Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Egypt,-"Ye shall know that I am the Lord;""They shall know that I am the Lord." All the denunciations by the Prophets against sinners and sinful nations, and against his own apostate people, are made in terms which shew the judgments came be cause they had served other gods than the Lord; and therefore the Lord was justly angry with them, and for the glory of his own great name rose up against them. The most glorious testimony, however, unto this ultimate purpose, which is borne in the books of the Prophets, cannot be seen and understood until the books themselves, in their prophetic declarations, are understood; and the examination of this must necessarily be deferred until after the examination of the nature and objects of prophecy, in its plain and minute interpretation; our object at present being to prepare for the interpretation, rather than to act upon the bearings of that interpretation.

16. Passing then, for the present, however reluctantly, this branch of proof, we will turn to the proof of this ultimate purpose which may be gathered from the New Testament, which is specially the book of the Gentile dispensation. Here having a revelation of the mystery of Christ in his church, which in other ages was not made known; having a more open and declared view of the church, as "builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit;" and of the end, "to gather all things into Christ, as the Head of his body the church;" we may expect to find a revelation of the great ultimate purpose proportionately full, explicit, and undeniable. It may be feared, however, that many will, in their expectations on this head, be disappointed. Not that there is not such a testimony, so full, explicit, and undeniable; but that it is given in a manner different from that displayed during the Jewish dispensation, and to the patriarchs. As to the patriarchs, the declaration was couched in the words, "I am the Almighty God;" whilst to the Jews this was added, "that ye may know me to be the Lord." So to the Gentiles, whilst that testimony remained, there was yet another added; which, although when understood it is more plain and precise than those preceding, yet being after a different method, will disappoint those who, not considering the essential difference of the two dispensations, anticipate a like manner of testimony with the former.

16. a. Under the Jewish dispensation, the Lord's law and glorious dealings with his people were placed before their eyes, and brought daily to their remembrance, by the ordinances of the temple and the ceremonies enjoined by their laws. It had been plainly told to them, by precept upon precept and line upon line, that they were built together as a church and as a nation; and were thus highly honoured that they might know the Lord their God to be the only true and living God. They

had found it written in their Prophets, that all the Lord's dealings with other nations were to the end he might be known to be the Lord. Such of them as were taught of the Spirit, were enabled to see the God-man as typically represented in their ordinances, and looked for his appearance in the flesh as the promised Messiah. But the mystery of which St. Paul speaks that it was not in other ages made known that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs and of the household of faith-was only revealed in prophecy, and not yet manifested: when Christ the Messiah, Immanuel, came, and in his person proved the antitype of all the Jewish ordinances, "the end of the law for righteousness," the ceremonial law, which had led to his appearance, was at once cancelled, and the dispensation of which it was the limit expired. Through the mystery of the calling of the Gentiles was shewn the great end of the law, as a schoolmaster to bring unto Christ; and in the mystery of the person of Christ, as opened by our Saviour and the Apostles, was shewn the great purpose of gathering out of every nation into the mystical body of Christ, and (he being the head) in one body joining all God's people in one Spirit through faith.

16. b. It was then seen that the church of the Jews was truly built upon the foundation of Christ: not as an exclusive church, but as the plant of the great olive-tree rooted in Christ, which, after receiving the ingraftation of the Gentiles, casting off the outward covering of types, and being nourished by the water of life and the Millennial Sun of Righteousness, should spread abroad, and embrace under its branches all the nations under heaven. It was seen that God's dealings towards the Jews had a reference, not to them singly, but to the people of the whole earth; that his worship, his praise, his glory, was designed not to be received through the medium of the Jews, but through Christ Jesus, as the King and Head of all his people; this people not delineated by any territorial limits, but chosen and marked out by the operation of the Spirit of truth, which, proceeding from the Father, bore testimony to him.

Having thus the veil rent, the "holy of holies " was manifested, and its glories opened to all the faithful. The High Priest, the glorious person of the God-man, as Head over the mystical body, shone forth before the eyes of the church. The true foundation was revealed. He who was "the Brightness of the Father's glory, and the express Image of his person," stood forth, the object of faith, hope, and confidence to all God's people; the Beginning and the End of all things."

[ocr errors]

16. c. We must, then, no longer look for an expression of the ultimate purpose in every particular institution, nor upon numerous occasions, as under the Jewish dispensation. There, the God-man, as the End of all things, being only typically foreshewn,

it was necessary to declare explicitly that the several types, institutions, and ordinances were given to subserve the ultimate purpose. But when the Lord Jesus (the God manifest in the flesh) was come, the reference of each particular would properly be to him; and, the ultimate purpose being once clearly defined and set forth, the immediate reference to that ultimate purpose would cease: as in our actions, if the end we have in view is to be obtained_mediately through another instrument which has a manifest relation to the end, and we do not fully set forth the mediate instrument, the connection between our action and the end being less evident, it becomes the more necessary to declare the action to be with a view to the end; but after the instrument has been plainly set forth, and its connection with the end become self-evident, a reference of our action to the instrument will at once shew its connection with the end, and render all immediate reference of the action to the end unnecessary.

