II. The fury of the Jews was displeasing to God.—“They please not God” (ver. 15). They fondly imagined they were the favourites of heaven, and that all others were excluded from the Divine complacency. They had the words of the law carefully committed to memory and could quote them with the utmost facility to serve their own purpose. They would support their proud assumption of superiority and exclusiveness by quoting Deut. xiv. 2, wilfully shutting their eyes to the vital difference between the holy intention of Jehovah and their miserably defective realisation of that intention. In their opposition to Christianity they thought they were doing God service; yet all the time they were displeasing to Him. How fatally blinding is sin, goading the soul to the commission of the most horrible crimes under the sacred guise of virtue!
III. The fury of the Jews was hostile to man.—1. Their hostility was directed against the world of mankind. “Are contrary to all men” (ver. 15). The Jews of that period delighted in hatching all kinds of “sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion.” They were adversaries of all, the despisers of all. Tacitus, the Roman historian, brands them as “the enemies of all men:” and Apion, the Egyptian, according to the admission of Josephus, calls them “atheists and misanthropes—in fact, the most witless and dullest of barbarians.”
2. Their hostility was embittered by a despicable religious jealousy.—“Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles, that they might be saved” (ver. 16). Here the fury of the old religion against the new reached its climax. It is the perfection of bigotry and cruelty to deny to our fellow-men the only means of salvation. Into what monsters of barbarity will persecution turn men! Pharaoh persisted to such a degree of unreasonableness as to chastise the Hebrews for not accomplishing impossibilities! Julian, the apostate from Christianity, carried his vengeful spirit to his deathbed, and died cursing the Nazarene!
IV. The fury of the Jews hurried them into irretrievable ruin.—1. Their wickedness was wilfully persistent. “To fill up their sins alway” (ver. 16)—at all times, now as much as ever. So much so, the time is now come when the cup of their iniquity is filled to the brim, and nothing can prevent the consequent punishment. The desire to sin grows with its commission. “Sinners,” says St. Gregory, “would live for ever that they might sin for ever”—a powerful argument for the endlessness of future punishment. The desire to sin is endless.
2. Their punishment was inevitable and complete.—“For the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost” (ver. 16)—is even now upon them. The process has begun; their fury to destroy others will accelerate their own destruction. Punishment fell upon the wicked, unbelieving, and resisting Jews, and utter destruction upon their national status and religious supremacy (vide Josephus, Wars, Books v., vi.).
Lessons.—1. There is a fearful possibility of sinking into a lifeless formality, and blind, infatuate opposition to the good. 2. The rage of man against the truth defeats its own ends, and recoils in vengeance on himself.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES.
Vers. 15, 16. The Persecuting Jews—
- Often misled by professed zeal for truth.
- Tortured and murdered the noblest men of their own race.
- Opposed the Gospel with violent and unreasoning severity.
- Have themselves been persecuted by all the nations among whom they sojourned.
- Furnish an unanswerable argument for the truth of Christianity.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Verses 17–20.