| 114. Figurative Discourses, in Which Jesus Is Supposed to Have Announced His Resurrection. | ||||
ACCORDING to the fourth gospel, Jesus, at the very beginning of his ministry, in figurative language, referred his enemies, the Jews, to his future resurrection (ii.19ff.). On his first Messianic visit to Jerusalem, and when, after the abuse of the market in the temple had provoked him to that exhibition of holy zeal of which we have formerly spoken, the Jews require a sign from him, by which he should legitimatize his claim to be considered a messenger of God, who had authority to adopt such violent measures, Jesus gives them this answer, "Destroy this temple, and after three days I will raise it up." The Jews took these words in the sense, which, since they were spoken in the temple, was the most natural, and urged, in reply to Jesus, that as it had taken forty years to build this temple, he would scarcely be able, if it were destroyed, to rebuild it in three days; but the evangelist informs us, that this was not the meaning of Jesus, an that he here spoke (though indeed the disciples were not aware of this until after his resurrection,) of the temple of his body, (naoj tou swmatoj au)tou): i.e. under the destruction and rebuilding of the temple, he alluded to his death and resurrection. Even if we admit, what however the most moderate expositors deny, that Jesus could properly (as he is also represented to have done in Matthew, xii.39ff.), when the Jews asked him for a visible and immediate sign, refer them to his resurrection as the greatest, and for his enemies the most overwhelming miracle in his history: still he must have done this in terms which it was possible for them to understand (as in the above passage of Matthew, where he expresses himself quite plainly). But the expressions of Jesus, as here given, could not possibly be understood in this sense. For when one who is in the temple, speaks of the destruction of this temple, every one will refer his words to the building itself. Hence Jesus when he uttered the words "this temple," must have pointed to his body with his finger; as, indeed, is generally presupposed by the friends of this interpretation. But, in the first place, the evan gelist says nothing of such a gesture, notwithstanding that it lay in {P.648} his interest to notice this, as a support of his interpretation. In the second place, Gabler has with justice remarked, how ill-judged and ineffective it would have been, by the addition of a mere gesture to give a totally new meaning to a speech, which verbally, and therefore logically, referred to the temple. If, however, Jesus used this expedient, the motion of his finger could not have been unobserved; the Jews must rather have demanded from him how he could be so arrogant as to call his body the temple, vabg or even if not so, still, presupposing that action, the disciples could not have remained in the dark concerning the meaning of his words, until after the resurrection. | ||||
By these difficulties modern exegetes have felt constrained to renounce John's explanation of the words of Jesus, as erroneous and made ex eventu, and to attempt to penetrate, independently of the evangelist's explanation, into the sense of the enigmatical saying which he attributes to Jesus. The construction put upon it by the Jews, who refer the words of Jesus to a real destruction and rebuilding of the national sanctuary, cannot be approved, without imputing to Jesus an extravagant example of vain-glorious boasting, at variance with the character which he elsewhere exhibits. If on this account search be made for some figurative meaning which may possibly be assigned to the declaration, there presents itself first a passage in the same gospel (iv.21ff.) where Jesus announces to the woman of Samaria, that the time is immediately coming, in which the Father will no longer be worshipped exclusively in Jerusalem but will, as a Spirit, receive spiritual worship. Now in the present pssage also, the destruction of the temple might, it is said, have signified the abolition of the temple-service at Jerusalem, supposed to be the only valid mode of worship. This interpretation is confirmed by a narrative in the Acts (vi. 14.). Stephen, who, as it appears, had adopted the above-expressions of Jesus, was taxed by his accusers with declaring, that "Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered," in which words a change of the Mosaic religious institutions, without doubt a spiritualization of them, is described as a sequel to the destruction of the temple. To this may be added a passage in the synoptic Gospels. Nearly the same words which in John are uttered by Jesus himself, appear in the two first Gospels (Matt. xxvi. 60 f.; Mark xiv. 57 f.) as the accusation of false witnesses against him; and here Mark, in addition, designated the temple which is to be destroyed, as one "made with hands," xeiropoihtoj, and the new one which is to be {P.649} built, as another, made without hands, a)lloj a)xeiropoihtoj, whereby he appears to indicate the same contrast between a ceremonial and a spiritual religious system. By the aid of these passages, it is thought, the declaration in John may be explained thus: the sign of my authority to purify the temple, is my ability in a short time to introduce in the place of the Jewish ceremonial worship, a spiritual service of God; i.e. I am authorized to reform the old system, in so far as I am qualified to found a new one. It is certainly a trivial objection to this explanation, that in John the object is not changed, as in Mark, where the temple which is to be built is spoken of as "another," but instead of this, is indicated by the word au)ton, as the same with the one destroyed; since, indeed, the Christian system of religion in relation to the Jewish, may, just as the risen body of Jesus in relation to the dead one, be conceived as at once identical