| 68. Scope of the Messianic Plan of Jesus-Relations to the Gentiles. | ||||
ALTHOUGH the Church founded by Jesus did, in fact, early extend itself beyond the limits of the Jewish people, there are yet indications which might induce a belief that he did not contemplate such a.n extension. When he sends the twelve on their first mission, his command is, Go not into the way of the Gentiles; Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. x. 5 f.). That Matthew alone has this injunction and not the two other Synoptics, is less probably explained by the supposition that the Hebrew author of the first gospel interpolated it, than by the opposite one, namely, that it -was wilfully omitted by the Hellenistic authors of the second and third Gospels. For, as the judaizing tendency of Matthew is not so marked that he assigns to Jesus the intention of limiting the Messianic kingdom to the Jews; as, on the contrary, he makes Jesus unequivocally foretell the calling of the Gentiles (viii. 11 f. xxi.33ff. xxii.1ff. xxviii. 19 f.); he had no motive for fabricating this particularizing addition; but the two other evangelists had a strong one for its omission; in the offence which it would cause to the Gentiles already within the fold. Its presence in Matthew, however, demands an explanation, and expositors have thought to furnish one by supposing the injunction of Jesus to be a measure of prudence. | ||||
It is unquestionable that, even if the plan of Jesus comprehended the Gentiles as well as the Jews, he must at first, if he would not for ever ruin his cause with his fellow-countrymen, adopt, and prescribe to the disciples, a rule of national exclusiveness. This necessity on his part might account for his answer to the Canaanite woman, whose daughter he refuses to heal, because he was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. xv. 24), were it not that the boon which he here denies is not a reception into the Messianic kingdom, but a temporal benefit, such as even Elijah and Elisha had conferred on those who were not Israelites (1 Kings xvii.9ff. 2 Kings v.1ff.)-examples to which Jesus elsewhere appeals (Luke iv.25ff.). Tience the disciples thought it natural and unobjectionable to grant the woman's petition, and it could not be prudential considerations that withheld Jesus, for a time, from compliance. That an aversion to the Gentiles may not appear to be his motive, it has been conjectured that Jesus, wishing to preserve an incognito in that country, avoided the performance of any Messianic work. But such a design of concealment is only mentioned by Mark (vii. 25), who represents it as being defeated by the entreaties of the woman, contrary to the inclinations of Jesus; and as this evangelist omits the declaration of Jesus, that he was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of {P.318} Israel, we must suspect that he was guided by the wish to supply a less offensive motive for the conduct of Jesus, rather than by historical accuracy. Had Jesus really becu influenced by the motive which Mark assigns, he must at once have alleged it to his disciples instead of a merely ostensible one, calculated to strengthen their already rigid exclusiveness. We should therefore rather listen to the opinion that Jesus sought, by his repeated refusal, to prove the faith of the woman, and furnish an occasion for its exhibition, if we could find in the text the slightest trace of mere dissimulation; and none of a real change of mind. Even Mark, bent as he was on softening the features of the incident, cannot have thought of a dissimulation of this kind; otherwise, instead of omitting the harsh words and making the inadequate addition, and would have no man, knoic it, he would have removed the offence in the most satisfactory manner, by an observation such as, he said this to prove, her (comp. | ||||
John vi. 6.). Thus it must be allowed that Jesus in this case sccma to share the antipathy of his countrymen towards the Gentiles, indeed, his antipathy seems to be of a deeper stamp than that of his disciples; unless their advocacy of the woman be a touch from the pencil of tradition, for the sake of contrast and grouping. | ||||
This narrative, however, is neutralized by another, in which Jesus is said to act in a directly opposite manner. The centurion of Capernaum, also a Gentile, (as we gather from the remarks of Jesus,) has scarcely complained of a distress similar to that of the Canaanitlsh woman, when Jesus himself volunteers to go and heal his servant (Matt. viii. 5.). If, then, Jesus has no hesitation, in this instance, to exercise his power of healing in favour of a heathon, how comes it that he refuses to do so in another quite analogous case? Truly if the relative position of the two narratives in the Gospels have any weight, he must have shown himself more. harsh and narrow at the later period than at the earlier one. Meanwhile, tlus single act of benevolence to a Gentile, standing as it does in inexplicable contradiction to the narrative above examined, cannot prove, in opposition to the command expressly given to the disciples, not to go to the Gentiles, that Jesus contemplated their admission as such into the Messianic kingdom. | ||||
