Christ In His Suffering, Trial, and Crucified by Klaas Schilder: Schilder, Klaas - Vol 2 - Christ on Trial: 11. Chapter 11: Christ Led Back to the House of Bondage

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Christ In His Suffering, Trial, and Crucified by Klaas Schilder: Schilder, Klaas - Vol 2 - Christ on Trial: 11. Chapter 11: Christ Led Back to the House of Bondage



TOPIC: Schilder, Klaas - Vol 2 - Christ on Trial (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 11. Chapter 11: Christ Led Back to the House of Bondage

Other Subjects in this Topic:

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

Christ Led Back to the House of Bondage

When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put Him to death: and when they had bound him, they led him to Pontius Pilate the governor.

—Mat_27:1-2.

THUS Christ was condemned to death. While seated in official session, the Sanhedrin declared the Saviour of the world to be guilty of death. Now they go on to the next act: they deliver him up to the secular judge. It is true that the ‘‘church” thirsts for His blood (in the original of verse 1 the word translated people is one which points to Israel as a spiritual nation, as a covenant or “church” people), but only the secular authority is able to pour out Jesus’ blood.

Hence they are to go to Pilate today and are to say to him: lord, this man has sinned against heaven, and especially against thee. He does not deserve to be called a son of Abraham. Make Him one of Rome’s hirelings. The hirelings, too, are not registered in official census. Just so, this man is no longer counted among men in our books; He has become an outlaw to us. Come, join us, and strike His name from the books.

Our text tells us exactly what happened. Early in the morning —the exact time has not yet been determined definitely—the Sanhedrin came together officially to pass judgment upon Jesus for the last time, and to determine what ought to be done next.

We must pause to say that there is a great difference of meaning among expositors about the purpose for which this early morning session of the Sanhedrin was held. Some think that the death sentence still had to be confirmed officially, inasmuch as, strictly taken, this body was not allowed to pronounce the death sentence on the same day the witnesses were heard. Others surmise that they simply wanted to deliberate further upon how their plans might best be carried out. For it was plain that they would have to reckon not only with the difficulties presented by a mass of people who were in a state of excitement, but that they would also have to hit upon those means and methods which would most effectively and quickly elicit the Roman’s approbation of their wicked plan. They had to determine how the charge might be phrased best, to consider what ought and ought not to be said.

In other words, the exact purpose for which this morning session was called will perhaps never be clear to us, but it is not necessary that it should be. That which we should know is clear enough. The Sanhedrin is determined to be rid of the Nazarene; and they act upon that resolution by immediately going from their own hall to that of Pilate. They are intent upon getting official approval from him for carrying out the death sentence against Christ.

Just who and what Pilate proved to be upon this occasion affects the important issue very little. Much has been written about Pilate, about his work and public career, about his character and about his governmental policies. The several interpretations of each of these subjects differ greatly among each other. For our purpose we need to know only that Pilate is acting here as the representative of Roman authority. The empire of the world has placed him here, that empire which goes by the name of Rome. Now Rome had governed Israel precisely as it has pleased for some time. It had sent Pilate to this particular province of Syria, that is, to Judea. Under the direction of God, Rome gave him legal jurisdiction over the people of Israel, and thus over the mundane, historical manifestation of Jesus Christ. Pilate’s authority was both civil and military. In other words, the whole of the Roman empire stands back of Pontius Pilate and acts through him.

The moment, therefore, in which Jesus is sent to Pilate does begin a new phase of Christ’s suffering. That which is to take place now is not a matter-of-fact rubber-stamping of the sentence which Israel has already pronounced upon Him. The vehicle of death in which Israel had placed its Messiah did not move to the place of curse and destruction as automatically as that. Instead,

Pilate had to judge Christ independently. The spiritual people of Israel is one thing; Rome’s empire is another. And both have to pass sentence upon the Christ.

This, therefore, is the piteous state of things. Israel turns to the world for assistance in destroying its own Redeemer. In short, Israel returns to the house of bondage; Israel goes back to Egypt.

