VIL

LECT. proper light. Their light was reflected, His independent; as He is emphatically called in the first chapter, "The Light."

The Light then now made itself manifest, shot forth its rays; for until now the Christ had veiled Himself more or less: but now He manifested His glory', gave some glimpses of what He was, gleamed forth a space, "and His disciples believed

on Him." Such was the blessed result in their case. It was indeed, as we know from what is subsequently recorded, a weak and imperfect faith, but it was yet genuine, and grew stronger and stronger, and was graciously accepted by our blessed Lord. And this truly is the reason of miracles, and of the record of them, to kindle faith: as we read in the conclusion of this Gospel, "These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that believing ye might have life through His name." May this blessed result be realized in our case also!

1 See chap. i. 14.

"Credidisse dicuntur qui firmius credunt." Grotius.

LECTURE VIII.

CHRIST PURGETH THE TEMPLE.

JOHN ii. 12-25.

VIII.

CAPERNAUM was the city where our Lord mostly LECT. resided. It was about a day's journey from Cana, where He had just been, and where He made the water wine.

The "brethren" here mentioned, as we learn from St. Matthew, were James and Joses and Simon and Judas, the sons possibly of Joseph and our Lord's Mother, born subsequently to His own supernatural birth; or it may be only His kinsmen, His cousins, according to that Hebrew idiom which calls all within close degrees of consanguinity" brethren :" Joseph himself is not mentioned. Indeed from the twelfth year of our Lord's age there is no further mention made of the husband of His virgin Mother; and from the silence regarding him in this particular place we may infer his death.

At Capernaum our Lord and this favoured company remained "not many days;" for the Passover was at hand, and they were all desirous,

Matt. ix. 1.

b Matt. xiii. 55.

Ps. lxix. 8. See on this much controverted question of the brethren of the Lord, for the former of the two views mentioned in the text, Alford's careful note on Matt. xiii. 55; for the latter, Pearson on the Creed, Art. iii. with the notes.

a Luke iii. 42, 43.

LECT. according to God's command, to keep that sacred VIII. festival at Jerusalem, and Jesus would lose no time after His first miracle in manifesting Himself there as the Son of God.

Our Evangelist calls the festival which our Lord and His mother and His brethren and His disciples went up to Jerusalem for to keep, the Jews' Passover, because he had in view those Gentiles to whom this Gospel should come. The Passover, as we learn from the twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus, was a sacred feast or festival of yearly occurrence among the Jews, in commemoration of their deliverance from Egypt, when the destroying angel passed over the houses of the Israelites, on which the blood of the lamb had been sprinkled, and harmed them not. This was one of the three great festivals which all the males among the Jews were enjoined to attend every year at Jerusalem. Christ would in this particular also fulfil the law. And while there He purged the temple of those who were profaning it "a deed," as Chrysostom says, "full of high authority." These sellers of beasts and changers of money might plead some shadow of reason for so doing. The beasts were for sacrifice, and the changing of money was to supply the visitors to the temple with the peculiar kind of coin required". They might plead therefore that

e Deut. xvi. 16.

f In Ev. Jo. Hom. xxiii. ἀνελθὼν δὲ εἰς τὰ Ἱεροσόλυμα τὶ ποιεῖ; πρᾶγμα πολλῆς αὐθεντίας γέμον.

"This market appears to have sprung up since the captivity, with a view to the convenience of those Jews who came from a distance, to provide them with the beasts for offering, and to change their foreign money into the sacred shekel, which alone was allowed to be paid in for the temple capitation tax. (Matt. xvii. 24 ff.)" Alford.

VIII.

what they did was for the convenience of the LECT. worshippers. But it was not for the glory of God. It was in reality for their own covetousness and love of gain. And so our Lord, taking up probably some of the cords which were used to confine the cattle,-"not the instrument," it has been said, "so much as the emblem of His wrath,"-drove out therewith these sellers and their wares; acting herein with the air of conscious Deity, an authority as irresistible as it was unexpected.

Twice during His ministry did our Lord thus purify the temple: once at its outset, (the occasion here recorded,) and once (for the evil had again gathered strength) at its close. On the present occasion it was the making a gain of godliness that formed the special point of Christ's rebuke: "Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." They made the business of religion subservient to their own worldly purposes. It was not that they desired to honour God by providing sacrifices for His service, but to enrich themselves under the cloak of a care for things divine. Our Lord strips the mask from off their hypocrisy, and the conduct of

b A Plain Commentary.

1 Let us not overlook that touch of truth in ver. 16. The different treatment of the doves is one of those minutie which could only occur to the veritable historian. Grotius notes it well when he says, "Quæ inclusæ non perinde ejici poterant, sed amovendæ erant."

So also Lampe, "Cum his ita egit, ut nullus flagelli appareat usus. ... Cum autem boves et oves flagellis sint exacti, facile apparet. Cum singulis enim convenienter naturæ suæ egit." And again, inf. "Procul dubio columbæ in corbibus quibusdam continebantur, quæ ope manuum removeri debebant."

* The Author of "A Plain Commentary" here refers us well to Mal. iii. 1-3.

LECT. the people stands out in all its meanness and -deformity.

VIII.

On the other occasion when our Lord thus purified the temple, which is that recorded by St. Matthew', He made reference to the abuses which too commonly accompany such traffic as well: "It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves" not only profaning the temple of religion by making it a mart for merchandise, but introducing into the house of God those petty frauds and arts which are discreditable even in the markets of men. We may also note, that by the expression "My Father's house," our Lord indirectly calls Himself, and claims to be, the Son of God.

This event seems to have had a good effect upon the minds of the disciples. It seems to have set them thinking. They call to remembrance that passage in the sixty-ninth Psalm, in which David, speaking as a type of the Messiah, had declared his consuming zeal for the honour of God's holy temple; and they recognise its application to Jesus. So their eyes were opened more and more to fresh and to greater discoveries of Him: and so shall ours also be, if, like them, we humbly meditate upon the Scriptures.

Our Lord throughout this transaction had acted with an air and an authority different altogether to that which any ordinary zealous man could have assumed. His conduct claimed a regard above and beyond that which might be paid to any

1 ch. xxi. 12, 13.