16. d. To preserve, then, our line of proof, we have only to shew that the Lord Jesus Christ, as Head of his mystical body the church, filling all in all, is declared to be manifested for the purpose of making known the essential excellency of the eternal Jehovah, in order to establish the ultimate purpose of God to be, to "make known himself." If, after this, we shew all subordinate things working together to the filling up of the fulness of Him who filleth all in all; to have a reference and an end in the Lord Jesus as Head of the church; it will be satisfactorily evident, that, as all created things are intended to manifest the latter, so the latter is itself intended to manifest the former. All being gathered under the great Head, the God manifest in the flesh, he will be an eternal manifestation of the invisible Jehovah, "who dwelleth in light which no man can approach unto."

:

16. e. The revelation under the New Testament, of all things having been created, now subsisting, and in the end to be gathered into Christ, as Head of the church, has been before set forth and as this glorious truth reveals the Sun of Righteousness in its full splendour, and recognises every ray as emanating from, and converging to the same centre; so the testimony to the ultimate purpose is not a deduction from the various parts, but a direct reference of the whole, as built together, to this one intent. It is not a testimony regarding time only, but which passes from sublunary things to heavenly, and declares the heavenly and eternal purpose, which will be thus accomplished. The Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, to whom he had opened the glorious mystery of the fulness of Christ, says "Unto me, who am less than the least of all

*See pages 395, 396.

saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, TO THE INTENT that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known BY THE CHURCH the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord*." This is a clear, distinct, and undeniable revelation of the purpose for which the church is built together and as we have seen that the church is the fulness of Him who filleth all in all, we learn that he perfects this fulness for an ulterior purpose, to make known the manifold wisdom of God."

[ocr errors]

:

That Christ Jesus is the manifestation of the invisible Father, is declared by him to his Apostles: "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also:" "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." That the manifestation of God was his purpose in coming into the world, he declares also: "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world." He also explicitly sets forth the purpose to be accomplished by the gathering all believers unto him: praying for his disciples, and all who should believe through their word, he says, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me :" and again, “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one §; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." The meaning attached to the word "world," in the preceding part of the chapter, and the context itself, clearly shews that the belief and knowledge here ascribed to the world is not a saving knowledge, but is the same conviction as is mentioned concerning Pharaoh,-that it may "be known that the Lord is God;" and as is ascribed by St. James to the devils, to "believe and tremble." Here is a confirmation, from the mouth of Christ, that he came to manifest God; that all shall be gathered together in one, in Him, to the intent that it may be known God sent him: which is, in effect, that it may be known God has manifested Himself, which is truly the purpose of God's manifestation. Thus, what the Apostle declares, setting forth the mystical person of Christ. Christ himself declaresnamely, that it is all to one intent, to make known the eternal invisible Jehovah.

The same testimony is again borne by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans. Speaking of the election of God, and shewing the absolute freeness of it, so that "God hath mercy on whom

* Eph. iii. 10, 11. † John xiv.

John xvii. 6. § John xvii. 21, 22.

he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth;" he answers an objector (who urges, that, if so, God cannot justly punish), by an interrogation*: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?" This interrogation, which is of exactly the same force and precision with an assertion, distinctly states, that the purpose of God to be answered by "the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," is to make known his wrath and power; and his purpose by the vessels of mercy," is to make known the riches of his glory;-a declaration exactly parallel to those which have been before alluded to: and, remembering that Christ is the life of those who are saved, and the condemnation of those who perish, it amounts to a setting forth of the ultimate purpose of God's nianifestation.

The intent of gathering his people in Christ, is again set forth in the Epistle to the Ephesians, in these words: "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus +."

[ocr errors]

17. This is the summing up of all our evidence. We have before seen, in God's dealings with Abraham; with Jacob; with his people Israel, in various distinct acts, and in all the leading subjects-the bringing out of Egypt, the overthrow of Pharaoh, the giving of the law, the building of the tabernacle, the entering into the promised land, the slaying of Goliath, the bringing up of the ark to Zion, and the building of the templethe intent of each subject has been declared to be," to make known the Lord Jehovah." We are taught in the New Testament the typical expression of Christ and his church, which is embodied in many of those subjects; and have thence declared, that the same purpose which the types subserved would be answered, and in a more perfect manner, by the antitype. But here we have a literal declaration concerning the great Antitype, which corresponds with the figurative testimony, and more than fully confirms it: the same proof which might be gathered from the distinct members, is directly borne by the whole body and who shall dare to doubt ?

18. This would amply suffice for proof; but as the great and momentous truth meets us in every page, and sheds its clear and connected light upon every part of Scripture, it will be

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »