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20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ.

be obeyed, not of choice merely, but necessity, since our salvation depends upon it; but whatever they have not bound is Loose to us, we are free from it, and no lower authority can make it binding upon the conscience, or connect with our disregard of it the penalty of the divine displeasure. But that this promise looked to that future time when they should be fully qualified for this great office, is evident from what took place after Christ's resurrection, when the same power, under a somewhat different form, but of precisely the same import, was ratified. After breathing upon them, he said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." To qualify them for this authoritative declaration of what was obligatory upon men or otherwise, and of the terms upon which sins are remitted, and the circumstances under which they are retained, they previously received the Holy Ghost; a sufficient proof that this power was connected with the plenary inspiration of the apostles, and beyond them it cannot extend. The manner, also, in which the apostles exercised this power elucidates the subject, which has been greatly abused in the Romish and some other churches. We have no instance of their forgiving the sins of any individual by virtue of any authority deposited with them, much less did they affect to transmit this power to their successors. They merely proclaimed and laid down the terms of pardon under the authority of Christ. And we have no instance of their "retaining the sins" of any one, except by declaring the offender condemned by the laws of the gospel, of which they were the teachers. They authoritatively explain in their writings the terms of forgiveness; and, as to duty, they state what is obligatory, or not obligatory, upon Christians; they pronounce sinners of various kinds to be under God's wrath, and they declare certain apostates to be put

beyond forgiveness, but by their unbelief and blasphemies, and not by apostolic excommunication; and thus they bound or loosed, remitted sins or retained them. It is also to be remarked, as on the preceding verses, that whatever this power was, it was not given exclusively to Peter. Still he stands before the Lord as the representative of the rest of the apostles, and receives nothing but what they all received; and hence, in chap. xviii. 18, our Lord says to them collectively, and in the plural form of address, "Whatsoever YE shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever YE shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." God will act upon your inspired decisions..

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Verse 20. That they should tell no man, that he was Jesus the Christ.-Many Greek мss. and several versions omit in this clause the name Jesus, which indeed appears superfluous, and under this impression might be omitted by some transcribers; it may, nevertheless, be emphatic. The apostles were here strictly prohibited from telling, or openly proclaiming, their faith in his high character, not merely as the Christ; but, as St. Luke has it, "the Christ of God;" which appears to be but an elliptical mode of stating the whole confession they had just made, that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God." The sense appears to be, not that they were inhibited from generally expressing their faith in him as the Messiah, though that they were not to do officiously, and rather by their conduct as following him under that character as his disciples; but that they were not openly to declare their belief that he was "the Christ of God," Christ, under those high conceptions of his nature which they had received from the teaching of the Father. The reason appears to be, not fear of the Romans, as stated by some, lest they should connect the confession of his Messiahship with the intention of making him king; but more probably, either because they were

21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

not as yet qualified to defend those deep doctrines which were involved in these views of his character; or, more especially, because he, as yet, reserved it wholly to himself, in the difficult circumstances in which he was placed, to explain who he was at the most fitting times and seasons, and to confirm every claim, as he should advance it, both by his arguments of superhuman wisdom, and his miraculous works. This reason for the prohibition is free from the difficulty which the usual interpretation suggests. For why, it may be asked, should the apostles at that period of Christ's ministry, have been restrained from telling any man simply, that they believed him to be the Messiah, when they openly followed him as such, and when he himself, in no mysterious manner, had so often intimated the same thing, and grounded his whole ministry upon it? But around the character of the Messiah himself, a great obscurity hung in the minds of the Jews, and with great mystery our Lord had generally chosen to invest his own. The apostles who had been now so long "with him," had glanced within this veil, and been favoured with special manifestations of his concealed glory; but even they were yet "weak in faith," and of obscure understanding in what "the prophets had spoken." The faith they had was not as yet, therefore, to be openly proclaimed it was their office yet to abide with their master to learn, and his exclusively to teach. See the note on Mark

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drim or great council. The elders were the senators, and are to be distinguished from the elders of cities, who were heads of the inferior courts of justice. From the term elders, which included the idea of both rank and age, the council was sometimes called Πρεσβυτέριον. The chief priests, the heads of the courses of the priests, appear to have been members of the council by virtue of their office, and the scribes were assessors as learned assistants.

Verse 22. Then Peter took him.-Of the various senses given to προσλαβόμενος, in this passage, some of a rude and others of a tender and respectful import, the most probable is that of taking by the hand or arm: an action natural to one who would remonstrate with another to whom he was fervently attached.

And began to rebuke him.-The term rebuke, in our translation appears too strong. The earnest remonstrance of one who, neither on his own account, nor that of his master, could bear to hear the subject of his sufferings and death, appears all that is indicated; and our Lord's stern reproof is not directed against the manner of Peter's address; but against those gross and carnal views of the Messiah's kingdom and glory which still clung to him, and influenced his judgment and feelings.

Be it far from thee.-Iλews σo, literally, Be merciful to thyself, but a phrase used by the Septuagint for a Hebrew word, which signifies God forbid, or far be it; and is here to be taken not as an entreaty of Peter to Christ, to deliver himself from impending danger by an exertion of his power, but as a passionate exclamation of forbidding or aversion: hence he adds, This shall not be unto thee; it cannot be; it is a thought not to be conceived.

23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

h

24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

h Matt. x. 38; Mark viii. 34.

Verse 23. But he turned.-St. Mark says, "When he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter;" from which it appears, that Peter, in taking hold of Christ, had drawn him a little aside from the rest of the disciples; but, as our Lord designed to rebuke Peter in the presence of them all, he turned to them to be the more distinctly heard.

