New Testament Commentaries, No. III: The Sign

” This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet.” — Luke xi. 29.

” And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lying in a manger.” — Luke ii. 12.

“What sign shoivest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I vnll raise it up.” — John ii. 18, 19.

* ‘As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall the Son of man be to this generation.” — Luke xi. 30.

‘^^ For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified .... the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” — 1 Cor. i. 22, 24.

IN the days of His flesh, and in the course of His personal ministry, our Lord was pleased to make repeated comments on the history of Jonah. Nor is it unworthy of the King of Zion to assume towards the Church the position of a Commentator on Holy Scripture. He is but commenting on the record of His own earlier administration: — the record His own also, not less than the administration is. In virtue of the Plenary Inspiration of Scripture, it is — the Author, Commentator on Himself.*

In the present instance, with the Great Teacher himself for our Commentator, we find that the history of Jonah, when brought into juxtaposition with that of Jesus, affords a threefold topic. First, it presents for our consideration a type;

* For an argument, in this line of thought, on behalf of Inspiration, I may be permitted to refer to “Christ’s Presence in the Gospel History,” pp. 124-146.

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secondly, a parallel; thirdly, a sign. And these three lines of thought exhaust our Lord’s observations on the subject.

These three views of the same topic are apt to be indiscriminately massed up in one. The distinct ideas suggested by each are then lost sight of; the type, the parallel, the sign, are all blended into one vaue and indeterminate notion of some mere resemblance; and even that resemblance is found to fade away into the shallow little element of the time being the same in both — the three days and the three nights. In order to avoid this, we have been careful to call attention in former chapters, first, to the consideration of the type, as set forth in the saying, — “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth;” and secondly, to the consideration of the parallel or comparison, turning as it does so unspeakably in favour of Jesus, — “The men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” To complete our examination of what Christ’s commentary suggests, we have now, in the third place, to consider Jonah as a sign.

That these are three distinct ideas, fitly designated by the expressions we have used, — the type, the parallel, the sign, — will be evident from considering the specific diflferences among the three passages from the Gospels which embody these Divine commentaries. For, very singularly, one of them presents the relation between Jonah and Jesus solely with reference to the sign; another presents it with reference to the sign and the parallel; the third brings into view all the three aspects — first the sign, then the parallel, and then the type.

1. Thus, to take them in the order indicated. In the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, at the beginning, we have the subject set before us in its briefest form. To the hypocritical demand for a sign, Jesus has nothing to say except in this curt, and, by itself alone, somewhat oracular and mysterious answer — “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And He left them and departed.”

Here Jesus draws no parallel between Jonah and Himself. He gives no hint that Jonah was a type of Himself. He confines Himself rigorously to the solitary thought of Jonah as a

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sign; and that without even indicating how this sign would be repeated, or how He Himself would resemble Jonah sufficiently to be to them a repetition of the sign. Nay; He institutes, so far as this discourse goes, — and it must be held to have an intelligible and complete meaning by itself, — He really institutes no resemblance at all between Himself and Jonah; neither the more general resemblance of parallelism, nor the more specific and peculiar resemblance of type. He holds out no resemblance whatever. It is simply and solely the idea of the sign, whatever that may be, which in this passage the Saviour fastens on and confines Himself to. “There shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.” This is the whole statement; and having made it, “He left them and departed.”

2. The passage in Luke is more full and explicit. Starting with the idea of the sign, as they all do, — for all Christ’s allusions to Jonah are in reference to the demand for a sign, — it introduces the parallel also: —” And when the people were gathered thick together, He began to say. This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so

shall also the Son of man be to this generation The men

of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” Manifestly this gives a fuller insight into Christ’s views of His relation to Jonah. We have here one or two particulars in addition to those afforded by the former passage. For, first of all, we have it distinctly stated that the sign of the prophet Jonah which was to be given to that generation was a repetition in the person of Jesus of what had been given to the Ninevites in the person of Jonah. Suppose the only utterance Christ had ever made on this subject were the brief, mysterious one in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, — “There shall no sign be given them, but the sign of the prophet Jonas;” — we must have been left comparatively in the dark as to what that sign, in the case of the Jews, could mean, or how it could be given to them. In this second passage, however, by introducing the parallel, Jesus explains the mystery. He tells us that He Himself will be to that generation precisely such a sign as Jonas was to the Ninevites;

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that there shall be between Himself and this prophet of the olden dispensation such a resemblance or analogy, that in Him, and in His relation to that generation, the sign of Jonah shall be substantially transacted over again, — with this difference, that the repetition shall be something far more complete and wonderful than the old orioinal, insomuch that “the men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”

3. But we have the most complete view of the matter in the twelfth chapter of Matthew, from the 38th verse. Here, as in the former passages, the idea of the sign is prominent: — Verse 89th: “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.” In verse 41st the parallel is introduced as before: — “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” But in verse 40th, the particular line of parallelism, in respect of which Jonah was a type of Jesus, is specified: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly: so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Hence the three are bound together in the singular relation which is expressed in the following proposition: The prophet Jonah is a sign, in virtue of that particular element in the ‘parallel which constitutes the tij’pe.

There is a parallel; there is a type; there is a sign. A certain particular in the parellel is more than a parallel: it is a type. And in virtue of that particular, Jonah is a sign. So closely are the three connected.

Yet they are distinct. A type is something more specific than a parallel. Many circumstances in the life of every believer are parallel to corresponding circumstances in the life of every other believer; yet the one series are not types of the other. A type is an event or ordinance in one sphere, analogous to a corresponding event or ordinance in a higher sphere; as, for instance, the ordinance of the brazen serpent, — an instrument or institution of healing in the lower sphere of bodily disease, typical of Christ crucified, God’s ordinance in the sphere of the spiritual and

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eternal for healing the disease of sin. Thus the consignment of Jonah to death, and his subsequent deliverance, constitute a type of atonement by death and of justification in risen life; a type, in short, of Christ’s death and resurrection. It is not a mere parallel or resemblance that is pointed out between two facts in history; it is a type, — a typical illustration and confirming seal of certain divine truths and doctrines, — when it is said, “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so was the Son of man three days and nights in the heart of the earth.” A type is far more than a parallel. A sign, again, is distinct from both.

TAB.T FIBST.

The Sign; — The General Principle.

“Wlmt sign shoivcst thou into “s, seeing thou doest these things! Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” — John ii. 18, 19.

