A MOTHER'S
AMBITION FOR HER SONS
By
D. M. PANTON, M. A.
Salome,
one of the holy band of
women-ministrants to the Lord,
and a star in the still brighter cluster around the Cross, shared with
her sons
the noble ambition that they might be Daniels to a new and holier Belshazzar, or Josephs to a
mightier Pharoah.
So crucially, however, is Kingdom glory dependant on
attainment, not on gift
obtainable by prayer, that Jesus ignores the mother throughout, and
addresses
Himself solely to the aspirants for heavenly [millennial] fame.
Salome's
prayer had been prompted by a revelation the Lord had just made of
approaching
glory. Peter, ever the questioning voice of the Church, put a
challenge
to Jesus which evoked an answer laying bare approaching
recompense.
"Lo," he says, "we have left all, and followed thee;
what then shall we have?"
(Matt. 19: 27):
we have beggared ourselves
for God; we have invested our all in the
world to come: what, Lord, is the recompense
for the great renunciation? Saducees all down the ages have
answered that virtue is its
own reward, and that the inward joy of doing good is its only
recompense.
Profoundly different is the reply of Christ. "Verily I say unto you, that ye which
have followed me, in the
regeneration when the Son of man shall
sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall
sit upon twelve
thrones" - the first mention of plural thrones in the New
Testament
- "judging the twelve tribes of
Now
the critical revelation, rousing the noblest of ambitions, and which
had
already evoked the petition of Salome and her sons, reappears in the
last
scenes of the upper room. "And
there arose also"
- in consequence: thrones had been revealed, but no pre-eminence among
the
thrones - "a contention among
them, which of them is
accounted greatest"
- accounted so already: which is greatest to
be greatest; which
seems, appears before men, ranks in official position as greatest (Luke 22: 24).
Having just inquired which should be the
traitor, they now inquire which should be the prince; believing
the Kingdom imminent, in which administrators would of necessity be required, they imagine to allot amongst themselves the
sovereignties of the Age to
Come.
It is a
definite challenge to the Lord to reveal the principles
underlying the allotment of Thrones.
To
James and John, therefore, absorbed with the same problem, the Lord
first
unmasks their ignorance and counters with a
home-thrust. "Ye know
not what ye ask": they had
neither pondered their prayer, nor mastered the elements of
the principles
of reward: "are ye able
to drink the
cup that I drink" - a
draught of internal sorrow - "and
be baptised
with the baptism that I am baptised with" - an
immersion in external trouble (Mark
10: 38)? Not sorrow, but His
sorrow, not any cup or
baptism, but His; can you
bear
the heartbreak, and stand the intolerable strain, involved in a
full-orbed
fidelity to your Lord - the tonic cup and anointing baptism which alone
consecrate to supreme rank? Can you bear without flinching,
without
compromising, without bitterness, without despair?¹
[1.
The
answer of Zebedee's
sons - "We are able"
- is met by our Lord's prophetic
knowledge - "Ye shall":
unable,
but enabled: of the two, who both fled from the Cross, one took the
Gethsemane-cup at the hand of Herod, and the other his baptism in a
caldron of
boiling oil. It is remarkable that they gave the same answer,
and rightly
(Phil. 4: 13),
as that given by the two
great victors in the Wilderness type - "We
are
well able to overcome" (Num.
13: 30).]
So
also our Lord enlightens their complete ignorance on the principles of
reward. "To sit on my
right hand or on my
left hand is not mine to give: but it is for them whom it hath been
prepared."
It is true that Christ is the donor; for He says: "He that overcometh, I
will give to him to sit down with me
in my throne" (Rev.
3: 21): but
it is no capricious appointment, or biased favouritism, or unmerited
gift, or
arbitrary selection: it is not to be had merely for the asking, but is 'prepared' for those
preparing. I cannot give,
the Lord implies; I can only adjudge: for
a millennial throne is no
part of everlasting life, a gift already given to every [regenerate] child of God. They ask it as a gift: He
refuses it as a
gift.
So
therefore Jesus addresses Himself to elucidate - [i.e.,
'explain, illustrate, throw light upon the meaning of']
- this crucial revelation; and He first completely negatives
all present
worldly principles of rank and power. He neither
rebukes His
disciples' ambition, nor casts any doubt on the coming sovereignty; but
He
completely revolutionises their conception of the path to the Throne.
"The kings of the Gentiles,"
He says,
present royalties, "have
lordship
over them" - that is, they have their
thrones now; "and
they that have authority
over them are called Benefactors² - saviours
of society, or philanthropists
[i.e.,
'ones filled
with a love of mankind, who spend time, energy and money in helping
others,
people who make large and frequent gifts to charity.']
- (Luke 22: 25):
"not so shall it be among
you" (Matt. 20:
26). That
is, the stars and orders and peerages and princedoms - even the
applause
conferred on scientists and philanthropists and politicians and
millionaire [or
billionaire]
donors
of princely benefactions - are, in a Christian, proof
that, in this sphere, he has acted on non-Christian
principles.*
[2. The word our Lord uses - Euergetes - was actually a title given to Kings in that age; as to Cyrus among the Persians, Antigonus among the Greeks, and Marcus among the Romans: and it is a curious coincidence that the Zionists keep in their central cities, to commemorate the founders of their Colonies, a roll called the Golden Book of Benefactors.]
[* Presbyterian Christians who
went ‘cap in hand’ to
government, seeking to recover financial loss on invested savings with
a bank which
compensated them with above average high personal returns, take note:
No “greedy” person “will inherit
the kingdom of God” (1
Cor.
6: 10). Regenerate believers
who are greedy for
money, will lose their inheritance in the millennial
Having
thus negatived, for the Church, all royalties in this age - "ye have reigned as kings"
is a reproach of Paul
to the merchant-princes in the Church of Corinth (1Cor.
