Глава девятая. Б) Наедине с учениками – в странах языческих и при Кесарии Филипповой

Who do you say I am? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. § 38. The teaching of the Lord Jesus about self-denial in His name Beginning with the day of parables, the third period of the activity of the Lord Jesus Christ - the time of the bitterness of the Jews, the time of judgment over them, the coming of the Son of Man - continued until the day of Christ's death. There was no new period in His life, the nature of His work did not change until the last day of His life, so on the question of the limits of the time of the coming of the Son of man, it is important for gospel science to establish the terminus a quo, the time from which the coming of the Son of man began, and not the terminus ad quem, the time with which it ended: having begun at a certain point, it continued until the last day of His life. The coming of the Son of Man did not even end with the last day of Christ’s earthly life: it has an eschatological character, which will be discussed below. However, beginning in the day with a parable and continuing until the death of Christ, the last period of His life has some steps that divide it into three sections: the first section, which we have already considered, lasted from the day of the parables until the removal of Christ to pagan countries, the second section embraces the time from the removal of Christ to pagan countries until His transfiguration on the mountain, and the last section is composed of His last coming to Jerusalem and suffering on the cross. The solitude of Christ within the boundaries of Tire and Sidon and in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi was dedicated by Him almost exclusively to His closest disciples, close communication with them, and their upbringing: this solitude of the Lord Jesus with his disciples constitutes, as it were, a break in His later relations with the Jewish people, which moved the events of his last stay in Jerusalem away from the Capernaum conversation and the “secret” stay in Jerusalem on the feasts of the setting up of tabernacles and renewal. Therefore, the sufferings of Golgotha ​​did not follow in succession the feasts of tabernacles and renewal, because it was necessary to prepare the disciples for Golgotha, as the Jewish people were prepared for it in their own way. We will now consider this solitude of Christ with His disciples - we will consider what He talked about with them, what He taught them, but first we will take a look at the teaching and deeds of Christ during this time in His relation to the people in general, since general relations to the people provided the background for His special relations to His disciples. During the time of which we are now speaking, the Lord Jesus sought solitude with His disciples and did not want anyone to know about His whereabouts (Mark 7:24; 9:30), but crowds of people found Him here and there and surrounded Him, and He continued to teach them and do things for them. In this regard, the gospel story provides rich material for the study of crowd psychology. Just as a person can hide for a time in the depths of his heart a strong impression and even a decision, so a crowd of people the next day, after strong excitement and a definite decision, acts apparently calmly, until finally the hidden excitement is resolved with a violent explosion. The popular storm that erected the cross of Calvary began in Capernaum and on the feasts of tabernacles and renewal, but during this period there was a kind of calm among the people and the crowds gathered again and again around the Lord Jesus. How did He teach them at this time and how did He do it? After in Capernaum many of the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ departed from Him and no longer walked with Him, and in Jerusalem the Jews repeatedly tried to seize Him, He began to teach the people about Himself with amazing clarity. His speeches became unusually harsh. He spoke before the audience in truly divine grandeur. He pointed out the Savior to the people in Himself. He demanded complete self-denial in His name. “If, He said to the whole multitude of people, whoever comes to Me does not hate his Father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and, moreover, his own life, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, whether he has what it takes to complete it, so that when he has laid the foundation and is not able to complete it, all who see it begin to laugh at him, saying: This man began to build, I could not finish? Or what king, going to war against another king, does not sit down and consult first whether he is able with ten thousand to resist the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Otherwise, while he is still far away, he will send an embassy to him to ask for peace. So, anyone of you who does not renounce everything that he has cannot be My disciple. Salt is a good thing; but if the salt loses its strength, how can it be corrected? It is not suitable for soil or manure; they throw it away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! (Luke 14:25-35 cf. 9:23-26 par.). And before He had spoken similar things, but only to His disciples alone, and then in a prophetic foretelling of the coming persecutions (Matthew X), and now He addressed the demand for complete self-denial in His name to all the people. To imagine the full power of these speeches of the Lord, one must remember that in the eyes of the people He was accused of being possessed by evil spirits, that for believing in Him there was a threat of excommunication from the synagogue, that He rejected the most cherished messianic expectations of the people. Everything was against Him; On His side there was only truth, divine truth, accessible only to the spiritual eyes of a pure heart. Under such conditions, His speeches presented the greatest temptation to the people. But the history of the Gospel was determined by the law that true faith is free from all earthly attachments, that divine life is revealed to man despite his preferences, that its revelation requires complete spiritual freedom. That it is precisely in this connection of thoughts that the demand on the part of the Lord Jesus for self-denial in His name must be presented, this is clear from those reported by the Evangelist Luke (9:57-62; Matt. 8:19-22), cases when this demand was addressed to individuals. It happened that when the Lord Jesus was with His disciples on the way, someone said to Him: Lord! I will follow You wherever You go. Jesus said to him: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has no place to lay his head.” Whether it was the path to the pagan countries, about which the Gospel of Luke does not know, where the Lord “retired from His country, not accepted by His own either in Galilee or in Judea, although He was sent precisely to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, or was it the path to Jerusalem for the last suffering and death from the elders, high priests and scribes - the leaders of the house of Israel, equally in both cases Christ Jesus did not have where to lay his head. To follow Him meant dooming oneself to all kinds of hardships and being prepared for all kinds of suffering. His disciple really needed to sit down and figure out whether he had the strength to follow Him. His follower needed to renounce all earthly attachments in His name. At the same time He said to another, “Follow Me.” He said: Lord! let me first go and bury my father. But Jesus said to him: “Let the dead bury their own dead; and you go, preach the kingdom of God.” Another one said: “I will follow You, Lord! but first let me say goodbye to my family.” But