by J. C. Philpot The QUALIFICATIONS of the Lord Jesus to sustain the office of Prophet to his people. i. In opening up this part of our subject, we shall first examine the foundation of these qualifications, which we shall find in great measure identical with that on which his priestly office rests, that is, his glorious Person, as Immanuel, God with us. That he is God, actually and essentially God, as the second Person in the glorious Trinity, is the foundation not only of all his offices--but of everything that he is to the Church of God. Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, all of which are essential attributes of Deity, are needed in him who shall atone as Priest, teach as Prophet, and rule as King. The Deity of our blessed Lord does not, therefore, rest merely on single texts of Scripture, however numerous or however clear. We bless God for giving us these direct testimonies to strengthen our faith and to defend it against gainsayers; but the indirect are, if possible, stronger still. The Deity of our blessed Lord is so interwoven with the truth of God that could it be torn from it, the whole of revelation must fall to pieces. His blood, his righteousness, his grace and glory, and the whole scheme of salvation as accomplished by him, are so dependent upon his Deity, that without it and separate from it, they have not only no value or validity--but would have no existence--no place in the word, and no place in the heart of the family of God. View this in connection with his offices. If Jesus were only a man, his blood, as at once Priest and Sacrifice, could not be of sufficient value to put away one sin, much less millions of sins of millions of sinners. If he were only a man, his eye could not see, his ear hear, or his lips instruct, as the Prophet of his Church, thousands of his believing people who are crying and looking to him from all parts for instruction. If he were only a man, how could his shoulders support the weight of sovereignty as King over all things in heaven and in earth? Thus the very foundation of all his offices is his eternal, actual, essential Deity, for without that every other qualification would be utterly ineffectual. But here again, as in the case of his priestly office, we are met by that blessed and glorious truth of his real, proper, and eternal Sonship. This is as necessary a qualification for his office as Prophet as his eternal Deity; and, in fact, is intimately and indissolubly connected with it. When, then, we assert that the true and proper Sonship of our blessed Lord is an essential qualification to his sustaining the office of Prophet to his Church, we do so as a declaration of a grand and important gospel truth. In our introductory remarks on the nature of the prophetic office, we showed that the fundamental character of a prophet was that he was one who spoke for God. Now, this is just the character that our blessed Lord sustains to the Church as the Son of the Father in truth and love. He speaks for the Father to the Church; for the Father speaks in and by him. Twice did the Father speak with express voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," and added on the holy mount, "Hear him." (Matt. 3:17; 17:5.) The peculiar grace and glory of the Christian dispensation, its eminent and distinctive feature, is that in it God speaks in and by his dear Son. How clearly and beautifully is this declared by the Apostle in the opening chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews--"In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs." (Heb. 1:1-4.) When we have a view by faith of the Son of God as the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person, well may we feel and say--Who so proper, who so suited to speak for the Father as his own Son, who had forever lain in his bosom? Who so perfectly and intimately acquainted with the Father's will, who so able to reveal that will to the sons of men? In whom can we find love and power so blended; such zeal for the glory of God, such pity for the children of men; such majesty and such mercy; such infinite purity, yet such unspeakable condescension; such a representative of God, such a messenger for man! He and the Father are one--one in essence, one in will, though in Person distinct. To be one with the Father in essence, yet distinct from the Father in Person, is the peculiar character of his eternal relationship to him as his only-begotten Son.
The Word is his title as a Person in the Godhead, "For the Word was God." But why is he the Word? Because God speaks in him and by him. But why does the Father speak in and by him? Because he is his Son. Who is so fit for the Father to speak by as his own Son; or, who is so fit to speak for the Father? Out of the Son, the Father can neither be seen, nor heard, nor known. God is in himself essentially invisible, for he dwells in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man has seen or can see. But he has been pleased to reveal himself in the Person of his dear Son. Thus in seeing him we see the Father, as he told Philip; (John 14:9;) and in beholding his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, we view the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (John 