4: 8) - there now bursts on us the extraordinary
revolution in ambition
which our Lord has brought us in His unique teaching, as He now lays
bare the
pathway to the imminent Thrones. "But
ye"
- for the axioms ['self-evident
truths' and
principles] of
Gentiles can be no principles
for the Church - "shall
not be so; but
he that is the greater among you" - greater in the earthly
sense:
more distinguished in birth, in station, in training, in gifts - "let him become"
- of his own free action
and choice - "as the younger"
- that
is, taking the lower place assigned to a junior; "and
he that is chief" - head and shoulders above others in
attainments
and achievements - "as he that
doth serve"
(Luke 22: 26) -
a servant, as Matthew (20: 27)
says, not of some, but of all. So
to James and John seeking, not thrones, but
supreme thrones, the Lord Jesus puts a still sharper antithesis: "Whosoever would become great among
you" -
attain royalty beyond the broken tombs - "shall
be
your servant; and whosoever would be first
among you"
- the greatest among the great - "shall
be slave
of all" - supreme now in self-abasing service (Mark 10: 43).
There is a path, our
Lord says, for holy ambition to tread, culminating in thrones; but
it is no
path leading in this age to high office and official dignities and
popular
applause: it is the actual reverse of the world's ambition for more
wealth,
more power, more fame.
"Seekest thou great
things for thyself? seek
them not" (Jer. 45: 5). By achieving
great things now,
we lose them hereafter; by renouncing
them now,
we will achieve them then:
and it is remarkable that our
Lord closes His first revelation of the Thrones by exhibiting the
constant
crossing and re-crossing of the runners in a race - "but many shall be last that are first;
and first that are
last" (Matt.
19: 30).
Next,
the Lord presents Himself as the embodiment, the
type, the first case in
the working of the new law. "For"
- as a sharp contrast embodied in Himself
- "whether is greater, he that
sitteth at meat, or he that serveth?
is not he that sitteth at
meat?" - there
is such a thing as
rank, dignity, precedence: "but"
-
how (He asks) do you explain this? - "I"
- your CHIEF, your KING,
the destined HEIR to the
THRONE of all thrones - "am
in the midst of
you AS HE THAT SERVETH" - and
so till death; crownless,
throneless, outcast. And the Lord enforced the
lesson, there and
then, by a visible act which, whether we take it as an
instruction embodied
in an ever-recurring ritual, or as a parable in action done once for
all, is
extraordinarily illuminating. To teach them the sublime and
novel truth
that the world-rulers of the future
must
be the servants of to-day, that self-abasement is the germ of all
future
greatness, "Jesus took
a towel, and girded
himself, and began to wash the disciples' feet" (John 13: 4).³ That is, present
[humble] service
regulates future rank; and the nearer to Christ in grace, the
nearer to
Christ in glory.
[3 If foot-washing had
been maintained as a ritual
- Bingham's "Antiquities" records the fact that some fifty per cent.
of the sub-apostolic churches practised it - it is certain
that the truth
our Lord is inculcating would not have been so largely lost.]
But
our Lord, setting the example for a crowd of later Scriptures, also
reveals the
parallel line in the double rail-track leading to the Throne.
"But" - lest you
imagine from these new principles
that future royalties are a fiction and a dream - "ye are they" - servants
singled-out and choice - "which"
- unlike Judas, and many other renegade
disciples all down the ages - "have
continued with
me in my temptations." The Lord lays
deep in sorrow and suffering the foundations of coming
greatness. The
Saviour's 'testings'
- not His temptations in
the wilderness, for the Apostles were not with Him then - were
life-long: in
His reproaches, poverties, afflictions, persecutions they had shown
unswerving
loyalty: in all His afflictions they were
afflicted. "If we suffer
with Him, we shall also reign with
Him: if we deny Him, He also will deny us"
(2 Tim. 2: 12).
"Everyone that gets to the
throne," as Mc Cheyne
says, "must put
his foot upon the throne: we must taste
the gall if we are to taste the glory."
So
then we come to the great and closing summary in answer to Peter's
question - Lo, we have left
all, and followed Thee: what then
shall we have? "And"
-
Jesus says - 'and' as a consequence, as a reward: the
inevitable 'and' of
our Lord's fidelity to fidelity
- "I appoint unto you a kingdom,
EVEN AS" -
for those who deny reward to disciples, must also deny reward
to the Master:
Christ and His followers are recompensed on identical grounds -
"my Father appointed unto
me a kingdom, that ye may
eat and drink at my table in my kingdom"
- the Millennial
therefore, not
the Eternal; the Kingdom which the Lord ultimately gives up
to the Father (1 Cor. 15: 24); "and ye" - Twelve Apostles,
for your peculiar and
personal allotment of honour: our Lord foresaw Matthias replacing Judas
-
"shall sit ON THRONES"
-
thrones come at last - "judging
the twelve tribes
of Israel." * Supreme
in service, the Apostles will be supreme in sphere.
Thus, once for
all, the Lord makes manifest the conditions of Millennial Royalty, the
grounds
on which "I appoint unto
you a Kingdom."
The Kingdom is no general inheritance of
all who believe, but a special appointment to disciples tried and
approved: the Lord grounds the gift [‘prize’] not on faith, but on
fidelity: even
Apostles are not given it as apostles, and much less because they are
among the
saved; but it is appointed to them because they have loyally,
courageously,
unswervingly shared the ministries and sufferings of Christ. "He that overcometh,
I will give to him
to sit
down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my
Father in
his throne" (Rev.
3: 21).
[*
Few will deny that the Apostles are part of the Church (Eph. 2: 20).
Their reign over
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