iptures, which the Scribes well knew, shows
further that he whom the official but false builders rejected and cast
down, was accepted and raised up by God. Whom they refused, dishonoured,
and slew, him God raised up and made King upon his holy hill of
Zion.[41] It is a dreadful discovery for those husbandmen to make, that
the Son whom they murdered lives, and has become their Lord. Nothing is
more appalling to criminals than to be confronted with their
victim,--living and reigning. Hence the agony of Joseph's faithless
brothers when they discovered that Joseph was their judge. Herod
beheaded the Baptist in the intemperate excitement of a licentious
feast, that he might keep before his nobles the word which he had rashly
pledged to a fair, false woman: but Herod was not done with John when
John's body, tenderly buried by his disciples, lay silent in the grave.
Many times by night and day the king saw that gory head again lying on
the charger--it would not go out of his sight. The creaking of a door,
or the sighing of the wind among the trees, seemed the footfall of the
Baptist stalking forth to reprove him. When an attendant reported to
Herod the miracles of Christ, reporting at the same time that some took
Jesus of Nazareth for Elias, and some for another prophet, he had his
own opinion on the point; he knew better, and in a whisper, with pale
face, and starting eye-balls, and trembling limbs, he said to his
informant,--"It is John the Baptist whom I beheaded" (Mark vi. 14).

[41] What wise one of this world,--what human reason would have
conceived, under the cross, that this man suspended between two
malefactors, and despised by all, would one day receive the worship
of the whole world? This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous
in our eyes.--_Heubner in Lange_.

It is a fearful thing for his murderers to fall into the hands of this
_living God_. It is a fearful thing to see him whom you have crucified
afresh coming in the clouds to judge the world in righteousness.

Further expanding this conception regarding the chief corner stone, the
Lord transfers from another scripture (Isa. viii. 14, 15), the prophecy
spoken of old on this very point,--"And whosoever shall fall on this
stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind
him to powder." We seem to mark here a change in the character of Jesus.
Sterner and more stern he becomes, as in his prophetic office he
approaches the subject