The Pulpit Commentary on Jeremiah 18:18

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

The opposition of officials.

I. IT IS COMMON TO SEE OFFICIAL PERSONS RESISTING THE WORK OF GOOD AND GREAT MEN. The prophets usually met with this opposition, and it forced them to become nonconformists. Christ received the most bitter enmity from the official classes. This opposition may be traced

II. THE OPPOSITION OF OFFICIALS FINDS EXCUSE IN OFFICIALISM. Have they not their appointed office? Are they not discharging their regular functions? They have been so accustomed to the unbroken routine that this seems to them part of the eternal order of things. They can believe in nothing better. They cannot conceive the possibility of any alteration in it. True, the spirit of the Law has evaporated from the service, but the droning of the letter of it shall not depart from the priest. The wisdom of spiritual insight is no longer enjoyed by the wise man, but there is no end to his casuistical pleading with old worn maxims. Prophecy in its higher flights is denied to the professional prophet, but there seems to be no abatement of the power to echo the cries of the day and win the popular favor by flattery and hollow rhetoric. Why, then, listen to the disturbing words of the new teacher? Thus officialism is always excusing its opposition to new good movements on the plea of its own self-sufficiency.

III. THE OPPOSITION OF OFFICIALISM IS POWERFUL FOR HARM. For how many scenes of martyrdom is it responsible! It was this that crucified Christ. It has peculiar weapons of its own. It carries the weight of prestige. It is very effectual with the thoughtless, who are ready to submit to the voice of the recognized authorities, partly out of indolence, partly out of fear, partly out of ignorance. It needs independence of thought and courage to recognize that this may be all wrong, and truth and right with the irregular minority—the peasant apostles rather than the haughty Sanhedrim, the plain German monk rather than the cardinals of Rome, the simple teachers of truth rather than the recognized masters of the world.

HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR

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