James Nisbet Commentary - Matthew 15:23 - 15:23

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James Nisbet Commentary - Matthew 15:23 - 15:23


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DIVINE SILENCES

‘But He answered her not a word.’

Mat_15:23

Christ had His moods of sternness. These words of Our Lord suggest a thoughtful consideration of what we may call the Divine silences. History, the Bible, and our own experience, each is full of them. Most of us know them to our cost, many to their blessing. And to observe the varieties of them, to discover their meaning, to recognise their wisdom, and to secure their blessing, is to go a long way in fathoming the counsels of God.

I. Questions which God refuses to answer.—There are questions which God refuses to answer.

(a) God will not answer dishonest questions; questions put in an insincere spirit, with a matured purpose, with no intention of obedience, in insolent frivolousness; on one or all of these grounds, we find our Lord refused to answer certain demands of the Pharisees; of the High Priest, of Pilate, of Herod.

(b) God will not answer presumptuous questions; questions which skirt the mysterious borderland between the visible and the invisible; questions on which neither Scripture, nor conscience, nor nature casts one gleam of light.

(c) God will not answer speculative questions. The origin of evil is one of these questions. The Bible explains little, it only drops hints about it. But it does tell us that evil is to be overcome with good.

(d) God will not answer controversial questions. When the disciples asked, ‘Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He distinctly declined to answer: ‘It is not for you to know the time and seasons which the Father hath kept in His own power.’ And that answer is the key to many other questions.

II. Questions which God consents to answer.—There are questions which God consents to answer. Such questions are practical, and we do not always appreciate His answers. They are questions about pain, duty, and truth. Our Lord’s answer to the disciples about the man that was born blind illustrates this. He will answer about truth in a degree we must appreciate, by methods we must accept, and on conditions which we must observe. His promise is not to impart truth to us instantly or entirely, but by His Spirit to show us the way into truth, and to leave us there to find it for ourselves.

III. Never silent to those who seek.—Of this we may be perfectly certain, that, whatever may be Christ’s silences to those who deserve them, He is never silent to those who seek His salvation, and crave His grace, and bear His Cross, and trust His love.

—
Bishop Thorold.

Illustration

‘We are sometimes tempted to think that, had we been told but a little more, much hot controversy, and much perilous division, and much weakening of strength in the face of the enemy might have been spared to the Church of God. If, for instance, but one clear direction had been given about the baptism of infants, there would have been no opportunity, or, as others would put it, no excuse for a separate body of Christians to whom the ordinance that we Churchmen love is felt to be an unreal and even a superstitious thing. If in the very important matter of Church government we had been enabled to gather, not only from logical inference, and not only from historical continuity, the rule or order most pleasing to God, and edifying for man, but from a distinct sentence of Christ’s, the three last centuries of Church history might have been spared many a rent and tear in the robe of outward unity; many a blow and wound aimed by hot and even venomous tongues from brother at brother, and by saint at saint, might also have been spared us. The Head of the Church has thought differently.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

‘HE KNOWS’

I. Silence in the Word of God.—This to the spiritual mind is deeply significant and instructive. Are there not doctrines and revelations and statements in the Bible around which a solemn silence reigns—a silence which eternity alone will break? Leave the mode of the Divine existence to the explanation—if, indeed, it ever will be explained—of a higher and more perfect state of knowledge. Cease to speculate respecting the origin of sin—the permission of evil—the apparent discrepancies of revealed truth—the mysteries of the Divine government in the world—the un-revealed details of the future world; leave these questions where God has left them—in solemn, awful, unbroken silence.

II. The silence of Christ’s love.—The sense or enjoyment of the Lord’s love in the soul may for a season be suspended; the voice of love be still. Jesus answers not a word. There was love in His heart towards the mother suing at His feet on behalf of her daughter, but it was silent love. Wait in faith and patience; Jesus will break the silence—Christ will speak; the tempest shall subside, the clouds shall vanish, and sweet the peace your Father will give.

III. The silence of Jesus in prayer.—You approach the throne of grace, you draw near the mercy-seat, but—He answers you not a word! Jesus is silent. The silence of God in prayer is to be interpreted but as a test of our sincerity, and as a trial of our faith.

IV. The silence of God in His dark and afflictive providences.—How often have these dispensations gathered around you in gloom and mystery, the deep, the awful stillness of which not a divine syllable has broken. You know not; but He knows. Rest in Him.

—
The Rev. Dr. Octavius Winslow.