[INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER on THE FACTS AND PERSONAGES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT]
TO these persons who can take, without fear, a correct view of Jehovah’s dealings with his chosen people, as recorded in the Old Testament, it must appear, that the Jews, as a nation, did not, in any way, do honor to his choice; for, as it regards religion, they neither were at any length of time faithful to Jehovah, nor did they obey his laws. The dreadful punishments inflicted on them, together with the teaching of the Prophets, did not cure them, so as to prevent them from worshipping other gods.
To men of common sense, it is clear that the Jewish God undertook to make of the seed of Abram that which never took place. The attempts to keep them as true worshippers of Jehovah, continually failed; and he, in the language of regret and complaint, says:—“I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.” And here we may inquire, how were they brought up? The answer is at hand. They were taught to consider themselves, as a nation, more valuable than any people on earth; and this pride caused them to act with hostility in their intercourse with, the Gentiles, and to rob and murder all nations less powerful than themselves; for doing which, they had from the Lord a direct order. To show mercy was forbidden, and they were punished for so doing. The command was—“Thou shall do no murder.” This command had to do with Jews only. To others it was said, “Spare not a soul alive.” Again, “Thou shall not steal,”—that is, from Jews: from all heathens, steal all you can. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” &c. Remember!—the wife of a Jew; but when the Lord commands, you must murder other men’s wives, and take their daughters for the most wicked purposes. This is the manner the seed of Abram were brought up; and, in these particulars, they seldom disobeyed the Lord.
In this manner the Jews were educated by the Lord of Hosts. Can we then wonder that they, in a moral point of view, should have been the most cruel and wicked of any nation on earth? It follows, that they were a disgrace to that God who selected them as his own; and the Jewish dispensation ended in a complete failure: so that it is recorded, that the Lord “hateth his own inheritance.” Jehovah failed to rear up and protect a nation who should serve as a pattern to the rest of the human family. They axe acknowledged, by both God and man, to have been the worst people on earth.
We are now about to consider another attempt, on the part of the God of Israel, to recover and convert his disobedient people to the new covenant, or dispensation, by sending the long-expected Saviour of the seed of Abram, according to the flesh. Here we ought to expect that a double degree of caution will be manifest on the part of the Jewish God, so that no mistake may happen to the Jewish nation in their reception of, and obedience to, his Son, as an ambassador of peace and reconciliation; because, if the mission of Jesus was not clearly understood by the Jews, another scene of trouble, more dreadful than their former disobedience, would follow as a consequence. We ought to expect that Christ would be instructed so to present himself to his brethren, that his person and his plans for their recovery would be self-evident. No guess-work can be allowed, as it respects the vast importance of his mission, or the identity of his person. It needs no argument to show, that, when an end or object is to be fully obtained, the means must be adapted to answer the end intended, or a failure is the consequence.
Here we may ask, for what purpose did Christ come to the Jews? Was it to fulfil the promises made to them by Jehovah, that he would make a new covenant with them, and write his laws on their hearts; not according to the covenant he made with their fathers, when he brought them out of Egypt, but that he would write his laws on their hearts, and their sins and iniquities remember no more, and that they should be to him a people, and that he would be to them a God? In fact, we cannot admit of the possibility of any mistake or failure to happen in Jehovah’s plan of salvation, when we consider that the seed of Abram longed for and expected the Great Deliverer of Israel. No trickery or deception ought to be resorted to in a case involving such dreadful consequences. It is highly dishonorable to the God of the Universe, to admit of any double-dealing on his part, when his people were prepared to receive the Messiah.
The situation of the Jews, as a nation, at the time it is said that Christ made his appearance among them, ought to be kept in view, in reading this introduction. They expected a king, or a deliverer, to arrive, agreeably to what they had learned from the Old Testament. Hence, their inquiry was, “Art thou he that should come, or do we, or are we, to look for another?” As much as to say, we long for his appearance, but we have had false Christs; and the repeated impositions practised on our nation makes us cautious as to giving credence to any pretender, without full proof of his being the true, the very anointed of God. No inquiry could be more reasonable; for it is clear that the Jewish nation were open to conviction, and ready to receive with joy the sent of Jehovah; but repeated deception and disappointment had made them slow to believe in the pretensions of any that came to them in the name of the Lord.
We need not be surprised that the seed of Abram should have been so scrupulous in believing, until they had incontrovertible proof that the hope of Israel had arrived. They considered that event as the end of all their troubles; and relying on the promises made, to God’s chosen people by the prophets,—that the “sun of, righteousness should arise with healing in his wings” that his identity would be as clearly known, and all obscurity entirely removed as to his being the true Christ, the hope and expectation of Israel. The Jews, as a nation, were not prepared for any thing short of a full manifestation of Jehovah’s promises in the person of the Messiah, that he would be their “Prophet, Priest, and King” It is not possible to conceive that a single Jew could be found who would stretch forth his hand against the Lord’s anointed. This, then, was the feeling and expectation of the Jews, at the time it is recorded that Christ came as the deliverer of Israel. It follows, then, that the only thing the Jews required, in order to receive and obey Christ, was, unerring proof that Jesus was the promised Messiah; for they were earnestly waiting for that glorious event.
We will now inquire, whether or not his introduction to the Jewish nation was the most probable way to convince them that the long-desired, the long-expected Redeemer of Israel was come? It must ever be kept in mind, that the coming of Christ was to the Israelites of vast importance, when we consider their former troubles, how they had been forsaken by their God, sold, as it were, into severe bondage, and scattered over the face of the earth, in consequence of their departure from the God of their fathers. To all which, it may be added, that they had been deceived by false Christs: so that, as a nation, they ought to, and doubtless did, fully expect that the true Messiah, on his arrival, would convince every real Jew that he was the sent of God, and that the evidence would be different, in all respects, from what had before attended impostors and cheats. Of all the embassies ever sent by one nation to another, none ever equalled in importance the one where the Son, the only Son of God, was the ambassador.
In the intercourse between nations, and when a minister is sent out from one nation to another, one thing is always provided for, and on no account is it ever omitted, namely:—proper credentials are always prepared and sent by one nation to another, so that the identity of the ambassador is indisputable. This indispensable qualification appears to have been omitted in sending Christ to the Jewish nation, and it proved most unfortunate to those ill-fated people; for it is evident, from Scripture, that they mistook Jesus for an impostor, since one of the apostles admits, that if they (the Jews) had known him, “they would not have killed the Lord of life and glory.”