1. They were in a condition in which they might have known much of Him. He made the world and preserved it and was in it. Yet there was no proper recognition of Him.
2. This ignorance of Christ was the sin of the world, and it is its sin now, a sin for which there is no excuse. In addition to creation and providence we have revelation.
II. By His own.
1. Who are His own. In a sense
(1) All mankind by the right of creation;
(2) The converted by the right of redemption and adoption;
(3) As distinguished from both these, the Visible Church. That its members are His own arises from their possession of advantages peculiarly distinctive--the oracles of God--the ordinances of the kingdom. They are in covenant. Christ is under engagement to grant to them eternal life: they are under engagement to seek that gift and accept it.
(a) Virtually such was the covenant at Sinai. Christ engaged to bring His own to Canaan, through their obedience to the law by which they were to live. They engaged to go up and possess their inheritance in reliance on Him. The covenant was typical as well as temporal, and typified a spiritual salvation.
(b) Israel violated this covenant, by the rebellion in the wilderness, and by slowness of heart to understand its moral meanings.
(c) This covenant has passed away, the substance of its shadows having come, but thousands like Israel are false and perfidious to the new and better covenant: they have the profession without the power of godliness.
2. He came to His own.
(1) This was unsolicited by them, the kindness and consideration were all His.
(2) He came to them in the wilderness and at various periods of their history, but they rejected Him.
3. He came as the Incarnate Word, and they received Him not. Is this also true of the Visible Church to-day? The unconverted hearers of the gospel are more guilty than the Jews, and will therefore he visited with a heavier condemnation. (A. Beith, D. D.)
The rejection of the Light
I. GENERALLY AND PRIOR TO THE INCARNATION BY THE WORLD. The world knew Him not, which was
1. Inexcusable (Rom_1:20).
2. Unnatural, since those who lived and moved and had their being in Him should have known Him who made them (Psa_103:22).
3. Heinous. The non-recognition less intellectual than moral, arising not from failure to discern, but from want of inward affinity to the light Joh_3:19; Eph_4:18; Job_24:13).
4. Prophetic, since it foreshadowed Christ’s reception by Israel with the outlook towards which it is here introduced.
II. PARTICULARLY AND DURING THE PERIOD OF HIS INCARNATION BY HIS OWN, i.e, by the Jews, whose rejection of Him, besides sharing the criminality incurred by the world, displayed
1. Monstrous ingratitude. He selected them for no peculiar excellence on their part, and vouchsafed centuries of gracious teaching and discipline to prepare them to recognize and embrace Him.
2. Shamefaced robbery. Christ presented Himself as the Heir claiming His inheritance (Mat_21:38); as a Master (Mat_25:14) only to find His possessions forcibly withheld from Him, and Himself cast forth and killed.
3. Incorrigible wickedness. They could not discern the signs of Messiahship in Him.
4. Dire infatuation, for in rejecting Him they thrust from themselves the kingdom of God, and missed the true vocation of their race. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Christ rejected by the world
His own world rejected Him, as a rebel country might reject a lawful and beneficent king. The very work of His hands, that which was indebted to Him for its very being, refused to recognize Him. (G. J. Brown, M. A.)
The world
Corrupted mankind are called the world, because they love the world more than their Creator. Through love, we make something our dwelling-place; and therefore what we have made by our love to be our dwelling-place, from that we have deserved to be called. (Augustine.)
The world knew Him not.
Let us give the largest scope to these words. If you apply them to the world of matter, I need not say that matter can never interpret spirit. God cannot be known in the charity and richness of His inward nature by anything that matter represents. Nor can men whose whole intercourse with matter either disprove or affirm the invisible and inward truth of Christ. Neither does the race know Him: for they are seeking to live by bread alone. Three-fifths of the world live as the sheep, the ox, and the swine do. The heavens to them contain little unless it be some terror that superstition interprets. They cross the plain of life, with heads down, as herds of cattle cross the prairie browsing as they go. They live for and by the senses. They know not the God who created them, and sustains and blesses them. (H. W. Beecher.)
