The untrustworthiness of tradition.
Tradition is the handing down from one person to another of what is not committed to writing. It is customary in those primitive societies where writing is unknown. It is practiced also in communities more advanced in civilization, when there is some special reason why it should be preferred to documentary preservation and transmission. That there was traditional teaching concerning our Lord's ministry is undoubted; and it has been disputed to what extent our Gospels embody such teaching. But this passage seems to have been inserted here as if to remind us how carefully coming ages of the Church have been preserved from a fruitful source of error.
I. THERE WERE PECULIAR REASONS WHY THE SAYING HERE RECORDED SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRESERVED IN ITS INTEGRITY.
1. In this case the saying concerning John was a saying of Christ, and as such might be supposed to be treasured with the greatest care and reverence.
2. It was uttered in the hearing of the select friends of our Lord, who, if any could do so, would guard it from corruption.
3. The apostles of Christ must have been the reporters of this saying to their fellow-Christians.
4. The person concerning whom the tradition went abroad was living at the time that the misrepresentation was repeated.
II. YET AN ALTOGETHER ERRONEOUS VERSION OF THIS SAYING WAS CURRENT IN THE EARLY CHURCH. Although Jesus had simply said to Peter, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" which might be simply a strong way of rebuking curiosity, or an intimation that John should survive until the destruction of Jerusalem; yet there went abroad a notion that Jesus had expressly assured his beloved disciple that he should never die ] Could there be a more remarkable perversion of the Lord's words? a more signal instance of the untrustworthiness of oral tradition? Yet, what happened then has often happened before and since. Passing from one man's lips to another's, facts may dissolve into fictions, and opinions may be reversed.
III. THIS INSTANCE SUGGESTS HOW WISE AND MERCIFUL AN ARRANGEMENT IS THAT BY WHICH THE GOSPEL IS NOT LEFT TO ORAL TRADITION, BUT HAS BEEN EMBODIED IN AUTHENTICATED DOCUMENTS. By inspiring his apostles to commit the gospel facts to writing, our Lord has secured us against the mischiefs attending tradition. The truth cannot be injured either by the zeal of friends or by the malice of foes.
PRACTICAL LESSON. Readers of the New Testament are hound in reason to accept and credit what there is no room for any candid inquirer to distrust.—T.