and different, inasmuch as in both cases the substance is the same, while the transitory accidents only are supposed to be removed. But it is a more formidable objection which attaches itself to the determination of time, ev rpialy rmfpaig. That this expression is also used indefinitely and proverbially, in the sense of a short interval of time in general, is not adequately proved by the two passages which are usually appealed to with this view; for in them the third day, by being placed in connection with the second and first (Hos. vi. 2; Luke xiii. 32: shmeron kai aurion kai th trith) is announced as a merely relative and proximate statement, whereas in our passage it stands alone, and thus presents itself as an absolute and precise determination of time. Thus alike invited and repelled by both explanations, theologians take refuge in a double sense, which holds the middle place either between the interpretation of John and the symbolical one last stated, or between the interpretation of John and that of the Jews; so that Jesus either spoke at once of his body which was to be killed and again restored to life, and of the modification of the Jewish religion which was to be effected, chiefly by means of that death and resurrection; or, in order to repel the Jews, he challenged them to destroy their real temple, and on this condition, never to be fulfilled, promised to build another, still, however, combining with this ostensible sense for the multitude, an esoteric sense, which was only understood by the disciples after the resurrection, and according to which the naoj (temple) denoted his body. But such a challenge addressed to the Jews, together with the engagement appended to it, would have been an unbecoming manifestation of petulence, and the latent intimtion to the disciples, a useless play on words; besides that, in general, a double meaning either of the one or the {P.650} other kind is unheard of in the discourse of a judicious man. | ||||
As, in this manner, the possibility of explaining the passage in John might be entirely despaired of, the author of the Probabilia appeals to the fact that the Synoptics call the witnesses, who allege before the judgment seat that Jesus had uttered that declaration "false witnesses;" from which he concludes, that Jesus never said what John here attributes to him, and thus gains an exemption from the explanation of the passage, since he regards it as a figment of the fourth evangelist, whose object was both to explain the calumniations of the accusers, and also to nullify them by a mystical interpretation of his words, But, on the one hand, it does not follow, from the fact that the Synoptics call the witnesses false, that, in the opinion of the evangelists, Jesus had never said anything whatever of that whereof they accused him; for he might only have said it somewhat differently (lusate, not lusw), or have intended it in a diffeent sense (figuratively instead of literally): on the other hand, if he said nothing at all of this kind, it is diffiult to explain how the false witnesses should come to choose that declaration, and especially the remarkable phrase, "in three days." | ||||
If, according to this, on every interpretation of the expression, except the inadmissible one relative to the body of Jesus, the words kv rpialy rinepatg form a difficulty: a resource might be found in the narrative of the Acts, as being free from that determination of time. For here Stephen is only accused of saying, "This Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this (holy) place and change the customs that Moses gave." What is false in this allegation (for the witnesses against Stephen also are described as marturej yeudeij) might be the second proposition, which speaks in literal terms of a changing of the institutes of Moses, and instead of this, Stephen, and before him Jesus, may very probably have said in the figurative signification above developed. | ||||
Meanwhile, this expedient is not at all needful, so far as any insurmountable difficulty in the words ev rpialy iepaig, is concerned. As the number 3 is used proverbially, not only in connection with 2 or 4 (Prov. xxx. 15, 18, 21, 29; Wis. xxiii. 21; xxvi. 25), but also by itself (Wis. xxv. 1, 3.); so the expression, in three days, if it were once, in combination with the second and first day, become common as an indefinite statement of time, might probably at length be applied in the same sense when standing alone. Whether the expression should signify a long or a short period would then depend on the connection: here, in opposition to the construction of a great and elaborate building, to the real, natural erection of which, as the Jews directly remark, a long series of years was required, the expression can only be understood as denoting the shortest time. | ||||
{P.651} A prediction, or even a mere intimation of the resurrection, is therefore not contained in these words. | ||||
As, here, Jesus is said to have intimated his resurrection beforehand, by the image of the destroying and rebuilding of the temple, so, on another occasion, he is supposed to have queited the type of the prophet Jonah with the same intention (Matt. xii.39ff. comp. xvi. 4; Luke xi.29ff. When the scribes and Pharisees desired too see a sign from him, Jesus is said to have repulsed their demand by the reply, that to so evil a generation no sign shall be given, but the sign of the prophet Jonah, which in the first passage of Matthew, Jesus himself explains thus: as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale,, so also the Son of man will pass three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. In the second passage, in which Matthew attributes this declaration to Jesus he does not repeat the above interpretation; while Luke, in the parallel passage, explains it simply thus: For as Jona was a sign to the Jfinevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. Now