The non-recognition of Christ
When Ulysses returned with fond anticipations to his home at Ithaca, his family did not recognize him. Even the wife of his bosom denied her husband--so changed was he by an absence of twenty years, and the hardships of a protracted war. In this painful condition of affairs he called for a bow which he had left at home. With characteristic sagacity he saw how a bow so stout and tough that none but himself could draw it, might be made to bear witness on his behalf. He seized it. To their surprise and joy, like a green wand lopped from a willow tree, it yields to his arms, it bends till the string touches his ear. His wife, now sure that he is her long lost and lamented husband, throws herself into his fond embraces, and his household confess him to be the true Ulysses. If I may compare small things with great, our Lord gave such proof of His Divinity when He, too, stood a stranger in His own house, despised and rejected of men. He bent the stubborn laws of nature to His will. He proved Himself Creator by His mastery over creation. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Genius unrecognized
When Verdi the celebrated musician first made application for admission as a student at the Conservatoire Musicale at Milan, he was rejected by the director, Francesco Basily, on the ground that “he could make nothing of the new comer, who showed no disposition for music!” How this early verdict was reversed is a matter of notorious history. (H. O. Mackey.)
Recognition
Some literary reputations are like fairies, in that they cannot cross running water. Others, again, are like the mystic genii of the “Arabian Nights” which loom highest when seen afar. Poe, e.g., is more appreciated in England than at home; and Cooper is given a higher rank by French than by American critics. (Matthews.)
Judgment by contemporaries
Contemporary judgment is least of all judicial. The young forestall novelty itself. The old mistrust or look backward with a sense of loss. It is hard for either to apply tests that are above fashion; we adopt, as lightly as formerly we contemned, a fashion that at last we avow we rightly interpret. (E. C. Stedman.)
God present but unknown
“I have swept the heavens with my telescope and have found no God.” (E. C. Stedman.)
God unrecognized in His own world
Sir Isaac Newton had among his acquaintances a philosopher who was an atheist. It is well known that the illustrious man, who takes the first rank as a mathematician, natural philosopher, and astronomer, was at the same time a Christian. He had in his study a celestial globe, on which was an excellent representation of the constellations and the stars which compose them. His atheist friend, having come to visit him one day, was struck with the beauty of tiffs globe. He approached it, examined it, and, admiring the work, he turned to Newton and said to him, “Who made it?” “No one!” replied the celebrated philosopher. The atheist understood, and was silent. (Christian Age.)
Christ is often near but unknown
Every faculty of the soul, if it would but open its door, might see Christ standing over against it, and silently asking by His smile, “Shall I come in unto thee?” But men open the door and look down, not up, and thus see Him not. So it is that men sigh on, not knowing what the soul wants, but only that it needs something. Our yearnings are home-sicknesses for heaven; our sighings are for God, just as children that cry themselves asleep away from home, and sob in their slumber, know not that they sob for their parents. The soul’s inarticulate meanings are the affections yearning for the Infinite, and having no one to tell them what it is that ails them. (H. W. Beecher.)
He came to His own
Christ’s coming and rejection
I. IN WHAT SENSE HE CAME TO HIS OWN, AND HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT. He came as the long-expected Messiah (Hag_2:7; Joh_4:26), answering all the characters given Him as such in the Old Testament.
1. He came as Immanuel (Isa_7:14; Isa_9:6; Isa_35:4; Isa_40:9-10). His testimony to this effect was confirmed by exercising the authority of God
(1) by forgiving sins (Mat_9:2);
(2) by healing the sick (Mat_8:3);
(3) by raising the dead (Mar_5:41; Joh_11:43),
(4) by calming the storm (Mar_4:39).
But so far were His own from receiving Him that they accounted Him a “sinner” (Joh_9:24), a “deceiver” (Mat_27:63), “mad” and possessed of the “devil” (Joh_10:20).
2. He came as the Prophet like unto Moses (Deu_18:15), whom He resembled in many things. But they rejected Him because His doctrine contradicted their prejudices, censured their vices, and laid a restraint on their dominant lusts.
3. He came as High Priest and Mediator between God and man, typified by Aaron; but they, depending on being Abraham’s seed, on circumcision, the priesthood, and expiations of their law, received Him not.
4. He came as Redeemer and Saviour (Isa_59:20; Isa_42:6; Isa_24:7), but not seeing their want of redemption (chap. 8:33), and having no desire for spiritual blessings, they received Him not.
5. He came as King (Psa_2:6; Jer_23:5-6; Zec_9:9), to rescue them from their enemies, and govern them with good laws. But as His kingdom was not of this world they rejected Him (Joh_19:13; Joh_19:15; Joh_18:40, Luk_19:14).
II. IN WHAT SENSE IT IS NECESSARY THAT WE SHOULD RECEIVE HIM We receive His name, and therefore receive Him by profession; the Scriptures, as declaring His will; His ordinances: but do we receive Him in all the offices and characters He sustains?