1:14; 2 Cor. 4:6.) In a similar way we cannot hear directly and immediately the voice of God. When that voice spoke on Sinai's blazing top, all the people that were in the camp trembled; yes, the whole mount itself quaked greatly; for so fearful was that voice that those who heard it entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more; and so terrible was the sight that even Moses, the man of God, and the typical mediator, said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." (Heb. 12:1921.) As, then, we cannot see God but as revealing himself in his Son, so we cannot hear God--but as speaking in his Son. This was John the Baptist's witness of him. "No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him." (John 1:18.) As coming from the bosom of the Father, how qualified was he to speak of him and for him, as John so plainly testified--"He has come from above and is greater than anyone else. I am of the earth, and my understanding is limited to the things of earth, but he has come from heaven. He tells what he has seen and heard, but how few believe what he tells them! Those who believe him discover that God is true. For he is sent by God. He speaks God's words, for God's Spirit is upon him without measure or limit." (John 3:31-34.) In our next topic we shall hope, with God's help and blessing, to enter still further on the qualifications of the Lord Jesus Christ to sustain the office of Prophet to the Church of God. In all his works and in all his ways, whether in creation, in providence, or in grace, the infinite wisdom of the great and glorious Sovereign of heaven and earth shines forth with conspicuous luster. It is true that in consequence of the darkness, unbelief, and infidelity of the human mind, as sunk and debased by the fall, this wisdom is for the most part hidden from the eyes of men; but when, under the teaching and testimony of the blessed Spirit, we are brought to see light in God's light, then this infinite and unspeakable wisdom begins to open itself to our admiring view. As taught by the Spirit to see in creation his wonderworking hand, we can join with David in saying, "O Lord, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have you made then all. The earth is full of your riches." (Psalm 104:24.) As favored to trace his providential hand, we can look back upon all the way by which he has led us these many years in the wilderness, and see wisdom and mercy stamped upon every step. But whatever view we may obtain by faith of the only wise God as working in the wonders of creation, or as ruling in the complicated affairs of providence, it is in the domain of grace that his wisdom is more especially discovered to a believing heart; for as the gospel is the grand final revelation of his mind and will in the salvation of his people, it is the greatest display of the wisdom of God that could be afforded to his intelligent creatures, whether redeemed men, or admiring, adoring angels. A sense of this made the Apostle say, "We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began." (1 Cor. 2:6, 7.) This, on another occasion, made him stand as if on the brink of holy wonder and admiring awe, with the cry in his heart and mouth, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways ast finding out!" (Rom. 11:33.) The angels, therefore, themselves, those bright and glorious beings who always behold the face of the God and Father of the Lord Jesus in heaven, derive their deepest lessons of instruction into the wisdom of God from contemplating his gracious dealings with his people--"His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Eph. 3:10, 11.) This manifestation of the wisdom of God to angelic intelligences by means of the Church was typically represented to the Old Testament saints by the two cherubim of beaten gold who covered the mercy seat with their wings, and turned their faces towards it, as if seeking ever to penetrate into the divine mystery of mercy and grace for guilty man through the incarnation of the Son of God; as the Apostle speaks, "Which things the angels desire to look into." (1 Pet. 1:12.) The Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, in his Person and work, as the Mediator between God and men, in all the offices that he sustains, in all the riches of his grace, and all the fullness of his glory, is "the wisdom of God," as well as "the power of God;" (1 Cor. 1:24;) for "in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Col. 2:3.) But as these treasures are hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed only to babes, (Matt. 11:25,) he himself is "of God made unto us wisdom," (1 Cor. 1:30,) that by sitting at his feet and hearing his words; (Luke 10:39;) by taking his yoke upon us and learning of him; (Matt. 11:29;) by union and communion with him as living members of his mystical body; (Eph. 5:30;) by being joined to him as one spirit with him; (1 Cor. 6:17;) by drinking into his mind; (1 Cor. 2:16;) by beholding with open face as in a glass his glory, and being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord, (2 Cor. 3:18,) we may possess in him, and derive from him that wellspring of wisdom which shall be in us as a flowing brook. (Prov. 