Jesus said to him: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” One day the Lord Jesus visited the house of Martha, so famous in the gospel history. Her sister Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to His word, and Martha, who cared about more food, complained to Him that her sister was not helping her. He answered her: “Martha, Martha! you care and fuss about a lot of things; but only one thing is needed. Mary chose the good part, which will not be taken away from her." This personal self-revelation of Christ Jesus was accompanied by the preaching of the full spirituality of the kingdom of God, its unconditional universality, its incompatibility with earthly interests and national limitations. “Whoever wants, He told everyone, to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but to destroy or harm himself? (Luke 9:24‒25). He spoke about the madness of covetousness (Luke 12:20), demanded freedom from material worries and spiritual alertness (Luke 12), called on His disciples to acquire for themselves “unrighteous wealth,” that is, by good use of wealth, the kingdom of God (Luke 16), predicted destruction for everyone who does not walk through the narrow gate (Luke 13:1-9; 22-30), taught even cutting off a hand and plucking out an eye if they cause temptation (Matthew 18:8-9). In connection with this teaching about the spirituality of the kingdom of God, He warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and scribes, which is hypocrisy, denounced their self-righteousness, and castigated their self-righteousness (Luke 12:1; 16:14-15; 15). At this point, His speeches were a continuation of the bitterness of the Jews that began earlier - the rejection of their national isolation. These speeches gave a universal ethical basis to the rejection of the Jews; the narrow boundaries of their ritual faith were broken in the name of moral freedom of spirit. At this point, His teaching was a transition to that last act of rejection of the Jews in His last days, when He said to them: “Behold, your house is left to you empty” (Matthew 23:38). Of the actions of the Lord Jesus, in which His teaching was manifested in essential content, during the time in question, the subject of disputes with Him among the Jews was the non-observance in the society of His disciples of the traditions of the elders, which the Pharisees and all the Jews adhered to. Thus, the Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes reproached His disciples for eating bread with unclean, that is, with unwashed hands. Then the Lord began to reproach them for the fact that, while observing the traditions of the elders, they only honored God in words, but were far from Him in heart—they eliminated the word of God with their tradition. Then, in the hearing of all the people, He taught that nothing that enters a person from outside can defile him, and he called the Pharisees and scribes blind leaders of the blind. § 39. The miracles of Christ performed with slowness - the healing of the demon-possessed daughter of a Canaanite woman, a deaf tongue-tied man, a blind man in Bethsaida, a deaf-mute lunatic, ten lepers, the blind man of Jericho and the resurrection of Lazarus The nature of the teaching of the Lord Christ corresponded to the image of His miracles. Having concentrated His teaching on His face, revealing Himself to the people from the side from which His self-revelation was the most tempting for covetousness and pride, He and His works, unlike in the past, now presented Himself in the light of His exclusive significance for the kingdom of God revealed in them. Previously, massive miracles were performed through Him, amazing in their number; they were accomplished with the presence of faith according to His one word or even without His information and permission through one touch to Him - power emanated from Him and the people sought to touch Him; healings were performed even at a distance. This was the power in which the kingdom of God was revealed, and His face seemed to recede into the background. Now He almost does not perform mass healings, 119 and performs a few miracles, although by faith, as before, although more than before, away from the people, not in their sight, which, however, was more His desire than the actual circumstance, however, in such a way that miracles were performed rather by Him than through Him. A series of such miracles began with the healing of the demon-possessed daughter of a Canaanite woman within the borders of Tire and Sidon. Here He wanted to be in the unknown, but could not. One Canaanite woman, coming out of those places, followed Him and shouted to Him: “Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David! my daughter is cruelly raging.” But He did not answer her a word. This was the way of acting of Christ Jesus, alien to former times. The apostles must have seen in this delay of the Lord something new and unusual. And they, approaching Him, asked Him: “Let her go, because she is screaming after us.” In response, He pointed to Himself, to His embassy only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The healings were performed by Him, and He only did what He was sent to do: “it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” This was a difficult test for the woman’s faith, but her great faith endured the test, she humbly accepted the comparison with dogs who eat the crumbs falling from their masters’ table, and then the Lord, for this humility and faith, healed her daughter. From the countries of Tire and Sidon, Jesus went to the Sea of ​​Galilee through the borders of the Decapolis. Here they brought to Him a deaf man, tongue-tied, and asked Him to lay His hands on him. And again He performs a miracle with the same slowness. He takes the sick man aside from the people, puts His fingers into his ears, and spits and touches his tongue; then, looking up to heaven, he sighs and says to him: Ephphatha, that is, open, and then his ears were immediately opened and the bonds of his tongue were loosed, and he began to speak clearly. And the Lord commanded him not to tell anyone. The same techniques appear even more clearly in the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida. It was accomplished gradually, so that the patient had to feel the entire dependence of healing on the power of the miracle worker. Taking the blind man by the hand, the Lord Jesus led him out of the village and, spitting in his eyes, laid his hands on him and asked him: “Does he see anything?” He looked and said: “I see people passing by, like trees.” Then he again laid his hands on his eyes and told him to look. And the sick man was healed and began to see everything clearly. Then the Lord sent him home, forbidding him to talk about the healing. Soon after, the Lord healed a deaf-mute sleepwalker at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration. When He was on the mountain with Peter, James and John, one of the people brought his son, a sick, deaf-mute sleepwalker, to His disciples who remained with the people at the mountain. And the disciples could not heal him. The reader delving into the gospel history cannot ignore this remarkable event: the apostles, who were given power over unclean spirits to cast them out and heal every disease and every infirmity, in this case could not heal the sick person! Of course, the immediate cause of this weakness of the apostles was unbelief, both their own and those who asked for the healing of the sick. But they believed both earlier and later: why has their faith dried up now? And how little faith they needed: the size of a mustard seed! The sick man’s father confessed to the Lord Jesus himself: “I believe, Lord! help my unbelief.” It was