790
December 1924
T H E K I N G ’ S
B U S I N E S S
lost.” At this time we naturally turn to the alternate, or Christmas lesson— “ God’s Gift to the DEVOTIONAL World,” with the familiar John 3:16 as COMMENT the Golden Text. One of the topics sug- John A. Hubbard - gested for this lesson is: “ Why Christ came to Earth,” and as will be readily seen, the Golden Text for the lesson on Zaccheus is an excel lent answer to, or comment on, this. Thus the two lessons can well be used together. Let us hope that teachers will take this opportunity Jo present to their classes in a definite, clean-cut way, Jesus as Personal Savior. Only those who accept God’s wondrous Gift catch the true significance of “ Christmas,” and only in their lives is the purpose of His coming realized-SpHe came to seek and save the lost. While as a teacher He is without a peer, He did not come primarily to teach. While His was .the one perfect life, He did not come primarily to set an example, for men. “ Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” He came, not to'live, but to die, and thus to wash us from our sins in his own blood (Rev. 1:5). “ And when Jesus came, to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zaccheus,' make haste, and come down, for today I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down; and received him joyfully” (Lk. 19:5, 6 ). Jesus is still calling people, Tost people, to “ come down’Vrpto come down from their position of self- righteousness and pride, and as lost sinners receive Him who is our salvation. To do so means joy, and it means a transformation of life. Zaccheus was rich; but when the grace of God reached his 1 heart his pocketbook flew open. “ Behold, Lord, the half of my goods” (not merely aj tenth as required by the law ) “ I give to the poor.” And his conscience also Was touched. He immediately hégan to think of making amends for the past. “ If I have wrongfully exacted aught of .any man, I restore fourfold.” And he no doubt had many occasions for doing this, since he was “ chief among the publicans, and he was rich.” “ A man might be a publican and be honest, but he would probably be poor. Zaccheus’ task was that of a taxgatherer, and when it is remembered that these officials made their wealth by extortion and dis honesty, it was suspicious to say the least when a taxgath erer was rich.” Zaccheus straightened up things, not in order that he might be saved, but because real salvation with its trans forming power had already reached his heart. That “ con version” which does not lead one to make restitution and get right with others is not the real thing. It is an empty profession, which does not save. “ Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save, his people from their sins” (Matt 1 : 21 ) . God grant that teachers may so present this lesson that many pupils will open their hearts to really receive His marvelous Gift, and thus come to know the real joy of Christmas. Ëà Jesus Visits Zaccheus Luke 19:1-10 Memory Verse.—-“ The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10. Approach. How many of you ever went to .visit some friends, and ate dinner with them? Did you enjoy your visit? Yes, we all enjoy, going to the homes of our friends
the principle, “ The Jew is not judged, he who is not a Jew is judged.” So the Roman Catholic dogma: “ He who is within the pale of the Catholic faith, is saved; he who is not, is damned.” Likewise the old Protestant formula: “ He who comes in this life into the sphere of the faith of the gospel,” etc. Christ, on the contrary, makes salvation dependent on an individual, personal, living faith; and perdition depen dent on decided, obstinate personal unbelief. The believer is not judged because he as a sinner puts himself voluntar ily under a spiritual judgment.—Lange. The guilt of the unbeliever is strongly emphasized as a treble guilt: He has not accepted God in His Son. He has not received the Only Begotten, in whom all the value of faith, the fulness of the manifestation of God, is concentrated. Finally he has not Relieved in His name, i. e., in the developed knowledge of Christ as concentrated in the sphere of His Spirit. “ He hath not believed” (perfect), i. e., he is fixed in unbelief, and in so much as he is fixed, the fact also is fixed that he has fallen under condemnation to meet the final judgment by the sheer unfoldings of his condemnation. The antithesis is put here with all its sharpness; but not as passing upon the given unbeliever the opinion that he is fixed in his unbelief. — Lange. V. 19. Their whole bent was to do evil, hence they needed the cover of darkness for their evil deeds. (See Matt. 23.) E —Lange. God has sent the light to us, but the work of carrying the light to a lost and darkened world rests upon those who see the light. The heathen nations of the earth must be reached through the efforts of the Christian church. —Arnold. Love, of evil prevents men from accepting the good; they prefer the dark—-the evil— and hate the good. Men reject Christ and religion because they are evil, and they are evil because they reject Christ and religion. Irre- ligion and wickedness are one.—Whedon. V. 19. The great mystery of religion is not the punish ment, but the forgiveness of sin; not the natural permanence of character hut regeneration.-—Westcott. V. 19. The condemnation which comes on every one who does not believe is just and inevitable,-—there is nothing arbitrary about it; light came into the world, light that would have brought life, but the rejecter would not have it; .he has chosen “ darkness rather than light” . It is his own choice, and his eternal doom is the result of his own choice of “ darkness rather than light” .—Torrey. Vs. 20, 21. Through our willingness to let God’s loving will be done in us God makes us alive. It is not our work or our working. It is His gracious goodness. We accept it or we reject it. And we do one or the other according as the fundamental purpose and desire of our life is toward evil or truth.— Speer. V. 20. Looking to those who persist in unbelief. The “ doing evil” denotes the law of the nature. The adjective denotes not only “ bad” , “ cowardly” , “ hateful” , but also “ trifling” , “ insignificant” ; and, in antithesis to v. 2 1 , prob ably “ corrupt” , “ false” .—Lange. y . 21. The doing of the objective truth, however, is ex pressed by the coming to the light. Hence the references to subjective truth: He who inwardly loves sincerity shuns deceit, is faithful against himself, and acts in this spirit (is true to the inner light), has a leaning towards the light of revelation, towards faith; he feels himself attracted by the light as the false man feels himself repelled.— Tholuck.
U R I O S I T Ï O N V I C T i O N O N V E R S I O N O N F E S S I O N “He received: him joyfully.”—Have we?
The title of the regular lesson for this date is, “ The Con version df Zaccheus.” The Golden Text is Lk. 19:10: “ The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was
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