Jem

“ Let the king rather consider himself honored in being permitted to listen to thy words of wisdom and understanding."
"Humility becometh well the potentates of earth. But yet, O king, thou beholdest not the real grandeur of thy mission. Thou knowest not that thou art the peculiarly anointed—not of the gods, but of the only God of heaven, the Almighty Jehovah, the God of Israel, to pour his wrath upon the nations, and to restore the children of Judah to their own land." ”

“ And to thee as a Gentile the revelation of his character would come with more attractive force than to us that be Jews. For in almost every way this Jesus fulfilleth the idea of a Jew as we have it in these later days. Working with his hands, yet teaching with his voice; obedient to the Law, yet ever eager to take a new law upon himself; doing acts of love among men, yet rebuking in love their ill acts, and doing all things as in the presence of the Glory;—in all this Jesus was as the best of our Sages. ”

“ This commandment received I from my Father.
19 There arose a division again among the Jews because of these words.
20 And many of them said, He hath a demon, and is mad; why hear ye him?
21 Others said, These are not the sayings of one possessed with a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?
22 And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem:
23 it was winter; and Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon's porch.
24 The Jews therefore came round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou hold us in suspense? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly. ”

“ I hoped to escape from discussion with James, the brother of the Lord, for of what good could it be to discuss once again things on which it is our nature to think differently, but upheld by hope that the Jews might be numbered among the faithful at the last day I told him that the Jews were the root of the olive-trees whose branches had been cut, and had received grafts, but let not the grafts, I said, indulge in vainglory; it is not the branches that bear the root, but the root that bears the branches. ”

“ Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one; he doth not resist you."—St. James v. 1-6.
HERE, if anywhere in the Epistle, the writer glances aside from the believing Jews of the Dispersion, to whom the letter as a whole is addressed, and in a burst of righteous indignation which reminds us of passages in the old Hebrew Prophets, denounces members of the twelve tribes who not even in name are Christians. In the preceding section such a transition is in preparation. ”

“ James, and the elders of the Church at Jerusalem, glorified God, upon hearing of the conversion of so many Gentiles by the teaching of St. Paul, and then they "said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law: and they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circum [Pg 302] cise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? the multitude must needs come together: for they will hear that thou art come." ”

“ The Jew felt an instant's sense of superstition, which he dashed away, and placing the child, already sleeping, before the fire, awakened rapacity led him to hunt the hovel over. He found nothing but a few religious books, and amongst them a leather-covered Testament, which he opened and read with insensibility—passing on, at length, to interest, then to fascination, at last to rage and defiance—the opening chapters and the close of the story of Jesus. ”

“ Admit, for a moment, your belief to be correct—say the Messiah has not made his appearance—that all the heavenly hosts are waiting with that anxiety and reverence becoming superior beings, to shout the fulfilment of the word of Jehovah long since given to his holy prophets, that the Deliverer of Israel, the King of Jacob, has now come: admit this, and when he comes will he suffer afflictions of body, or death?
Jew:—"I conclude not." ”

“ James, as is natural in such a letter, makes frequent appeals to the Old Testament, and also has numerous coincidences with portions of that now {145} much-neglected Jewish literature which forms a connecting-link between the Old and the New, especially with the Books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. It was in the period in which that literature was produced that discussions as to the value of faith in God, as distinct from the fear of God, and in particular as to the faith of Abraham, the friend of God, began to be common among the Jews, especially in the Rabbinical schools. ”

“ I do not wish to say here, because it would not be true, that the Jew is exceptional in this respect. It is the tendency of the human heart that knows not the treasure that is at the right hand of God, to cleave unto the dust, and the Jew and Gentile are alike in this respect. ”

“ Jesus, however, retracted none of His words, but, on the contrary, reproached the Jews for not believing them.
2. The testimony of our Lord's miracles. Our Lord appealed to His wonderful works as a proof of His divine power, and as a means whereby the Jews might know that “the Father was in Him and He in the Father”. This shows us that our Lord’s chief aim in working miracles was to induce men to believe in His divine mission and in the truth of His doctrine. ”

“ And Jehu said, Unto which of all us? And he said, To thee, O captain.
6 And he arose, and went into the house; and he poured the oil on his head, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I have anointed thee king over the people of the LORD, even over Israel.
7 And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, at the hand of Jezebel. ”

“ The prayers and praises (those spiritual sacrifices) of devout Gentiles shall be as pleasing to God as those of the pious Jews, and no difference shall be made between them; for, though they are Gentiles by birth, yet through grace they shall be looked upon as the believing seed of faithful Abraham and the praying seed of wrestling Jacob, for in Christ Jesus there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision. [3.] Comfort. They shall not only be accepted, but they themselves shall have the pleasure of it: I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. ”

“ When many, therefore, even of the rulers were believing, there was a tumult of the Jews and scribes and Pharisees, who said, It looks as if all the people would be expecting Jesus as the Christ. They came together, therefore, and said to James, We pray thee, restrain the people, for it has been led astray after Jesus, as though He were the Christ. We pray thee to persuade all that come to the day of the Passover concerning Jesus; for to thee we all give heed. For we bear witness to thee, and so do all the people, that thou art just, and acceptest not the person of any. ”