The journey from the palace of Caiaphas to the house of Pilate represents the return to the abandoned house of bondage. Israel while en route to the old Egypt takes its own yoke upon itself again, and takes it with Him who said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” The people who would have nothing to do with Him now conduct their own Messiah, that is, their own Yoke- bearer, to the house of Rome. The yoke of Rome is not easy, and the burden of Rome is by no means light, but Israel will gladly bend its neck under the burden of that weight if only the neck of the Messiah of Nazareth is broken at the same time. It prefers this to listening to Him who invited them to an easy burden and a light yoke.

Thus Israel goes on its way to the house of bondage. Behind the clouds the angels raise their voices in that hymn of the redeemed: Thou art the Lord who didst lead Thy people out of the house of bondage, out of the land of Egypt. But as they sang, God turned a page of His holy book, and pointed to the passage which said that His people had again sought out the place of bondage, and that, accordingly, in the future another and a different communion would flourish for Him, a renewed church which in the essence of its being would hate the house of bondage and would convert the mourning of Egypt’s and Rome’s enslavement into a bitter lamentation about that other house of bondage which is the house of sin. This other fellowship of the new covenant would from now on be called blessed of the Father and would share in a grace and glory capable of leading them eternally from a state of bondage into a state of freedom. These contrasts, although they may not have been clear to the Jews, are in faithful accordance with the trend of the biblical history of revelation.

We want to indicate that this is the case by pointing out briefly: first, the relationship between Israel and Rome; second, the relationship between the priesthood and Rome; and, third, the relationship between Christ and Rome.

This much we can say about the first consideration. When the Sanhedrin as the representatives of the people of God conduct Christ from Caiaphas to Pilate in order to beg him to allow them the terrible favor of Jesus’ death, that which is revealed is the relationship between the people of God and the Roman empire. Whoever has followed the lines of development characteristic of the history of special revelation, whoever, that is, has followed these guided by the light of Scripture, knows that the Bible time and again preaches and maintains the contrast between the sphere of special revelation and grace and that other sphere in which general revelation and grace make themselves felt. Since the days in which Abel stood over against Cain, the seed of the woman over against the seed of the serpent, Isaac over against Israel, Jacob over against Esau, Babel and now Rome, the Bible has ever maintained that these contrasts do not spring from the vicious circle of purely natural life, that they cannot find their explanation in the ever-recurring movement of action and reaction. Instead, the Bible insists that these contrasts spring from a basis as fundamental as the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, of election and reprobation, of freedom and slavery, of eternal life and eternal death. It may be that to the research student in history who has an eye only for that which is included in the circumference of life’s vicious circle, these contrasts are little more than the normal vacillations of natural forces. Such a student may see in them no more than the ever-returning undulation of thesis and antithesis, an illustration of that ironical and inevitable logic according to which Israel pounces on the neck of its enemy one day and must itself bow before the foreign yoke. But the Bible tells a different story. It introduces into this age-old conflict between the world empire and the people of revelation the messianic element, and sees the great crisis of reprobation and election realized in it. A line of demarcation drawn by a handwriting as old as eternity bisects the contra-polar movement and counter-movement of the history of men. And we all stand either on the one side or on the other side of this line of demarcation. Hence it was not employing a false logic of inferences or a mere delight in spiritualization, which inspired Christian exegesis to a deeper and ampler New Testament interpretation of the caption standing at the head of the law.

We remember that this caption says: I am the Lord Thy God which have brought Thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Now those who explain this statement according to the methods usually employed by “general” historical research, discover in it simply the contrast between Israel as one cultural influence and Egypt as another. As for the house of bondage, such students see in the flight from the slavery of Egypt nothing more than a general, historical, daily recurring phenomenon or change in cultural influence—a very common occurrence, indeed, in which the oppressed everywhere break their bonds and in which the tyrant everywhere feels the thongs of his own whip returning eventually to bruise his own back.

But He who reads the Bible, and believes, knows that when God led Israel out, He was leading out the people of special revelation. When God removed Israel from Egypt, He was removing Christ from Egypt. This is so essentially true, and the deeper meaning of Israel’s own departure from the house of bondage so plainly inheres in this, that we may not call Israel’s exodus a mere analogy to Christ’s victory over the slavery of death, or to the redemption of the Christian church, which is the body of Christ, from the sin of that house of bondage later. The great exodus of Christ and of the body of Christ from the bondage of sin and Satan was the real purpose for which God Himself rescued Israel from Satan’s grasp. As a matter of fact, we can say that God began rescuing Christ and the body of Christ from the bondage of sin and Satan in that historical moment when, under Moses’ conduct, He led Israel out of Egypt.

