The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1894-11-03
LESSON SERIES FOR 1894.
FOURTH QUARTER.
EssoNs FROM THE LIFE OF OUR LORD
The Twelve Chosen.
INTRODUCTION.
MARK 8: GIG.


Jesus wrote no word that has been
preserved to us. This is the more remark
able when we perceive that he lived and
worked by life-plan. He formulated his
plan in his retirement in the Wilderness of
Judea; when, abjuring worldly riches, fame
and power, he purposed by self-abnegation
to involve the world in an immeasuratle
moral oblgation,-the discharge of which
moral obligation on the part of the world
would be its moral redemption, the realiza-
ton of the Divine Fatherhood, the coming
of the Kingdom of God. This being his
life-plan,-at once the most comprehen-
sive, the most difficult, the most Divine in
which any man ever entered,- at first
strikes us as strange that he was not, like
the prophets before him, writer. But
his method of fulfilling his life-plan was as
peculiar as the plan itself. He seemed
altogether careless whether his Gospel was
written on parchment. Pe knew that his
Gospel of the Divine Fatherhood, this
one truth implying all Gospel truths
could be made real to men only through
their human brothers. He chose therefore
that his chief witnesses should be living
believers and human opponents of his
Gospel. The uniqueness of this plan is
striking. The wisdom of this unique plan
is demonstrated by its SUCCESSFULLY
did Jesus choose exactly twelve of his dis
ciples to be his special witnesses and apos-
tles,-twelve, no more, no less? The
reason is rooted in early Hebrew history.
There were twelve sons of the patriarch
Jacob. When Moses, at the end of the
Egyptian bondage, organized the Hebrew
nation, he, fulfilling Jacobs prophecy,
made the descendants of the twelve sons
twelve tribes. The division of Israel into
Twelve Tribes had been, in the days of its
strength, favorable to individual independ-
ence combined with essential national uni
ty. But the Hebrew nation, with its
Twelve Tribes, had failed in the fulflment
of its mission. 1t had not, in any adequate
degree, brought the nations of the world
to loyal recognition of the One God. Ten
of the tribes of Israel had become, as visi-
bic bodies, irretrievably lost. Jesus had
adopted the mission which had been first
given to his nation. He purposed to make
the True God known to the world. What
his nation had failed to do, he purposed
to bring to pass. Jesus could not have
been the Oriental and the poet he was, if,
in organizing his spiritual kingdom, he had
not made the number of his apostles cor
respond to the twelve sons of Jacob and
the Twelve Tribes of Israel. That he in
tended recognition of the Twelve Tribes
is made manifest by his words spoken to
his disciples at his parting with them in
the upper chamber of Jerusalem duke 2s:
2o, 3o): I abb0int unto y0n, he said,
kingdom, e0en as my Father hath ab-
pointed unto me-; and .ye shall sit on
thrones ju3gine the tzVelve tribes of Israel
This striking parallelism was
fulfilled in the subsequent human develop
ment of the kingdom of God. The Twelve
Apostles (Rev. 40 symbolized twelve
foundations for the walls of the spiritual
city, the New Jerusalem. They also (Rev.
2I:2Il as the representatives of the Twelve
Tribes, symbolized twelve gates tito the
spiritual city. Again the Twelve were
pictured (Rev. 81 y as twelve manner of
fruits or leaves, borne by the tree of life
for the healing of the nations. In the in
dividual characteristics of the twelve dis
ciples, in their sharp contrasts of vision
and disposition, was exhibited the many
aspects and worldwide hospitality of the
Christian Religion.