against the possibility of Jesus having himself given the interpretation of the sign of Jonah which Matthew puts into his mouth, v. 40, a variety of objections may be urged. It is indeed scarcely a tenable argument, that Jesus cannot have spoken of three days and three nights, which he would pass in the heart of the earth, because he only lay in the grave one day and two nights: since the phraseology of the New Testament decidedly has the peculiarity, of designating the abode of Jesus in the grave as of three days' duration, because it touched upon the evening of the day before the Sabbath, and the morning of the day after it; and if this one day, together with two nights, were once taken for three whole days, it would only be a round way of expressing this completeness, to add to the days the nights also, which, besides, would naturally follow in the comparison with the three days and three nights of Jonah, But if Jesus gave the explanation of the sign of Jonah which Matthew attributes to him, this would have been so clear a prediction of his resurrection, that for the same reasons which according to the above observations, are opposed to the literal predictions of that event, we must conclude that Jesus cannot have given this explanation. At all events it must have led the disciples who, according to v. 49, were present, to question Jesus, and in that case it is not to be understood why he did not make the subject perfectly clear, and thus announce his resurrection in plain words. But if he cannot have done this, because then the disciples could not have acted after his death as they are said to have done in the Gospel accounts: neither can he, by that comparison of the fate which awaited him with that of Jonah, have called forth from his disciples a question, which, if proposed to him, he must have answered; but which, judging from the sequel, he cannot have answered. {P.652} | ||||
On these grounds, modern critics have pronounced the explanation of the shmeion Iona in Matthew, to be an interpretation made post eventum by the evangelist, and by him falsely attributed to Jesus. According to them, Jesus indeed directed the attention of the Pharisees to the sign of Jonah, but only in the sense in which Luke makes him explain it: namely, that as Jonah himself, by his mere appearance and preaching of repentance, without miracles, had sufficed as a sign from God to the Ninevites; so his own contemporaries, instead of craving for miracles, should be satisfied with his person and preaching. This interpretation is the only one which accords with the tenor of the discourse of Jesus, even in Matthew, and more particularly with the parallel between the relation of the Ninevites to Jonah, and that of the queen of the south to Solomon. As it was the wisdom of Solomon, by which the latter felt herself attracted from the ends of the earth; so, in Jonah, even according to the exression of Matthew, it was solely his preaching, (khrugma) which brought the Ninevites to repentance. It might be supposed that the future tense in Luke: "So also shall the Son of man be to this generation (a sign)," cannot be referred to Jesus and his preaching as manifested at that moment, but only to something future, as his resurrection: but this in reality points either to the future judgment Kplais, in which it will be made manifest, that as Jonah was reckoned a sign to the Ninevites, so was the Son of man to the Jews then living; or to the fact that when Jesus spoke these words, his appearance had not yet attained its consummation, and many of its stages lay yet in futurity. Nevertheless, it must have been at an early period, as we see from the first gospel, that the fate of Jonah was placed in a typical relation to the death and resurrection of Jesus, since the primitive Church anxiously searched through the Old Testament for types and propheces of the offensive catastrophe which befel their Messiah. | ||||
There are still some expressions of Jesus in the fourth gospel, which have been understood as latent prophecies of the resurrection. The discourse on the corn of wheat, xii. 24., it is true, too obviously relates to the work of Jesus as likely to be furthered by his death, to be here taken into further consideration. But in the farewell discourses in John there are some declarations, which many are still inclined to refer to the resurrection. When Jesus says: "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you; yet a little time, and the world sees me no more, but you see me; a little while, and you shall not see me, and again a little while and you shall see me, etc." (xiv.18ff., xvi.16ff.); many believe that these expressions, with the relation between "a little while, and again a little while;" the opposition between e)mfanizein hmin -toij maqhtaij- kai ou)xi tw kosmw (manifest to you (the disciples) and not to the world) the words {P.653} "I shall see you again, and you shall see," which appear to indicate a strictly personal interview, -can be referred to nothing else than the resurrection, which was precisely such a reappearance after a short removal, and moreover a personal reappearance granted to the friends of Jesus alone. But this promised reappearance is at the same time described by Jesus in a manner which will not suit the days of the resurrection. If the words "because I live" (xiv. 19), denote his resurrection, we are at a loss to know what can be meant by the succeeding clause, "you shall live also." Again, Jesus says that on that reappearance his disciples will know his relation to the Father, and will no more need to ask anything of him (xiv. 20., xvi. 23); yet even on the very last day of their intercourse with him after the resurrection, they ask a question of him, (Acts i. 6), and one which from the point of view of the fourth gospel is altogether senseless. Lastly, when he proises that to him who loves him, he and the Father will come, and make their abode with him, it is perfectly clear that Jesus here speaks not of a corporeal return, but of his spiritual return, through the parousia. Nevertheless, even this explanation has its difficulties, since, on the other hand, the expressions you shall see me, and I shall see you, will not entirely suit that purely spiritual return: hence we must defer the solution of this apparent contradiction until we can give a more complete elucidation of the discourses in which these expressions occur. In the meantime we merely observe, that the farewell discourses in John, being admitted, even by the friends of the fourth gospel, to contain an intermixture of the evangelist's own thoughts, are the last source from which to obtain a proof on this subject. | ||||