18:4.) The bearing of these remarks on the wisdom of God, as displayed in the Person and work of Christ, may perhaps not be immediately obvious, but they have been dropped by us in connection with that part of our subject which is still before us, that is, the qualifications possessed by the Lord Jesus for the fulfillment of his office as Prophet to his people. If, then, the blessed Lord is "the wisdom of God," this wisdom will shine forth, not only in the constitution of his glorious Person as Immanuel, God with us, but in every one of his covenant offices. Not only as Priest and King but as Prophet he shines forth in the glory of the Father. Infinite wisdom, infinite love, and infinite power--the wisdom of God the Father, the love of God the Son, and the power of God the Holy Spirit, all combined in the Person and work of Immanuel to glorify the Father, to exalt the Son, and to save the Church. To understand, to believe, to love, to revere, and adore the heavenly mystery of this wisdom, love, and power--to realize it in sweet experience, and to be filled with all the blessed fruits which spring out of it for time and for eternity, will be our highest wisdom and richest mercy. With the desire, then, to look into some of these depths of wisdom, love, and power, let us now resume our subject--the qualifications of Jesus to sustain the prophetical office for the glory of God and the good of his people. We have previously dwelt chiefly upon those qualifications which he possesses as a divine Person in the glorious Trinity, antecedent to and irrespective of man, viewed as fallen or unfallen. These were two--1. His eternal Deity; 2. His true and proper Sonship. Both of those, we have seen, were necessary to qualify him to speak for God as his mouth. He was "the Word," who "in the beginning was with God;" who alone had seen the Father; (John 6:46;) who knew the Father as the Father know him; (John 10:15;) who came forth from the Father; (John 16:28;) the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father; (John 1:18;) and who revealed what he had seen and heard that he testified. (John 3:32.) It is very strengthening to faith to have a view of these qualifications of the blessed Lord to testify of the Father. We want certainties, the fullest evidence, the clearest assurance, that what Jesus has declared of the Father he knew, not by inspiration, as the prophets, but by actual personal sight and knowledge; that he came from the bosom of the Father; that he was "ever by him as one brought up with him, and daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." (Prov. 8:30.) What a repose is this for faith, that it can rest with implicit confidence on all that Jesus has testified of the Father as alone knowing him, and yet graciously revealing him to the sons of men. In the things which concern our everlasting peace, in the solemn matters of eternity, where our soul's comfort and joy, not to say its eternal salvation, are at stake, how needful it is to have a foundation on which faith can firmly build and stand secure amid all the storms of temptation, waves of affliction, and the foaming billows of unbelief and infidelity, urged on by the breath of Satan. Believer, your faith has to rest upon and deal with the words of Jesus Christ, for he has "the words of eternal life." Your faith, if it has not already been, will have to be tried with fire. Look well, then, to the foundation, and see that it is firm and good. We shall have, with God's help and blessing, to dwell more fully upon this part of our subject when we come to see how our Lord's prophetical office bears upon a believer's experience; but we wish to impress upon the mind of our readers the necessity as well as the blessedness of having true and believing views of the qualifications of our Lord to speak in the name of the Father, as "the brightness of his glory and the express image of his Person," before the foundations of the earth were laid, or the dayspring knew its place. But now we come to those qualifications which are more immediately connected with his pure HUMANITY; and these we shall find as necessary as those which are based upon his eternal Deity and Sonship. 1. It is his being man as well as God that makes him fit to be a Mediator--"for there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5.) It is his being "the man Christ Jesus," as well as God the Son, which makes him capable of being the arbitrator or "umpire," (margin,) for whom Job longed, (Job 9:33,) that can lay his hand upon us both. As God, Jesus could speak to God for man; as man, he could speak to man for God. High as the highest, he became low as the lowest; equal with the Father in his divine nature--he became equal with man in his human nature. The Prophet of whom Moses spoke was to be "from the midst of the children of Israel, of their brethren." "The Lord your God will raise up unto you a Prophet from the midst of you, of your brethren;" and again "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto you, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." (Deut. 18:18.) The promised Prophet was to be raised up from the midst of, and from "among the brethren," for he was to be of the seed of the