Signs to the Sons of Men

S° far as man was concerned there was a marked unpreparedness for the advent of Jesus. Yet He came in the fullness of time. Everything was ready in the purpose and economy of God. But while there was a general spirit of unrest and undefined expectation abroad in the world, neither His own nation nor the Gentile world were prepared for the appearing of the Messiah.

With regard to Israel it was true that “He came unto His own, and they that were His own received Him not.”! They did not receive Him, because partial blindness had fallen upon them even in regard to their own prophecies. It is remarkable that these people who possessed, and were supposed to be instructed in the prophecies concerning the Messiah, had almost altogether lost sight of one side of the prophetic message concerning Him.

Isaiah had portrayed, in unmistakable lines, and with detailed definiteness, the picture of the suffering Servant of God. How wonderfully the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah was realised in the Person of Jesus Christ. But these people had not begun to understand the fact of the suffering of Messiah; they had no conception of a lowly, despised, and rejected Deliverer. They expected One Who should set up a kingdom of earthly power. And when He came from lowly and despised Nazareth, and took the position of the Son of God, they were incredulous, unbelieving, simply because they had not understood their own Scriptures.

The same prophet had announced the fact of the Incarnation. “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”2 To the Hebrew that was a descriptive name, and the simple meaning of Immanuel was “God with us.” It was the distinct foretelling of the stupendous fact that He should be the God-man, but they had never realised it. The people had largely lost their spiritual sense, and were looking only for the advent of a great prince who should deliver them from the bondage of Roman tyranny, unmindful of the more awful slavery of materialism.

Yohn 1. 11. Isa; 7. 14.

They had no conception of the Servant of God as lowly and suffering, neither of that deeper and sublimer truth that God would be manifest in the flesh; consequently there was no preparation for His coming, no official national recognition of the advent.

Turning from His own people to the Gentile world, what was the condition of affairs: The three great world-forces when He came were the Roman, the Greek, and the Hebrew. The Roman was the nation of government, the Greek of culture, and the Hebrew of religion. The militarism of Rome utterly despised Judea, looking down upon it as one of the small and turbulent provinces, always to be kept in subjection. The Roman was certainly not waiting for a new king to be born in Judea.

And what was the attitude of Greece? The cultured men ot Greece held in contempt the religion of the Hebrews. Hellenism and Hebraism were utterly opposed as ideals of life. The Greek would have treated with the utterest scorn the idea that a new teacher could arise out of Hebraism. All this serves to show that there was not, neither could be, any welcome to the Saviour from the world as it was when He came. He was neither expected nor desired. All the known world was in a spirit of unrest, but men had no conception of the character of the deliverance really needed, and therefore Jesus came unrecognised and unknown. There was no welcome for Him.

But the time was now in the economy of God for His advent, for man in sin had sunk to deepest depths. The world has never had a more powerful government than the Roman, and in many respects Greek culture has never been surpassed; but in spite of all this, sin was rampant. While there still exists terrible corruption in the world to-day, there is nothing to compare with the pollution of life when Jesus Christ came. Corruption was everywhere, and that in spite of the best that men could do in government, in culture, and in religion.

But though there was no human welcome to Christ, God granted to the men of that day certain signs that were wholly supernatural and remarkable.

These were of two kinds — direct and indirect. Of the first there were three — the star that led the wise men to Christ; the angelic ministry renewed at the time of the advent, and the fulfilling and renewal of the voices of prophecy. All these were definite signs, pointing to Him, directing attention to Him, in a world where men were not prepared to accept Him, and did not welcome Him, as the One sent from God for the fulfilment of the Divine purpose.

I. Of the sign of the star in the East! a great many explanations have been attempted, with a view to accounting for it in other than a supernatural way, which if they were not sad, would be amusing. Men have attempted to prove that it was simply the ordinary movement of some star which attracted the attention of these men. The evident sense of Scripture leads to the conclusion that it was a special Divine arrangement. There was in the shining of that star a signification which led these men from their country to the place where Jesus was born. It was an extraordinary and special movement in the stellar spaces, designed to lead these men to Christ. One of the most poetic thoughts about that star fell from the lips of a Welsh preacher. He suggested that it may have been the embodying of the Shekinah glory of old, which had been homeless since the infidelity of God’s people, and now went outside the covenant to bring men back to the true ark of the covenant, its abiding home henceforth. This star shone in an unexpected place, outside of the covenant, to attract men to the privileges of the covenant.