A SIGN is an evidence. It is a reason, or call, or ground for faith, — for believing. Thus the Apostle says: — “Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.” As a sign, they are unnecessary and superfluous to those who believe already: it is to unbelievers that they are capable of being a sign; warranting them to believe; requiring them to believe.

There are two frames of mind in which a sign may be demanded or desiderated. It may be demanded as a reason for believing; or the demand may be made as a pretext to avoid belief. You may ask for a sign, as a help to faith. You may ask a sign, to get an excuse for unbelief.

The two frames of mind thus indicated are wide as the poles asunder; and they might be contrasted very sharply on many other points than the one of asking a sign. But let us confine our attention to this one.

The Scribes and Pharisees pressed on Jesus to give them a sign. That they did not wish to believe on Him, but to plead that they were excusable in not believing, is evident. They had signs enough already to have constrained them, in the humble spirit of Nicodemus, to say: — “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God were with him.” But, disliking the righteousness of His character, and the holy, reformatory power of His doctrine and ministry, their desire was, not to acknowledge, but to stave off the conviction and acknowledgment of His Messiahship. Hence, they pretended to suspend their faith on evidences which they still desiderated and craved; and they made demands which, had they been granted, they would have treated precisely as they had treated those they had got already; while, on the other hand, the refusal of them they were preresolved to point to, as justifying their continued unbelief. Now God can, with infinitely perfect accuracy and righteousness, deal with this perverse frame of mind; and in doing so He can illustrate that solemn two-edged word of the Spirit: — “With an upright man thou wilt show thyself upright; with the froward, thou wilt show thyself froward.” He can bring to bear upon men’s minds a style of dispensation which, on the supposition of their uprightness of purpose, shall carry in it nothing but what is beneficial and comfortable, but which, on the supposition of their obliquity and dishonesty, shall at once unmask and punish them. So did Jesus deal with the deceitful demand for a sign.

Consider, for instance, how this comes out on the earliest occasion on which the demand was made (John ii. 14). As one having authority, Jesus had dealt with the Temple as His Father’s house; asserted His right to reform and purify it; driven out the money-changers, and overthrown their tables. Immediately the Jews demanded a proof of His right — an evidence of his having this authority. “Then answered the Jews and said unto him. What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?” Mark our Lord’s singular answer. “Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” We know that He spake of the temple of his body; — that body in which, being His own body, the fulness of the Godhead dwelt personally; — that body of which the tabernacle or the temple was a symbol or type; — that body which

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the Holy Ghost, speaking expressly, hath called “a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands” (Heb. ix. 2), We know also that the temple on Mount Moriah and the temple of our Lord’s body stood so related to each other — the type and antitype, the sign and thing signified — that the Jews could not destroy the one without destroying the other also; that when they destroyed — that is, put to death — the temple of His body, they in point of fact signed the warrant for the destruction of their own temple and all its associated polity. For in rending the veil of the one temple, that is to say, His flesh, they tore the veil of their own temple from top to bottom; and, because of their iniquity in crucifying the Lord of glory, the time came swiftly when not one stone of that building was left upon another. Farther: we know that the temple of Christ’s body was raised up again in three days; and we also know that, by another bond between type and antitype in this matter, — namely, that subsisting between the temple of old and the spiritual Church of God, which is the temple of the Spirit, — the resurrection of Christ’s body was the resurrection virtually in New Testament form of that very temple, spiritually and typically considered, whose doom the death of Christ’s body sealed. All giving most singular depth of meaning to His utterance: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” For, as it refers necessarily, by reason of the typical bond, to the literal temple of Jerusalem, virtually informing the Jews, if they were able to hear it, that their destroying of His body would overthrow their own temple and the whole ritual and polity which had their seat and centre there; so, by another typical bond, it equally informed them that by His resurrection their temple and polity would be raised from the dead, — “I will raise up again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down,” — though it would rise anew in more glorious form, in more spiritual aspect, in fact, in the superior grandeur of resurrection: for here one may almost apply the principle, “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body,” the resurrection body, namely; so there is a natural temple, and there is a spiritual temple and Gospel Church — even a resurrection one, the tabernacle of David, fallen down when David’s Lord was slain, but raised in resurrection-spirituality when David’s son rose from the dead. All this, at least, is embraced in our Lord’s

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most wonderful and enigmatic, but not misleading, answer to the demand for a sign. And all this depth and variety of meaning in it tended to make it ultimately, to the upright and pure-hearted disciples, an evidence most largely instructive — a sign most powerfully confirmatory.

But mark how it acted on the froward, and unmasked their frowardness, — how it brought to light their hypocrisy and hollowness. They had asked a sign — a convincing token and proof of the Divine authority of this great Reformer. They of course desiderated a miraculous one, — one transcending man’s power to give, and thereby proving God’s presence when given. Such a feature must be an essential in the kind of sign which they have professed their anxiety to obtain. Whatever other features may belong to it, this at least must not be wanting. This is the one indispensable characteristic of what they have expressed their desire to be furnished with, and which they have thereby declared themselves prepared to welcome. Could their utter falseness be made more glaring, if this be found to be the first, and indeed the only, feature in the proffered sign which, instead of welcoming, they quarrel with? Yet even to this extent they are snared in meshes of their own hypocrisy. “Then said they, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?” This is what they take offence at in the sign proposed: “Wilt thou rear up, in three days, what took forty and six years to build?” Had He professed nothing more than power to raise it up again in forty and six years, as at the first, the point of their scoffing answer is gone — their objection taken away. But then where were the value of such a sign? The very force of the sign — even in their own view of it — consisted in the brevity of the time; in the element of miracle; in the in-bringing of the Divine hand; — the very thing which they professed to desire; the solitary thing also they object to, when they get it. So remorselessly, by Christ’s wise dealing with them, are they compelled to disclose their frowardness!

They acted in the same spirit, and were dealt with in the same manner, when, on repeating their demand at subsequent periods of His ministry, Jesus uniformly remitted them to substantially the self-same sign — “the sign of the prophet Jonah.”

PABT SECOND.
The Sign — Of the Prophet Jonah.

“As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man he to this generation.” — Luke xi. 30.

What may “the sign of the prophet Jonah” import?

