Law – Leaven

Law

(IN NT). This subject will be treated as follows: (1) the relation of Jesus Christ to the OT Law; (2) the doctrine of law in St. Paul’s Epistles; (3) the complementary teaching of Hebrews; (4) the attitude of St. James representing primitive Jewish Christianity.

1. Our Lord stated His position in the saying of Matthew 5:17: ‘I did not come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil.’ The expression covers the whole contents of Divine Scripture (sometimes, for brevity, spoken of simply as ‘the law’; see John 10:34 12:34 15:25). which He does not mean to invalidate in the least (Matthew 5:18). as the novelty of His teaching led some to suppose (see T"‘), but will vindicate and complete. But His fulfilment’ was that of the Master, who knows the inner mind and real intent of the Scripture He expounds. It was not the fulfilment of one who rehearses a prescribed lesson or tracks out a path marked for him by predecessors, but the crowning of an edifice already founded, the carrying forward to their issue of the lines projected in Israehte revelation, the fulfilment of the blade and ear in ‘the full corn.’ Jesus penetrated the shell to reach the kernel of OT representations; and He regarded Himself — His Person, sacrifice, salvation. Kingdom — as the focus of manifold previous revelations (see Luke 4:17–21 16:16 24:27. John 1:17 6:45). The warning of Mt 5:17–20 ^as aimed at the Jewish legists, who dissolved the authority of the law, while jealously guarding its letter, by casuistical comments and smothering traditions, who put light and grave on a like footing, and blunted the sharpness of God’s commands in favour of man’s corrupt inclinations. The Corban formula, exposed in Mk 7:7–13. was a notorious instance of the Rabbinical quibbling that our Lord denounced. It is a severer not a laxer ethics that Jesus introduces, a searching in place of a superficial discipline; ‘Your righteousness,’ Hebrews 7:8, ‘must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees.’

Our Lord’s fulfilment of ‘the law’ — i.e. in the stricter sense, the body of Mosaic statutes regulating Israelite life and worship — ^included (o) the personal and free submission to it, due to His birth and circumcision as a son of Israel (Galatians 4:4; cf. Matthew 3:15 8:4 15:24 17:27. Luke 2:21 ff.).

His fulfilment included (6) the development of its unrecognised or partially disclosed principles. Thus Jesus asserted, in accordance with views already advanced among the scribes, that ‘the whole law and the prophets hang on the two commandments’ of love to God and to our neighbour (Matthew 22:34–40. Luke 10:25–37) the parable of the Good Samaritan gives to the second command an unprecedented scope. His distinction between " the weightier matters’ of ‘justice, mercy, fidelity,’ and the lighter of tithes and washings, was calculated to revolutionize current Judaism.

(c) A large part of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5) ig devoted to clearing the law from erroneous glosses and false applications: on each point Jesus sets His ‘I say unto you’ against what ‘was said to the ancients’ — mere antiquity goes for nothing; nor is He careful to distinguish here between the text of the written law and its traditional modifications. With each correction the law in His hands grows more stringent; its observance is made a matter of inner disposition, of intrinsic loyalty, not of formal conduct; the criterion applied to all law-keeping is that it shall ‘proceed out of the heart.’

((f) Further, our Lord’s fulfilment of the law necessitated the abrogation of temporary and defective statutes. In such instances the letter of the old precept stood only till it should be translated into a worthier form and raised to a higher potency (Matthew 5:18). by the sweeping away of limiting exceptions (as with the compromise in the matter of wedlock allowed to ‘the hard-heartedness’ of Israehtes, Matthew 19:3–9), or by the translation of the symbohc into the spiritual, as when cleansing of hands and vessels is displaced by inner purification (Mark 7:14–23, Luke 11:37–41; cf. Colossians 2:16 f.: Hebrews 9:9 f.). Our Lord’s reformation of the marriage law is also a case for (6) above: He rectifies the law by the aid of the law; in man’s creation He finds a principle which nulhfies the pro-risions that facihtated divorce. The abolition of the distinction of ‘meats’ (Mark 7:19). making a rift in Jewish daily habits and in the whole Levitical scheme of life, is the one instance in which Jesus laid down what seemed to be a new principle of ethics. The maxim that ‘what enters into the man from without cannot defile,’ but only ‘the things that issue out of the man,’ was of far-reaching application, and supplied afterwards the charter of Gentile Christianity. Its underlyiiig principle was, however, implicit in OT teaching, and belonged to the essence of the doctrine of Jesus. He could not consistently vindicate heartreligion without combating Judaism in the matter of its ablutions and food-regulations and Sabbath-keeping.

