what did jesus say about jews

But there is more than this: He was free in His love. Not all the cunning of Herod, nor all the hypocrisy of the Pharisees could turn aside the grace that filled His heart — grace even to those who loved Him not. If His servant could say that, though the more abundantly he loved the less he was loved, (2 Cor. 12:15) how much more fully true was it of the Master! The disciple was like his Master; but the Master was infinitely perfect. And so love fills His heart as now He utters these solemn words over Jerusalem, guilty of all the blood of the witnesses of God from Abel downwards. He has His own cross before Him; yet He says: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the [city] that kills the prophets, and stones those that are sent unto her; how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen her brood under her wings,366 and ye would not." (Cf. Matt. 23:37-39.) He was then more than a prophet — the Lord Jehovah. He was one competent to gather; and He had a love that proved its Divine spring, source, and character by His willingness often to have gathered the children of Jerusalem together. He could have been their Shield and exceeding great Reward, but they would not. There is no blessing that the will of man cannot shut its eyes to and reject. Flesh can never see aright, because it is always selfish; it does not see God, and consequently misses all that is really good for itself. Man is most of all his own enemy when he is God's enemy; but of all enemies, which are so deadly as religious enemies — as those whose hearts are far from God, though they draw near with their lips and have the place of the highest religious privilege! Such was Jerusalem. They had had the prophets, but they killed them. They had had messengers sent from God to them unweariedly, but they stoned them. And now that He who was the great prophet, Messiah, Jehovah Himself, was in their midst in Divine love, what would they not do to Him! There was no death too ignominious for Him. "Behold, your house is left unto you." It was their own ruin, when they thought and meant it to be His. But love rises over every hindrance. It is impossible that grace should be defeated in the end for its own purposes. And He adds: "I say unto you, that ye shall not see me [this was judgment, 'Ye shall not see me'], until it come that ye say, Blessed [is] he that comes in the name of [the] LORD" — this is grace. He comes in glory, but in the perfect display of that love which had suffered for them and from them and which will not fail in the end by this very suffering to ensure their eternal blessing. After "you," DXΔ, etc., 33, Syrr. Aeth. add "desolate" (Syrsin "forsaken"). Edd. omit, after ABKL, etc., Amiat., 1, 69, Sah. Arm. See note 367 in Appendix.

221 Now Jehovah had long patience - He sent prophets till there was no remedy; He smote and cut them short; He let them go captive and restored them again; so that the land was filled, and the temple built; still the word ran on, though the prophets did not live for ever. Jehovah had long patience, till having yet one Son, He said, "it may be they will reverence my Son"; round His head prophetic testimony and present blessing closed for a crown of glory and witness. The word of the Lord, and the works of the Lord; the righteousness, and the patience, and the grace alike, with the Father's voice, testified who He was, but the awful knell of God's judgment still filled the unholy air of that favoured country - "Make the heart of this people fat." Now it was after long patience and marvellous love that it really came out; the sentence of God's judgment came to the earth, for all the patience of love had been tried. God had nothing more than His Son to be testified of. "How often would I have gathered" was now the word of reluctantly departing lovingkindness and favour, but stored in a heart from which it could not be abstracted, which nothing could reach to alter. If sin could drive it in there and shut it up, there it dwelt untouched in its own blessed and essential perfectness: no sin or failure could enter there to mar its perfectness or diminish its power. Such is God - such must He be known to us in Christ.

Nor was it otherwise with Jehovah Messiah, in Matt. 23. Witness His touching words, "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Here lay the deep secret "I would." This was the heart of God. "Ye would not." This was the heart of Israel. He, too, like the glory in the days of Ezekiel, was forced away; but not, blessed be His name, without dropping a word which forms the precious basis of hope as to the brighter days to come, when the glory shall return, and the daughter of Zion shall welcome her King with joyful accents. "Blessed is He that comes in the name of Jehovah."

