“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Rev. 19
The first ray of hope for fallen man gleams forth brightly, yet strangely and mysteriously, from the curse pronounced on man's seducer, Satan. “The Lord God said unto the serpent, ... ... ..I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
There is no promise made directly to the fallen pair. There is no positive grace or rescue for them, even shadowed forth. A punitive infliction is pronounced on Satan—ominous of even his destruction; and the “seed of the woman,” a certain person thus simply designated, should execute the predicted retribution. The damage to be done to the seducer should exceed that which he had done, and should do, unto man, so far even as a wounded head transcends a wounded heel. Yet this was retribution only, and that on Satan, not deliverance for man, except so far as Satan was concerned. Positive blessedness for the miserable race of men was as yet unrevealed. Still there was a ray of hope presented however mysteriously and indirectly.
2. But positive promise is very shortly afterward vouchsafed; though mystery still enshrouded the revelation. “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from father's house, unto a land that I will skew thee;
I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall families of the earth be blessed.” Gen. 12:1-3. In this man, Abram, the son of Terah, of Ur of the Chaldees, there shall be in some way, at some period, the bestowment of “blessedness,” that is happiness, well-being, upon all the families of man. The nature of the predict and promised happiness is not revealed. Nothing is made known as to its degree or its duration. The mode of its accomplishment is not explained. It shall be “in Abram.” How in him! Nothing further is unfolded. Yet there is positive foundation here for both faith and hope. God hath spoken, and be will assuredly perform. Man shall one day be happy again. This shall be accomplished in some way, through this certain Hebrew, Abram (not as yet Abraham), the son of Terah.
But not through him directly. The direct accomplisher of this wondrous blessedness should be a certain one of Abraham's seed. This further intimation comes out in connection with the mysterious record of a transaction having reference to sacrifice; in which the only son of this Abraham had been, at God's command, virtually slain and offered up. “By myself have sworn, saith the Lord, that because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of thine enemies. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.” Gen. 22:1; 6-1 8. The blessedness to the nations shall flow through a certain One of his seed; not through his seeds, “as of many,” in the plural, but through his one grain of seed, in the singular. But through which one of all the promised multitude, innumerable as the stars, or the ocean's sands? The promise does not specify this, and faith must wait, and hope must build upon the certainty actually proclaimed. Universal happiness is once more predicted. As it had been before declared that the “woman's seed” should inflict vengeance on Satan; so now it is further foretold that “Abraham's seed” shall bring in positive blessedness. Thus dawns the light of prophecy—mysterious and extremely undefined as yet, but still sure, and full of cheering import.
There were also mystic rites and sacrifices. These had somehow obtained almost universally among the sons of men. They, too, seemed certainly to denote something having reference to release from sin, and from its consequences. But of these types we do not speak, the word of prophecy being our present theme.
“And he took up his parable, and said Balaam the son of Beor hath said—And the man whose eyes are opened hath said:
He hath said, which heard the words of God—And knew the knowledge of the Most High, Which saw the vision of the Almighty—Falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:
I shall see him, but not now—I shall behold him, but not nigh: There shall come a Star out of Jacob—And a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, And shall smite the corners of Moab, And destroy all the children of Sheth, And Edom shall be a possession—Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies;
And Israel shall do valiantly, Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, And shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.
And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and said, Amalek was the first of the nations—But his latter end shall be that he perish forever, And be looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, Strong is thy dwelling place—And thou puttest thy nest in a rock, Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted—Until Asshur shall carry thee away captive.
And he took up his parable, and said, Alas! who shall live when God doth this!”
(Num. 24:15-23,)
How brightly, amidst all the mystery of it, does the light shine forth from this very early prophecy! There should come one, whom Balaam himself should see; yet “not now,” but in the future. The prophet should himself behold this majestically announced One; but “not nigh,” not, to man's eye, with near approach. The mysterious One, thus introduced, should be as a “Star,” and He should wield a “scepter.” He should spring forth from Israel. He should “have dominion;” but apparently universal judgments must introduce it. Moab and Sheth, Edom and Seir, Amalek and the Kenite—in the persons of their descendants at some un-named future period (a remote one according to the previous intimations of the prophet) should fall beneath the avenging power of the predicted potentate. And the solemn conclusion wrung from the lips of the affrighted seer, sheds further light upon the whole announcement. “And he took up his parable and said, Alas, who shall live when God doeth this!” There shall come a day, connected with the introduction of the scepter and dominion of the predicted potentate—a day so great and terrible as to place in apparent jeopardy the lives of all the sons of men. Who shall live when God doeth this! The flood had gone over the earth. A promise, with seven-fold perfectness of repetition, had been made, that no more should all flesh perish by a flood of waters. But here is apparently another universal—or all but universal—judgment predicted. “Who shall live when God doeth this?” God's Sovereign must assume His power in such a mode, at so terrible a crisis.