Therefore we can also say that Israel’s redemption from the house of bondage which was Egypt was essentially Christological. Take the Messiah out of the picture and the whole event loses significance. Then everything becomes as vain as the vanity described by the tired Ecclesiast of the Old Testament as he looked upon the things circumscribed by the vicious circle and saw only action and reaction, thesis and antithesis, movement and countermovement, and nothing else.

We should tremble, therefore, in the presence of a God who gives everyone what he wants, what in the deepest recesses of his being he really desires. We should tremble and beware.

At this time Israel, by means of the Sanhedrin, comes to ask a favor; it asks that the bones of David be broken. For the name of the Messiah is David. Thus Israel confessed that it wished to profit from the great accident, from the circular movement of the great cycle of cultural and political history. It refused to acknowledge that its national history could be interpreted only as being essentially Christological in character. In an axiomatic as well as in a theological sense, Israel profaned its own eschatology by considering and “solving” the problem of David, the problem of his kingdom, and of his eternal lamp. This it did with the aid of a light other than that of the history of special revelation.

And since it has done that Israel has voluntarily been taken captive by the cycle of its own natural life. Grace no longer redeems it. The people who had once been rescued from the bondage of the world now return thither. They ask the judge of the world’s house of bondage to permit Israel’s best blood to be shed. Egypt is one with Babel and with Rome as an enemy empire of the world. These all arise from the same source just as the “four beasts” of Daniel do. The Pharaoh of days gone by lives on now in the Caesar of the Babylon which is now called Rome. Israel is giving up its own First-born—He is also its great Only-Begotten —to the latest Pharaoh. It presents itself with a polite bow, and asks that he throw the Child into the river.

Such conduct represents the return of an entire people to an abandoned house of bondage. By means of it, this people is acknowledging that the vicious circle has a lasting and a legal status. Accordingly its fate can be delineated ironically by the figure of a dog returning to its own vomit. They are a people who in the play of world forces and world powers automatically go back to their unproductive source.

But even though Israel chooses to shut itself up within the narrow confines of natural life, not as Jaweh’s covenant people now but as just one more cultural influence among the many nations, God will countenance no interference in causing His covenant grace to triumph, and the straight lines of His evangelical grace to reach their fulfillment. When Israel delivered Christ into Pilate’s hands it forfeited absolutely the freedom which God had given it. This people no longer understood that the war of liberty which God had won for it in the day of Moses had been an essentially spiritual conflict. It had been a spiritual warfare, an emancipation from the bondage of worldly tyranny, but it had been an emancipation from the bondage of sin also. And now that this erring people does injustice to its own exodus and denies the privilege of its own freedom, now its surrender of Christ to Egypt must necessarily be called a retracing of its steps through the wilderness.

This people of God is forfeiting its rights to the ancient privileges. While on its way to the house of bondage Israel presents its petition to the autocracy of the world, and does so in the presence of Him who is greater than Moses. It asks for the privilege of eating out of Pharaoh’s hand again. It asks the death sentence for the very One who is the fulfillment of Moses.

Therefore Israel made room for another, and prepared the way for us who are the communion of the New Testament. In this perturbing hour Israel cleared the way for the emancipation of the new, the mature, church which is gathered together out of all nations, and which as it bows before Jesus Christ recognizes in Him the greater than Moses who delivers us from the bondage of sin, and thus prepares a place for us in the eternal kingdom.

When Israel on that last, the dying day of Jesus, went up to Pilate early in the morning, it was reckoned as a spiritual people, to be valued above all other peoples (laos, verse 1). But when at the end of the journey it had reached Pilate’s palace, it called itself one nation among others, and wished to be appraised by the same standard by which other peoples were evaluated (ethnos, Luk_23:2). A people that can sell its beautiful and honorable name at such a price is traveling the road of death. By changing from laos to ethnos Israel degraded itself to the plane of the other peoples of the world (ethnos) and so paved the way for the New Testament church, the inclusive laos of God’s prophets, priests, and kings in Christ Jesus. God buries no one. Men dig their own graves, and do so by their own choice.

