place as their Substance. The lambs that had been offered on Jewish altars were now no longer to be needed because "the Lamb of God" was coming who should take away the sin of the world. The blood that had been shed and poured out at Jewish altars and sprinkled on the mercy-seat of the ark in the holiest of all and which sanctified merely to the purifying of the flesh, was now no longer to be needed, for the Great Substitute was coming, whose blood, shed upon the accursed cross, was to purge the conscience and cleanse the soul of the believer from all sin. "Every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which could never take away sin, but this man [Christ], after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God." (Hebrews x. 11, 12.) His object in coming was to do that which never could have been accomplished save by his incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and intercession-namely, the salvation from death, hell, sin, and all its consequences of the one who would trust in his person and believe in his work of atonement. It was his purpose not to unite people to him in his incarnation, for there he was alone, but by his sacrificial death and burial, through the mysterious operations of his Spirit, unite his people to himself in resurrection, life, and blessing, and eternal glory. No wonder, then, that the coming of the Messiah, the Hope of Israel, and the Saviour of the world, his life, death, and resurrection, were, and ever shall remain, the central objects of interest and admiration to all the blood-washed in heaven, to all the holy angels in that land of unspeakable splendor, and to all the blood-redeemed on earth. God had not forgotten to be gracious. Man may be in a hurry, but the Lord who sees the end from the beginning waits for the fulness of time before his purposes as old as eternity are executed. During all the years and ages about which we have been writing he was preparing the world for the advent of his Eternal Son, the Saviour of mankind. Saints of old had lived with holy faith on the prophecies, and with expectant and longing eye looked for the great Redemption. The wise men of other nations were ready to follow the Star of Bethlehem. Throughout the whole Eastern world high expectations took possession of the people that a Jewish child should become the ruler of the world. And this period is called in the fourth chapter of Galatians the "fulness of time." No time previous to this could have been more opportune or appropriate. God wanted men to understand the great evil that sin had wrought and how he hated sin, and how, if sin were ever to be atoned for and put away forever, somebody greater than man must be the victim to be slain. And that victim was the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. If God had kept the world waiting longer, people in despair might have forgotten or despised the promise. If God had sent his Son into the world sooner, men would have lost the great evidence given in the books of the Old Testament which allude so plainly to him through all the past years. We needed the continued history of God's dealings with the Jewish nation in order to understand the greatness and goodness of Christ and the tremendous importance of his work on the cross for us, when he laid down his life as a sacrifice for our sins. If the Saviour had visited the world as in the days of his flesh, very early in the infancy of the race, before civilization had made any progress, men might have said that no confidence could be placed in so ancient and dim a story, that we could not trust a tale so contrary to all present experience, resting only upon the uncertain traditions and sayings of an ignorant and unlettered past. The condition of the world at that time presents all civilized nations as united under one empire; a universal peace prevailed; and one language-Greek-was spoken by learned persons everywhere, by Jews and Romans as well as by the Greeks. Fables and superstitions made even the heathen sick. The desire of all nations was for Light and Help; for some one to come who should explain the mystery of their being, who should tell them of a cure for sin, of peace for the troubled conscience, of that better time when "the golden age" as they called it would return, and fear and pain and sorrow be put away forever. The law, the sacrifices, and the prophets of the Jew, the helplessness and darkness of the hea then, alike bade the world lift up its head, for its Redemption must be drawing nigh. That was the fulness of time. And then God sent forth his Son. . For nothing but a Redeemer, one who could pay an immense debt and had power also to unbar the prison door of captives long imprisoned by a great enemy, could so change the face of the moral world as to bring light and happiness and blessedness and gladness to the sons and daughters of men. Israel had suffered the consequences of idolatry, the Gentile or heathen world had been for ages steeped in ignorance, superstition, and appalling crime. Rome, with iron hand, usurped authority over sea and land. The anguish of human hearts that had been under the influence of unseen but not unfelt power rose up to God for deliverance, and he who in so many parts of the Bible has said, "Ye shall not seek my face in vain," was now ready to send to this lost orb, this sinful world, his "unspeakable gift," his well-beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The following history gives an account of the coming from heaven to earth of that Holy One, of his Incarnation, his life of goodness and mercy mingled with miracle-working power, in healing diseases, raising the dead, and at last going to the accursed cross to atone for sins which he himself had not committed. In this history it will be seen also how the Jew, to whom this Messiah was sent in the first instance, utterly rejected and disowned him, and how literally the words of their own prophet Isaiah were fulfilled : "He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 'Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. "But he was was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. : "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. "He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. "And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." A few years later, and the chosen nation miraculously preserved until his coming was scattered and destroyed. The Holy City was trodden under foot, the Temple cast down to the ground. The Jewish people and the Jewish religion had fulfilled their part. A new dispensation had begun. The Church and the religion of Jesus had brought light and life to the world. |