woman, (Gen. 3:15,) and of the seed of David according to the flesh. (Rom. 1:3.) To be a brother he must assume their nature, as the Apostle declares--"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same;" (Heb. 2:14;) and again--"We all know that Jesus came to help the descendants of Abraham, not to help the angels. Therefore, it was necessary for Jesus to be in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. He then could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people." (Heb. 2:16, 17.) This qualified him to say, "I will declare your name unto my brethren; in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto you." (Heb. 2:12.) His qualification as man to sustain the office of a Prophet was as needful as his qualification as God. To save man God became man. To teach his brethren the Son of God became their brother. This pure and perfect humanity he assumed in the womb of the Virgin, and the Holy Spirit, under whose divine and supernatural operation and overshadowing this human nature was conceived, filled it, at the very instant of its conception, with every grace, making it a holy temple in which all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily. 2. But though this human nature of our blessed Lord was in the instant of its conception sanctified and filled with all heavenly grace, yet was it capable of both natural and spiritual growth, and a further increase of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit. We therefore read of Jesus in his earliest years, that "the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him." (Luke 2:40.) The growth spoken of there refers to his body, as he is said elsewhere to have "increased in stature," (verse 52,) growing as we grow from childhood to youth and manhood, but without any of those drawbacks of sickness and infantile complaints to which we are subject, from which he was perfectly free, as having no taint of disease or seeds of mortality in his pure and holy frame. His being said to "wax strong in spirit" refers to his being more and more filled in his soul with strength and wisdom, from more continual accessions of the power and unction of the Holy Spirit. No new grace was imparted to his soul, as no new member was added to his body; but as his pure human soul, like our own, expanded and grew with his bodily growth, so was it more and more filled with the Holy Spirit. The divine nature was not to our blessed Lord in the place of a soul. The two natures were essentially distinct, and though mysteriously united in the Person of the God-man, there was, as the Athanasian Creed has well expressed it, no "confusion of substance" from their intermixture, which would have been the case had his essential Deity been as a soul to animate his body. And if it be asked why the human soul of Jesus needed the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, as it was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sin and sinners from the moment of his conception, we answer, that without these gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit it would not have been consecrated to the service of God, nor could it have lived unto him and for him according to the full measure of its capacity. The whole of his human nature, body and soul, would still have been "a holy thing;" (Luke 1:35;) but as the body without natural growth would have ever remained a babe, so would his soul not have grown up into all its fullness of wisdom and grace unless the same blessed Spirit who had formed and sanctified it in the womb had continually replenished it with heavenly treasure. This is beautifully unfolded in the words of the prophet--"Out of the stump of David's family will grow a shoot--yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him--the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will delight in obeying the Lord. He will never judge by appearance, false evidence, or hearsay." (Isa. 11:1-3.) By the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit the human nature of our blessed Lord became a holy temple, consecrated to the service of God, replenished with every grace, and qualified not only to do and suffer the whole will of the Father, but to sustain every covenant office. 3. But it was more particularly at his baptism when the Spirit of God descended from heaven in a bodily shape like a dove, and rested on him, when the Father proclaimed with an audible voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," that he was consecrated to the active service of his heavenly Father. This corresponded to the anointing of the prophets of old to their prophetical office, as Elijah was commanded to anoint Elisha to be prophet in his room. (1 Kings 19:16.) Then the Father sealed him, (John 6:27,) bore witness of him, (John 8:18,) testified to his Sonship, gave him the Spirit without measure, (John 3:34,) and bade us hear him. Then the Holy Spirit, as John the Baptist saw, descended from heaven and abode upon him; (John 1:32, 33;) and by this visible descent and perpetual abiding on him anointed him in a more especial manner with all those divine gifts and graces whereby he was qualified to fulfill his mission as the Messenger of the covenant in the most perfect