49. Jesus answered, I have not a devil--What calm dignity is here!
Verily, "when reviled, He reviled not again"
(1Pe 2:23).
Compare Paul
(Ac 26:25),
"I am not mad," &c. He adds not, "Nor am I a Samaritan," that He might
not even seem to partake of their contempt for a race that had already
welcomed Him as the Christ, and began to be blessed by Him.
I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me--the language of
wounded feeling. But the interior of His soul at such moments is
only to be seen in such prophetic utterances as these, "For thy sake I
have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face; I am become a
stranger unto my brethren, an alien unto my mother's children. For
the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and
the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me"
(Ps 69:7-9).
JFB.
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