay, they met with a rebuff at His hand. He spoke plainly, and brought out before their eyes the secret springs of action that impelled them in the course of conduct they were now pursuing. They might say, ‘Surely He will be flattered with our earnest, zealous waiting on His words, and the more they thought themselves entitled to a welcome on His part that would correspond to their own enthusiasm the more were His words and the reception He gave them fitted to damp their ardour.
“Rabbi,” they said when they found Him, “When camest Thou hither?” Still they give Him the place they acknowledged already to be His when they concluded Him to be the Prophet. They salute Him as master, and in so doing virtually profess themselves His scholars ready to wait on His instructions. He proceeds forthwith to instruct them, but His doctrine was rather plain than palatable. He at once told them their motives in seeking Him. They sought Him not because they saw His miracles, but because they had eaten of the loaves and were satisfied. They had not learned the lessons that His miracle was fitted to teach them; they were but grovelling earth worms; though His glory was manifested in His works they saw it not. They were not spiritual subjects of His realm prepared to submit their neck to His yoke, and He knew it. Nothing nobler than this led them on; they had eaten of the loaves and were filled. They might by engaging in their lawful callings earn their bread by the sweat of their brow and so satisfy one craving at anyrate that brought them after Him. The novelty of His method of meeting their needs might, acting as an irritant of their vain curiosity, bring them with eyes not satisfied with seeing to see again what they had seen already. They had come to where He was after a search. It was not without toil that they found Him. That energy and activity might if otherwise applied have secured the satisfaction of their hunger in a lawful way. Now, however, while professing to recognise Him as the Prophet and as their Master, they waited on Him not to have their soul fed with spiritual food, but to have their vague thirst for the wonderful gratified and their mortal bodies strengthened with the bread that perishes. Accepting their declaration that He was their Master, He thus taught them, and in teaching made plain that he knew what was in man, and gave them additional reasons, albeit unpalatable to proud nature, to conclude that He knew heart secrets. He not only revealed what was within, but He also gave advice. When they waited on His word and ministry they should have in view not the bread that perishes, but the bread that endures. They should in accordance at once with what their profession involved and with the reason of the thing seek first and foremost the food that was fitted to satisfy their soul. They should as rational accountable creatures esteem the soul more than the body, and so doing seek above everything what tended to promote its highest interests.
This was the advice He gave them. How was it taken? Do they immediately back out of their profession and, indignant at such imputations on their motives, resent the reception that their attentions met with? Or do they at once humbly submit to His authority and meekly subject themselves to His word? Were they or were they not angry at the plainness of His dealing? Let us see. He has given them advice to work for the meat that endureth to everlasting life. They still profess themselves ready to take counsel with Him, or rather from Him. Practically they say, “Thou art our Master and givest us advice; we need that Thy advice should be explained; we need to understand it. If we are to work for the enduring meat, ‘What shall we do that we might work the works of God?'”
They were a self-righteous generation. Their kind has not died out. Self-righteousness is as ripe to-day as ever it was. They are set on doing; they will work out His will. “What shall we do?” Was it not right and proper that they should ask this? Undoubtedly it is the part of a rational being to put this question, and particularly so to put it when he has the opportunity of receiving instruction from above. The doing of the will of God, the doing of the work He marks out for us, the fulfilling of the end of our creation, should be a pressing question with accountable agents. That we may do the will of God we need a two-fold deliverance, and to this the Redeemer shuts in His hearers. They were ready offhand to assay the task that should be set before them, and if some great thing were asked to be done, something in the doing of which they might shine, it would be no doubt acceptable to hear of it. The Redeemer, however, brings them up with His answer, “This is the work of God that ye believe in Him whom He hath sent.” Not doing great things, but submissively receiving His words was what was put before them as the doing of the work of God. Thus should they eat the living bread. They are taken now on their profession, and the heartiness of their adhesion to it is put to the test. They had but acknowledged that he was the Prophet, long expected, come at last. They still professed themselves His disciples though He had rebuffed them. Now, however, He makes in clear terms the claim to be received as the Prophet, and He challenges them as it were to make good their recent profession. The testing to which it had already been subjected showed itself now. The dissatisfaction that His rebuff of their attentions aroused was now brought to light. Brought face to face with His claims, though He claimed to be only what they had so lately recognised Him to be, they indicate plainly that they were not ready to bow their shoulder to His yoke. They evidently cast off the mask of humble disciples, satisfied with the evidence already perceived, and convinced that this was of a truth that Prophet. They turn sceptics. “Ah! that a serious matter. The claim is no small one. If thou art the Prophet expected of the Fathers we ‘must implicitly receive Thy word; we must yield ourselves entirely to Thine authority.'” This they were not prepared to do. Thus the hollowness of their professions became apparent.
They understood that He spoke of Himself, and that He claimed to be the Prophet that should arise like unto Moses. The promise had long been the possession of Israel, and many prophets had been raised up, but in none of them had the word given to Moses and spoken by Him found its fulfilment. Great prophets had arisen, but in intimacy of communion with God not one of them attained to the stature of Moses. To him the Lord spoke face to face, and if thus in intimacy of communion with the fountain of light Moses surpassed his successors, the Prophet who was to be like Moses must resemble him in this distinctive feature. Moses, too, inaugurated a new dispensation of the Covenant of Grace. He was the Mediator of the Old Testament through whom the Lord spake unto Israel. In this respect also no one of the many prophets raised up of old approached him. He who should rise like unto him must resemble him in this. A new dispensation must by him be inaugurated. The change his successor must introduce meant the upturning of the dispensation that then was. As the result of his coming what is antiquated must soon pass away. That which decayed and waxed old was now ready to vanish away.
The Messianic claim brought solemn issues before Israel. If they refused to hear the prophet so long foretold, it would be required at their hand. And these solemn issues were now before the multitude that waited on the Lord Jesus in Capernaum. Had they reason to receive him as Messiah and the Prophet, then it was something to answer for if they refused to bow their shoulder to His yoke. They had reason to ascertain how the case stood, and it was in one sense no unreasonable request that they now made when they sought for evidence. They sought a sign. That they had already concluded that this was the Prophet, and in so doing were right, is undoubted. How flimsy their conclusion was in its kind was already apparent. It was but a fleshly judgment come to under the influence of what they saw in the wilderness. The instability of flesh and blood appears in the reversal of position we now have. After vows they make inquiry. They had not dug deep and laid their foundation on the rock. Such is the case with the superficial convictions of many still. Their minds, so far as they take any side, seem to incline to the acknowledgment of the truth. This they do, however, from regard to the testimony and example of others. They have not heard and learned of the Father. They have not seen for themselves. Such convictions do not carry far. They do not count for much. They may go hand in hand with fleshly zeal, and may flash in the pan. But testing, trial, they cannot bear. What we need is what will stand testing, not what will blow away as the chaff of the threshing floor, but what will fall as good grain to be gathered into the garner. A divine faith, the product of divine teaching, the gift of God that discovers to the individual the thoughts of God in the Cross of Christ, this is what is needed, and this is the very thing that was awanting on the part of this multitude, whose zeal had carried them so far and then left them stranded high and dry. Before the Redeemer’s discourse on this occasion was over, many of His disciples were offended and left Him. He winnowed them with the fan of doctrine. The winnowing process—the testing, the trial—served only to bring out more clearly, in contrast with the apostasy of the rest, the constancy of the true disciples. “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
Now they seek a sign, and they do so in significant terms. They quite appreciate the nature of the claim that has but been uttered in their hearing. He who stands before them and speaks, asks for the unconditional surrender of their whole inner man to His authority. He challenges acceptance as the Divine Messenger who should introduce the “world to come” the days of Messiah to which Israel looked forward. The parallel between Moses the Mediator of the dispensation of exclusion and the prophet like unto him is obviously before their minds. Moses surpassed all the prophets in his intimate familiarity with the Lord in the honour conferred upon him when he was set over the house of God as a servant. Ample attestation was afforded to his mission, and Israel had every reason throughout their successive generations to be convinced that God spake unto Moses “Now,” the people seem to say, “our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Week in week out for forty years the many thousands of Israel were miraculously sustained in the waste and howling wilderness. Such was Moses to our fathers. Well might they and well may we, their offspring, believe in his divine mission. If thou hast come with credentials such as his were produce them. Hast thou such outstanding intimacy of intercourse with the Highest as he had, or dost thou introduce a new world, a new order, that is destined to supplant his? If so, we must be as well satisfied as to Thy credentials as we are of his. What sign shewest Thou then that we may see and believe? What dost thou work?”
The Jews sought a sign; a wicked and adulterous generation sought it. We find on one occasion that the Redeemer assured them that no sign should be given them but the sign of the prophet Jonas. The burial and resurrection of Jonah were to be fulfilled in their days. The narrative of the prophet’s experience adumbrated the history of a greater Prophet. The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the burden of the Gospel. The stone set at nought of the builders was to become the head of the corner, and this has come to pass. The burden of prophetic testimony, as it bore on the common salvation, was the sufferings of Messiah and the glory that should follow. Not the sufferings only, and not the glory only, but both together, and together in a certain order—not a glory that should end in suffering, but suffering that should be crowned with glory. Only when the Son of Man was lifted up could Scripture find its fulfilment, and without this lifting up there should be no message of life for a sin-stricken world. The testimony of Scripture was express, and on the ground that it was clear and unmistakeable to the docile receiver of its message, the Lord Jesus proceeds in the rebuke He administered to His disciples after the resurrection—” O fools, and slow of heart to understand all that the prophets have spoken ; ought not the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?” If those that had enjoyed His own leading guidance and tuition for the years that His earthly ministry lasted stood in need of such a rebuke, may we not safely assert of Israel as a whole that their Messianic expectations were altogether out of joint. They had reason to expect the fulfilment of the promise, but the mere word of prophecy did not get fair treatment at their hands. Elements that entered into its description of the coming One they no doubt applied to Him. Other elements, however, that equally applied to Him they misapplied ; nay, they failed to apply to Him, and thus at the best their view of Him who was their fathers’ hope was a distorted one ; and soon those descriptions given beforehand that they did correctly apply to Him, they degraded by carnalising them, so that if the instructed disciples, not yet free from the entanglement of prejudices and mistakes, amid which they had grown up, and which had infected the very air they breathed, were open to the rebuke of ” Fools and slow of heart,” this rebuke in a more intense form applied to the nation at large.
How then does the Lord deal with the request that is made for a sign ? He practically threw His hearers back on the divinity that shone in His every word—Let them there recognise who He was. Never man spake like Him—Let them come to realise this, and give it the place due to it. Then they should no longer as children crave for signs and wonders, without which they would not believe. We have seen how Messiah referred those that asked a sign to the sign of the prophet Jonas. This sign that generation should have, and the record of its fulfilment all generations have to the end of time. The Stone must be rejected of the builders. This must be so that the signs of Messiah might attest the genuineness of His claims. This gives us a glimpse of what Messianic pretenders had to pass through. It was a crucial test indeed. Their claims they could make good only by being rejected, and, as we now see, rejected unto the death, and once this rejection came about, their Messianic claims came to nought. There was no rising again for them. There was no broad seal of heaven’s acceptance to be stamped on their impious pretensions. The fulfilment of the conditions that marked out Him of whom Moses in the law and the Prophets did write involved something that secured for His claims nothing less than divine attestation.
The Gospel of God, now that the kingdom of God has come, concerns His Son, who is defined by the resurrection to be what He claimed to be. In the testimony borne by the apostles—competent witnesses—to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the wicked and adulterous generation had the sign of the prophet Jonas brought before their eyes. A sign has been given, and it is a sign pregnant with meaning. The whole Gospel is in it. In its interpreted form it is the setting forth of the propitiation—the revelation of the righteousness—He who was delivered for our offences has been raised for our justification. Messiah the Prince has been cut off, to bring in everlasting righteousness. The resurrection is involved in the sign as surely as the death.
Many impostors died, and that was an end of their imposture. Their influence did not, for it could not, outlive themselves. Their views were absorbed with what was between them and death—how best they could delude the people, how best they could aggrandise themselves, and they had no wish to submit to the ordeal of death. The Lord Jesus, however, came with death in full view; the prospect of it was not sprung upon Him as a surprise. From the outset of His course in public He contemplated the goal. The Brazen Serpent must have its Antitype. The temple must be destroyed to be built again. Calmly He looked forward to what He must pass through, and the one sign He gives is His own sacrificial death with its triumphant and blessed results. If the burden of the prophets was a suffering Messiah, the burden of the Gospel is Jesus the Christ and the Christ crucified. When the message of eternal life as God’s free gift to a sin-blighted race is proclaimed, the whole setting of Divine truth, when seen with open eyes, is a proclamation of the divinity of the Word.
Law and gospel, ruin and remedy, curse and blessing, when set beside each other show the profound need, suitableness, and excellency of the Gospel. There are truths that do not belong to the Gospel that are essential to a satisfactory acquaintance with its nature and its purpose. For an unfallen world the message of reconciliation might be pronounced to be an impertinence. “What,” it might be asked, “is the need or call for reconciliation?” For a world suffering from some malady that involved it in no such dire results as await our world under the wrath revealed from heaven, such a wonderful provision as the Gospel brings before us would seem to be uncalled for. One might ask in view of it “Why this profusion, this prodigality of grace?” For a world able to help itself and to win the favour of the Highest by its deserving and well-directed struggles, even though surrounded with mist and darkness, the very doctrine of gratuitous salvation would be an insult. But law and gospel so fit into each other that the very situation of affairs that the law describes is the very case for which the gospel provides. The very provision made in the gospel, and nothing less will meet the deep need and the hopeless ruin that the law reveals.
Grace revealed, as reigning through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord, is the message of hope to the hopeless. Nothing less than eternal life will do for creatures endowed with a being destined to last for ever, and under the tyranny of a principle that like an undying worm gnaws at their heart and feeds on the exercise of God-given faculties when they are prostituted to the service of the adversary. The salvation of the gospel is through righteousness and in the Son. His is the righteousness that entitles to eternal life. Nay, He in His obedience is that righteousness—the righteousness for sinners, the righteousness of God. He is made of the Father righteousness to as many as receive Him. He bore their guilt that He might bear it away. He bore it away, and now lives to conduct within the veil a more excellent ministry. A Saviour raised in Israel to gather unto the God of Israel all the spiritual progeny of Abraham is now proclaimed, and salvation is of the Jews. The economy of preparation was crowned by the advent of the Seed of the woman. He has bruised the serpent’s head, and in Him and through Him there is the warrantable hope of eternal blessedness for as many as are content to accept Him in His saving offices. Here is glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.
