The World That Christ Entered
1. At the birth of Christ the world was united under one scepter.
a. From the Euphrates to the Atlantic; from the mouths of the Rhine to the slopes of the Atlas, the Roman Emperor was the sole lord.
b. There might be war on the far eastern frontier, beyond the Euphrates, or with the rude tribes in the German forests on the north, but the vast Roman world enjoyed peace and security
c. The merchant or the traveler might alike pass freely from land to land; trading vessels might ship to any port, for all lands and all coasts were under the same laws, and all mankind, for the time, were citizens of a common State
d. At the head of this stupendous empire a single man, Octavianus Caesar -- now better known by his imposing title, Augustus – who ruled as absolute lord. i. All nations bowed before him, all kingdoms served him.
e. It was in such a unique era that Jesus Christ was born.
f. Roman peace enabled all lands to be open to the message of mercy and love which He came to announce.
g. However for the last 50 years, Augustus. Sulla and Marius, Pompey and Caesar, had led their legions against each other, alike in Italy and the Provinces, and had drenched the earth with blood.
h. The world was exhausted by the prolonged agony of such a strife; it sighed for rest, and perhaps never felt a more universal joy than when the closing of the Temple of Janus (the God of War) symbolizing that for the present, the world was at peace.
i. Morality was entirely divorced from religion, as may be readily judged by the fact, that the most licentious rites had their temples, and male and female attendants.
2. To understand the condition of things in the Holy Land in the lifetime of Jesus, it is necessary to notice the history of the region and how the religious and political affairs acted and reacted on the spirit of the nation
a. The Roman general Pompey, commanding in the East, appeared on the scene, in the year 63 B.C.; got possession of the country by craft; stormed the Temple, and inaugurated a new era in Palestine.
b. The country was redistributed in arbitrary political divisions; the defences of Jerusalem thrown down, and the nation subjected to tribute to Rome.
c. This itself would have been enough to kindle a deep hatred to their new masters, but the seeds of a still more profound hatred were sown, even at this first step in Roman occupation, by Pompey and his staff insisting on entering the Holy of Holies, and thus committing what seemed to the Jew the worst profanity of his religion.
d. For the next 20 years, wars between Roman generals, and wars between Herod and the militant Maccabaeans put Jerusalem under seige at least 3 times.
e. There were plots and subplots within the priesthood and within the royal family of Idumites, set up in power by the Romans. i. This was marked by murder, poisonings, beheadings, and every crime imaginable
f. By going to Rome and pleading his case, Herod a half Jew at best, was finally appointed King of Judea
g. To get money, forty-five of Herod’s richest opponents were put to death, and their property confiscated so ruthlessly, that even their coffins were searched at the city gates for jewels or money.
h. To feel secure in power, Herod murdered his brother-in-law Aristobulus, his wife Mariamne and his own two sons who he thought were vying for power
3. There was a constant tension in the land that Jesus came to.
a. Jehovah was no longer the sole God
b. There were heathen temples, with their attendant priests, pompous ritual, and imposing sacrifices,
c. Temples abounded to the worship of Apollo, the goddesses: Fortune, Io, Diana, Juno, and Venus. Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva, Mercury, Castor and Pollux, and the Syrian Moon goddess Astarte
d. Herod built a temple for the worship of Augustus, but the leading divinity was the god Pan
e. Towards the end of his life, the most appalling reports respecting Herod spread from mouth to mouth.
f. He had preserved the murdered body of his murdered wife Mariamne for seven years in honey for the most hideous ends
g. He had strangled all the great Rabbis, except Baba-ben-Boutra, and him he had blinded.
h. The most intense hatred of him prevailed and it was with the extremest mistrust, therefore, that the Rabbis heard in the year B.C. 20 that Herod intended replacing the humble temple of the Exile by one unspeakably more splendid.
i. At last, on the regal day of Herod, in the year B.C. 14, the unfinished structure was consecrated, and the lowing of 300 oxen at the Great Altar announced to Jerusalem that the first sacrifice in it was offered.
j. Then Herod blew it and enraged the Jews by setting up a great golden eagle, the emblem of Rome, over the Temple gate
k. He then burned the registers of Jerusalem to destroy the pedigrees of which the people boasted
l. He had tried to make it be believed that he was the descendant of a foreign Jewish family, but no one regarded him as anything but a promoter of heathenism.
m. Though Herod might be made King of Judea by the favour of Rome, no earthly power could make him a descendant of Aaron, and without that he could not be high priest over the Jews.