(e) Over the last question Jesus came into the severest’ confiict with Jewish orthodoxy; and in this struggle He revealed the consciousness, latent throughout His dealings with OT legislation, of being the sovereign, and not a subject like others, in this realm. Our Lord ‘fulfilled the law’ by sealing it with His own final authority. His ‘I say unto you,’ spoken in a tone never assumed by Moses or the prophets, Imphed so much and was so understood by His Apostles (1 Corinthians 7:10. Galatians 6:2. 1 John 2:3 f. etc.). Christ arrogates the rSle of ‘a son over his house,’ whereas Moses was ‘a servant in the house’ (Hebrews 3:5 f.). Assuming to be ‘greater than Solomon,’ ‘than Abraham,’ ‘than the temple’ (Mt 12, John 8:53), He acted as one greater than MosesI The Sabbath-law was the chosen battle-ground between Him and the established masters in Israel (Mark 2:23–28 SaJ-, Luke 13:10–17, John 6:9–16). In the public Sabbath assemblies Jesus was oftenest confronted with cases of disease and demoniacal possession; He must do His work as God’s ‘sent’ physician. The Sabbath-rules were clear and familiar; His infraction of them in acts of healing was flagrant, repeated, defiant; popular reverence for the day made accusations on this count particularly dangerous. Men were placed in a dilemma: the Sabbath-breaker is ipso facto ‘a sinner’; on the other hand, ‘how can a sinner do such signs?’ (John 9 u. 24ft.). Jesus argues the matter on legal grounds, showing from recognized practice that the 4th Commandment must be construed with common sense, and that ‘it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day’ and to work in the service of God (Matthew 12:5, 11 f.). Hebrews 8 behind those examples to the governing principle (see (!)) above), that ‘the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath’ (Mark 2:27 f.) the institution is designed for human benefit, and its usages should be determined by its object. But He is not content with saying this: the war against Him was driven on the

5.35 Sabbath-question d ouirance; Jesus draws the sword of His reserved authority. He claims, as sovereign in human affairs, to decide what is right in the matter — ‘The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath’ ; more than this, He professes to have wrought His Sabbath works as God the Father does, to whom all days are alike in His beneficence, and through the insight of a Son watching the Father at His labour (John 5:17–20) — a pretension, to Jewish ears, of blasphemous arrogance; ‘He maketh himself equal with God I’ On this ground Jesus was condemned by the Sanhedrin (cf. John 19:7). because He set Himself above the Sabbath, on the strength of being one with God. Thus the law of Moses put Jesus Christ to death; it was too small to hold Him; its administrators thought themselves bound to inflict the capital sentence on One who said, ‘I am the Son of the Blessed’ (Mark 14:61 ff.).

(/) At the same time, Caiaphas, the official head of the system, gave another explanation, far deeper than he guessed, of the execution: ‘That Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only’ (John 11:49 ff.). Virtually, He was offering Himself for ‘the lamb’ of the Paschal Feast, ready to be slain in sacrifice, that He might ‘take away the sin of the world.’ This mysterious relation of the death of Jesus to Divine law He had hinted at here and there (Matthew 20:28 26:28, Luke 22. John 3:14 6 12:24) its exposition was reserved for His Apostles speaking in the light of this grandest of all fulfilments. Jesus made good the implicit promise of the sacrificial institutions of Israel.