Get thee behind me, Satan. It was nearly in these words that our Lord rebuked Satan himself at the close of his great temptation, and the force of this rebuke as to Peter, was greatly heightened by applying to him the name of Satan himself. This was not done in the sense of adversary, the import of the word; for this scarcely suggests a meaning as applied to Peter; but as intimating to him and the rest, that in this, though unconsciously, he was the agent of Satan, who, making use of Peter's remaining worldly views as to the Messiah, and his consequent repugnance to the doctrine of his Lord's death, did in fact, by his instrumentality, attempt to assail our Lord's constancy, and to excite in him a reluctance to suffer. This appears the most satisfactory way of accounting for the apparent severity of Christ's calling Peter by the name Satan; for he was in fact thereby told, that he had rendered himself, by his want of spiritual views, the agent of him whose grand design was to obstruct the work of human redemption. And we can conceive of no occasion more fitly chosen than this by the wily tempter, to produce an impression upon the natural feelings of our Lord, when one of his disciples, who no doubt fully expressed the sentiments of the rest, remonstrated with him, from the very fulnesss of his affection,

not to expose himself to danger and death. This is further confirmed by what follows, Thou art an offence to me, σкavdaλov, a stumbling block, a hinderance; for by appealing to the natural horror of suffering and death to which our Lord's human nature was subject, and to resist which by an invincible resignation was one of his most illustrious virtues, Satan, through Peter, did what in him lay to shake his resolution, and to hinder the accomplishment of the purposes of his infinite love.

Thou savourest not the things that be of God, &c.-The word govew in Romans viii. 5, is rendered "to mind," or to regard, and has here the same sense. Peter acknowledged the glory of Christ's nature, but with the expectation of spiritual blessings from him as Messiah, mingled that of an external national reign, and all those external benefits most pleasing to worldly men. The death of Christ at the hands of the great council of the nation was fatal to anticipations of the latter kind; and this consideration, united with his affection for Christ, had excited in him so great an impatience at the annunciation of Christ that he must suffer and die. Or the meaning may be, that he regarded in the case, only what was agreeable to human nature, as. all exemption from suffering must be; and not those counsels, and that supreme will of God, to which every thing ought to be sacrificed

Verse 24. If any man will come after me, &c.-Our Lord not only rebuked Peter for endeavouring to turn him from his own purpose of surrendering himself to suffering and death; but takes occasion from it to prepare his disciples not for the honours of an earthly kingdom,

25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

but for a similar course of self denial, and for audumission to death itself The verb wampenna, fu deny, has two significations. The first is, to dixwm acquaintance or vydania werk ass, and in this sense it * well illustrated by St. Jerom "He that putteth of the old man with his works demeth himself, the unchaste, being converted to modest manners, does by his present chastity demy his former heen

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Lord speaks primarily, at least, if 12 exclusively, of the loss of animal fe It is very true that a man would be nothing profited, were he to ge whole world and lose his life; bun hai this been our Lord's propositio I TILL have been an argument to exira pa the disciples an extreme carefulness 2008 the preservation of their Ires, macher val a noble readiness to hr them ùrvi 'I the sake of the truth, vich 2 intention of Christ &

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27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; ' and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.

i Psalm lxii. 12; Rom. ii. 6.

the true sense, otherwise than by translating xn in this verse soul. This could not be done in the preceding verse because of the paronomasia; the rhetorical figure employed by our Lord in this and many other of his discourses.

In exchange for his soul.-The word ανταλλαγμα signifies a thing given in exchange, a ransom; which also applies directly to the soul, as is manifest from the next verse, where the proceedings of the day of final judgment are immediately introduced. A man might in many cases offer such a ransom for his life as would be accepted; and nothing was more common anciently than to redeem life by gifts: but when "the Son of Man shall come in his glory, to reward every man according to his works," and the soul of the wretched man who has renounced Christ from the fear or love of the world, has been doomed to the loss of eternal life, and to positive punishment, what shall he offer as a ransom? a question which has the force of the strongest negation. There is no ransom then; the only acceptable ransom of souls from the condemnation of death, the sacrifice of Christ, having been neglected or cast away in that period of probation during which it can be pleaded.

Verse 27. For the Son of man shall come in the glory, &c.-In the full manifested glory of the Godhead; accompanied by the whole host of holy angels; in strange contrast to his then humble condition, surrounded by a few poor disciples, despised and rejected of men! Thus if our Lord, on the one hand, represses the lingering expectation of the apostles, that he would assume an earthly glory, by declaring that it was in the counsel of

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j Mark ix. 1; Luke ix. 27.

God that he should suffer and die, on the other he elevates their hopes to the higher final glories of his second advent. That these words relate, not to the setting up of his mediatorial kingdom, as predicted by Daniel, nor, figuratively, to his coming to judge the nation of the Jews, is most evident from what follows: And then he will reward every man according to his works. This is an act, not of gracious mediation, but of strict judgment; so that the coming of Christ in the fulness of his glory, as mediator, could not be intended; nor is a national judgment a rewarding of every or each man according to his work; for sinners of widely different degrees of delinquency are involved in the same public calamities, and the comparatively innocent share the penalty equally with the most guilty. Besides, those who apply this to the desolation of Judea by the Romans, which was no doubt a judicial act of Christ in his exalted state, ought to show how the pious and faithful, as well as the wicked, were then rewarded: which is undoubtedly in rendering to

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every man according to his works." The passage has clearly no meaning but as it refers to the end of the world, and the general judgment; for then only can those be fully rewarded who have laid down their lives for the sake of Christ, one of the subjects on which he had been discoursing, and which stand intimately connected with these words.

Verse 28. Till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.—That this coming of the Son of Man relates to the setting up of the mediatorial kingdom of Christ in its fulness and perfection, is as certain as that the coming of the Son of Man in the preceding verse relates to his second

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