| We know that “the sufferings of Christ” were accomplished at His first coming, and that “the glory that should follow” will be revealed when He comes again. We live between His two advents. But the Old Testament prophets lived before either coming, and they “inquired and searched diligently” as to what “the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,” when He spoke through them of “the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” They saw the first and second comings of Christ in one blended vision. Isaiah wrote of One who “is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” On the other hand, he said of that coming One that “He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.” The two comings of our Lord are inseparably connected in the Word. “He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,” and we wait for Him to “appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” |