I. Let us take it, first of all, as set forth in its most enigmatical form in the discourse recorded in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew. Here Jesus draws no parallel between Himself and Jonah; and makes no allusion to the ty2^& of the burial and resurrection. Isolated, therefore, from all parallelism and from all typical idea, the sign must have in it meaning and force considered as by itself alone. We are bound to investigate its import, in the first instance, apart from the light thrown upon it by subsequent and additional illustration. Resigning, then, in the meantime, the aid of Christ’s fuller explanations; what design and force may we perceive, in His thus nakedly propounding on this occasion the sign of the prophet Jonah?

We may see that it rebukes the spirit in which a sign was demanded.

Ye seek a proof of my claims. But ye do so, not in order that ye may intelligently, honestly yield to them, but that ye may, if possible, escape from doing so. Ye seek a sign, ye crave an evidence; not in the spirit of true humility; not even in the spirit of honourable science; not on the footstool of lowly inquiry; not even on the seat of manly wisdom; — but as sitting proudly, and sneering, on the judge’s bench. Ye bring my claims before you, — to your bar; as if they must be greatly dependent on your decision; as if they and I were humble suitors for your valuable esteem, your indispensable support. And, while seated thus on the bench of judgment, you demand a sign. I give you —

(1.) A sign that drives 5^ou from the judgment-bench; that strips you of the affected dignity of judges, and panels you as miserable criminals at the bar. I give you “the sign of the prophet Jonah,” — the strict and terrible denunciator, the unwilling but enforced denunciator of the wrath of God. I give you the sign of him who cried —” Forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed: — and besides this he cried nothing more. Ye forget that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men; and that ye are yourselves perishing in your iniquities beneath the anger of the Most High. Ye dally and tamper with my claims and protestations as a Saviour, as if ye yourselves did not need to be saved; as if ye were not lost souls yourselves, but sitting with as much ease as if ye were in heaven, while sneering with as much scorn as if ye were from hell. Ye deal with my pretensions as conceited critics, not as criminals condemned; and ye ask a sign. Be it so. I give you the sign of the one only minister of God into whose mouth was put nothing but the language of wrath; and I do so if by any means I may startle you into a better spirit, — the only spirit in which you could be capable of understanding the salvation of heaven. I give you, — ye proud, ye self-righteous hypocrites, — I give you a sign that may well scatter your lofty thoughts of yourselves, and bring down your high looks. I give you the sign of him whose preaching clothed proud Nineveh in sackcloth, and brought its hicfh-minded kingf from his throne to the dust. And I tell you that no sign but this is suitable for you. Nay, more: —

(2.) It is more suitable to you than it was to them. “Ye are an evil and adulterous generation;” — an evil generation, as Nineveh was: but an adulterous, as Nineveh could not be. Ye were a people to your God, — bound to Him in a marriage covenant, and the God of Israel, your Maker, was your Husband. Ye have violated the marriage bond — the covenant of your God. Ye have gone and served your Husband’s foes, and thwarted your Husband’s will. Yet ye have greatly vaunted your union with Him. Ye have claimed it, when it served your purpose; and renounced it, when that pleased your pleasure. Ye have proudly claimed the name of Israel, and proudly scorned the heathen. But alike in that proud claim and in that proud scorn, ye have proved that ye are not Israelites indeed; nay, that ye are an adulterous people; that ye are aliens from the true commonwealth of Israel — aliens, outcasts, enemies, heathen in your hearts. I give you a sign at your demand; but I give you the sign of the only prophet to the aliens, the outcasts, the uncircumcised, whom ye hate. It is that that makes it so intensely suitable to you. I give you the

s sign of the prophet Jonah, — God’s ambassador to heathendom: for yours, even in Emmanuel’s land, is the spirit of heathendom; yea, a spirit worse than that of the uncircumcised and the unclean. And, —

(3.) Say not, — you dare not say, — that in this I am “your enemy, because I tell you the truth.” In vain will you charge me herein with hatred to my own countrymen, — with malice or malignity towards you. It is a small thing that I be judged of your judgment; and my heart ye are incapable of reading. But what I thus do, in giving you the sign of Jonah — the denunciator of wrath to the heathen, — can pain you, can cut you to the quick, can injure you, olly if ye are the proud, the evil and adulterous generation that I say. And then, rigorous and relentless as my word, — my sign, — to you in that case must be, it will, for that very reason, in that same proportion, be righteous and brightly unobjectionable, as in a flood of resistless light.

But is there one soul among you startled by the sign of the prophet Jonah; startled as Nineveh was; humbled; descending from the throne to the dust, — from the proud seat of judge or critic on the bench to the bar of self-condemnation, and of the criminal confessed? 0 heavy laden one! I give to thee the sign of the prophet Jonah; the sign of him under whose ministry

NO SOUL IN REPENTING NiNEVEH PERISHED: NEITHER ASSUREDLY SHALL THINE! “HbI THAT COMETH TO Me I WILL IN NO WISE CAST OUT.”

So gloriously triumphant in its righteousness, throned high above all objection; yea, so gloriously triumphant in its graciousness, when rightly read, is the sign given by Jesus: merciful unto the merciful; f reward only to the froward.

II. Taking now the passage in Luke xi. 29, we have the same general statement: — “There shall no sign be fjiven them, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.” But an explanation is now added: — “For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall the Son of man be to this a:eneration.” What additional liorht does this throw on the theme in hand, on the import of the sign of the prophet Jonah? Doubtless, when we draw for greater information on our third, and final, and fullest passage, we shall see that it is chiefly in respect of His being three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, that the Son of man resembles the son of Amittai in being a sign. That particular consideration, however, is not introduced here. And it is again to be observed that the statement as given in Luke must be intelligible by itself — capable of being interpreted and expounded without drawing on information afforded by another evangelist. What meaning would the readers of this one gospel — those who had no access to that of Matthew — attach, and be warranted in attaching, to the simple statement, “As Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall the Son of man be to this generation “?

The answer is not difficult. They would, at least, regard in its affirming that the Son of man Himself is the sign spoken of: not something He might do; some miracle He might work; some isolated part of His ministry or labours; — but Himself; His person. You seek a sign; the Son of man shall be a sign unto this generation. I am myself the sign. Ye shall have no other from me, — none beyond and besides myself.

There is a great and precious truth here. You seek a proof and evidence of Christianity? You desiderate convincing demonstration for the truth of the Christian religion 1 The great leading sign or proof of Christianity is Christ. To the demand for a sign, a sign of the gospel and glad tidings which are to all people, we give the angelic song in reply: “This shall be the sign: you shall find the babe in swaddling bands, and lying in a manger.”

