To show the exact meaning to contemporary Jewish minds of this act of the Prophet of Nazareth we must recall not merely the Isaian ideal of the "Davidic" reign as a universal kingdom of righteousness and peace based on divine law going forth from Zion, but also the later apocalyptic hopes. We must remember that all expectation in Jesus' time was focussed on the prophecies of Malachi, which made the purified temple the scene of Jehovah's visitation of his people, after they should have been brought to a "great repentance" by the coming of Elias. A rabbinic parable of the period will give us the point of view. It is an answer to the reproach so bitterly resented by Isaiah, "Israel is a wife forsaken," and is based on Malachi 1:6-14, and 3:1-12 interpreting the designation "Tent of Witness" applied to the tabernacle in Exodus 38:21:
A king was angry with his wife and forsook her. The neighbors declared, "He will not return" (cf. Isa. 49:14). Then the king sent word to her (Mal. 1:10 ff): "Cleanse my palace, and on such and such a day I will return to thee." He came and was reconciled to her. Therefore is the sanctuary called the Tent of "Witness"—a witness to the Gentiles that God is no longer wroth.[4]
Jesus' act was the assertion of authority "from heaven" to make Jehovah's will supreme upon earth, beginning at his own sanctuary. It was effected by direct appeal to the conscience of the masses, which to the extent of their understanding responded overwhelmingly. Jesus did not expect his act to be more than "a witness to the peoples." But on the other hand, for the time being at least, he sacrificed no life save his own. One close parallel could be cited from modern times if the demonstration could be freed from its unfortunate association with really fanatical revolt and real intention to provoke a servile insurrection. In keeping his demonstration in the temple free from entangling alliance with Zealot nationalism, Jesus showed a moderation and foresight which were unfortunately lacking to the demonstration of John Brown at Harpers Ferry; otherwise the two have many points of affinity. It was while the governor of Virginia was still hesitating to sign the death warrant of the champion of negro emancipation, long before his martyr spirit marched on before great armies of liberation, that Ralph Waldo Emerson, once himself a non-resistant pacifist, wrote in his journal:
If John Brown shall suffer, he will make the gallows glorious like the cross.
III
That Jesus intended to raise the standard of David by his public act at the Passover is certain. His pacifism was of the type of Micah's and Isaiah's. That he meant the act to convey a religious sense differentiating it from the merely political ideal of the Zealots is also certain. His doctrine of reliance on spiritual methods in the pursuit of the God-given aim exalts forbearance as a means in terms not less noble than the foremost champions of non-resistance. We may question whether he actually counted upon his own only too probable fate of crucifixion at Roman hands as destined to serve the precise end which it actually has subserved in human history. Those who see it with the wisdom of retrospect know that it has furnished to all devotees of Israel's ideal of the Kingdom of God, in all races, unto all successive generations, a rallying point and a symbol of final victory. But Jesus was looking forward with the eye of faith, not backward with the eye of knowledge. He believed that even through death God would give victory to those who sacrificed life and all to his kingdom's cause, and that it would be given ere their generation had passed into oblivion. How much further than this his prophetic insight into the ways of God with men extended is a question which will be variously answered in accordance with varying views of his personality. It need be no matter of surprise, however, to any discerning mind, that the fourth evangelist should also look backward at the significance of the cross, interpreting it in the light of its actual results. The fourth evangelist is the successor of Paul at Ephesus. Like Paul he naturally emphasizes its effect in "reconciliation," a twofold atonement, "breaking down the enmity" between man and God, and also that between man and man; and the great barrier of Paul's experience was that erected by the Mosaic law between Jew and Gentile. By the cross, says Paul to the Ephesians, Christ who is "our peace"[5]
made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity; even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself of the twain one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.
No wonder Paul thinks of God as "the God of peace," the gospel as "the gospel of peace" and Christ as "our peace" proclaimed to the nations near and far.
That is the pacifism of Christianity. No wonder Paul's great successor at Ephesus compares this healing and reconciling cross to the token of forgiveness and faith which Moses lifted up in the wilderness, and repeatedly presents as its divinely appointed aim the "gathering into one the children of God that are scattered abroad" (John 11:51-52).
The fourth evangelist devotes the closing section of his story of the public ministry to this great question, Why Jesus came forward as the Christ? The scene he chooses is Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication, that festival which commemorated the death and resurrection of the Maccabean martyrs who had given their lives for the national ideal. The story begins with the Jews' demand of Jesus that he "tell them plainly" whether he is the Christ. It ends with the mystical utterance of the high priest: