Kischeneff - Rabinowitz

From the few verses I read to you, dear friends, from the Gospel of St. John, you can see, that at the end of the existence of the second Temple, when the glory of Israel was already fallen to the ground, when the holy City was under the rule of the Romans, and the temple in the hands of priests who disregarded everything that was holy, even at that time every truth-loving man among Israel mourned secretly over the loss of his people and their land. Considering the surrounding circumstances, they thought that God would put a similar end to the people of Israel as that of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and that He would wipe away Israel with all the precious promises given to them by the prophets of God. Nevertheless the Scribes and the Pharisees turned their eyes away from the deplorable state in which Israel was, neither did they care for the glory of God or for the Word of God; and although by their outward circumstances they were lying in the dust; yet, these poor men boasted of their ancestry in the sight of the nations; that they were the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and towards their own brethren, they boasted of their learning; that they alone understood the meaning of the Law given on mount Sinai, they they only could solve difficult questions concerning the Law, taking the chief seats in the Synagogues and loving to be greeted in the markets; and when the Teacher of Galilee, the Son of David, said to them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death,” the wise Jews who were arrayed with long fringes and black phylacteries said to Him, “Now we know that Thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets, and Thou sayest, if a man keep my saying, he shall never taste death. Art Thou greater than our father Abraham which is dead? and the prophets are dead, whom makest Thou Thyself?”

For the Scribes and Pharisees, who were wise in their own conceits, and who considered the law of God from a human point of view, only as commands of an arbitrary king, calculated to crush His subjects under His feet, or to bind the hands and feet of the sons of Abraham, that they should not stray away from other peoples’ fields for pasture, namely, that they should not mix with other nations, over whom, according to their own estimation, God would have no dominion whatever – the word “Death” of which Jesus Christ, the Son of God spoke, was difficult to comprehend, as difficult as the expression “Purity” which is acceptable before God; they thought it enough to make clean the outside of the cups and the platters, (Luke 11:31-40), or as difficult as the term “Rest” on Sabbath, which they explained to mean cessation from doing any good (Mark 3:4). By the term “death,” they only understood the death of the flesh, forgetting the spiritual death, the separation of the soul from the bundle of life, which is at the right hand of the Life of lives, and the casting of the same into Hell. It was on this account that they were angry with the Teacher, who came from the insignificant Galilean town of Nazareth, and Who, by the force of His words, which were uttered in truth and righteousness, won the hearts of the people of the City of the great King, full of scribes who said, “Now we know Thou hast a devil, and that it is only by his power that the people are led away, but Thou possessest not the right understanding, which is only our lot. Why, Abraham is dead and the prophets, as the cave of Machpelah which is in Hebron, and the tombs of the prophets which we built, do testify!” It was therefore that the Son of God answered them with divine wisdom, that it was only through their love for honour and superiority over their brethren, that in every thing they saw only themselves, but not God; and it was on that account that they could not understand Him, and that the law and the prophets were still a sealed book to them. He then turned their attention to Himself saying, “If I honour myself, my honour is nothing, it is my Father (not my King) that honoureth me, of Whom ye say with your lips that He is your God, yet ye have not known Him” with your hearts and spirits; for Abraham your father, to whom God said, “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing… and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” is not dead, and that he of whom God said, “Shall I hide from him that thing which I do,” rejoiced to see my day in the fullness of time, when he would be a great nation, and when all the families of the earth would be blessed in him. He saw it through the Messiah, the Son of Man and God, Who was to bring and everlasting righteousness and true peace to all mankind, that all the promises given to him (Genesis 18:19) would be fulfilled, and therefore he rejoiced.

As the Psalmist says, “Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.” But on the other hand Solomon says, “Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar… with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.” (Proverbs 27:22) These foolish Pharisees were more angry over that, and exclaimed, “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?” Notice, they did not say, “has Abraham seen Thee?” With that they meant to say, that they also believed in the existence of Abraham, and that he was well acquainted with what was going on in this world, as it is stated in the Talmud, “that God shewed to Adam every generation to come, together with respective learned men, and commentators,” but it was impossible the son of the carpenter Joseph, one who was despised and rejected of all men, should have seen Him. It was therefore that our Lord said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.” Feeling the power of His words which shattered their pride to atoms in the sight of the multitude, and feeling that they could not conquer Him with idle words, the resorted to actions, “then they took up stones to cast upon Him: but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the Temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.”

Dear brethren! Eighteen hundred and fifty years passed since your forefathers quarreled with the Angel of the Covenant, Jesus, Who suddenly came from Galilee to His Temple, which was full of Scribes and Pharisees, although they saw many miracles wrought by Him; and to-day you are doing the same! You are still hardening your hearts and boasting of your noble ancestry, that you are the seed of Abraham, and priding yourselves in your great learning concerning Sabbath, Passover, lawful or forbidden food, meat and milk, &c., which help to grind the dry bones into powder, and which prevent the poor people from tasting the sweetness of the covenant which god made with us through His Son Jesus in the holy City of Jerusalem. You, too, whose desire is only to accumulate money and to obtain honour from your brother Ichabod, are astonished at the words: “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death;” and with mouths full of mockery you say to each other, “Why, Abraham is dead and the prophets!” But this is because you, like your ancestors, do not comprehend the real meaning of the terms, “life and death, clean or unclean, rest or labour.” “Life,” in your opinion is, to possess thousands of Rubles; “purity,” is to be immersed in the stagnant water of the “Mikveh,” and “rest,” is to have a lot of money on interest in the Imperial Bank, and to be able to say to your souls, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry.” (Luke 12:19) This is the sole cause of your not being able to grasp either the Heavenly Father, His Messiah, or the Holy Spirit who is working in every one. In an age when all the truly wise of other nations tremble with holy fear at every word written in the prophets, believing that not a single word will fall to the ground, and seeing in the crucifixion of the Messiah and His resurrection, all the predictions of our prophets fulfilled, as also our dear Lord said, I am not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it,” (Matthew 5:17) and as His last words on the cross were, “It is finished!” even in an age like this, you say in your hearts that all the grand things promised by the prophets are gone for ever, and that you have nothing more to rely upon but upon your understanding and your money, to accumulate riches on every hand, to cheat right and left, and to make no distinction between a brother of your own people and one of another nation. If anyone tells you faithfully that Jesus is not a God who cannot help, but that “He is mighty to save!, and that He is not, as you are in the habit of thinking, only the portion of the uncircumcised Gentiles, who for a glass of brandy take the candlesticks from off your tables on Sabbath-day, because it is not lawful for you to touch them; if anyone tells you, “not so brother! this is the Messiah Whom Abraham saw and rejoiced over; for through Him God accomplished all the promises given to Abraham, namely, “Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him,” and that the stones of the fields have also become Abraham’s children, and that He was the ruler of Israel, whose goings forth have been from old, for everlasting,” (Micah 5:1) then your hands are ready to lift up stones to stone Him, and it is only by God’s mercy, and government protection, that such a man can pass among you unmolested!

How long, brethren, will you be foolish? How long will you destroy your people and your nationality? How long will you count your hopes resting upon the law, and how long will bear the covenant of God only upon your lips? How long will you consent with thieves? And how long will you speak against your brother Jesus Christ? Learn this, my brethren, and remember, that it is only in Jehova and in His son Jesus Christ, our righteousness, the seed of Israel shall be justified, and shall glory. Amen.

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