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O Jesu, Thou hast triumphed over Satan, triumph still by the power of Thy grace over my heart.

My son, look up to Me, and I will help thee.

O Jesu, truly Thou canst save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Thee. Thou hast triumphed over Satan for me. With Thee I have died unto sin. How shall I walk any longer

therein?

Though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, but if thou return to them there remains no other sacrifice to which thou canst look for deliverance.

O Blessed Jesu, Thou art my only hope. Never, never let me leave Thee. Let the blood of Thy covenant strengthen me for the fellowship of Thy glory.

NOTE A, to page 340.

Consider the symbolism of this sacrifice. The ram was 'behind him,' for the predestination of Christ as the Saviour of the world was in the eternity of God's counsel. It was caught in the thicket; that thicket is the fence of the law by which God hedged His chosen people within the enclosure of His covenanted hill-top. This was the thicket of which He afterwards spake. 'Men hew down the carved work of the visible temple like the thicket of the forest' (Ps. lxxiv. 5). The visible temple and the covenant of Judaism were to be laid waste, but they existed not for themselves. They existed for the very purpose of bringing the Lamb of God to the sacrifice. Christ was the fulfilling of the law (Matt. v. 17). So the thicket would often be cut down by many devastators, but not taken away until its purpose was fulfilled. That thicket is now so removed that it never can grow up again.

Its purpose is accomplished. The sin of the people has caused its removal, 'for wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briars and thorns, and shall kindle in the thicket of the forest' (Is. ix. 18). As the judgment of God went forth against Assyria and Ephraim, so must it go forth against the earthly Jerusalem now that its heavenly purpose is accom plished. The fruitful field' of the Lord' shall be esteemed as a forest' (Is. xxix. 17). But this could not be until the Lamb of God had been there provided as the sacrifice.

The ram was caught by his horns. These are the symbols of Divine strength. The Lamb of God would be brought to death under the Jewish law by reason of His claim to be the Son of God.

The meaning of the horns may be elucidated from the construction of the altar. The altar had horns to which the victim was tied, and thus was symbolised the glory of the Divine Sonship which is the real principle of acceptance in every oblation. The altar itself signifies a life higher than that of earth, a Divine life. We must be raised from earth to a Divine life if our offering is to be accepted according to the Divine covenant. By the horns of the altar, God as it were, took the sacrifice unto Himself. Divine sonship binds us to God and requires us to die to the earth. The death of the Lamb of God was not averted by the Divine Life which He possessed, but it was His Divine Life which gave it value.

The Jews did not understand that their true inheritance of Isaac's blessing consisted in being bound upon the altar, dead to the earth along with him, and that Messiah when He came would bring this blessing to its completeness by dying. They thought that their Divine prerogatives were a pledge of immunity from death, but they could not alter the Divine appointment. The destiny of the nation, which was set forth in Isaac as he lay upon the altar, was to be accomplished in the person of the Lamb which God had provided.

Of Joseph it was said that his horns are like the horns of unicorns' (Deut. xxxiii. 17). That strength, however, was an earthly strength, it culminated in the great schis.

matical kingdom. As Joseph's blessing perished in sin, so alas! was it to be with Judah when Judah should fall away from her Divine position and assail the Son of God as with horns of unicorns, in the violence of earthly power (Ps. xxii. 21). Nevertheless the Holy One of Israel had come to them from Teman, and the secret horns of Divine Life shone out before God (Hab. iii. 4). They rejected him who was the horn of their salvation and their refuge' (Ps. xviii. 2). The prophet of their captivity sang beforehand the deathwail of the holy nation. He hath cut off in His fierce anger all the horn of Israel,' all their Divine inheritance of power (Lam. ii. 3).

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NOTE B, to page 344.

It may be well here to insert the principal dates which are connected with Daniel's prophecy of the Seventy Weeks preceding the death of Christ. The Seventy Weeks are divided by the prophet into sections: seven weeks, sixty-two weeks, half a week; or in years 49+ 434 +34, i.c. 486 years. The remaining 3 years are left for a subsequent purpose.

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In this year he gave Ezra the commission to go up to Jerusalem and reorganise the city, 'to repair the desolations and to give the people a wall' (Ezra ix. 9).

From the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. The street shall be built again and the wall, even in troublous times' (Dan. ix. 25).

Through troubles little progress was made.

The horn of Israel

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= numerically 891, i.e. 9 x 11. The nine is the symbol of Divine power in its fulness. The eleven is the symbol of the sin from which by Divine power we are set free.

Nehemiah arrives to urge the work forward

The building of the walls is carried on with much difficulty because of the opposition of Sanballat and others.

Nehemiah's second administration was from.

B.C.

44

428-420

The seven weeks (forty-nine years) of trouble close. 408 The sixty-two weeks begin from now, i.c. 434 years. 'After sixty-two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself' (Dan. ix. 26).

Birth of Christ.

Christian era

The sixty-two weeks (131 years) close with Christ's baptism

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He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and in the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease' (Dan. ix. 27).

3 years of Christ's ministry close with His Crucifixion Messiah confirmed the covenant with many during the week, and in the middle of the week He was cut off.

Destruction of Jerusalem.

There is a remarkable Jewish tradition, that for forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, i.e. from the day of atonement after the Crucifixion, what they held to be a sign of acceptance never took place. See Rosh hashanah, p. 31, in Lightfoot, Min. Templ. c. 15, Opp. i. 746, quoted by Pusey on Daniel, p. 172, and Goode's Warburton Lect. pp. 304-7.

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MEDITATION XXXI.

Messiah.

Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning him self-St. Luke xxiv. 27.

1. THE HOLY OF HOLIES.

THE appropriation of Messiah as a personal name to designate the Seed of the woman who was expected before, is probably due to Daniel's prophecy.

Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins [or seal up sins], and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.' This Holy of Holies is in the next verse spoken of as Messiah the Prince.

He is called Holiness of Holinesses, because He is anointed with the Holy Ghost, as indeed He was by the subsequent fact of His resurrection declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness' (Rom. i. 4).

All that was connected with the worship of God according to the Mosaic ritual was typical of Messiah. and consequently all was anointed. Aaron and his sons, and afterwards the high priest, who was known

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