2. The word ‘law’ occurs 118 times in St. Paul’s Epistles, — 103 times In Romans and Galatians alone. It Is manifest how absorbing an interest the subject had for this Apostle, and where that interest mainly lay. Galatians 2:19 puts us at the centre of St. Paul’s position: ‘I through law died to law, that I might live to God.’ From legalism, as from a house of bondage, he had escaped into the freedom of the sons of God. (a) Paul ‘died to the law,’ as he had understood and served it when a Pharisee, regarding obedience to its precepts as the sole ground of acceptance with God. He had sought there ‘a righteousness of his’ own, even that which is of the law ‘(Philippians 3:9), to be gained by’ works,’ by which he strove to merit salvation as a ‘debt’ due from God for service rendered, — a righteousness such as its possessor could ‘boast of as’ his own’ (Romans 4:1–5 9:31). Pursuing this path, ‘Israel’ had failed to win ‘the righteousness of God,’ such as is valid ‘before God’; the method was impracticable— ^justification on the terms of ‘the law of Moses’ is unattainable (Acts 13:38 f.; Romans 8:3). Instead of destroying sin, the law arouses it to new vigour, ‘multiplying’ where it aimed at suppressing ‘the trespass’ (Romans 5:20 7:7–13. 1 Corinthians 15). Not the ‘law’ in itself, but the ‘carnal’ sin-bound nature of the man. Is to blame for this; arrayed against ‘the law of God,’ to which ‘reason’ bows, is ‘another law’ successfully oppugning it, that ‘of sin’ which occupies ‘my members’(Ro 7:12–23). and which is, in effect, a ‘law of death’ (S^).

(6) But St. Paul’s Judaistic experience had a positive as well as a negative result: if he ‘died to law,’ it was ‘through law’; ‘the law has proved our pcedagogus [for leading us] to Christ’ (Galatians 3:24). Law awakened conscience and disciplined the moral faculties; the Jewish people were like ‘an heir’ placed ‘under guardians and stewards until the appointed times,’ and trained in bond-service with a view to their ‘adoption’ (Galatians 4:1–5). Even the aggravations of sin caused by the law had their benefit, as they brought the disease to a head and reduced the patient to a state in which he was ready to accept the proffered remedy (Romans 7:24). ‘The Scripture’ had in this way ‘shut up all things under sin,’ blocking every door of escape and blighting every hope of a self -earned righteousness (Galatians 3:21 f.), that the sinner might accept unconditionally the ‘righteousness which is through faith in Christ’ (Philippians 3:9).

(c) Contact with Gentile life had widened St. Paul’s conception of moral law; it was touched by the influences of Greek philosophy and Roman government. He discerned a law established ‘by nature,’ and ‘inscribed in the hearts’ of men ignorant of the Mosaic Code and counting with Jews as ‘lawless.’ This Divine jus (and fas) gentium served, in aless distinct but very real sense, the purpose of the written law in Israel; it Impressed on the heathen moral responsibility and the consciousness of sin (Romans 2:6–16). The rule of right and wrong Paul regards as a universal human institute, operating so as to ‘bring the whole world under judgment before God’ (Romans 3:9–19) ; its action is manifested by the universal incidence of death: in this sense, and in the light of 2:12–15. should be read the obscure parenthesis of Romans 5:13 f.: as stating that ‘law’ is concomitant with ‘sin’; the existence of sin, followed by death, in the generations between Adam and Moses proves that law was there all along, whether in a less or a more explicit form; the connexion of sin and death in humanity is, in fact, a fundamental legal principle (Romans 8:2).

(d) Having ‘died to law’ by renouncing the futile salvation it appeared to offer, the Apostle had learned to live to it again in a better way and under a nobler form, since he had begun to ‘live to God’ in Christ. St. Paul is at the farthest remove from Antinomianlsm ; the charge made against him on this score was wholly mistaken. While no longer ‘under law,’ he is ‘not lawless toward God, but in law toward Christ’ (Romans 6:14 f.; 1 Corinthians 9:21). The old ego, ‘the flesh with its passions and lusts,’ has been ‘crucified with Christ’ (Galatians 2:20 5:16–24). God’s law ceases to press on him as an external power counteracted by ‘the law of sin in the members’; the latter has been expelled by ‘the Spirit of God’s Son,’ which ‘forms Christ’ in him; the new. Christian man is ‘in law’ as he is ‘in Christ’ — he sees the law now from the inside, in its unity and charm, and it constrains him with the inward force of ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ possessing his nature. He ‘serves’ indeed, but it is ‘in the new’ life wrought ‘of the Spirit, and not in the old’ servitude to ‘the letter’ (Romans 7:6). Constituting now ‘one new man,’ believers of every race and rank ‘through love serve one another,’ as the hand serves the eye or the head the feet; for them ‘the whole law is fulfilled in one word. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Romans 13:8–10, 1 Corinthians 12:13, 25 f.; Galatians 5:13 f.: Eph 2:15–18). The Christian’ fulfils the law of Christ,’ as the limb the law of the head. Thus St. Paul’s doctrine of the Law joins hands with that of Jesus (see 1 above). Thus also, in his system of thought, the law of God revealed in the OT, when received from Christ revised and spiritualized, and planted by ‘faith’ along with Him in the believer’s heart (cf. Jeremiah 31:31–34), becomes for the first time really valid and effective: ‘Do we nullify law through faith? God forbid; nay,’ he cries, ‘we establish law I’ (Romans 3:31).

