'BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM.'—LUKE 24:47.
SECOND, I come not to
show you what it was to preach the gospel to them. It was, saith Luke, to
preach to them 'repentance and remission of sins' in Christ's name; or, as Mark
has it, to bid them 'repent and believe the gospel' (Mark 1:15). Not that
repentance is a cause of remission, but a sign of our hearty reception thereof.
Repentance is therefore here put to intimate, that no pretended faith of the
gospel is good that is not accompanied with it; and this he doth on purpose because he would not have them deceive themselves: for with what faith can he
expect remission of sins in the name of Christ, that is not heartily sorry for
them? Or how shall a man be able to give to others a satisfactory account of
his unfeigned subjection to the gospel, that yet abides in his impenitency?
Wherefore repentance
is here joined with faith, in the way of receiving the gospel. Faith is that
without which it cannot be received at all; and repentance that without which
it cannot be received unfeignedly. When, therefore, Christ says, he would have repentance and remission of sins preached in his name among all nations, it
is as much as to say, I will that all men everywhere be sorry for their sins,
and accept of mercy at God's hand through me, lest they fall under his wrath in
the judgment; for, as I have said, without repentance, what pretense soever men
have of faith, they cannot escape the wrath to come. Wherefore Paul said God
commands 'all men everywhere to repent,' (in order to their salvation):
'because he hath appointed a day, in the which he shall judge the world in
righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained' (Acts 17:31).
And now, to come to
this clause, 'Beginning at Jerusalem'; that is, that Christ would have
Jerusalem have the first offer of the gospel. 1. This cannot be so commanded
because they had now any more right, of themselves, thereto, than had any of
the nations of the world; for their sins had divested them of all
self-deservings. 2. Nor yet because they stood upon the advance ground with the
worst of the sinners of the nations; nay, rather, the sinners of the nations
had the advance ground of them: for Jerusalem was, long before she had added
this iniquity to her sin, worse than the very nations that God cast out before
the children of Israel (2 Chron 33). 3. It must, therefore, follow, that this
cause, 'Beginning at Jerusalem,' was put into this commission of mere grace and
compassion, even from the overflowings of the bowels of mercy; for indeed they
were the worst, and so in the most deplorable condition of any people under the
heavens.3
Whatever, therefore,
their relation was to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob—however they formerly had been
the people among whom God had placed his name and worship, they were now
degenerated from God, more than the nations were from their idols, and were
become guilty of the highest sins which the people of the world were capable of
committing. Nay, none can be capable of committing of such pardonable sins as
they committed against their God, when they slew his Son, and persecuted his
name and Word.
