Alfred Edersheim: LIFE AND TIMES OF JESUS THE MESSIAH

Yet Peter's words were to be made useful, by affording to the Master the opportunity of correcting what was amiss in the hearts of all His-disciples, and teaching them such general principles about His Kingdom, and about that implied in true discipleship, as would, if received in the heart, enable them in due time victoriously to bear those trials connected with that rejection and Death of the Christ, which at the time they could not understand. Not a Messianic Kingdom, with glory to its heralds and chieftains, but self-denial, and the voluntary bearing of that cross on which the powers of this world would nail the followers of Christ. They knew the torture which their masters, the power of the world, the Romans, were wont to inflict: such must they, and similar must we all, be prepared to bear, [2 In those days the extreme suffering which a man might expect from the hostile power (the Romans) was the literal cross; in ours, it is suffering not less acute, the greatest which the present hostile power can inflict: really, through perhaps not literally, a cross.] and, in so doing, begin by denying self. In such a contest, to lose life would be to gain it, to gain

would be to lose life. And, if the issue lay between these two, who could hesitate what to choose, even if it were ours to gain or lose a whole world? For behind it all there was a relity, a Messianic triumph and Kingdom, not, indeed, such as they imagined, but far higher, holier: the Coming of the Son of Man in the glory of His Father, and with His Angels, and then eternal gain or loss, according to our deeds, [a St. Matt. xvi. 24-27.]

But why speak of the future and distant? 'A sign', a terrible sign of it 'from heaven,' a vindication of Christ's 'rejected' claims, a vindication of the Christ, Whom they had slain, invoking His Blood on their City and Nation, a vindication, such as alone these men could understand, of the relity of His Resurrection and Ascension, was in the near future. The flames of the City and Temple would be the light in that nation's darkness, by which to read the inscription on the Cross. All this not afar off. Some of those who stood there would not 'taste death,' [1 This is an exact translation of the phase, which is of such very frequenct occurrence in Rabbinic writings. See our remarks on St. John viii. 52 in Book IV. ch. viii.] till in those judgments they would see that the Son of Man had come in His Kingdom, [a St. Matt. xvi. 28.]

Then, only then, at the burning of the City! Why not now, visibly, and immediately on their terrible sin? Because God shows not 'signs from heaven' such as man seeks; because His long-suffering waiteth long; because, all unnoticed, the finger moves on the dial-plate of time till the hour strikes; because there is Divine grandeur and majesty in the slow, unheard, certain nigh-march of events under His direction. God is content to wait, because He reigneth; man must be content to wait, because he believeth.

THE END