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 1 
 
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 Mop 
 
JESUS THE MESSIAH 
 
 IN PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT. 
 
 A KE VIE IV AND RE PUT A TION OF THE NEC A TIVE 
 THEORY OF MESSIANIC PROPHECY. 
 
 liY 
 
 EDWARD HARTLEY DEWART, D.D, 
 
 Editor ok the "Christian Guardian," T 
 
 ORONTO. 
 
 "To Ilim bear all the prophets witness."— St. rKTKi 
 
 TORONTO : 
 WILLIAM BRIGGS, 
 
 WESLEY BUILDINGS. 
 
 Montreal : C. W. Coates. Hm^ip^.x : S. F. Huestis. 
 
 1891. 
 
p/ 
 
 'A 
 
 1 3 95 74 
 
 
^ 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 
 one thou- 
 Hce of the 
 
 It A flip 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS 5 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PROniECIES AND PROPHETS OF THE OLD TESTA- 
 MENT j^ 
 
 Relation of tlie Old Testament to the New— The Origin of 
 Prophecy— Character and Mission of the Prophets- Origin 
 and Development of Messianic Prophecy. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE PREDICTIVE AND ETHICAL ELEMENTS IN PRO- 
 PHECY 33 
 
 Disparagement of Prediction-The Place of Prediction in 
 Scripture Teaching-Prediction an Essential Part of Pro- 
 phecy-The Predictive not Opposed to the Ethical-Evi- 
 dential Value of Fulfilled Prophecy. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MESSIANIC PROPHECY ELUCIDATED BY FULFIL 
 
 MP]NT ^^ 
 
 50 
 
 Methods which Exclude the Light of Fulfilment-God's 
 
 Thoughts Revealed in Prophecy-Testimony of Eminent 
 
 Expositors-The True Method of Interpretation. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NEGATIVE THEORY OF MESSIANIC PROPHECY 
 WHICH DENIES ALL PREDICTIVE REFERENCE 
 TO JESUS CHRIST g4 
 
 The Negative Theory Stated-An Unavailing Appeal to 
 Amhiguous Phrases-Eminent Biblical Scholars Against the 
 Negative Theory, 
 
iv 
 
 
 
 COXT/'JXTS. 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1 
 
 'AGE 
 
 MESSTANTC 
 
 PROPHECIES WHICH 
 
 PREDICTIVELY 
 
 
 
 REFER 
 
 TO 
 
 JESUS CHRIST 
 
 
 84 
 
 The first Messianic Proniisc — The Sliiloli which was to Come 
 — Th(( Prophet like unto !M()ses — Messiah a Priest Forever — 
 The Messianic King — Messiah as the Clnld of Promise — The 
 Brancli of Jesse — Tlie Suflfering Servant of Jehovali — The 
 Place of Christ's Birth Foretold — Messiah the Righteous 
 Branch — The Time of Messiah's Coming Foretold — Predic- 
 tion of Christ Entering Jerusalem — The Angel of the Cove- 
 nant and his Forerunner. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 GENERAL AND TYPICAL MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 
 
 184 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE THEORY OF ACCOMMODATED Al'PLICATION. . . 193 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT FULFILMENT OF MESSIANIC PRO- 
 PHECIES 204 
 
 Corresi)ondence between Prediction and Fulfilment— Apos- 
 tolic Ai)peals to the Evidence of F^dfilled I'redictions— Christ's 
 Testimony to the Fulfilment of Messianic Prophecies by Hin?- 
 self. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE NEGATIVE THEORY OF PROPHECY, RATIONAL- 
 ISTIC 231 
 
 Distinguishing Features of Rationalism — Dr. Workman's 
 Teaching on Several Points — Some Unjustifiable Objections. 
 
PAGE 
 
 84 
 
 4 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
 
 184 
 
 193 
 
 204 
 
 231 
 
 f 
 
 '^ 
 
 i 
 
 T T may be frankly avowed that tlie occasion yliicli has 
 J- called forth this volume was the delivery and pub- 
 lication of a lecture on Messianic Prophecy, b^ Prof. G. 
 C. Workman, Ph.D., of Victoria University, in which he 
 maintains that there is no original predictive reference to 
 Jesus Christ in tiie Old Testament, and no actual fulfil- 
 ment of predictions referring to Him, by the evei>ts of the 
 New Testament. I regret that it has been foe ad neces- 
 sary to refer so frequently to this lecture, but this could 
 not well be avoided. It was expedient ;;o deal with this 
 particular form of negative teaching, not onlj because it 
 was being taught by a Methodist Professor, bur because it 
 appealed for acceptance to evangelical Christian iS, as beincr 
 consistent with the highest orthodoxy. I trust, however, 
 that what I have written will be found more than a mere 
 reply to the points in this lecture ; and that ::t will con- 
 tribute something towards a right understanding of this 
 great subject, and strengthen Christian faith in the 
 reality of prophecy and the divine authority of Revela- 
 tion. 
 
 I would like, by a few words, to prevent any miscon- 
 
VI 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 ception respecting the purpose und standpoint of this 
 essay ; but this is something of whicli each reader must 
 judge, after a careful and candid reading, Tliere are, 
 however, a few things wliicli I may be permitted to say, 
 by way of defining my attitude towards some phases of 
 current tliought. 
 
 We live in times of great mental unrest. The spirit 
 of inquiry which has distinguished modern research in 
 physical science, has made itself felt in all departments 
 of thought. This is notably the case in regard to Biblical 
 and theological subjects. The time of silencing doubt 
 and settling questions of belief by the authoiity of great; 
 names has passed away. Notliing that has come down to 
 us from former times is deemed too sacred to be subjected 
 to the scrutiny of modern criticism. Creeds and inter- 
 pretations that for generatio'is have been accepted as 
 undoubtedly true are boldly questioned. The conception 
 of the Bible, which has been generally accepted by the 
 Reformed Churches, has been placed in the crucible of 
 the "higher criticism." Our age has taken upon itself 
 the task of reviewing and pronouncing judgment upon 
 the work and conclusions of all formtjr ages. A spirit of 
 doubt and questioning seems to pervade the intellectual 
 atmosphere. Not only the doctrines believed, but the 
 foundations of faith are tried in a furnace heated " seven 
 times more than it was wont to be heated." To determine 
 what should be the attitude of the Christian Church 
 
PRELIM IN A R Y REM A RKS. 
 
 Vll 
 
 towards the conclusions of scientific incjuiry and Biblical 
 criticism, is one of the most serious and pressing problems 
 of our times. 
 
 Without expressing any opinion on tlie burning ques- 
 tions which divide the leaders of current thought, I may 
 say that this essay is not written in any spirit of antag- 
 onism to independent investigation, or free criticism. 
 The (juestioning of honest doubt is better than the 
 unthinking credulity of superstitious belief. Dogmas 
 and theories whose truth cannot be proved by proper 
 evidence, must give place !o something better. Age can- 
 not justify what is false. Whatever fairly vindicates its 
 right to be accepted as true, must find room in our 
 systems of belief, however novel it may be. Neither 
 antiquity nor novelty is of itself a sufficient credential of 
 the truth of any teaching. Yet, the presumption of truth 
 is on the side of what has been believed in the past. 
 Anything tliat has for a length of time been accepted as 
 true, by large numbers of people, is more likely to be true 
 than something that is newly demanding recognition. The 
 old theory, or teaching, Avhich has possession of the field, 
 must have had something effective to say for itself, or it 
 could not have won the ground which it occupies. The 
 new ideas may be right, but they have to vindicate their 
 claims before they can be accepted. The true rule of 
 action is the apostolic principle : " Prove all things ; hold 
 fast that which is good." 
 
Vlll 
 
 Jl!:S(JS THE MESSIAff. 
 
 However great the benefits which tlie interests of truth 
 have received from modern researcli and free criticism, 
 there are tend(!ncies and dangeis arising out of tl:e con- 
 dition of tilings to which I have referred, which demand 
 serious, impartial thought and wise action. There is as 
 much danger in rashly embracing some plausible specula- 
 tion, without due evidence of its truth, as there is in 
 conservatively clinging to old dogmas. Popular sym- 
 pathy, among people without decided religious convic- 
 tions, is largely on the side of any teacliing or action 
 which professes to be an independent breaking away from 
 the trammels of old creeds and usages. Because of this 
 known sympathy with what is free and progressive, the 
 denunciation of traditional beliefs and methods and the 
 glorification of free and independent thinking, are often 
 used as a plea to gain acceptance for some particular 
 theory or method that has not much except its novelty 
 to recommend it. If in former times the authority of 
 creeds and literal interpretations of prophecy unduly 
 prevailed, the tendency at the present time is towards 
 extreme laxity of belief, and a disposition to deny the 
 supernatural and place the Bible on the same level with 
 the sacred books of heathen religions. 
 
 It is well to remember that in questions of Biblical 
 theology, as well as in questions of politics and social 
 reform, it is much easier to portray the errors and faults 
 of the past than to point out " a more excellent way." 
 
PliELIMIXA U Y HEM A RKS, 
 
 IX 
 
 Other people's errors do not prove tliat wo are right. 
 Neither does the stf^einent of general principles approv- 
 ing liberty of thought vindicate the truth of a particular 
 opinion. The principles may he sound and true, but they 
 may not apply to the case tliey are intended to cover and 
 justify. 
 
 There seems to be a good deal of misapprehension in 
 the air respec*'ng the nature and claims of what is called 
 the "hif'hcr criticism." Some seem to thiidc that a critical 
 method has been discovered, which, if only adoptcid and 
 pi'actised in Biblical studies, would conduct to absolutely 
 right conclusions. This is a grave misappreiiension. 
 There is no royal or patented method for the discovery of 
 truth. The avowed characteristic of the " higher ci'iti- 
 cism " is the independent study of the books of the 
 Holy Scripture as literature is studied, using the light, 
 not oi.ly of language, but also of history, literary char- 
 acteristics, and contemporary thought, in order to deter- 
 mine the autliors, the circun stances and time when 
 written, the trustworthiness, and the meaning of these 
 sacred books. No intelligent lover of the Bible should 
 object to the closest examination of everything that can 
 throw light upon its history and meaning. 
 
 It will be seen from this statement that the thins: signi- 
 fied by the "higher criticism" is not so new as the name, 
 and that this kind of criticism is not confined to anv 
 one school of expositors. It is also a popular mistake 
 
ma 
 
 Jl^SUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 \\ 
 
 that the "hif^her criticism" means a superior kind of 
 criticism, used only by German Rationalists, while the 
 orthodox commentators employ a "lower" or inferior 
 method of criticism. On this point Principal Cave pro- 
 perly says : "'Higher criticism' is a technical term, and 
 the origin of the technic.ility did not arise from higher, as 
 contrasted with superior, criticism, but from higher criti- 
 cism (as of language and contents) as contrasted with 
 lower criticism (as of text). ... In Eichorn's time Bibli- 
 cal criticism had come mostly to mean what we now call 
 textual criticism. Eichorn was compelled, therefore, to 
 invent a name, and as the study of the contents of a book 
 will always be considered a higher study than that of the 
 words in which those contents aro expressed, Eichorn 
 called his resuscitated line of research the ' higher criti- 
 cism,' as contrasted with the research into the original 
 texts, which relatively seemed to be ' lower criticism.' " ^ 
 It is unfortunate and misleading, though not altogether 
 their fault, that this designation is now almost wholly 
 applied to writers who adopt certain extreme negative 
 opinions in Biblical interpretation, rather than to all who 
 use the thorough methods of modern criticism. Such 
 writers as Lightfoot, Westcott, Sanday, Delitzsch, Pusey, 
 Cave, Orelli and Green, use the best methods of the 
 "higher criticism," just as truly and as independently as 
 Kuenen, Wellhausen, Robertson Smith, Briggs, Cheney 
 
 ^ " Battle of the Standpoints," p. 7. 
 
 i^ 
 
 !i.. 
 
 :.# 
 
PREUMWA R Y HEM A RKS. 
 
 XI 
 
 kind of 
 
 hile the 
 
 inferior 
 
 'ave pro- 
 
 rni, and 
 
 igher, as 
 
 ler criti- 
 
 3d with 
 
 le Bibli- 
 
 ovv call 
 
 fore, to 
 
 i a book 
 
 '' of the 
 
 Eichorn 
 
 ;r criti- 
 
 original 
 
 ism.'"i 
 
 ogether 
 
 wjiolly 
 
 egative 
 
 a,ll who 
 
 Such 
 
 Pusey, 
 
 of the 
 
 itly as 
 
 ^^heney 
 
 and Driver. The first-mentioned class cover the same 
 ground, deal with the same facts, and grapple with the 
 same questions as the latter. It should not be overlooked 
 that all who adopt the most thorough methods of modern 
 criticism do not arrive at the same conclusions. The fact 
 that a commentator is evangelical and orthodox in the- 
 ology does not warrant the assumption, that he has not 
 carefully weighed all that the " higher criticism " of the 
 negative school has to ofier in support of its conclusions. 
 The battle for the apostolic authorship of the fourth 
 Gospel has been fought and won by the use of the com- 
 parisons and investigations of the " higher criticism." 
 
 " The results of modern criticism " has become a cant 
 phrase which, like charity, is expected to " cover a multi- 
 tude of sins " against the historic Christian faith. One 
 may approve of the most thorough criticism of everything 
 relating to the Bible, and yet see good reason to reject 
 many things which claim to be the " results of modern 
 criticism." The right and duty of thorough Biblical criti- 
 cism is one thing ; the assumption that every speculation 
 which is put forward as a result of the " higher criticism " 
 should be accepted as true is a very diflerent thing. The 
 first is proper and legitimate ; the second may be only 
 untenable conjectures. 
 
 " Great men are not alwavs wise." Great scholars are 
 not always judicial and unbiased. In Biblical interpre- 
 tation, as in all branches of human inquiry, more depends 
 
 ,s" 
 
f 
 
 xu 
 
 j^si^s tiiu MESSIAH:. 
 
 \-' 
 
 upon intellectual acuteness and insight, breadth of mental 
 gr isp, and absence of warping bias in the man, than upon 
 linguistic scholarship or any ancient or modern method of 
 criticism. So-called '•' results of the ' higher criticism ' " 
 have not unfrequently borne the marks of a bias that 
 greatly detracted from the weight of the conclusions. As 
 Principal Cave has shown in the able lecture from which 
 we have already quoted, the differences of religious belief, 
 which separate men into different sections and churches, 
 mainly arise from the different standpoints from which 
 they have approached the great questions with which the- 
 ology deals ; or, in other words, theii' conceptions of what 
 Dr. Martineau calls " the seat of Authority in Religion." 
 The answer which a man gives to the question, " What 
 think ye of Christ 1 " will determine his conclusions on 
 other important questions. 
 
 It is easy to see, if a critic has convinced himself that 
 miracles and the supernatural revelation of future events 
 are impossible, no matter what his scholarship or intellec- 
 tual gifts may be, his views on this essential point will 
 influence and determine his conclusions in the interpreta- 
 tion of the prophecieii and all other parts of Scripture. 
 He can accept no interpretation that does not harmonize 
 with his disbelief. Unhappily this is no imaginary case. 
 Among German Biblical theologians there are sad exam- 
 ples of men who deny the supernatural, and make their 
 interpretations of Scripture conform to their skepticism. 
 
PRELIM IN A R Y REM A RKS. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 F. Baur (quoted by Dr. Pusey) says: "The main a^'gumeiit 
 for the later date of our Gospels is, after all, this : that 
 they one by one, and still more collectively, exhibit so 
 much out of the life of Jesus in a way that is impossible.'^ 
 Knobel (quoted by De Wette) says: " To maintain the 
 genuineness of Isaiah xxiii., and yet refer it to a siege of 
 Tyre, by Nebuchadnezzar, more than a century later, as 
 Jerome, etc., do, is impossible^ in that in Isaiah's time 
 there could be no anticipation of it, much less a con- 
 fident and definite announcement of it." Kuenen and 
 his school take a similar position. No interpretation that 
 involves the miraculous intervention of God in human 
 affairs is admitted by him. He expounds the prophecies 
 avowedly to exclude and disprove all actual fulfilment. 
 With him prophecy "is a human phenomenon proceeding 
 from Israel, directed to Israel." Jewish and Christian 
 miracles are placed in the same category as those of 
 Buddha and Mahomet. It is extraordinary and signifi- 
 cant that Prof. Workman quotes Dr. Kuenen, the avowed 
 denier of supernatural predictions, with approval as an 
 authority against the fulfilment of Old Testament predic- 
 tions. It needs little argument to show that the theories 
 of this negative school of critics undermine and assail a 
 vital Protestant principle, viz., the divine inspiration and 
 authority of Holy Scripture. 
 
 Wrong views of God and Christ are not the only causes 
 which vitiate the value of the conclusions of some gifted 
 
XIV 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH, 
 
 and learned writers. Just as there are some men so con- 
 servative that they will cling to a traditional belief with 
 a blind tenacity that is proof against argument, so there 
 is another class, who deem it a sign of independence and 
 of superior culture to be known as men who are in 
 earnest sympathy with all that is new and striking in 
 modern thought. Suah men are not safe guides. They 
 are frequently one-sided and extreme. Hupfeld says of 
 Ewald, the great German Hebraist, some things that 
 would probably fit more than one Biblical critic. He 
 says : " Whatever occurs to him appears to him as certain 
 as a revelation." And, therefore, " he is specially want- 
 ing in all criticism of himself, in all capacity of compar- 
 ing his own performances with those of others." Hup- 
 feld speaks also of "his boundless conceit, which imagines 
 that, in his numerous writings, he has revealed pure and 
 irrefragable truth ; and since amid all the admiration that 
 has been paid to him (such as half truths most find), he 
 has not found so much blind belief as he requires, and 
 has often experiencefd even contradiction, he has not been 
 ashamed to ascribe this to hostility to the truth, and to 
 ascribe to his contemporaries that after the light had 
 appeared, they loved darkness rather than light." 
 
 This may be an overdrawn picture of a peculiar man ; 
 yet nothing is more common than for the men who put 
 themselves forward as the champions of free thought and 
 modern ideas, to complain bitterly of persecution and 
 injustice, if a little free " modern criticism " is used in 
 
 4 
 
PRELIM IN A R Y REM A RKS. 
 
 XV 
 
 man ; 
 
 refuting their partial speculations. Men who treat the 
 most cherished convictions of others as mere traditional 
 prejudices, assume that their notions should be treated 
 with respectful tenderness. The man who is advocating 
 some new theological opinion has no more right to pose 
 as the special lover and defender of truth, than he who, 
 in opposing him, believes he is " contending for the faith 
 once delivered unto the saints." - Because some of the 
 great reformers and discoverers of the past met with 
 opposition, it does not follow that every one whose 
 theories are opposed is a Galileo or a Luther. 
 
 An easy way of proving that we are right, and those 
 who differ from us wrong, is to assume that those who 
 believe as we do are the learned and advanced thinkers ; 
 and those who differ from us, persons who cling to 
 traditional views that cannot bear the light of modern 
 criticism. But this method, though natural, is neither 
 safe nor scientific. Those who use the word traditional 
 as a term of reproach, should remember that in this con- 
 nection it is synonymous with the historical, and embraces 
 the doctrines that the best Christian thinkers have drawn 
 from the word and works of God, and which, though not 
 above reverent criticism, have inspired Christian faith 
 and hope through the ages of the past. 
 
 In the following pages I have honestly sought to find 
 out what is the teaching of the Holy Scriptures on the 
 subject under discussion, without being unduly influenced 
 
 2 See Appendix, Note A. 
 
XVI 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I « 
 
 citlier by the novelty or the antiquity of the views 
 considered. My only motive in writing upon this subject 
 is the vindication of what I tirinly believe to be the Bible 
 conception of prophecy and fulfilment. I have written in 
 conscientious loyalty to my convictions of truth. I can- 
 not admit that the denial of the actual fulfilment, by New 
 Testament events, of predictions referring to our Redeemer, 
 which presents such convincing evidence of the super- 
 natural knowledge of the prophets and the Messiahship 
 of Christ, is right and Scriptural, nor that it is a harndess 
 theory, which should be exei^pt from criticism and con- 
 demnation. 
 
 I have quoted the texts of Scripture from the Revised 
 Version, because, in discussing matters about which there is 
 a difierence of opinion, it will be accepted as giving the mean- 
 
 ing with more literal correctness. 
 
.,Er<.^;:;.iTV 
 
 3 Views 
 i subject 
 le Bible 
 'itten in 
 I can- 
 by New 
 'deemer, 
 i super- 
 siahship 
 larmless 
 md con- 
 
 Revised 
 
 there is 
 
 le niean- 
 
 M 
 
 INSTITUTE. 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH 
 
 IN PROPHECY AND FULFILMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIES AND 
 
 PROPHETS. 
 
 THE Hebrew propbecies occupy a unique phice 
 in the literature of the world. Those relating 
 to the Messiah and the Messianic kingdom possess a 
 profound interest for all Christians. No subject has 
 stronger claims to careful and independent study. 
 These prophecies reveal God's beneficent purposes 
 for the moral and spiritual elevation of the world, 
 and shed an ever-increasing light on the religious 
 life and hopes of the people of Israel. It is an 
 interesting study to follow the history of the 
 advancement of a nation in the arts of civilized life ; 
 but we rise into a higher plane of thought in study- 
 ing the growth and progress of the faith and hope 
 
 of God's ancient people. These hopes were kindled 
 2 
 
18 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I 1 
 
 Jl 
 
 t\ 
 
 I 
 
 5 .» 
 
 ;i 
 
 f- ' 
 
 by the prophetic premises of a coming deliverer who 
 was to bring in a reign of righteousness. 
 
 It is only in the light of these prophecies that we 
 can rightly apprehend the redemptive work of 
 Christ and its glorious results — not as an isolated 
 and independent system of religion, but as the con- 
 summation of the divine purposes which had been 
 revealed, by the holy prophets, to the people of God 
 in a former dispensation. The relation of the Old 
 Testament to the New is as the blossom to the fruit, 
 as the foundation to the complete structure, as the 
 hope-inspiring promise to the joy-giving fulfilment. 
 The prophecies of the Old Testament invest the 
 New Testament with a divine sanction, because they 
 show the Christian dispen'^ation to be the outcome 
 of God's purpose. The fulfilments of the New 
 Testament vindicate the supernatural origin of the 
 Old Testament revelation, and reflect back upon it 
 the light of the glory of the latter days. 
 