Surely Christ’s own person may be taken as the strongest proof of His pretensions. His sinlessness, His absolute faultlessness, — enemies being judges: His whole bearing, so lofty and majestic, yet so meek and mild: His compauionableness with men, so intense; yet His distinctness from all men, and His separation, so complete! His righteousness so rigorous, yet never verging on the ascetic: His loving-kindness so wonderful, yet never tinged with weakness or facility: His entire uniqueness: His divine singularity: His authority and power of command; in calm supremacy throned high over all men, while yet He mino-led with all; the servant of all; not ministered unto but come to minister: — Oh! can this generation avoid feeling that a greater than Jonah is here? If you want higher proof than He Himself constitutes, must ye not be blind? It is not light you need, but eyes; not a new medium of proof, but vision; not an outward sign, but inward spiritual conception. “An evil generation” verily it must be, that in the presence of the Son of man, “seeketh a sign.” They proclaim thereby that they are evil. They prove thereby that they are blind.

Ye Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, — demanding a sign! Ye be blind leaders of the blind. The Son of man Himself is the clearest of signs; the brightest of lights: and yet ye perceive it not. I am come a light into the world, and he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life: yet ye seek an evidence; a sign; a light, whereby you may perceive me! When darkness hath covered the earth and gross darkness the people, I am come, the Bright and Morning Star, — yea, the Sun of Righteousness, with healing in His wings; — and ye seek the kindling of a taper whereby ye may perceive me! It is not evidence you need; but vision: — not a sign to prove the light; but eyes to see it. Know, therefore, that for judgment am I come into this world; that they which see not might see, and they which see might be made blind. True, you may sneer still, and reply, “Are we blind also?” My answer is, “If ye w’ere blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.”

Thus again, “to the f reward He shows Himself froward.” Yet herein He is “upright unto the upright; pure unto the pure.” This sign is a judgment on the evil generation; but is it not mercy, and love unbounded, to the humble? Your God wall give you no meaner sign and proof of your salvation than the Son of His love, your own Divine Saviour himself. He sends the Son of man to be a light unto you: and He thereby gives you a light so great, so good, so brilliant, so suitable to your capacity and so sufficient for your need, that light greater or better, a sign more convincing and irresistible, it is impossible to bestow. He giveth you a Prophet in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; Himself, in His own person, the light of lights; the sign of signs; the miracle of miracles; the pledge of love and the fulness of blessings; the eternal Son of the Father of Lights, the brightness of the Father’s glory. No lesser sign does He give you: the true light that lighteth all dark places of the universe; the proof of all that is true; the sign of all that is good; the

The Si en, 277 way, and the truth, and the life. Shall not He Himself be to you the best attestation of His own and His Father’s grace and glory? And when unbelievers seek a sign, will ye not answer them and say: — This has been the sign; we have found the babe in swaddling bands, and lying in a manger. Will ye not welcome, as love and blessing boundless to you, what through their own frowardness alone could be a judgment to the froward, the Saviour’s own declaration that the Son of man shall be a sign to this generation?

That we have correctly indicated our Lord’s own special idea in the discourse as given by Luke, is rendered very strikingly plain by the train of thought with which he closes the theme. It is profoundly applicable as a continuation and conclusion of the subject, though at first sight it appears to be alien from it. The preceding remarks will show the continuity of idea; for Jesus now substantially tells them that they need not more light, but a better eye: “No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy whole body also is full of darkness. Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness” (verses 33-35).

IIL We now pass to the discourse in Matt. xii. 38-40, where Jesus completes the theme of “the sign of the prophet Jonah,” by introducing the crowning idea of the death and resurrection. We have interpreted the former passages, each in a manner consistent with itself, without drawing for information on the others. The closing and completing idea is now to be found here: — “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” And therein shall he be a sign to this generation: therein shall they receive, in its completeness, the full sign of the prophet Jonah.

We may remark, in passing, that this is identically the sign which Jesus gave from the beginning; identically the same which He gave in answer to the very first of this long series of tempting, dishonest demands, — a reference of His questioners for

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satisfaction to His own death and resurrection, — “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

The question, then, is; How was Jonah a sign unto the Ninevites in respect of his having been three days and three nights in the whale’s belly? How did that render him a sign? And correspondingly, How is the Son of man a sign in respect of His death and resurrection?

Evidently, as we have already seen, Jonah’s terrible experience was a sign, a testimony, a confirmation of His message, in that it witnessed by a fact in his own history — his own immediate history as the connnissioned messenger from God — both to the certainty of God’s wrath and the riches of His grace. Jonah could point to his own experience in connection with his very mission to Nineveh, and tell that God is not slack concerning judgment, as some men count slackness; not prone merely to lift His hand in threatening, and too facile and tender ever to bring it down in vengeance. His very messenger of wrath had himself been in “the belly of hell.” And yet even from thence there was salvation. Who, then, can tell but God may turn and repent even concerning Nineveh?

Similarly, Christ’s death and resurrection are a conjoint sign and seal of His mission from the Father. It is, indeed, in this respect that the Son of man becomes truly that overpowering sign which either blinds and dooms the unbelieving, or finally convinces and illuminates the humble in heart. His person, even after all, would not, without His work — His work of atoning death and justifj’ing resurrection — be such a sign as we have affirmed. His person truly is the sign; but it is so, and that conclusively, because the Son of man was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. It was, even from the first, in the view of His sufferings and victory, that any light shone in the promised Deliverer. Save for this, — save for the light thrown forward from His coming Cross and resurrection-Sabbath, — even the divineness of His person and the stainlessness of His character would have been no real light in a world covered with gross darkness; no light into God’s purpose of mercy towards it, God’s special moral administration in it. It is in the Cross and empty grave that we truly, and for the first time, see light. It is there we see light into our state and case as the simple subjects of a holy God, the guilty criminals before a righteous Judge, the trembling anticipants of death and eternity. It is there we see light into the malignity and odiousness of sin; into what it deserves at God’s hand, and what He is resolved to inflict. It is there we see light into the infinite saving love of God, and into the greatest, deepest problem of eternal ages — how He can really and righteously forgive the guilty, and reclaim and renew His enemies. It is there we see heaven opened and a fathomless eternity waiting for us, bright with a loving welcome, and lighted up with a joy that is full of glory. Yes; it is in this respect — in that He was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth; it is in this respect that the Son of man was dead, and is alive again; that He has become the clearest of all signs, the sweetest and brio-htest of lights.

No miracle so great as this; no sign so convincing; no evidence so conclusive; no light in earth or heaven so clear.