Three grand events already dawn in the prophetic page. The head of Satan shall be bruised, the families of all the earth shall one day be made happy, but there must intervene a day so fearful as to call forth from lips controlled, however unwillingly, by inspiration, the portentous exclamation, “Who shall live when God doeth this?” A certain One of the woman's seed—a certain “He” —should inflict the sentence upon the seducer. A certain One seed, not further indicated as yet from the innumerable host which should descend from Abraham's loins, should accomplish the promised blessedness. A certain “Star” and “Scepter” from Israel's progeny should execute the apparently universal judgment—should seize the apparently universal dominion.
5. Job, though reproved of God, for having “darkened counsel by words without knowledge,” and having to confess with shame and sorrow at the last, “Therefore have I uttered that I understood not; Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not,”
yet furnishes a bright prophetic ray—more than a ray. Venturing to speak with reference to future resurrection, and giving utterance to a notion that there should be no resurrection till the end of all things— “till the heavens be no more” —(chap. 14:10-12), venturing thus to speak, he was remonstrated with thereon by him who only could pronounce the truth with certainty. Job said, “Man dieth, and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, So man lieth down and riseth not;
Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.”
These words fell not unnoticed from the lips of the venerable, yet troubled and confused, sufferer. With other unadvised assertions, they were plainly taken up when, in the end, God himself addressed himself to Job. “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?”
Chap. 38:1, 2, 4, 16 and 17.
How then should he adventure the assertion, that “As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up, So man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more"?
The order of the resurrection was not as yet revealed. Only Job must not assert what would directly contradict full revelations which should be made afterward. Yet even Job could say:
“Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!
That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;
And though alter my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another;
Though my reins be consumed within me.” Chap. 19:23-27.
His wondrous words were “written” —yea, “printed in a book,” whatever was the meaning of Job's very words, so rendered. And truly in this case, the words of Job were words of knowledge—divinely imparted knowledge. In the subsequent light we discern this light. A “Redeemer” should one day stand upon the earth. Job knew this; and that, though his body should become the food of worms, yet in his flesh he should see God. He knew that he should die, and rise again. Yea, with the wise woman of Tekoah, he could say with certainty, “We must needs die"; or, with the yet wiser writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, “The living know this they shall die.” The men of that age could generally affirm this with certainty. The subsequent unfolding to Christians, when the risen Christ had departed shortly to return—the subsequent unfolding to Christians of the mystery that they all “shall not sleep” did not affect the question as to these children of a previous dispensation. They must die. Yet those who had wisdom knew that they should rise again. Job at the least was well assured of this. And his memorable words, written in the Book of Books forever, thus furnish the first definite declaration of a life beyond the death man's sin had introduced.
6. The light breaks in upon us as the waters of a flood, when we approach the times and the prophetic ministry of David.
“David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, The anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word wail in my tongue.
The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me.”
Such is the emphatic assertion of his inspiration. Such is the glowing language in which he tells how he was “moved of the Holy Ghost.”
When his heart “indicted a good matter,” and “his tongue was as the pen of a ready writer,” he poured forth predictions of a glorious future to be brought in by the authority and might of One who should, at some future period, arise to rule the earth (Psa. 45). When the utmost wishes of his heart were exhausted, when in “the prayers of David the son of Jesse were ended,” he had just rendered worship on the same account.
“His name shall endure for over; his name shall be continued as long as the sun:
And men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.
Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.
And blessed be his glorious name forever;
And let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen and Amen.
The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.”
Pa. 72:17-20.
And when the hour had come for him to die, his last words were employed in the most beautiful utterance of prophecy as to the same glorious person and his day of equity and mercy—a day however, in each case, announced as being introduced by solemn and exterminating judgments upon the wicked. There is much of mystery still, yet the light breaks in apace. We add only, for the present, those “last words of David:” — “Now these be the last words of David.
David the son of Jesse said—And the man who was raised up on high, The anointed of the God of Jacob—And the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the Lord spake by me—And his word was in my tongue.
The God of Israel said,- The Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just,- Ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, Even a morning without clouds;
As the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.
Although my house be not so with God;
Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant—Ordered in all things, and sure:
For this is all my salvation, and all my desire—Although he make it not to grow.
But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, Because they cannot be taken with hands.”
2 Sam. 23:1-6.
The light thrown upon the future by the successive revelations of the book of Psalms may well furnish the matter for a subsequent meditation. A thousand such would fail to set it adequately forth to view.
T. S.