Did Many Things - Glenn Conjurske
Did Many Things
by Glenn Conjurske
“For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.” (Mark 6:20).
In this cryptic sentence, “he did many things,” we have a most felicitous description of a faulty, partial, and half-way repentance. In these three words lie depicted, as perhaps nowhere else in the Bible, the strivings and struggles of many a vacillating soul, goaded by conscience and faithful preaching to do many things, yet constrained by some darling lust to stop short of a thorough and saving repentance.
Yet through a variation in the Greek text, à and B conspiring together almost contra mundum, this most precious word of Scripture has disappeared from most of the modern versions. The Revised Version of 1881 exhibits the place, “And when he heard him, he was much perplexed; and he heard him gladly”—-the natural effect of which is to leave us all “much perplexed.” Why did Herod hear John gladly, when all that he gained by it was to be “much perplexed”? What pleasure was there in this? “Common sense,” says the judicious Christopher Wordsworth, “is staggered by such a rendering. People are not wont to hear gladly those by whom they are much perplexed.” The common people, we are told in Mark 12:37, heard Christ gladly, but this was because he spoke home to their hearts and minds, surely not because they were “much perplexed” by him. Was Herod so devoid of sense as to delight to be mystified? Yet this inane reading is followed in the Berkeley Version, and the New American Standard and New International versions, for the modern revisers of Scripture generally tread in one path, like a horse in blinders, maugre sense and maugre reason, and apparently in blissful ignorance of all that has been said on these themes by wiser men in better days.
The new reading was followed for a time even by the conservative critic F. H. A. Scrivener, and in his reason for following it we may read some profitable lessons. He writes, in the second edition of his Introduction, “”’Did many things” Engl. vers. I think it must have occurred to many readers that this is, to say the least, a very singular expression.’ So writes Mr. Linwood, very truly…, for nothing can well be more tame or unmeaning.” And on the strength of his opinion that the expression is “tame and unmeaning,” he proceeds to reject it, saying, “Hence we do not hesitate to receive a variation supported by only a few first-rate authorities, where internal evidence … pleads so powerfully in its favour.”
But here I must point out that while Scrivener’s critical principles were essentially sound, he had one great weakness. He was ever too ready to yield up his objective principles to the subjective claims of internal evidence—-claims which on further reflection might prove to be a mere chimera—-and on that basis to set aside the most compelling external evidence. “Tame and unmeaning”?! God forbid. I do not hesitate to say that these four words—-but two words in the Greek—-have as much depth of meaning packed into them as any four words in the New Testament. “He did many things”—-laid aside one sin after another, restored what he had taken unlawfully away, ceased from his oppressions, curbed his tongue, left off his drunkenness. We speak conjecturally, of course, as to the details, but the plain fact is, a wicked life requires amendment in “many things,” and, pricked in conscience by the preaching of this holy man, he was moved to do many of those things.
But Scrivener evidently lacked the capacity to see this meaning. There was a time when we saw nothing of it ourselves. Scrivener was better able to determine the text than to interpret it. He excelled in the gathering and the weighing of textual evidence, but, as is not unusual in such cases, fell behind in the spiritual discernment which could lay hold of its meaning. And in this we behold the real danger of his proceedings. Because he cannot understand the reading, he must reject it.
And here we must pause and reflect. Do not the proceedings of this able critic lead us as it were by the hand to the reason for the existence of the textual variation here? The alteration from “did many things” to “was much perplexed,” though a change of but two letters, was probably not an accidental one. It is one of those evidently purposeful emendations in which à and B abound. Some scribe evidently found “did many things” tame and unmeaning, and must therefore alter it.
But Scrivener, we are happy to report, lived to understand the passage, and so to retract his rash judgement. In a note in his third edition he writes, “It is only fair to retain unchanged the note on Mark vi.20, inasmuch as the Two Members of the N.T. Company (p. 47, note 1) have exercised their right of claiming my assent to the change of dðïßåé into zðüñåé. I must, however, retract that opinion, for the former reading now appears to me to afford an excellent sense. Herod gladly heard the Baptist, and did many things at his exhortation; every thing in fact save the one great sacrifice which he could not persuade himself to make.”