1. Acknowledging Him as a Divine Teacher, do we learn and practise His precepts?
2. Acknowledging that He is Mediator, do we rely on His atonement and intercession?
3. Confessing Him to be all-sufficient Redeemer, do we glorify Him in our body and spirit, which are His?
4. Do we in reality as well as in profession receive Him as our King? It is implied in these questions that we received
(1) His doctrine as the rule of our faith, experience, and practice;
(2) His merits as the ground of our confidence;
(3) His Spirit, without which we are none of His;
(4) His example as our pattern;
(5) His exaltation as the ultimate object of our desire.
III. THE GREAT PRIVILEGE THEY ATTAIN WHO RECEIVE HIM
1. They are unspeakably near to Him as made sons of God by regeneration Joh_5:1).
2. They are dear to Him above all others. They are favoured with access to Him, taken under His protection, and assured of a great reward. (J. Benson.)
Christ’s coming to His own
The Jewish nation was “His own,” by choice (Deu_7:6); by purchase (Exo_19:4-5); by covenant (Deu_26:18); and by kindred (Heb_2:16). (F. H.Dunwell, B. A.)
Christ rejected by His own people
He came unto His own things, and His own people received Him not. He was as a householder coming to his own house and being kept out by his own servants. What is the earth but one great apartment in the house of God! Its furniture (its hills and valleys, and rivers, fruits and flowers, and harvest fields) is Jesus Christ’s, for, apart from Him, was not anything made that was made: yet when He came to His own house His ownership was denied by the servants who had been put into temporary possession by His own power and grace. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Advent
The coming of Christ had
I. AN OBJECT.
1. Men had lost sight of God. Some had lost it. Others had never had it. All were destitute of it except a small class of Hebrew believers. Three kinds of sin had blinded, corrupted, usurped the human soul.
(1) Self-admiration,which makes a rebel of the intellect;
(2) Self-will of the conscience;
(3) Self-indulgence of the passions.
Curiosity was all that was left as the highest aim in science; war, in enterprise; and a sensuous enthusiasm for the beautiful in art. Alexandria, Rome, and Athens represented these three ambitions.
2. In losing God, man had lost himself. Faith in God and the dignity of man went down together. With Divine worship fell human rights and liberties. Seneca stood for the world’s idea of learning; Caesar, for its idea of politics; Corinth, for its idea of pleasure.
3. The object of the Advent, therefore, was to restore to man his God and Father, and himself.
II. A METHOD. Not by creating a religious capacity, but by quickening men with trust and love.
1. Not first by a book: that would have reached not one in ten thousand, nor him in his heart.
2. Not chiefly by oral instructions, which have to be certified to the understanding before they can inspire faith.
3. Not by a mere creature-image of Deity, for that would have been only adding another to the old Pantheon of idolatries.
4. This infinite goodness, this One Spirit of God, must come in a life. Christ must be the Son of the Father; must touch humanity and enter into it; must wear its flesh; must lift its load; must partake its experience; must be tempted with it; must be seen, nay, felt, suffering for it. This will complete the manifestation. This will be, not an education, not an inspiration, not a human self-elevation, which neither history nor logic hints at; but a coming of Heaven to earth; a theophany, or manifesting of God. This is perfect compassion, and effectual relief. This gets the sundered souls together. Even stolid and blinded eyes will behold their Lord. This will move, and melt, and convince of sin, and arouse to holiness.
III. A MOTIVE. There could be but one (Joh_3:16). (Bp. Huntington.)
The Advent of Christ.
I. THE GREAT ADVENT; OR, THE ARRIVAL OF THE HEIR.
1. The illustrious personage described.
(1) The Word of God; implying personality, intelligence, eternity, divinity.
(2) The Creator of the universe.
(3) The life and light of men; the source of whatever mental, moral, or spiritual truth ever entered into the soul of man.
(4) The heir of Israel and humanity. He came into His own possessions.
(a) Into the world which by reason of His creatorship was His.
(b) Unto Israel, the special creation of His grace, and His peculiar treasure.
2. The manner of His coming pictured. He came
(1) Voluntarily. The Baptist was sent; Christ came.
(2) Opportunely. In the fulness of the times; the time pre-appointed by God; the time pre-eminently adapted for a new religion. The false faiths had been tried and found wanting. The Mosaic economy had served its purpose. The Roman power had provided a means of universal communication, and Greece a universal language.
(3) Graciously. To communicate the life and the light without which neither Israel nor humanity could be saved. It would not have been surprising had He come to condemn rather than to save.
(4) Unostentatiously. We might have anticipated an advent in great power and glory.: instead of that it was in the form of a servant.