and complete manner for the glory of God and the good of his people. We may thus draw a distinction between those graces of the Holy Spirit whereby he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, (Psalm 45:7; Heb. 1:9,) and that special communication of heavenly graces and gifts whereby he was peculiarly set apart and qualified to finish the work which the Father gave him to do. Our blessed Lord lived a life of faith upon his heavenly Father. The actings of this faith in all its diversified phases may be clearly seen portrayed to our view in those Psalms which beyond all controversy contain the experience of Jesus in the days of his flesh. There is not a grace or fruit of the Holy Spirit possessed by his people in measure--which the Lord did not possess without measure. And these, it must be borne in mind, were active graces, drawn out and called into continual exercise by the same Holy Spirit who had communicated them. As read with an enlightened eye, the Psalms wherein our Lord speaks show all these graces in constant and active exercise. Faith in all its actings, hope in all its anchorings, love in all its flowings, patience in all its endurings, humility in all its submittings, prayer in all its supplicatings, praise in all its adorings, obedience in all its yieldings, zeal in all its burnings, devotedness in all its self-sacrificings, holiness in all its flame, and worship in all its fervor--all, all those graces and fruits of the Holy Spirit may be seen shining forth as with beams of heavenly light in the personal experience of our blessed Lord in those Psalms in which he speaks. They were, as it were, framed for him by the Holy Spirit before he came into a time state, that they might be not only prophetical of his sufferings for the benefit of his Church, but be the spiritual utterance of his own holy soul in the days of his flesh.* This personal experience of our blessed Lord forms another and most necessary qualification for his sustaining the prophetical office. He thus possessed the tongue of the learned, that he should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. * When we speak thus of the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ being contained in the Psalms, we would strictly disclaim the view that all of them refer to him. That some do is evident from their being applied to him in the New Testament, and from his own words; (Luke 24:44;) but it would be monstrous to refer such Psalms as 32 and 51 to him. Beyond all controversy, however, Psalm 22, 40, 69, and 110 belong to him; and if, in Psalm 22 for instance, his bodily sufferings are described by his own lips, is it not in full harmony with this to consider the sufferings of his soul, in other words, his inward experience, similarly described by himself; more especially as he used the first verse to express that most dolorous of all his sufferings when the Father hid his face from him? This is what we mean when we say that the Psalms contain the experience of Christ. 4. But this leads us to another qualification of our blessed. Lord to sustain the prophetical office--that he had a personal experience of temptation. We have already seen that, in the depths of infinite wisdom, it pleased the Father to send as a messenger of the covenant one who had that intimate and ineffable knowledge of himself which none possessed but his only-begotten Son. Now as thus in his divine nature Jesus was thereby qualified in the highest degree to speak that which he knew, and to testify that which he had seen, so it pleased the father that in his human nature he should possess similar qualifications. We have already seen this under its two most principal features--1. The gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon him without measure for the benefit of others; 2. The personal experience which he possessed of every grace of the Spirit. The former made him a preacher, the latter made him a believer; by the first he lived for God, by the second he lived to God; by the one he broke the bread of life to others, by the other he had himself food to eat the world knew not of; by the first the words that he spoke were spirit and life to his believing people, by the second he could say, "And he who sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." (John 8:29.) The distinction that we have thus drawn between the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon the Lord for the exercise of his prophetical office and the grace with which he was filled as a matter of his own personal experience, may not be obvious to all our readers, but the difference seems clearly pointed out by comparing Isa. 11:2, 3 with Isa. 61:1-3--"The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, making him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord," evidently points to an inward experience of godly fear which we know in the word of truth often stands for the whole sum of vital godliness; but his being anointed "to preach good tidings unto the meek" evidently points to the gifts conferred upon him to speak for God to his people. But as a part of this personal experience, it was needful for the Lord to know experimentally and feelingly the reality and power of