Christ Anointed by the Father
RECOLLECTIONS OF WHAT PASSED AT THE LORD’S TABLE, 1741.
The subject of my meditation was those remarkable words of Isaiah, li. 16, which I considered as spoken by the Father to Christ: “I have put my words in thy mouth. I have hid thee in the hollow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.”* Observe the regard God expressed to our Lord, and the purposes for which he designed him. The regard expressed to him, “I have put my words in thy mouth.” God gave him plenary inspiration in the highest sense.
* Dr. Doddridge appears to have varied the reading here. In the common version the verse runs thus: “I have put my vrords in thy mouth, and I have covered thee m the shadow of mine hand.”
The words he spoke were not his own, but the Father’s who sent him. He gave not the Spirit by measure unto him, but anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows. He therefore brought the most perfect revelation of God to men, and opened the most glorious scheme of salvation. He mdeed brought good tidings, and published peace, and said unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! And God concealed him in the hollow of his hand: that is, he reserved him until the proper time, the fulness of time, in which he was to be exhibited; and then he protected him in the midst of danger by his secret, but ever watchful power, until the time came when he was delivered for our offences; watching over him, even when he continued among the dead, and at length raising him up for our justification. And what were the glorious purposes for which all was accomplished? The immediate purpose was, to say unto Zion, Thou art my people; but more remotely, to establish the earth, and to plant the heavens. By Him God gathers a church in the world. He raises that sacred edifice on Mount Sion; chooses to himself a people in Christ, and declares to them the happy relation in which they stand; gives them the promises, and the seals of his covenant; and even by these ordinances he says. Thou art my people; — admitting us into a degree of intimacy and freedom of Divine communion, unknown under the institutions of Moses. The high priest went within the veil but once a year; none but the priest within the house, and none but the Levites within the courts. But now the way to the holiest of all is laid open by the blood of Jesus; and the foundations of the earth are laid, or rather, established. God would not have maintained this earth to have been only the habitation of accursed and ruined creatures, therefore, that scheme which insured to Him a people, established it. All things are done for the elect’s sake. For them, he is made Head over all; and might say, with infinitely greater propriety than did David, “All the foundations of the earth are out of course; I bear up the pillars of it.” Psalm lxxxii. 5; lxxv. 3. And it is indeed His ‘Spirit, which supports all that piety which there is in the world, and which has been throughout all the past ages of his people. In which respect He may possibly say to some, as he did to Cyrus, I have girded thee, though thou hast not known me. And all this is, that he may plant the heavens; that he may conduct thither a colony from the earth, and fill those vacant seats which the rebel angels left. All this is, that he may raise from this nursery here below, planted by his hand, and watered by his word, ordinances, and Spirit, young plants to set in the heavenly world, where they shall for ever flourish near the streams of the fountain of life. For ever adored be Divine grace, which has thus honoured us, who deserved long since to have been rooted out of the earth; to have been cast out of his garden with dishonour as noisome weeds; to have been cut down as cumberers of the ground. Yet with us will he plant the heavens! — He will cause us to shine as the firmament; and as, I trust, many of us will be instrumental in turning many to righteousness, and thus shine as the stars for ever and ever. Nay, the meanest and weakest Christian may say more than that, as the views of the gospel rise on those of the prophets; for our Lord tells us, they “shall shine forth like the sun, in the kingdom of their Father.” Matt. xiii. 43.
In breaking the bread, I mentioned the text of sitting down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God. Matt. viii. 11. It would have been delightful to have conversed with good old Jacob; to have seen him even on his dying bed acknowledging that God had fed him all his life long to that moment; delightful to have been with him at Bethel, when in his prosperity there he recognised the Divine faithfulness, and accomplished his vows; — delightful to have known pious Isaac, who, as a type of our blessed Redeemer, so willingly surrendered himself to God, and his father, and was stretched out with all the meekness of a lamb, when appointed to be a burnt offering. And who would not have been delighted to have had an interview with Abraham, the father of us all; that holy man, to whom God has done that signal honour, that all believers of every age and nation should be looked upon as his seed: that holy man, who walked before God, and was perfect, and who is now a guest of distinguished glory at the table above, as he had once the honour to entertain some of the inhabitants of heaven at his hospitable board below.
To sit down, and not only with these holy patriarchs, but with all the apostles of the Lamb; with those illustrious soldiers and leaders in the army of Christ, to whom the whole Christian world has been so much indebted, and to whom we in particular have had such great obligations on account of those memoirs of Christ, and that history of his gospel, which they have given us. And with John, who leaned on the Redeemer’s bosom. With Paul, whose divine epistles we have so often read with rapture, and something of whose spirit, I hope, we have sometimes caught. It would have been delightful to have met with any one of these apostles in their travels, and to have joined with them in breaking bread when they administered this ordinance. But their knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom is now infinitely increased. Then they saw as through a glass darkly; then they spoke with trembling accents. Now they see face to face, and have learned the language of heaven. But O — let our souls remember it with holy joy, and a fervent, growing desire of that blessed interview — we shall there behold not only the apostles of the Lamb, but the Lamb himself! Yea, it is said, the Lamb himself “shall feed them, and lead them unto living fountains of water.” Rev. vii. 17. How delightful will the relish of this water be, which he shall give us! How revivincp the wine, which we shall drink with him in his kingdom! It will then be no grievance of heart to us, that we have, according to his appointment, paid this humble honour to his cross upon earth, and have devoted ourselves to him as his covenant people in this holy rite of his own institution.
I then addressed myself to the spectators, expressing my hope that they had communion with us, and in good wishes that they might have more. I mentioned my own experience before I sat down at the Lord’s table, and my cheerful hope that God would draw them with a victorious sweetness of correction.