I. Jesus Christ And His Apostles.
On entering upon the active purposes of his mission, it is the will of Jesus to have, and He has Disciples—Apostles. He knows the power of an association founded upon faith and love. He knows also that faith and love are virtues as rare as they are efficacious. It is not numbers that He seeks. He surrounds himself with a select band of believers, and lives with them in a complete and enduring intimacy.
In the midst of these intimate relations, Jesus declares his authority primitive and supreme:—"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit." [Footnote 88]
[Footnote 88: John xv. 16.]
But the authority of the Master does not prevent Him from evincing a tenderness full of trust, and from respecting himself the dignity of his disciples:—"Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." [Footnote 89]
[Footnote 89: John xv. 15.]
He evinces on all occasions towards his apostles the trust that He feels in them, and shows his sense of the superiority of the position to which He has elevated them. His language sometimes fills them with astonishment, and they are more peculiarly struck by the numerous parables in which, whilst addressing the assembled multitude, He clothes his precepts:—"And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest 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. … But unto those that are without, all these things are done in parables." [Footnote 90]
[Footnote 90: Matthew xiii. 10, 11; Mark iv. 10, 11.]