It has been often said that the magi were kings. There seems to be no warrant for the statement. More probably they were priests in their own country. The word is of Aryan derivation. These men in all likelihood came from Persia, and had devoted their life to the study of the stars. They were astrologers. In these times men smile at astrology; but it should never be forgotten that astrology preceded astronomy, as alchemy preceded chemistry. Israel had been under Persian rule, and there is no doubt that the men of Persia had become acquainted with much of the religion and hope of the Hebrew; and they would in all likelihood be specially attracted by such predictions as coincided with their own religious habits. In all probability they knew the prophecy about the star out of Jacob, the sceptre out of Israel.2 They knew that this star indicated the birth of a king, so that when they came they

Matt, 20.ay a: 2Num. 24. 17.

said, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews, for we saw His star in the east, and are come to worship Him.”1 This sign within the radius of their own observation led them to the fulfilment of what was best in their thought and service. That has always been the way with devout seekers after truth. God reveals Himself to them at the point where they are sincere seekers. The first sign of the advent of Christ was the star which shone in the darkness of an outside nation. ~: ‘

Next there was the sign of the angelic ministry — the message to Zacharias;2 the message to Mary ;3 the word to Joseph;é the first solo of the advent over the plains of Bethlehem.5 An angel announced the coming of the forerunner to Zacharias; an angel announced to Mary that she should bring forth a son; an angel warned Joseph, and led him out of peril; an angel sang the song of the advent to the shepherds, and was joined by a multitude of the heavenly chorus. So that the angels who had so long been silent, came again to announce the advent on earth of their King.

But perhaps the most remarkable sign was that of the voices of prophecy. They had been silent from the time of Malachi until the advent of Messiah. In dealing with the voices of prophecy, there is first the fulfilment of prophecy in the coming of Jesus; and secondly the uttering of the new prophecies in connection therewith. Matthew deals only with the old voices. In Luke, on the contrary, the voices of the old prophets are not referred to; all are new.6 In Luke are found the new voices to Zacharias, to Mary, and Elizabeth in the first chapter; to Simeon and Anna in the second chapter. Christ was coming unrecognised and unwelcome, but all the voices of prophecy of the past were being fulfilled in Him, and in Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna, Simeon and Zacharias, new powers of prophecy gained inspiration from His advent. Add to these the voice of the forerunner which, in the period immediately preceding the opening of the public ministry of Christ, attracted crowds to the valley of the Jordan, and moved the nation to its very centre. This new prophetic manifestation centring in Jesus was an unmistakable sign to the sons of men of the Divine nature of His mission.

1Matt. 2. 2. 2Luke 1. 11. 3Luke 1. 26. 4Matt. 1 20. 5Luke 2. 10-12.

®The Scriptures which speak of the old voices are Matthew 1. 23; 2. 6, 15, 17, 23. The Prophecies to which they refer are Isaiah 7.14; Micah 5.2; Hosea 11.; Jeremiah 31. 15; and Isaiah. $3. 3.

i TOR CRISmse OF (re Be CERES?

Il. Beyond these there were indirect signs. In connection with the visit of the magi, remember their testimony to Herod and to Jerusalem, the splendour of their gifts, and their attitude to the Child. These all constituted signs to men, They brought gifts for a monarch, and the significance of their visit is seen in Herod’s terror. He knew what it meant. It.was a sign to royalty, this bringing of rich gifts.

Then again there was the story that the shepherds told, at which the people wondered — a strange story that spread over that whole district.

There was also the sign of the slaughter of the innocents. All these were such as to arrest the attention of the people. The star in the East, the visit of the magi, the’ story of the shepherds, the slaughter of the innocents, the songs of the angels, all directed attention to the advent of Jesus. The heavens gave their testimony, and became luminous with a new light at night. The stellar spaces spoke by the appearance of a new star, which arrested the attention of the men who watched the heavens. Heaven as well as earth was moved at the advent, and hell itself was moved, as is shown by the stirring up of the hatred of Herod’s heart, and the awful slaughter of the innocents.

These signs were sufficient to attract attention, and point to the advent of Christ, but there were few to read the signs of the times, and not until long after did men begin to understand the deep significance of these signals of the advent. To-day men understand them in part, and every day are coming to realise more and more their deep significance.

*Luke 2, 18.