The Bible and Christ
The heart of our theme and the inmost core of the Bible testimony is The Person of the Son of God.
However costly the casket which contains a pearl of great price, its value lies mainly in the gem that it holds. The greatest question of all as to the Oracles of God, is what witness do they bear to the Messiah? The question whether Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and the Saviour of men — this the Bible answers with supreme care and absolute certainty.
The whole Old Testament is pervaded by prophecies of Christ. Leaving the indirect predictions for subsequent consideration, we now consider the direct forecasts concerning Him; and, because it is impracticable to examine the whole of this body of prophecy within such narrow limits, it may be well to select, almost at random, some leading passages from different parts of the Old Testament on which especially to concentrate attention.
(i.) First of all, Genesis 111:15. Immediately
103 after the fall of man, occurs this primal prophecy of the seed of the woman — the promise of a Redeemer. This is also the germ of all messianic prophecy that follows, down to the close of Malachi; hence it is well to look closely at this germinal prediction and conception.
God said to the Serpent: “And I, Jehovah, will put enmity between thee and the woman, “And between thy seed and her seed: “It shall bruise (or crush) thy head, “And thou shalt bruise (or crush) his heel.” This is a magnificent pictorial metaphor. It suggests a human form, with his heel upon the head of a serpent, crushing the life out of the head — his higher part — while the serpent is planting his venomous fangs in his victor’s heel — his lower part. This shows how much a very short prediction may contain and suggest. It presents, in outline, the new representative seed, the Second Man, the Last Adam. He is the Seed of the woman — nothing is said about his being the offspring of the man — a significant omission, and the words of Jehovah which follow are addressed, first of all, to the woman, the coming Deliverer being specifically and emphatically called her “seed.” There is to be eternal enmity between the principle represented
by the serpent — the Devil — and that represented by the Seed of the woman. Again the Seed of the woman is to deal a death blow on the serpent, but the latter is to be permitted at the same time to inflict a sting upon the heel that crushes him. Last of all, this is all due to a divine arrangement: “/ will put enmity between thee and the woman.”
As the oak is germinally in the acorn, and the eagle in the egg, all subsequent Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament are here in germ. There is scarcely added, in the whole aftercourse of such prophecy, one idea that is absolutely new, other predictions growing out of and expanding this germinal prediction.
Christ is further on revealed as a priest, but here His priesthood is foreshadowed in His wounding by Satan — He is a Vicarious Sufferer. Christ is to be a king; here the suggestion of His kingship is found in His victory over the Devil and his works. Thus, as the Messianic idea is followed out through the Old Testament, this germ is seen to expand and ramify, thus containing in substance all the others.
(2.) Moses gives to the Children of Israel a prediction of a great prophet that is to arise:
“The Lord thy God shall raise up unto thee a prophet,
“From the midst of thee,
“Of thy brethren, like unto me.
“Unto Him shall ye hearken.”
*’I, Jehovah, will put My words in his mouth.
“Whosoever will not hearken unto My words
“Which He shall speak in my name,
“I will require it of him.”*
A great prophet was to be specially raised up by God to come out of the tribes of Israel, and to have a certain likeness to Moses; but to be invested with unique authority as the mouthpiece of God; and to reject His authoritative utterances will bring the hearer into judgment. Thus, in one verse of twenty -eight words, we have a suggestive prediction of the coming Prophet, as in Genesis iii., of the coming Priest and King.
(3.) The twenty-second Psalm. This is specifically the Crucifixion Psalm, the one fragment of Old Testament scripture that plainly presents Christ on the cross. Here is a suffering victim; His hands and feet, pierced; stripped of His raiment, and partially nude so that others can look on His bones; they that pass by mock and deride Him, shooting out the lip; His mortal agony is attended with extreme thirst. The Psalm opens with the Atonement cry: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me!” and
* Deuteronomy xviii: 15-19.
another of his cries on the cross may be heard in the last verse: “Shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born:” “It is finished!”* In fact, the seven sentences on the Cross may be found, at least suggested, in the course of this poem.
More than this, it is a “Psalm of Sobs,”f The Hebrew shows not one completed sentence in the opening verses; but a series of brief ejaculations, like the gasps of a dying man whose breath and strength are failing, and who can only utter a word or two at a time: “My God — My God — Why forsaken me — far from helping me! — words of My roaring! —” There is something overwhelmingly pathetic in this Psalm, when the reader sees in it his suffering Saviour, gasping for life, unable to articulate one continuous sentence. From these lines tears seem to drip and blood seems to drop. The writer thus forecasts that mystery of the cross, which remained unsolved for a thousand years. It was like a dark cavern at the time; but when the gospel narrative portrays Jesus as the crucified one, it is like putting a lighted torch in the cavern, revealing radiant crystals.
