CHAPTER XXII.

1-14. THE WEDDING FEAST.

1-14. A SIMILAR parable to this of the Wedding Feast is given in Luke xiv. 16-24, and has been thought by many critics to be the same. But the two are unlike in so many particulars that they may be considered as separate parables.

The parable here speaks of the calling of the Jews, their neglect, 3, they would not come, their contemptuous indifference, 5, they made light of it, and finally their insults and murderous cruelty, for which the king sent his armies and destroyed their city;-foretelling the coming of the Roman armies, instruments in the hands of God, whose eagles may possibly be alluded to in xxiv. 28, and by whom the great city of the Jews should be burned up. Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans within a little less than forty years from the time of the prediction.

From

9 to 13 mention is made of the Gospel invitation, which, since the Jews refuse it (Acts xiii. 46), goes to all, bad and good, with its offers of mercy, and would gather all in to the marriage feast. But it must be remembered, that though all, even the wicked, are called, yet there are conditions to be fulfilled, and that, without the wedding garment, "the internal adornment of the soul" in righteousness, the very guests at the table will be cast out from the lighted festal-room into the outer darkness of the night, where in shame and grief there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

We would call attention here to the quiet manner in which the prophecy rises from the loss of national privileges, and an earthly retribution to the fulfilment of that

same law of retribution in the judgments of another world. Intervals of time vanish away. The boundaries between this life and that which is to be are disregarded. The spiritual insight of our Lord, following the great laws of God's kingdom on to their results, whether in the conduct of individuals or nations, fixes itself on national ruin here, and exclusion from the society of the redeemed hereafter, as the condition of the unfaithful, without any broad line of distinction to separate them from each other, as if they belonged to two different orders of events. The sharp distinctions between this world and another, or this life and another, which enter into all our thoughts, do not seem to have had the same place in his mind. He looked through both alike, and saw in both alike the operation of the same divine principles and laws. His kingdom, having its seat in the soul of every follower here, receives and cherishes within itself all faithful souls, whether on earth or in heaven. So as his thought reaches alike through seen and unseen worlds, facts which in their outward surroundings seem to us to belong to entirely distinct orders of events, are in his mind and language intimately connected together, as brought about by the same laws. The shadows of time which imprison us within this material world, and make us look on all that lies beyond as of a character entirely different, never with him separate causes from their effects, or deeds done in the body from their legitimate results, whether in this world or that which shall succeed.

15-22. PAYING TRIBUTE TO CÆSAR.

15-22. The Pharisees, foiled in their previous attempt. (xxi. 23) to entrap Jesus, hold a consultation, and in their extreme craftiness lay a snare for him which they believe it will be impossible for him to escape. The leading men keep in the background. But they have arranged their

measures with the Herodians, who, though usually their enemies, are now brought to act together with them by their common hatred against Jesus. The Pharisees did not believe in paying tribute to the Romans; the Herodians were the creatures of a dynasty established and sustained by the Roman government. The disciples of the Pharisees, and the Herodians, "spies" Luke calls them, were to come as if engaged in a dispute on this subject, and to refer the question to him as to one of such impartiality, truthfulness, and wisdom, that they are willing to abide by his decision. "Is it right," they ask, "to pay tribute to Cæsar or not?" If he should answer, No, then the Herodians are ready to charge him with rebellion against the Roman government, and his destruction is sure. If he should say, Yes, then the Pharisees will make use of his reply to turn the popular prejudices of the Jews against him, and destroy his authority with them. But he saw through their artful disguise, and, with words which laid open their hypocrisy, asked them to bring him the tribute money. Pointing out to them the image and superscription of Cæsar, he said, "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things which are God's." He is not satisfied with simply baffling them in their inquiries, and sending them away confounded and silenced, but in his reply he lays down a broad and most important principle of conduct. Give to the government the money and the allegiance which are due to it, but let it be done in accordance with the higher allegiance and the more unqualified obligations by which you are bound to him in whose image you have been created. By uniting the two, he shows that the lesser obligation is to be limited and explained by the greater.

They who put the question had supposed that he must join himself either to one side or the other. But, as has been finely said, "the very peculiarity, the very proof of the divinity of his doctrine, was that they could not square it with any of their existing systems. It was with his

doctrine, as it was in the legendary tale which describes how the tree of the wood of the True Cross had been of old rejected, because it would not fit into the building of the ancient temple. It was too long for one corner, it was too short for another. And so it was laid aside till it came forth at last to be the means and symbol of the world's redemption." "The true Creed of the Church, the true Gospel of Christ, is to be found, not in proportion as it coincides with the watchwords or the dilemmas of modern controversy, but rather in proportion as it rises above them and cuts across them. How often are we told that we must be either Pharisees or Herodians; that we must follow everything to its logical extreme. But there is a 'right division of the word of truth,' — there is a middle way of religion, which, not from weakness, not from indolence, not from halting between two opinions, but from sincere love of Christ, and from desire to conform ourselves to his image, we may humbly desire to walk." Stanley's Canterbury Sermons, pp. 112, 113.

23-33. THE RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD.

23-31. The Pharisees, amazed and wondering, left Jesus. They believed in the resurrection of the dead. But the Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection, “neither angel nor spirit" (Acts xxiii. 8), came with a question which they believed would be wholly unanswerable. A woman who has had seven husbands, - "in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be?" We may imagine the cunning, sharp, triumphant look with which these closing words were uttered. Jesus did not argue with them after their own fashion, but in one of the most instructive passages in the New Testament, in the calmness and depth of his spiritual insight, he pointed out to them how utterly they had been mistaken, not knowing either the Scriptures or the power of God. From that day to this a class of

keen, but shallow and conceited men, sometimes nominally as friends and sometimes as enemies of our religion, have founded their objections to Christian doctrines or to Christianity itself on this double mistake, attributing to the Scriptures what the Scriptures do not teach, and shutting up the power of the Almighty within the limits of their narrow, short-sighted conceptions. In no particular perhaps has this been more remarkable than with the two classes represented by the Pharisees and Sadducees; the latter denying altogether the immortality of the soul, and the former believing, as Martha did (John xi. 24), in the resuscitation of the body at a general resurrection in the last day. The reply of Jesus, while directed against the Sadducees, is so framed as to meet both these classes. Though the great laws of spiritual life prevail in all worlds alike, it will not do, he says in substance, to carry into the world to come the limitations and connections which here grow out of our sensuous and material organization. "The sons

of this world are given in marriage,” but in the resurrection, "when (Mark xii. 25) they rise from the dead,” “they (Luke xx. 35, 36) who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more; for they are as angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection." The sublime view which is here opened to us of that world, and the spiritual relations which alone prevail there, ought to banish forever from our minds all thought of the resurrection of the present body, with its outward, material organization.

31-33. But lest the doctrine of the resurrection should still be misunderstood, Jesus quotes from the sacred writings which Pharisees and Sadducees alike reverence, a passage (Ex. iii. 6) which not only implies the fact of a resurrection of the dead, such as the Sadducees denied, but which also proves, in opposition to the belief of the Pharisees, that the dead are already risen. As touching