Yet seeing “an excellent sense” in the words would hardly be sufficient reason to revert to them, if the preponderance of external evidence had been against them. That excellent sense was in the words from the beginning. If Scrivener saw it not, others did. Scrivener’s ally, John W. Burgon, had written on the words years earlier, “His [John’s] exhortations had sometimes even disposed the Tetrarch to acts of obedience; and those not few in number. But Herod had entered on a career of sin; and the pathway of such ever ‘goeth down to the chambers of Death.”’
But having thus, as we suppose, contributed a mite or two towards the rescuing of a most precious text of Scripture from the onslaughts of a mistaken and infatuated criticism, it remains to say a few words concerning its spiritual content.
Herod was a man, of like passions with other men. He had a heart, and he had a conscience, and since he was a sinner, the two were often at war with each other. He loved Herodias, and gave free reign to the passion of his heart, at the expense of truth and righteousness and conscience, for he had stolen her from his brother.
But while Herod’s passions drew him one way, reason and conscience drew him another. He “feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy.” He heard him gladly. He yielded to many of his holy admonitions, and did many things. But the one thing needful he could not be moved to do. His darling sin he held fast. He would not give up his brother’s wife.
It was thus that the battle raged, between reason and conscience on the one side, and lust and passion on the other. What troubled thoughts the man must have had, what restless nights, what yearnings and strivings, what excuses and rationalizations, as his soul was tossed back and forth between the claims of conscience and the passion which ruled him. One thing after another he will yield, but he will carefully spare his pet passion. He would have heaven, but he would discount the cost. He would save his soul, but like many another sinner, he would save it on easier terms than those laid down by the Son of God. He would yield to the claims of conscience where the cost was not too high. He would part with those sins which he could spare, and yet all the while hold fast to his darling passion. Lying, cursing, thieving, slander, drunkenness, oppression, ostentation—-all these might be cast out, but Herodias will be held to his bosom still. The right foot may be cut off, and the right hand also, but she will be spared.
It was thus that Herod did many things, while he left his darling sin untouched, and thus it is that many a sinner discounts the cost of repenting, casting out what his flesh can spare, and holding fast his darling sins.
But what avails such repentance? What did it avail Herod? He was no doubt at some trouble and expense thus to “do many things,” for no self-denial comes cheap. His will must be crossed, his cravings denied, his appetites deprived, his hopes and designs thwarted. All this was no doubt costly, but all fell short of what the Lord demanded of him. What will it avail me to lay down ninety dollars for my ticket, when the price is a hundred? What will it avail to part with many sins, when God demands that we repent of all? “If you will Turn and Live,” says Richard Baxter, “do it unreservedly, absolutely and universally. Think not to capitulate with Christ, and devide your heart betwixt him and the world; and to part with some sins, and keep the rest; and to let go that which your flesh can spare. This is but self-deluding.”
It may be at small cost that the gambler forsakes his drinking, or the drunkard his dice—-the vain woman her fornication, or the licentious man his finery—-the sportsman his riches, or the miser his games—-but while every man spares his own pet passion, there will be no holiness on the earth, and if no holiness, then no salvation. Modern antinomian orthodoxy has of course discovered an easier way—-discovered that what we do with sin has nothing to do with the question of our salvation, that “it is a Son question, not a sin question,” but the whole host of ancient men of God stand resolutely against this. Matthew Henry writes on our text, “Here we see what a great way a man may go toward grace and glory, and yet come short of both, and perish eternally. …
“He did many of those things which John in his preaching taught him. He was not only a hearer of the word, but in part a doer of the work. Some sins which John in his preaching reproved, he forsook, and some duties he bound himself to; but it will not suffice to do many things, unless we have respect to all the commandments.”
J. C. Ryle, in his Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, writes (of course) to the same purpose on the passage, saying, “We see, in the second place, how far people may go in religion, and yet miss salvation by yielding to one master-sin.