(4.) The ninth chapter of Isaiah, sixth verse,
* Original Hebrew,
t Bishop Alexander, “Witness of The Psalms to Christ” 107 not known to be a prophecy of Messiah until it was, as such, quoted in the New Testament.
“For unto us a child is born;
“Unto us a son is given:
“And the government shall be upon His shoulder;
“And His name shall be called Wonderful,
Counsellor,
“The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father,
“The Prince of Peace.”
“Unto us a child is born” suggests the human nature of Christ; “Unto us a Son is given,” that suggests the divine side; “And the government shall be upon His shoulder.” here is kingship; “And His name shall be called Wonderful:” Matthew shows the correspondence between Him and the prophecies concerning Him; “Counsellor:” Luke introduces Him as Man’s Friend and Counsellor. “The Mighty God:” in Mark He is seen as the Mighty Worker; “The Everlasting Father:” John shows Him identical with the Father, from Everlasting; “The Prince of Peace:” In the Acts of the Apostles the Prince of Life is seen, beginning His career of conquest, with spiritual and not carnal weapons.
Here, then, are forecasts of His humanity, divinity and kingship; and his fivefold character as in
the Gospel narratives and the Acts of the Apostles.
io8 (5.) The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Twenty-seven continuous chapters, from the fortieth to the sixty-sixth, constitute one great Messianic poem of the Old Testament. The only divisions in the original are those marked by the refrain: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” which recurs at the end of the first and the second third, dividing the poem into three about equal parts. In the center of the middle part, and so of the whole poem, is this fifty-third chapter — the one unquestionable prophecy of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God, vicariously suffering for man.*
Marvellous chapter, indeed! containing only twelve verses, yet fourteen times announcing the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice for sin: “He hath borne our griefs. — Carried our sorrows. — Was wounded for our transgressions. — Was bruised for our iniquities. — The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. — With His stripes we are healed. — The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. — Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, — By His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many. — He shall bear their iniquities.
The whole chapter overflows with this conception and never was its mystery solved until the Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us. Those who
*Acts. VIII: 28-36.
question its reference to Jesus Christ, forget that the Holy Spirit, through PhiHp, taught the Etheopian eunuch that He is here meant, so that we have Him who inspired, also to interpret.
This chapter is also an example of the mystery of contradiction, for it is a bundle of paradoxes or apparent contradictions, as numerous as the verses of the chapter. “He is a root out of the dry ground, yet fruitful; He has no form nor beauty, yet is the chosen servant of God; He is despised of men, yet the appointed Saviour; He suffers unto death, yet He survives; He has no offspring, yet has a numerous seed; He makes His grave with the wicked, yet is buried in the sepulchre of the rich; He suffers adversity, yet enjoys prosperity; He is triumphed over, yet He triumphs; He is despoiled, yet He despoils; He is cut off in the midst of His days, and yet prolongs His days; He is condemned Himself, yet He justifies the condemned. These paradoxes remained a problem until the cross was set up, and the sepulchre burst open, and the Son of God, Who came down to die, went up to reign. The suffering Messiah and the reigning Saviour are here seen as one, but the mystery of this union could by subsequent history only be made plain.
(6.) Daniel, ninth chapter, twenty-fourth
no verse: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people.
“Know therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah, the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks.” The Hebrew word is “heptades” or periods of seven. Seventy times seven years is four hundred and ninety. There are three or four ways by which the sacred number of years have been reckoned. One decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, went forth four hundred and fifty-seven years before Christ; if the thirty-three years of Christ’s earthly sojourn be added, it gives exactly four hundred and ninety — four hundred and fifty-seven plus thirty-three.
*Sir Robert Anderson gives perhaps the most satisfactory calculation yet made, showing that it was exactly to a day the four hundred and eighty-three years prophesied in the ninth chapter of Daniel, from the time of the going forth of the commandment until Jesus entered into Jerusalem in the capacity of the Messianic Prince, riding upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
(7.) Micah, fifth chapter, second verse:
“But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou
♦“Daniel in the Critics’ Den.”
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”
Here is the prophecy of a governor to come out of Bethlehem. That village is to be the place of His birth, who is to be Ruler in Israel; yet He is one whose goings forth have been not only from antiquity, but from eternity.
There is no question about whom that prophecy forecasts. But Christ’s virgin mother did not live at Bethlehem, but at Nazareth; and it was not very likely that, on the eve of the primal sorrow of her sex, she would needlessly travel over hot and dusty roads from one village to the other. But the decree that the Roman world should be taxed, compelled all who were subject to taxation to go to the place from which the family hailed, and be enrolled; and so, although that tax was not collected till eight years later, God thus brought that virgin mother from Nazareth to Bethlehem at the precise time which would fulfill the prediction of Micah.*
* Those “wise men from the East,” came probably from Persia, the land of Daniel; and, if they had Daniel’s prophecy, they knew that the time for the Messiah’s birth had about come, but if they had not also Micah’s prophecy, which foretells it to be at Bethlehem, they might not have known where he was to be born, and so they followed the star to Jerusalem to inqviire of the scribes there as to the place.
