Matthew 26:0 - Exposition

THUS JESUS ENTERS UPON HIS KINGDOM .

Before attempting to expound this most momentous section of the gospel history, we must make up our minds concerning the solution of the difficulties which are involved in some details in the account of the Supper. The supposed discrepancy between the narrative of the synoptists and that of St. John has exercised the minds of commentators from the earliest times unto the present, and enormous ingenuity has been expended in endeavouring to harmonize what are regarded as conflicting statements.

The two chief difficulties are these: According to the synoptists, as generally understood, our Lord and his apostles ate the Passover, i.e. the Paschal lamb, when he instituted the Holy Communion; according to St. John, the death of Christ took place before the Passover was celebrated. Hence arise the questions—Was the last Supper the regular Paschal meal? Was Christ crucified on the 14th of Nisan or on the 15th? In the time of our Lord, the festival commenced on the evening of the 14th of Nisan, originally the day of preparation, but now considered part of the feast. "Between the evenings" of this day— i.e. from the time of the sun's decline to its setting—the lambs were killed in the temple courts. The 15th, commencing on the evening of the 14th, and lasting till the evening of the 15th, was the great day of the feast. All the accounts agree in stating that our Lord was crucified on Friday, the day before the sabbath, but the day of the month is not so clearly defined. The year seems to be settled as A.U.C. 783, A.D. 30, the sixteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius. In this year, astronomers tell us, the 14th of Nisan fell on a Friday; and as for typical reasons at least we should expect that Christ would die at the hour when the Paschal lamb was slain, we at once see the fitness of this date and day, if they can be safely maintained It is incredible that the events immediately preceding and accompanying the execution of Christ should have occurred on the actual feast day; it is also incredible that, as some critics suppose, the Pharisees altered the legal day in order that they might be free to accomplish their wicked design. These considerations lead us unhesitatingly to adopt the account given by St. John (himself an eyewitness, and certain to have noted and remembered the exact date of this stupendous event), and to assume that Christ was crucified on the 14th of Nisan, dying at the hour when the lambs were legally slain. The notes of time afforded by St. John are found in John 13:1 , John 13:29 ; John 18:28 ; John 19:14 , John 19:31 . Attention to these passages will show that, according to the Fourth Gospel, the Passover had not been eaten when our Lord was crucified, and that in that year the Passover coincided with the sabbath. To meet the difficulty of the synoptists' assertion, that Jesus ate the Passover at the last Supper, two suggestions are put forth. It is said that he anticipated the legal time by some few hours, being greater than the Law, as he had often shown himself greater than the sabbath. If this were so, how was the lamb procured? The Paschal victims were not legally slain till the afternoon of the next day, the 14th; how could the twelve have obtained one of these on the 13th? This question is met by the assertion that the lambs could not have been sacrificed in the time appointed, and that a large proportion of the animals were killed and eaten both before and after the strictly legal time. There is no evidence whatever to support this notion, nor can we imagine that Christ, who came to fulfil the Law, would have connived at such a manifest infringement of its provisions. Another solution is that the meal of which he partook with his disciples was a solemn supper in anticipation of the Feast of the Passover, but without the lamb. He himself was the true Passover, the Lamb of God, and in instituting at that time the Holy Eucharist, he gave himself as the spiritual food of his followers. This new festival superseded the Jewish solemnity, and it is possible that, in oral tradition, the two were confused and were counted as occurring together. This solution seems more probable than the former, and would doubtless be confirmed if we were better acquainted with many details well known in the apostolic ages, now unhappily obscured. Some of the difficulties will, we hope, be seen to be reconcilable, as we proceed in our Exposition. How the perplexity concerning the enormous number of lambs required for the teeming population gathered together was met, we know not. Doubtless time and circumstances had modified the rigorous adherence to the prescribed ritual, and possibly many householders (all being in this matter priests unto God, Exodus 19:6 and Revelation 1:6 ) slew and prepared their Passover at their own houses or outside the sacred precincts on the legal day and hour. But there is no tradition of any unauthorized alteration of these points in the ordained ceremonial, and we cannot doubt that the Lord would not by his own practice endorse such laxity.