(e) Neither Jesus nor Paul makes a formal distinction between the moral and the ceremonial law (see, however, Romans 9:4). St. Paul’s teaching bears mainly on the former: as a Pharisee he had no ritualistic bent, and his ambition was for ethical perfection. ‘Qrcumcision’ has lost in his eyes all religious value, and remains a mere national custom, now that it ceases to be the covenant-sign and is replaced in this sense by baptism (1 Corinthians 7:18 ff.: Gil’ B’s, Colossians 2:11 ff.). ■). It becomes a snare to Gentiles when imposed on them as necessary to salvation, or even to advancement in the favour of God; for it binds them ‘to keep the whole law’ of Moses, and leads into the fatal path of ‘justification by law’ (Galatians 2:2–5 3:2 ff. 5:3–6). St. Paul’s contention with the legalists of Jerusalem on this question was a life and death struggle, touching the very ‘truth of the gospel’ and ‘the freedom’ of the Church (Acts 15:1–11, Galatians 2:1–10 S’). The same interests were threatened, more insidiously, by the subsequent attempt, countenanced by Peter and Barnabas at Antioch, to separate Jewish from Gentile Christians at table through the re-assertion of the Mosaic distinction of ‘meats’ which had been expressly discarded by Jesus. The assumption of a privileged legal status within the Church meant the surrender of the whole principle of salvation by faith and of Christian saintship (Galatians 2:11–21. Romans 14:17 f.; 1 Corinthians 8:8; cf. Mark 7:14–23). In some Churches Paul had to deal with the inculcation of Jewish ritual from another point of view. At Colossae the dietary rules and sacred seasons of Mosaism were imposed on grounds of ascetic discipline, and of reverence towards angelic (,scil. astral) powers; he pronounces them valueless in the former respect, and in the latter treasonous towards Christ, who supplies ‘the body’ of which those prescriptions were but a ‘shadow’ (Colossians 2).

3. Colossians 2:17 forms a link between the doctrine of St. Paul on the Law and the complementary teaching of the writer of Hebrews, — a Jew of very different temperament and antecedents from Saul of Tarsus. This author emphasizes the ceremonial, as Paul the moral, factors of the OT; the Temple, not the synagogue, was for him the centre of Judaism. ‘The first covenant,’ he says, ‘had ordinances of divine service,’ providing for and guarding man’s approach to God in worship (Hebrews 9:1 etc.); for St. Paul, it consisted chieiiy of ‘commandments expressed in ordinances’ (Ephesians 2). which prescribe the path of righteousness in daily life. ‘The law’ means for this great Christian thinker the institutions of the Israelite priesthood, sanctuary, sacrifices — all consummated in Christ and His ‘one offering,’ by which ‘he has perfected for ever them that are sanctified’ (Hebrews 9:1 10:14). . In his view, the law is superseded as the imperfect, provisional, and ineffective, by the perfect, permanent, and satisfying, as the shadowy outline by the full image of things Divine (7:18 f. 8:1–4 10:1–4) ‘the sanctuary of this world’ gives place to ‘heaven itself,’ revealed as the temple where the ‘great high priest’ — Divine-human in person, sinless in nature, perfected in experience, and inmieasurably superior to the Aaronic order (4:14 ff. 7:26 ff.) — ‘appears before the face of God for us,’ ‘having entered through the virtue of his own blood’ as our ‘surety’ and ‘the mediator of our’ covenant,’ who has won for mankind ‘an eternal redemption’ (2:9 7:22 g6 9:24–28). Jesus thus ‘inaugurated a new and living way into the holy place’ (in contrast with the old and dead way of the law); as experience proves. He has ‘cleansed the conscience from dead works to serve the living God,’ while the law with its repeated animal sacrifices served to remind men of their sins rather than to remove them (,7^ 9:14 lO’-*). Equally with St. Paul, the auctor ad Hebrceos regards ‘remission of sins’ as the initial blessing of the Christian state, which had been unattainable ‘under law,’ and ‘the blood of Christ’ as the means of procuring this immense boon. In Paul’s interpretation, this offering ‘justifies’ the unrighteous ‘before God’ and restores them to the forfeited status of sonship; in the interpretation of Hebrews, it ‘cleanses’ worshippers and brings them ‘nigh to God’ within His sanctuary; on either view, the sacrifice of Calvary removes the barriers set up, by man’s sin ‘under the law,’ between humanity and God.