In the second place we must consider the relationship which exists between the priests and Rome. For those who saw the chief of their ranks sitting in the presiding officer’s chair were the priests of Israel. This high priest delivers that other High Priest into the hands of the world’s representatives and adds the request that He be forever removed from their midst. As he does so we hear in his voice the polemical arguments of the old priesthood, arguing at the very gates of Rome. He argues, so that Caesar may hear, against that better Official who is a priest not according to Aaron’s order but according to the order of Melchizedek.

Now this, for all who read the Bible in the light which it sheds upon itself, represents the decay of the priesthood. The priesthood had ever been involved in argument and wrangling. Without discipline and dispute, without break and schism, without zeal and rejection a priesthood cannot exist in this world. However, the argumentation of the priesthood must be governed by the spirit and not by the flesh. And if we listen to the record of the disputations of the priesthood in Israel as it is recorded in history, we will notice that two subjects come into the foreground prominently. The first is the deathbed of Jacob. The second is the farewell address of Moses.

When Jacob died he said something about Levi (Genesis 49). While dying he shook his head in disapprobation, for Levi had carried on a quarrel; he had been a wrangler. He had quarreled about the problem of Father Jacob, but not about the problem of Prince Israel. When Shechem had seduced Dinah, Levi had undertaken to punish him. He had taken steps which avenged father Jacob’s family pride and the family loyalty of Levi’s brothers, but which had done so in a purely carnal way. The quarrel which Levi conducted then was a quarrel of the flesh, for the flesh, and by the flesh. No one had asked how it might be possible for messianic light to pass from Jacob’s house to that of Shechem. Not a moment of thought was given to the spiritual, messianic element which should hallow every war in which Jacob is a participant. In fact, Levi went to the other extreme. The false zeal of his flesh went so far that he mocked a sacrament which was a sign and seal of messianic, spiritual grace. He asked Shechem and the inhabitants of the city to circumcise themselves. Levi falsely promised Shechem that after the circumcision, the ritual of transfer to the spiritual communion of Israel, he and his people would also be accepted by the family of Jacob as determined by ties of blood. And when this seemingly pious requirement was satisfied, Levi proved that he meant none of all his pious words. Instead of accepting Shechem into the fellowship of Jacob’s blood and Israel’s spirit, he faithlessly breaks the vow, institutes a massacre among the citizens of Shechem and thus becomes guilty of gruesomely mocking the sacrament of the Lord’s holiness. He proves that his quarrel has its origin in, is conducted by, and is being carried on for, the flesh.

That is the first phase of Levi’s violent wrath as it expresses itself in the world. Levi “knows” his brothers as brothers according to the flesh, and he “knows” his father and mother as being his parents according to the flesh. In the quarrel which Levi conducted the spiritual blessing of grace is actually being prostituted into a merely external protection of family pride and carnal arrogance. Hence Jacob dies with a sigh of disapproval upon his lips. He was sad because of the quarrel which Levi had carried on.

Later in the Scriptures—Deuteronomy 3—there is a more specific discussion of Levi’s quarrel. The discussion is carried on by one of Levi’s own family. Moses speaks of it. As Moses prepares to die, he refers to Levi again, and looks upon him as a wrangler, as a man insisting upon sharply defined antitheses.

However, in the place where father Jacob curses, there Moses rises up to bless. Jacob and Moses both make the wrath of Levi the subject of their farewell address. However, over against Jacob who condemns and curses the quarrel of Levi stands Moses who puts that quarrel into a hymn of rejoicing. The hymn of praise which he sings over Levi’s head rises up to God who, because of Levi’s violence, exalted and accepted him. Moses’ hymn rises to God who because and together with the brutality of Levi accepted him as a special favorite.