II. THE MOURNFUL REJECTION; OR, THE REPUDIATION OF THE HEIR. Israel’s conduct representative of the world’s. This rejection was
1. Symbolized at His birth. “No room for Him in the inn.” Manger for His cradle.
2. Experienced throughout His life. “Despised and rejected of men.” Calumniated as a wine-bibber, a blasphemer, an impostor, a confederate of Beelzebub, and persecuted and scorned.
3. Confirmed by His death. “ Away with Him”! “Crucify Him”! Learn
(1) The amazing condescencion of Christ.
(2) The supreme claim of Christ.
(3) The wickedness and danger of the unbelief which rejects Christ. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Jesus of Nazareth the true promised Messiah
No Scripture has so directly and immoveably stood in the way of opposers of Christ’s divinity, from Socinius backwards, than this chapter. In the text we have
I. CHRIST’S COMING INTO THE WORLD.
1. The person who came. The Second Person in the Trinity, whose infinity makes the act of His coming miraculous. But Christ, who delighted to mingle mercy with miracle, took a finite nature, so that what was impossible to a Divine nature was done by a Divine Person, and being made man could do all that a man could do except sin. The endeavour to account for this mystery has been the source of all heresy, both of hypothesis and denial.
2. The state and condition from which Christ came. From the bosom of the Father, a state of eternal glory, joy, and Divine communion. How great the humiliation from this to that of a crucified malefactor! And yet it was perfectly voluntary.
3. To whom He came. Everything was “His own” by creation, possession, and absolute dominion; but the Jews were His by
(1) The fraternal right of consanguinity; and
(2) Churchship, as selected by Him. That it was Palestine and not Rome He came to was of His sovereign mercy.
4. The time at which He came. When they were at their worst.
(1) Nationally. Only a remnant left, and that under a foreign yoke; when to be a Jew was a mark of infamy.
(2) Ecclesiastically. When most corrupt, hypocritical, sceptical. In this we may see
(a) the invariable strength of Christ’s love;
(b) the immoveable veracity of God’s promise.
II. CHRIST’S ENTERTAINMENT BEING COME. May we not expect for Him a magnificent reception, a welcome as extraordinary as His kindness, especially when we consider His purpose? But His own received Him not. This is not strange. The Jews only followed the common practice of men, whose.emulation usually preys on those superior to them.
1. The grounds of His rejection.
(1) Christ came not as a temporal prince, which frustrated their carnal hopes. They therefore derided “the carpenter’s son.”
(2) They supposed that He set Himself against the law of Moses by His spiritual interpretations, human exceptions, and exposures of rabbinical glosses.
2. The unreasonableness of these grounds.
(1) He came to be not a temporal prince, but
(a) a blessing to all nations, which is inconsistent with the idea of a warrior Messiah. This is the burden of prophecy
(b) of a low, despised estate (Psa_22:1-31; Isa_53:1-12.)
(2) He came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it. The ceremonial law was fulfilled and passed away, therefore, of itself.
3. The reasons which should have induced them to receive Him.
(1) All the marks of the Messiah appeared in Him.
(2) His whole behaviour was a continued act of mercy and charity. Conclusion: The Jews are not the only persons concerned in this guilt, but also all vicious Christians. (R. South, D. D.)
The ingratitude of man
I. THE PEOPLE AMONGST WHOM OUR LORD DWELT WERE GUILTY OF INGRATITUDE TOWARDS HIM.
1. It was an act of distinguished favour our that He should be born among them; yet they rejected Him, which was a high-handed act of national ingratitude.
2. Special cases occurred involving still greater ingratitude.
(1) Among them were many whom our Lord healed. Strange ingratitude that a man should owe his eyes to Him and yet refuse to see in Him the Saviour; should owe to Christ his tongue and be silent in the great Physician’s praise.
(2) He fed thousands of hungry persons: yet they followed Him, not for Himself, but for what they could get out of Him.
(3) When He acted as a teacher they tried to murder Him.
3. The further our Lord went on in life the more ungratefully was He treated. He forgot Himself and gave Himself away that He might seek and save the lost; and yet men strove to take away His life which was more valuable to them than to Him.
4. At last that evil generation had its way with Him and crucified Him.
5. When He rose and tarried for forty days to minister blessing, they first doubted and then invented an idle tale to account for it.
6. In this ingratitude those who were nearest to Him had a share. One denied Him, and all forsook Him and fled.
II. WE ALSO HAVE BEEN UNGRATEFUL TO OUR LORD.
1. Those who are most indebted to Christ’s love and grace--believers.
(1) Every sin is ingratitude since Christ suffered for it and came to destroy it.
(2) The setting up of any rival on His throne in the heart, when Christ is dethroned in favour of wife, child, friend, ambition, pleasure, wealth, is base ingratitude.