Our selection has been limited to seven passages only from the Old Testament concerning Messiah: Gen. Ill, Deut. xviii, Psalm xxii, Daniel ix, Micah V, Isaiah ix, and Isaiah liii; and yet here is one consistent progressive unfolding of Messianic prophecy. The first contains the germ of the rest, outlining the general scheme of deliverance, through the woman’s seed.
Deuteronomy forecasts His prophetic office.
Psalm XXII, the Psalm of the Crucifixion, the priestly.
Isaiah ix, His double nature, as Child of Man and Son of God, — the kingly.
Isaiah liii, His vicarious suffering for sin.
Micah gives the place of His birth; and
Daniel, the time of His birth.
Again we may apply the criteria of prophecy, heretofore laid down as tests:
(i.) Remoteness of Time. Between the Old and New Testaments is a gap of four hundred years, during which no prophecies are recorded, which so divides the two periods as to make impossible any collusion between the Old Testament prophets and New Testament evangelists. Men cannot reach hands across the gap of four centuries, whether for good or evil purposes, either for combination or conspiracy; and this interval of silence makes sure that those who wrote the prophecies could have had no part in bringing the predictions to pass.
(2.) Minutiae of Detail. Over three hundred predictions about the Messiah are found in the Old Testament. According to the law of compound probability, the chance of their coming true is represented by a fraction whose numerator is one, and the denominator eighty-four, followed by nearly one hundred ciphers! One might almost as well expect by accident to happen to dip up any one particular drop out of the ocean as to expect so many prophetic rays to converge by chance upon one man, in one place, at one time. God has put especially upon these prophecies as to His Son, the stamp of absolute verity and indisputable certainty, that we may know whom we have believed. Mistakes in so solemn a matter are fatal and God meant that none should be possible.
(3.) Novelty of Combination. Nothing was
ever like this before. Never a human child who
was also a Divine Son — at the same time wounded
by the Devil and crushing him — never another
who was appointed Saviour, yet crucified as a
malefactor — Who died, and yet lived — could not
save Himself, and yet saved others. Such paradoxes are not only without precedent, but defy explanation unless they refer to Jesus Christ.
To sum up the argument, the prophetic Scriptures fully vindicate the honour and majesty and deity of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is a vital issue with every believer, since his salvation hangs on the truth of these prophecies, and the reality of the claims of the Son of God, and to one who devoutly searches for evidence, ample proof is at hand.
The accuracy of prediction is most minute. As Christ was to be born, He must be born of some of the families of the earth. Every time a new marriage issues in offspring, from some of these new branches of the family tree, one must be selected from which God’s Messianic Flower is to spring and bloom. One mistake would be fatal. From Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, Shem is chosen; from Abraham’s two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, Isaac; from Isaac’s two sons, Jacob and Esau, Jacob; Jacob’s family tree has twelve new branches and Judah is the fruitful branch. Every time prophecy makes a particular choice, there is new risk, humanly speaking, of selecting the wrong branch, and so of falsifying facts, and nothing short of absolute accuracy will do when God claims to speak.
Again Messiah must have a birthplace. Three continents — Europe, Asia and Africa — were known to the ancient world; Asia is chosen. But Asia has many countries — one of them is indicated, a little country known as the Land of Promise — Palestine or Syria. Here were three districts: Judea, Galilee and Samaria; it is Judea that is the elect one. But here again are many villages; out of these “thousands” the favoured one is little Bethlehem. But as Bethlehem means “House of Bread,” the name might stand for more than one village located in a fertile tract; and so, to make prediction more definite and certain, it is “Bethlehem, in the land of Judah.” The prophet puts his finger on one obscure village on the map of the world; but he speaks infallibly, for the Omniscient God was behind his utterance.
Messiah must be born at some time. It might have been in any century and any year, but with absolute certainty the exact year is foretold.
Old Testament prophecy is God’s “Plant of Renown.” It grows from its primitive germ, and branches into minute twigs and remains a mystery for many centuries. Just what it means and what it is there for, man knows not clearly. Now and then one of the old-time believers or godly men, like David, sees Christ dimly foreshadowed in these predictions; but when history comes and touches twig after twig, they burst into bloom; and now the Plant of Renown becomes a burning bush, and the place is holy ground. Inspired argument! Absolute certainty! Divine verity! There would be no honest infidel in the world were Messianic prophecy studied, nor any doubting disciple if this body of prediction were understood. Here is God’s Rock of Ages, whether or not we know how unshakable is faith’s standing place, and how needless it is to be discouraged when attacks are made on the Word of God.
