A BLASPHEMOUS CHARGE
‘Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil.’
Here we see Christ our Lord accused of ‘having a devil’:—i.e. people accused Him of being Himself possessed by the Devil, and of saying and doing things at the Devil’s bidding.
Now this is a very horrible thing: so horrible that one hardly likes to speak about it. It is not written down once only, but over and over again. It is written first in one Gospel and then in another. It looks as if God had taken particular care that we should be forced to read about this most terrible sin, and be forced to think about it.
What do you suppose God intended us to read this for?
I. That we might learn to see what unbelief comes to.—This seems to me to be perhaps the main lesson we are to learn. God wants us to see what dreadful lengths of sin we may go to if we will not believe in Christ as our Saviour from sin. These Jews would not believe that Christ came to be their Saviour. They would not believe that He was good, they would not believe that He was God. So Christ said to them, ‘See what I do. Surely I must be good, for I make war upon the evil spirits. Surely I must be more than man, for the evil spirits obey Me.’ One would have thought that they were driven into a corner, and would be obliged to see their mistake, and confess that He was what He said He was. So any one would think, yet they did nothing of the kind. They did feel driven into a corner: but for all that they would not come the right way out of it. They hated Christ; and so they said:—‘Oh, it is quite true that He casts out devils, but that does not show that He is good.
‘It only shows that the Devil has some object in letting Him cast out devils. Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil.’ All the mischief lay in their hating our Lord. They did not like Him. So they were determined not to believe in Him; and sooner than believe in Him they actually went the length of saying that He was in league with the Devil.
II. That if men do not like goodness, there is no length of wickedness they will not run to.—It shows us what unbelief may come to, and what dreadful lengths men can go if they hate what is good and are determined not to believe. And it shows us also one more thing. Christ calls the sin which these people committed ‘the unpardonable sin.’ Why did He call it so? Was it because Christ was unwilling to pardon it? Not at all. It was unpardonable because it could not be pardoned. So long as people were in this form of mind they could not repent, and therefore they could not be pardoned. Nothing could make them come to Christ as their Saviour when they said He was in league with the Devil. So, then, it shows us that though Christ can save us from the Devil, yet that if we choose to go all lengths we can. It shows us that if we choose to do so, we can get outside even of Christ’s help, and that though the Devil cannot ruin us, yet we may ruin ourselves. Christ could do nothing more for these people. What could He do more than show them that the Devil and all evil fled away at His word? Nothing more could be done. And so they were outside of His help and His pardon. They flung away His pardon, and His help, both. But it was their own doing. The Devil could not have made them do it. They did it of themselves. And so you see that if we choose we may even be worse enemies to ourselves than the Devil can be, for we can reject Him Who alone can save us from the Devil.
III. Is not this very much like what we see with people now whenever in any parish any one is bent upon leading Christian people to more holiness and to a more thorough way of religion? People have got, we will say, into a way of thinking that if they are decent sort of people and come to church when it suits them, and now and then perhaps come to Holy Communion, then they are very good Christians, and that it is all right with them in this world and in the world to come. Then comes some warning preacher, or active clergyman, and tells them plainly that this kind of easy-going religion is no good, that there is no love of goodness in it, no hatred of evil, no self-denial for their fellow-Christian’s sake—nothing in it, in short, at all like the pattern of Christ. He tells them that repentance and self-examination are very sharp, real things, that regular Communion is a necessity of the Christian life, and so on. There is scarcely any very good man, be he layman or clergyman, who has drawn people to real religion who has not had bad things said of him by persons who looked upon themselves as quite religious enough. And these are just the people who are in danger of the very sin the Jews committed.
Illustration
‘The true Christian in the present day must never be surprised to find that he has constant trials to endure. Human nature never changes. So long as he serves the world, and walks in the broad way, little perhaps will be said against him. Once let him take up the Cross and follow Christ, and there is no lie too monstrous, and no story too absurd for some to tell against him, and for others to believe. But let him take comfort in the thought that he is only drinking the cup which his Blessed Master drank before him. The lies of his enemies do him no injury in heaven, whatever they may on earth. Let him bear them patiently, and not fret, or lose his temper. When Christ was reviled “He reviled not again.” (1 Peter 2:23). Let the Christian do likewise.’