(3) The same is true when we lose large measures of grace; when the Holy Spirit admits us into peculiar nearness to God and we act inconsistently.
(4) And so the little service we render and our lukewarm love. Christ’s love is like the ancient furnace which was heated seven times hotter; ours like the solitary spark which wonders within itself that it is yet alive.
(5) The rare consecration of our substance is another case in point. Our gifts to His poor, His Church, missions, are an insult to Him.
(6) How base is our ingratitude when we neglect His commands and have to be driven to obedience.
2. There are those whose ingratitude is even greater.
(1) Those who refuse to trust Him, in spite of gospel announcements, loving invitations, the evident manifestation of Christ.
(2) Those who oppose Him, jest at His gospel, and treat His people with indignity. What evil has He ever done you? When has He given you an ill word or look? It is to His silence that you owe your life. There is no chivalry in such conduct as this.
3. Those from whom, above all others, such conduct ought not to have proceeded.
(1) Children of pious and sainted parents.
(2) The restored from sickness.
III. WHAT THEN? What comes out of all this?
1. Let us appreciate our Saviour’s sufferings.
2. Admire our Saviour’s love.
3. Apply the cleansing blood which can take away the scarlet sin of ingratitude.
4. Learn how to forgive. Christ loved men none the less for their ingratitude.
5. Judge how we ought to live in the light of this subject: devote ourselves entirely to Him. In conclusion, what will become of the finally ungrateful? (C. H.Spurgeon.)
His own
There are two ways of belonging to another: unwilling and inevitable, or willing and hearty. You may belong to a nation by birth, and dislike it; to a family, from dependence or self-interest, and care for no welfare in it; to a university, and be out of harmony and out of temper with its administration. But so you cannot belong to the brotherhood that is of the body of Christ. You must be in sympathy both with the brotherhood and its head. The legal ownership you cannot help; it brings no animation and no comfort. By your creation you are the Lord’s; His to be disposed of, to live or die, to be judged. The business of your new heart, “receiving Christ,” is to change this reluctant belonging for the closer and grateful loyalty of affection; the legal bond for the gracious one of faith. (Bp. Huntington, D. D.)
The coming and rejection of the light
The light came into men’s hearts as into its proper native dwelling-place. The Word from whom that light issued asserted His right over all the feelings, instincts, impulses, and determinations of these hearts, as over His own rightful domestics and subjects. But the light was repelled; the rightful Ruler was treated as an intruder by these domestics and subjects. There was anarchy and rebellion where there should have been subordination and harmony. A usurper had reduced those into slavery who would not have the service which is freedom. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
Christ rejected
His own were those who believed with Him in the Scriptures; the teachers of Israel, those who had been trained for His reception. The peasants of Galilee knew Him and received Him when He fed them; for the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib. He was rejected by those who were the most rigorously orthodox; by the men who believed that their whole life should expend itself in maintaining the temple and its worship. The last days of Christ, the illustrious days of His controversy, were spent with the best, the highest, the most moral of all the people then upon the globe; and they knew Him not. The poor knew Him, and followed Him; the blind know Him, and cried out to Him; the dead knew Him, and came to life; but the armour-bearers of the then regnant faith--the priests, the teachers--looked upon Him with blank faces, and treated Him as a pretender, a traitor, and slew Him. Is the Christian spirit any more acceptable to-day? Is the policy of Christian nations saturated with blood, and bearing every insignia of the cross imbued with that spirit? Are all pompous churches, with all forms of superstition connected with their worship, and full of symbols of Him who came not to destroy but to save--are they truly Christian? Listen to the Te Deum when men knee deep in blood come back with victory on their banners. See the government of most Christian nations; how degraded have been the empires over which they have ruled. See how the Christian nations of Europe lie over against each other, like hungry lions waiting only for an opportunity to spring! What Christian nation, looking at its past history and present policy, can be said to have received Christ? (H. W. Beecher.)
Christ still rejected
As John writes, there was an advent and a rejection: a bodily advent, a bodily crucifixion: the image and outer form of the Word that was from the beginning, the ever-living Emmanuel, the Christ that comes to-day. If He is rejected to-day, it is by the pride and fashion and self-indulgence of to-day. It is our compromising consciences, it is our well-dressed sensuality, it is our commercial cunning, it is more literary conceit, it is our making merchandise of men and of men’s virtue, our covering up cruelty, and calling it patriotism; dishonesty, and calling it regular trade; hollowness and mutual flattery, and calling it good society; prayerless self-idolatry, and calling it a rational religion--it is these things that prepare and build His cross, and crucify Him afresh. (Bp. Huntington, D. D.)