4. So how did the Jewish people keep their roots in this heathen culture?
a. They realized that in the past they had been too ready to adopt the culture of other nations; i. too slight a regard for the distinctively Jewish code of social and political law; and, with these, ii. too wide a corruption of morals.
b. The very existence of the nation had been imperilled, and, now, the one fixed thought, of leader, and people alike, was to make it sure for the future.
c. It was only necessary to secure an intensely conservative spirit which should exclude all change, and Israel would henceforth have an abiding vitality as a separate people.
d. Intercourse with other nations, as far as possible, must be prevented; i. the introduction of foreign culture shut out; ii. the youth of the nation trained on a fixed model; iii. and, finally, no gap must be left by which new opinions might possibly rise from within the people themselves.
e. Finally, a rising priestly class of Rabbis must make it their special care to see that this great aim of national isolation be steadily carried out and they did so by clinging fanatically to all that was old and traditional, and shrinking from any contact with whatever was foreign or new.
f. Prejudice, strengthened by law, shut out all foreign culture.
g. A curse was denounced against any Jew who kept pigs, or taught his child Greek.
h. No one could hope for eternal life who read the books of other nations.
i. That every Jewish child should be taught to read, was held a religious duty; and every boy was required to learn the Law.
j. There was no Jew who did not know thoroughly the duties and rites of his religion; and the great deeds of his fathers: the misfortune was that they were kept utterly ignorant of any other history than their own.
k. The almost endless comments of the rabbis must be mastered, by years of slavish labour, before one was recognized as a really educated man.
l. Hence the nation was divided into two great classes of learned and unlearned, between whom there lay a wide gulf
m. To secure a far more strict observance of the Law than had been known before, they gradually formed what they called a hedge round it -- that is, they added endless refinements and subtleties to every command, that by the observance of such external rites and precepts, the command itself should be the less in danger of being broken.
n. The Law; as expounded by them, with their thousand additions, was to rule supreme, in civil as well as religious life; in the affairs of the nation, as well as those of the individual.
o. At the time of our Lord the Pharisees were at the height of their power. Josephus tells us that they numbered above 6,000 men in Judea,
p. He describes them by name as a party among the Jews who prided themselves greatly on their knowledge of the Law, and made men believe they were holier than their neighbours, and especially in favour with God
q. The misfortune was, that, to a large extent, they divorced religion from morality, laying stress on the exact performance of outward rites, rather than on the duties of the heart and life
r. This made it possible for the worst men among them to be, in their sense, the most religious.
s. They gave themselves up largely to formalism, outward religiousness, self-complacency, immeasurable spiritual pride, love of praise, superstition, and deceit, till at last, after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., they themselves laid the name of Pharisee aside, from its having become the symbol of mingled fanaticism and hypocrisy.
t. How thoroughly does this vindicate the harsh language often used by Jesus respecting them in the Gospels!
u. Jesus no doubt would have come across the Tumbling Pharisee who, to appear humble before men, always hung down his head, shuffled with his feet on the ground, so he constantly stumbled
i. or the Bleeding Pharisee who, to keep himself from seeing a woman, walked with his eyes shut, and, so often bled his head against posts;
ii. or the Mortar Pharisee with a cap like a mortar over his eyes, to shut out all that might shock his pure nature;
iii. or the What-more-can-I-do Pharisee, who claimed to have kept the whole Law, and wished to know something new, that he might do it also;
5. However, from the perspective of the average Jew, the Rabbis were classed with Moses, the patriarchs, and the prophets a. Jacob and Joseph were both said to have been rabbis.
b. The Rabbis were dearer to Israel than father or mother, because parents avail only in this world, but the Rabbi for ever.
c. They were even set above kings, for is it not written, "Through me kings reign?"
d. Their entrance into a house brought a blessing; to live or to eat with them was the highest good fortune.
