After this (chap. 27), the unhappy priests and heads of the people deliver
up their Messiah to the Gentiles, as He had told His disciples. Judas, in
despair under Satan's power, hangs himself, having cast the reward of his
iniquity at the feet of the chief priests and elders. Satan was forced to
bear witness, even by a conscience that he had betrayed, to the Lord's
innocence. What a scene! Then the priests, who had made no conscience of
buying His blood from Judas, scruple to put the money into the treasury of
the temple, because it was the price of blood. In the presence of that
which was going on, man was obliged to shew himself as he is and the power
of Satan over him. Having taken counsel, they buy a burying-ground for
strangers. These were profane enough in their eyes for that, provided they
themselves were not defiled with such money. Yet it was the time of God's
grace to the stranger, and judgment on Israel. Moreover they established
thereby a perpetual memorial of their own sin, and of the blood which has
been shed. Aceldama is all that remains in this world of the circumstances
of this great sacrifice. The world is a field of blood, but it speaks
better things than that of Abel.
This prophecy, we know, is in the book of Zechariah. The name "Jeremiah"
may have crept into the text when there was nothing more than "by the
prophet"; or it might be because Jeremiah stood first in the order
prescribed by the Talmudists for the books of prophecy; for which reason,
very likely, also, they said, "Jeremiah, or one of the prophets," as in
chapter 16: 14. But this is not the place for discussion on the subject.
Their own part in the Jewish scene closes. The Lord stands before Pilate.
Here the question is not whether He is the Son of God, but whether He is
the King of the Jews. Although He was this, yet it was only in the
character of Son of God that He would allow the Jews to receive Him. Had
they received Him as the Son of God, He would have been their King. But
that might not be: He must accomplish the work of atonement. Having
rejected Him as Son of God, the Jews now deny Him as their King. But the
Gentiles also become guilty in the person of their head in Palestine, the
government of which had been committed to them. The Gentile head should
have reigned in righteousness. His representative in Judea acknowledged the
malice of Christ's enemies; his conscience, alarmed by his wife's dream,
seeks to evade the guilt of condemning Jesus. But the true prince of this
world, as regards present exercise of dominion, was Satan. Pilate, washing
his hands (futile attempt to exonerate himself), delivers up the guiltless
to the will of His enemies, saying, at the same time, that he finds no
fault in Him. And he releases to the Jews a man guilty of sedition and
murder, instead of the Prince of life. But it was again on His own
confession, and that only, that He was condemned, confessing the same thing
in the Gentile court as He had done in the Jewish, in each the truth,
witnessing a good confession of what concerned the truth as to those before
whom He was.
Barabbas,
[see note #85] the expression of the spirit of Satan who was a murderer
from the beginning, and of rebellion against the authority which Pilate was
there to maintain-Barabbas was loved by the Jews; and with him, the
wrongful carelessness of the governor, who was powerless against evil,
endeavoured to satisfy the will of the people whom he ought to have
governed "All the people" make themselves guilty of the blood of Jesus in
the solemn word, which remains fulfilled to this day, till sovereign grace,
according to God's purpose, takes it off-solemn but terrible word, "His
blood be upon us and upon our children." Sad and frightful ignorance which
self-will has brought upon a people who rejected the light! Alas! how each
one, I again say, takes his own place in the presence of this touchstone-a
rejected Saviour. The company of the Gentiles, the soldiers, do that in
derision, with the brutality habitual to them as heathen and as
executioners, which the Gentiles shall do with joyful worship, when He whom
they now mocked shall be truly the King of the Jews in glory. Jesus endures
it all. It was the hour of His submission to the full power of evil.
patience must have its perfect work, in order that His obedience may be
complete on every side. He bore it all without relief, rather than fail in
obedience to His Father. What a difference between this and the conduct of
the first Adam surrounded with blessings!
Every one must be the servant of sin, or of the tyranny of wickedness, at
this solemn hour, in which all is put to the proof. They compel one Simon
(known afterwards, it appears, among the disciples) to bear the cross of
Jesus; and the Lord is led away to the place of His crucifixion. There He
refuses that which might have stupefied Him. He will not shun the cup He
had to drink, nor deprive Himself of His faculties in order to be
insensible to that which it was the will of God He should suffer. The
prophecies of the Psalms are fulfilled in His Person, by means of those who
little thought what they were doing. At the same time, the Jews succeeded
in becoming to the last degree contemptible. Their King was hung. They must
bear the shame in spite of themselves. Whose fault was it? But, hardened
and senseless, they share with a malefactor the miserable satisfaction of
insulting the Son of God, their King, the Messiah, to their own ruin, and
quote, so blinding is unbelief, from their own scriptures, as the
expression of their own mind, that which in them is put into the mouth of
the unbelieving enemies of Jehovah. Jesus felt it all; but the anguish of
His trial, where after all He was a calm and faithful witness, the abyss of
His sufferings, contained something far more terrible then all this malice
or abandonment of man. The floods doubtless lifted up their voices.
