The Yale expositor., 1905-04-28
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
LESSON v, SECOND QUARTER, INTER-
NATIONAL SERIES. APRIL 80.


Gal. V, I3-Commentary Prepared by
Rev. ID. NJ. steRrns.
Copyright, 1905, by American Press Association1
1t is the last evening of His sojourn
In a mortal body, for on the morrow He
will give Himself into the hands of His
enemies to be crucified. 1t is the feast
Of the Passover, concerning which He
said, 81 have heartily desired to eat
this Passover with you before l suffer"
luke xxi, 10, margin). He and the
twelve are gathered in a certain guest
chamber in Jerusalem, where Peter
and John had prepared the feast at His
command duke xxi, S-13). Neither the
city as such nor even the religious
leaders knew or cared anything about
this little company, but all heaven was
interested, and here in the midst of this
small gathering sat the Creator of all
things, God manifest in the flesh, the
Messiah of Israel, the Great Head OF
lhe Church, the King of kings and
Lord of lords; truly man ald poor
man, yet truly God: the world which
was made by Him knew Him not. ana
Israel, whom He came to redeem,
would not receive Him.
Some, however, did receive Him, and
here at the table are the inner circle
of such, but one of them is a devil pos
sessed man who never was truly the
Lords, and ere the night is over all
will forsake Him, and seemingly the
bravest one among them VIII with
oaths and curses deny that be ever
knew Him. Yet the eleven now present
who were truly His own in spite of all
their Weaknesses and sinfulness are
those of whom it is written in our les
son, Having loved His own which
were in the world, He loved them unto
the end"
Many times He had said, mine hour,
or time, is not yet come" chapters Ii, Il;
vii, 6, s., and on at least two occasions
His enemies could not take Him be-
cause His hour to be taken had not
come vii, 80; viii, POI, but now He
knew that His hour had come to de-
part out of the world unto the Father.
Death to the believer is simply an exit
or departure from this life to Il far bet
ter one, and the resurrection will bring
tl,e fulness of ii. If we fully believed
God, the unseen would be more real
than this world.
Processing to be disciple Of Christ,
Judas Iscariot deliberately chose to
serve the devil, opening his heart to the
evil thought and afterward letting Sa-
tan himself in. To keep the devil out
we must resist his suggestions. Moth
ing will tend to give us true humility
so much as the consciousness of our
oneness with Christ in His glory and
His kingdom. When we are sure that
all things are ours in Christ q Cor. iii,
21-23; Luke XIV, 80 we will not be
grasping the things Of this world nor
overmuch grieved when we lose them,
nor will we think any service too men,
ial for us 20 perform.
Contrast the proud Righteousness Of
Peter under the guise of humility in
verses and s. How rare is the grace
of simple submission to Him, however
humbling to us; the grace Of just let
ting Him do what He WILL whether II
suits us and our ideas or not, knowing
that some time we shall understand,
and meantime we can trust Him i'm
plicitly. The great thing is to be sure
that we have part with Him, are part
Of Him, by being born again.
When we truly receive Him as the
Son of God and our own personal Saw
Jour, then we are washed in His blood
and in the sight of God clean every
whit washed, sanctifed, justified (Rev.
1, 8, 6; Cor. vi, IL. but there is a
daily cleansing needed, q moment by
moment cleansing. for we are in de-
filing world, where every touch makes
unclean, and hence the significance of
the question, "Wherewithal shall a
| young man cleanse his way?" Cps.
cxix, % and the Importance Of the re-
ply and of the statement in verse 1,
Blessed are the undefiled In the way
who walk in the law of the Lord" The
same truth is in Eph. V, %, &c, "Christ
| loved the church and gave Himself for
it, that He might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the
word" and again in John xvii, II,
"Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy
word is truth" Before God we are by
the blood Of Christ, by His own great
sacrifice, sanctified and perfected for
ever CHeb. X, 10, ~, but IN our daily
life we ever need the blood which
cleanseth from all sin q John /, y.
We have seen in some of these pas
sages just quoted that water is a SYM
Dol of the word, and doubtless it was
so in the washing Of our lesson. OBJ
ject lesson teaching is Gods Oldest
method. 1t began in Eden with the
tree of life. the coats of skins, the
cherubim, the flaming sword; II is seen
in every part of the tabernacle and its
ritual, in AGron's rod that budded. In
the rock smitten and then spoken to, in
the fringe and riband Of blue and ev-
erywhere throughout the book. Here
He by this object lesson, feet washing.
and His application, II have given you