The Bible and Prediction — Continued
The prophecies of Christ — the great body of Messianic prediction — are reserved for separate treatment. Before entering upon these, other departments of prophecy need, and are entitled to, special investigation, as constituting in themselves phenomena of a remarkable character.
First, there are important predictions concerning the Jews themselves — the center of the general prophetic scheme. As God’s chosen people, they have an important relation to the history of the race, and an important destiny in connection with it. God therefore decreed that, while severely punished and chastened for their idolatries and apostacies, they should, as a people, be preserved and ultimately restored to His favour (Romans xi). The 28th chapter of Deuteronomy is a comprehensive outline of prophecies about the Hebrew nation, containing no less than seventy particulars, most of which have already been exactly fulfilled; and others, referring to the final restoration of the Jews to their own land, and their re-
87 habilitation as a people, await future development, but, even now, seem fast approaching the period of their accomplishment.
Seven marked predictions might be selected from those which are on record about the Jews;
1. They would be so sorely besieged by enemies, that women would devour their own children — fulfilled in the sieges of Jerusalem, both under Neubuchadnezzar, and under Titus.
2. They would be rooted out of their land and carried afar into captivity, — fulfilled in the Babylonian and Assyrian captivities, but forecast, in part, in previous minor captivities, as related in the book of Judges.
3. They were not to find rest in any of the lands of their captivity, but be scattered abroad and driven hither and thither as wanderers among all nations.
4. They were to be despoiled by their enemies and made a prey. So they have been in every land where they have dwelt; and if, as in Great Britain and the United States, they have been treated with more consideration, it is owing to the permedting influence of the Christian religion.
5. They were to be a ‘* by- word,” an “astonishment,” a “hissing,” in the nations where they
were scattered. This again has proved true.
They have been compelled in some cases even to wear a distinctive badge, and occupy what has been invidiously known as the “Jewish quarter.”
6. While scattered among all nations, they should still be separate. It is a strange historic phenomenon that this one race is the only one never yet incorporated in, or amalgamated with, the nations among whom they have dwelt. When Irishmen, Scotchmen, Germans and Italians come to America, in the course of a few generations they disappear as such, and become integral parts of one homogeneous American people. But the Jew remains still a Jew; save when by becoming a Christian, he ceases to be distinctively a Jew, and, marrying into Christian families, thus becomes incorporated with Christian Communities.
7. They are to be ultimately restored to their own land, grafted back into their own olive tree, and to have restored to them the Covenant privileges which, during the times of the Gentiles, have been suspended. This remains to be fulfilled.
Any one who is skeptical as to the inspiration of the words of Scripture, should consider whether it is possible that such a complex historic phenomenon as this would or could, without divine foresight, have been clearly foretold by Moses in one of the most ancient books of the human race, and that this prophecy should not only have been fulfilled, but be fulfilling before our eyes at this remote period of time. Surely the foreknowledge of such facts must have been communicated by the omniscient God. It is said that, when one of the great monarchs of Europe asked his chaplain to give him, in one word, an evidence that the Bible was from God, that one word was: ‘’JEW.’’
But, aside from the Jews and the prophecy which centres about them, there is a wider circle of prediction, embracing the whole race, and to which the earliest prophecies of the Holy Scriptures refer. In the ninth chapter of Genesis, 27th verse, it is written — “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren. Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.”
Here is indicated a threefold distribution of the human race: under Shem, Japheth, and Ham, the father of Canaan. Ham’s descendants went to Africa; Japheth’s into Europe; Shem’s into Asia — three great streams of primeval civilization, beginning after the flood, flowing in different directions, and distributing population among the three continents then known.
Noah, at this early period, forecast the history and destiny of the Semitic, Japhetic and Hamitic races of the world.
“Blessed be Jehovah, God of Shem.” That implies some special relation of Shem to Jehovah, as a Covenant God. The Jews, who are of the race of Shem, became the earliest repositories of the true religion, and from them came, through Jesus Christ, who was of the Semitic stock, the Christian faith.