temptation. Immediately, therefore, after his baptism, before he entered on the discharge of his prophetical office, he was led, or as one of the evangelists forcibly expresses it, "driven," (Mark 1:12,) that is, carried by a mighty impulse of the Spirit, into the wilderness, there to be tempted of the devil. Into the record and nature of those temptations we shall not enter, though doubtless much profitable instruction is contained in them. It will be sufficient for our present purpose to direct the attention of our readers to what we may call the Apostle's divine commentary upon them--"For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to support those who are tempted." "For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities--but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Heb. 2:18; 4:15.) The Lord's people are, for the most part, a very tried and tempted people. It was therefore needful that their suffering Head should be tried and tempted too, that in his own soul he might have a personal, individual, and deep experience of the nature and power of temptation. It was not sufficient that he should know temptation as the omniscient God; he must know it as suffering man. As he knew poverty by being poor, not having a place to lay his head; persecution, contempt, and hatred by being despised and rejected of men; suffering and sorrow by being himself a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; desertion of God by his Father forsaking him in the hour of his most dolorous agony--so he learned the power and pangs of temptation by being himself personally tempted. He "was in all points tempted like as we are," so that not a single temptation from without or from within can assail the child of God of which Jesus had not a personal experience; yet be it ever borne in mind, "without sin," of which there was no seed or taint in either body or soul. Here the gracious Lord differs from us. Temptation never comes to us without meeting with and stirring up sin; but in him there was no sin to stir up, as he said himself--"The prince of this world (Satan) comes, and has nothing in me," (John 14:30,)--nothing sinful to work upon, nothing corrupt to incite, nothing of his own spawn to beget upon, nothing combustible to inflame. All figures must be essentially incomplete and inherently imperfect to set forth divine truth, and especially one so deeply mysterious and inscrutable by the human intellect as what passed in the soul of the holy Redeemer as tempted by the prince of darkness; but we may perhaps, with this reservation, employ two simple comparisons to illustrate the difference between temptation assailing the holy soul of Jesus and temptation assailing our corrupt heart. A raging sea may beat against a pure, white marble rock, or against a bank of earth. The former it can neither move nor sully; wave after wave is repelled and dashed off; whatever streams may lave its sides, the rock remains as before; the salt water has not penetrated its substance or mingled itself with it. So the pure and holy soul of Jesus, of him who is the "Rock of Ages," repelled and shook off, unmoved and unsullied, the fiercest, foulest temptations of Satan--felt them, knew them, experienced them, but never mingled with them, nor they with it. In the wilderness, on the top of the exceeding high mountain, on the pinnacle of the temple, with what holy calmness did Jesus shake off the assaults of the tempter, with "It is written!" Not that he did not feel the power of the temptations, but the Lion of Judah shook them off as the dew-drops from his mane. But we are a bank of earth, against, which, when the sea of temptation beats, it mixes with the native soil, washes off pieces, and runs off in muddy streams, as entering into its very substance. As in our figure the same sea assails rock and bank, so the same temptations assailed the Lord and us; but how different their effect! He felt them without sin; we feel them with sin. They mingled not with his pure soul, and therefore defiled it not; but they do mix with our corrupt heart, and sadly pollute it. But take another figure, of a still humbler character, to illustrate the difference between the effect of temptation in the Lord's case and ours. On your right hand is a golden vase filled with the purest, clearest water; on the left is an earthenware vessel in which the water looks clean and good, but for this reason only, that all the dirt has subsided to the bottom. Stir both with the same stick. The water in the vase is still pure and clean; the water in the bowl is at once turbid and thick. Whence the difference? Not in the stick that stirs; not altogether in the receptacle; but in the mud at the bottom of the water. But if our figures are imperfect and inadequate (and we fully admit that they are so), yet fix your eyes--your believing eyes--for sense and reason are useless and worse than useless here, on these two points, and seek to enter into them, though unable to comprehend them--1. "In all points tempted like as we are;" 2. "Yet without sin." In these two points the whole truth and the whole mystery of our Lord's temptation are locked up and contained. But if any, still wanting some explanation of the