 It has been pertinently said : " The Bible can 
 never be rightly studied unless the two Testaments 
 are comprehended in their unity and harmony. If 
 the Old Testament is in the New in fulfilment, the 
 New is in the Old in promise." All through the 
 New Testament it is assumed that the religious 
 teaching of the Old Testament was supernaturally 
 
 
OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECIKS. 
 
 10 
 
 can 
 
 lents 
 If 
 the 
 the 
 
 lOUS 
 
 revealed and of Divine authority. Any theories, 
 therefore, that would reduce the Old Testament 
 prophecies to a mere natural outgrowth of the reli- 
 gious life of the people of Israel, would contradict 
 and disparage the authority of the New Testament. 
 There is one important fact, in regard to this 
 intimate relation of Christianity to the religious 
 teaching of the prophets, which has been generally 
 overlooked. It is sometimes urged as an objection 
 against the teaching of the New Testament, that it 
 deals almost exclusively with spiritual and personal 
 religion, and gives scarcely any place to tlie duties of 
 national and public life. This is in the main correct. 
 
 But there a. 
 
 K) > 
 
 oorsidera^'^ns "rl^i^v, 
 
 .^.^,>. lV8 
 
 this objection ot ..n^, real force. (1) Christianity 
 inherits and adopts, as a part of its teaching, the 
 deliverances of the Hebrew prophets, vvLich are full 
 of great lessons on public duty. The integrity of 
 rulers, just administration of law, op})Osition to 
 every form of oppression, and tender regard for the 
 welfare of the ^u'oring classes are all earnestly and 
 frequenth^ ..J.o oed by the prophets of Israel. The 
 New Test.^i. • ^ writers assume the existeace of this 
 teaching. (2) .! ^ould also be borne in mind that 
 the New Testamb. ' I'^cords the history of the 
 beginnings of Christiu'xx'y, before it had developed 
 
 ;M 
 
 <• '.I 
 
 "** 
 
r,': 
 
 !»' 
 
 20 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 il 
 
 1 
 
 ! 
 I. > 
 
 f; 
 
 i 
 
 11^ 
 
 into a great organization, embracing natioi.s and 
 their rulers within its pale, and exerting a trans- 
 forming influence on the social and political life 
 of communities. 
 
 The Origin ob^ Prophecy. 
 
 It would not be justifiable to limit the oi?r,,tttrms 
 of the Holy Spirit to Jewish o^ '^l,ri tiuu communi- 
 ties. Whate^'^^r light ...oamed on the minds of 
 J!:Toui. 'leaJiens came from the "Inspirer of the 
 ancient seers." But it is an indisputable fact that 
 no records of heathen prophecy are at all worthy to 
 be compared with the prophecies of the Bible, or 
 require any elaborate explanation. The origin of 
 most heathen predictions is either ambiguous 
 guesses, which cunningly avoid the discredit of 
 failure; feeble imitations of true prophecy; or human 
 attempts to supply the demand which arises from 
 the common desire to draw aside the veil that 
 enshrouds the future. All higher than this must be 
 classed as special revelations to men who, like 
 Cornelius, held the essential truth of God amid 
 surrounding darkness and were not really heathen. 
 But the true prophets of the Lord " spake from God, 
 being moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter i. 21.) 
 Any theory that places the origin and character of 
 
THE ORiaiN OF ruorinjcr 
 
 21 
 
 natioi.s and 
 lin^ a trans- 
 political life 
 
 LcU communi- 
 
 le minds of 
 
 ipirer of the 
 
 ible fact that 
 
 ill worthy to 
 
 he Bible, or 
 
 he origin of 
 
 ambiguous 
 
 discredit of 
 
 y; or human 
 
 arises from 
 
 le veil that 
 
 ibis must be 
 
 n who, like 
 
 God amid 
 
 dly heathen. 
 
 :e from God, 
 
 Peter i. 21.) 
 
 character of 
 
 the ordinary heathen predictions on the same level 
 with Bible prophecy, lowers the claims of the Bible 
 and casts shadows of doubt or It-i divi.ie authority. 
 ^ There has been a grear d .al written respecting the 
 origin of piop'icc}'. One would suppose that among 
 believers in the Bible there would be little diversity 
 of opinion on this point. But those writers, who are 
 anxious to account for all prophecy on natural 
 grounds, have regarded the gift of prophecy either 
 as keen intellectual foresight or something akin to 
 poetic genius. No doubt there have been gifted men 
 whose sagacity enabled them to forecast some com- 
 ing events ; but this was not prophecy. There is a 
 sense in which, as Hotiman says, " History itself is 
 prophecy." That is, every age is largely the parent 
 of the succeeding age. There is a sense in which 
 the prophetic age was a prophecy of the apostolic 
 age. But no unprejudiced student of Old Testament 
 prophecy can accept admissions of this kind, or any 
 theory that makes a human supply for the instinc- 
 tive demand for a knowledge of the future account 
 for the origin of prophecy. Yet, a naturalistic 
 theory of its origin is boldly avowed. Canon Driver 
 says: "It is a fundamental principle of prophecy 
 that the historical situation of the prophet should be 
 the basis of his prediction." Dr. Riehm teaches that 
 
00 
 
 JESm THE ME^mAU. 
 
 1' I 
 
 1 \ 
 
 I! 
 
 1:1 
 
 psychologically prophecy "comes to have its roots in 
 the general consciousness of the jirophets, and is 
 educed from the same according to the laws of 
 organic development." We are compelled to reject 
 this theory as out of harmony with the Scriptural 
 conception of prophecy. If we understand it aright, 
 this theory virtually implies that the historic events 
 and circumstances transpiring around him, acting on 
 the mental powers and religious sentiments of the 
 prophet, called forth the prophecy. 
 
 Such an account of the origin of prophecy is 
 utterly inadequate. There is in it an element of 
 truth, which is, however, greatl}^ exaggerated, and 
 put forward as if it were the whole truth. We 
 freely admit that the personality of the prophet is 
 seen in his prophecy, just as we admit the human 
 element in the writings of Paul, John and Luke 
 though we cannot formally mark it off from the 
 divine. We admit that there is generally something 
 in the prophecy adapted to the condition of the 
 people of the prophet's time, and often a local color- 
 ing, if not a local application. But it is wholly 
 unjustifiable to invest these things with the dignity 
 of being the actual producing causes of prophecy. 
 
 The great facts of prophecy and the explicit testi- 
 mony of the holy seers themselves contradict this 
 
 ■.^ 
 
Tin: oiiuiiN OF piiorirKCY 
 
 23 
 
 Dots in 
 and is 
 lws of 
 reject 
 iptural 
 aright, 
 events 
 /i'ng on 
 of the 
 
 lecy is 
 ent of 
 d, and 
 1. We 
 phet is 
 luman 
 Luke 
 •m the 
 
 le 
 
 thing 
 
 of the 
 color- 
 wholly 
 lignity 
 3cy. 
 t testi- 
 ct this 
 
 naturalistic theory. The prophets all bear testimony 
 that their knowledge of the future came to them 
 in a different way from this, Amos says : " Surely 
 the Lord will do nothing, but He revealeth His 
 secrets to His servants the prophets." (Amos iii. 7.) 
 Passing over all prophecies having such immediate 
 reference to current or near events as might give 
 some show of plausibility to this theory, there is a 
 large number of predictions to which its application 
 would be absurd. How could the cun-ent history 
 and the prophet's «^enius account for Jeremiah pro- 
 phesying the return of the Jews in just seventy 
 years ? How could this theory account for Micah 
 prophesying that the Messiah should come out of 
 Bethlehem ? How could it account for Zechariah's 
 prophecy concerning Christ's entering Jerusalem ? 
 or ])aniers prophecy of the seventy weeks ? How 
 could it account for Nahum's explicit prediction of 
 the fall of the mighty Assyrian empire, which, even 
 the Rationalist Knobel admits, did not take place 
 till one hundred years later ? Not one of the great 
 Messianic prophecies can be accounted for in this 
 way, as the product of local causes. 
 
 If it were true that such prophecies as those of 
 Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel were the natural pro- 
 duct of the influence of special occasions operating on 
 

 mm 
 
 24 
 
 pi 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH, 
 
 
 I 
 
 gifted minds, why has this not continued ? If these 
 prophecies were a natural development, why have 
 not gifted men in Jreece and Rome, in Germany and 
 England, in times of great national interest, given 
 forth prophetic predictions like those of the Hebrew 
 prophets ? The theory breaks down when tested by 
 facts. The mysterious but real agency of a living, 
 all-wise God, who communicated a knowledge of 
 sacred truth and coming events to the mind of the 
 prophet, alone can account for these predictions. 
 
 In studying Old Testament prophecy it should 
 never be forgotten that it is because all the Hebrew 
 prophets were inspired by the same Spirit that there 
 is unity in the truths they taught. No prophecy 
 stands wholly alone or out of relation to other pro- 
 phecies. It has been wisU said : "Hebrew predictive 
 prophecy, while it arises in accordance with the 
 psychological condition of the human soul, so tran- 
 scends its normal powers that we are constrained to 
 think of the divine mind as its source and inspira- 
 tion. This is true if we measure Hebrew prophecy 
 merely by the consciousness of ^ the individual pro- 
 phet ; but when we consider that the prophets were 
 linked in a chain, and that their predictions are 
 combined in a system, an organic whole, which no 
 individual prophet could possibly comprehend. 
 
Tin: on WIN of prophecy. 
 
 25 
 
 which now stands before the scholarly world in 
 marvellous unity and variety as the object of 
 the study of the a^^es of the past, which absorbs 
 the energies of the present, and which arches the 
 future even to the end of the world, we are forced 
 to the conviction that the one master of the Hebrew 
 prophets was the Spirit of God ; and that the 
 organic system of prophec is a product of the mind 
 and will of God."^ 
 
 There has been much discussion and speculation 
 respecting the way in which God comraunicatcd His 
 will and word to the prophets. The particular mode 
 in which these revelations were made is a matter of 
 secondary importance. The fact is more essential 
 than the mode. God spoke to the fathers by the 
 prophets " in divers manners." It may have been in 
 dreams and visions, or ecstatic trances. It may have 
 been by an inward or outward voice spoken to the 
 soul, or by the mysterious blending of the divine 
 thought with the human. It may be that the mes- 
 sage of the Spirit came as spontaneously as their 
 own thinking. Of this we can know nothing but 
 what we learn from the prophets themselves, regard- 
 ing their mental state when they received the divine 
 revelation. Men generally adopt a theory of the 
 
 iBriggs' "Messianic Prophecy,"!). 42. 
 
 H! 
 
 ■ H 
 
 ,# 
 
26 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 
 I ; 
 
 ' , i 
 
 ■ 1 
 
 mode to fit their views of Revelation. Speculation 
 can give no sure light on this mysterious question. 
 What we do know certainly is that, in varied forms 
 of expression, it is distinctly declared that the Spirit 
 of God revealed to the prophets a knowledge of 
 spiritual truths and future events, which no human 
 sagacity, without supernatural aid, could have 
 enabled them to gain. The Spirit who revealed the 
 prophecy, gave also the assurance of its truth, and 
 sustained the prophet in declaring it. This double 
 faculty, of perceiving the revelation and proclaiming 
 it, is strikingly illustrated in Amos iii. 8 : " The lion 
 hath roared, who will not fear ? The Lord hath 
 spoken, who will not prophecy ? " Thus suggesting 
 that, when God poured the light o'i. great truths or 
 coming events on the prophet's vision, he was power- 
 fully impelled to make these revelations known to 
 others. 
 
 Character and Mission of the Prophets. 
 
 The prophets of the Old Testament stand forth 
 among the grandest types of mental and moral man- 
 hood that this world has ever beheld. Rising above 
 the prevailing errors and follies of their times, they 
 fearlessly rebuked the current forms of iniquity and 
 idolatry. They faithfully pointed out the way of 
 
 I 
 
 1i 
 
MISSION OF THE PROPHETS. 
 
 27 
 
 righteousness and truth to the guilty multitudes 
 who had transgressed the divine law and departed 
 from the living God. They proclaimed without 
 quailing the threatened judgments of God against 
 nations and individuals. They held up the standards 
 of a pure morality in times when grossest immor- 
 ality flooded the land. They cheered and animated 
 the people of Israel in their times of deepest depres- 
 sion, by definite and inspiring predictions of a 
 comino" . eiofn of righteousness, when a Redeemer 
 should arise to turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 
 They rose so high above the priests in character and 
 influence, that those minor orbs are largely lost to 
 sight in the blaze of their superior brightness. No 
 religious or political office in modern nations can 
 iitly illustrate their position. In the Jewish 
 theocracy they were the lights and touchstones of 
 the national conscience, blending e&,rnest calls to 
 repentance and obedience with wonderful predic- 
 tions of coming events that were *o affect the destiny 
 of nations. 
 
 In one respect there is a striking analogy between 
 the prophets of Israel and all true ministers of the 
 Christian dispensation. They were speciallj'' called 
 and qualified by God for their sacred office. They 
 received their authority from no human hands. 
 
 ill 
 
 
 I I 
 
28 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 11 
 
 k- ! i* 
 
 ; :( 
 
 1» 
 
 I ' 
 
 I ! w 
 
 They boasted no priestly or ecclesiastical succession. 
 The credentials of their prophetism were the divine 
 wisdom and truth of their prophecies and the lofty 
 purity of their lives. 
 
 Origin and Development of Messianic 
 
 Prophecy. 
 
 There can scarcely be a doubt that the Messianic 
 hopes of the Hebrew people had their origin in the 
 promise given to our first parents, in the dark hour 
 of their expulsion from Eden, that the seed of the 
 woman should ultimately triumph and crush the 
 power of the adversary of man. 
 
 Some writers have sought to weaken the evidence 
 for the existence of prophecies of a personal Messiah, 
 by asserting that the term "Messiah" (Heb. Mashiach) 
 was not used as a proper name in the Old Testa- 
 ment ; but the personal character of the Messianic 
 prophecies does not depend upon the use of this 
 term. In some of the most directly personal predic- 
 tions of a coming Redeemer the word " Messiah " is 
 not used. But even the Rev. George Adam Smith, 
 who does not lean unduly to orthodox interpreta- 
 tions, frankly says : " So it became in Jewish 
 theology the technical term for the coming King and 
 Captain of Salvation."" There is good reason to 
 
 •'The Book of Isaiah," Vol. I., p. 131. 
 
 ■t 
 
 I 
 
 rl 
 
OIUaiN AND DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 29 
 
 believe that the use of the word " Messias," as a 
 proper name in the New Testament, was derived 
 from the similar use of the term in Daniel. 
 
 In the primitive ages Messianic intimations are 
 comparatively few and indefinite. The idea of 
 the selection and training of a nation, to be 
 a divine agency to make known to the world 
 the knowledge of God and His glorious purposes for 
 the redemption of humanity through Christ, is a 
 more wonderful and sublime conception than can be 
 found anywhere outside of the Bible. The institu- 
 tion of sacrifice seems to have no proper meaning, if 
 the typical cliaracter of these sacrifices be denied. 
 "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and 
 goats should take away sins." (Heb. x. 4.) 
 
 In the later periods of Hebrew history the in- 
 spiring voice of Messianic prophecy grows clearer. 
 The utterances of the prophets become more definite. 
 Their faith gathers a more exultant energy. The 
 hope of a coming Deliverer and a great national 
 redemption broadens and brightens, till its lustre 
 illumines the whole horizon of Hebrew thought and 
 life. This growth of the Messianic idea is not the 
 mere natural development of a germ thought. It is 
 the outcome of the Divine teaching received by the 
 prophets. Sometimes the picture of a conquering 
 
 i'. 
 
"^'•i^^ 
 
 i"^p 
 
 !■■ 
 
 I ► 
 
 ti 
 
 i 
 
 1-. 
 
 1 '■ 
 
 
 '' 
 
 
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 i:. 
 
 l*t 
 
 t 
 
 30 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 King of David's line rises on the prophet's vision. At 
 other times it is a Prince of Peace, an anointed pro- 
 phet-teacher, a divine child of promise, a suffering 
 Servant of Jehovah, or the coming of Jehovah Him- 
 self. Different prophets present the Messiah in dif- 
 ferent characters, and under different types and 
 figures ; so that it must have been difficult or impos- 
 sible for those to whom these prophecies were 
 addressed to see how they could be fulfilled in one 
 person. Many of the prophecies are more or less 
 tinged by the national feeling of the prophet and 
 the condition and circumstances of his times. Some- 
 times the prophecy begins with' pictures of deliver- 
 ances from national woes ; but, as the vision opens 
 more fully, there are promises of broader and 
 higher blessings than can bo applied to any one 
 nation. At times, blessings which from their nature 
 belong to humanity by the right of universal need, 
 appear to be limited to the people of Israel. More 
 frequently national and universal deliverance is 
 blended in the same vision. 
 
 Coming down the stream of prophecy, we find 
 references to the place, to the circumstances, and to 
 the time of the Messiah's birth. Zechariah speaks 
 of particular events in His life. Most striking of 
 all we have in the description of the Servant of 
 
M ! 
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 31 
 
 Jehovah, in the fifty-third of Isaiah, the picture of 
 a suffering Redeemer, who yields up His life as a 
 vicarious sacrifice for others, and through whose 
 suffering, healing and justification are to be obtained 
 by "many." 
 
 The oracular and predictive in prophecy does not 
 die out as time goes on, as some have alleged. 
 Malachi, whose testimony ends these marvellous 
 prophetic records, closes his prophecy with distinct 
 predictions of the forerunner of the Messiah. Even 
 after the records of the greater and minor prophets 
 were closed, the voice of the hopes and anticipations 
 which they had kindled in the hearts of the people 
 was not altogether silent. In the interval between 
 Malachi and the birth of the Redeemer there are 
 expressions of the Messianic hope in the literature of 
 the period. In the Targums, in the Sibylline Oracles 
 and in the Book of Henoch, from different stand- 
 points, the advent of the Messiah is portrayed. So 
 prominently was this idea before the minds of the 
 Jewish people, that a widespread expectancy pre- 
 vailed before John the Baptist announced that the 
 Messiah had already come. 
 
 From this brief and imperfect glance at the 
 history of Messianic prophecy we learn : (1) That the 
 Old Testament presents evidence of a development 
 
 .'I' 
 
 11 
 
i'lfi 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■HP 
 
 ■>4MAafeMMWMH«MII^HM 
 
 32 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 of Messianic ideas, which was the result of the 
 increasingly clearer revelations made by the Holy 
 Spirit to the prophets. (2) That the effect of the 
 prophetic teaching was to create a general expecta- 
 tion of a coming Redeemer, who was to redeem 
 Israel and bring in a reio^n of righteousness. 
 
 !-i 
 
 \ I 
 
 ■ [ 
 
 I 
 
 ! ! 
 
 (1 
 
 f I 
 
 ■ii 
 
 I * 
 
 iitm 
 
 iijllli^ 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 l!!| 
 
 
 
 ■^ 
 
 1 
 
 THE PREDICTIVE AND ETHICAL ELE- 
 MENTS IN PROPHECY. 
 
 AMONG a certain class of Biblical expositors 
 there is a strong disposition to IjcUttle and 
 ignore the predictive element in prophecy. This is 
 certainly true of the Rationalists of Ger Dr.ny. who 
 either deny the supernatural element iii tht) Bible 
 altogether, or leave it doubtful whether 1 hc} believe 
 or reject it. Refernng to this school of theologians, 
 Prof. Orelli, of Basel, says : " In the same manner, in 
 our days, only the ethico-religious ideas and views 
 are acknowledged as the real divine purport of pro- 
 phecy, while the predictions which cannot be deduced 
 from these generalities are supposed to have no 
 theological worth, but rest at most upon an inexplic- 
 able faculty of presentiment." * 
 
 Unjustifiable Disparagemfnt of Prediction. 
 
 Although Prof. Workman, in his lecture on " Mes- 
 sianic Prophecy," admits in general terms the 
 
 1 " Old Testament Prophecy," p. 27. 
 3 
 
 ni 
 
^w- 
 
 34 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 ; 'I 
 
 ! 1 i !■ 
 I 1 1: 
 
 I ■ : 
 
 
 reality of prediction as being taught in the Scrip- 
 tures, yet he puts forth persistent efforts to dis- 
 parage and minify the predictive element in 
 Old Testament piophecy. Before he reveals his 
 negative theory of Messianic prophecy, he betrays 
 a consciousness that he has something to teach which 
 is not in harmony with actual prediction and fulfil- 
 ment ; and so he labors to remove them out of his 
 way. He says : 
 
 "In Hebrew prophecy the oracular features 
 gradually disappeared until it became almost wholly 
 spiritual." (Christian Guardian.) 
 
 Prediction is characterized as a lower stage, which 
 the great prophets outgrew. He says : 
 
 " The predictive element, it has been claimed, and 
 rightly claimed, it seems, characterized only those 
 prophetic teachers, as a rule, who had the more 
 ordinary gifts." (Lecture on " Messianic Prophecy," 
 p. 416.) 
 
 Again : 
 
 " While, as has been stated, according to certain 
 declarations of Scripture, the element of prediction 
 sometimes belonged to prophecy, this element must 
 be regarded as comparatively unessential and sub- 
 sidiary " (p. 417). "Thus, in order to obtain a true 
 idea of the subject, we must at the outset carefully 
 distinguish prophecy from prediction. The dis- 
 tinction is of fundamental importance " (p. 410). 
 
T'» 
 
 niSPARAaEMENT OF PREDICTION. 
 
 35 
 
 Scrip- 
 to (lis- 
 ent in 
 lals his 
 betrays 
 h which 
 d fulfil- 
 b of his 
 
 features 
 ) wholly 
 
 !, which 
 
 led, and 
 y those 
 e more 
 )phecy," 
 
 certain 
 ediction 
 it must 
 nd sub- 
 i a true 
 arefully 
 he dis- 
 .6). 
 