not so much faith as a thirst for faith, and the Lord heeded his tears. Did the apostles really not have so much faith? Obviously, the lack of faith of the apostles, in other cases sufficient to heal the sick by the grace of the Lord, was now the cause of their weakness because it was punished by the Lord with impotence and futility. The lack of faith of the apostles was punished for the highest providential purposes: their powerlessness revealed the power of Jesus. The weakness of the apostles brought short-term triumph to the scribes, and they entered into a dispute with the disciples, to which the people listened with tension. When Jesus Christ appeared from the mountain, the people greeted Him in excitement. And He, having learned about the reason for the dispute between the scribes and the disciples, ordered the sick man to be brought to Him and said to him with authority: “The spirit is dumb and deaf! I command you, come out of it, and do not enter it again.” And the sick man was healed at that hour. The Gospel of Luke tells that Christ, going to Jerusalem and passing between Samaria and Galilee, healed ten lepers near one village. When they asked Him for healing, He told them: go, show yourself to the priests. And as they walked, they purified themselves. Then one of them returned and thanked the Lord Jesus, and it was a Samaritan, and the other nine, of course, the Jews, turned out to be ungrateful. Therefore, it is likely that the healing of ten lepers is included in the pages of gospel history. In this same feature of the event we see the only indication of its historical connection. Although the gospel does not say anything special about the act of healing, it should be assumed that it was performed in such a way that those healed could have a very definite incentive to thank the miracle worker 121. The next miracles of the Lord were the healing of a blind man (according to the Gospel of Matthew - two blind men) near Jericho and the resurrection of Lazarus. And again we encounter here the peculiarity that is characteristic of His miracles during the time under consideration. Passing through Jericho on the way to Jerusalem; The Lord Jesus was surrounded by a multitude of people; Hearing that He was coming, the blind man began to shout and say: “Jesus, son of David! have mercy on me." He probably screamed for a long time; many forced him to remain silent, but he began to shout the same words even more. Then only Jesus stopped, ordered the blind man to be called and expressively asked him: “What do you want from Me?” Then, seeing his faith, he healed him. In the raising of Lazarus, the slowness of the Lord Jesus was revealed most noticeably. Jesus was notified of his illness by his sisters while in Perea. Hearing, He said: “This disease is not for death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” And although He loved Lazarus and his sisters, however, having heard about his illness, he stayed for two days in the very place where he was. Only when Lazarus had already died, He, having said to His disciples: “I rejoice for you, that I was not there, so that you might believe,” went to him in Bethany, so that when he arrived, he found that he had already been in the tomb for four days. Both sisters Martha and Mary, when meeting the Lord Jesus, said the same word to Him: “Lord! If You had been here, my brother would not have died.” But He answered: “I am the resurrection and the life; He who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.” Then He approached the tomb, ordered the stone to be taken away from the cave where the deceased lay, raised his eyes to heaven and said: “Father! I thank You that You heard Me. I knew that You would always hear Me; But I said this for the sake of the people standing here, so that they might believe that You sent Me.” Then He cried out with a loud voice: “Lazarus! get out,” and the deceased came out. In this gospel narrative, every word testifies to the indicated feature of the miracles of Jesus Christ. In this feature, it is not the essence of Christ's miraculous power that is revealed, but it has historical significance. With what speed did the Lord resurrect the son of the widow of Nain: barely seeing her crying, He already approached the bed to return her son! And He raised the daughter of Jairus as soon as she died; even, as if belittling the miracle, He said to those who were crying: “she is not dead, but sleeps,” and allowed only the parents, besides Peter, James and John, to be present at the resurrection. And the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus was performed in such a way that the Son of God would be glorified through him. The explanation of this historical feature is that Jesus was now surrounded by the hatred of His enemies, that now His glory increased their bitterness and led Him to Calvary. The raising of Lazarus brought glory to God because Jesus glorified Him by death. The external “glory” of the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus had the same historical significance as the breaking of the Sabbath by the miracles of healing the paralytic at Bethesda and the man born blind (Jn. 11:4 Wed. with John 9:3). The historical context of the resurrection of Lazarus was that now the hatred of Jesus’ enemies was so mature that it was no longer the violation of the Sabbath, but His very outward glory that intensified their bitterness. This outward glory of Christ's miracles had the same historical significance as His self-revelation in demanding self-denial from His hearers in His name. This reason of gospel history is clearly expressed in the writings of the divinely enlightened church fathers. So St. John Chrysostom writes: “(Christ) performed many miracles, but not one of them hardened the Jews to such an extent - neither a miracle over the paralytic, nor a miracle over the blind, like the miracle over Lazarus” 122. That is why now the very solemnity with which the resurrection of Lazarus was accomplished only strengthened the indicated historical significance of the miracle. It was done in front of many Jews who came to Martha and Mary to console them in their grief about their brother, since Bethany, the village where Mary and Martha lived, was near Jerusalem. In this last respect, the miracle of the healing of the blind man of Jericho and the miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus differed not only from the miracle of the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter and the miracles of that time in general, but also from the miracles just listed, already belonging to the third section of the last period of Christ’s life, when Jesus left His solitude with the disciples. By presenting His miracles in the light of His exceptional significance for the revelation of the kingdom of God, the Lord Jesus Christ thereby connected them with the self-denial that He demanded in His name. In this regard, first of all, the idea was expressed that the use of His miracles obliges self-denial in His name. By this, the work of the revelation of the kingdom of God, on the one hand, was placed on the subjective basis of the power of Christ, but on the other hand, in His person, the basis was given for a universal spirituality, alien to material limitations. The Jews should have seen in all this a continuation of the rejection of their national messianic aspirations, which was begun by Christ earlier, and now the activity of Christ clearly indicated to the Jews their judge in His person. But in the same activity, there was much that was instructive for His apostles, to whom His attention was mainly devoted during this time. Unlike the people, the disciples could see in the slowness of His miracles not only