4. For St. James also the OT law was transformed. He conceives the change in a less radical fashion than Paul or the writer of Hebrews; James stands sturdily on the platform of the Sermon on the Mount. Re-cast by ‘the Lord of glory’ and charged with ‘the wisdom that Cometh from above,’ the law is new and glorified in his eyes; like Paul, he knows it as ‘the law of Christ.’ All the disciples of Jesus were one in the place they gave to that which James calls ‘the sovereign law. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (2:8–13; of. 1 Corinthians 13); deeds of pure brotherly love prove ‘faith’ alive and genuine; they make it ‘perfect,’ and guarantee the believer’s ‘justification’ (ch. 2). When he describes this law as ‘a perfect law, the law of liberty,’ James’ idea is substantially that Of Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:21 and Romans 8:2, 4, viz. that the law of God is no yoke compelling the Christian man from without, but a life actuating him from within; the believer ‘bends over it’ in contemplation, till he grows one with it (1:24; cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18). ‘The tongue’ is the index of the heart, and St. James regards its control as a sure sign of perfection in law-keeping (3:1–12). James treats of the law, not, like Paul, as it affects the sinner’s standing before God, — nor, like the author of Hebrews, as it regulates his approach In worship, — but as it governs the walk before God of the professed believer. His Epistle is, in effect, a comment on the last clause of Romans 8:4. ‘that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us.’

5 . The word ‘law’ is entirely wanting in the Epistles of St. Peter and of St. John. 1 Peter 1:18, 19 2:24 3:18 manifest the influence of Paul’s doctrine of salvation on the writer; while 1 John 1:7, 9 indicates a leaning to the mode of representation characteristic of Hebrews, and 1 John 2:2 and 4:10 virtually sustain the doctrine of St. Paul on law, sin, and sacrifice. G. G. Findlay.

Lawgiver

The word is found six times in the AV of the OT (Genesis 49:10, Numbers 21:18, Deuteronomy 33:21, Psalms 60:7 108:8, Isaiah 33:22). The Heb. mechBqlq, which it translates, is from a root meaning to ‘cut’ or ‘engrave,’ and hence to ‘enact’ a law, afterwards to be engraved on the public archives. The Heb. word appears to have two meanings: (1) ‘ruler’; so in Deuteronomy 33:21, where RVm gives ‘ruler,’ and in Isaiah 33:22, where the parallelism shows the meaning — ‘Jehovah is our judge, Jehovah is our lawgiver.’ (2) ‘Ruler’s staff’; so in Genesis 49:10, where the word is parallel to ‘sceptre,’ and in Psalms 60:7 108:8, where the RV renders it ‘Judah is my sceptre.’

In the NT the word ‘lawgiver’ (Gr. nomothetgs) is found once only (James 4:12) there it is applied to God as ‘the lawgiver and judge,’ who is regarded as the Supreme Source of all law. Other passages (Hebrews 7:11, Romans 9:4) where kindred Gr. words are used, have a reference to the law of Moses, or, to be more exact, the law of Israel.

T. A. MoxoN.

Lawyer

This term in Scripture does not belong so much to the legal as to the religious sphere. The ‘lawyers’ busied themselves with the study and exposition of the Written and the Oral Law of Israel, and were practically identical with the scribes (wh. see).

