For Jesus to tell his disciples and the Jewish nation what would be the signs of his second coming, before they under-stood what his object was in coming the first time, must appear very strange. From the particular account which Jesus gave of his second coming, the Jews must have understood him to mean, that although he professed to be the true Messiah, yet his stay was but short with them. As yet, his time for operation was not come. The discourses of Jesus to his countrymen, were all calculated to mislead and confound them. In his sermon on the Mount, he claims an authority of his own superior to the law of Moses. Matthew, chapter v., verse 33—“Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not forswear thyself but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, swear not at all” Verse 38—“Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheeky turn to him the other also.” What could the Jewish rulers think of a man, who, without any ceremony, set up laws in direct opposition to the laws of Moses, when, at other times, he declared himself a follower of Moses, and that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it? Such inconsistent teaching as this, will not admit of Infinite Wisdom’s being the author.
In Matthew, chapter xiii., 10, it reads—“And the disciples came and said unto him, Why speaketh thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” Verse 13—“Therefore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand.” Verse 14—“And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive.” Verse 15—“For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted and I should heal them”
Now this mode of treating the Jewish nation is perfectly in character with the plan, in accordance with which, Jesus came to lay down his life for sinners; for had he convinced the Jews that he was the expected restorer of Israel, no Jewish arm would have been raised against him; nor would it have been possible to have prevailed on the national rulers to have attempted his life; since although the priests and Pharisees might, in a moral point of view, have been wicked in the extreme, still their veneration for, and their earnest expectation of the coming of, the Messiah, would have prevented any hostile feelings against “the anointed of the Lord, the Holy one of Israel.”
But if the preaching of Christ, and his arrangements, were of such a nature that the Jews supposed the whole to be an imposture, then the case took a different turn altogether. Instead of the Jews refusing to receive Jesus as the sent of God, they put him to death from the hatred which they had towards any one who they supposed had fabricated his authority and office. If the main object of Christ’s coming to the Jews was to die for the sins of mankind, both Jew and Gentile, and thus become a willing sacrifice for sin,—if this was the plan of human redemption, it then follows that the Jews did that part which, in the divine arrangement, was allotted for them to do. Then the conduct of Jesus was consistent in keeping them ignorant, so that their part might by them be carried out. If he had convinced them, that he was, in truth, the sent of God, but that they must hang him on a tree, the plan of human redemption would have failed, for they, immoral as they might be, never would have put him to death.
There could be no other way of bringing about the death of Christ, but by keeping the Jewish nation ignorant that he was the Messiah. The course that was pursued by Jesus, would imply that his orders were to so act among them, that their condemnation would be just for rejecting him; but on no account to perform miracles sufficient to convince them, for in that case the Jews would not have condemned and put him to death as a blasphemer and an impostor. Again, if Jesus came on earth to die, and without shedding his blood there could be “no remission of sin” what mockery for him to exclaim “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem I how oft would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” For if the Jews had sheltered themselves under the wings of Jesus, how was he to die as a sacrifice for sin? But he was not put to death, they knowing him to be the Christ, but on the contrary, they condemned him for pretending to be the very anointed of the Lord. And although the story was propagated that Jesus arose, after his descent from the cross, the Jews as a nation did not give credit to it, nor have they till this day. If, therefore, “there is no other name under heaven whereby men can be saved,” but by believing in Christ and in his dying for the sins of mankind, then the Jews, ever since the death of Christ, and also the present race, are lost and forever shut out from that pardon which was procured by the death of Jesus, which was brought about by the instrumentality of the Jews by the condemnation of the Messiah.
The account of Judas, in what is called betraying his Master, is strange indeed. In speaking of that circumstance, Jesus says, “It would have been better for that man if he had never been born.” Now if Jesus came to die, Judas, by informing the authorities where he was to be found, did no more than bring to pass what was before ordained should take place. Judas, then, was but the instrument to accomplish the plan of human redemption, by informing the Jewish authorities when and where they could secure the object which they sought after. The very idea of betraying Jesus, proves two things:—first, that Jesus was but little known to the Jews, except from report; and, secondly, that although he held often said he came to lay down his life for sinful man, yet he intended to evade death as long as possible. It was owing to this obscure method of teaching, that his disciples, although always with him, could not understand fully what his objects were; and though he had so often told them of “the kingdom of heaven being at hand,” they understood him not.