“God shall enlarge Japheth.” No other branch of the human race has known a like enlargement, both as to numerous progeny and as to extensive territory. The Japhetic peoples have been the one enterprising branch of humanity. The Semitic and Hamitic races have never so spread in colonies and by conquests over the face of the earth, as have the Japhetic from Europe into Asia, and America, controlling territory to such a degree that the Japhetic sceptre more than any other sways the world. The sun in his course never sets on his dominions, and surely Japhetic nations, which pride themselves on being foremost in enlargement and conquest, will not question the antiquity or veracity of the prophecy, uttered by Noah.
“He shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” The
Semitic races were to be nomadic. Nothing is said about the “tents” of Canaan, or of Japheth. The nomadic races of the human family have principally been Semitic in origin. While they have dwelt in tents, Japheth has not only been enlarged, but has rapidly encroached upon them. By Japheth ’s dwelling in the tents of Shem may be typically forecast also the fact that the Japhetic races have gone to the Semitic, for their religious faith.
As to Canaan, it is three times averred that he shall be a servant of servants, to his brethren; that is, a slave — the lowest and basest of servants. The fact is indisputable, that the world’s slaves have come, in the vast majority of instances, from the descendants of Ham. Terrible, indeed, have been the ravages of the slave trade, carried on round the coast of Africa, for which, during many years, both Great Britain and the United States were responsible, until, after many centuries, God chose, by the voice and pen of Wilberforce and his colleagues in Britain, and afterward by the hammer of Abraham Lincoln in America, to cleave the fetters from millions of bondsmen, and this blot was wiped off from their national escutcheons. So extensive has been African slavery that, if the
entire number of natives sacrificed, in capturing victims in the Dark Continent, transporting them through the middle passage, and incorporating them as slaves with other peoples, were reckoned, their bodies would make a double row round the earth at its equator!
When Noah, coming out of the ark to face a new world, became a second father to the race, God drew for him the great lines of civilization, which even to this day are indisputable historical verities.
The second and seventh chapters of Daniel record two visions of the history of the world. The first was given to Nebuchadnezzar, as the first head of what the Bible treats as world-empire, in a dream, which he was unable to recall, but which was in a night-vision communicated to Daniel, also, together with its interpretation. The entire course of future world-empire was outlined — the six hundred years, between Nebuchadnezzar’s assumption of the throne and the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, with hints of a still remoter period. As these predictions are on record, it is easy to test them by the facts of history.
This prophecy is remarkably framed. The first vision is under the figure of a colossal image, no doubt suggesting to Nebuchadnezzar the actual statue erected shortly afterward in the Plain of Dura. The head was of gold; the breast and arms, of silver; the belly and thighs, of brass; the legs, of iron; the feet, of iron and clay, divided into five toes on each foot, suggesting ten smaller kingdoms as the final outcome.
The human head and breast are dual in structure — two eyes, two ears, two parts of the brain, two nostrils — and the upper part of the trunk suggests a more marked duality — two arms, two lungs, two sets of ribs proceeding from the sternum and uniting in the backbone, all this figuratively suggesting a dual empire. The legs suggest not only duality, but division and separation, finally carried to the point of subdivision of two into ten.
This was a singularly accurate forecast of facts of history. Nebuchadnezzar represented a dual empire, the Assy ro-Baby Ionian, Babylon having succeeded to and incorporating the previous Assyrian with its glory. This was the head of gold.
After this was the Medo-Persian kingdom, represented by Cyrus, son-in-law to the Median king, and son of the Persian king. This was the breast and arms of silver.