 :i 
 
 We suppose this means it is of " fundamental 
 importance " to his theory that prediction should be 
 distinguished from prophecy. This minimizing way 
 of stating the matter is very suggestive. Again he 
 says : 
 
 "This unfortunate emphasis (of prediction) has 
 produced a powerful and widespread revulsion in 
 the minds of scientific students of the Old Testa- 
 ment" (p. 417). 
 
 And so prediction must be thrust aside where it 
 will not offend the delicate sensibilities of " scientific 
 students." Having satisfied himself that "detailed 
 prediction occupies a secondary place in the com- 
 munications of the prophets," he concludes that " the 
 extent of their predictive power becomes a matter of 
 minor interest." One would think that in studying 
 prophecies that foretold the coming Messiah, the 
 predictive power of the prophets would concern us 
 very much. But this is all a mistake ; " with the 
 range or limit, though, of their predictive horizon, wo 
 have nothing now to do." 
 
 The purpose that prompts these statements is also 
 seen in his efforts to divest words of their predic- 
 tive meaning. " Foretell " means merely to forthtell, 
 " Prophecy " means ethical preaching. The " pro- 
 phet " is a preacher. We refer to these points, not 
 
 ■,l 
 
'^a 
 
 ir 
 
 3G 
 
 JK^U^ Till': MKSSlAir. 
 
 fV 
 
 I , 
 
 1 I. 
 
 ■} 
 
 , t ' ■' 
 
 
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 I 
 
 I , ill 
 
 ti 
 
 tilll 
 
 ■:. I' 
 
 iilitl 
 
 lllli!:!' 
 
 because any reply is really necessary, but to show the 
 animus af^ainst prediction. After Prof. Workman has 
 said all he can say, he has not changed the meaning 
 of these words. The idea of prediction is essentially 
 inbedded in the word "prophecy." It is not quite 
 ingenuous to quote what is said of "prophesying" 
 in the New Testament sense, in proof of the non- 
 predictive character of Old Testament prophecy. It 
 is unquestionable that " foretell " means to predict. 
 It is not correct that the word only means to tell 
 forth. But even if it were true, does not the thing 
 told determine its meaning ? If what is " told forth" 
 is something that is to take place in the future, is 
 not this " foretelling ?" When St. Peter (Acts iii. 24) 
 says of the prophets, that " they told of these days," 
 (Revised Version), does he not mean that they fore- 
 told or predicted these days ?'- 
 
 All this disparagement of prediction is evidently 
 intended to be preparatory for what is to follow. It 
 is an effort to remove the idea of supernatural pre- 
 diction out of the way of his negative theory — that 
 there is no predictive reference to Jesus Christ in 
 the Old Testament. His exaltation of the ethical 
 and spiritual, as the chief thing in prophecy, is for 
 the same purpose. It is an illustration of making 
 
 2 See note A in Appendix. 
 
hISPARAaEMENT OP riiEDICTION. 
 
 37 
 
 3W the 
 an has 
 eaning 
 ntially 
 t quite 
 sying" 
 e non- 
 cv. It 
 predict, 
 to tell 
 3 thing 
 . forth" 
 ture, is 
 iii. 24) 
 days," 
 y fore- 
 
 idently 
 ow. It 
 al pre- 
 r — that 
 irist in 
 ethical 
 7, is for 
 making 
 
 
 I 
 
 ■I 
 
 a wrong use of a good thing. The spiritual element, 
 which no Christian denies, should not be unduly 
 iiiagnilied for the purpose of minimizing and thrust- 
 ing out of sight the divine prophetic gift of foretell- 
 ing things beyond the ken of natural foresight. It 
 is utterly futile for one who writes as Dr. Work- 
 man has done, to say he is not disparaging pre- 
 dictions. His own repeated statements contradict 
 this denial. 
 
 It may be frankly admitted that some have 
 regarded the prophecies too much as if they con- 
 sisted mainly of predictions of future events. The 
 pre-millenial school of expositors and preachers have 
 spent much learning, time and thought, in minutely 
 applying Old and New Testament prophecies to the 
 signs of the times, the second coming of Christ, and 
 other points in history and eschatology. Of some 
 expositors it might be said, that they almost assume 
 to be prophets themselves, by the confidence and 
 minuteness with which they apply the predictions 
 of the Bible to the past and future history of the 
 Church and the world. With such expositors I have 
 never felt any sympathy. They must bear their 
 own burden of blame for whatever is questionable 
 in their method. But the extreme to which some 
 may have gone, in minute and literal interpretation, 
 
 I ii> 
 
 i II 
 
 w 
 
T ' ,',-.. 
 
 ■i^saa 
 
 :'.;, ."I 
 
 38 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 r I 
 
 ', ( 
 
 I 
 
 ,1 ! 
 
 ''!.' 
 
 ':".! 
 
 I i; - 
 
 lilt 
 
 ; ,1' 
 
 'T,:; 
 
 h 
 
 cannot justify those who go to the ether extreme of 
 denying prediction its true place in Biblical pro- 
 phecy. Neither should it be assumed that all who 
 will not ffo as far as Professor Workman in dis- 
 paraging prediction and exalting natural develop- 
 ment, belong to this class of extreme literalists, 
 because this would be contrary to the truth. The 
 rejection of Prof. Workman's view does not depend 
 on any mechanical theory of verbal inspiration. 
 
 The Place of Prediction in Scripture 
 
 Teaching. 
 
 The prophets of Israel, as we have seen, were the 
 inspired teachers, leaders and reformers of their own 
 generation, as well as revealers of doctrines and 
 prophetic prediction for their own and future times. 
 They were " preachers of righteousness," as well 
 as predictors of future events. But they were 
 both. As seers, the prophets perceived divinely- 
 revealed truths relating to the present and to the 
 future ; as teachers, they proclaimed these truths to 
 the people. They were more than mere teachers of 
 religious truth. Professor Delitzsch says : " Daniel 
 was not a prophet in this sense ; he received and 
 became the medium of divine revelations, but he 
 
 I 
 
 ■■h;!:i 
 
THE PLAGE OF PREDICTION. 
 
 39 
 
 I'li!', 
 
 was not a divinely-commissioned public teacher like 
 Nathan and Gad, and Ezekiel and Zechariah." ^ 
 
 The foretelling of future events was not an insig- 
 nificant or subordinate part of their mission. It 
 is as unreasonable as it is unscientific to estimate 
 the comparative importance of prediction and ethical 
 teaching in the prophecies by the amount of space 
 they respectively occupy. 
 
 This power of revealing the unseen future is 
 mentioned by God Himself in vindication of His 
 claims to obedience, and also of the divine authority 
 of the prophet. He says : " Who hath declared this 
 from ancient time ? who hath told it from that 
 time ? have not I the Lord ? and there is no God 
 else beside me." (Isa. xlv. 21.) " Remember the 
 former things of old : for I am God, and there is 
 none else ; I am God and there is none like me, 
 declaring the end from the beginning, and from 
 ancient times the things that are not yet done, 
 saying. My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my 
 pleasure : calling a ravenous bird from the east, the 
 man that executeth my counsel from a far country : 
 yea. T have spoken it, i will also bring it to pass ; 
 I have purposed it, I will also do it." (Lsa. xlvi. 
 9-11.) Here God refers to what He has said by the 
 
 3 "Isaiah," Vol. I., p. 4. 
 
 .I.!' 
 
 * 
 
 ■ ! 
 
 f 
 
■HR 
 
 •r^ 
 
 If 
 
 i t 
 
 f t 
 
 t 'I 
 
 I ! 
 
 :i<i!' 
 
 Ill 
 
 r 
 
 » I 
 
 41 ' 
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 1 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 r 
 
 ■ J' 
 
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 '^ 
 
 
 ii 
 
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 ■ i 
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 40 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIATT. 
 
 mouth of His prophets. The Scriptures also mention 
 the writing down of what was revealed to the pro- 
 phet respecting the future, in order that in due time 
 its truth might be .-^itested by the events that ful- 
 filled it. We read : " And the Lord answered me, and 
 said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, 
 that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is 
 yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall 
 speak, and not lie : though it tarry, wait for it ; 
 because it will surely come, it will not tarry." 
 (Hab. ii. 2, 3.) The law of Moses provided a special 
 criterion of a true or false prophet, in the fulfilment 
 or non-fulfilment of his word, " When a prophet 
 speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow 
 not, nor come to pass, that is the thing v/hich the 
 Lord hath not spoken." (Deut. xviii. 22.) To this 
 Jeremiah alludes when he says, "The prophet which 
 prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet 
 shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, 
 that the Lord hath truly sent him." (Jer. xxviii. 9.) 
 
 In J eremiah xxx. 2, 3, we read : " Thus speaketh 
 the Lord God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the 
 words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, 
 lo, the days come, saitli the Lord, that I will bring 
 again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, 
 saith the Lord : and I will cause them to return to 
 
 '•■§ 
 
 I 
 
 
 
THE PLACE OF PRE'DICTIOX. 
 
 41 
 
 
 the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall 
 possess it." We learn from the prophet Daniel that 
 the prediction of Jeremiah, that after seventy years 
 of captivity the Hebrews should be restored to their 
 own land, sustained and cheered him and his fellow- 
 exiles in their darkest hours. Surely, it is not for 
 man to disparage, as " comparatively unessential and 
 subsidiary," what God so highly honors and uses for 
 His wise and holy purposes. 
 
 Besides, to foretell the comin^f of the Messiah and 
 make known what the Spirit had revealed to them, 
 "when it testified beforehand the sijferirigs of Christ 
 and the glories that should follow," was the most 
 significant part of their high commission. This 
 knowledge of divine truth and future events, which 
 God supernaturally revealed to the prophets, was 
 their crowning distinction. It lifted them out of the 
 ranks of ordinary men, and invested them with a 
 mysterious spiritual authority, in declaring " the 
 word of the Lord " to the people. This gift was not 
 something apart from the spiritual and religious 
 import of their message. Like the miraculous gifts 
 of the Apostles, it attested and ratified their claims 
 to be God's messengers. To regard its origin as on 
 the same level with heathen prophecies, is an errone- 
 ous misconception of a sacred and superhuman 
 
 I'll tHftJ! 
 
 4 . 
 
 
 
 
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 V' f 
 
'M'*fip« 
 
 '■%, 
 
 42 
 
 JESVS THE MESSIAH, 
 
 
 I 
 
 I' ! 
 
 ' i<. 
 
 I 1; 
 
 endowment. The prophecies inspired the faith and 
 piety of the people, and their fulfilment was in- 
 timately related to the vindication of the divine 
 faithfulness and the spiritual uplifting of the world. 
 
 Prediction, an Essential Part of Prophecy. 
 
 It has been forcibly said : " Many of the prophe- 
 cies are historical in form, but the historical element 
 is subordinate. David's Messianic Psalms are 
 poetical, but the poetry is incidental, while the 
 essential element is predictive. Without the pre- 
 dictive element, prophecy is no longer prophecy ; 
 it may be history, poetry, science, philosophy, ethics, 
 but it is a misnomer to call it prophecy. He who 
 alfirms that the prediction is not the essential of 
 prophecy, is like unto him who affirms that the 
 historical element is not the essential of history, the 
 scientific element is not the essential element in 
 science, and the legal element of the old dispensation 
 is not the essential element in law." * 
 
 The assertion that the predictive in prophecy was 
 an inferior gift which the greater prophets outgrew, 
 is not justified by the facts. The last of the Bible 
 prophets foretells the future as clearly as the 
 earliest. Dr. Mendenhall, in the article from which 
 
 ^ Dr. Mendenhall, in Methodist Review, Jan., 1891. 
 
\\r 
 
 i.t 
 
 1 
 4 
 
 PREDICTION, A PART OF PROPHECY. 
 
 43 
 
 M 
 m 
 
 we have just quoted, says : " It must also be re- 
 membered, that one hundred years after the Baby- 
 lonian captivity the prophetical spirit ceased in 
 Israel ; but are we to understand by this that the 
 pedagogic function of prophets ceased, or the pre- 
 dictive prerogative ? Which was it that ceased ? 
 Surely not the former ; for moral teachers remained 
 in Israel until Isaiah's Immanuel appeared, and 
 obtain among them until this day. The i')ro2)hets 
 ceased as "prophets, because the icork of prediction 
 ceased. There were no schools of prophets, no real 
 propnets, after Malachi, until John the Baptist, 
 because the prophetical work, the great work of 
 foretelling, was so far accomplished. This most 
 clearly determines the pre-eminent position of pre- 
 science as the chief element of prophecy." This is a 
 pertinent and unquestionable fact. If some have 
 unduly magnified the importance of their own par- 
 ticular interpretation of certain prophecies, this is 
 certainly no reason why any one who professes to 
 accept the Bible as a divine revelation, should follow 
 in the wake of German Rationalists and other 
 unbelievers, who disparage the predictive element in 
 prophecy, and magnify the " ethico-religious " as if 
 it were all that is of any account, in order to elimi- 
 nate the supernatural from the Bible. The abuse, or 
 
 f 
 
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 V , 
 
 
 
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 li 
 
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 ^'i*tfr 
 
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 ii 
 
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 I. :. 
 
 ill 
 
 Jl'JSirs THE MESSIAH. 
 
 Wk 
 
 wrong use, of the prophecies by some cannot for a 
 moment justify others in going to the opposite 
 extreme and, under the pretext of exalting the 
 ethical side, denying predictions and their fulfihuent 
 their rightful place in Revelation and the order of 
 God's moral government. Bishop Alexander sug- 
 gestively says : " It will generally be found that 
 those who wish to remove or minimize the pre- 
 dictive, are impatient of the. miraculous — for the 
 predictive is the written form of the miraculous." 
 
 Prediction Not O;-: osed to the Spiritual or 
 Et^;..al in Prophecy. 
 
 We do notjjrx any degree ignore or obscure the 
 spiritual gr/indeur and beauty of the Old Testament 
 teaching, because, in speaking of Messianic pro- 
 phecy, we give due prominence to its predictions, 
 and their striking fulfilment in Jesus Christ. The 
 most glowing statements respecting the riches of 
 moral and spiritual truth in these ancient writings 
 will be freely accepted by all Christians. But 
 assuredly the ethical and religious truth taught in 
 the prophecies is no recent discovery of modern 
 criticism, as some people seem to think. Dr. Guthrie 
 is not the only preacher who found " the Gospel in 
 Ezekiel " and the other prophets. But, however rich 
 
 1*: 
 
 1 
 
NOT OPPOSED TO THE SPIRITUAL. 
 
 45 
 
 in sublime spiritual truths these prophecies are, and 
 however profitable to dwell upon them, as thousands 
 of preachers have done in all ages, there is no pro- 
 priety in presentini^ this feature of the prophecies, 
 as if it were in antagonism to prediction ; or as if a 
 recognition of prediction was inconsistent with the 
 " ethical " teaching of the prophets. The fulfilment 
 of Messianic prediction is the heart of the subject, in 
 which prophecy culminates. In studying Messianic 
 prophecy the questions which naturally arise are : 
 Are there real predictions of a coming Messiah in 
 the Old Testament ? Is there satisfactory ground 
 to believe that these predictions had Jesus Christ 
 for their object ? What evidence is there that 
 the character of Christ, and the events of His life 
 and death, fulfilled predictions that foretold them ? 
 It would be utterly unwarrantable to say that pre- 
 diction and fulfilment should not be prominent 
 thoughts in studying these questions. It is equally 
 unjustifiable to maintain the notion, that it gives us 
 higher conceptions of the spiritual teaching of these 
 prophecies to disparage, or ignore, their directly pre- 
 dictive features. To expound the prophecies and 
 exclude prediction and fulfilment, would indeed be 
 the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. Those 
 who dwell so exclusively upon the ethical elements 
 
 '1 1 
 
 Ni 
 
 • I 
 
 ';l^ 
 
 'I '. 
 
 I t 
 
; l'';/rr 
 
 r/JT?" 
 
 46 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 ■'! r. 
 
 ii 
 
 ■) 
 
 I 
 
 Ui 
 
 '. i 
 
 111 ill.; 
 
 I ' 
 
 11 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 1- 
 
 1 
 
 ■Ii 
 
 L^ 
 
 in prophecy, make the mistake of substituting a 
 part for the whole. Only by keeping in mind, in 
 our expositions of the prophecies, their predictions 
 of future events, as well as their purely spiritual 
 teaching and objects, can we attain to right appre- 
 hensions of these prophetic revelations. The mani- 
 festation of the Divine wisdom and foreknow- 
 ledge, in Messianic prediction and fulfilment, in the 
 Christian sense, heightens and broadens our con- 
 ceptions of the riches and glory of these Old 
 Testament prophecies. There is no ground for 
 charging all who recognize this truth, and who 
 refuse to eliminate prediction from prophecy, as 
 people who fail to apprehend its moral and spiritual 
 significance. 
 
 The Evidential Value of Fulfilled Prophecy. 
 
 It is unwise and unjustifiable to disparage the 
 value of the evidence from the fulfilment of pro- 
 phecy in the way Prof. Workman has done. He 
 declares such evidence to be unnecessary. With his 
 characteristic play on words, he says : " Christianity 
 needs no apology." But the prediction of future 
 events, which none but God could have foreknown, 
 and their fulfilment in accordance with the prophe- 
 cies, have been rightly used as an argument for the 
 
 ^1 
 
 
1 
 
 K< 
 
 EVIDENCE OF FULFILLED FROPIIECY. 
 
 47 
 
 divine authority of the revelation which contained 
 these prophecies. If such fidfilments have actually 
 taken 'place, there can he no qioestion of their 
 evidential value, whether it suits Dr. Workman's 
 theology to acknowledge it or not. There are 
 explicit prophecies of clearly-defined calamities 
 which were to befall Israel and other nations. 
 It has been shown, on the evidence of historians 
 who had no sympathy with Christian ideas of 
 prophecy, that those predictions have been ful- 
 filled with surprising minuteness, even when the 
 events were most unlikely. Even Strauss, the great 
 skeptic, says: "Hand in hand with miracle, 'pre- 
 diction appears in Biblical history as a credential of 
 Revelation. Thus, in the Old Testament, God gives 
 Moses a prediction, the fulfilment of which should 
 certify his divine mission. (Exodus iii. 12.) In the 
 case of the prophets, the occurrence of wonderful 
 events which they had predicted is the proof of their 
 divine commission."^ If these things are really so, 
 it must be right and proper to cite the evidence of 
 this correspondence between prediction and fulfil- 
 ment for the divine authority of the revelation 
 which contains them. There can be no question 
 respecting the fitness and force of the evidence. It 
 
 5"GIaubenslere," Vol. I., p. 86. 
 
 |i" 
 
 : t' i 
 
 &\ 
 
'Mwr^ 
 
 48 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I' i I'' I I' I 
 
 i;n 
 
 r ft J 1 1 
 
 is hard to see why any one who believes the facts 
 would dispara<]je the proof they supply. As Dr. 
 Pope, the distinguished Methodist theologian, says : 
 " According to the testimony of Scripture itself, the 
 prediction of future events, followed by the accom- 
 plishment of these predictions, has always been one 
 of the divine methods of authenticating Revelation.'"' 
 It is no reply to say that there is equal evidence 
 in the substantial unity between Old and New 
 Testament teaching. This is simply contrary to the 
 facts. The Jews for aijes have maintained that the 
 excellence of Christian morals is derived from the 
 Old Testament. But this substantial unity in 
 ethical teaching does not convince them that Jesus 
 is the Messiah. Prof. Workman betrays a conscious- 
 ness that he has cut the evidential ground from 
 under his feet, when he declares, in opposition to 
 New Testament teaching and example, that the 
 argument from prophecy is for believers, rather than 
 for unbelievers. It does not, therefore, at all justify 
 this view of prophecy, to say that some have unduly 
 magnified the evidence from " supposed fulfilment." 
 This may be true. But were there no real fulfil- 
 ments ? Were not the events actually foretold long 
 before they came to pass ? Did not the fulfilment 
 vindicate the truth of the prophecy ? 
 
 «" Christian Theology," p. 79. 
 
 ft 
 
 i 
 
 ■4 
 
 M 
 
KVlDEXCh: or Fi'LFILLI'JI) /'/.'O/'IIECV. 
 
 •19 
 
 The divine autliority of revealed relii^non is 
 attested by miraculous displays of alini<,dity power ; 
 by the fulliliiient of prophecies which foretold events 
 long before they came to pass; by the character of 
 the truths taught; and by their inlluence on liuman 
 hearts and lives. It is extraordinary that any one 
 should maintain that the strength of the evidence 
 for the truth and authority of Revelation is not 
 weakened by rejecting or ignoring the evidence from 
 prophecy — and, we may add, from miracles — and 
 retaining only the; evidence furnished by our per- 
 sonal judgn>ent of the excellence of tj. truths of 
 religion. This is very much as if one should argue, 
 that to undermine or remove half the pillars which 
 support a building, would make it firmer and more 
 secure. Our Lord Himself gives the sanction of His 
 divine authority to this evidential use of the fulfil- 
 ment of prediction in the New Testament. He says : 
 " And now 1 have told you before it come to pass, 
 that when it is come to pass ye may believe." (John 
 xiv. 29.)' 
 
 " See Appendix, Note B. 
 
 
 ) I 
 
 J' 
 
 )i' 
 
 I I 
 
rM^f*" 
 
 INSTITUTE. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 M ESS r A NIC PROPHRCY FJAJCIDATEl) BY 
 NEW TESTAMENT FULFILMENT 
 
 \. ■ ; ! 
 
 TT 7*E are told with great ]wsitiveness tliat it is 
 ' * improper and wrontj to use New Testa- 
 ment fulfilment, or statements, as an aid in deter- 
 mining the meaning of Old Testament prophecies. 
 The true method, it is intimated, is to study the 
 prophecies critically in the light of their historic 
 setting:, without reference to the events or state- 
 ments of the New Testament. This is Professor 
 Workman's theory and practice. Before discussing 
 the main question at issue, it may be well to con- 
 sider this method of studying prophe- Prof. 
 Workman says : 
 
 " Most persons hold that prophecy jan be under- 
 stood only from the standpoint of supposed fulfil- 
 ment. Such an opinion is unreasonable, and should 
 never have been seriously entertained. It is sub- 
 versive of the fundamental principles on which all 
 Scripture knowledge rests " (p. 436). 
 