Even the prediction of Jesus that the kingdom of heaven would. be taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles, does not prove this. | ||||
In the above interview with the centurion of Capernaum, Jesus declares that many shall come from the east and the u'est, and sit down with the patriarchs in the kingdom of heaven, while the children of the kingdom, (obviously the Jews,) for whom it was originally designed, will be cast out (Matt. viii. 11 f.). Yet more decidedly, when applying the parable of the husbandmen in the vineyard, he warns his countrymen that the kingdom of God shall be taken from them, and given, to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. All this may be understood in the {P.319} sense intended by the prophets, in their promises that the Messianic kingdom would extend to all nations; namely, that the Gentiles would turn to the worship of the Lord, embrace the Mosaic religion in its entire form, and afterwards be received into the Messiah's kingdom. It would accord very well with this expectation, that, prior to such a conversion, Jesus should forbid his disciples to direct their announcement of his kingdom to the Gentiles. | ||||
But in the discourses concerning, his re-appearance, Jesus regards the publication of the Gospel to all nations as one of the circumstances that must precede that event: (Matt. xxiv, 14.Mark xiii. 10), and after his resurreciion, according to the Synoptics, he gave his disciples the command, Go you, and teach all nations, baptizing them, etc. (Matt. xxviii. 19; Mark xvi. 15; Luke xxiv. 47.); i.e. go to them with the offer of the Messiah's kingdom, even though they may not beforehand have become Jews. Not only, however, do the disciples, after the first Pentecost, neglect to execute, this command, but when a case is thrust on them which offers them an opportunity for compliance with it, they act as if they were altogether ignorant that such a direction had been given, by Jesus (Acts x. xi.). The heathen centurion Cornelius, worthy, from his devout life, of a reception into the Messianic community is pointed out by an angel to the apostle Peter. But because it was not hidden from God, with what difficulty the apostle would be induced to receive a heathen, without further preliminary, into the Messiah's kingdom, he saw it needful to prepare him for such a step by a symbolical vision. In consequence of such an admonition Peter goes to Cornelius; but to impel him to baptize him and his family, he needs a second sign, the pouring out of the Holy Gliost on these uncircumcised. When, subsequently, the Jewish Christians- in Jerusalem call him to account for this reception of Gentiles, Peter appeals in his justification solely to the recent vision, and to the Holy Gliost given to the centurion's family. Whatever judgment we may form of the credibility of this history, it is a memorial of the many deliberations and contentions which it cost the apostles after the departure of Jesus, to convince themselves of the eligibility of Gentiles for a participation in the kingdom of their Christ, and the reasons which at last brought them to a decision. Now if Jesus had given so explicit a command as that above quoted, what need was there of a vision to encourage Peter to its fulfilment? or, supposing the vision to be a legendary investiture of the natural deliberations of the disciples, why did they go about in search of the reflection, that all men ought to be baptized, because before God all men and all animals, as his creatures, are clean, if they could have appealed to an express injunction of Jesus? Here, then, is the alternative: if Jesus himself gave this command, the disciples cannot have been led to the admission of the Gentiles by the means narrated in Acts x. xl; if, on the other hand, that narrative is authentic, the alleged command of Jesus cannot be historical. Our canon decides {P.320} for the latter proposition. For that the subsequent practice and preeminent distinction of the Christian Church, its accessibility to all nations, and its indifference to circumcision or uncircumcision, should have lain in the mind of its founder, is the view best adapted to exalt and adorn Jesus; while, that, first after his death, and through the gradual development of relations, the Church, which its Founder had designed for the Gentiles only in so far as they became Jews, should break through these limits, is in the simple, natural, and therefore the probable course of things. | ||||