Alexander, the Macedonian, whose universal conquests made him the next in order of the world’s emperors, represented a somewhat closer unity than was found under Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus. He represented the belly and thighs of brass. The end of the Macedonian era was the proper beginning of the Roman era, this empire incorporating into itself what remained of these previous world kingdoms and their glory. This new epoch is suggested in the two legs, which may well represent the division of the Roman Empire into the eastern and western kingdoms, with their centers on the Tiber and the Bosphorous (395 A.D.), remaining still, after over two thousand years, distinct, one from the other. The period when the feet divide into the ten toes, or the eastern and western kingdoms ramify into ten others, is thought by most prophetic students to belong to the end of this dispensation, and immediately to precede that millennial kingdom of Christ which is to be erected on the ruins of all others.*
Daniel saw a stone, cut out of the mountain without hands, smite the image on the feet of iron and clay, thus reducing the whole image to powder, which was swept away like the chaff from summer threshing floors; the stone itself becoming a great mountain and filling the whole earth. There seems here a distinction between “regnum lapidis” — the kingdom of the stone — and ‘’regnum montis” — the kingdom of the mountain. The former, we are now under; the latter
♦Daniel ii.
95 probably stands for the reign of Christ in the millennium. The stone is already cut out without hands, but is not yet the mountain filling the whole earth. The smiting of the image is yet future, and the comminution process probably awaits the signal judgments at the end of this dispensation.
The material degeneration of this image, from the gold of the head to the iron and clay of the feet, indicates a gradual degeneracy of the monarchial idea — exactly what history reveals. The strength of monarchy lies in absolutism — undisputed rule; its ideal is unlimited imperial power. Nebuchadnezzar was such an absolute despot; but, in the days of Cyrus, the monarchial idea became mixed up and corrupted with the aristocratic; and in the days of Alexander, the aristocratic further degenerated into favoritism; until, in the days of the Romans, monarchy and aristocracy were leavened with republicanism, and at last developed into oligarchy approaching closely to anarchy. This gradual decline from the monarchial ideal is thus, under the figure of this image, traced from the original absolutism through the successive stages of degeneracy, till the final weakness is indicated in the brittleness of elements which, though combined, cannot be united or assimilated.
In the seventh chapter of Daniel, the same truths appear, but under different symbols. What Nebuchadnezzar had seen outlined in a majestic image, Daniel saw forecast in a succession of wild beasts coming out of a stormy sea, which in the Scriptures stands for worldly society in commotion and revolution; the beasts, coming up out of it, indicating tyrannical, despotic and cruel tyrants and conquerers, or popular idol chiefs, who develop out of the midst of revolutionary conditions-Daniel saw first a lion with eagle’s wings; then a bear — one-sided, with three ribs in its mouth; then a leopard with four wings and four heads; and last, a nondescript beast as strong as iron and using its strength with destructive violence. Why the difference of representation? To Nebuchadnezzar, the monarch of the world, world-empire was naturally revealed as a gigantic figure of worldly majesty; but to Daniel, who by divine insight, could, through this deceptive glamour and glory, perceive the inward carnal corruption, bestial sensuality and cruelty, and God-defying arrogance of these world-empires — they were seen under the form of wild beasts.
Accurate historical truth is again wrapped up in this imagery. The lion with the eagle’s wings, still the symbol of Assyria, may be seen in the British Museum, taken out of the palaces of Nineveh
—exactly what Daniel saw as the representatives of the Assyro- Babylonian empire, — the only case in history where the lion has been thus sculptured with eagle’s wings, — a lion for majesty of power; an eagle for swiftness of flight.
The bear was one-sided, the Persian element dominating the Median; and the three ribs in the mouth, doubtless represent Babylon, Lydia and Egypt, devoured in cruel wars of aggression.
The leopard, spotted to represent the variety of nationalities grouped under Alexander’s conquests, subtle and treacherous, stealthy, rapid and soft-footed in movement; the four wings expressing wide conquests — north, south, east and west — and the four heads, the final division of the empire at Alexander’s death among his captains, Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus.
These beasts were followed by the nondescript animal, representing Rome, — strong as iron, with teeth that break in pieces and bruise, and yet, doomed to grow weaker, and ultimately become a prey to other nations.
These historical facts were thus embodied in the book of Daniel, in a double series of symbols, long before they became real in the annals of the race.