[see note #86]
One after another the waves of wickedness dashed against Him; but the
depths beneath that awaited Him, who could fathom? His heart, His soul-the
vessel of a divine love-could alone go deeper than the bottom of that abyss
which sin had opened for man, to bring up those who lay there, after He had
endured its pains in His own soul. A heart that had been ever faithful was
forsaken of God. Where sin had brought man, love brought the Lord, but with
a nature and an apprehension in which there was no distance, no separation,
so that it should be felt in all its fulness. No one but He who was in that
place could fathom or feel it.
It is too a wonderful spectacle to see the one righteous man in the world
declare at the end of His life He was forsaken of God. But thus it was He
glorified Him as none else could have done it, and where none but He could
have done it-made sin, in the presence of God as such, with no veil to
hide, no mercy to cover or bear it with.
The fathers, full of faith, had in their distress experienced the
faithfulness of God, who answered the expectation of their hearts. But
Jesus (as to the condition of His soul at that moment) cried in vain. "A
worm and no man" before the eyes of men, He had to bear the forsaking of
the God in whom He trusted.
Their thoughts far from His, they that surround Him did not even understand
His words, but they accomplished the prophecies by their ignorance. Jesus,
bearing testimony by the loudness of His voice that it was not the weight
of death that oppressed Him, gives up the ghost.
The efficacy of His death is presented to us in this Gospel in a double
aspect. First, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the
bottom. God, who had been always hidden behind the veil, discovered Himself
completely by means of the death of Jesus. The entrance into the holy place
is made manifest-a new and living way which God has consecrated for us
through the veil. The entire Jewish system, the relations of man with God
under its sway, its priesthood, all fell with the rending of the veil.
Every one found himself in the presence of God without a veil between. The
priests were to be always in His presence. But, by this same act, the sin,
which would have made it impossible for us to stand there, was for the
believer entirely put away from before God. The holy God, and the believer,
cleansed from his sins, are brought together by the death of Christ. What
love was that which accomplished this!
Secondly, besides this, such was the efficacy of His death, that when His
resurrection had burst the bonds that held them, many of the dead appeared
in the city-witnesses of His power who, having suffered death, had risen
above it, and overcome it, and destroyed its power, or taken it into His
own hands. Blessing was now in resurrection.
The presence therefore of God without a veil, and sinners without sin
before Him, prove the efficacy of Christ's sufferings.
The resurrection of the dead, over whom the king of terrors had no more
right, displayed the efficacy of the death of Christ for sinners, and the
power of His resurrection. Judaism is over for those that have faith, and
the power of death also. The veil is rent. The grave gives up its prey; He
is Lord of the dead and of the living. [see note #87]
There is yet another especial testimony to the mighty power of His death,
to the import of that word, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw
all men unto me." The centurion who was on guard at the crucifixion of the
Lord, seeing the earthquake and those things that were done, trembling,
confesses the glory of His Person; and, stranger as he is to Israel,
renders the first testimony of faith among Gentiles: "Truly this was the
Son of God."
But the narrative goes on. Some poor women-to whom devotedness often gives,
on God's part, more courage than to men in their more responsible and busy
position-were standing near the cross, beholding what was done to Him they
loved. [see note #88]
But they were not the only ones who filled the place of the terrified
disciples. Others-and this often happens-whom the world had held back, when
once the depth of their affection is stirred by the question of His
sufferings whom they really loved, when the moment is so painful that
others are terrified, then (emboldened by the rejection of Christ) they
feel that the time is arrived for decision and become fearless confessors
of the Lord. Hitherto associated with those that have crucified Him, they
must now either accept that act, or declare themselves. Through grace they
do the latter.
God had prepared all beforehand. His Son was to have His tomb with the
rich. Joseph comes boldly to Pilate and asks for the body of Jesus. He
wraps the body, which Pilate grants him, in a clean linen cloth, and lays
it in his own sepulchre, which had never served to hide the corruption of
man. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary [see note #89] -for they were known - sat near
the sepulchre, bound by all that remained to their faith of Him whom they
had loved and followed with adoration during His life.
But unbelief has no faith in itself, and, fearing lest that which it denies
be true, it mistrusts everything. The chief priests request Pilate to guard
the sepulchre, in order to frustrate any attempt the disciples might make
to found the doctrine of the resurrection on the absence of the body of
Jesus from the tomb in which it had been laid. Pilate bids them secure the
sepulchre themselves; so that all they did was to make themselves
involuntary witnesses to the fact, and assure us of the accomplishment of
the thing they dreaded. Thus Israel was guilty of this effort of futile
resistance to the testimony which Jesus had rendered to His own
resurrection. Theywere a testimony against themselves to its truth. The
precautions which Pilate would not perhaps have taken they carried to the
extreme, so that all mistake as to the fact of His resurrection was
impossible.
The Lord's resurrection is briefly related in Matthew. The object is again,
after the resurrection, to connect the ministry and service of Jesus-now
transferred to His disciples-with the poor of the flock, the remnant of
Israel. He again assembled them in Galilee, where He had constantly
instructed them, and where the despised among the people dwelt afar from
the pride of the Jews. This connected their work with His, in that which
especially characterised it with reference to the remnant of Israel.
