th
the prophetic intimation of the future farther extension of His
salvation. That which He Himself did for this extension, in those
particular cases where the faith of non-Israelites obtruded itself upon
Him, must, in its isolation, be viewed as an embodiment of that
intimation,--as a prophecy by deeds. He says in Matt. xv. 24: "I
am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;" but if,
nevertheless. He purposely makes His abode in the territory of Tyre and
Sidon; if there He hears the prayer of the Canaanitish woman to heal
her daughter, after having first tried her faith, then His purpose
evidently is: That His prophecy in words concerning the extension of
salvation to the Gentiles, might find a support in His prophecy
in deeds. Jesus, prefiguring the future doings of His servants,
passed over the boundaries of the Gentiles. Whilst the Jews had
rejected the salvation offered to them, and forced Jesus to retire
into concealment, the heathen woman comes full of faith, and seeks Him
in His concealment. The Canaanitish woman is a representative of the
heathen world, the future faith of which she was called to prefigure by
sustaining the trial. From her example, the Apostles were to learn what
might be expected from the Gentiles when the time should arrive for
proclaiming the Gospel to them also. In Matt. x. 5, 6, the Lord speaks
to the Apostles: "Go not in the way of the Gentiles, and into any of
the cities of the _Samaritans_ enter ye not; but go rather to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel." His own conduct, however, as it is
reported in John iv., stands in contradiction to this command to His
Apostles, so long as its prophetical significance is not acknowledged.
That which was, on a large scale, to be done by Christ in the state of
glorification, was prefigured by Him, on a smaller scale, in the state
of humiliation. The ministry of Christ in Samaria bears the same
relation to the later mission among this people, that the single
instances of Christ's raising the dead do to the general resurrection.
The Lord afterwards did not foster the germs which had come forth among
the Samaritans; He, in the meantime, left them altogether [Pg 413] to
their fate. That prelude was quite sufficient for the object which He
then had in view, and nothing further could be done without violating
the rights of the Covenant-people, to which, in the conversation as
recorded by John, the Lord as expressly pays attention, as He doe