“King Herod went further than many. He ‘feared John.’ He ‘knew that he was a just man and a holy.’ He ‘heard him, and did many things’ in consequence. He even ‘heard him gladly.’ But there was one thing Herod would not do. He would not cease from adultery. He would not give up Herodias. And so he ruined his soul for evermore.
“Let us take warning from Herod’s case. Let us keep back nothing—-cleave to no favourite vice,—-spare nothing that stands between us and salvation. Let us often look within, and make sure that there is no darling lust or pet transgression, which, Herodias-like, is murdering our souls. Let us rather cut off the right hand, and pluck out the right eye, than go into hell-fire.”
Such half-way repentance as Herod’s will avail nothing before a holy God, and no more will it avail if it goes nine tenths of the way. There will be no heaven without the forsaking of all sin.
But if this half-way repentance will not secure heaven when we die, neither will it secure much of anything while we live. Nothing but universal and unreserved repentance will secure our character here. The man who does not stand against all sin will have no power to withstand any of it, when assaulted by temptation. How quickly does Herod go from doing many things at the word of John, to taking off his head at the word of Herodias! And so it is with all who play at repenting. They have no power to stand against sin, and will soon find themselves slipping, not only back into those sins which they had renounced, but even into those which they had ever abhorred and avoided. Who would have believed yesterday that Herod would murder John today? Yesterday he feared and esteemed him. Yesterday he heard him gladly. Yesterday he yielded to his admonitions, and “did may things.” Today he takes off his head. Who would have dreamed it?
But here is the fruit of half-way repentance. Those who will not stand against all sin have no security against any. Prudence and pride may keep them from many sins, but give them the right temptation, and they will yield. They do not reject sin as such, and so cannot stand against its onslaughts.
Is not this the real explanation of the shameful backslidings of a myriad of professing Christians? Deceived by a false gospel, they never made any unconditional commitment in the first place, never any unreserved submission to the will of God, never any rooting out of bosom sins, never any determination to fight against sin as such, and how can they maintain what they never had? The very principle on which they stand is to yield to such sin as they please, while they part with such sin as they can spare, and how then can they stand against any? They cannot so much as maintain the ground which they had gained, for the sin which they could dispense with yesterday may appear in another light tomorrow, and they may repent today of a former day’s repentance. Tomorrow’s temptations may be stronger than today’s, and he who “did many things” yesterday may do a thing or two less tomorrow. This will be almost inevitable, if he has not laid the axe to the root of the tree, and resolutely determined to forsake all sin as such. This was exactly the case with Herod, and thus all the ground which he had gained was thrown away at once, when he was overtaken by an unexpected temptation. His associations and his word entangled him, and he knew not how to say nay. It was his principle to spare sin. He had put the axe to many of its branches, but he spared the root, in order to save one darling bough, and the rest of the branches would grow again.
Such was the half-way repentance of Herod, and such, we are sure, is the half-way repentance of many a Fundamentalist of the present day. If these do not backslide altogether in the present life, it will not be the fear of God which keeps them from it. And if they live out their whole lives in the possession of their make-shift repentance, they will find that it avails them nothing in the day of judgement.
So maintained Harry Ironside—-no legalist, I presume—-in a sermon entitled, “How Herod Lost his Soul.” “Friend,” says he, “do you realise what an easy thing it is to lose your soul? Just cling to one sin; just let one sin come between you and God. Possibly some one is saying, ‘But you mistake the nature of your audience if you think we would stoop to the sin of which Herod was guilty.’ Very well, if you know that to be true, if you know that you have never been guilty of these things, never stooped to these things, what other sin is it that is standing between you and your God?
“When the Word of God is brought home in power to your soul, and you hear a voice within saying, ‘Now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation’ (2 Cor. 6.2), and conscience says, ‘Yes, I ought to yield to God,’ what is it that rises before you, and you say, ‘Oh, but—-but—-if I become a Christian, I cannot go on with that; I cannot do that any more; I will have to give that up, and I am not prepared for that.’ You love that sin more than Christ; you love your sin more than a place in Heaven, and, therefore, you will have to sink with your sin into outer darkness, unless God in mercy still gives you repentance.”
Glenn Conjurske