mystery, should inquire how the Lord could feel temptation as we do if there was no sinful principle in him to mingle with it, let him ask himself if he never feels temptation when he abhors it? The fiery darts of Satan, as, for instance, blasphemous and infidel temptations, things that your very soul abhors, do not these grieve and distress your spirit, which hates and abhors them? The more heavenly-minded, spiritual, and holy a man be, the more acutely he feels these "masterpieces of hell." This then may give you a faint conception of the way in which the holy soul of the Redeemer felt, most acutely felt, felt in proportion to his own spotless holiness, the temptations of Satan, yet was never tainted by them. But we must pause. We have rather run out to sea, as the wind filled our sail; still, we trust we have not gone out of our course if, fixing our eye on Jesus as our polar-star, we have followed up our intention to lay before our readers the qualifications of our gracious Lord to fulfill that prophetical office for the benefit and blessing of the Church of God which he undertook in the everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure. Thus far the qualifications of our blessed Lord to sustain the office of Prophet to his Church have formed the subject of our Meditations. As all the relationships which the Lord bears to his people, as their covenant Head, are living springs of strength and consolation to them in exact proportion to their faith in him and to their receiving of his fullness grace for grace; (Psalm 87:7; John 1:16; Gal. 2:20;) and as this faith is fed by knowledge, and works by love, how desirable it is that all who believe in his name should clearly see with anointed eyes, and experimentally feel with confiding hearts, the strong foundation on which their trust in him is built. "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation." (Isa. 28:16.) Our faith, if indeed it be the faith of God's elect, has to be tried as by fire. We need then look well to two things--1, the foundation itself; 2, the faith which stands on that foundation. Failure in either would be perilous, if not fatal. We are at present engaged with the foundation; the faith which builds upon it will, in due course, come under our notice. O you, then, who would build for eternity, but are often deeply tried and exercised about your faith whether it be indeed wrought in your heart by the mighty power of God, look well to the foundation. How can your faith be strong if the foundation be weak? Or how can your faith firmly embrace the foundation, unless you clearly see it as laid by the hand of God himself in Zion, and know for yourself that, as a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation, it is able to bear all the weight of your aggravated sins, all the burden of your continual sorrows, all the pressure of your daily needs, all the load of your complicated perplexities? This is the reason, then, why in all our previous attempts to set forth the covenant offices of our exalted Lord, we have dwelt so much on his qualifications to sustain them for the glory of God and the salvation and sanctification of his people. Let us ever bear in mind that the glorious Person of Christ is the grand object of our faith. "Look unto me,"--not my offices--"and be saved--all the ends of the earth;" (Isa. 45:22;) "Come unto me,"--to myself, to me, the God-man, "all you that labor and are heavy laden," (Matt. 11:28,) are his gracious words. First himself, then his offices; first the Son of God, then the High Priest over the house of God; first the Son given, then the Wonderful Counselor; first the mighty God, then the Prince of Peace. (Isa. 9:6.) From his glorious Person, his covenant offices derive all their grace and glory, all their beauty and blessedness, all their suitability to our wants and woes. Unless, then, we have a living faith in his Person, we cannot have a living faith in his work. We first embrace his glorious Person, as revealed to our soul by the power of God as his only-begotten Son, and then, by receiving out of his fullness supplies of heavenly grace, live a life of faith upon him. If, then, our faith has to embrace him as "the Messenger of the covenant," (Mal. 3:1,) as the promised Prophet, to whose words we are to hearken, under penalty of eternal ruin; if we turn away our ear from him and harden our heart against him; (Deut. 18:15-19;) if all the saints who are in his hand "sit down at his feet and receive of his words," (Deut. 33:3,)--and we are among that favored number, surely we cannot be too well grounded and established in a spiritual and experimental knowledge, first of his glorious Person, and then of his covenant office as Prophet, whereby he leads in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment; that he may cause those who love him to inherit substance, and he will fill their treasures. (Prov. 8:20, 21.) In pursuance, then, of this desire to lay a sure foundation for faith, we have thus far endeavored to show the qualifications of our gracious Lord--both as the Son of God and as the Son of man--to be the Messenger of the Father, the Revealer of his mind and will, the Mouth by which he speaks to the sons of men. |