Matthew 7:11, 12 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children… Although the "asking" in ver. 7 was pressed on to the further developments of "seeking" and "knocking," our Lord returns here to the most generic form of application on the part of one person to another in his use of the word "ask," when he speaks of "them that ask him." But, perhaps, not only because this is the most generic description of application from one to another is the word used in this connection, but because further it embodies least of the participation of the applicant, and when the answer comes to him, and, it may be, the rich gift falls into his lap, then least can he claim it as the result of his own work, merit, co-operation. He must acknowledge it the sovereign gift of sovereign grace. Notice in this passage - I. THE CONDESCENDING USE OF THE EARTHLY PATTERN FOR THE THINGS OF THE HEAVENLY PATTERN. II. THE INCORRUPT FIDELITY OBSERVED IS THAT USE. The pattern is quoted, is used; but its imperfect adequacy is openly averred. The pattern is not only in a lower sphere, not only on a lower scale, but it is admittedly marred; it is a fallen pattern, a pattern obtaining indeed, subsisting indeed, actual; yet among the fallen, erring, faulty, and sinful, all in turn. III. THE UNSTINTED ENCOURAGEMENT (TO OFFER WHICH IS THE MANIFEST CENTRAL AIM OF THE PATTERN QUOTED, ITS FIDELITY AND ALL INCLUDED) TO THE APPLICANTS AND CANDIDATES OF GOD'S KINGDOM. The perfection alike of willingness and of wisdom combined is now the sovereign Dispenser, the universal impartial Distributor. IV. THE GRAND USE MADE OF AN OCCASION OF A PARTIAL SUMMARIZING (ver. 12) TO PROCLAIM THE NEW COVENANT FORM OF THE SECOND TABLE OF THE OLD AND VENERABLE AND UNIVERSAL TEN COMMANDMENTS. With our ver. 12 comp. Matthew 5:17. From the kind of giving and the manner of giving (i.e. in reply to asking) of fathers in imperfect and "evil" human society,, and from the supreme example of the perfection in both kind and manner of the Father which is in heaven, the grand dictum of most sacred heavenly lips utters itself forth for the regulating of men's mutual relations, wide as the world stretches, and long as the world lasts. - B. Parallel Verses KJV: If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? |
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