 Again : " Hence it is a mistake to assume that 
 the Old Testament cannot be interpreted except in 
 
rnorirKCY eiajcidatki) hy fulfilmijnt. T)! 
 
 I.,i •! 
 
 the lif^ht of New Testament revelation " (p. 487). 
 " Tliis doctrine of Messianic propliccy, it sliould be 
 carefully boine in mind, must l»e confined exclu- 
 sively to Old Testament teachinf]^, irrespective of New 
 Testament application or interpretation" (p. 422). 
 "When investi<j:atin<; tlie meaninii* of tlie Old Testa- 
 ment, therefore, we may keep the New Testament 
 closed. For the time l)ein;L]f, we are not supposed to 
 know anythini;- of its contents" (p. 4.*}7). "The 
 practice; of interpretino- pro})hecy in the lii;ht of sup- 
 posed fultiliiient is analo^'ons to the hahit of lookini^ 
 at the answer of a problem before attempting its 
 solution " (p. 4:JG). 
 
 On this point Prof. Workman is ((iiite outspoken, 
 and he shows his faith by his works. His method 
 all through shows what he means by his statements. 
 lie proceeds as if it was a fixed decision in his mind, 
 that he had nothin*; to learn on the meaninii' of 
 prophecy from apostles or evangelists, or even from 
 the Master Himself. He gives no example of New 
 Testament fultilment, except vague general state- 
 ments, whose meaning is by no means clear. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood on this point, as if I 
 was opposing the critical, scientific study of the Old 
 Testament. Not so ; it is freely admitted that the 
 older commentators gave too little attention to the 
 circumstances and occasions connected with the 
 delivery of the prophecy. If the object of the study 
 of any prophecy be to find out, as far as possible, the 
 
 It ' . 
 I s ; J 
 
 ■ • I 
 
 r 
 
 ' 1 
 
 i 
 
 '..,,!' 
 
 n )\ 
 
 
 
 r. ii ■ ' I 
 
ikm"^ 
 
 Ui 1 I 
 
 52 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 '!' 'ii.:il. 
 
 sense in which the prophet and his contemporaries 
 understood hi.s prophecy, the critical study of the 
 Ohl Testament alone is probably the best method. 
 It is admitted, also, that it is unwarrantable to 
 assume that any prophecy meant precisely the 
 same thini^ to the prophet and his contemporaries 
 that it means to us, or that it mcpnt to those who 
 witnessed its actual New Testament fulfilment. But 
 it is just as improper, and as unscientific, to read the 
 meanings of Old 7'estament times, or fanciful con- 
 ceptions of such meanings, into New Testament 
 statements of Messianic truths, as if such conceptions 
 were the true measure of their signification. 
 
 The study of the Old Testament without light 
 from the New, would also be the natural method in 
 seekinfj to understand the deojree of religious know- 
 ledge possessed by the Hebrew people, at any given 
 time. It may be proper and legitimate to first study 
 the prophecies of the Old Testament before com- 
 paring Ihe result with the teaching and fulfilment 
 recorded in the New Testament. This method has 
 been adopted by eminent scholars, but not to the 
 exclusion of the testimony of the New Testament. 
 
TnT ' 
 
 II '.1 
 
 GOD'S THOUailTS IX morjiECY. 53 
 
 God's Tiioucht;; Revealed [n Prophecy. 
 
 If it be meant, as Prof. Workman's precepts and 
 practice show that he means, that the ri<jfht way to 
 gain a knowle(l<;e of the true import of the pro- 
 phecies is to study them wliolly apart from the 
 events and testimony of the New Testament, we 
 cannot accept his dictum as sound or rifyht. No 
 matter what may be the pretensions of tliis method, 
 to shut out the light of the New Testament, in the 
 way lie does, is neither reasonable nor scientific. If, 
 as Rev. Geo. Adam Smith saj's, " To have seen 
 Christ must make the predictions of the Messiah 
 different to a man," it is scarcely possible for any 
 Christian to study the Old Testament, as if he had 
 never know^i what is revealed in the New. 
 
 The supreme object of studying prophecy should 
 be to find out its meaning, rather than the sense in 
 which the prophet or his contemporaries may have 
 understood it. To all who believe that the great 
 truths of ]U'ophecy were connnunicatei to the 
 prophets by the Spirit of God, the vital (juestion 
 must be. What is God's thought ^ Everything else 
 is secondary to this. If prophecy was nothing but 
 the outcome of the prophet's own natural reasoning 
 and foresight, as in the case of the writings of poets 
 
 I'M 
 
 !i:^' 
 
 lil 
 
 
 Ill' 
 
 1' 
 
 '\ ; 
 
54 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 p i. 
 
 Vi 
 
 and philosophers, then, to determine what the 
 prophet meant would be the supreme question to be 
 settled, as it is in the case of Sliakesneare, Dante 
 or Goethe. 
 
 But St, Peter declares, that " No prophecy ever 
 came by the will of man, but men spake from God, 
 beincj moved by the Holy Ghost." Hence, if we 
 study what the prophet meant, it is simply as a 
 means of finding out what God meant. To those 
 who believe that the prophet fully understood all 
 that was meant by his mes.sage, it will seem im- 
 portant to study his meaning. If the prophet did 
 not fully understand all that was meant by his 
 prophecy, the sense in which he understood it be- 
 comes a matter of much less interest. When Isaiah 
 or Jeremiah says : " Thus saith the Lord," and fol- 
 lows this with the statement of a divine message to 
 Israel or some other people, the (juestion that we 
 instinctively ask is, not what did Jeremiah or Isaiah 
 intend ? but, what does the prophecy mean ? What 
 did the Holy Spirit intend ? The disposition to 
 ignore and eliminate prediction and actual fulfilment 
 is generally the outcome of an assumption that pro- 
 phecy is simply the thoughts of the prophet in his 
 highest mental moods. Such a theory has no place 
 for real prediction and fulfilment. 
 
^nri 
 
 coirs TiioudUTH IX rh'or/fhvv. 
 
 55 
 
 We do not believe that the prophets were mere 
 unthinking machines, through which God spoke. I 
 hold no tlieory which requires me to belittle their 
 mental conceptions of the import of their prophecies. 
 But I cannot accept as true the view of Riehm, 
 which Prof. Workman endorses, that the prophet's 
 conception of the import of his utterance is the 
 "contents" of the prophecy; and that "what we do 
 not learn until the period of fulfilment cannot be in 
 the prophecy itself." Surel3% if the hearer of a 
 sermon, or a prophecy, is too blind or dull to appre- 
 hend its full meanino- that does not extino-uish the 
 truths which it really contains. The hearer's imper- 
 fect apprehension is not the true measure of the 
 meaning of the prophecy. Rather we would say, 
 with Prof. C. von Orelli: "In general, the reference 
 to the completion of the divine kingdom by Christ is 
 part of the contents of prophecy, nay, forms its 
 essential, though often veiled, contents." ' There is 
 good ground to believe that the prophets did not 
 always apprehend the full meaning of their pro- 
 phecy. After Daniel saw a vision, he " sought 
 for the meaning," until he heard a voice saying, 
 " Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision." 
 (Dan. viii. 15-16.) To another inquiry of the same 
 
 1 " Old Testaiuunt Prophecy," p. 01. 
 
 if! 
 
 ! I 
 
 -li 
 
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 lit 
 
 i 
 
 ^1' 1 
 i " 
 
 i'^' 
 
 biJ 
 
56 
 
 J/'JSrS Till': MESSIAH. 
 
 I' 1 ) 
 
 prophet, the answer was, " Go thy way, Daniel : 
 for the words are closed up and sealed till the 
 time of the end." (Dan. xii. 0.) Speaking of the 
 predicted salvation by Chri>t, St. Peter says : 
 " Concerning which salvation the prophets sought 
 and searched diligentl}^ who prophesied of the 
 grace that should come unto you ; searching 
 what time or what manner of time the Spirit 
 of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it 
 testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the 
 glories that should follow them." (1 Peter i. 10, 11.) 
 There is no reason to assume, as Prof. Workman 
 does, that these inquiries into the significance of 
 prophecies about Christ's sufferings and glory, were 
 restricted to the one point of the time. As the 
 things they inquired about were " things angels 
 desire to look into," they would certainly embrace 
 more than the time of this salvation. Dr. Eder- 
 sheim's exposition of the meaning of this passage 
 will commend itself to every one who has not a 
 special theory to maintain. He says: ''It implies, 
 firstly, that all prophecy was the outcome of the 
 Spirit of Christ in the prophets; secondly, that it 
 pointed to the sufferings of the Messiah and the 
 glory that should follow ; and lastly, that while the 
 prophets understood the general Messianic bearing 
 

 (lOb's moraiiTx IX Ph'orjfh'cr. 
 
 i)< 
 
 
 ot' their prophecy, tlie details of the manner and 
 time of its fultilment were not understood by tliem, 
 but remained reserved to the historical uni'oldinfr of 
 the latter days." - The two disciples on the way to 
 Emmaus were probably as well qualified to under- 
 stand the Messianic prophecies as the contemporaries 
 of the prophets ; yet it is beyond doubt that when 
 " He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the 
 things concerning Himself," they understood their 
 scope and meaning better than the}'' had ever df^^ne 
 before. Even when the disciples were eye-witnesses 
 of the fulfilment of a prophecy, it is said, 
 " These things understood not His disciples at 
 the first : but when Jesus was glorified, then remem- 
 bered thev that these things were written of Him, 
 
 I/O ' 
 
 and that they had done these things unto Him." 
 (John xii. IG.) Does not every Christian, as he 
 grows in grace and knowledge, see deeper and 
 broader meaninjrs in the familiar truths of the 
 Bible than he saw in them at one time ? This does 
 not prove that what he did not see at first was not 
 really in the Bible, or imply a double sense. 
 
 Beyond all question, the events recorded in the 
 Gospels, and the testimony of Christ and His in- 
 spired apostles respecting the relation of these 
 
 •> "Prophecy and Uistory," p. 1(51. 
 
 I ,' 
 
 ' I 
 
 n 
 
 I -■■! 
 
t' ,'■', 
 
 58 
 
 JESUS Till': MESSIAH. 
 
 events to the prophetic predictions, place the mean- 
 ing of these prophecies in a far clearer light. "To 
 Him bear all the prophets witness," but in different 
 ways. It is only in the Christ of the New Testa- 
 ment that the various lines of Old Testament pro- 
 phecy can be seen to meet and haimoniously unite. 
 Why, then, should it be maintained by any one that 
 it is " subversive of the fundamental principles of all 
 Scripture knowledge," to deem the study of these 
 New Testament truths necessary to a just and full 
 apprehension of the meaning of the prophecies relat- 
 in<]j to Christ ? I can see no reason for excluding: the 
 consideration of these facts and divine comments, 
 unless, indeed, as in this case, the expositor holds some 
 theory of Messianic prophecy which cannot bear the 
 light of the New Testament. The study of prophecy 
 is not a mere intellectual exercise, like the study of 
 an arithmetical problem, where the object would be 
 defeated by looking first at the answer. It is a 
 search for light and truth, which we should gladly 
 accept wherever we can find them. If the actual 
 fulfilment was, as we believe, the completion of 
 God's purpose, then it would be strange if it did 
 not throw back a flood of light upon the meaning of 
 the prophecy. 
 
 No critical sagacity can determine, with any 
 
 111 
 
TESTIMONY OF EMINENT EXPOSITOHS. 59 
 
 ^•• 
 
 1-^ I 
 
 approach to certainty, the exact sense in which 
 every Hebrew prophet understood his prophecy. 
 They lett no statements on this point. We cannot 
 be sure that we understand a careful unpoetic writer 
 like Prof. Workman, writinix in our mother ton<]:ue. 
 He complains loudly that he is misunderstood. This 
 should teach him modesty in expounding the old 
 prophets. It is not at all unlikely that Moses and 
 Isaiah would protest against the merely idealistic 
 and nebulous meaning he so confidently ascribes to 
 them. So far from it being improper to study Old 
 Testament prophecy in the light of New Testament 
 fultilment, there are many of these prophecies which 
 can never be harmonized and understood without 
 the light thrown upon them by their fultilment. It 
 is the distinojuishino- characteristic of the " Hi<xher 
 Criticism " to accept and a])ply all available light 
 from every (juarter, to elucidate the records to be 
 explained. 
 
 Testimony of Eminent Expositors. 
 
 It is not, therefore, a justifiable assumption that 
 the method which excludes the New Testament 
 events and testimonies, as Dr. Workman excludes 
 them, should be regarded as the learned and scien- 
 tific method; or that clearer and fuller conceptions of 
 
 I ; 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 
 ! I 
 
 ,h 
 
 I t 
 
1 
 
 60 
 
 J/CSUS Tff/'J .UI'JSSfA/r. 
 
 i' 10 
 
 the meaning imply double meanings. Neither of 
 these is correct. The Biljlical scholars who give its 
 rightful place to the New Testament testimony are 
 as liberal, as scientific, and as independent as those 
 who shut out its light. A few examples from 
 scholars of this class will indicate the truth of this 
 statement Prof. Orelli forcibly says : " Only this is 
 certain, that the fulfilment will always contain 
 something far higher than could be pictured with 
 the aid of prophecy. Even the truest Israelites, 
 who waited for the consolation of Israel, following 
 prophecy, conceived the Messiah quite differently 
 from what He actually was when He came. But 
 when they had come to know Him, they wondered 
 to see how exactly everything was fulfilled in 
 Him."' Prof. A. B. Davidson, who is among the 
 leaders of the advanced Scottish school of Biblical 
 criticism, says: "The question, therefore. What was 
 the meaning of the Spirit of Revelation in any par- 
 ticular place ? becomes very much. What is the 
 truth taught in that place in its perfect or highest 
 form ? And to answer this question we must have 
 recourse to the ultimate form of the system of 
 Revelation in the New Testament. And in using 
 the Old Testament now, especially for purposes of 
 
 :' "Old Tt'stament Prophecy," p. 5(5. 
 
mn 
 
 TESTIMONY OF EMINENT EXPOSITOHS. 
 
 fil 
 
 edification, this ought to be remembered ; and we 
 should feel that we fail to do justice to the Old 
 Testament if, when expounding any truth in it, we 
 do not bring into connection with the passage 
 explained, the highest form of the truth as revealed 
 in the New Testament."' Even Riehm, though he 
 limits the "contents" of prophecy to the sense in 
 which the predictions were necessarily understood at 
 the time they were spoken, says : " How is the sense 
 intended by the Divine Spirit ascertained ? Only 
 by studying the prophecies in the light reflected on 
 them by their fulfilment, . . . Certainly it 
 cannot be denied that it is only when we survey, 
 from the standpoint of the fulfilment of the counsels 
 of God in Christ Jesus, the whole combination of 
 Old Testament prophecy and the progress of its 
 historical development, that we can come to a full 
 understanding of the theological significance of any 
 single prediction."^ 
 
 Another eminent scholar, already quoted. Dr. 
 Edersheim, is even more emphatic on this 
 point. He says : " It seems to me that Christian 
 divines have not only quitted their high vantage 
 ground of historical fact, but acted contrary alike 
 
 *" Expositor," Vol. VIII., p. 244. 
 "'"Messianic Prophecy," p. 6, 
 
 
 \ 
 
1 J 
 
 02 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 '' 1.) 
 
 to sound reasoning and the example of the New 
 Testament, in disputing whether or not certain 
 individual prophecies refer to Christ, instead of first 
 presenting their actual historical fulfilment in 
 Him." " 
 
 Prof. C. A. Briggs, of New York, who adopts the 
 method of first studying the Old Testament pro- 
 phecies critically and historically, does not exclude 
 all New Testament light, though he is to deal with 
 fulfilment in a future volume. He says: "If pre- 
 dictive prophecy in general can be interpreted only 
 by finding the key, much more is this the case with 
 Messianic prophecy, the culmination of predictive 
 prophecy. For this we need the Master's key — that 
 will unlock the mysteries of each prediction, and pass 
 us through the entire system of prediction. We 
 hesitate not, therefore, to state that the key of Old 
 Testament prophecy is the first advent of the 
 Messiah, and unlocks a large number of its cham- 
 bers. But the key of the entire system will not 
 be iriven until the second advent. But this does 
 not justify us in forcing New Testament meaning 
 into Old Testament prophecy. There is but one 
 legitimate method for the interpretation of Messi- 
 anic prophecy, and that is (1) to study each 
 
 " " Prophecy and History," p. 108. 
 
TESTIMONY OF EMIXKXT KM'OSITOHS. 
 
 03 
 
 prediction by itself with the most patient criticism 
 and painstaking exegesis in all the details; (2) to 
 study it in its relation to other predictions in the 
 scries, and note the organic connection ; (3) to study 
 it in relation to Christ and His re<leiiiption. Such a 
 method will discern that Messianic prophecy of the 
 Old Testament is an organic whole — an advancing 
 organism culminating in the Christ of the incarna- 
 tion, of the cross and of the throne." ' The second 
 and third processes here named by Dr. Briggs are 
 not less necessary than the first to a right under- 
 standing of Messianic jn'ophecy. 
 
 To assume, therefore, to interpret the Old 
 Testament Messianic prophecies — that is, to deter- 
 mine their meaning and object — without any light 
 from the New Testament, is to attempt to unlock 
 these predictions without the key. It is the actual 
 fulfilment which proves that they are divinely 
 revealed prophecies — true predictions, worthy of our 
 most profound and reverent study. 
 
 i'.i 
 
 '* Messianic rroplit'cy," p. (!4. 
 
..E 
 
 • I 
 
 I t . 1 1 Y 
 
 iJNJSTiTUTS. 
 
 CHAITKIl IV. 
 
 hi- 1 
 
 THE NEC A TIVE THEOR Y OF MESSIANIC 
 PROrilECY WllICII DENIES ALL 
 PREDICTIVE REFERENCE TO JESUS 
 CHRIS T 
 
 'nr^HE disparai^enicnfc ot* tlie predictive eleinrnt in 
 ^ prophecy, to which reference has been made, 
 is evidently intended to prepare the way for the 
 denial of all predictive reference to Jesus Clirist in 
 the Old Testament which follows. There is nothing 
 new in this denial of the strictly Messianic character 
 of Old Testament prophecies. Unbelievers, Rational- 
 ists, and a section of the Jews have done this for 
 generations — only no Jews hold that there is no 
 original reference to Messiah in the Old Testament. 
 The novelty is in such a thing being advocated by a 
 professedly evangelical minister. 
 
 Professor Workman's Negative Theory, as 
 Stated by Himself. 
 
 After examining a number of Old Testament pro- 
 phecies which have been almost universally held by 
 
 tJu 
 hit 
 one 
 bee 
 tior 
 
77//; NhVATIVE rilEOliY. 
 
 C5 
 
 Christians to be directly Messianic, and passin<^ over 
 some of the stroni^jest proplietic passaujes vvitli very 
 slight conunent, the conclusion to which the lecturer 
 conies is that there is no predictive reference to the 
 Christ of history in the Old Testament prophecies. 
 We f^ive the following ((notations from the lecture, 
 to show his position on this point. After explicitly 
 denying that there is any Messianic prophecy, in the 
 strict sense, in the Primeval, Patriarchal, Mosaic or 
 Davidic Age, he says : 
 
 '* In the Prophetic age Messianic prophecy proper 
 appears; hiU even here there is no 'passdj/e that /ms 
 orbjinid reference to the Nec^ TestiOinent Messiah. 
 While, therefore, portions of the Hebrew Scripture 
 abound with Messianic prophecy, there is no 'passnye 
 in the Old Testament that refers directly and, pre- 
 dictively to Jesus Christ ; that is, there is no 'passage 
 in which the future Messiah stood objectively before 
 the xvriters mind, or in ivhich the proj)het made 
 particular personal reference to the historic Christ" 
 (p. 448). 
 
 On the same page he says : 
 
 "As none of the numerous Messianic jmssages in 
 the Old Testament refer directly or orginally to the 
 historic Christ, but appear in the New Testament 
 merely as quoted by Him, or as applied to Him, it 
 becomes important to consider carefully the applica- 
 tion of Messianic prophecy." 
 
 k 
 
 '^■ i 
 
66 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 \' m 
 
 This conclusion is repeated in different forms of 
 expression, direct and indirect. On page 474 he says : 
 
 "From the foregoing discussion, it will be seen 
 that it is only what the Old Testament Scriptures 
 teach and testify in general, or iv fiuxhnnriifal 
 truths (nid j^rivciplcs, that is fidjillcd or realized in 
 Jesus Christ. For this reason, as has been shown, 
 we should speak of Messianic prophecy, not as 
 having a reference to Christ, but as having a fulfil- 
 ment or realizifction in Him." 
 
 On the same page he says : 
 
 " Because of the divine element in prophecy, the 
 Old Testament is full of Christ, not in the sense of 
 'prediction, hut in the sense of testimony." 
 
 On page 440 he tells us : 
 
 " It might be shown that every prophetic passage 
 that is applied to Christ in the New Testauient 
 refers originally either to an ideal person who ivas 
 expected in the future, or to a real person ivho ivas 
 living at or near the time of its delivery." 
 
 Again : 
 
 " It should be said that Jesus of Nazareth is the 
 realized rather than the predicted Christ of the Old 
 Testfiment " (p. 471). (The Italics are ours.) 
 
 If these and other similar statements are not a 
 distinct denial of predictive references to Jesus 
 Christ, it would be difficult to say how such repudia- 
 
 ter 
 M( 
 an 
 ad I 
 
 0bj( 
 
 1A_ 
 
'ii ■( 
 
 THE NEC! ATI VE THEOIiY. 
 