e. To learn a single verse, or even a single letter, from a Rabbi could be repaid only by the profoundest respect.
f. The Mischna declares "it is a greater crime to speak anything to their discredit than to speak against the words of the Law."
g. Jesus had to daily contend with their spiritual pride and blasphemous claims to greatness because of the fact that the Law itself was written in a language which the people had long ceased to speak, so that it was left to the Rabbis to explain and apply it.
h. That’s one reason the people marvelled when Jesus a carpenter could read and interpret the ancient scrolls in the synagogues
i. The Rabbis taught that the Law and the Prophets must, be understood only in the sense of their traditions.
j. The reading of the Scriptures was hence discouraged, lest it should cease to reverence the words of the Rabbis
k. That vast mass of traditions, which then filled ten massive volumes, was, in reality, the Bible of the Rabbis l. So far as the Roman authority under which they lived left them free, the Jews willingly put all power in the hands of the Rabbis.
m. They or their nominees filled every office, from the highest in the priesthood to the lowest in the community.
n. They were the teachers, the priests, the judges, the magistrates, and the physicians of the nation.
o. But their authority went still further, for, by the Rabbinical laws, nearly everything in daily life needed their counsel and aid.
p. No one could be born, circumcised, brought up, educated, betrothed, married, or buried -- no one could celebrate the Sabbath or other feasts, or begin a business, or make a contract, or kill a beast for food, or even bake bread, without the advice or presence of a Rabbi.
q. The words of Christ respecting binding and loosing, were a Rabbinical proverb: i. What they loosed was permitted - what they bound was forbidden.
r. They were the brain, the eyes, the ears, the nerves, the muscles of the people, who were mere children apart from them.
6. The central and dominant teaching of the Rabbis was the certain advent of a great national Deliverer - the Messiah, or Anointed of God, or in the Greek translation of the title, the Christ
a. As ages passed, the fascination of the grand Messianic hope grew ever more hallowed, and became the deepest passion in the hearts of all
b. Everything began and ended with the great thought of the Messiah. - When would He come? i. What manner of kingdom would He raise? ii. When would He throw off this Roman yoke?
c. With a few, the conception of the Messiah’s kingdom was more pure and lofty.
d. The hearts of such as Zacharias, Elisabeth, Mary, Anna, Simeon, and John the Baptist, realized, more or less, the need of a redemption of the nation from its spiritual corruption, as the first necessity.
e. Before the days of the Maccabees, the conception of the Messiah had been that of a "Son of David" who should restore the splendour of the Jewish throne
f. All heathen kings and lords were destined to sink in the dust before Him, and the idols to perish utterly, that the holy people, the chosen of God, under Him, might reign forever.
g. He was the ideal of pure and heavenly Manhood, in contrast to the fallen Adam.
h. He was spoken of as "the Word of God," or as "the Word," and as "Wisdom," and as, in this way, the Incarnation of the Godhead.
i. Their conceptions gradually matured of the Messiah - the immortal and Eternal King clothed with divine power
j. And yet a man - which had been drawn from the earliest, as well as the latest, sacred or religious writings of the nation.
k. Few realized that the true, preparation for His coming was not vain glorious pride, but humiliation for sin.
l. The prevailing idea of the Rabbis and the people alike, in Christ’s day, was; that the Messiah would be simply a great prince, who should found a kingdom of matchless splendour.
m. Nor was the idea of His heavenly origin at all universal; almost all fancied He would be only a human hero, who should lead them to victory.
n. It was agreed among the Rabbis that His birthplace must be Bethlehem, and that he must rise from the tribe of Judah.
o. It was believed that He would not know that He was the Messiah till Elias came and anointed Him.
p. Till then He would be hidden from the people, living unknown among them.
q. The better Rabbis taught that the sins of the nation had kept Him from appearing, and that "if the Jews repented for one day, He would come."
r. He was to free Israel by force of arms, and subdue the world under it.
s. " How beautiful" says the Jerusalem Targum, "is the King Messiah, who springs from the house of Judah!" i. "He girds His loins, and descends, and orders the battle against His enemies, and slays their kings and their chief captains; there is no one so mighty as to stand before Him." ii. "He makes the mountains red with the blood of His slaughtered foes; His robes, dyed in their blood, are like the skins of the purple grapes." iii. "Then will Israel divide the treasures of the nations among them -- a great store of booty and riches, so that, if there be the lame and blind among them; even they will have their share." iv. "The heathen will then turn to the Lord, and walk in His light and no sickness or defect will be known." v. There will be no such thing as a lame man, or any blind or leprous; the dumb will speak and the deaf hear." vi. It will be a triumphal millennium of national pride, glory, and enjoyment.
t. It was to a people drunk with the vision of political greatness, under a world-conquering Messiah, that Jesus Christ came, i. with His utterly opposite doctrines of the aim and nature of the Messiah: and His kingdom.
7. The priests among the Jews had been divided, since the time of David, that is, for about a thousand years, into twenty-four courses, known also as "houses" and " families."
a. However, the priesthood of the second Temple, was never like that of the first Temple
b. The diminished glory of the sanctuary in which it ministered, compared with that of Solomon, alone, made, this inevitable, i. for the second Temple had no longer the sacred ark, with its mercy seat and the overshadowing cherubim, ii. nor the holy fire, kindled at first from heaven, iii. nor the mysterious Shechina, or Glory of God, in the Holy of Holies, iv. nor the tables of stone written by the finger of God, v. nor the ancient Book of the Law, handed down from, the great lawgiver, Moses. vi. The spirit of prophecy was no longer granted; vii. the Urim and Thummin no longer shone out mysterious oracles from the breast of the, high priest, viii. and the holy anointing oil, that had been handed down, as the Rabbis taught, from the days of Aaron, had been lost. ix. There could thus be no consecration of the high priest, or his humbler brethren, by that symbol which above all others had been most sacred -- the priestly anointing. x. The priests were now set apart to their office only by solemnly clothing them with their official robes
c. The rise of the Synagogue, and the supreme importance attached to the study of the Law tended also to throw the office of the priest into the background.
d. The services at the Temple in Jerusalem, where alone sacrifices could be offered, were entrusted to the care of each course in rotation, for a week of six days and two Sabbaths, and, hence, the members of each, whose services might be required, had to go up to Jerusalem twice a-year.
8. The duties of the priests were many and various.
a. It was their awful and peculiar honour to "come near the Lord."
b. None but they could minister before Him, in the Holy Place where He manifested His presence: none other could "come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary or the altar." on pain of death.
c. They offered the morning and evening incense; i. trimmed the lamps of the golden candlestick, and filled them with Oil; ii. set out the shewbread weekly; iii. kept up the fire on the great altar in front of the Temple; iv. removed the ashes of the sacrifices; v. took part in the slaying and cutting up of victims, and especially in the sprinkling of their blood; and laid the offerings of all kinds on the altar. vi. They also announced the new moons, which were sacred days, like the Sabbaths, by the blowing of trumpets. vii. But this was a small part of their duties. viii. They had to examine all cases of ceremonial uncleanness, especially leprosy, clearing those who were pure, and pronouncing others unclean ix. They had to estimate, the value of the countless offerings vowed to the Temple and to watch the interior of the Temple by night. x. They were required, moreover, to instruct the people in the niceties of the Law, and to give decisions on many points reserved usually for magistrates. xi. The priests, in fact, were, within certain limits, the judges and magistrates of the land, though the Sanhedrim, which was the supreme court in later Jewish history, was composed of chief priests, laymen, and scribes, or Rabbis, in apparently equal numbers.
9. Among the members of this sacred caste ministering in the Temple, in the autumn of about 6 B.C. was one who had come up, apparently, from Hebron.
a. He was now an elderly man, and had left behind him at home, a childless wife -- Elisabeth by name -- like himself advanced in years.
b. The two were in the fullest sense "Israelites indeed:" their family records had established their common descent from Aaron, and they were, both, righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances" of the Lord blameless.
c. However, there was a secret grief in the heart of both
d. Elisabeth had no child, and what this meant to a Hebrew wife it is hard for us to fancy;
e. Rachel’s words, "Give me children, or else I die," were the burden of every childless woman’s heart in Israel.
f. The birth of a child was the removal of a reproach.
g. To have no child was regarded as a heavy punishment from the hand of God.
h. The birth of a child was therefore a special blessing, as a security that the name of his father "should not be cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place," and that it should not be "put out of Israel."
i. Zacharias and Elisabeth had reason enough to sorrow at their childless home
j. They had grieved over their misfortune, and had made it the burden of many prayers, but years passed, and they had both grown elderly, and yet no child had been given them.
10. On a certain day the lot for the daily incense offering had fallen on Zacharias.
a. In his white robes, with covered head and naked feet, at the tinkling of the bell which announced that the morning or evening sacrifice was about to be laid on the great altar, he entered the Holy Place
b. And now the coals are laid on the altar, the helping priest retires, and Zachariasis left alone with the mysterious, ever-burning, lamps, and the glow of the altar which was believed to have been kindled; at first, from the pillar of fire in the desert, and to have been kept unquenched, by miracle, since then.
c. He pours the incense on the flames, and its fragrance rises in clouds, which are the symbol of the prayers of Israel, now rising over all the earth.
d. As the intercessor for his people, for the time, he, too, joins his supplications.
e. It is probably no mystery that his prayer came from the heart of one who "waited for the Consolation of Israel," and "looked for Redemption." i. It was doubtless, he prayed that the sins of the nation, his own sins, and the sins of his household, might be forgiven; ii. that Jehovah would accept the atonement of the lamb presently to burn on the great altar in their stead; iii. and that the long-expected Hope of Israel, the Messiah foretold by prophets, might soon appear.
f. While he prays, suddenly there stands a mysterious Presence before him, on the right side of the altar
g. No wonder he was alarmed at such a sight, in such a place.
h. Fear of the supernatural is instinctive.
i. But the angel Gabriel had come on a mission befitting the world from which he had been sent.
j. The hour had arrived when the prayer which Zacharias, and those like him should be heard and answered.
k. The Messiah was about to be revealed, and the faithful priest who had so longed for His appearing would be honoured by a relationship to Him.
l. He had for many a year desired a son: not only would his wish be granted, at last, but the son to be born would be the prophet, long announced, to go before the Expected One, to prepare His way.
m. He need not fear for he who speaks is Gabriel, the archangel, who stands in the presence of God, and as one who always beholds the face of the Great Father in heaven, who has a tender love to His children on earth.
n. The thought rises in the heart of Zacharias that the glad tidings: of the birth of the Messiah may well be true; but, as to the son promised his wife, stricken in years as she now is, can it be possible?
o. A sudden dumbness, imposed at the angel’s word, at once rebukes his doubt, and confirms his faith.
p. Meanwhile, the multitude without wondered at the delay in his re-appearance, to bless and dismiss them.
q. The priest’s coming out of the sanctuary was the signal for the lamb being laid on the altar, and all were waiting for him.
r. Fear added to the rising excitement was lest any calamity might have befallen Zacharias
s. He might have been ceremonially unclean, and the divine anger at the Holy Place being polluted, might have struck him down.
t. The offering priest never remained longer than was necessary in so holy a Presence.
u. His appearance, at last, however, explained all.
v. They could receive no blessing that day, and Zacharias could no longer continue in his course, for he was speechless; all he could do was to tell them by signs what had happened.
w. Had they known it, his silence for the time was but the prelude to the lasting silence of the Law, of which he was a minister, now that Christ was about to come.
11. Having now no more to detain him at Jerusalem, Zacharias returned home, we presume, to Hebron
a. Somewhere in Hebron, in its cradle of hills, three thousand feet above the neighbouring Mediterranean, lay the home of Zacharias, and there, some time in the next year, in accordance with the promise of the angel, Elisabeth bore a son -- the future Baptist
b. Then Zacharias received back his speech, on the glad day of the child getting its name -- the eighth after its birth, -- the day of its admission into the congregation of Israel by circumcision.
c. And now the stage was set for the greatest and most incredible event in history to take place
d. Almighty God was about to take the form of a human baby and visit this insignificant planet for a short time.
e. Yes Emmanuel was coming and "you shall call his name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins."
* Much of the research for this message comes from "The Life and Words of Christ" by Dr. C. Geikie D.D. Published by D. Appleton and Company, New York 1880