the special significance of His face for the revealed kingdom of God, but also His humiliation. They themselves experienced this humiliation when they could not heal the sleepwalker under the mountain of transfiguration. In the light of this own weakness, for them, and in general, the slowness of Christ’s miracles could be presented as evidence of the weakened manifestations of His miraculous power 123. At least, when they told the Lord about the Canaanite woman: “Let her go, because she is screaming after us,” there seemed to be confusion in their words. However, the later of the mentioned miracles of the Lord, in their solemnity with which they were performed, were undoubted manifestations of the glory of the Lord Jesus. Abandoned by many disciples in Galilee and leaving the Jerusalem Jews in extreme embitterment, the Lord Jesus, seeking solitude with His closest disciples, went with them to the borders of Tire and Sidon, where he healed the daughter of a Canaanite woman, then, probably along the northern border of Galilee, he moved to the Decapolis, where he healed a deaf, tongue-tied man; then, after a short stay on the western shore of the lake, He went to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, healing a blind man along the way in Bethsaida (Julia). Before reaching Caesarea, the Lord Jesus had a conversation with His disciples. It is easy to understand that the entire time of Christ’s solitude with his disciples was a preparation for this conversation. The Lord asked His disciples: “Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?” They said: “Some for John the Baptist, others for Elijah, and others for Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He asked them again: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Peter's confession constitutes one of the few decisive moments of the Gospel history - those moments in which the question of the fate of the sons of men and the fate of the Son of Man was decided, in which the solution of this issue, apparently, was made dependent on human will, when remembering which our mind, imagining the possibility of a different solution, becomes entangled in hopeless difficulties. What was the meaning of Christ’s question and what significance should be recognized for Peter’s confession? Some theologians believe that at that time the apostles, through the mouth of Peter, first recognized Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God 124. This opinion contradicts not only individual facts of gospel history, but also its entire systematic course. Already at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, the disciples saw the glory of Christ and believed; Already during the first stay of Jesus in Jerusalem, at the beginning of His public ministry, many, seeing His miracles, believed in Him. Manifestations of such faith were then repeated many times. It reached its highest intensity among the people at a time when they wanted to come and accidentally take Him and make Him king. And these facts are not accidental; but essentially the starting point of the gospel story is the belief in miracles. This belief in miracles constitutes the beginning, not the end; she is an embryo that has the necessary development; it must inevitably be reborn either into hatred of the miracle worker in the name of earthly interests, pride and self-righteousness, or into spiritual faith, combined with self-denial and love for divine invisible blessings. At these points, the initial coincidence and subsequent division of the faith of the people and the faith of the disciples were given. That is why the closest disciples of Christ, destined by Him from the very beginning of His activity to constantly follow Him, only over time stand out from the people in a certain number; even later, the teaching of Christ in relation to them becomes different from the teaching addressed to the people; even later, and Christ retires with His disciples for a long time. What deserves special attention is the fact that the disciples were not separated from the people from the very beginning, but they were part of their people, they were from their flesh, from their bones; their faith in its beginning was the same popular faith, their later faith was a degeneration of that same initial faith, which among the people degenerated into hatred, their faith was interpreted in opposition to popular unbelief, just as popular unbelief, in turn, received its full historical significance from the opposition to their faith. The people's faith, having reached its highest tension, turned into bitterness towards the miracle worker: He was rejected by those whom he came to as his own. Now he had no place to lay his head; He strongly predicted the cross for His followers; Now He performed the most miracles with slowness, as if with effort. Under such conditions, His question to the disciples did not have the meaning of whether they finally began to consider Him as the Messiah, whether they gradually came to believe in Him, but He asked them whether they now retained the faith in Him that they had before and for which there was now a time of temptation. Subsequently, He told them: “You remained with Me in My adversities” (Luke 22:28): this, of course, was the time of His exile by His own, His solitude with His disciples in pagan countries. It turned out that the apostles, unlike the people, retained their former faith in Him and remained with Him in adversity. Among the people, some revered Him as John the Baptist, who rose from the dead (cf. Matt. 14:2 par.), others as Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. The disciples could have recalled the blasphemy of the Jews, but they spoke only about the best, only about the most exalted opinions of the people. Scolded by the terrible blasphemy of the Jews, Jesus was not the Messiah for the people, but He was still a miracle worker, and it was with these opinions that they thought to explain His miraculous power (Matthew 14:2 Nar.). In contrast to popular unbelief and these popular opinions, the disciples of Christ retained their former faith in Him even during this time of adversity. But what did it mean to preserve a faith based on miracles during a time of temptation and humiliation? This meant having reborn faith: faith preserved in the days of adversity is necessarily spiritualized. There can be no stagnation in spiritual life: here every time is either a step back or a step forward, regression or progress; apparent stagnation is necessarily a regression, a fall, but the actual preservation of the former is its affirmation, strengthening, progress. And the former faith of the apostles, preserved during temptation, reached its highest level and became spiritualized. While the people, believing in the inner messianic dignity of Jesus, completely determined their positive relationship with Him by faith in His miraculous power, His disciples, sharing with Him adversity and humiliation, having lost everything worldly for His sake (Matthew 19:27 par.), transferring all their hopes to Him, by the power of love for Him, believed in His inner (living sonship of God: “You are the Christ, the Son of God Zhivago.” This spirituality constituted something new in Peter’s confession, in contrast to the previous faith of the disciples. Separated from the people by the Lord Jesus, they themselves were united from the Jews, following Christ into the realm of divine spirituality. This was a sacred moment, and Christ Jesus noted its holy solemnity. He said to Peter in response: “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah; heaven. And I say to you: you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The Jews were led by flesh and blood, thirsting for miracles, demanding signs from heaven, tied with all their souls to the earth; The apostles, however, comprehended in Christ that spiritual heavenly good, which an external miracle cannot reveal, serving only as its symbol; they comprehended it through the power of faith, acting love, and renouncing material attachment to a miracle. Then Jesus forbade His disciples not to tell anyone that He is Christ, because this constituted the law of Christ’s self-revelation, that the truth of His sonship with God was not given to people in an external ready-made form, that a person must come to it through internal struggle. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Himself revealed it to the Jewish people only in a form that tested the Jews and hardened them. Communicated in an external, ready-made form, this truth would necessarily become a revelation of external messianism. That is why He said to the Jews: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). The solemnity of the Lord Jesus' response to Peter's confession sufficiently testifies to the great significance of the event at Caesarea Philippi. The mortal suffering of the Lord Jesus was, as stated above, saving for man solely because it was the suffering of the Son of God, that He was crucified by His enemies as the Son of God. That is why, as soon as the Jews decided to kill Him because He called Himself the Son of God, He left the Jerusalemites as already prepared for Calvary. But the malice of the crucifiers towards the Son of God, their disbelief in His sonship with God constitutes only one shadow in the mystery of Golgotha, which by itself, without light and colors, does not form a picture. Their malice towards the crucified Son of God was complemented and comprehended by the true faith of the disciples. If in order for the Son of God to dwell in the hearts of people by faith (Eph. 3:17), He had to suffer from malice towards His sonship with God, then, conversely, the malice of the crucifiers was, in a historical sense, real malice towards the Son of God only because the Crucified One was contemplated by at least a few true believers. Sacrilege is committed only when desecration occurs in relation to an object that is obviously sacred, when the culprit knows that he is desecrating a revered shrine; but beyond that, for sacrilegious desecration to take place, it must be committed in front of those who honor the shrine, for their knowledge. And for Golgotha ​​it was necessary to prepare not only the sacrilegious Jews, but also the disciples who revere the shrine of sonship with God. This preparedness of the disciples for Golgotha ​​was revealed at Caesarea Philippi in the confession through the mouth of Peter. This confession for the first time revealed to humanity the beauty of spiritual good, but at the same time it was a clear sign of the coming time of suffering of the Son of Man. Now not only the Jewish people are prepared for them with their malice, but also the disciples with their faith. And from that time on, Jesus began to openly speak to his disciples about His suffering. He began to teach them that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer other things from the elders, high priests and scribes, and be killed, and be resurrected on the third day. But then it was revealed that the faith of the disciples, being a true spiritual faith, had not yet taken possession of the entire area of ​​their spiritual life, did not acquire all-conquering power in them - that power that the very death of Christ later gave them. The same apostle who had just made a great confession of faith now began to contradict his Master; “Be merciful to yourself, O Lord; Let this not happen to You." In the Son of Man, mocked by terrible blasphemy, exiled and having no place to lay his head, he came to know the Son of God. But is the humiliation not yet over? Will it really reach mortal suffering? The disciples reached a high level of faith in the sonship of God of the suffering and humiliated Son of Man, but this faith still left room in them for the completely human thought that suffering and humiliation serve only as a transition to external glory, only as a preparation for it. This is what the Old Testament taught. In his writing, the idea is expressed in many different ways and clearly that God is not with the proud and self-satisfied, but with the suffering and humiliated, but the latter were called only to external hope and were consoled by the hope that the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous were temporary, that God would hear the groans of the righteous and give him prosperity, as he gave to the righteous Job. So the apostles waited for the external glory of Christ. They came to terms with His humiliation and suffering, which were completely incompatible with Jewish ideas about the Messiah, but they still humanly thought that the suffering of the Messiah would be followed by His outer glory. They hoped that not only would this be the “exodus” of the Messiah, but that He would crown with glory the fate of all the righteous. At least for themselves, they expected participation in the external glory of Christ, a reward for their self-denial (Matthew 19:27 par.). And now they hear that a shameful death awaits their Christ, with which all their hope for external glory is destroyed. True, the Lord spoke to them not only about His death, but also about the resurrection. But what is resurrection? The Jews had a certain concept of the resurrection: with it they connected a vivid idea of ​​external glory, complete prosperity, and even freedom from bodily limitations and the possession of miraculous power. Not believing in Christ Jesus, to explain His miracles, they made the most understandable assumption for them, that He was the resurrected one, or John the Baptist, or one of the ancient prophets (Matthew 14:2 par. Luke 9:19 par.). It was known about John the Baptist that during his lifetime he did not perform miracles (John 10:41): in the resurrection he could, according to popular belief, receive such power. But was the Lord Jesus talking about such a sensual resurrection? Obviously not. The resurrection, with the preceding humiliation on the cross, implying the collapse of all earthly hopes, gave the disciples’ thoughts a different direction, far from popular ideas about the resurrection. However, in the attitude of the apostles to the teaching of Christ about the resurrection, gradualism is noticeable: under Caesarea Philippi their attention was absorbed in the thought of the suffering of the Lord Jesus and it did not seem to stop at the resurrection. A little later, when the Lord forbade them to divulge the vision on the Mount of Transfiguration, “until the Son of Man rises from the dead,” they kept this word and asked each other what it meant to rise from the dead. The point of the teaching and life of Christ until his death was to educate his disciples in the correct concepts of spiritual resurrection - about death and resurrection: this was the direction of His later conversations with his disciples, this was the meaning of His death for them. Faith in the humiliated Son of God and external messianic expectations were correlative spiritual forces: the strength and growth of one exhausted the other. And the Lord Jesus rejected Peter’s rebellion with the same power with which he blessed his faith. And just as He called faith a revelation of the Father, so He called human aversion to humiliation a satanic temptation. Looking expressively at the disciples, He said to Peter: “Get behind Me, Satan; You are a temptation to Me, because you think not about the things of God, but about the things of men.” Then, calling the people with His