 67 
 
 tion could be more plainly expressed. This negation 
 of prediction about Christ is neither retracted nor 
 modified by anything in any other part of the 
 lecture. On the contrary. Prof. Workman endeavors 
 to make way for it and strengthen it by minimizing 
 prediction ; by placing the origin of heathen pro- 
 phecy on the same level with Hebrew prophecy ; 
 by disparaging the evidential value of fulfilled 
 prophecy ; by regarding Messianic prophecy as a 
 development by natural lavv from germs ; and by the 
 denial of all actual fulfilment of predictions about 
 Christ by New Testament events. These are all 
 connected links in his negative chain or s^'stem. 
 And yet, strange to say, Prof. Workman complains 
 as if he was unjustly used, because the lecture which 
 contains these statements and negative theories, and 
 which sustains them by every available argument, 
 has been characterized as an " effort to exclude the 
 Christ of history from His place in the prophetic 
 predictions of the Old Testament." 
 
 It is no disproof of the correctness of this charac- 
 terization for Prof. Workman to say that he admits 
 Messianic types, and the fulfilment of prophecy in 
 an ethical or spiritual sense. This is virtually to 
 admit the correctness of the allegation to which he 
 objects. The question at issue is whether there are 
 
 ,1. 
 
 ■ii 
 
 m 
 
 , r fi 
 
rri: 
 
 G8 
 
 JEHUS THE MESHIAII. 
 
 ift"! 
 
 actual predictions of a coming Messiah in the Old 
 Testament, and whether these predictions were ful- 
 filled by the events recorded in the New Testament. 
 The writer, whq denies the existence of any such 
 predictions and fulfilments, seems to us to be per- 
 forming a misleading play on words, when he pleads 
 not guilty of this charge, because he admits a fulfil- 
 ment of something not clearly defined, in some 
 mystical or ethical sense, which is not the sense at 
 issue. By excluding Jesus Christ from Old Testa- 
 ment prophecies, we mean denying that they speak 
 of Him and foretell His coming, His mission and 
 His sufferings. All this our lecturer certainly denies. 
 If there is no prediction, there can be no fulfilment, 
 in the Scripture sense, of things that had been fore- 
 told coming to pass. 
 
 In a )rtter in the Christian Guardian he says: 
 " Hence you believe that Messianic prophecy was 
 fulfilled in Jesus Christ in one sense, and I believe 
 that it was fulfilled by Him in another sense." I 
 reply that this statement seriously misstates the 
 points at issue. I and those who agree with me 
 believe there are predictions in the Old Testament 
 which refer to Jesus Christ, and were fulfilled by 
 events recorded in the New Testament. On the 
 contrary, Prof. Workman denies that there are any 
 
 in 
 
 m« 
 
 th 
 
 Vfl 
 
AMBIGUOUS PHliASES. 
 
 69 
 
 such predictions, and, conse(iuently, he cannot 
 believe in their fultihnent by New Testament events. 
 The Professor uses the word " original " in a very 
 misleadini^ way, when he says there is no original 
 reference to Jesus Christ in Old Testament pro- 
 phecy, as if there might be some other kind of 
 reference. But this must mean that the prophecy 
 had not Christ originally as its object. If there is 
 no " original reference " to Christ in the Old Tes- 
 tament, there is no reference at all. No other kind 
 of reference but an original reference has any 
 relevant point or meaning. The words " original 
 reference," used in this way, become a blind to keep 
 the reader from seeing that all predictive reference 
 to Christ is denied. It was of these Old Testament 
 writings our Lord said, " They testify of Me." This 
 certainly meant that He was in these prophecies, in 
 the sense of being foretold by the prophets. 
 
 ! ; 
 
 '.|!i 
 
 An Unavailing Appeal to Amuiguous Phrases. 
 
 In the letter already referred to, Prof. Workman 
 intimates that it is unfair to charge him with 
 excluding Christ from his place in the Old Testa- 
 ment prophecies, because what he said was " that 
 there was no passage in which Jesus of Nazareth 
 was objectively before the prophet's mind, or in 
 
70 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 which there is a direct detailed reference to his per- 
 sonal life as distinguished from his official work." 
 And further, he had said : " Because of the divine 
 element in prophecy, the Old Testament is full of 
 Christ, not in the sense of prediction, but in the 
 sense of testimony." This is very ambiguous. 
 How is testimony opposed to prediction ? We are 
 disposed to ask, what is the testimony about ? Is 
 there not testimony about Christ's coming ? 
 
 With all deference, it seems to us that in this 
 defence the Professor is using words in a double 
 sense in a ((uestionable way. There is no relevancy, 
 or point in admitting, as we understand him, ^ that 
 the Old Testament contains teaching that is essen- 
 tially Christian, or religious aspirations that are 
 realized in the religion of Christ, while it is denied 
 that there is any predictive reference whatever to 
 the historic Christ. All that such language can 
 imply has been held and taught by all Christian 
 teachers who also hold prediction. 
 
 It is freely concec! 1 that many of the Messianic 
 prophecies are typical and ideal, indefinite and 
 mysterious representations. The prophet did not see 
 Christ as the apostles saw Him. We do not favor 
 the definition that prophecy is detailed history 
 written beforehand. We have no sympathy with 
 
IF 
 
 A Mfiia UO us PIIJiA SES. 
 
 71 
 
 those who confidently and minutely explain tho 
 meaning and application of every detail in these Old 
 Testament prophecies. But we cannot accept any 
 teaching which represents all Messianic prophecies 
 as so ideal and shadowy that they refer neither to 
 Christ nor the events of His life ; but which alleges 
 that they " express neither a definite knowledge nor 
 a definite faith, but a cherished expectation, or a 
 cherished hope." We hold, on the contrary, that 
 there are definite and direct predictions of a coming 
 Redeemer in the Old Testament. If the sentiment 
 that Jesus Christ was ideal iy, and not objectively, 
 before any prophet's mind, was stated simply as a 
 writer's opinion about the prophet's conception of 
 the meaning of his prophecy, it would require no 
 special notice or criticism ; for in spite of such an 
 opinion it might be held, and it has been held, that, 
 although the prophet thought of Christ only as an 
 ideal person, the prophecy really pointed to the 
 Christ of the New Testament, and that the Holy 
 Spirit, who inspired the prophets, had direct refer- 
 ence to Jesus Christ. The admission that there are 
 ideal conceptions of the Messiah in the prophets is 
 not incompatible with real, original predictions of 
 Christ. But Dr. Workman makes his nebulous 
 and indefinite idea of the prophet's conception the 
 
 l!!l 
 
 I 
 
 .7. ' 
 
 :,t 
 
K;>Grr*~ 
 
 n 
 
 JESUS Tlli: MESSIAH 
 
 m 
 
 lii, 
 
 
 i'!i 
 
 measure of tlie meaning or contents of the prophecy. 
 In other words, he ascribes to the prophet a dim and 
 shadowy conception of the meaning and object of 
 his prophecy, and then assumes tluit this is the only 
 correct meanin<x; and that it must not be modified or 
 enlarged by the light of New Testament fulfilment, 
 or by anything which would imply that there are 
 Old Testament predictions which were fulfilled by 
 the events of Christ's life and death. 
 
 The ambiguous phrases, " an ideal person " and not 
 "objectively before the writer's mind," are appealed 
 to as if they explained and modified expressions 
 which positively deny that Jesus Christ is foretold 
 in the Old Testament. It is the way in which the 
 lecturer makes Christ's not being objectively before 
 the prophet's mind signify that He is not the object 
 of the prophecy, and that it does not refer predic- 
 tively to Him, that is objectionable. So long as 
 these apparently innocent expressions are used as 
 equivalent to the unscriptural negative assertions, 
 they cannot vindicate his negations, or serve the 
 purpose for which he appeals to them. Since the 
 meaning he attaches to these phrases is something 
 which compels him to deny that there is any pre- 
 dictive reference to Jesus Christ in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and to maintain that all statements in the 
 

 EMINENT HEBREW SCHOLARS. 
 
 n 
 
 New Testament refjardinc: the fulfilment of Mes- 
 sianic predictions, by events in the life of Jesus, are 
 merely accommodated "applications" to current 
 events which had never been foretold by the pro- 
 phets, we must reject the appeal to these phrases, as 
 it makes the case no better. We maintain that any 
 expressions whose meanini^ makes it necessary to 
 take such an extreme position cannot be accepted as 
 true and Scriptural. It is unnecessary to add any- 
 thing more to show that the Professor's efforts to 
 make it appear that what he repeatedly afhrms in 
 one part of his lecture, is balanced by some phrase 
 used in another part of it, must be pronounced a 
 failure. No writer has a rii^ht to play fast and 
 loose with his own utterances in this manner. Still 
 less has he a right to make a Greek horse of 
 ambiguous words, to carry the enemy stealthily into 
 the city of God. 
 
 Eminent Hebrew Scholars against Professor 
 Workman's Ne(;ative Theory. 
 
 Before proceeding to examine the witness which 
 Old Testament prophecy bears to Christ, it will be in 
 place for us to present here some testimonies from 
 eminent Old Testament scholars who repudiate the 
 negative theory of Messianic prophecy, which Prof. 
 
 ri,u 
 
 |:i 
 
mtrr 
 
 74 
 
 JKSUS THE MEi^FHAII. 
 
 iii: 
 
 Workman advocates — that is, that there is no 
 original predictive reference to Jesus Christ in the 
 Old Testament prophecies. It is not meant that 
 these authorities quoted must be accepted as 
 infallibly right on these questions of Biblical inter- 
 pretation. My object in quoting these authorities is 
 simply this : Prof. Workman has assumed that his 
 conclusions are the result of " the most approved 
 principles of sacred hermeneutics " applied with 
 "perfect impartiality." The whole tone of his argu- 
 ments and assertions, and of those of his friends, 
 suggests that those who do not accept his con- 
 clusions are either without the necessary Biblical 
 learning, or else under the influence of some tradi- 
 tional, obsolete method of interpreting Scripture. 
 The object of the quotations which we shall cite 
 here is to show that this is not true ; but, on 
 the contrary, that Biblical theologians and scholars 
 of the highest standing, who are fully abreast 
 with the most advanced Biblical criticism of the 
 day, reject the notion that the life and death of 
 Jesus Christ were not foretold by the prophets. 
 
 The writers whose testimony we shall present on 
 this question are known throughout the learned 
 world as men of eminent scholarship and unques- 
 tionable independence, and thoroughly familiar with 
 
 'i ' 
 

 KMixi':xr irEnitp:w scfiOLAifs. 
 
 75 
 
 the methods of the "higher criticism" of modern times. 
 It would be easy to show that the view whicli Prof. 
 Workman has adopted is in direct opposition to the 
 interpretation and belief of the historic Christianity 
 of all ages and countries, a fact that should have 
 some weight, even if not accepted as decisive. Mes- 
 sianic prediction and fulfilment are not, indeed, 
 prominent in creeds and confessions of faith ; 
 because dogmatic theology is largely the protest of 
 the Church against prevailing heresies. But this 
 doctrine has been so universally held, that no 
 emphatic affirmation or defence was at any time 
 deemed necessary. Yet, it can be shown that this 
 negative theory is contrary to the teaching of all 
 the standard theologians of the Christian Churches. 
 They all show that the fulfilment of the Messianic 
 prophecies by New Testament events has been so 
 striking, as to furnish convincing evidence for the 
 divine authority of the Bible, which contains these 
 prophecies. But as Hengstenberg and other eminent 
 evangelical scholars are treated with contempt, as if 
 orthodoxy was a reproach, we shall, for argument 
 sake, quote almost wholly from men of the advanced 
 school. We do this, not because we think the 
 defenders of the historic interpretation of the 
 Church less able, less learned, or less fair, than its 
 
 f,' 
 
 t'4M 
 
 !:!t 
 
76 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 i\.\'\ 
 
 I'l'': 
 
 ,1 I 
 
 !i ' \ 
 
 \i'v. 
 
 
 
 mi 
 
 assailants. As Dr. Witlirovv says, in the Methodid 
 MiKjdzluG'. " Tlie interpretation wliich is so enfibred 
 in tlie heart of Christendom, wliich has endured 
 throu<^h a^^^es and is as wide as the world, is not to 
 be chan<^ed except upon irrefragable evidence such 
 as, in our judgment, has not been, and cannot be, 
 produced." But we waive the testimony of these 
 weighty authorities for the present ; as our object 
 here is to show that even great scholars of the 
 advanced school of theology, who accept the results 
 of modern criticism, do not go so far as Dr. Work- 
 man on the negative line of interpretation. 
 
 Our tirst witness on the main question is the late 
 Dr. Edward Riehm, of Halle, whose lectures on 
 Old Testament theology have been recently pub- 
 lished by T. & T. Clark, of Edinburgh. He was 
 an acute, able Biblical scholar; but he was on 
 some points strongly in sympathy with the 
 Naturalist school of thinkers. Prof. Orelli says 
 of him : " His exposition gives far too much the 
 impression of prophecy having arisen through 
 dialectic reflection, out of the fundamental ideas of 
 Old Testament religion." This criticism would 
 apply with nearly equal point to Dr. Workman. 
 Put even Riehm finds direct predictions of Christ in 
 Old Testament prophecy, and actual fulfilments in 
 
EMINKXT HKnnKW SCIlOLAh'S, 
 
 77 
 
 fllM 
 
 1' I 
 
 the New. Speakinjjj of tlic predictions of the Mes- 
 siah ill Isaiah and Micali, he says : " They speak of 
 Him as a human king, wonderful in person, who by 
 virtue of His special relation to God will carry out 
 His purposes, as the Mediator of the Messianic salva- 
 tion of the people of God, and mankind in oeneral."' 
 Commenting on Christ's relation to " the words of 
 prophecy," Prof. Riehm says : " He understood and 
 interpreted them in the consciousness that before 
 the foundation of the world He was appointed to bo 
 the only Mediator of the new covenant, and that He 
 had now come to carry out the whole counsel of 
 God respecting mankind." He frankly avows that 
 " the apostolic doctrine of the importance of the 
 person and work of Christ, even in its fullest 
 development, recognizes as its foundation and start- 
 ing point the belief that Jesus is the promised 
 Messiah of the Old Testament." 
 
 Prof. C. von Orelli, of Basel, whose book on " Old 
 Testament Prophecy," and later connnentaries on 
 Isaiah and Jeremiah, vindicate his right to a front 
 place among the best Biblical scholars of the age, 
 is liberal and independent. In evidence of this it 
 may be mentioned that he has advocated the double 
 
 1 " Messianic Prophecy," p. 123. 
 •* Messianic Prophecy," p. 21(5. 
 
 '.\'< 
 
 M..i: 
 
78 
 
 ./AWf/.V 77/ /v MKSSIAIf. 
 
 \m 
 
 it;i 
 
 authorship of Isaiah so ably as to convince Prof. 
 Banks, of Hcadinj^fly Wesleyan College, En^^land. 
 He is advanced and radical enouj^h not to accept the 
 orthodox view of some noted Messianic passacjes. 
 But he repudiates this ne^i^ative theory of prediction 
 and Messianic prophecy. Prof. Orelli says: "Except 
 bv an abuse of criticism, it cannot be denied that 
 definite predictions, whose fulfilment was matter 
 of fact, even as regards their supposed indifferent 
 form, are frequently found in ( )ld Testament pro- 
 phecy; and we have already seen that the authority 
 of the prophets, their reputation as divine speakers, 
 depended as a rule on such fulfilment, even as they 
 were also attested by miraculous signs." Again he 
 says : " We find a similar contrast in the attitude of 
 Jesus to prophecy. On the one hand. He subjects 
 Himself completely to the course there prescribed to 
 Him, and considers His life and death in all its 
 details as something that must so take place, because 
 it is so written in God's Word ; on the other hand. 
 He views Himself as the culminating point to which 
 the whole of prophecy, nay, the entire Old Testa- 
 ment, was meant to lead. . . . But the sovereignty 
 of the Lord Jesus in relation to the prophets shows 
 itself chiefly in His making His own person the 
 centre of what they foretold of God's kingdom, and 
 
KMINKXT IIKIiliK SCHOLARS. 
 
 79 
 
 treating it all as fulfilled in Himself. At the same 
 time, he alluded to His huiniliation and passion as 
 something belonging of necessity to His mission, 
 since it was just as emphatically set forth in Scrip- 
 ture."'' There is no room for the "accommodated 
 reference " theory in this lofty conception of Christ's 
 character and mission. 
 
 Dr. Oehler, of Tubingen, in his " Theology of the 
 Old Testament," has given us tlie best exposition of 
 the Hebrew teaching and religion. His indepen- 
 dence and his learning are both of the highest order. 
 Prof. Day, of Yale College, asserts that the founda- 
 tion of his valuable work was laid " in a severe pro- 
 cess of critical and exegetical study of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures." Dr. Oehler explicitly recognizes pre- 
 dictive references to Jesus Christ in the Old Testa- 
 ment prophecies. He says : " But full and detailed 
 predictions of the Messiah are not met with, till 
 after the middle of the eighth century, in Isaiah and 
 Micah," etc. Again : " With good reason has Stendel 
 met Schleiermacher with the question, where it 
 could be said to the heathen in the same way as to 
 the Jews, * He is come to whom all the men of God 
 have pointed, and for whom they have waited.' "* 
 
 3 " Old Testament Prophecy," pp. 27, 58. 
 
 ♦ "Theology of the Old Testament," pp. 21 and 266, 
 
 r 
 
 HI) 
 
 , I 
 
 M'^ 
 
80 
 
 JESUIT THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I ' '' 
 
 I 
 
 !!•!' 
 
 i« 
 
 ^'1: 
 
 
 1 1^1 1 
 
 The Rev\ Geo. Adain Smith, of Scothind, is a dis- 
 tinguislied Old Testament scholar. His commentary 
 on Isaiali :ittests this. He was nominated for a 
 professorship in the English Preshyterian College, 
 but his strong Rationalist leanings caused so much 
 opposition that his name was witlidrawn. There is 
 a widespread feeling that he has gone too far on the 
 line of the advanced German school. But even he 
 does not go so far as our Canadian professor. Mr. 
 Smith, in his connuentary on Isaiah, says : " But the 
 prophx^u has also perceived that sin and disaster will 
 so accumulate before the Messiah comes that, thou<di 
 innocent, He shall have to bear tribulation and pass 
 to His prime through suffering. No k^wq with open 
 mind can den}" that, in this moderate estimate of the 
 prophet's meaning, there is a great deal of the essence 
 of the Gospel as it has been fulfilled in tlie personal 
 consciousness and saving work of Jesus Christ."^ 
 
 Even modern Jews, whose rejection of Jesus as 
 the Messiah tends to make them deny the Messianic 
 charac^-er of some prophecies which Christiani have 
 applied to our Lord, do not reduce Messianic pro- 
 phecy to vague liopes which exclude all direct 
 predictive reference to a personal Messiah. Rabbi 
 Addler, of London, says: "Far be it from me to allow 
 
 5 " Book of IsaiiUi," ]). 42. 
 
 m 
 
KMiNKXT iieiiukw scholars. 
 
 M 
 
 you to imagine tluit the Bible does not contain 
 predictions, couched in phiin and distinct langua;jje, 
 concerning the advent of the true Redeemer. The 
 doctrine of the conung of a personal Messiah is the 
 purple thread which runs through the; writings of 
 our prophets and liistorians."" 
 
 Professor A. B. J)avidson, of Edinburgh, who has 
 
 written the introduction to the new edition of 
 
 Riehm's " Messianic Prophecy," is one of the 
 
 advanced scholars who goes a long way towards the 
 
 naturalist theory that Messianic prophecy is a 
 
 development of the ideal religious hopes of Israel. 
 
 Yet, he is nmch more explicit and positive than our 
 
 Methodist professor. He says : " There are, then, 
 
 real Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, that 
 
 is, statements made with conscious reference in the 
 
 Hebrew author's own mind to the Messiah. 
 
 Examples have been already adduced, such as the 
 
 prophecies in Isaiah ix. and Zecha ah ix. ; and there 
 
 are many others ; some passages referring to the 
 
 Person, and very many to the condition of things 
 
 in His time."^ 
 
 As a thorough Hebrew scho]ar and Old Testament 
 theologian, Prof. W. H. Green,, of Princeton, has a 
 
 ""Addler'y Course of Sermons,'" p. 125. 
 7 "The Expositor," Vul. VIII. p. 253. 
 
 ' ' .1 ' 
 
 WW 
 
 6 
 
 \ 
 
K"'r 
 
 82 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 |i. 
 
 !]!'■'• 
 
 high reputation in Europe, as well as America. He 
 stands in the very front rank of American Biblical 
 exegetes. In a letter received from him on this 
 subject, he says : " I can only express in the 
 general my thorough sympathy with the spirit and 
 aim of your article (in Guardian), and my utter 
 disagreement with the position that Jesus Christ is 
 nowhere directly predicted in the Old Testament. I 
 understand Dcut. xviii, 18 to be pr'jdictive of a race 
 of prophets culminating in Christ. But the pro- 
 phecies of Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Zechariah and 
 others, point directly and explicitly to Jesus. I do 
 not see how any other view can be taken by any one 
 who admits that prophecy came not in old time by 
 the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Dr. Baton J. Gloag, an able Hebrew scholar, though 
 not distinguished for heterodoxy, has displayed a 
 thorough knowledge of the literature of the subject in 
 his Baird Lecture for 1870. He ably maintains that 
 the Old Testament contains direct prophecies of 
 Christ, but states with great fairness the opposite 
 view. He says : " But what we at present assert is, 
 that there are direct prophecies of the Messiah and 
 His kingdom, which in a primary sense apply to 
 Jesus, and receive their fulfilment in Him alone," 
 
 tl 
 
Ml' 
 
 EMINENT JIEIiREW SCIIOLAliS. 
 
 83 
 
 Again : " If there are no predictions of a Messiah in 
 the Old Testament, the claim of Jesus is a delusion 
 founded on a false interpretation of Scripture, or 
 arising from the erroneous notions of the Jews con- 
 cerning a coming Messiah which were prevalent at 
 that period" (p. 01). 
 
