The Life Of Jesus Christ In Its Historical Connexion

Before leaving the Temple, Christ delivered a discourse [680] full of severity against the heads of the hierarchy, through whom destruction was soon to be brought upon the nation. He then announced the judgments of God, in a series of prophecies that were afterward fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem.' Regarding himself as already removed from the earth, he says nothing further of what was to befall his own person, but predicts that the agents by whose labours his work was to be extended would be persecuted, like the witnesses for the truth of old; and that the Jews, thus partaking of the wicked spirit of their fathers, would fill up the measure of their sins, and bring upon themselves the wrath which the accumulated guilt of ages had been gathering. Glancing with Divine confidence at the developement of his work, he says: "Behold! I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; [681] and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify." He concludes with a mournful allusion to the catastrophe which was to be so big with interest to the kingdom of God, to the judgment over Jerusalem, and to his second advent to judge the earth and complete his work. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which, are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. [682] Behold! your house is left unto you desolate; [683] for I say unto you, that ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." He obviously, in this last clause, betokens his second and triumphal advent as Theocratic King. Other persons, however, are implied than those to whom the discourse was directed: they were least likely ever to welcome him with praises, and the words. denote a willing, not a forced submission. We take them as referring to the Jews in general, as the previous verse refers to the inhabitants of Jerusalem in general; the particular generation intended being left undefined.