When the man of science desires to entrance his audience, he takes a portion of the humblest of circumstances, the base and blackened charcoal, a splinter of a brand from the burning; and manipulating with his tiny wires the force which roars in the thunder and flashes in the lightning, he makes to play on that valueless, unsightly substance two streams of influence from opposing poles of the hidden power; till soon a silvery gleam gathers on its humble surface, and gradually the brightest light that philosophy and art can generate shines out with dazzling splendour, paling the ineffectual fires of the lamps that until now had irradiated, the assembly. You would not ask the aid of one of those depreciated and paler lamps to show you that the more brilliant light was there.

When the living God, in a dark world rushing on to outer darkness, resolved to give a “bright and morning star,” — a “Sun. of Righteousness,” — the strongest and the sweetest light that men or angels could see. He took the base, dishonourable tree ot Cavalry; and on the humble person of His Beloved, there made sin for us, He caused to meet two mighty streams of influence unseen; — two streams of influence wide as the poles asunder; — the one, of avenging Justice as it slew the sacrifice; — the other, of redeeming love providing it. And as they met and blended into one, there blazed forth on that dishonourable wood “the

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light of the knowledge of the glory of God,” while the sun in the heavens grew pale, and the angels veiled their faces with their wings. For three days and three nights the eyes of men were holden that they could not see it. But the resurrection morn tore away all veils for ever, and the dis-eclipsed sign of the prophet Jonah shone out resistless — outshining all other signs and lights; the very presence-chamber of the King Eternal affording now no glory more brilliant;” for the Lamb is the

LIGHT THEREOF.”

Therefore, while the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, we preach — Christ crucified and risen, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

PABT THIRD.

THE SIGN: — CHRIST, THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD.

“For tJie Jews reguire a sign, and the Grcels seek after u-lsdom; hut we preach Chr ist crucified... the poicer of God, and the wisdom of God.” — 1 Cor. i. 22-24.

It is with reference to the combined objections of Jew and Greek — of a false ecclesiasticism and a false philosophy — that Christ is here styled the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. Otherwise it would be somewhat remarkable that these, the natural, rather than the moral attributes of Godhead should be specified.

Usually the Cross is spoken of illustrating, displaying, and giving scope for the moral attributes of God; especially His Justice and Mercy. The wonderful harmony in which the apparently opposing claims of justice, rigorous and stern, and of mercy, gentle and compassionate, are reconciled in a substituted, suffering Saviour, fills the spiritually-enlightened mind with wonder, confidence, and praise; and is apt to attract our contemplation almost engrossingly. Glorious to the awakened and enlightened sinner is the Cross, or death of the great High Priest; as at once, on the one hand, satisfying Divine justice and declaring God’s perfect rectitude as the Judge of all the earth; and, on the other hand, securing the forgiveness of iniquity, transgression, and sin: and, for one who trembled to see the Divine character truly, lest the sight should banish hope for ever; for such an one to see the love of God finding a satisfaction for His offended Justice, and the Son of His love, who is the gift of love, making justice glorious in justifying the sinner who believeth — how blessed a surprise! how perfect a relief! how admirable an object and occasion of adoring joy! Never can we cease to preach Christ crucified, the righteousness of God and the love of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth; and never can we exhaust the fulness of the revelation thus given of the moral attributes of Deity.

Yet it is well to see arrayed in this same Cross of Christ, and in the revelation it gives of God, the evidence and the forthputting of His natural attributes too; His Power and Wisdom, as well as His Justice and His Love. A loyal subject will take delight in contemplating his monarch’s glory as refiected in the stern rectitude of his character and tender amiability of his disposition; and a finer combination cannot be conceived than the righteousness which shuns all wrong except to avenge and rectify it, and the mercy which seeks out misery to relieve it. And as the sovereign should stand before his subject, the embodiment of justice unswerving and compassion unwearying; combining the “righteousness” for which “scarcely one would die,” but on the strength of which a nation can live and rest secure, with the “goodness” for which “some would even dare to die” — righteous and gracious alike — that sovereign must command warm, cordial, loyal admiration. It is the moral that thus enforces your esteem and love; and, in point of principle, it matters not though that monarch sway the weakest sceptre in the world, and have little either of prowess or of skill to support or to adorn the throne.

But while the moral is glorious irrespective of the natural, while justice and mercy form the essence of all that we inust admire in character and action — how joyful if justice and mercy can command power and wisdom in their service.

Let the same monarch stand forth to view, surrounded by myriads in arms, pledging their poiuer in the field; and by an inner circle of a nation’s hierarchy of talent in counsel, pledging their ivisdoin in the cabinet; the spectacle becomes still more

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attractive; and the moral glory of a just and gracious throne is seen to be established by power and adorned with wisdom.

Seen in the light of God, such a throne is the Cross of Christ; where mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each other; — it is the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation; — with this difference, that Christ alone is All.

Yet we shall see in the Cross neither Power nor Wisdom, if we look away from Grace and Righteousness. It is in effecting the alliance of righteousness and grace that the wisdom of God conspicuously appears, and His power is put forth unto salvation. Listen, for instance, to an apostle in a parallel passage in Romans i. IG: — “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” But why is the preaching of Christ crucified the power of God? “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith” — the perfect, justice-satisfying righteousness imputed unto faith is therein revealed; for that reason the gospel of the Cross is the power of God. And it is grace that reveals that righteousness; for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men — and grace, compassion, mercy, love, is the counterpart of wrath. Grace, therefore, in the gospel reveals righteousness, and righteousness gives holy scope for grace; therefore this gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Moreover, also, it is the wisdom of God.

And how precious is this combination! Power alone, apart from wisdom, is mere force; and wisdom, without power, is in danger of 1 becoming mere subtlety and policy. Power, not guided by wisdom, is blind force; and wisdom, destitute of power to achieve its purpose, is apt to degenerate into deception or manoeuvre. Power without wisdom seeks to compel; Wisdom without power is apt to deceive and overreach. Satan, in Paradise, had no power over holy Eve; his wisdom was, therefore, all exerted in trick, “subtlety,”’ sneaking deception. The powerful world, persecuting the Church, is far from wise; its power, therefore, is brutish force. The persecutor is at once a tyrant and a fool.