disciples, He began to tell them that the basis of satanic temptation is attachment to earthly things, while spiritual life requires from a person complete self-denial, the loss of the soul itself, the outer life itself. He spoke about the cross and self-denial to all the people with His disciples, but His words sounded differently to the disciples than to the people... The transfiguration of the Lord is closely connected with the event at Caesarea, as indicated by the period of time that has already been noted by all three evangelists telling about the event of transfiguration, which elapsed from the confession and contradiction of Peter to the transfiguration. The external transition from one event to another is the words of the Lord Jesus with which His conversation at Caesarea ended. Predicting His suffering in Jerusalem and calling on His disciples to self-denial, He said: “Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and the Father and the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come with power.” After these words, after six intermediate days, otherwise after eight days, if you include the extreme days, the transfiguration of the Lord took place. Taking Peter, James and John, Jesus Christ went up with them alone to the mountain to pray. During His prayer, the apostles fell asleep. Having awakened, they saw Him in radiance, which, according to Old Testament ideas, was a symbol of divine glory: His face shone and His clothes became white, like light or snow. Two men also appeared to them, in the same radiance, who talked with Jesus, and in whom they recognized Moses and Elijah, these greatest representatives of the Old Testament, its law and prophets. Appearing in glory, they spoke of His exodus, which He was to accomplish in Jerusalem. It was good for the apostles to contemplate this radiance; when the men who appeared left the Lord Jesus, Peter wanted to hold them back and, not knowing what to say, invited the Lord to build three tabernacles for Him and His interlocutors. And then a bright cloud overshadowed the apostles themselves and they heard a voice: This is My beloved Son; Listen to him." They were in fear. Then the “vision” (Matthew 27:9) stopped and the Lord forbade them to publicize it until He rose from the dead. The Lord made only three disciples witnesses of the transfiguration - Simon, whom He called Peter, and the brothers James and John, to whom he gave the name: sons of thunder. It is instructive to dwell on the character of these apostles. They surpassed the other apostles in the strength of active faith in the coming of the kingdom of God, the intensity of the effort with which the kingdom of heaven is taken, the intensity of the desire to capture it. This is evident from the peculiarity of the calling of these apostles. Passing near the Sea of ​​Galilee, the Lord Jesus saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, casting nets into the sea. And he said to them: follow me. And they immediately left their nets and followed Him. Also, James and John, called by Him, left their father Zebedee and followed Him (Mark 1:16-20). Subsequently, Peter could say to the Lord: “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” Bound to Christ by such self-denial for His sake, they burned with zeal for the glory of Christ and guarded it as their own property. So John and others rebuked a man who cast out demons by the power of the Lord, but did not walk with them. He and his brother Jacob proposed to the Lord to bring down fire from heaven and destroy the village that did not accept Him. At the same time, these apostles stood out for the passion with which they expected to participate in the external glory of Christ. Leaving everything for His sake, the Apostle Peter asked Him: “What will happen to us?” The Apostles James and John asked Him to seat them in His kingdom, one on His right side, and the other on His left. These three disciples were taken by the Lord “especially alone” to the Mount of Transfiguration. Even earlier, they alone were allowed by Him to be present at the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter, and later at His Gethsemane prayer. Evidently they were chosen among the elect: as the twelve were to the world, so were the three to the twelve. It is also significant for what events they were singled out from the twelve: they were witnesses of both the supreme glory of Christ and the extreme revelation of His weakness. If at the same time we pay attention to the fact that the resurrection of Jairus’s daughter took place even before the election of the twelve and that then the three were separated, together with the parents of the deceased, not from the twelve, but from the people, then the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Gethsemane prayer will stand out as exceptional events of glory and humiliation. This comparison alone was very instructive for the chosen disciples: it told them that the external glory of Christ precedes His humiliation, and does not follow it. We also find the revelation of this law of gospel history, which determined the sequence of these events, in the teaching of the Lord Jesus after the transfiguration. Coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord healed the demon-possessed youth. “And everyone was amazed at the greatness of God. When everyone marveled at all that Jesus did; He said to His disciples: put these words in your ears: The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men” (Luke 9:43-44). At that time the disciples did not understand this word; but later its meaning was completely revealed to them and it was already clearly presented to the evangelist. The same law, which determined the sequence of these events and which was expressed in the quoted words of the Lord Jesus, is the same law symbolically represented by the event of transfiguration, which is the meaning of this event. On the “holy” Mount of Transfiguration, the Lord Jesus appeared to His disciples in magnificent glory; at that time He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the apostles were eyewitnesses of His greatness (2 Pet. 1:16-18). In the radiance of His glory, the greatest representatives of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, also appeared and talked with Him. What were they talking about? “About His exodus, which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem,” i.e. about His future suffering. The “Vision” was highly instructive for the apostles. Did they expect the glory of Christ, a share in His greatness? He has glory, He is the one who can give them outward greatness; but this is not why He was sent by the Heavenly Father. The radiance of divine glory is “terrifying” for man. He came to give people eternal life, inner spiritual glory, to give them the benefits not of immortality and not of carnal resurrection, but the benefits of spiritual resurrection. What the satiation of thousands of people with a few loaves of bread was for the Galileans, what His subsequent symbolic actions at the feasts of tabernacles and renewal were for the Jews, that was the event of transfiguration for the apostles 125. And this was the internal difference between the apostles and the people, that the people became hardened, and the disciples moved by faith from the visible to the invisible. Brought up by the life and teachings of Christ, the Apostle Peter later wrote about the glory of Christ following His sufferings, and called on the faithful to participate in Christ’s sufferings in order to rejoice and triumph at the revelation of His glory (1 Pet. 1:11; 4:13), but he already understood the glory of the resurrection from the dead (1 Pet. 1:21) and, equating all external human