The Apostle Paul refers us to the things that are made as sufficient to leave us excuseless if, when we know God in His eternal power and Godhead, we glorify Him not as God, nor are thankful. There is such manifest glory in the works of creation as to call for the acknowledgment from every beholder that they owe their origin to a Being infinite in being, wisdom, power, and goodness. The handwriting of the Creator is so legible that all are without excuse if they read it not and lay not to heart the demands His existence makes upon them. In mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kissing each other, in a just God revealed as just, when He justifies the ungodly, there is such a revelation of this glorious Being as to leave those to whom the record of it comes without excuse if, when it comes, they fail to recognise herein the marvellous glory of the divine perfections shining forth with meridian splendour; and this is the condemnation that the light hath come into the world, yet men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. The Lamb is the light of the Holy City. In Him is the revelation vouchsafed that instructs cherubim and seraphim in the manifold wisdom of God. Thus the Gospel is its own witness. It contains the thoughts that are as a great deep and that are not recognised to be such, only on account of the brutishness of those to whom they are made known. The Gospel contains within itself an evidence that is fitted to satisfy the judgment and conscience that it is indeed of God. Only let the truth of man’s original glory and dignity, of his apostacy and his now helpless plight, his wretchedness and his guilt, be deeply impressed on the conscience, the cry will come forth “What shall I do to be saved?” When thus a personal interest is awakened in our highest concerns, and the sinner casts about for some means of pacifying the offended and dishonoured law, then, and not till then, is he in a position to discover the inexpressible suitableness of God’s righteousness to meet his case. When, receiving the unspeakable gift, he rests in the satisfaction Immanuel gave to Justice on behalf of as many as believe, his conscience knows the blessedness of a peace that the Supreme Judge proclaims; and the “living bread” manifests its glory, not in the same way as the manna of old, not by satiating the hunger and renewing the strength of the body, but by satisfying the hunger and renewing the strength of the living soul that hungers and thirsts after righteousness. In the adaptation of law and gospel to each other, realised by the broken-hearted penitent, there is such a sign as satisfies him that he follows no cunningly-devised fable when he commits his eternal all to Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God.
This is the sign He gives them. Moses was attested as the Lord’s prophet by the manner wherewith Israel were fed. The Lord Jesus with His words of eternal life feeds not the body but the soul; and as soul surpasses body, even so does the marvellous provision, that the words of eternal life containing the message of His person, work, and salvation, feed and satisfy the immortal spirit. For forty years the manna was given. It could not last unless miraculously preserved. But the words of eternal life, from the beginning and since the fulfilment of the promise, have an unfading freshness. The more they are eaten the more are their qualities discovered. He who eats them does not destroy them. After they are eaten they are still whole and unimpaired. As spiritual food they contain an evidence than can appeal only to spiritual men, but that evidence fails to get justice at the hands of those that reject the Gospel, simply because they are carnal and not spiritual. Thus it is their sinfulness that brings it about, that they cannot appreciate the thoughts of God, cannot discover their glory, cannot profit by the message that conveys them.
In giving this sign the Redeemer brought before the men of that generation, that had wellnigh a surfeit of signs, the evidence that suffices to the end of time for those to whom the immediate advantage of seeing signs and marvels is denied; who, having not seen, yet do believe. If that evidence that shone out in His words and in His deeds was withheld from their eyes, they would not submit to Him, however many portents were brought before their notice. It was no want of signs that they laboured under. These signs were a showing forth of His glory. They were blinded by the god of this world, and until He who commanded light to shine out of darkness should shine in their hearts there was no power adequate to subdue their pride and stubborn unbelief and impenitence. The glory shining forth in His marvellous deeds convinced His disciples, and the Apostles as faithful witnesses transmitted to succeeding generations the words of eternal life. This presentation of the Lord Jesus in His person, word, and works is the ground we have to build upon. The scheme of redemption is crowned. The way of life is opened, and though no attendant miracles of healing accompany the word now in the physical sphere, yet it is the healer of the bitter waters still, and there are many whose souls have discovered its efficacy as quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. They are in their own experience so many blind whose eyes have been opened, so many dead that have been raised, and what they are thus to themselves they are in a measure to their brethren too, and what they are recognised to be by their brethren they should be recognised to be by the world, so many epistles of Christ, so many in whom the life of Jesus is manifested. The sign the Redeemer gave is a sign that is still present with us. If forty years of manna testified to Moses, this was but a shadow to the abounding evidence that accompanies the glorious Gospel of the Blessed God, whosoever it comes and whosoever it is declared. It is the true manna—all ages and men in every land and of every family under heaven partake of it—and as it satisfies the soul below, in a more glorious manner it shall secure that result above. Here we see but through a glass darkly, then face to face, and then in the full harmony of our restored powers, we shall be enabled to acquaint ourselves with the Living God in His Beloved Son, and to enjoy perfect blessedness in the full enjoying of His communion unto all eternity.