Laying on of Hands

This ceremony, of frequent occurrence in both OT and NT, is a piece of natural symbolism with the central idea that through physical contact the person performing it identifies himself with the other in the presence of God. In OT this is done with a view to the transference (a) of a Divine blessing (Genesis 48:14 ff.) cf. Numbers 27:18, 23, Deuteronomy 34:9) (6) of a burden of guilt (Leviticus 1:4 4"- 16:2. etc.). In NT, while it is variously employed, the general idea is always that of blessing.

1. The simplest case is when Jesus lays hands of blessing on the little children (Matthew 19:13, 15 The fact that the mothers desired Him to do so shows that this was a custom of the time and people. The narrative in Mt. shows further that, as used by Jesus, it was no magical form, but the symbolic expression of what was essentially an act of prayer (19:13).

2 . In His deeds of healing Jesus constantly made use of this symbol (Mark 6:5 8:23, Lt 4:40 13:13; cf. Matthew 9:18 Mk 7) — an example which was followed by the Apostolic Church (Acts 9:12, 17 28:8). In these cases, however, besides its religious symboUsra, the act may further have expressed the healer’s sympathy (cf. the hand laid even on the leper, Mark 1:41, Luke 5:13), or have been designed to bring a reinforcement to faith.

3. In the early Church the imposition of hands was used, sometimes in close association with the act of baptism (Acts 9:17, 18 19:5, 6) cf. Hebrews 6:2, which, however, may include all the various kinds of laying on of hands), but sometimes quite apart from it (Acts 8:17, 19). as an accompaniment of prayer that believers might receive a special endowment of the Holy Ghost in charismatic forms. That this endowment does not mean the essential gift of spiritual life, but some kind of ‘manifestation’(1 Co 12:7). is proved when Acts 9:17 (‘filled with the Holy Ghost’) is compared with Acts 2:4. and when 8:15, 17 is read in the light of the request of Simon Magus (v. 18 ff.). and 19:2 in the light of 19:6. The case of Ananias and Saul (9:17) further proves that the laying on of hands for this purpose was not a peculiar Apostolic prerogative,

4. In four passages the laying on of hands is referred to in connexion with an act that corresponds to ordination (the word in its ecclesiastical sense does not occur in NT. ‘Ordained’ in Acts 14:23 should be ‘elected’ or ‘appointed ‘; see RV). The Seven, after being chosen by the multitude, were appointed to office by the Apostles, with prayer and the laying on of hands (Acts 6:6). The ■prophets and teachers’ of the Church at Antioch ‘separated’ Barnabas and Saul for their missionary work by laying their hands on them with fasting and prayer (13:3). Timothy received the ‘gracious gift’ which was in him with the laying on of the hands of a body of elders (see art. Presbytery), with which St. Paul himself was associated (cf. 1 Timothy 4:14 with 2 Timothy 1:6). Timothy’s ‘gracious gift’ probably means his special fitness to be St. Paul’s companion in the work of a missionary evangelist (see Hort, Chr. Ecclesia, p. 184 ff.).

5. Of the manner in which deacons and elders or bishops were set apart to office no Information is given in NT. The injunction, ‘Lay hands suddenly on no man’ (1 Timothy 5:22). has often been supposed to refer to the act of ordination; but the fact that the whole passage (vv. 19–25) deals with offenders points rather to the imposition of hands in the restoration of the penitent (cf, 2 Corinthians 2:6 f.; Galatians 6:1). a custom that certainly prevailed in the early Church at a later time. The fact, however, that Jewish Rabbis employed this rite when a disciple was authorized to teach, favours the view that it was commonly practised in the Apostolic Church, as it was almost universally in the post-Apostolic, in consecration to ministerial office. But the silence of the NT at this point is against the supposition that the rite was regarded as an essential channel of ministerial grace, or anything more than the outward and appropriate symbol of an act of intercessory prayer (see Matthew 19:13, Acts 6:6 13:3 28:8; and cf . Augustine, de Baptismo, ill. 16, ‘What else is the laying on of hands than a prayer over one?’). See, further, art. Bishop. J. C. Lambekt.

IiAZABUS. — A common Jewish name, a colloquial abbreviation of Eleazar.