But notice how the divine person of the Lord comes out here, "O! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered … and ye would not!" Now a prophet could not say this. Though Christ was a prophet, it is true, still He was more than a prophet. He was Jehovah; for none but Jehovah could gather Israel. As it is said, "He that scattered Israel will gather him." Israel had rejected Jehovah, when under responsibility; but Jehovah will own them when He comes in grace. The church will go up to heaven, and the kingdom will be set up on the earth. And mark how the deity of our blessed Lord shines out again and again in the Gospels, while at the same moment the humanity remained so perfect. And here I would say a word or two as to the way of bringing this blessed fact out. For surely the circumstances through which the Lord passed in His path down here did bring out in a far brighter way WHO HE WAS, than any text that could be adduced to prove it. Not that I would set aside any text, but suppose you believed there was a God as a truth; if He were to come down by your very side and say, Here I AM, would not that be a very different thing? And though Christ was the humbled Man all through His path here (for He was ever the servant of all), yet when the service was of no use, then it was that God shone out. "Before Abraham was, I AM." See Luke 13:33-34. The moment He said, I must die, since you reject Me, immediately Jehovah shone out. "O! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee" - and who could gather ISRAEL but Jehovah Himself? - "but ye would not," therefore "your house is left unto you desolate until ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

All this there was, alas! But there was more. The Son Himself had come, in richest grace. He had spoken in their ears such words as none other had ever spoken. He had wrought His mighty miracles in their midst. He had healed their sick, cleansed their lepers, raised their dead, fed their hungry, opened the eyes of their blind. What had He not done? What had He not said? He longed to gather them beneath His sheltering wing; but they would not nestle there. They preferred the wings of the archenemy to the wings of Jehovah. He had opened His bosom to receive them; but they would not trust Him. All day long had He stretched forth His hands to them; but they would not have Him; and now, at length, after long forbearing, He pours forth His solemn woes upon them, and tells them of the appalling destiny awaiting them.

In Matt. 23:37; Luke 13:34 the domestic fowl is alluded to, and her well-known care for her chickens, in illustration of how the Lord would have gathered the Jews under His almighty and loving protection; but, alas, they would not!

How inexpressibly sweet and sad is this closing element which gives character to the entire sentence pronounced! What must be the hopelessness of that condition when divine power, righteousness and love can only unite in mourning over the obduracy of the human heart! "How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"

The twenty-third chapter of Matthew's Gospel is exceedingly solemn. First, the Lord denounced the leaders and teachers of the people, exposing their hypocrisy and iniquity; and then poured out His sorrow and lamentation over blinded Israel heedlessly rushing onward to ruin, forsaking their own mercies. He loved His people — they were the chosen seed of Abraham, the friend of God; He felt the position keenly. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent to thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left to you desolate. For I say to you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord" (Matt. 23:37-39).

Our Saviour's words seem to me to be clear and conclusive. They meet a notion that prevails too largely even among the children of God — the notion that God has done with the Jew as such; that there is no longer a hope for them, as a nation; that they are merely to be converted individually now, or it may be later on multitudinously, as Christians through the preaching of the gospel, to be brought into the membership of the body of Christ, and joined with the Gentiles who believe in the Saviour, so as to form one body. Clearly too our Saviour was here not speaking of the gospel or any word of God that was about to proceed from Him seated at the right hand of God. He speaks of Jerusalem, loved but guilty Christ-rejecting Jerusalem; He speaks of that city, the holy city in title, but in fact the rebellious city, the once idolatrous city, that had killed saints and prophets, that was now summing up her guilt in the cross of her own Messiah. Yet to Jerusalem, as such, our Lord makes known that she would repent and welcome the now despised King as surely as desolation was to be her portion meanwhile, yea, of the very house, once the house of God, but now degraded before God (He, the Lord who has all rights, being disowned). Thus the Saviour puts it: "Your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

"To all the people." Is not this the Jewish people? There cannot be a doubt of it. "I am not sent," said the Lord Himself, "but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel": compare here Matthew 11, from verse 20 and onwards, and indeed from verse 16 with Isaiah 49:4-6.