glory with the color on grass that quickly falls (1 Peter 1:24), spoke of the bliss of suffering for righteousness (1 Peter 3:14 ff.) ... However, the apostles did not rise to such a height of spiritual understanding immediately from the mountain of transfiguration, but approached it gradually until the death of Christ, which is thus associated with the confession of Peter and the transfiguration of the Lord, illuminated by the meaning of these events. For Christ Himself, the transfiguration was that real experience of divine greatness, which made it a feat for Him to fight against the temptation of humiliation. All His miracles gave such an experience of the external manifestation of divine glory to the Lord Jesus, but primarily before them the external revelation of divine glory in Him was His transfiguration. And of course, in this experience we need to look for an explanation of the power of the Gethsemane struggle, when He “with a strong cry and with tears offered prayers and supplications to him who was able to save Him from death and through suffering learned obedience” - a power that stands out especially clearly in comparison with the self-control and greatness of His struggle with temptations in the desert. This explanation is in no way weakened by the fact that the very suffering and humiliation in the life of Christ increased according to the degree of external revelation of divine glory in Him. If this was the case for the Lord Jesus Himself, then equally for the witnesses of His transfiguration it was a tempting contemplation of His greatness. It was a time in which they felt “good” in an unearthly way. What a complex inner life, what a complex alternation and even coincidence of strength with weakness, self-denial with boldness, reward with trial! Honored for their high faith with the revelation of the coming sufferings of Christ and then His actual external glory, they are in contemplation. the transfiguration had to learn a spiritual understanding of His coming glory, but at the same time in the same contemplation they had a tempting experience, so that by victory in it they themselves could prepare to participate in the spiritual glory of Christ. In the light of this extraordinary intensity of inner life, due to the wealth of extraordinary inner experiences and outer experiences, we must consider the entire subsequent life of the apostles until the death and resurrection of Christ. Then we will see, in the outburst of their extraordinary love for the Teacher, clear signs of an imminent fall, and in the depths of the fall, the undoubted foundations of the complete triumph of spiritual faith, complete rebirth. Then we will see - what is especially important - the regenerating power in the death of Christ. The effect of the Lord's transfiguration on the apostles was like a grain thrown into the depths of their hearts, which only gradually sprouted and only at the death of Christ gave its fruit. If the apostles had not witnessed the transfiguration of the Lord - His miracles and transfiguration - His death would have had no meaning for them; if the witnesses to the transfiguration were not also witnesses to His death, it would have a false meaning to them. Transfiguration and death, greatness and humiliation - this is the path to spiritual glory, to resurrection. This was the way of the Lord Jesus Christ; His disciples had to experience this path with Him. To ensure that their experience was carried out in the right direction, the Lord Jesus continued to teach them. For this purpose, for some time and after the transfiguration, Christ Jesus sought solitude with His disciples. The Lord had already ordered Peter’s confession and told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to suffer mortal suffering. Which way did He go to Jerusalem? The Mount of Transfiguration was probably located north of Caesarea Philippi: perhaps it was Hermon. Having descended from the mountain and healed the demoniac, the Lord from the borders of Caesarea or Hermon, which lay northeast of the Lake of Galilee, east of the Jordan, went to Galilee along the northwestern shore of the lake through Capernaum towards Samaria. Passing through Galilee, He did not want anyone to know (Mark 9:30). It is quite consistent with this that in Capernaum the Lord Jesus did not refuse to pay the church tax, which the collectors asked of Him through Peter, although He, as a “son,” was free from it. So as not to tempt the collectors with His refusal, He commanded Peter to catch a fish in the sea and, having found a coin in it, pay for Him and for himself. On the border of Galilee and Samaria, the Lord healed ten lepers. Then He wanted to enter a Samaritan village, but was not received by the Samaritans, because He appeared to be traveling to Jerusalem. At the same time, some of the Pharisees came to Him with the news that Herod wanted to kill Him, and told Him to leave from here. The Lord Jesus answered them that He must go today, tomorrow and the next day towards Jerusalem, because it does not happen that a prophet perishes outside of Jerusalem. Then He went into the borders of Judea along the Jordanian side. At this time, the people again gathered to Him and He, according to His custom, again taught them (Mark 10:1). His procession now becomes open and even solemn. This was primarily facilitated by the fact that He sent seventy disciples before His face to those places where He Himself wanted to go. Then He solemnly performed miracles of healing the blind man of Jericho and raising Lazarus, and thus prepared His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is now important for us to look at what the Lord continued to teach His disciples during his secret stay with them in Galilee, and also later during the solemn journey to Jerusalem. When He descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples asked Him about the coming of Elijah, which, according to the scribes, should precede the coming of the Messiah. The Lord replied that Elijah had already come in the person of John the Baptist, with whom the Jews did as they wanted; so, He added, the Son of man will suffer from them. This speech, therefore, was directly related to what Moses and Elijah talked with Him about on the mountain. The Lord Jesus, as it were, repeated this conversation to the disciples, focused their attention on the meaning that it gave to the transfiguration, clarified the meaning of this event, directing the thoughts of the disciples to what is God, to the spiritual kingdom of the Heavenly Father. In the same way, having healed a demon-possessed youth at the foot of the mountain, when everyone was amazed at everything that Jesus did, He again tells His disciples about the coming suffering of the Son of Man. This was the general direction of His solitude with the disciples in Galilee. Passing through Galilee, He did not want anyone to know, for He taught His disciples and told them that the Son of man would be delivered into the hands of men, and they would kill Him, and after He was killed, He would rise again on the third day (Mark 9:30-31). And later, already during the solemn procession to Jerusalem, He again calls the twelve to Him and tells them about His future sufferings (Mark 10:32-34). He prepares them for His death, educates them in the thought of it; He expels from their hearts everything that made this thought inconvenient for them. When He was still in Galilee, before reaching Capernaum, He predicted to them about His death and resurrection, they did not understand His words, because they were arguing among themselves about who was greater. Arriving in Capernaum, the Lord called the twelve and taught them: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then, calling