Sometimes history seems to have been moved backward, and the tragedy of the suffering of Christ is re-enacted. Men are again striking Him with the rod, spitting in His face, passing Him by and deriding Him. And alas! He is being also wounded even in the “house of His friends,” and crucified afresh before a dying world. Well may we therefore rejoice to vindicate His assaulted majesty and dignity by appealing to those Old Testament prophecies concerning Him, which are to a candid mind so conclusive and convincing.
One seldom meets an unconverted inquirer who
seems absolutely without prejudice on religious
subjects. Once a young Japanese came to the
writer of these pages. He had been sent over by his government to study questions of Western civilization, philosophy and science. He had found that his Buddhism would not stand investigation, and, satisfied that it was a false faith, had cast away his idolatry and superstitions — a man absolutely without any religion. Infidels there are a plenty, but they are not without a religion of their own, for infidelity is the worst kind of a false faith, with the worst sort of a creed. They who affirm that they believe nothing, believe the most incredible things. But this man was no infidel. He had cast away his idols to the moles and bats and abandoned his ancestral traditions, but his mind was like a sheet of blank paper on which truth might be written, and his frank words revealed his condition: “I have heard something of Christianity and I want to know whether it is the true religion.” With Bible in hand we together went over the body of Messianic prophecy. A little book prepared for doubting minds — “Many Infallible Proofs” — was put into his hands and he went away, but came back shortly after a firm believer in Jesus Christ, and afterward returned to Japan to teach his countrymen how the prophecies of the Old Testament found their accomplishment in the Christ of the New; and that without doubt the
Book is inspired, and Christ is the Son of God. The
ii8 path by which he arrived at that rational faith was the study of Messianic prediction.
It is of vast importance to get before every man and woman the scope of this argument — this most neglected department of study — the prophecies of the Old Testament with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ.
A double argument is found in them: first they absolutely authenticate the Old Testament as an inspired book; and, second, they absolutely authenticate Jesus Christ as the Son of God. It is alike inconceivable that such a body of prophecy could have been mere guess-work or have found its place in any merely human production; and that so many predictions should point forward to one individual in the future, who is either a knave or an impostor, a deluded fanatic or an insane fool. The prophecies move as in procession before the Person of Christ and, like soldiers, salute Him as their general-in-chief, and He, to whom they thus pay homage, must be none other than He “Whose goings forth have been from of old, even from everlasting.”
These are only, however, direct predictions, and but a few even of them; but they suffice to banish all reasonable doubt when we consider the remoteness of the time in which they were spoken; and the surprising minuteness of detail to which they descend, even to His birth of a virgin mother, the number of pieces of silver given for His betrayal, His silence before His accusers, and His meek and unresisting submission before His crucifiers, the dying sentences on the cross, the hooting, mocking, insulting language of those that passed by, the piercing of hands and feet. His agonizing thirst, the double disposition of His raiment.* In view of these and hundreds of other particulars, successively unfolded during the long period covered by Old Testament writings, it is absolutely inconceivable that all this could have been a mere chance coincidence of forecast and fulfilment.
She was an extraordinary Queen who lately sat on the throne of the British Empire, and for a longer time than any other monarch of history. At the time of her coronation, there was a series of magnificent festivities in honour of her accession to the throne, and, last of them all, the performance of that great oratorio of “The Messiah,” which is such a favourite with British audiences. The Queen presided, and she had been told by those
* Here is another paradox, “They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.” Psa. xxii:l,8. If they parted His garments, why did they need to cast lots? They distributed the lesser attire, but as to His circular, seamless robe, they said: “It is a pity to rend it; let us cast lots whose it shall be.” So the double prophecy was literally fulfilled.
who were familiar with court manners that, though it is customary with the British public to arise, when the opening notes are struck of “The Hallelujah Chorus,” and to remain standing until it is finished, it would be a violation of her Imperial dignity if she should rise with the multitude, as it is the royal prerogative to sit when others stand. When the chorus began, and the great multitude rose to their feet, she yearned to stand up and so confess with them her allegiance to the Messiah in whose honour the chorus was sung; but she remembered her instructions, and the modest young woman, who was scarcely yet familiar with royal dignity, kept her seat as the words rang out, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.” But, when in the last part of the chorus, the words pealed out — “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,” she forgot her court instructions and her royal dignity, and, rising to her feet and folding her arms across her breast, she bowed her head with the crown of empire upon it.
To a devout believer, the whole Bible is one Oratorio of the Messiah. Prediction joins prediction in one Hallelujah Chorus — “Hallelujah, Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.” And, as the climax is reached, and the promised Seed of the woman and the crucified
Christ is seen to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, he cannot maintain an attitude of indifference. He must join the great cloud of witness-bearers and cannot keep silence, and he sings:
“Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of All.”