MATTHEW 27:42 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.”
He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. The chief priests' taunt: he saved others but cannot save himself. The taunt is inadvertently true in the deepest theological sense: he could save himself or save others, not both. The let him come down and we will believe communicates the conditional faith that would believe on the terms it sets — the same sign-demanding that Jesus refused throughout his ministry.
Church Fathers on Matthew 27:42
Having stripped and crucified Christ, they go yet further, and seeing Him on the cross revile Him.
'They revile him' because they passed by that way, and would not walk in the true way of the Scriptures. 'They wagged their heads,' because they had just before shifted their feet, and stood not upon a rock. The foolish rabble cast the same taunt against Him that the false witnesses had invented, 'Aha! thou that destroyest the temple of God and rebuildest it in three days.'
'Aha!' is an interjection of taunt and mockery.
Read all 18 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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