The dream of Nebuchadnezzar and the vision of
Daniel leave no room for honest doubt that He whose Omniscient eyes glance over the whole field of the future, and whose Providence shapes history, unveiled to this king and to His own seer the things that were to come to pass thereafter, and of which the students of history have since been, and are now, observers and witnesses.
A brief resume of the argument may be not unfitting at this point:
The Bible contains in both Testaments nearly one thousand predictions, of which seven hundred or eight hundred, perhaps, belong to the Old, and the rest to the New. Of these predictions, the majority are already accomplished; others being either in process of accomplishment or about to be fulfilled in times approaching.
Applying the criteria as to remoteness of time, these predictions were recorded from four hundred to twenty-four hundred years before the events. As to minuteness of detail, on the basis of compound probability the possibility of a chance coincidence between prediction and event is so incalculably small that even mathematical figures fail to convey any adequate conception of it.
As to novelty of combination, absolutely no precedents have been furnished by previous historic occurrences whereby any man, however sagacious, could have conjectured what was to take place. Such mystery of contradiction is found in the paradoxes these predictions present that even the seers themselves did not understand their own predictions, history alone being capable of interpreting their marvellous and mysterious characters.
The argument from prophecy is designed to supply a natural rational basis for belief in a supernatural Being and a supernatural book. Such a belief is faith’s forerunner, preparing its way by convincing the reason; when as yet one cannot see clearly to accept the Bible as the word of God, and Christ as His Son, prediction marks out a path leading surely up to the vestibule where faith enters the temple of truth; he who follows this path comes to a reasonable, intelligent faith, and an equally reasonable, intelligent obedience. The province of reason and the province of faith are thus mutual counterparts.
Reason is first to determine whether the Bible is the Book of God; then what it contains; and then what relation its contents have to the reader. When reason has explored, and satisfied itself on these three matters, then the way is clear for faith to accept the Bible as the Word of God, and its contents in their relation to faith and life. If inscrutable mysteries are afterward found in the
Bible which reason cannot comprehend or explain, the believer properly falls back upon the fact that he has found the book evidenced as the Word of God; and, as there must be in God’s mind much that man’s little mind cannot follow, it is no blind credulity but an intelligent and reasonable faith that still impels to self surrender.
When it becomes necessary to have a serious operation performed upon the vital organs in order to save from death, what does a reasonable man do? First of all, he finds out, on rational grounds, whether a surgeon of whom he has heard is competent to take his disease in hand, and deal with it skilfully. Then he satisfies himself that such surgeon is not a man of malice, and will take no opportunity, because of his patient’s helplessness, to inflict any injury or unnecessary suffering. When a man has thus satisfied himself that the surgeon is skilful, experienced, competent and benevolent, he gives up himself to his care, lies on his operating table, inhales the anaesthetic, and leaves himself passive in his hands.
Somewhat so God says to us: “Here is the evidence that I am God; that I have spoken; that the contents of this Book are My own utterances; are addressed to you, and have a vital relation to your spiritual well being in this world and in the
lOI world to come.” So now, having approached the vestibule of faith by this pathway of intelligent reason, one is prepared to submit himself to God, allow Him with full consent to take charge of him, and even to insert the knife that cuts away the cancer or the tumour, while he lies helpless in the great Physician’s hands. He can trust Him to do what He will; and, if His processes transcend alike his own experience and intelligence, he remembers how he has previously satisfied himself that He is infinitely skilful, competent and benevolent; that in Him infinite wisdom makes mistakes of judgment impossible, and infinite love makes mistakes of malice equally impossible. His book may contain much that cannot be interpreted by present experience and finite intelligence, so that we cannot always tell what reasons lie behind His commands, or what possibilities lie in the scope of His promises; yet when we give up ourselves to Him, such implicit trust is not the fruit of credulity, but the triumph of reason, the natural outcome of an assurance created by intelligent inquiry. Such a believer is not the victim of a blind unreasoning confidence, but the victor over carnal unbelief, and the lies and wiles of the great adversary who is the maligner of God and the betrayer of man!