eant. They
thought that by their adversary He meant the Roman governor. For they
immediately began to talk to Him about some Galileans whose blood Pilate,
the Roman governor, had mingled with their sacrifices (I suppose in some
of those wars which were continually breaking out in Judea). I think He
meant more than that. "Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners
above all the Galilaeans? Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish." As much as to say, though ye did not rebel against the Romans
like these Galilaeans, you have your sins, which will ruin YOU. As long
as you are hypocrites, with your mouths full of the cant of religion, and
your hearts full of all mean and spiteful passions; as long as you cannot
of yourselves discern what is right, and have lost conscience, and the
everlasting distinction between right and wrong, so long are you walking
blindfold to ruin. There is an adversary against you, who will surely
deliver you to the judge some day, and then it will be too late to cry
for mercy. And who was that adversary? Who but the everlasting law of
God, which says, Thou shalt do justly?--and you Jews are utterly unjust,
false, covetous, and unrighteous. Thou shalt love all men; and you are
cruel and spiteful, hating each other, and making all mankind hate you.
Thou shalt walk humbly with thy God; and you Jews are walking proudly
with God; fancying that God belongs only to you; that because you are His
chosen people, He will let you commit every sin you choose, as long as
you keep His name on your lips, and keep up an empty worship of Him in
the temple. That is your adversary, the everlasting moral law of God.
And who is the Judge but God Himself, who is set on His throne judging
right, while you are doing wrong? And who is the officer, to whom that
judge will deliver you? There indeed the Jews were right. It was the
Romans whom God appointed to punish them for their sins. All which our
Lord had foretold, as all the world knows, came true forty years after in
that horrible siege of Jerusalem, which the Jews brought on themselves
entirely by their own folly, and pride, and wicked lawlessness. In that
siege, by famine and pestilence, by the Romans' swords, by crucifixion,
and by each other's hands (for the different factions were murdering each
other wholesale up to the very day Jerusalem was taken), thousands of
Jews perished horribly, and the rest were sol