Does it seem strange to you that Moses should praise what Jacob chooses to curse? Nevertheless, that is what actually happened. Besides, we should not suppose that in the course of years Levi’s quarrel subsided, or that the fires of his zeal were extinguished. Moses is quite willing to acknowledge that Levi continues to be filled with the spirit of quarrel. He alludes to the fact that Levi long ago, at the side of Sinai, painted his sword red in his effort to punish those who worshipped the golden calf; and he also refers to the fact that not long since Levi had again taken up violent quarrel with those who had celebrated a feast of immorality and idolatry in the camp of the covenant people. This had taken place in that dark hour in which Israel had given itself up to sin at Baal-Peor. At that time Phinehas, the priest of the tribe of Levi, had raised the hands which were wont to minister the sacrifice of atonement, against his unspiritual brethren.

Yes, Levi was still very much the wrangler. But there was this difference, and it gave Moses cause for rejoicing. Levi’s quarrels were now springing from a different source. Jacob’s objection had been that Levi’s quarrels had been carnal in character. Levi “knew” his brothers and his father only according to the flesh. As he saw it, the generation of his father Jacob was included only in the vicious circle of natural life. Levi’s quarrel at the time had nothing of the messianic in it.

But as Moses looks back upon this most recent instance of Levi’s rebuke, he acknowledges in him a different motivation. Levi no longer “knows” his father and his brothers and his sons. Levi, regarded now as a tribe, naturally, has transferred the quarreling from a carnal to a spiritual plane. Now he does not even think his own family too good for the penalty of purging which the quarrel of the Spirit of the Lord comes to carry on against the flesh of Jacob and of Esau. Levi, working through Phinehas now, does not look for family ties but for the fellowship which comes through the Holy Spirit. He is no longer storming against Shechem but against sin, also against the sin which dwells in his own house. “For this was the time in which the judgment against the house of Levi should begin.” Thus did Levi repent of his past. He subjected the things of nature and of the flesh to the far greater consideration of the Spirit of God. He subordinated birth to rebirth and the tie of the blood to the bond of the covenant. Thus he quarreled against his brothers in order to make room among them for the holiness of the Lord, and for the rights of the covenant — that is, for the Messiah.

You ask how it happened that the zeal of Levi succeeded in escaping from Jacob’s curse and in arriving at the blessing of Moses? This is the explanation. God Himself quarreled against Levi. God had tested him, and had stormed against him by the waters of Massah and Meribah. Moses’ voice catches in his throat as he thinks it, for there God had quarreled with Moses and Aaron, the two greatest of the tribe of Levi.

That had been when they struck water out of the rock. They had been told to do something else. When the people had called for water, and God had wanted to give it, they had been told to speak to the rock. God wanted the water of the miracle to be accompanied by the hearing of the preached word. Moses’ speaking was to be a part of the wonder of the day, for what good is it to a thirsting covenant people for God to give it water, if the word is not given at the same time? For Moses and Aaron this was the most significant matter; for the rock which poured out water really was an image of Christ (1 Corinthians 10). Therefore the wonder which calls forth water out of the rock must be accompanied by the preached Word in order that God’s name may be hallowed. Thanks to the word which hallows that name, the miracle would not fade away as did the running water, but would be recalled as an instance of sacramental grace which could open men’s eyes to the perfect messianic gift of the future, and thus bring the people to an acknowledgment of the wondrous ways of God becoming manifest in Israel in the person of the Messiah.

But Moses had not spoken. Neither he nor Aaron had at that time hallowed the name of the Lord. Levi had quarreled again in these his two greatest representatives. And this time he had quarreled not against Shechem, but against his own brothers. This quarrel was again carried on in such a way that the flesh polluted the channels of the spirit, even though the fountains of the spirit had been reached. Levi had stormed and quarreled again; Moses and Aaron had inveighed vehemently against Levi’s own “murmuring” brothers. Again he had done so according to carnal and not according to spiritual laws. His sharp wrath had been poured upon the children of Israel, but because of their caustic speech, he had neglected the word of the Lord. The service of the word was replaced by a quarrel inspired by self. Then the Lord Himself quarreled against Levi in Moses and Aaron. In the presence of the whole people God denied these two giants the privilege of admission to the land of promise. Thus Moses and Aaron learned that God is willing to accept those who quarrel, that He even gives them a definite place in His kingdom, but that every quarrel must give full and free expression to the messianic idea, and in that way subject the flesh to the spirit of God. This judgment of God Levi had acknowledged in fear and trembling as a holy and a good one. Levi, who had always wrangled at the prompting of the flesh, now becomes humble as God conducts His quarrel against him. And when Levi turned the rudder around, God also reversed his fate. The Levi who heard his wrath being cursed at Jacob’s deathbed is now being acknowledged by the way of purgation as a quarreler by the grace of God. and as such is given the blessing of the priest. He asserts that the spirit of God is inspiring this hymn of war and peace, this farewell hymn of Moses in which Moses sings of the rights and grace- given privileges of Levi.