The word of God carries with it the hall-mark of its own authenticity. What is required to recognise this is not special natural equipment, not high thinking and profound learning, but a meek and teachable spirit, so that we may receive as little children the thoughts of God, and respond to them as they variously call for response at our hands. The unction of the Holy One makes the simple wise, and however simple and unlearned they may be, however unable either to answer or to comprehend many of the objections of the sceptic, they know whom they have believed, and they can say, “We have seen for ourselves and heard for ourselves, and know of a truth that this is indeed the Christ that should come into the world, that this is the true God and the Eternal Life.”
This being so, the way is clear for the herald of salvation to declare the message fearlessly. Unto as many as are set apart unto eternal life, it shall doubtless prove the savour of life unto life. He is not to depend on receptivity of nature for the reception of the message, but to look rather to the fulfilment of the word. “The hour cometh, yea already is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.” This aspect of things is fitted to strengthen his hands in the Lord and to lead him to make the Lord his confidence. At the same time this aspect of truth shows how, though the noontide sunshine is spread abroad, how unresponsive sinners are to it, how imperious to the light they are, how unable to appreciate the truth. This inability to appreciate the truth but proves the truthfulness of the descriptions the Word gives of our ungodly world, and in so doing is fitted to impress sinners of the instancy and urgency of their need (seeing such spiritual death is theirs) of deliverance from the condemnation that hands them over to it, in order to deliverance from itself. Not only is the abject wretchedness of fallen men thus solemnly brought before us, but when divine truth in its spiritual glory and beauty is presented and fails to elicit a response suited to its character, the enormity of the guilt that filthiness of spirit involves the impenitent sinner in is impressively exhibited.
The whole narrative is fitted to make us pause and examine to what extent we as individuals have come to discern the excellency of the prophet like unto Moses, and to what extent we have subjected ourselves to the authority of His word. Fleshly zeal and human testimony may impel us to do many things, but nothing less is requisite in order to membership of the kingdom of God than that we be born from above—that, receiving in implicit simplicity the testimony that bears on our case and our ruin, we receive likewise the testimony that bears on God’s gift of love, and venture our interests in the hands of Him who is an advocate with the Father, and ever liveth to make intercession.
The sign of the Prophet Jonah has been given. The claims of Jesus of Nazareth have been confirmed, and we have to declare not a Messiah whose course ended in darkness, a stone set at nought and nothing more, but a Messiah who has risen in triumph, because the stone, set at nought of the builder, God has made head of the corner. His claims are still what they were of old—that we receive His word and believe in Him, that we receive the truth in the love of it and live under its influence, looking not on the things that are seen but on the things that are unseen. In order to this the Spirit of faith is needed—the evidence of things not seen that removes the films and vails that prevent us from seeing their glory and rejoicing in them. Wherefore we should pray:
“Open mine eyes that of Thy law
The wonders I may see ;
I am a stranger on this earth,
Hide not Thy laws from me.” —Ps. cxix. 18, 19.
Brief notice of Neil Leslie, Dornoch, held over until next month.
Memoir of Rev. D. Macdonald, Sheildaig.—This interesting book (2s. 9d. post free) is to be had from Rev. D. Macfarlane, Free Presbyterian Manse, Dingwall. A suitable gift for young or old.
Acknowledgments.—The treasurer begs to acknowledge with thanks the following sums received for Dingwall F.P. Manse Building Fund, per Rev. Mr. Macfarlane:—A Friend in Bonar Bridge, 10s.; a friend in Blairgowrie, 5s.—The Rev. Neil Cameron begs to thank sincerely “Carrbridge” for 5s.; “A Friend in Cromarty” for 10s.; and “A Friend, Blairgowrie,” 5s, towards St. Jude’s Building Fund.