1 . The brother of Martha and Mary, the friend of Jesus (John 11, where ‘love’ and ‘friend’ represent the same root in Greek). The family lived at Bethany, a village within two miles of Jerusalem just over the brow of Olivet. Lazarus was the subject of the greatest miracle of the Gospel story (John 11:1–44). In the last year of His ministry Jesus sojourned at .Jerusalem from the Feast of Tabernacles in October to that of the Dedication in December; and, on being driven out by the violence of the rulers (John 10:31, 39), He retired to ‘Bethany beyond Jordan’ (10:40; cf. 1:28 RV). A crowd followed Him thither, and in the midst of His beneficent activities of teaching and healing tidings reached Him that His friend had fallen sick. He might have responded immediately to the sisters’ appeal either by hastening to their home and laying His hand on the sick man, or by sending forth His word of power and healing him across the intervening distance of some twenty miles (cf. John 4:46–54. Matthew 15:21–28 = Mark 7:24–30). But He did neither; He remained where He was for two days, until Lazarus was dead. He desired not only to manifest His power to His friends, but to make a signal appeal to impenitent Jerusalem, by working a miracle which would attest His Messiahship beyond all question.

At length He set forth. If the messenger started in the morning, he would reach Jesus the same evening. Jesus stayed two days, and setting out early would arrive on the evening of the fourth day. Thus on His arrival Lazarus had been dead four days (v. 39). In that sultry climate burial followed immediately on death, and it sometimes happened that a swoon was mistaken for death, and the buried man came to life again. The Jewish belief was that the soul hovered about the sepulchre for three days, fain to re-animate its clay. On the fourth day decomposition set in, and hope was then abandoned. Jesus arrived on the fourth day, and there was no doubt of the reality of Lazarus’ death and of the ensuing miracle. It was not a recovery from a trance, but a veritable resurrection. He went to the rock-hewn sepulchre, and in presence of the sisters and a large company of mourners, including many of the rulers who had come from the adjacent capital to testify their esteem for the good Lazarus and their sympathy with Martha and Mary (v. 19). summoned the dead man forth and restored him, alive and well, to his home. It was a startling miracle. It made a profound impression on the multitude, but it only exasperated the rulers. They convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and determined to put Jesus to death (vv. 47–53)

He retired to Ephraim near the frontier of Samaria, and stayed there until the Passover drew near; then He set out for Jerusalem to keep the Feast and to die. Six days before it began (John 12:1). He reached Bethany, and despite the Sanhedrin’s decree He received a great ovation. He was honoured with a banquet in the house of one of the leading men of the village, Simon, who had been a leper and had probably been healed by Jesus (John 12:2–11 26 14:3–9). Lazarus was one of the company. The news of His arrival at Bethany reached Jerusalem, and next day the multitude thronged out and escorted Him in triumph into the city. It was the raising of Lazarus that excited their enthusiasm (John 12).

After this Lazarus appears no more in the Gospel story. Surely he of all men should have stood by Jesus at His trial and crucifixion; and the explanation of his absence is probably that lie had been forced to flee. Observing the popular enthusiasm, the infuriated rulers had determined to put him also to death (John 12:10, 11). He would withdraw more tor Jesus’ sake than for his own. His presence only increased the Master’s danger.

2. The beggar in oxir Lord’s parable (Luke 16:19–31). — This is the only instance where Jesus gives a name to a parabolic character, and there was an idea in early times that it was not a parable but a story from real life. A name was found also for the rich man — Nineiris or Phinees. He is often styled Dives, but this is merely Latin for ‘the Rich Man.’ In fact, however, Lazarus is less a name than a definition. It means ‘God has helped’; and Jesus calls the beggar Lazarus by way of indicating what commended him to God. He was not only poor but also diseased. It is, however, a mistaken notion that he was a leper (hence lazzeretto, lazar-house), for then he must have kept afar off and durst not have lain at the rich man’s gateway.

The parable is a drama with two scenes: (1) The conditions of the Rich Man and the Beggar here — the former with his mansion, his fine clothing, his sumptuous table; and the latter lying at his gateway, full of sores, with none to tend him, hungrily eyeing the feast, and glad of any scraps that were flung to him. (2) Their conditions hereafter — a striking reversal: Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, i.e. the place of honour (cf. John 13:23). at the heavenly feast; the Rich Man in Hades, thirsting for a drop of water.