What Moses said is that God’s urim and thummim were to be entrusted to Levi. These two stones which the priests were to wear in their robes, and with aid of which they were to ask what was the Lord’s will, were now given to Levi. Hereafter Levi might as a judge and a priest pronounce the word of curse and of blessing, of rejection and acceptance, of quarrel and of peace, of yea and nay, and of approbation and reprobation.

Since that time the priesthood has been endowed with the urim and the thummim. This privilege carries with it the heavy responsibility of declaring war and peace, of saying yea and nay, of binding and loosing on the earth, and of carrying out the superquarrel, the dia-crisis of the Lord among the people.

Levi knows that he owes the privilege of the urim and the thummim, the privilege of declaring judgment, to the miracle of grace. He knows that as he himself is subject to the quarrel which God is conducting against him and which purges his own sin, he may himself execute God’s quarrel in the world and thus recognize and carry out the conclusive decision of the urim and the thummim of the Lord in the whole of life.

Now to return to the hour in which. Christ is being led to the house of bondage. Caiaphas leads and behind him follow the whole of the priesthood, in other words, this is none other than Levi. These are the old priests, the priests of the generation of the glorified past. As always they quarrel, they wrangle. At present they are carrying on their argument with the Nazarene. They have read the urim and the thummim and have said? These stones of Jaweh pronounce a curse against Jesus of Nazareth. Sheer curse — that is the message they have. The curse is an unmixed one. God is saying nay to Jesus, and the “nay” has no modifying overtone. Hence Jesus must die. Together they go to Pilate, the company of the tribe of Levi. And they say: “Yes, we know that you also must judge Him, but it is according to our law, according to the Levi-law of the quarrel that He must die.” That the urim and the thummim[1] have infallibly said.

[1] It is unnecessary to say that this is naturally figurative speech, in these times.

O Levi, Levi, wrangler between the Spirit and the flesh! When in the ears of the world and in those of Rome and of Egypt he conducts his quarrel against the Nazarene, he identifies himself with the dog returning to his own vomit. Levi quarrels, and he strikes the rock, “and the rock was Christ.” Levi no longer ministers the word of God. He simply asserts his own flesh. He no longer recognizes his brother except as he is according to the flesh. Rejecting his brother-Nazarene he comes to beg that the heathen give him a writ of capital punishment for a fleshly brother. Why? Because he has this fault to find with a son of Abraham: namely, that He wants to subject the flesh to the spirit, and that He, regarding Levi’s blood as impure the while, wants to subordinate the flesh to the Word and to the ancient covenant. Levi does not recognize his brother. But to say that is not to praise him, as Moses once did when he used the same words to call Levi a brother. Levi’s failure to recognize Jesus of Nazareth, his brother according to the flesh, is not due to his maintenance of the will of the Lord but to his assertion of his own flesh. It is an expression of Levi’s quarrel of the flesh and of nature against the preaching of the Nazarene. Levi would save himself. Therefore when he led his own brother according to the flesh to Pilate, Levi signed his own death warrant. Cursed be his wrath for it is violent. When Levi throws out the bearer of the office according to the order of Melchizedek, he forfeits his own office forever. Levi quarrels against his Messiah, waives the redeeming Spirit of Christ, does indeed desire the glamor of Moses but not his messianic mystery. Hence the march of Levi’s priests to the house of Pilate is another profanation of the holy war.

Henceforth Levi is dismissed. Begging, and bristling with wrath, he stumbles up Pilate’s porch to ask a death warrant for Abraham’s best son. In doing so he is prostituting the Saviour, he is honoring over against the citizens of the Shechem of his day, the family pride of Jacob’s flesh at the complete expense of Israel’s messianic spirit. He is trampling on the sacrament, rejecting the Lamb of the Passover, and is administering death. Cursed be his wrath for it is evil.

