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‘John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.’
Mar_6:18
I. His boldness.—He does not spare the king. What excuses he might have made! ‘It would be a bit of bad policy to alienate the king, to lose his favour. While he was friendly, John had an opportunity of getting hold of so many people and handing them on to Jesus.’ Ah, how often we are deceived about this matter of popularity and of influence! We are so loath to lose influence, to stand by principle. We sacrifice the very object of which influence and popularity may be given for the sake of retaining it. For what is influence given? What is the worth of popularity save that it may be used?
II. He rebuked vice.—‘I will speak of Thy testimonies even before kings, and will not be ashamed.’ That was the motto of John the Baptist; that must be the law of the Christian Church, and of Christian men and women in whatever sphere or department of life. ‘Before kings’—even the uncrowned King Demos who utters his mandates in the daily press, or the king or queen of your own circle of society. The Christian religion has a code of morals just as imperious in its demands as the Christian creed. Do not be afraid of being thought bigoted or prudish. Raise the standard. There are many who will rally round it if only some one in the office, in the club, in the drawing-room, will have the courage to plant it.
III. The Divine law concerning marriage.—The special subject-matter of the Baptist’s witness was a protest on behalf of God’s law concerning marriage. It was in defence of the sanctity of family life and of domestic purity. Does that not come home with a special application to us in these days? There are divers influences working to undermine our high, our true conception of the dignity of family life, of the Divine law concerning marriage. The Divine law concerning marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others on either side. We are concerned with the Divine law. The Church must stand by that. The Church cannot give her benediction, she cannot admit to her high privileges and sacraments those who forsake or transgress the Divine law concerning marriage.
Bishop A. C. A. Hall.
Illustration‘From Josephus we learn that the Baptist was imprisoned at the castle of Machærus, on the east coast of the Dead Sea. This castle, however, is stated to have belonged to Aretas. But Aretas made war on Herod when the latter put away his first wife (the former’s daughter), and it is supposed that, in the course of the war, it fell into Herod’s hands. If Herod were at this time engaged in a campaign on the frontier, his headquarters might be at Machærus; which would account for the apparent quickness with which the order to behead John was carried out. Such an absence from Galilee would also account for his not hearing of Jesus till after John’s death. Subsequently, Herod’s army was totally routed by Aretas, which was regarded by the Jews as a judgment for the murder of the Baptist.’