After all, there might seem to be a resource in the supposition, that though Jesus did not indeed speak of his future resurrection, it was not the less foreknown by him. Now if he had a foreknowledge of his resurrection, either he obtained it in a supernatural manner, by means of the prophetic spirit, the higher principle that dwelt within him, by means of his divine nature, if that be preferred: or he knew it in a natural manner, by the exercise of his human reason. But a supernatural foreknowledge of that event, as well as of his death, is inconceivable, owing to the relation in which Jesus places it to the Old Testament. Not merely in passages such as Luke xviii. 31. (which, as prophecies, can no longer have an historical value for us after the result of our last inquiry), does Jesus represent his resurrection, together with his passion and death, as a "fulfilment of all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man" but even after the issue, he admonishes his disciples that they ought to believe all that the prophets have spoken, namely, that Christ ought to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory (Luke xxiv. 25 f.). | ||||
{P.654} According to the sequel of the narrative, Jesus forthwith expounded to these disciples (going to Eminaus) all the passages of scripture relating to himself, beginning at Mtoses and all the prophets, to which further on (v. 44) the psalms are added; but no single passage is given us as having been interpreted by Jesus of his resurrection, except that it would follow from Matt. xii. 39 f., that he regarded the fate of the prophet Jonah as a type of his own; and regarding the subsequent apostolic interpretation as an echo of that of Jesus, it might be concluded, that he, as afterwards the apostles, found such prophecies chiefly in Ps. .xvi. 8 if., (Acts ii.25ff., xiii. 35.); Isai. liii. (Acts viii.32ff.), Isai Iv. 3., (Acts xiii. 34), and possibly also in Hos. vi. 2. But the fate of Jonah has not even an external similarity to that of Jesus; and the book which narrates his hstory carries its object so completely in itself, that whoever may ascribe to it or to one of its particulars, a typical relation to events in futurity, assuredly mistakes its true sense and the design of its author. Isai. Iv. 3. is so obviously irrelevant that one can scarcely conceive how the passage could be brought into special connection with the resurrection of Jesus. Isai. liii. refers decidedly to a collective subject perpetually restored to life in new members. Ilosca vi. has a figurative reference, not to be mistaken, to the people and state of Israel. Lastly, the principal passage, Ps. xvi. can only be interpreted of a pious man, who by the help of the Lord hopes to escape from the danger of death, not in the sense that he, like Jesus, would rise again from the grave, but that he would not be laid there, that is, obviously, not for the present, and with the understanding, that when his time should come, he must pay the tribute of nature: which, again, will not apply to Jesus. Thus if a supernatural principle in Jesus, a prophetic spirit, caused him to discover a pre-intimation of his resurrection in these Old Testament histories and passages; then, as no one of them really contained such a pre-intimation, the spirit in him cannot have been the spirit of truth, but must have been a lying spirit, the supernatural principle in him, not a divine, but a demoniacal principle. If, in order to avoid this consequence, cupranaturalists who are accessible to a rational interpretation of the Old Testament, resort to their only remaining expedient, of regarding the foreknowledge of Jesus concerning his resurrection as purely natural and human: we must reply, that the resurrection, conceived as a miracle, was a secret of the divine counsels, to penetrate into which, prior to the issue, was an impossibility to a human intelligence; while viewed as a natural result, it was a chance the last to be calculated upon, apart from the supposition of an apparent death planned by Jesus and his colleagues. | ||||
Thus the foreknowledge, as well as the prediction of the {P.655} resurrection, was attributed to Jesus only after the issue; and in fact, it was an easy matter, with the groundless arbitrariness of Jewish exegesis, for the disciples and the authors of the New Testament to discover in the Old, types and prophecies of the resurrection. Not that they did this with crafty design, according to the accusation of the Wolfenb ttel Fragmentist, and others of his class: but as he who has looked at the sun, long sees its image wherever he may turn his gaze; so they, blinded by their enthusiasm for the new-Messiah, saw him on every page of the only book they read, the Old Testament, and in the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah, founded in the genuine feeling that he had satisfied their deepest need, a conviction and a feeling which we also still honour, they laid hold on supports which have long been broken, and which can no longer be made tenable by the most zealous efforts of an exegesis which is behind the times. | ||||