But wisdom combined with equal power is not subtle stratagem: it is intelligent will. Power combined with equal wisdom is not blind immeasurable force, but quiet efficiency. There is a combination of wisdom and of power in the starry heavens; and the wisdom is that of most marvellous simplicity; the power is that of quiet and noiseless energy. Powerful wisdom is not full of strange devices; but straightforward and grand in its simplicity. Wise power is not distinguished by noise and crash; but by the planet-like silence of its sure accomplishments. Even so the Power of the Cross “cometh not with observation;” and the Wisdom of the Cross is “the simplicity which is in Christ.”

So very simple is this wisdom, and so noiseless is this power, that the one has been counted “foolishness,” and the other “of none effect.” Not but that men are fond of power, and fond of wisdom too, could they only get them to their mind. “For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.” The whole world, Jewish and Gentile, are in quest of these very things.

The Jew stipulates for a “sign;” some astounding manifestation; something wonderful, miraculous, faith-compelling; something that shall force his belief; that shall make it impossible for him to disbelieve any longer. It is just poiuer that he demands. But it is power apart from Christ; power prior to Christ; power greater than Christ. Ah! little does he know that a sign better than Christ there is none; a power higher than Christ there is none. Christ himself is the sign; the miracle of miracles; the power of God unto salvation. True; that power of God which Christ crucified is is a quiet, unobtrusive power. He does not “come down from the Cross” and scatter His crucifiers as by the whirlwind. When the Jews in seeking a sign exclaim: “Let him come down from the cross and we will believe him;” He quietly refuses their demand. He continues to suffer in apparent weakness. But “the weakness of God is stronger than men “! In this very weakness He is the power of God.

The Greek, in like manner, seeks after “wisdom.” The Jew demands a miracle, the Greek an argument, to compel their faith. Both unite in this, that they would have their faith forced, their unbelief made impossible any more. The Jew seeks this by some forth-putting of power; the Greek by reasoning or logic. The Greeks delighted in speculation. They would be lighted along by the path of argument, their faith constrained by wisdom. But the Cross 1 A murdered man! An executed felon A professed Saviour of others, himself in shame and death, the prey of others! Does that stand to reason? Is that philosophy? “Foolishness “! — stupidity! — exclaims the Greek, as the Jew had complained of a “stumbling block.”

Nevertheless, Christ is at once the Power and the Wisdom of God. If any one join with the Jews and seek “a sign,” or powerful, faith-engaging evidence, Christ himself is the infinite power; the best of signs; the very Omnipotence of God. If any one fall in with the Greeks and seek “wisdom,” truth, infallible knowledge and certainty, Christ himself is the truth infallible; the infinite wisdom; the very Omniscience of God. Almighty power operates in Him: infinite light shines in Him. The heavens and the earth were powerfully made; but Christ is the power of God. In wisdom did the Lord make them all; but Christ is the wisdom of God. Created nature is a limited result of Divine power and wisdom. Christ unlimitedly is all God’s power and wisdom unto salvation.

It is by seeing Christ to be both the Wisdom and the Power of God that we really see Him to be either. It is Wisdom that redeems from apparent weakness, and it is Power that redeems from apparent folly.

I. It is Wisdom that redeems the Cross from apparent weakness.

Contemplate the Cross of Christ; contemplate Christ crucified. And view Him, simply in the light of sense and human history and reason. In vain do you search for any evidence of omnipotence. On the contrary, you can find nothing but humiliating tokens of weakness. He is oppressed; He is afflicted; He is stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He is bruised, and grieved, and apparently fainting through thirst. Stripes are laid upon Him, and He resents it not. His soul is being poured out unto death. He is “crucified in weakness.” And nothinff but weakness can the eye of sense or intellect discover. In vain you search thus for the Power of God.

But bring into view the Wisdom. Let the light of God’s Word and God’s Spirit show you the wise scheme in hand; the wondrous plan in progress. Be it yours to see what intellect and history cannot show you in the Cross of Christ; what the revealed will and wisdom of God alone can show. Be it yours to get, reverently speaking, behind the scenes; away from the shallow, superficial, garish world, with its love for the external, the hollow, the transient, the deceiving. Get out by faith into the unseen realm of which this dying malefactor is the Prince and Lord; and there learn the exceeding sinfulness of sin; its terrible, righteous, inevitable doom in the wrath and curse of the great Judge of all; and the loving substitution of this Saviour, bearing sin and the wrath due to sin, in our room and stead. Contemplate the power of God inflicting righteous wrath; and think of the power unseen by mortal eye — eye of flesh or eye of reason — that must be silently engaged in bearing it. Contemplate the power of sin, of Satan, of death, and hell, all bearing down on this suffering Saviour. And think of the greater power of this Saviour Himself, not borne down and swept away by the flood-tide of hell’s utmost effort, but maintaining His ground, abiding by His Cross, drinking His Father’s cup of wrath, and baffling His enemies’ attempts to vanquish Him. See the Cross as Wisdom shows it: and you see a Power that silently, noiselessly, unobtrusively, yet with secret and resistless efficiency, is quelling all other power; breaking the power of Jew and Gentile, Church and State, priest and potentate of earth; breaking the power of Satan and his hosts of hell; breaking the power of death and sin; exhausting all the power even in God’s most awesome malediction! Ah! be it that He is “crucified in weakness;” yet this “weakness of God is stronger than men “! It is the very power of God. It is omnipotence unto salvation. Because of the Wisdom of God, Christ crucified is the Power of God.

II. Conversely; to see again how intimately the two are blended: — It is Power that redeems the Cross from apparent folly.

Contemplate again the Cross of Christ, the dying Saviour. And, whereas formerly you sought to see the power, you are looking now for the wisdom. You are in search of traces of profound wisdom in this asserted scheme or plan of salvation. Where do you find them? Again it becomes plain that the eye of sense or natural reason cannot find them. Nay; the more

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you see of what is going on beneath the eye of sense, and the more you examine it in the light of human intellect unaided, the more apparently hopeless is this strange arrangement; the more foolish this miserable failure. For, is it not an utter failure? A Saviour of others, who cannot save Himself! A Saviour of sinners; and sinners slaying Hhn! A peculiar Son of God; and God forsaking Him 1 A Deliverer from death; and death carrying Him away as his prey! How can these things be? Where is there ivlsdom here?