The parable is clothed with Jewish imagery. ‘Hell’ in v. is Hades, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol, the unseen world, where, according to Jewish theology, all souls, good and bad alike, had their abode and received their due reward. It was an aggravation of the misery of the wicked that they had the felicity of the righteous continually in view (cf. Revelation 14:10). A feast, with Abraham the father of the faithful presiding, was the Jewish ideal of the felicity of the Messianic Kingdom (cf. 8:11)., Jesus, ever anxious to appeal to His hearers, has clothed His parable with this famihar imagery.

The purpose of the parable is not to condemn riches and exalt poverty in the spirit of Ebionitic asceticism. It is an enlargement of the Lord’s admonition in v. 9: ‘Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, when it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles’ (RV). The merit of Lazarus was not that he was poor, but that he had found his help in God ; the offence of the Rich Man was not that he was rich, but that he lived a self-indulgent and luxurious life, regardless of the misery around him. Had he made friends to himself of Lazarus and others like him by means of his mammon of unrighteousness, he would have had a place and a welcome among them when he entered the unseen world. David Smith.

Lead

See Mining and Metals.

Leah

The elder daughter of Laban, married to Jacob by stratagem (Genesis 29:21 ff.). Jacob’s love for her was less than for Rachel (v. 30) sometimes she is said to be hated (vv. 31, 33) She was the mother of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and a daughter Dinah (29:31–35 SO’s- 21). She was buried in the cave of Machpelah before Jacob went to Egypt (49:31). She is mentioned in Ruth 4:11. Her name probably means ‘mistress,’ equivalent to Assyrian Wat (Haupt, GGN, 1883, p. 100, and others). This is preferable to the view that it means ‘wild cow,’ from the Arabic, chiefly because the correspondence in form of the words is more exact. George R. Berry.

Leasing

A ‘leasing’ is a lie. Wyclif uses the word often. Thus John 8:44 ‘Whanne he spekith a lesinge, he spekith of his owne thingis; for he is a lyiere, and fadir of it.’ The word occurs in AV in Psalms 4:2 5:6 and 2 Esdras 14:18.

Leather

See Arts and Crafts, § 5.

Leaven

The leaven both of OT and of NT may be assumed to have always consisted of a piece of fermented dough from a previous baking. There is no clear trace, even in the Mishna, of other sorts of leaven, such as the lees of wine or those enumerated by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xviii. 26). In ordinary cases, in the preparation of the household bread, the lump of dough, above referred to, was either broken down into the water in the kneading-trough (see Bread) before the fresh flour was added, or it might be ‘hid’ in the latter and kneaded along with it, as in the parable, Matthew 13:33. The bread made from dough thus prepared was ‘leavened bread’ (Exodus 12:15 and oft.); cakes made from flour without the addition of leaven received the special name mazzoth, ‘unleavened cakes,’ which gave their name to ‘the feast of unleavened cakes’ (Exodus 23:15 etc., EV ‘unleavened bread’).

The prohibition of leavened bread during the continuance of this Feast, including the Passover, is probably another illustration of conservatism in ritual, the nomadic ancestors of the Hebrews, like the Bedouin of the present day, having made their bread without leaven. The further exclusion of leaven from the offerings placed upon the altar of J" — although admitted when the bread was to be eaten by the priests (Leviticus 7:13 23:17) — is to be explained, like the similar exclusion of honey, from the standpoint that fermentation implied a process of corruption in the dough. The antiquity of this prohibition is attested by its occurrence in the earliest legislation (Exodus 34:25 23:18). It does not seem to have been observed, however, in Amos’ day in the Northern Kingdom (see the Comm. on Am 4>).

This antique view of leaven as (in Plutarch’s words) ‘itself the offspring of corruption, and corrupting the mass of dough with which it has been mixed,’ is reflected in the figurative use of ‘leaven’ in such passages as Matthew 16:6)). II, and especially in the proverbial saying twice quoted by St. Paul, ‘a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump’ (1 Corinthians 5:6, Galatians 5:9) cf. 1 Corinthians 5:7 f.). In Matthew 13, however, it is the silent but all-pervading action of leaven in the mass of the dough that is the point of comparison. A. R. S. Kennedy.