 No one familiar with the writinijs of Prof. T. K. 
 Cheyne, of Oxford, will question his scholarship, his 
 independence, or his ability. Ho has been severely 
 criticised for going too far with the advanced Ger- 
 mans. Yet a wide chasm separates him from this 
 negative theory of prophecy. He says : " The 
 definitely Christian elements in the Old Testament 
 are mainly (not by any means entirely) of two 
 kinds: (1) foreshadovvings of special circumstances 
 in the life of Christ, occurring, as it luere, casually in 
 the midst of rhetorical descriptions ; and (2) distinct 
 pictures of Christ, the suH'ering Messiah."'^ It 
 would be easy to enlarge the number of similar 
 testimonies from other eminent scholars, but this is 
 suilicient to show that the assumption that the best 
 Biblical scholars of our times endorse this negative 
 theory is contrary to the facts ; as not only evangeli- 
 cal scholars, but critics of the advanced school, 
 hold the contrary view. 
 
 «" Isaiah," Vol. II., p. 106. 
 
 rbl 
 
 fi^ 
 
 .•'•!' 
 
mr' T 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MESSIANIC PROPHECIES WHICH PRE- 
 DICTIVELY REFER TO lESUS CHRIST. 
 
 A T 7E come now to examine those Old Testament 
 ' ' prophecies of a coming Messiali, which are 
 held by the f^reat body of believers, and by Biblical 
 scholars of the greatest eminence, to refer to Jesus 
 Christ, and to have been fulfilled by the events 
 recorded in the Gospels. We shall first consider 
 those passages which are more direct and personal, 
 and afterwards pass in review those which are gen- 
 eral and impersonal. There is not one of these 
 Messianic prophecies which gifted Biblical scholars 
 have not thoroughly examined and discussed; and 
 not one of them whose Messianic character has not 
 been challenged by some one. The denials have 
 come chiefly from two classes. (1) From modern 
 Jews, who desired to bi'eak the force of their applica- 
 tion to Jesus Christ, by denying their Messianic 
 character ; and (2) from unbelievers, or Rationalists, 
 who sought to reject, or minimize, the evidence 
 which the fulfilment of these prophecies gives of ^the 
 
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 MESSIA XrC PnOPHECIESi. 
 
 85 
 
 supernatural inspiration of the prophets, and of the 
 divine mission of Jesus of Nazareth. It is futile, at 
 this time of day, for any one to speak as if he had 
 by his own critical study evolved this " ethico- 
 religious" theory of prophecy. It is a well-known 
 Rationalist theory. Orthodox critics have, indeed, 
 differed about particular texts, such as Deut. xviii. 
 15 ; but Prof. Workman is the only expositor, so far 
 as we know, claiming to be orthodox and evan- 
 gelical, who has given up every text to the enemy, 
 and denied that there is any Old Testament passage 
 which has original predictive reference to the 
 historic Christ. 
 
 In view of the many gifted and learned authors 
 who have published the results of their patient 
 study of the prophecies relating to the Messiah, it 
 would be presumptuous in me to ask that any 
 special weight should be attached to \r\y personal 
 opinions. The plan I purpose to pursue in this part 
 of my essay is to take some of the chief Messianic 
 passages successively, and show that in prophecies 
 which Prof. Workman has so confidently thrown 
 out, as containing no direct reference to the Messiah 
 of the New Testament, masters in Biblical the- 
 ology, of the highest scholarship, and who are 
 thoroughly abreast with the most advanced criti- 
 
 f' 
 
 ( i 
 
 
8G 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 i ' 
 
 cism of tlie day, " Imve found Him of whom Moses 
 in the law and the prophets did write." If exposi- 
 tors who hold negative views are not quoted here, 
 it is not to conceal or deny the existence of men 
 who deny the Messianic character of these pro- 
 phecies ; but because, with few exceptions, these 
 belong to a school of thoucfht which detracts from 
 the weight of their decisions as to the meaning of 
 Bible texts. I do not know any Biblical scholar, 
 holding evangelical views in theology, who accepts 
 the negative view advocated by Prof. Workman, 
 though many of these writers unite profound 
 scholarship with great ability and love of truth. 
 
 The exposition of these prophecies is not simply 
 a question of the correct translation of isolated texts, 
 without regard to the whole bod}'- of the prophecies. 
 However sincere an expositor may be, his conception 
 of God, of Christ, and especially of divine revelation, 
 are sure to have as much influence on his interpreta- 
 tion, as his interpretation has on his views of 
 Revelation. The day when pretentious linguists 
 could astonish congregations by their original 
 translations of Scripture texts has largely gone by. 
 Every text has been thoroughly translated, sifted 
 and expounded by men of the highest learning and 
 ability, who have left us the result of their 
 
~m 
 
 MESS I A NIC riiOPIIhXJlES. 
 
 87 
 
 
 labors. Apart from our possessinpf the Revised 
 Versions of the Old and New Testaments, and other 
 translations by able scholars, it is a fact that the 
 differences between exegetes are generally on 
 broader issues than verbal criticism, and are caused 
 by their attitude and belief respecting other (ques- 
 tions, rather than by their views on points of 
 Hebrew philology. Dr. Edersheim, a most com- 
 petent judge, says: "Even with regard to Messianic 
 prophecies generally, there is, with few exceptions, 
 a similar general ajjreement as to the translation of 
 the words ; or at least generally little that is funda- 
 mental in the divergences. In other words, if it 
 were only a (jue.stion of the meaning of the original, 
 we might hope soon to be at one. More especially 
 is this the case as rejrards the climax of all Mes- 
 sianic predictions, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. 
 In the words of Dr. Pusey : ' Next to nothing turns 
 upon the renderings of the Hebrew. The objections 
 raised by Jewish controversialists ... in only four, 
 or at most five, words turn on the language.' " ^ 
 
 As reference will be made to the testimony of the 
 Targums to the Messianic meaning of prophecy, 
 we may state, for the benefit of young readers, that 
 the Targums are paraphrastic versions of some parts 
 
 1 Eder.slu'iui's " Prophecy and History," p. lOG. 
 
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 88 
 
 JESrs THE .\fESS/Aff. 
 
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 of the 01(1 Testament, made in the Clialdee 
 langua<:^e, after the Hebrew hail ceased to he vei'- 
 nacular among the Jews. The Tarf^um of Onkelos 
 is supposed to he the most ancient of these. 
 Another, by Jonathan Ben lizzie! , is about the same 
 age. The Jerusalem Targum is of later date. These 
 are of special value, because they show the sense in 
 which ancient Hebrew scholars, who were not Chris- 
 tians, and were, therefore, not intlueneed by Chris- 
 tian ideas, understood the Old Testament writings. 
 Many passages that were regarded as Messianic 
 by the ancient Jews, are differently construed by 
 modern Jews, w lio are influenced by the Christian 
 application of these prophecies to Jesus of Nazareth. 
 In an appendix to his " Life and Times of Jesus the 
 Messiah," Dr. Edersheim gives a list of the passages 
 in the Old Testament applied to the Messiah or Mes- 
 sianic times, in the most ancient Jewish writings. 
 They amount in all to 45G, thus distributed: 
 Seventy-five from the Pentateuch ; 243 from the 
 prophits, and 13S from Hagiographa. These are 
 supported by more than 5.58 separate quotations 
 from Rabbinic writings. This shows conclusively 
 that the numerous passages which Christians apply 
 to Jesus Christ are not fanciful discoveries prompted 
 by their Christian zeal. 
 
. ' » 
 
 M 
 
 ir 
 
 .V Aw.svj Xfc r/,'or//hr'n:s. 
 
 80 
 
 Those who are so greatly opposed to allowing the 
 light of New Testament t'ultihnent to fall upon 
 the meaning of Old Testament prophecy should give 
 considerable weight to the interpretation of Jewish 
 commentators, who were in a good position to 
 understand the spirit and circumstances of these 
 prophecies, addressed to people of their own race and 
 religion. Prof. Workman, rather inconsistently, we 
 think, magnifies the importance of the interpretation 
 obtained by studying the prophecies from the stand- 
 point of the ancient Jews, when he wants to exclude 
 the light of fulfilment; but he disparages the 
 unspiritual and earthly conception of the Jews in 
 our Lords-day, as if it was similar to the conception 
 of Christians who believe in a real fulfilment, when 
 he wants to recognize no fulfilment, but an ethical 
 and spiritual realization. 
 
 In quoting the opinions of distinguished Biblical 
 scholars, neither the plan of this little book nor the 
 space available, will allow us to produce, to any great 
 extent, the critical, and expository reasoning by 
 which they reached their conclusions.-' We can, for 
 the most part, only give the result. But it should 
 be borne in mind, that every one of these commen- 
 
 -Prof. liirsclif»'l(ler's able critical articles, in the ('(ni<iili<(a McDiodixt 
 Qnartcrlii, n'ndcr this the less necessary. 
 
 
t'flrr'" 
 
 90 
 
 .//i'.S7/,V TirK MESSIAH. 
 
 V I 
 
 tators has fully and carefully considered the 
 strongest arguments which have heen urged in favor 
 of non-Messianic and other views, dift'erent from 
 those which the writers (|Uoted have adopted and 
 maintained. The variety of opinions which obtains 
 among Rationalist writers detracts very much from 
 the weight of their theories. 
 
 '1 aiw 
 
 . I* 
 
 The First Messianic Promise. 
 
 Genesis iii. 15. 
 And I 'will pat enmity hetiveen thee and the 
 woman, and between thy seed and Iter seed ; It shall 
 bruise thy head, and thoa shall bruise his heel. 
 
 This passage has been generally regarded as " the 
 first promise." The ancient Jews, as well as the 
 New Testament writers and the primitive Christians, 
 held the serpent tempter to be the devil. Christ 
 says, " Ye are of your father the devil ; " and " He 
 was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not 
 in the truth, because there is no truth in him. 
 When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own : for 
 he is a liar, and the father thereof." (John viii. 44.) 
 There is here an evident reference to this passage in 
 Genesis. It is absurd to suppose that these words of 
 blanie, inflicting punishment upon the serpent, were 
 
^ . r 
 
 THE rih'ST MKSf<IAXIC PliOMISE. 
 
 91 
 
 addressed to an irrational animal, and not to an 
 intellijifent, accountable beini^. The highly ttgnrative 
 language in this passage involves the meaning in 
 some degree of obscurity. This is not lessened by 
 the fact that the word seed does not present the idea 
 of a person or individual. Yet, in spite of this 
 indefiniteness, it is scarcely possible for any one who 
 believes in the existence of " that old serpent called 
 the Devil and Satan, who deceiveth the whole 
 world " (Rev. xii. 9), to reject the idea that there is 
 here a promise given, which was adapted to inspire 
 the hope of future deliverance from the shadows of 
 that dark hour. 
 
 Apart from the allegorical use that may be made 
 of it, Prof. Workman finds nothing in the passage 
 but a reference to the natural antipathy to serpents. 
 Few will accept this materialistic rejection of all 
 spiritual and prophetic signification in this passage. 
 The words of Eve, on the birth of Cain, *' I have 
 gotten a man from the Lord," or " I have obtained a 
 man, Jehovah," is adapted '"o suggest the idea that 
 she regarded the event as in some way connected 
 with the fulfilment of the promise. The Targums of 
 Onkelos and Jonathan both give the passage a dis- 
 tinct Messianic interpretation. There is an evident 
 allusion to this promise in the apostolic expressions. 
 
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 92 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 IMI 
 
 " God sent forth His Son, made of a woman," and 
 " The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your 
 feet shortly." It is of interest to know, that in the 
 primitive Church this passage was regarded as a 
 prophecy of Christ. IrenjBUs says : " He (Christ), 
 the sole of whose foot shall be bitten, having power 
 also to tread upon the enemy's head ; but the other, 
 biting, killing and impeding the steps of man, until 
 the seed did come appointed to tread down his head, 
 which was born of Mary." ' We .shall now hear the 
 testimony of some modern scholars. After a full 
 review of the various theories on this passage, Prof. 
 Orelli, of Basel, says: "Accordingly a real promise 
 lies in the oracle, and with deep spiritual insight the 
 Church has found in it the TpGorov evixyyeXiov. 
 Certainly the promise is not couched in the form of 
 a blessing, but of a curse. The entire history of 
 redemption takes its start from the fall of man, and 
 begins with a judgment governing his whole state of 
 life. But a beam of grace towards fallen humanity 
 shines unmistakably through the gloom of divine 
 retribution." ' 
 
 Prof. C. A. Briorofs admits the term seed is a 
 generic term for the whole race, but he says : 
 
 ^ " Against Heresies," chap. 21. 
 ■• " Old Testament Propliecy," p. 90. 
 
•.i 
 
 THE FIRST MESSIANIC PROMISE. 
 
 93 
 
 I 
 
 " Herein is the germ of promise which unfolds in 
 the history of redemption. Out of the despair of 
 the first fall, in the experience of the first sin and 
 shame, sorrow and pain, the heart of man rebounds 
 with hope into the future, which was opened by the 
 divine prediction."' ''We have, then, a blessing to 
 the human race involved in this curse of the serpent; 
 a promise of redemption to be accomplished, not by 
 the woman, but by her seed." Dr. Oehler, the 
 eminent Old Testament theologian, refers to Hitzig's 
 rationalistic notion, that this is a myth derived by 
 the Hebrews, from the Persians, and that it only 
 means " that men and serpents shall continually 
 make war upon each other." Commenting on this, 
 Dr. Oehler says : " We must be permitted to marvel 
 at the poverty of the Hebrew mind, which was able 
 to reach such a shallow thought as Hitzig here finds, 
 only by the aid oi a misunderstood Persian myth ; 
 and yet we are to believe that this same mind gave 
 birth to the Old Testament as its natural product ! " 
 He closes his able exposition of the whole passage 
 with these suggestive words: "Thus, in a few words, 
 the whole course of the development of salvation is 
 here exhibited in its germ ; this is the seed-corn 
 
 5 " Messianic Prophecy," p. 73. 
 8 " Messianic Prophecy," p. 75. 
 
 ji ..Ij 
 
 
94 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 from which the whole history of salvation has 
 grown." ^ 
 
 Dr. JjQXi^Q, the famous German commentator, says : 
 " The rationalistic interpretation, which is last 
 defended by Knobel, finds here denoted the relation 
 between the serpent-nature and the human race. 
 That is, Genesis here, ii one of its most ethically 
 significant passages, flattens down into a mere 
 physical anthropological observation." Again, " In 
 opposition to the rationalistic stands the orthodox 
 interpretation of our passage, which refers it to 
 Satan on the one side, and to Christ the personal 
 Messiah on the other." 
 
 Prof. M. S. Terry, of Evanston, whose introduction 
 to his commentary on Genesis showed him to be 
 abreast of recent Biblical criticism, commenting on 
 this passage, says : " We fully accord with the great 
 body of Christian interpreters who recognize here 
 the first Messianic prophecy — the irrotevangeliumi. 
 But this prophecy, given in Paradise before 
 the expulsion of the transgressors, should not be 
 explained exclusively of the personal Messiah. That 
 promised seed comprehends also the redeemed 
 humanity of which He is Head," ^ 
 
 1 " Theology of Old Testament," p. 54. 
 
 8 " Commentary on Old Testament," p. 96. 
 
Ill 
 
 II 
 
 THE FIRST MESSIANIC PROMISE. 
 
 95 
 
 The great Hebrew scholar, Prof. Franz Delitzsch, 
 who was thoroughly familiar with the advanced 
 criticism of Germany, and who was as distinguished 
 for his conscientious independence as for his learn- 
 ing, also repudiates the view of this passage which 
 Dr. Workman advocates. In the revised edition of 
 his Commentary on Genesis, after a careful exami- 
 nation of the grammatical and lexical construction 
 of this passage, he maintains its moral and Messianic 
 meaning. He says, " The idea of ^^H is a circle, 
 and Jesus Christ, or the King Messiah, also as the 
 Jerusalem Tarffum declares will brinfj final healinfj 
 of the serpent's bite in the heel, is the centre of this 
 circle, ever more and m-ore increasingly manifested 
 in the course of the history of redemption. " 
 Again, " This first prophecy of redemption is 
 not only the most general and the most inde- 
 finite ; it is also, when regarded in the light of 
 its fulHlment, the most comprehensive and the most 
 profound." Replying to those who make out the 
 narrative to be a symbolic allegory, he says : 
 " Granting even that the trees of Paradise and the 
 serpent were mere symbols, this much is still left, 
 that man fell away from that first good develop- 
 ment which was implanted in him through the 
 temptation of Satan. If this is given up, there 
 
 ''•■ ! 
 
 ..■i 
 
 
R« 
 
 96 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 remains, instead of Christianity as the religion of 
 redemption, nothing but a rationalistic Deism, which 
 excludes the supernatural."" 
 
 m 
 
 
 The Shiloh which Was to Come. 
 
 Genesis xlix. 10. 
 
 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the 
 rider's staff from hetivcen his feet, until ShUoh 
 come; and unto Him shdl the obedience of the 
 peoples he. 
 
 This passage has called forth a great deal of 
 discussion and a variety of expositions ; but its 
 Messianic character has been maintained by most 
 Christian scholars. The main difficulty has been to 
 determine what is meant by the word " Shiloh." Is 
 it the name of a place ? or is it the name of a 
 person ? Does it mean till Shiloh come, or till He 
 come to Shiloh ? Several suggested translations are 
 little more than conjectures, which throw no addi- 
 tional light upon the signification. The most 
 plausible of the anti-Messianic interpretations is that 
 which regards Shiloh as the name of the town in 
 Ephraim, where the ark was deposited after the 
 settlement in Canaan. But this gives no worthy or 
 
 ^ " New Commentary on Genesis," pp. 154 and 160. 
 
THE SHILOri WHICH II'J.S' TO CO MIC. 
 
 97 
 
 ,|j..! 
 
 1, I 
 
 „ 
 
 intelligible meaning or point to this solemn utterance 
 of the dying patriarch. Rabbi Addler supposes that 
 the reference is to the revolt of Jeroboam and the 
 ten tribes, which took place at Shechem, not far 
 from Shiloh, when Judah lost the sovereignty over 
 Israel. But the tribe of Judah had no historic con- 
 nection with Shiloh that would give any rational 
 meaning to the grave prophetic forecast of the 
 passage. Judah s real eminence and leadership came 
 at a later period. A fair account of the different 
 interpretations of tlie passage will be found in Dr. 
 Gloag's Baird Lectures on Messianic prophecy. He 
 says : " Others resolve the word Shiloh into He 
 ivhose it is, and render the clause : ' Until He comes 
 to whom it (the sceptre or dominion) belongs.' This 
 is the most ancient interpretation, and is adopted by 
 most of the versions, Targums and Fathers. Thus 
 the Peshito renders it, * Until He comes to whom it 
 belongs ; ' the Septuagint, ' Until the things reserved 
 for Him come,' and the Targum of Onkelos, ' Until 
 that Messiah shall come, whose is the kingdom.' 
 Similarly, also, the Jerusalem Targum. And it is 
 supposed that there is an allusion to this meaning of 
 Shiloh in the prophecies of Ezekiel : ' It shall be no 
 more until He comes, whose right it is.' (Ezek. xxi. 
 27.) Others derive Shiloh fx'om the Hebrew verb, 
 7 
 
 V,l'« 
 
 i- 
 
98 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 (II f 
 
 !|i ■ 
 
 'Shalah,' to he safe, to he at rest, to he at "peace, 
 and render it rest or tranquillity ; and certainly this 
 is the most natural derivation. This is the meaning 
 adopted by such learned Hebraists as Vater, Gesenius, 
 De Wette, Knobel, Kurtz and Hoffman. Thus, 
 Gesenius, in his Dictionary, renders the passage : 
 ' The sceptre shall not depart from Judah until 
 tranquillity shall come.' Though, of course, such an 
 interpretation admits of an anti-Messianic sense, and 
 has been considered as a prediction of, or reference 
 to, the peaceful reign of Solomon ; yet it also titly 
 represents the peace to be enjoyed in Messianic 
 times. Indeed, the term peace is itself one of the 
 titles of the Messiah given by the prophets."^" 
 (Micah V. 5.) 
 
 The meaning which this writer himself adopts, 
 after reviewing the various opinions, is that Shiloh 
 is a proper name of the Messiah, denoting a peace- 
 maker, or the Prince of Peace — " Until Shiloh, that 
 is, the Messiah or Prince of Peace, comes." 
 
 In order to understand the true import of these 
 prophetic words of Jacob, we must rise above the 
 "lower" method of mere verbal exegesis, which 
 here gives no sure light, and use the " higher criti- 
 cism," which gives full weight to the circumstances, 
 
 10 Qioag's "Messianic Prophecy," p. 130. 
 
 \ 
 
^flrr 
 
 THE HHILOH WJllCH WAS TO COME. 
 
 99 
 
 the comparison with other Scriptures, and the 
 historic events which throw \\%\\\^ upon the meaning 
 of the prediction. The aged patriarch, to whom at 
 Bethel the promise was given, " In thee and in thy 
 seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed," 
 has gathered his sons around his dying bed, that he 
 may tell them " that ivhick shall befall them in the 
 latter days!' His utterances relate to their future as 
 tribes, not as individuals. No exposition, therefore, 
 that is not in harmony with the solemnity of the 
 occasion, and the prophetic character in which Israel 
 speaks, can be the true meaning. 
 
 This is one of the prophecies that could never 
 have been fully understood without the light cast 
 upon it by historic fulfilment. Critics may not be 
 able to settle with absolute certainty the precise 
 meaning of the words ; but " history has brought the 
 fulfilment." It is clear that special pre-eminence is 
 promised to Judah. We know that Judah became 
 the leader among the tribes. We know that from 
 that tribe sprang David and the royal line of his 
 successors. We know that it was foretold that the 
 Messianic King was to be of the tribe of Judah, 
 " a shoot out of the stock of Jesse." We know that 
 the sceptre of civil government did not pass away 
 
 BCidiBo'iifl lilCMidCS 
 
 INSTITUTE. 
 
 i .1 
 
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100 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 . 
 
 
 from Judah till after the coniinf^ of Jesus Christ. 
 We know that the Gentiles submitted to His 
 authority, and accepted Him as the captain of their 
 salvation. 
 