And you cannot see it, till you bring into view the power. Consider the mighty forces that are in action; the grand and auo’ust aoencies at work. Then you see the wisdom that encountered them in this peculiar manner; the wdsdom that baffled all their subtlety; that drew them out in all their might and in all their scheming; in all their force and all their fraud; that compelled them to stake and peril in the combat all their resources; and then eternally defeated them. You see that — with powers like these in operation, and victory gained over them all exterminatingly, even in Christ’s hour of utmost woe and weakness — this is the arrangement of “prudence and of understanding, findinof out wonderful inventions:” and admitting that the idea of a Saviour of others who cannot save Himself is “foolishness;” — it is a “foolishness of God that is wiser than men!” and Christ crucified is the Wisdom of God unto salvation.

Thus it is the Power that redeems from apparent folly, as it is the Wisdom that redeems from apparent weakness. The Cross would have been foolishness but for the noiseless, unobtrusive, secret power. The Cross would have been weakness but for the hidden wisdom of God. Combine these; and Christ crucified is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.

Let it be observed very specially that it is “Christ crucified” that is the Power and the Wisdom of God. It is Christ in the fundamental act of His priesthood; offering Himself a sacrifice to satisfy Divine justice and reconcile us to God. This is indeed remarkable. Would we not have thought that when Christ was to be called the Wisdom of God, we would have been asked to contemplate His Prophetic office? and wdien Christ was to be called the Power of God, to contemplate His Kingly office? As a teacher, He might have been called God’s Wisdom; and as a prince, God’s Power. But not so. He is a wise teacher; and He is a powerful prince. But it is as a priest on His Cross that He is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.

As a Teacher, He might have taught us many truths; but there could have been no power in them but for the Cross. Gospel morality might have been very beautiful — but weak. It might have been very acceptable to the Greeks in their search for wisdom. But oh! the folly of being followers of a dead, a murdered Teacher 1 Yes; and that folly is undeniable, if the sufferer be not a Priest.

And so, as a King, He might have done many great and powerful things; but there could have been no luisdom in them; no adaptation for the cancelling of guilt; for reconciling men to God; for giving peace of conscience and power over Satan and death: — none but for the Cross. The astoundino; sigfus and wonders might have been very acceptable to Jews. Gladly would they have accepted Him as king; taken Him by force and made Him a king. But oh! the shameful Cross! The King of the Jews crucified! Write not, “the King of the Jews,” — but only that he said it. Our king crucified! They stumbled at that stumbling-stone. A king should be with great power and observation.

Yet not in the kingly office are we to look for all the power of God; and not in the prophetic for all His wisdom. It is the priest, — the sacrifice, — the Lamb of God, — Christ crucified, — who is the power of God, and the wisdom of God unto salvation. If He is not a priest, the Greek may rightly reject Him as a teacher, and call the whole exhibition folly; and the Jew reject Him as a king, and call it weakness and unprofitableness unto the uttermost. The Greek inevitably falls into his error, and the Jew into Ins, because they both are blind to the priestly nature and glory of His death. The Greek seeks a wise teacher — and the Jew a powerful king. A crucified king and teacher seems absurdity and imbecility. And it really is so, except upon the ground that Christ crucified is an atoning priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec. As a prophet, there is wisdom in His instructive voice. As a king, there is might in His majestic arm. His Cross may cast a cloud over His wisdom; and cast more than a doubt upon His power; yet, rightly seen, the Cross, as the altar

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of eternal propitiation, proves that He was not merely powerful and wise, but the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.

It may illustrate more fully the unison and reciprocal action of these attributes in the person of Christ crucified, if we consider the import of His mournful cry in the garden, as it appealed to His Father’s wisdom and power both, and even seemed to question them: — “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”

1. Take it as an appeal to His Father’s luisdom. 0 my Father, — Father of lights, — can all thy penetrating insight into all possible conditions and contingencies descry nothing for me but this coming Cross, this present cup of woe? Can Omniscience discover no alternative, — no open door of escape from this dire necessity? Can no Divine and all-wise device render this agony and woe unnecessary?

And none is forthcoming. Is Wisdom, therefore, at fault? Yes, if Wisdom has not found in this the grandest scope and exhibition for Power. But Omnipotence acts and glorifies Omniscience. Omnipotence is to have opportunity now as it never had before, and never will again. The Almighty “will” of God is coming into play; and its almightiness is to be specially illustrated. “Father, not my will, but Thine be done:” Thy will; Thy will omnipotent. “I come to do Thy will” — not to suffer Satan’s. “I come to do Thy will” — not to do mine own. Let me be borne through in doing Thy will. “I delight to do Thy will.” Save me not from dying; but save me from death. Strengthen me to vanquish death by dying; and to destroy him that hath the power of death. For this, O Father, is Thy will omnipotent; “by the which will my people shall be sanctified through the offering of my body once for all.” And now in the Power of this “will” of God on the Cross, Wisdom is seen to be not at all at fault; under no eclipse; but shining in its fullest splendours; — a calm and steady light; able to wait its vindication, — its judgment brought forth as the noon-day. And just by its apparent failure, when no device was forthcoming to open for the Sufferer a door of escape from suffering — no plan devised for causing the cup to pass from Him; just by its apparent “foolishness,” the Cross shines out as the Wisdom of God.

2. But the appeal may be regarded still more simply and directly as an appeal to the ‘power of God. “Father, if it be possible V Art Thou not able? Is it not within the compass of Thy power to make this cup pass from me? Is not Thy power almighty; and is anything too hard for Thee?

It is for Wisdom to reply: and how? The appeal to Wisdom is answered by power: — Thy will — Thy mighty, Thine Almighty will — be done. Even so the appeal to Power is answered by Wisdom; and Wisdom can show that finite power might carry the cup aside, but Omnipotence — the power of God — shall be displayed in drinking it. Yes: twelve legions of angels might have borne Christ away from His Cross. But they would have borne Him away from the opportunity of showing that the power of God is Almighty. A flashing sign from heaven, in the cohorts of seraphim carrying the Sufferer aloft upon their wings, would have pleased the sign-seeking Jew. But it would have been limited, created, finite strength displayed. Grappling with hell, and the curse, and the wrath of God, and the power of sin, and the sting of death; — drinking His Father’s cup; — Jesus, in apparent “weakness,” was the infinite Power of God.

We rejoice to “preach” this. “We preach Christ crucified, the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God.” When we preach Christ, we keep this in our own view, — we set this in your view; — namely, that the Christ whom we preach, whom we press on your acceptance, is the infinite Power, the omniscient Wisdom of God. In Him there is not merely perfect righteousness to justify you from all sin, and infinite love and grace to make that righteousness freely over to you, “sinner,” “enemy” (Rom. v, 8, 10), though you be: but this very Christ is the power of God, the wisdom of God.

Can you fail to see how very thoroughly this meets your case, and shuts you up to an immediate reception of the Saviour?

You tell us you are not merely guilty. In the moral attributes of God, as they meet in Christ crucified; — in Divine Justice, satisfied, and owning the righteousness brought in, — in Divine Love, willing that that righteousness be immediately yours; — in mercy and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace embracing each other; — you see a satisfactory provision for the removal of your guilt and condemnation. But alas! you are

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utterly ignorant of how to embrace it, and utterly powerless, though you knew the way. You stand upon your want of wisdom, and your want of strength. You know not how to believe to the saving of your soul. You have no power to come unto Him that you may have life.

But is not all this most unsuitable, out of place, — in a word, impertinent, — if Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God? You cannot see through this difficulty, and that other mystery, in the scheme of salvation! But what barrier is that to be allowed to place in the way of your receiving Christ? He is “the Wisdom of God;” and to tarry, and hesitate, and scruple, and hang back from receiving Him, till your difl&culties are all removed, is just to say that you will not receive Him who can, and alone can, remove them all. And then your weakness! You cannot come till you are drawn. You are overwhelmed in moral inability and spiritual death! But what of that? It implies your want of power. Shall that be a barrier in the way of your receiving Him who is “the Power of God?” If inability is your disease; if want of power is your danger; is not Christ your very remedy, seeing He is “the Power of God “? Oh, that “stumbling” Cross! — Omnipotence is in it; — not indeed to save you in your unbelief. Omnipotence was not in it to save Christ from His cup of woe; it would have needed far less than omnipotence to save Him from that. But omnipotence was there to save Him from being overwhelmed in His dying hour; — to give Him the victory by dying. And so omnipotence is in it, — not to save you in unbelief, but from unbelief; — to save you in dying to all hope but Christ; — to save you in dying unto all hope without Christ, and all hope except Christ; and in believing into all hope in Him who is able to save unto the uttermost.

Indeed, there is no omnipotence in Christ’s Cross to save you, if you become not one by faith with Him as your living Head; even as there was no omnipotence — and because there was no omnipotence — put forth to save Him from becoming one with you, His death-doomed members; or from the death to which His oneness with you then doomed Him. It would not have needed omnipotence to save Christ from becoming one with you, and standing at the bar of an angry God in your room. That

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would have given no display of God’s power. Something infinitely less than almightiness could have done it. “Twelve legions of ano-els” mio-ht have done it. It did not need God’s uttermost of power to save Christ from dying. It did, to save Him in dying, and to make Him conqueror of death and Satan, when the curse of God due to sin was on the side of death and him that had the power of death: and now, therefore, He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him, identifying themselves by faith with Him. The omnipotence of God in the Cross contemplated Christ as one with you, and gave Him victory over all that His oneness with you brought down upon Him. And now it contemplates making you one with Him, in opposition to all that would prevent that oneness; and therefore saving you unto the very uttermost, — “mighty to save “!

There is a drawing power in the Cross, utterly unbounded; to bring and to save the chief of sinners. Give yourself up unto it; it will bring you into the love of God, into your Father’s bosom. There is power in the planetary system, and in the pathless spaces of the stellar heavens. But the power there is limited: God’s power could go greatly farther in its efforts than the heavens and the earth give proof of. It cannot go farther than it goes in the Cross. There, there is not merely a display of power, leaving infinite efforts and effects for God’s power to achieve behind and after all; there is all God’s very power itself — the Power of God, His Omnipotence unto salvation.

There are obstacles in the way of your salvation; your forgiveness, your holiness; your coming unto Jesus, your believing on His name, your walking worthy of His love; — obstacles manifold and strong. Are they almighty? One need scarcely seek an answer. Earth and hell and all creation may join their power to destroy you; but their allied forces do not make Omnipotence, Finite powers at the uttermost, they fall infinitely short of Almightiness. And can Almightiness not cope with them? Yea, verily. But where does Almighty power emanate, to overthrow them? In what direction — what line — may I so place myself as to find Omnipotence coming forth to draw me to the Lord? In the line of the Cross. In your looking unto Jesus. “I, when I am lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” Through

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the Blood of the dying Surety, ahnighty power comes forth on all them that believe.

Yea: and the splendours of omniscient Wisdom break around your enlightened spirit also.

If it were not so; if God should lay aside His Wisdom; and make a mere diplomatic stroke of policy in saving sinners, — a subtle compromise with the claims of law, — a mere trickful appearance and illusion of justice, — an exhibition of indulgence without remission of sin, or of proffered remission without shedding of blood, — a gift of general, uncovenanted, unmediatorial mercy; there could be no power needed, and no power put forth, in such a scheme of saving you. But God maintains His Wisdom, and glorifies it to the uttermost in the Cross. All shall be wisely done. “My servant shall deal prudently.” There shall be nothing to regret afterwards. There shall be no real, no rightful interest injured, either in the meantime or in the long run; no, not in all the eternal issues. All shall be rightly, fairly, justly done. All shall be candidly explained. All shall be fitly and righteously transacted. This “judgment shall rest for a light unto the people:” — clear as “light” itself: conclusive as a final “rest:” — no claim of justice set aside; no voice of truth silenced; and no gift of grace, but righteousness shall sanction it; and no entrance into glory, but holiness itself shall smile approval. Such shall this salvation be. Ah! then, it must be a wisely-planned salvation; devising for the eternal best; a “wisdom ordained before the world was, for your glory,” — for God’s glory also in the highest, — and for making great the glory of Him who is the Mediator between God and man. Very specially, and very graciously, it is a wisdom ordained for your glory; for your true holy dignity and honour; for making you a king and a priest; for admitting you to see and to share the glory of the Son of God; for making you altogether like Him when you shall see Him as He is. It is no blind, sheer force that carries you from the darkness of guilt and of the shadow of death, through many a paroxysm of conflict with Satan and with sin, to the presence of the Lamb. It is infinitely wise Power. And it is not mere scheming which brings you off, as by a stroke of policy. It is infinitely powerful Wisdom, making you more than conqueror. Christ is to you both the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, when He saves you. “The Lord is your light and your salvation. He also is the strength of your life.”

Yes: Strength and Lig-ht are thine, 0 Zion; for Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God is thine. “Arise; shine: for thy LIGHT is come.” “Awake; awake: put on thy STRENGTH, O Zion.”