a child and placing him in their midst, he said to them: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” He said the same thing a little later, when children were brought to Him so that He could lay His hands on them and pray, and the disciples rebuked them. While teaching His disciples humility, the Lord Jesus at the same time called them to fight against the spirit of self-righteous exclusiveness and instilled in them condescending love. When John told Him about one man who cast out demons in His name and whom the apostles forbade because he did not walk with them, the Lord commanded not to forbid. When then in one Samaritan village they did not receive the Lord and his disciples, because He appeared to be traveling to Jerusalem, and the same John and Jacob asked Him to bring down fire from heaven and, like Elijah, destroy the inhabitants, the Lord forbade them and explained that they should not have the spirit of Elijah, but the spirit of the Son of man, who came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save. When after that the Lord sent seventy disciples before His face and they, returning, joyfully proclaimed to Him about the miracles they had performed and especially about the casting out of demons in His name, the Lord said to them: “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I give you power to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits obey you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Whether these words were spoken earlier to the twelve disciples, or now to the seventy, makes no difference; in any case, the Lord taught His disciples this way, and these words of His are very important for revealing the meaning of the Gospel story. They show with indisputable clarity that the miracles of Jesus Christ had the meaning of symbols of spiritual life and its blessings, that to believe in the miracles of Christ with true faith does not mean to consider them an enduring reality and a self-sufficient good, but to raise one’s gaze from them to spiritual life. All true Christians are raised in this faith and in this spirit. “Our promises are hidden in sorrows, sufferings, patience and faith, and our very heavenly glory is hidden in them. We must rise to glory through dishonor. He who prays to God and desires to have miracles and powers in his hands turns out to be boastful and weak in his conscience. True righteous people not only do not desire this, but also refuse when it is given to them; and not only in the eyes of people, but also secretly for themselves, they do not want this” 126. This is what the disciples of Christ’s apostles think. This is how Christ Himself instructed His apostles. Teaching all the people to be uncovetous, He especially taught the same to His closest disciples. Predicting the kingdom of the Father to this His little flock, He, in connection with this, invited them to sell their estates to distribute alms and prepare for themselves treasure in heaven (Luke 12). One day He, teaching a young man who asked Him what he should do to inherit eternal life, demanded that he sell his property and give it to the poor; the young man, who had great property, was embarrassed by such a demand and sadly departed from the Lord. Then Peter, on behalf of the apostles, said to the Lord: “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what will happen to us? In response, the Lord Jesus explains to the apostles that here on earth they can only expect the reward that will be given to them amid persecution, that suffering will not be followed by external glory, that the full reward for them will be spiritual, invisible, eternal life (Mark 10:30). No matter how much persecution and humiliation they endure with their teacher or for Him, let them not expect external rewards for themselves, like a slave who, having returned from the field, still must serve his master (Luke 17:7-10). Likewise, let them not expect external advantages in the kingdom of God, where many will be the first last and the last first, where those who are called at the eleventh hour receive the same benefits as those who are called early in the morning and endure the hardship of the day and the heat. When after this, already ascending to Jerusalem, Jesus called the twelve on the way and again predicted to them that the Son of Man would be handed over to the high priests and scribes, and they would condemn Him to death, and hand Him over to the pagans to be mocked, and beaten, and crucified, and on the third day He would rise again - hopes for external glory in the kingdom of God were again awakened in the apostles, and so John and James, together with their mother, asked Jesus, that they may sit at His right hand, one on His right, and another on His left, in His kingdom. The Lord Jesus in response explains to them that only those who are ready to drink the cup of suffering and be baptized with the baptism of death can seek a place in His kingdom, and that even the cup of suffering and the baptism of death will not give external glory in His kingdom, because the glory of His kingdom is spiritual glory, which is prepared by the Heavenly Father. Then He explains to all the disciples who were indignant at the two brothers that in His spiritual kingdom there will be no place for external power, that to be great and first in the kingdom of God means to be a servant and slave of others, since the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His soul as a ransom for many. These conversations of the Lord Jesus Christ, together with His farewell conversation, which immediately adjoins them, represent a series of thoughts that for His disciples connected His transfiguration with the suffering of the cross and revealed the meaning of these events in their mutual connection. But from them it is also clear how much the apostles lacked before their faith, expressed in the confession of Peter, acquired full power over their soul: their faith acquired such strength only in the death of Christ, which thus appears before us in its great meaning. Regarding Matthew 15:30‒31; Mk. 7:37 see next note. Explanation of Matt. 15:30‒39; Mk. 7:37‒8:9, which tells about the repetition of the miracle of feeding thousands of people with a few loaves, is not part of our task. The author does not insist that the miracle of the healing of ten lepers belongs specifically to the group of miracles under consideration. In general, the explanation offered in the text for the peculiarity of some miracles should not be understood in such a way that the peculiarity itself was invented by the author in support of some tendentious thought, but in such a way that this peculiarity was noticed by other authors, for example. Farrar, Geikie, paying attention to it, but either not trying to explain it at all, or giving it some pitiful fragmented explanation in the circumstances of one or another miracle in particular. On the contrary, in the proposed explanation, the peculiarity is noticed in a number of miracles of a certain time and finds a significant explanation in the connection of the Gospel history. Therefore, if the reader did not agree to classify e.g. the miracle of the healing of ten lepers, or if another connection had been proven for this miracle, then neither the veracity of the indicated feature of Christ’s miracles for a certain time, nor the thoroughness of its explanation would have suffered from this. What stood in connection with the weakened popular faith. So especially O. Holtzmann Leben Jesu, 1901, S 23. 54. 251‒252. And than before, for them there were miracles of taming the storm and walking on water, but to a lesser extent. Purpose and meaning of life, page 68 You might be interested in: