CHAPTER VI. THE YEAR OF OPPOSITION, PART B.
136. The Changed Aspect of His Ministry.--Yet, although
the people of Galilee at large had shown themselves unworthy of Him, there
was a considerable remnant that proved true. At the centre of it were
the apostles; but there were also others, to the number probably of several
hundreds. These now became the objects of His special care. He had saved
them as brands plucked from the burning, when Galilee as a whole deserted
Him. For them it must have been a time of crucial trial. Their views were
to a large extent those of the populace. They also expected a Messiah
of worldly splendor. They had, indeed, learned to include deeper and more
spiritual elements in their conception, but, along with these, it still
contained the traditional and material ones. It must have been a painful
mystery to them that Jesus should so long delay the assumption of the
crown. So painful had this been to the Baptist in his lonely prison, that
he began to doubt whether the vision he had seen on the bank of the Jordan
and the great convictions of his life had not been delusions, and sent
to ask Jesus if He really was the Christ. The Baptist's death must have
been an awful shock to them. If Jesus was the Mighty One they thought
Him, how could He allow His friend to come to such an end? Still they
held on to Him. They showed what it was which kept them by their answer
to Him, when, after the dispersion which followed the discourse at Capernaum,
He put to them the sad question, 'Will ye also go away?' and they replied,
'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.' Their
opinions were not clear; they were in a mist of per-plexities; but they
knew that from Him they were getting eternal life. This held them close
to Him, and made them willing to wait till He should make things clear.
137. During the last six months He spent in Galilee, He abandoned to
a large extent His old work of preaching and miracle-working and devoted
Himself to the instruction of these adherents. He made long circuits with
them in the most distant parts of the province, avoiding publicity as
much as possible. Thus we find him at Tyre and Sidon, far to the northwest;
at Caesarea-Philippi, on the far northeast; and in Decapolis, to the south
and east of the lake. These journeys, or rather flights, were due partly
to the bitter opposition of the Pharisees, partly to fear of Herod, but
chiefly to the desire to be alone with His disciples. The precious result
of them was seen in an incident which happened at Caesarea-Philippi. Jesus
began to ask His disciples what were the popular views about Himself,
and they told Him the various conjectures which were flying about--that
He was a prophet, that He was Elias, that He was John the Baptist, and
so on. 'But whom say ye that I am?' He asked; and Peter answered for them
all, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' This was the deliberate
and decisive conviction by which they were determined to abide, whatever
might come. Jesus received the confession with great joy, and at once
recognized in those who had made it the nucleus of the future Church,
which was to be built on the truth to which they had given expression.
138. But this attainment only prepared them for a new trial of faith.
From that time, we are told, He began to inform them of His approaching
sufferings and death. These now stood out clearly before His own mind
as the only issue of His career to be looked for. He had hinted as much
to them before, but, with that delicate and loving consideration which
always graduated His teaching to their capacity, He did not refer to it
often. But now they were in some degree able to bear it; and, as it was
inevitable and near at hand, He kept insisting on it continually. But
they themselves tell us they did not in the least understand Him. In common
with all their countrymen, they expected a Messiah who should sit on the
throne of David, and of whose reign there should be no end. They believed
Jesus was this Messiah; and it was to them utterly incomprehensible that,
instead of reigning, He should be killed on His arrival in Jerusalem.
They listened to Him, they discussed His words among themselves, but they
regarded their apparent meaning as a wild impossibility. They thought
He was only using one of the parabolic sayings of which He was so fond,
His real meaning being that the present lowly form of His work was to
die and disappear, and His cause rise, as it were, out of the grave in
a glorious and triumphant shape. He endeavored to undeceive them, going
more and more minutely into the details of His approaching sufferings;
but their minds could not take the truth in. How completely even the best
of them failed to do so is shown by the frequent wranglings among them
at this period as to which should in the approaching kingdom be the greatest,
and by the request of Salome for her sons, that they should sit the one
on the right and the other on the left hand in His kingdom. When they
left Galilee and went up towards Jerusalem, it was with the conviction
that 'the kingdom of God should immediately appear'--that is, that Jesus,
on arriving in the capital, would throw off the guise of humiliation He
had hitherto worn, and, overcoming all opposition by some forthputting
of His concealed glory, take His place on the throne of His fathers.
139. What were the thoughts and feelings of Jesus Himself during this
year? To Him also it was a year of sore trial. Now for the first time
the deep lines of care and pain were traced upon His face. During the
twelvemonth of successful work in Galilee, He was borne up with the joy
of sustained achievement. But now He became, in the truest sense, the
Man of Sorrows. Behind Him was His rejection by Galilee. The sorrow which
He felt at seeing the ground on which He had bestowed so much labor turning
out barren, is to be measured only by the greatness of His love to the
souls He sought to save and the depth of His devotion to His work. In
front of Him was His rejection at Jerusalem. That was now certain; it
rose up and stood out constantly and unmistakably, meeting His eyes as
often as He turned them to the future. It absorbed His thoughts. It was
a terrible prospect; and, now that it drew nigh, it sometimes shook His
soul with a conflict of feelings which we scarcely dare to picture to
ourselves.
140. He was very much in prayer. This had all along been His delight
and resource. In His busiest period, when He was often so tired with the
labors of the day that at the approach of evening He was ready to fling
Himself down in utter fatigue, He would nevertheless escape away from
the crowds and His disciples to the mountain-top and spend the whole night
in lonely communion with His Father. He never took any important step
without such a night. But now He was far oftener alone than ever before,
setting forth His case to His God with strong crying and tears.
The transfiguration.
141. His prayers received a splendid answer in the Transfiguration. That
glorious scene took place in the middle of the year of opposition, just
before he quitted Galilee and set forth on the journey of doom. It was
intended partly for the sake of the three disciples who accompanied Him
to the mountain-top, to strengthen their faith and make them fit to strengthen
their brethren. But it was chiefly intended for Himself. It was a great
gift of His Father, an acknowledgment of His faithfulness up to this point,
and a preparation for what lay before Him. It was about the decease He
was to accomplish at Jerusalem that He conversed with His great predecessors,
Moses and Elias, who could thoroughly sympathize with Him, and whose work
His death was to fulfill.
142. Immediately after this event He left Galilee and went south. He
spent six months on His way to Jerusalem. It was part of His mission to
preach the kingdom over the whole land, and He did so. He sent seventy
of His disciples on before Him to prepare the villages and towns to receive
Him. Again in this new field the same manifestations as Galilee had witnessed
during the first months of His labors there showed themselves--the multitudes
following Him, the wonderful cures, and so forth. We have not records
of this period sufficient to enable us to follow Him step by step. We
find Him on the borders of Samaria, in Perea, on the banks of the Jordan,
in Bethany, in the village of Ephraim. But Jerusalem was His goal. His
face was set like a flint for it. Sometimes He was so absorbed in the
anticipation of what was to befall Him there, that His disciples, following
His swift, mute figure along the highway, were amazed and afraid. Now
and then, indeed, He would relax for a little as when He was blessing
the little children or visiting the home of His friends at Bethany. But
His mood at this period was more stern, absorbed and highly strung than
ever before. His contests with His enemies were sharper, the conditions
which He imposed on those who offered to be His disciples more stringent.
Everything denoted that the end was drawing near. He was in the grip of
His grand purpose of atoning for the sins of the world, and His soul was
straitened till it should be accomplished.
143. The catastrophe drew nigh apace. He paid two brief visits to Jerusalem,
before the final one, during His last six months. On both occasions the
opposition of the authorities assumed the most menacing form. They endeavored
to arrest Him on the first occasion, and took up stones to stone Him on
the second. They had already issued a decree that anyone acknowledging
Him to be the Messiah should be excommuni-cated. But it was the excitement
produced in the popular mind by the raising of Lazarus at the very gates
of the ecclesiastical citadel which finally convinced the authorities
that they could not satisfy themselves with anything short of His death.
So they resolved in council. This took place only a month or two before
the end came, and it drove Him for the time from the neighborhood of Jerusalem.
But He retired only until the hour which His Father had appointed Him
should strike.
Chapter 6 Part A
Chapter 7 Part A
This text is from James Stalker's Life of Christ. New York, London, Edinburgh, etc.: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1909. Transcribed by David Ash. Used by permission of David Ash, 2 March 2005. David Ash, pastor of Shiloh
Baptist Church, has placed several worthwhile texts online. View his list here. Images are from the CHI archives.