To bring the position of the Jews nearer, at the time of Christ’s appearance in Judea, let us suppose ourselves to have been Jews, then living, and expecting and desiring his coming. At length, it is said, “he is arrived.” The first inquiry would very naturally be, is he the true Messiah, or is he an impostor? If, then, to our inquiries made to him on that point, we had received in return nothing positive, but the vilest abuse, and threatenings of damnation in a future world, could we be expected to view him as the promised deliverer? When the Jews heard him denouncing them as hypocrites, and, at the same time, assuming an authority over Moses, and the laws of Jehovah given by Moses, and calling the Temple (for which they had so high a veneration) a den of thieves, it must have had a tendency to shut up their minds against his divine mission. If Jesus wished the Jews to be convinced of his being the personage whom they had long expected, he should, in the first place, have attended to their inquiry, “Art thou he which should come, or are we to look for another?”
This question being settled, by indisputable evidence, Jesus would have had a foundation for correcting what was wrong, and exposing their base conduct. But he began at the wrong-end, by upbraiding them for their evil doings before he had ‘convinced them of his being appointed to abrogate, or, in any way, to alter, the law of Moses. We may then safely conclude, if Jesus was divinely commissioned to the Jews, that it was not intended they should believe in him. But who, for a moment, can think, that, if the Almighty Ruler of the Universe had sent him, his mission would have been marked with trickery and deception, and have failed, and the Jews have been left in a state far worse than if he had never been among them? Can we reasonably conclude, that a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness would have sent his Son to the Jewish nation, without giving them any evidence of his being the Messiah, and then have taken advantage of their unbelief to deal out judgments against them?
If Jesus was sent into the world to die, and by dying, became “a sacrifice for the sins of mankind,” then the Jews, by putting him to death, brought to maturity what God had ordained should come to pass. In that case, then, it is clear, that Jesus was so to act, that the Jews must not be convinced that he was the true and real Messiah, for had they believed in him as the restorer of their race, whom they had long expected, they would not have slain the “Lord of life and glory.” Then, how would he have paid the “ransom for lost sinners”? But, on the other hand, if Jesus was sent by God to the Jewish nation, and gifted to perform signs and miracles to convert them, how did it happen that they remained in sin and unbelief;—their whole race, the seed of Abram, remaining in that state until the present time? The Jews have surely been an unfortunate people. To the Jews, then, 1 must say, “I know not which demands the most pity—you, or your God; for, after all the attempts to subject you to his will, you are a race of outcasts, and have been plundered by all the Christian nations on earth. After all the pains taken by the Lord of Hosts to convert you, every one has failed; but the last failure is the most to be deplored. From the time Jehovah is said to have called Abram, your progenitor, and selected him from the rest of the human race, and promised him and his seed forever, blessings from which the rest of the world were excluded, Jehovah and your generations have ever been on bad terms. You are spoken of in Scripture as a stiff-necked, rebellious people. On the part of God, he has always appeared as if he was angry with your conduct. Forty years together, he says, he has been grieved with your disobedience. To such a height has been his displeasure, that thousands and tens of thousands of your nation have been cut off by the terrible judgments of the Lord. You have been led into captivity and sold as slaves, time after time, and Jehovah has even threatened to destroy your whole race.
“Jehovah, in his anger, has raised heathen kings against you, and the slaughter has been dreadful. But when you have turned to the Lord, and humbled yourselves, he has attended to your cry, and delivered you out of their hands. Jehovah has, at times, inspired prophets who have foretold that you should one day have a personage appear among you, restore you to your former greatness, be to you a God, and you should be to him a people. This personage is said to have been among you, but you knew him not. You, then, from obedience to Jehovah, rejected Jesus as an impostor, and considered him as arrogating to himself Divine honor, and finally put him to death. And, for eighteen hundred years, you have suffered the most cruel treatment from every nation among whom you have dwelt. You have been the most unfortunate people on earth; but you still cling to your prophets, and are looking for the coming of the Messiah.