“ I tell you, O Jew, that I am not ashamed to declare [them] with a loud voice, for my salvation is the economy of the Son. For He Who Is exists of and by Himself, and He Who Himself has become create, has Himself become create for my sake. And He worked miracles as God, and He bore patiently very many sufferings as a man. ”

“ For this he is commemorated in sacred story by all Jews, and memory, flowing ever fresh from age to age, transmits his undying fame to after generations. A noble example, John, even were it dangerous to follow; but I can warrant you even pardon from the Romans. Remember, too, that I who exhort you am your compatriot, that I who make this promise am a Jew; and it is right that you should consider who is your counsellor and of what country he comes. For I pray that I may never live to be so abject a captive as to abjure my race or to forget the traditions of my forefathers. ”

“ For the eyes of the old Jew, apparently so dreamy and so far away, have suddenly become fixed upon something in the distance yonder. The old Jew looks and looks— and then he rubs his eyes—and then he eagerly looks again. ”

“ Chapter 43 1 But now thus saith Jehovah that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.
2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
3 For I am Jehovah thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour; I have given Egypt as thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in thy stead. ”

“ My friends—there is an ancient fable of the Jews, which, though it is not true, yet has a deep and holy meaning, and teaches an awful lesson.
There lived, says an ancient Jewish Scribe, by the shores of the Dead Sea, a certain tribe of men, utterly given up to pleasure and covetousness, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. To them the prophet Moses was sent, and preached to them, warning them of repentance and of judgment to come—trying to awaken their souls to high and holy thoughts, and bring them back to the thought of God and heaven. ”

“ For they are God's own dear people, and our Lord Jesus Christ was a Jew, when He came to earth and took our human nature.
It is true that the Jews are scattered all over the world now for their unbelief and disobedience; but by and by, God tells us, they will be gathered in their sows land, and Jesus will reign over them as King of kings, and Lord of lords.
In Numbers xxiii. 9 we find a prophecy about the Jews. Balaam prophesied: "The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." ”

“ GOD to the Jew was the GOD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, holy and righteous, gracious and merciful: active and operative in the world, the Controller of events: having a purpose for Israel and for the world, which in the process of the world's history was being wrought out, and which would one day find complete and adequate fulfilment in the setting up of GOD'S Eternal Kingdom. ”

“ Jeremias Chapter 15
God is determined to punish the Jews for their sins. The prophet's complaint, and God's promise to him.
15:1. And the Lord said to me: If Moses and Samuel shall stand before me, my soul is not towards this people: cast them out from my sight, and let them go forth.
15:2. And if they shall say unto thee: Whither shall we go forth? thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord: Such as are for death, to death: and such as are for the sword, to the sword: and such as are for famine, to famine: and such as are for captivity, to captivity. ”

“ The Jew, trained to believe in the one invisible and only true God, who could not be imagined by any material form, learned to look with hatred and contempt on the outcast, lawless Gentile, with his idol deities in every valley and on every hill; and the intellectual Gentile looked with philosophic pride on the stern land of the Hebrew and in philosophic scorn on his strange, exclusive loneliness. ”

“ To suppose that the rulers of the Jews set James upon a wing of the temple, in order that they might ask him a question, for the benefit of the multitude, based upon a discourse in the fourth Gospel, unknown to the Synoptics, and even in relation to which such an inquiry as: "What is the door of Jesus?" becomes mere ironical nonsense, surpasses all that we could have imagined even of apologetic zeal. ”

“ The reason why that people is called in the Word the people of Jehovah, the chosen and beloved nation, is that by Judah there the celestial church is meant, by Israel the spiritual church, and something of the church by all the sons of Jacob; and by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord Himself also is meant, as well as by Moses, Aaron, and David. ”

“ The better-instructed Jews, enlightened by Christ's teaching, could give emphatic testimony to the immeasurable superiority of the moral to the ceremonial. The candid scribe, hearing from Christ's lips the two great commandments, answers, "Of a truth, Master, Thou hast well said that He is one; and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, ... and to love his neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." ”

“ The difference between writer and readers lies in this, that he is in Palestine, and they not; that he appears to be in a position of authority, whereas they seem for the most part to be a humble and suffering folk. All which fits in admirably with the hypothesis that we have before us an Epistle written by the austere and Judaic-minded James the Just, written from Jerusalem, to comfort and warn those Jewish Christians who lay remote from his personal influence. ”

“ Many lands have done many things to the Jew who once in simplicity worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and tried sincerely, not only to obey the great commandments of Moses, but to teach them to his children. ”

“ Will the Jews always be scattered?
Answer: No; God will gather them again into their own land when Christ returns, and make them a great and a blessed nation with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in their midst. ”

“ Howbeit no man spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews.
But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" Jesus therefore answered them, and said, "My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself. ”

“ Because you have sacrificed to idols, and have sinned against the Lord: and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have not walked in his law, and in his commandments, and in his testimonies: therefore are these evils come upon you, as at this day.
44:24. And Jeremias said to all the people and to all the women: Hear ye the word of the Lord, all Juda, you that dwell in the land of Egypt:
44:25. ”