Thereupon God’s own hand took the urim and thummim out of the priestly robe and gave them to the Son. Now He has been given all rights to curse and to contradict in heaven and on earth. But on this important condition, of course, that He will bear the quarrel of the Lord against Him without murmuring, that He will die outside of His Canaan, in order that He may suffer the curse in His own flesh.

Melchizedek will dismiss Levi, but not until Levi himself has reported at the house of bondage. And Melchizedek will bless the lost sheep of Levi no further with his lavish pentecostal blessing, until Levi himself has acknowledged that he is empty-handed. Or can we say that a beggar knocking at the door of the house of bondage for a favor is able to fill the arms of God to overflowing?

In the third place, we pause to note the relationship which, as is plainly outlined here, exists between Christ and Rome. Jesus goes to Pilate as the Son of man. We have observed before (chapter 7, p. 140 ff.) that Christ Himself had the prophecy of Dan_7:13 in mind as He walked on the way of death. He knew that He was the Son of man, empowered from above to put an end to the empires of the world, and to make room for His own immovable kingdom.

Now that luminous, prophetic picture of the future, described in Dan_7:13 is overshadowed; now the scroll of prophecy of the old Daniel is thrown as so much rubbish on the heap of “evangelical folly” and of “messianic offence.” What? Is this the Son of man who is to destroy the world empire which Daniel saw? Surely, that cannot be. He comes to Pilate in fetters; He comes to Rome bound. What can this man achieve against the kingdom of iron and clay which Daniel saw? Plainly, Christ as well as Levi is subservient to Rome and Rome will soon, will very soon, tread upon Him.

Thereupon they led the Son of man from Caiaphas to the throne of the Beast. They led the Son of man from Caiaphas to a place beneath the feet of iron and of clay, that is, beneath the feet of the image which bodied forth all the empires of the world taken together (Chapter 7, “Christ Vanquishing the Vicious Circle as the Son of Man”, pages 141-142).

This too is foolishness and offense. It is as foolish as the cross; as offensive as any and all of the great concealments of God in this world. The Word disappears from sight in the stream of paradoxical phenomena. Prophecy is being laughed at here; the kingdom, reputed to be immovable, finds that its king is being trodden upon en route from Caiaphas to Pilate.

This is the way of the house of bondage. This is the way of death. This is the course of the lie. From the viewpoint of faith, this is the way of thorns, of foolishness and offense. May God be very gracious here. But that He cannot be on this occasion. He cannot be that here. May He be gracious to my soul; for from this time on it will be possible for Him to be gracious again.

Thereupon they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the house of judgment. Strange reversal: the dead are about to bury the Living. The judges are about to deliver Him up who is the very one from whom they have their commission. These wranglers, whose duty it is to build for peace, quarrel with the Prince of their peace and I am one of them. I belong to their accursed company.

Do not restrain me now. I would go to Jesus. I would fall at His feet, and kiss Him again and again. Because I am walking the path of the dead anyhow, there is but one escape for me. He is the life and the way, and He is also the truth. He conducts Himself from the hall of judgment to the house of the Father, from the place of bondage to the throne of freedom, and from the quarreling which is solely Spirit-motivated to the immovable kingdom which, uncontested now, proceeds to draw its spacious circle on the new earth.

From now on I shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power of God in heaven. And from now on I shall be better able to read and to understand the law of the Lord. Hereafter I shall take the tables of the law into my hands, read the familiar words, “I am the Lord thy God who hast led thee out of the house of bondage,” and I shall interpret this faithful statement of the Old Testament in the light shed upon it by the New. I shall say to my soul: Look upon this Jesus. He is the Lord thy God who for your sake was led back to the house of bondage. And to that Lord Himself I shall say: Thou art my Surety, O Lord; this hast Thou done for me.

Thereupon He will speak to me again, but now in the fullness of the revelation of the new day. He will say: I am the Lord thy God who have led myself into my, and thee out of thy, house of bondage. As for thee, do thou learn gratitude, and the first principle of it: the law, the law, seen in the light of the Gospel.

For we know that Moses went up out of the house of bondage in order to make room for the Lamb and for His fulfilled service.