And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.
This view of the Lord Jesus is most lovely and endearing. We behold him here touched with the feelings of our nature, dropping tears over the beloved city, in contemplating her approaching ruin. And to be sure nothing can endear Christ so tenderly to the heart, as when we behold him manifesting the man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. It is blessed to know him, blessed to go to him, blessed to pour out our hearts before him, when the soul is taught by God the Holy Ghost, how much Jesus enters into the concerns of his people, and, from his fellow-feeling, makes their concerns his own. This is to know him as God, to know him as Man, and to draw nigh to him in the union of both.
But who should have thought that this very character of Jesus, of God and Man, in one person, which renders him so dear to his faithful, could have prompted his enemies there from to call his Godhead in question? Who would have believed it possible, had not matter of fact proved it, that the tears which Jesus shed over Jerusalem, when he contemplated her sure ruin as a city, should have been misconstrued, as though Christ lamented over any of his people there, as if they had outlived the day of grace, to whom in numberless instances, (as witness the Jerusalem sinners converted at the day of Pentecost), the day of grace was not then arrived?
And yet such is the blindness and perversity of men, untaught of God the Holy Ghost, that by putting a wrong construction on the words and actions of Christ, they make that lamentation of Jesus over a beautiful and beloved city, given up to destruction, in a tempora1 way, as if Jesus wept over the people concerning a spiritual ruin; and render the words of Christ as if referring to the everlasting welfare of the people, which only could be meant to the present desolation of the city. If thou hadst known, (saith the Lord), even thou, (the bloody city of Jerusalem, which hath been the slaughter-house of all the Prophets), (see Luke 11:31-33 and also Matthew 23:34-39) the things which Belong to thy peace; but now they are hid from their eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side; and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they, shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not, the time of thy visitation.
Now, let any man read these words of the Lord Jesus, and say, whether these things do not wholly relate to Jerusalem as a city, as a nation given up to ruin. And wherefore? but because she, knew not; nationally considered, the time of her visitation. The Prophets with one voice had foretold of Christ. Christ himself had come in conformity to the whole tenor of prophecy. The nation, nationally considered, had rejected the Lord of Life and Glory; killed the Prophets, and Jesus knew would shortly embrue their hands in his blood. The time of visitation as a city therefore is now over; the rulers as such are given up to an incurable blindness. Had the nation received Christ, as Christ, though only in an outward profession, for no more was, or could have been expected from them; then, as a nation, they would still have remained. Jesus saw this rejection, deplored the awful consequence, and wept over the city, in beholding the whole, in consequence thereof, as given up to destruction. This is the plain and evident meaning of the passage.
But what hath this to do with individuals in relation to their everlasting salvation? Who would from hence draw a conclusion, that an individual of the persons given to Christ by the Father, may out live the day of grace, and the things which might at one season have ministered to his peace, at another be forever hid from his eyes? What hath the peace of a nation, as a nation, to do with the peace of God? Is it not notorious that five thousand of those Jerusalem-sinners, who joined the rabble and the multitude of the people in crucifying Christ, were pricked to the heart on the day of Pentecost, were baptized and sanctified by the Holy Ghost? And yet these were among the persons then in Jerusalem, when our Lord wept over it, and expressed himself in those memorable words. A positive proof that they were not meant in the general destruction. So very plain and palpable is the fact, that Christ's apostrophe referred wholly to the city, and not to the people. Jesus had many of His there, at the moment when he thus expressed himself; and who, though they, were then insensible of the Lord, yet when the Holy Ghost, according to Christ's most sure promise, at the day of Pentecost came upon them, were converted and saved.
Reader? I have been the more particular in my view of this passage, because it hath been, and still is, and will be, in the apprehension of, unenlightened free-will men, a favorite portion to bring forward, in justification as they think, to shew that men may outlive the day of grace; but with which those blessed words of our Lord hath nothing to do. And it would be well with such men, whether preachers or hearers, to attend to what our Lord saith in another place on the same subject; and which, if rightly considered, would shew them that such a gracious blessed provision is made for all the Lord's redeemed ones, that the day of grace can never end with them, until grace hath brought them home, and is consummated in glory. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. John 6:37.