 These and other considerations have led most 
 competent critics and commentators to maintain 
 that this passage refers to the Messiah. The 
 Jews cannot be charofed with " reading New Testa- 
 ment meanings into Old Testament prophecies." 
 Yet the Targum of Onkelos says : " Until Messias 
 comes, whose is the kingdom, and unto whom shall 
 be the obedience of the nations." The Jerusalem 
 Tarofum has : " Until the time that King: Messias 
 comes, whose is the kingdom." In the Babylonish 
 Talmud occurs the following : " What is Messias' 
 name ? His name is Shiloh, for it is written, Until 
 Shiloh come."" Dr. Lange says : " But Christ is the 
 complete fulfilling. He is the victorious champion, 
 and the Prince of Peace in the highest sense." He is 
 " the lion of the tribe of Judah, who has overcome." 
 
 Dr. Terry, in his commentary on this verse, after 
 examining some anti-Messianic opinions, says : " Far 
 more satisfactory is the ancient interpretation, 
 represented in the Targums and maintained by most 
 Christian expositors, which makes Shiloh a proper 
 
 1^ " Young's Christology of the Targums." 
 
THE SniLOH WHICH WAS TO COME. 101 
 
 name (meaning resting-place or' rest-giver), and a 
 designation of the Messiah, who was to spring from 
 the tribe of Judah. . . . Here is the first intimation 
 of such Messianic hopes as are more fully outlined 
 in such passages as Isaiah ii. 3 ; xi. 1-10." 
 
 Prof. Orelli, after examining and rejecting the 
 anti-Messianic interpretations, says : " The final ful- 
 filment of the patriarchal saying we can only find 
 with the Apostolic Church (Rev. v. 5), in Christ who 
 has overcome as * the lion of the tribe of Judah,' and 
 now extends His kingdom in undisturbed peace, and 
 rejoices in its glory." '- 
 
 Prof. C. A. Briggs says the ancient versions and 
 interpretations are against regarding Shiloh as a 
 proper name of the Messiah ; and he reproduces Dr. 
 Driver's arguments against this view. Yet he says : 
 "There is in the prophecy explicitly only the 
 victorious Judah, the submissive nations and the 
 occupation of the promised land by the tribes of 
 Israel ; but implicitly there is also the lion of Judah, 
 the praise of Israel, the conqueror of the nations, the 
 Messiah who is to bring all these promises to their 
 fruition." ^'^ 
 
 12 " Old Testament Prophecy," p. 123. 
 
 13 "Messianic Prophecy," p. 99. 
 
 I!v 
 
 iri.,;, 
 
 l;-^ 
 
 |.| 
 
102 
 
 JESm THE 3rESSIAn. 
 
 !i 
 
 The Prophet like unto Moses. 
 
 Deut. xviii. If). 
 The Lord thy God tcill raise U2J unto thee a 
 prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, 
 like unto me ; unto him ye shdli hearken. 
 
 Hardly any Christian writers now apply this 
 declaration of Moses to any particular Jewish 
 prophet. Those who (juestion its direct Messianic 
 character, generally hold that it refers to a race or 
 succession of prophets, which, as some would say, 
 culminated in Jesus Christ. This view is not a 
 result of modern criticism. It was held by Calvin, 
 and by others who give no uncertain sound respect- 
 ing the reality of Old Testament predictions relating 
 to Jesus the Messiah. It is alleged, by those who 
 maintain this interpretation, that the idea of a 
 personal Messiah was not so fully developed in the 
 time of Moses as a strictly Messianic interpretation 
 of this passage would imply. Some also think that 
 as the people of Israel had just been warned against 
 the heathen diviners, this declaration is equivalent 
 to an assurance that there would be no need of this, 
 as the Lord would raise them up true prophets to 
 whose teaching they should give heed. But if there 
 
 
 k 
 
THE PUOPITET LIKE UXTO ,VOSES!. 
 
 103 
 
 1 
 
 is no reference to the Messiah here, where els loes 
 Moses more clearly write of Christ ? There is a 
 significant point in the statement : " There arose not 
 a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the 
 Lord knew face to face." (Dent, xxxiv. 10.) This 
 passage was understood in a Messianic sense by the 
 Jews of our Lord's day. After witnessing one of 
 Christ's miracles, the Jews said : " This is of a truth 
 that prophet that should come into the world." (John 
 vi. 14.) The Talmud asserts "that Messiah must be 
 the greatest of future prophets, as being nearest in 
 spirit to our master Moses." The early Christian 
 Church (except Origen) found in this a direct per- 
 sonal Messianic prediction. No doubt this belief 
 had been received from apostolic teaching. 
 
 Dr. Pye Smith, whose work on " Scripture Testi- 
 mony to the Messiah " was published over sixty 
 years ago, says of this interpretation : " Those who 
 have interpreted this divine promise as referring 
 only to the succession of the inspired prophets in 
 Israel and Judah, or to any one among them, must 
 have overlooked the principal circumstance in the 
 description, the likeness to Moses, the law-giver, 
 teacher, deliverer, and ruler of the people who were 
 set apart for God" (p. 166.) 
 
 Dr. Gloag says : " Two considerations prevent us 
 
 ..ill 
 
 tH" 
 
 li', 
 
i%r^" 
 
 104 
 
 JESCrs THE MESSTATt. 
 
 
 m 
 
 adopting tliis view (that of a race of prophets), 
 the one is tliat the word 'prophet ' is in the sinj^ular, 
 and the other that the prophet in question is par- 
 ticularized ; he was to he 'a prophet like unto Moses.' 
 Such a resemblance can only be predicted of Jesus 
 of Nazareth, who, like Moses, was the founder of a 
 new dispensation of reli<^ion, a le^'islator as well as a 
 prophet, and (thoui^h in a much higher sense) a 
 mediator between God and man."" 
 
 Prof. C. A. Brings, after a careful examination of 
 the arguments for a race of prophets being what is 
 meant, says that " the context is also in favor of an 
 individual prophet ; for the prophet is not only 
 represented as coming forth from Israel, but is also 
 compared with Moses, and thus presumptively he is 
 an individual also." He thus sums up his con- 
 clusion : " The characteristics of the prophet pre- 
 dicted are thus: (1) That he is to be an Israelite; 
 {'!) that he is to be like Moses ; (3) that he is to be 
 authorized to declare the whole counsel of God with 
 authority. There is no prophet in Jewish history 
 who at all satisfies these conditions. None can com- 
 pare with Moses, or be said to stand as his superior 
 in completing his revelation ; none in the history of 
 Isra^^l until the advent of Jesus Christ.'"' 
 
 i< (Jloajf'H " Mt'.ssiiinic Prophec'es," p. 137. 
 1'' Briggs' "McsHlaiiic l'ro[)hocy," p. 114. 
 
 I 
 

 THE pnOPHET LIKE ly^TO .UOSES. 
 
 105 
 
 Professor Orelli, though he favors the idea of 
 a succession of prophets culminating in Christ, says : 
 " Nevertheless we cannot get rid of the impression 
 that the apostolic citations (Acts iii. 22 ; vii. l]7) 
 really understood this Ttpocpi/rtf^ in the individual 
 sense, and perhaps John v. 46 also refers specifically 
 to this passage.""' These are strong testimonies, 
 yet Dr. Workman, with his characteristic practice of 
 substituting mere assertion for proof, says : 
 
 " Because this passage is applied to Christ in the 
 New Testament, it is supposed to contain a direct 
 reference to Him as the great prophet who was to 
 come. The original reference, though, as the connec- 
 tion shows, was not to the Messiah, but to a prophet 
 like unto Moses, who should teach the same kind of 
 truth that he taught, and proclaim the same sort of 
 principles that he proclaimed " (p. 44*3). 
 
 He assumes that this assertion settles the whole 
 question. Dr. Workman says there was no original 
 reference to Messiah. But the direct application of 
 the passage to Christ, by St. Peter (Acts iii. 22), 
 speaking under the influence of the Spirit, is not so 
 easily disposed of. We decidedly object to the 
 Professor taking the liberty of putting a meaning 
 adapted to his negative theory into the mouth of the 
 apostle. It is plain that St. Peter meant that Jesus 
 
 »«"01d Testament Prophecy," p. 13.'?. 
 
 
 BOiiiiBOtiO MECMiilCS 
 
 INSTITUTE. 
 
 
 1 
 
 .1 
 
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 •. !! 
 
 
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Ris-r^ 
 
 106 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 Christ was the prophet whom Moses foretold. To 
 assume anything else robs his words of all rational 
 meaning. If Christ was not the prophet foretold by 
 Moses, Peter was mistaken ; for he believed and 
 taught the people that He was. So also believed and 
 taught Stephen, the proto-martyr. 
 
 i'ii 
 
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 i ii 
 
 1, 
 
 ffll ; 
 
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 The Messiah a Priest Forever. 
 
 Psalm ex. 4. 
 The Lord hath sworn and ivill not repent. Thou 
 art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedeh. 
 
 This Psalm has been generally regarded both by 
 Jews and Christians as prophetic of the Messiah. 
 This did not arise from " reading New Testament 
 meanings into it," for the Jews in our Lord's day 
 held that it was written by David and referred to 
 the Christ. In the Talmud it is said : " God placed 
 King Messiah at His right hand, according to Psalm 
 ex. 2, and Abraham at His left." That it refers to 
 Christ is repeatedly assumed in the New Testament. 
 Some have taught that it was spoken by Nathan to 
 David ; but all interpretations which deny its refer- 
 ence to Christ are involved in grave difficulties. 
 How could David be a priest forever ? 
 
 Perhaps nowhere does Prof. Workman so boldly 
 
.!i' 
 
 THE MESSIAH A PRIEST FOREVER. 
 
 107 
 
 exhibit his self-confident and oracular style of 
 exposition as in his treatment of this Psalm. He 
 passes over, as unworthy of mention, important facts 
 and arguments that masters in thought and learning 
 have deemed unanswerably strong. He settles the 
 most crucial points of criticism with an off-hand 
 assertion, as if his saying a thing was so made it so. 
 Those who do not take his view of the Psalm simply 
 " have mistaken its proper authorship and Messianic 
 character." "Its author was not David, but a poet 
 belonofinof to his time." " Its character is not 
 Messianic in the strict sense of the term, but only in 
 the applied sense, or the typical sense of the term" — 
 that is, in the sense that his negative theory demands. 
 The title should be not a " Psalm of David," but a 
 " Psalm on David ;" that would better suit his theory. 
 The whole question is peremptorily settled by say- 
 ing: "This Psalm, therefore, like the others, contains 
 no direct reference to Christ." One might suppose, 
 from the confident assertions with which he contra- 
 dicts great expositors, that he had a personal 
 acquaintance with the poet of whom he speaks, and 
 that he had private information that the Master 
 used words not in the ordinary sense, but in a sense 
 in harmony with the Professor's theory. Yet, in 
 spite of all this, men of keen intellect and great 
 
108 
 
 TESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 n 
 
 natural and acquired qualifications, after the most 
 prot'onnd and protracted study, have rejected the 
 non-Messianic views which he affirms so oracularly 
 and positively. Dr. Franz Delitzsch, in his learned 
 commentary on the Psalms, affirms that this Psalm 
 is " an utterance of David regarding the coming 
 Christ. " He does not disparage the New Testa- 
 ment references to this Psalm, as if they were of no 
 account in fixing its meaning. He says : " According 
 to the New Testament, David, in Psalm ex., does not 
 merely speak of Christ in so far as the Spirit of God 
 has directed him to speak of the anointed Jahveh 
 in a typical form, but he speaks of Him directly and 
 objectively in a prophetical representation of the 
 coming One." 
 
 Referring to this Psalm in another place, he says : 
 "The New Testament Scripture presupp' se that 
 David speaks in this Psalm of another rather than of 
 himself, that, as if he had descended from his throne, 
 he bows himself before the One who was at the 
 same time his son and his Lord, and that, therefore, 
 so to speak, the type lays his crown at the feet of 
 the anti-type ; and we know no counter proofs 
 which compel us to correct the view of the Psalm, 
 with which the argumentation of the Lord (Mark 
 
 i 
 
 
 I 
 
THE MESSIAH A PRIEST FOREVER. 
 
 109 
 
 u 
 
 xii. 35-37 and parallels) stands or falls as untrue, or 
 only indirectly true." ^' 
 
 The learned Bishop Perowne, commenting on this 
 Psalm, says: "It is a prediction, and a prediction of 
 the Christ as the true King, as the everlasting 
 Priest, after the order of the Melchizedek." After 
 passing in review theories which deny the Davidic 
 authorship of the Psalm, and set aside the force of 
 our Lord's reference to it, he says : " It seems to me, 
 then, that we are shut up to the conclusion that in 
 this lofty and mysterious Psalm David, speaking by 
 the Holy Ghost, was carried beyond himself, and did 
 see in prophetic vision that his son would also be his 
 Lord." He very properly shows that both our Lord's 
 argument, and also that of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, fails, if we suppose the Psalm to have a 
 first reference to David. He says : " If the writer of 
 the epistle had supposed that David himself was a 
 priest after the order of Melchizedek, what would 
 have become of his argument that the abrogation of 
 the Levitical priesthood was signified by the fact 
 that the priesthood of Christ was after the order of 
 Melchizedek ? " 
 
 Prof. Orelli, though he inclines to the fanciful idea 
 of Nathan being the author, and that the priesthood 
 
 17 "Messianic Prophecies in Historic Succession," p. 90. 
 
 1 1 
 
 I H. 
 

 110 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 was conferred on David, a type " through the 
 medium of whose person this Psahn beholds the 
 future," fully maintains its Messianic character. He 
 says : " The fulfilment of this Psalm in its highest 
 significance was claimed by Jesus in the passage 
 quoted above as raising Him above David. And 
 certainly, as those expressions were inspired by the 
 Spirit of God, they best found their fulfilment in 
 David's perfect Son. Him has God exalted above 
 everything earthly ; making Him sit down 'at the 
 right hand; " '^ 
 
 Lange, in his able and learned commentary, 
 strongly maintains the Messianic character of this 
 Psalm. After declaring that Melchizedek " appears 
 as the type of the Messiah," he says : " Thus did the 
 Synagogue understand it in earlier times. Thus has 
 the Christian Church at all times understood it. 
 And the merely and strictly scientific expositors 
 would return to a greater extent than they have 
 done to the prophetico-Messianic interpretation, if 
 they could succeed in abandoning altogether the 
 anti-historical method of transferring Old Testament 
 conceptions and expressions to the person and 
 life of Jesus Christ, as well as the unhistorical 
 allegorizing and spiritualizing method of interpreta- 
 
 18 "Old Testament Prophecy," p. 157. 
 
 ^ 
 
THH MESSIA H A PRIEST FOREVER. 
 
 Ill 
 
 tion, and would also treat the several declarations of 
 the Psalm as matter of future historical realization." 
 
 Prof. Briggs says : " Psalm ex. cites an utterance 
 and oath of Jehovah to the Messiah, enthroning Him 
 at his right hand as the priest-king after the order 
 of Melchizedek." Of the intimation of the enthrone- 
 ment and the presence of Jehovah at his right hand 
 in the battle, he says : " This idea was never realized 
 in the history of Israel. It belongs to the great 
 High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, who 
 reigns on the heights of the heavenly Zion until all 
 things are subdued to His heavenly sceptre."^' 
 
 Canon Cheyne, in his Commentary on Isaiah ix. 6, 
 says : " But we do find the Messiah in a well-known 
 Psalm, invited to sit on the right hand of Jehovah 
 (Psa. ex. 1), and it is only a step further to give Him 
 the express title, ' God the Mighty One.' " 
 
 Prof. Workman's style of dealing with Christ's 
 own reference to this Psalm, furnishes a striking 
 illustration of the way in which the adoption of a 
 false theory may compel a man to make extra- 
 ordinary assumptions. Jesus asked the Pharisees 
 this question : " What think ye of the Christ ? whose 
 son is He ? They say unto Him, The son of David. 
 He saith unto them. How then doth David in the 
 
 1'-* " Messianic Prophecy," p. 134. 
 
 •IhIIJ' 
 
 ^A 
 
 
 iiiii 
 
 !''! 
 
mr' 
 
 112 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my 
 Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I put thine 
 enemies underneath thy feet." (Matt. xxii. 42, 43.) 
 Now the whole significance and point of this refer- 
 ence to the 110th Psalm, turns upon David being 
 its author, and the reference being to the Messiah. 
 If this is not true, there is no relevancy in the 
 Saviour's words. How does Dr. Workman get 
 over the difficulty ? By assuming that though 
 Christ knew that David did not write the Psalm, 
 and that it did not refer to the Messiah, yet He 
 addressed the Pharisees as if He thought the pre- 
 vailing view of the authorship and Messianic 
 character of the Psalm were true, in order to 
 embarrass and confound the Pharisees. The Jewish 
 Scribes and Pharisees of our Lord's day were quite 
 as likely to know the author and meaning of this 
 Psalm as Dr. Workman. But the sophistical part 
 ascribed to Christ by this exposition, is unworthy of 
 the Son of God, in whom was no guile. 
 
m 
 
 i 'I 
 
 77/ A' .VESSIAXIC KlXd. 
 
 113 
 
 The Messianic King. 
 
 Psalm ii. 0-8. 
 Yet have I set my Kin<j upon my holy hill of 
 Zion. I ivill tell of the decree: Tlte Lord hath said 
 unto me, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten 
 thee. Ash of me, and 1 tvill give thee the nations 
 for an inheritance, and the uttermost 'parts of the 
 earth for a possession. 
 
 The whole of this Psalm is Messianic, but we have 
 quoted only those verses whose reference to the 
 Messianic King is most specific. Whatever applica- 
 tion may have been made to David, or Solomon, or 
 any local king, there is too much in the Psalm 
 which cannot be applied to any earthly monarch, to 
 limit the meaning to such local applications. 
 
 Prof. Workman, however, with his characteristic 
 readiness to deal in positive assertions, declares that 
 this Psalm has reference to the reigning king ; the 
 term son refers to the theocratic king ; and though a 
 portion of the Psalm is applied to Christ in the New 
 Testament, " there is no immediate reference in the 
 Psalm to Him." This implies that the application 
 was unwarranted, and should not have been made. 
 The uniformity with which he accepts every objec- 
 8 
 
 ,' N:!|' 
 
 . i^ 
 
 ii 
 
 it 
 
114 
 
 JESUS TllK MESSIAH. 
 
 tion against the historic interpretation indicates a 
 strong bias. 
 
 Neither the date nor author of this Psalm is 
 certainly known. The older interpreters, especially 
 the Jewish writers, ascribe it to David's time. 
 Ewald and Bleek assign it to the time of Solomon. 
 Delitzsch inclines to the time of Ahaz. 
 
 Canon Cheyne, notwithstanding his leaning to the 
 conclusions of advanced German criticism, says : " It 
 is, I know, commonly supposed that the Psalm has a 
 primary reference to circumstances in the life of 
 David, but the ordinary Christian instinct seems to 
 me much nearer the truth. Even Jewish tradition, 
 so zealous for the honor of the Davidic lyre, has not 
 ascribed this Psalm to David. Who, then, can the 
 Son of Jehovah and Lord of the whole earth be, but 
 the future Messiah, whom the prophets describe in 
 such extravagant terms ? Why should we expect the 
 Psalms always to have a contemporary political 
 reference ? " *° 
 
 Dr. Delitzsch says : " Hence Luther's translation, 
 ' Kiss the Son,' is justified irrefutably. This second 
 Psalm belongs to the most important Christological 
 documents. It is not only because here the ideal 
 king of the final period is called Mashiach, also the 
 
 20 "Essays on Isaiah," p. 199. 
 
 .;!> II 
 

 THE MESSIANIC K1N(,'. 
 
 ]15 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 
 name of the Messiah as God's Son secures here, com- 
 pared with the j^eneral character of the promise 
 (2 Sam. vii.), individual definiteness. The Midrash 
 to the Psahn places Ps dm ii. 7, and Daniel vii. V], 
 in reciprocal relations." 
 
 Dr. G. F. Oehler, the distin<]^uished Old Testament 
 theologian, referring to different views of the Mes- 
 sianic Psalms, says : " The second view — the directly 
 Messianic interpretation — is, on the other hand, fully 
 borne out, even apart from any subsequent use of 
 these songs, in the three remaining Psalms ; in 
 Psalm ii., which describes the victorious Prince as 
 receiving in virtue of His divine Lordship, the whole 
 earth as His inheritance." 
 
 Bishop Perowne, in his able and scholarly Com- 
 mentary, says : " That the Messianic interpretation 
 of this Psalm was the earliest is admitted by the 
 Jews themselves. Kimchi says : * Some interpret 
 tliis Psalm of God and Magog, and the anointed as 
 King Messiah ; and so our Rabbis of blessed memory 
 have expounded it, and the Psalm so expounded is 
 clear ; but it is more natural to suppose that David 
 spoke it of himself, as we have interpreted it.'" 
 After a critical review of the Psalm, and a careful 
 
 21 «< Messianic Prophecies," p, 156. 
 
 22 " Theology of the Old Testament," p. 524. 
 
 xmi 
 
 '»• 
 
 ii I 
 
^V*' 
 
 116 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 1 
 
 examination of the different views of commentators 
 Bishop Perowne conchides thus : " He begins to 
 speak of an earthly king and his wars with the 
 nations of the earth ; but his words arc too great to 
 have all their meaning exhausted in David, or Solo- 
 mon, or Ahaz, or any Jewish monarch. Or ever he 
 is aware, the local and temporal are swallowed up 
 in the universal and eternal. The King who sits on 
 David's throne has become glorified and transfigured 
 in the light of the promise." 
 
 Prof. Briggs thus summarizes the import of this 
 Psalm : " Psalm ii. represents the Messiah, enthroned 
 on Mount Zion, at the right hand of Jahveh, his 
 son, citing a divine decree entitling him to the 
 position, with all its prerogatives of universal and 
 everlasting sovereignty." "' 
 
 Prof. Orelli says : " The Messianic King here 
 declares the import of the divine Sonship conferred 
 on Him, and that in reference to His relation to the 
 world : As God's Son He claims rule over the world 
 Thus we assume that the Messianic King is Himself 
 the singer. At all events, His divine kingly feelings 
 find expression here. ... In whom these divine 
 words found their true fulfilment has never been 
 matter of doubt in the Christian Church. One alone 
 
 23 " Messianic Prophecy," p. 134. 
 
MESS [An AS TITE CITUJ) OF PliOMISE. 
 
 11 
 
 could call Himself, in the deepest and fullest sense, 
 'Christ the Son of the living God.'"-'' 
 
 This Psalm is directly applied to Christ in the 
 New Testament. Not a mere accommodated refer- 
 ence ; but ii the sense of meanin(]f that Jesus Christ 
 is the Being here foretold. In the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, the first verse is ([uoted to show Christ's 
 superiority to the angels, which would be l)oth 
 unmeaning and misleading, if Christ was not the 
 One spoken of. St. Paul (Acts xiii. 'ili) (juotes the 
 words of the Psalm : " Thou art my Son : this day 
 have I begotten Thee," as spoken of Jesus. It is 
 generally held that there is a direct reference to this 
 Psalm in Peter's confession, " Thou art the Christ 
 the Son of the living God." (Matt. xvi. 10.) 
 
 iM| 
 
 
 Messiah as the Child of Promise. 
 
 Isaiah vii. 14; ix. 6. 
 Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign ; 
 Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and hear a son, and 
 shall call His name Immaniiel. 
 
 For nnto us a child is horn, unto us a son is 
 given : and the government shall he ujion His 
 shoulder : and His name shall he called Wonderful, 
 Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince 
 of Peace. 
 
 24 "Old Testament Prophecy," p. 1.58. 
 
 I.'i 
 
 ■■I ■ 
 
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 1 iil 
 
 118 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 m 
 
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 We conjoin these two passages, because it is the 
 same child mentioned in the first who is more fully 
 and exultantly characterized in the second. His 
 character and mission are revealed in still greater 
 completeness in chapter xi. Any exegesis which 
 excludes the relation which these three passages 
 hold to each other is defective. Prof. Franz 
 Delitzsch says : " It is the Messiah whom the 
 prophet here beholds as about to be born ; then in 
 chapter ix. as born, and in chapter xi, as reigning — 
 three stages of a triad which are not to be wrenched 
 asunder, a threefold constellation of consoling forms, 
 illuminating the three stadia into which the future 
 history of His people divides itself in the view of 
 the prophet. " -^ A similar view is held by most 
 Christirn scholars. 
 
 At the time of this prophecy, Judah was 
 threatened by a combined attack of the kings of 
 Israel and Syria This caused great alarm and 
 dismay to King Ahaz and his people, as they had 
 been already sadly defeated. Isaiah was commis- 
 sioned to encourage and reassure the king and the 
 people with promises of relief and victory. He 
 went with his son, as commanded by the Lord, to 
 Ahaz, and gave him assurances of deliverance; but 
 
 -'^•'Delitzsch's Prophecies of Isaiah," p. 208. 
 
 Ii li''^ 
 
MESSIAH AS THE CHILD OF PROMISE. 119 
 
 Ahaz did not believe. Then Isaiah told him to ask 
 a sign from God ; but Ahaz, who was depending on 
 help from the king of Assyria, declared he would 
 not tempt God. After this refusal of Ahaz, the 
 prophet, addressing the house of David, says : 
 " Therefore, the Lord Himself shall give you a sign ; 
 Behold, a virgin shall conceive," etc. 
 
 This passage has called forth a great deal of 
 criticism and discussion. It has evoked a variety 
 of interpretations. Because it has been quoted and 
 applied to the mother of Jesus, by St. Matthew, 
 there has been a determined effort, on the part of 
 Rationalist commentators, to deny and disprove the 
 Messianic character of this prophecy. If this could 
 be done, it would conduce to break down and 
 destroy the value and force of the New Testament 
 references to the fulfilment of Old Testament pro- 
 phecies. Prof. Workman admits that Isaiah ix. 2-7, 
 has reference to an ideal person ; but Isaiah vii. 14, 
 which speaks of the virgin and the child to be born, 
 is classed by him with passages that merely refer to 
 some person living at or near the time. He has 
 shown special anxiety to make out that this is not a 
 prediction of the Messiah. 
 
 The interpreters of this passage have been 
 divided into three classes : (1) Those who refer the 
 
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 (;. Is ? 
 
 >M: I If 
 
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120 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAir. 
 
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 prophecy wholly to the time of Ahaz ; (2) Those who 
 hold that it is a prophecy of the Messiah ; and (3) 
 Those who consider it as havinf]^ a double application, 
 first to an event in the prophet's ow^- time, and also 
 to the birth of Christ. The first view, viz., that the 
 reference is wholly local and temporary, is held by 
 all recent Jewish writers, and by Gesenius, Hitzig, 
 Knobel, Handiwerk and Anger, among nominally 
 Christian writers. It is suggestive that Prof. Work- 
 man holds the satne view as these Rationalists. 
 Several theories have been propounded by those 
 who deny its direct Messianic import. It has been 
 argued that it is a reference to Hezekiah the son of 
 Ahaz, who was to be a deliverer of his people. But 
 the best authorities hold that Hezekiah was born 
 several j^'ears before, and was at least nine years old 
 at this time. At any rate, he was already born, and 
 he was not a prince of peace, by any means. This 
 Prof. Cheyne considers conclusive against this theory. 
 Another theory is that it was Isaiah's own wife and 
 child that are here spoken of ; but there are cogent 
 objections to this supposition. The word almah, 
 translated " virgin," could not with propriety be 
 applied to a married woman, who was the mother of 
 Shearjashub. In the next chapter she is called " the 
 prophetess," which appears to be the name by which 
 
 ..,1, 
 
 IH'f 
 
Wv 
 
 MESSIAH AS TITE CHILI) OF PROMISE. 
 
 121 
 
 !•»' 
 
 ■ 
 
 i 
 
 she was known. The Messianic digrnity of the boy, 
 as seen in chapter viii. 8 ; the fact that when the 
 sons of Isaiah are meant, they are distinctly 
 named ; the peculiarly emphatic way in which the 
 mother of the child is introduced ; as well as the 
 absence of any reference to anything, such as this 
 theory supposes, having occurred — all bear strongly 
 against this exposition. Besides, if the prophet 
 referred to his sons, when his sons were concerned, 
 why should he not make a similar reference here ? 
 Or, why should a son who had one symbolic name, 
 receive another ? The force of these objections have 
 been met only by conjectures, which are sustained 
 by no evidence. The speculation of Hoffman, 
 Knobel and Weir, that " the young woman " is the 
 people of Israel, seems but to show the ingenious 
 theories that men will adopt in order to oppose what 
 they do not want to accept. The theory of Eichorn, 
 Kuenen and Prof. Robertson Smith, that it means 
 any young woman who should become the mother of 
 a son at that time, and call him Immanuel as a 
 memorial of the foretold deliverance, is untenable. 
 As Canon Cheyne shows, by this we get no sign 
 at all, whether of promise or threatening. This 
 interpretation is also entirely inconsistent with 
 Isaiah viii. 8, where this child " Immanuel " is 
 
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 122 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I 
 
 addressed by the prophet as an individual. That 
 this prophecy refers to the Messiah is strongly sus- 
 tained by cogent considerations. There is an evident 
 reference to the event here foretold in the words of 
 Micah V. 3, " until the time that she which travaileth 
 hath brought forth." The circumstances are too 
 solemn, and the evident importance of the event 
 foretold too great, to find a satisfactory fulfilment in 
 any local event of that time. The further and fuller 
 reference to this child of promise in chapters ix. and 
 xi. clearly shows that it is a prediction of the Mes- 
 siah. The name "Immanuel," "God with us," by 
 which the child was to be called, is too sacred and 
 significant to mean nothing but what is implied by 
 the non-Messianic interpretations. The language of 
 Isaiah viii. 8, which speaks of Judah as " thy land, O 
 Immanuel," requires a Messianic interpretation. The 
 words are quoted by St. Matthew as a prophecy 
 fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The event of Christ's birth 
 is an actual fulfilment which corresponds with this 
 prophecy, and helps us to understand its meaning. 
 If any of the interpretations which apply the pro- 
 phecy to the wife of Ahaz, or to the wife of Isaiah, 
 or to any one else, could be shown to actually cor- 
 respond with an historic event of the time, would 
 not those who advocate such a theory cite the facts 
 
 lili' 
 
 ir™" 
 
 i illE 
 
•: 
 
 MESSIAH AS THE CHILD OF PROMISE. 
 
 123 
 
 in proof of the correctness of their interpretation ? 
 Why, then, should those who apply the prophecy to 
 the birth of Christ be denied the right of a similar 
 appeal to historic facts which vindicate their view ? 
 
 Several objections have been urged against the 
 historic interpretation. It is allege^ that the 
 Hebrew word " almah," has not the special meaning 
 of " virgin," by which it has been translated ; hence, 
 that if it had been intended to convey the strict 
 meaning of virginity, the word hethulah would have 
 been used, and not alniah, which might be applied 
 to a young married woman. Even scholars who ad- 
 mit that this is in the main correct, do not think it 
 materially affects the interpretation ; for the use of 
 the word, rather than its etymology, determines its 
 meaning. Dr. Pusey, in a learned note to a 
 university sermon, ably defends " virgin " as the 
 right translation. Canon Driver says : " Probably 
 the English word " damsel " would be the fairest 
 rendering," Delitzsch approves of Luther's rendf r- 
 ing the word by " a maid." Canon Cheyne, indeed, 
 holds that the context of Isa. ix. 14, does not 
 compel us to decide that almah has any but 
 the logically correct rendering, " a young woman," 
 The Revised Version, however, retains " virgin," but 
 adds " or maiden " in the margin. Besides Isa. ix. 
 
 i\'... 
 
 
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 ii. 
 
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 iv. 
 
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 am, 
 
124 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 14, the word almah occurs in the Old Testament in 
 six places (Gen. xxiv. 43 ; Ex. ii. 8 ; Psalm Ixviii. 26 ; 
 Prov. XXX. 19 ; Cant. i. 8, vi. 8), in all of which it 
 denotes a young unmarried woman. From all this it 
 will be seen that, even if it be conceded that the 
 etymology of the word does not compel its restric- 
 tion to a meaning identical with that of the word 
 " virgin," there is no force in the objection, as against 
 the sense in which St. Matthew quotes and applies 
 this prophecy to the birth of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It has been objected that a prophecy of a Re- 
 deemer who was to be born 700 years later, 
 could not be a sign to Ahaz of a speedy deliver- 
 ance from his threatening foes. It might be 
 retorted that it is equally hard to see how the 
 birth of an ordinary child could be a sign or 
 pledge of deliverance. It is, however, by no means 
 clear that this sign of the birth of Immanuel was 
 given to Ahaz at all. The wicked and unbelieving 
 king had rejected the prophet's offer of a sign from 
 heaven, Isaiah would not, therefore, be likely to 
 thrust another sign upon him, which required 
 greater faith and more spiritual discernment. Re- 
 buffed by Ahaz, he turns and addresses himself to 
 the house of David, not to the king. Canon Cheyne 
 deems it probable that the discourse which follows 
 
MESSIAH AS THE CHILD OF PROMISE. 
 
 125 
 
 I I 
 
 the refusal of Ahaz, was spoken at a different time 
 and place from his previous words to Ahaz. The 
 natural conclusion is that the prophet introduces by 
 the second " sign " something greater than the first. 
 The words were probably spoken to the people who 
 had faith in Isaiah ; and, as in other places, the 
 prophet's vision rises and broadens, till he passes 
 from things local and temporary, to things relating 
 to the future Messianic kinf{dom. 
 
 It has also been pointed out, in reply to the same 
 objection, that the assurance of a coming Messiah 
 of the royal line of David, would be a pledge to the 
 house of Ahaz, that they were not to be destroyed 
 by the Syrians. It has been pertinently remarked 
 by Hengstenberg, that this objection, based on the 
 distance of the event, equally bears against all 
 Messianic prophecies. Their fulfilment was distant ; 
 and yet we know that in times of the greatest dis- 
 tress the people of Israel were cheered and encour- 
 
 aged by the hope of this 
 
 coming 
 
 deliverer. 
 
 Promises of future blessing and deliverance have 
 often sustained under present sufferings. 
 
 Of greater force than either of these objections, 
 against an exclusively Messianic interpretation of 
 this prediction, is the argument that its scope seems 
 to indicate a reference to existing or near events, in 
 
 : i! 
 
 vU 
 
 ; ' t r 
 
 :j( 
 
 I 
 
 it' 
 
 
 m 
 
 • I 
 
 
 i ■ 
 
 
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 126 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 ■, 'I 
 
 which the prophet's words would find a fulfilment. 
 This is especially true of the declaration in verse 16, 
 that " before the child shall know to refuse the evil 
 and choose the good, the land whose two kings thou 
 abhorrest shall be forsaken." That is, that in a short 
 period, indicated by the increased intelligence of the 
 child, the kingdoms of Syria and Israel should be 
 overthrown and forsaken. 
 
 These considerations have led some Biblical 
 theologians, who firmly hold that this is a 
 Messianic prophecy, to interpret it as having 
 reference both to events of the prophet's own 
 time and to the future Messiah. This is not, 
 as we understand it, that the words have a 
 double meaning ; but that persons and events were 
 prophetic of Christ in a typical sense. Dr. Pye 
 Smith says : " This passage, therefore, comes under 
 the class of testimonies which had a primary, but 
 inferior and partial, reference to some proximate 
 person or event; but had another and a designed 
 reference to some remoter circumstance, which when 
 it occurred would be the real fulfilment, answering 
 every feature and filling up the entire extent of the 
 original delineation."'" 
 
 The Eev. Albert Barnes and others take a similar 
 
 26 "Scripture Testimony to the Messsiah," p. 239. 
 
 A 
 
 l:fe=r. 
 
I 
 
 ^^ 
 
 h 
 
 MESSIAH AS THE CHILI) OF PROMISE. 
 
 127 
 
 I ' 
 
 a 
 
 
 view. Mr. Barnes deems the considerations in favor 
 of referring it to the birth of a child in the time of 
 Isaiah to be unanswerable ; and the considerations 
 in favor of an ultimate and absorbing reference to 
 the Messiah equally unanswerable. It is easy to see 
 that expositors who know that persons and events 
 in the Old Testament are introduced as prophetic 
 types, and who cannot believe the passage to have 
 exclusive reference to the Messiah, may regard the 
 passage as typical and prophetic of Christ. At any 
 rate, this interpretation does not contravene the 
 New Testament application of the prophecy to the 
 birth of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Some who refer the whole to the Messiah, think 
 the prophet looked for His immediate advent. How- 
 ever, the time of the fulfilment was one of the things 
 about which St. Peter represents the prophets as 
 inquiring and searching. The testimony of most dis- 
 tinguished Hebrew scholars respecting the specific 
 Messianic character of this passage is overwhelming. 
 
 Delitzsch says : " But, in any case, even if the 
 prophet thought of one of the maidens of the then 
 royal h Duse (which he does not believe), the child 
 thus prophesied of is the Messiah, that wondrous 
 heir of the Davidic throne, whose birth is exultingly 
 greeted in chapter ix." ^^ 
 
 27 " Commentary on Isaiah," p. 208. 
 
 ' '', 
 
 1 
 
 '1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
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 1 
 
 
 51 I 
 
 -I 
 
 |ll^ 
 
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 128 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 iv- \ 
 
 
 Heiif]fstenberg says : '* In the Christian Church, 
 throughout all ages, the Messianic explanation was 
 the prevailing one. It was held by all the Fathers 
 of the Church, and by all the Christian commen- 
 tators down to the middle of the eighteenth century 
 — only that some, besides the higher reference to the 
 Messiah, assumed a lower one to some lower event 
 of that period.'""*^ 
 
 Even Ewald says : " False is every interpretation 
 that does not see that the prophet is here speaking 
 of the Messiah to be born, and hence of Him to 
 whom the land really belongs, and in thinking of 
 whom the prophet's heart beats with joyful hope."'^'-' 
 
 Oehler says : " The passage, Micah v. 3, on the 
 other hand, is parallel with the prophecy, Isaiah vii. 
 14, of the birth of Immanuel from the almah, a 
 passage whose reference to the Messiah is demanded 
 bv its connection with Isaiah ix. 6, thouofh the inter- 
 pretation now prevailing regards it as only typically 
 Messianic."^"* 
 
 Canon Oheyne shows the untenable character of 
 the anti-Messianic theories, and answers objectors. 
 He says : " We may regard this prophecy as the 
 
 28"Christology," Vol. III., p. 48. 
 
 29 Quoted by Dr. Gloag, p. 197. 
 
 30 " Old Testament Theology," p. 527. 
 
 y^ 
 
MhaSlAIf AS Till-: CHILI) OF riiOMISK 
 
 129 
 
 first rough sketch of the Messianic doctrine, to be 
 filled up on subsequent opportunities.""" 
 
 Canon Driver denies that any of the assumptions 
 which make the prophecy apply only to local and 
 current events are satisfactory. He says : " It is the 
 Messianic King, whose portrait is here for the first 
 time in the Old Testament sketched distinctly.""^ 
 Dr. Driver also identifies the child of Isaiah vii. 14, 
 with the portrait of Messiah in chapter xi. In a 
 note he says : " This view of the prophecy of 
 Immanuel is supported by Micah v. 8, written not 
 many years later, and with apparent reference to 
 Isaiah vii. 14. Judah, it is there said, will be given 
 up ' until the time that she that beareth hath 
 brought forth.' " 
 
 Prof. C. A. Briggs says : " The passage is a Messi- 
 anic passage, and the prelude to the predictions of 
 the Messianic King which follow in Isaiah and in 
 Micah." He also says: " There is no reason why we 
 should seek a fulfilment of the sign in the time of 
 Ahaz, it is a sign which was expressly assigned to 
 the future. It matters little whether the prophet or 
 his hearers looked for a speedy fulfilment. It was 
 not for them to measure the times and intervals of / 
 
 31 " Isaiah," p. 48. 
 
 32 «« Isaiah," p. 42. 
 
 
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 vJS' 
 
 'J ! 
 
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 9 
 
 
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 130 
 
 JESUS TJIK MESSIAH. 
 
 I I 
 
 the Divine plan of redemption. If they looked for 
 the birth of such a son in the time of Ahaz or Heze- 
 kiah, they were disappointed. There is no historical 
 evidence of any such birth, or any such child."'' 
 Calvin, Vitringa, Orelli, Fairbairn, and all Christian 
 commentators, not of the Rationalist school, main- 
 tain its strictly Messianic character. 
 
 Isaiah ix. G, 7, is a magnificent outburst of prophetic 
 exultation, in which the prophet announces the birth 
 of the Messiah, as it breaks upon his vision as if 
 already accomplished. It demands nothing in the way 
 of argument or defence to vindicate its Messianic im- 
 port. Nearly all who believe in a supernatural 
 revelation and a divine Messiah admit that it is a 
 prophecy of the Christ of God. The divinely 
 exalted names, Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, 
 Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, here applied to 
 the prospective new-born Messianic King, vindicate 
 his title to the throne. These exalted names of 
 themselves exclude the idea that Hezekiah, or some 
 other king of Judah, is spoken of. 
 
 Canon Cheyne, referring to the verses that precede 
 this prediction of the birth of Christ, says : " It is 
 most remarkable (and might at first sight justify a 
 suspicion of interpolation), that Isaiah, a man of 
 
 33 «' Messianic Prophecy," p. 197, 
 
vr 
 
 vr 
 
 MESSIAH AS THE CHILD OF riiOMISK. 
 
 131 
 
 Juflah, should have delivered this exuberant promise 
 to the border districts of Israel, especially as their 
 inhabitants had approximated more to heathenism 
 than those of the rest of Israel. The coincidence 
 with the circumstances of Jesus Christ, is too re- 
 markable to be explained away. The Jews certainly 
 inferred from this passage of Isaiah, that the Messiah 
 would appear in Galilee." ^ 
 
 Referring to the prediction which introduces this 
 exultant announcement, Dr. Riehm says : 
 
 "Quite unassailable, however, by historical criticism 
 is the remarkable coincidence of the New Testament 
 record of fulfilment with the prophecy in Isa. ix. 1., 
 according to which the light of the Messianic salva- 
 tion was to shed its rays, first upon the inhabitants 
 of the tribal districts of Zebulon and Naphthali, the 
 region by the sea of Gennesaret and the Jordan."^'' 
 
 This announcement, therefore, derives special sig- 
 nificance from its setting. It occurs in this pro- 
 phetic description of the blessings of the Messianic 
 advent, when " the people who walkea in darkness 
 see a great light ; " which prediction is declared in 
 the New Testament, to have been fulfilled by 
 
 •''* <'The Prophecies of Isaiah," Vol. ii., p. 205. 
 35 "Messianic Prophecy," p. 312. 
 
 jil 
 
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132 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
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 Christ's first teach inj^ in Galilee. The announce- 
 ment of the birth of the Christ in the sixth verse, 
 supplies the cause that accounts for the victory and 
 blessinj^s foretold in the previous verses. From the 
 similar language in both, it can hardly be doubted 
 that there is a direct reference to the seventh verse, 
 in the announcement of the angel to Mary, that to 
 the Child to be born the Lord God should give the 
 throne of David His father, and He should reign over 
 the house of Jacob forever. (Luke i. 32, 33.) What 
 is prophecy in the one place is fultilment in the 
 other. 
 
 These titles are not meant to be a proper name of 
 the Messiah. They are appellations designed to 
 make known His exalted character. Orelli's idea 
 that all that is in these names is included in the 
 name Immanuel, "God with us," is true. Referring to 
 this verse, he aptly says: "Thus the name Immanuel, 
 assigned to the child of the future, has unfolded 
 itself. Divine wisdom, divine strength, paternal 
 love, faithful as God's, divine righteousness and 
 peace are ascribed to Him in such a way, indeed, 
 that His person also appears divine ; He perfectly 
 exhibits God in the world, consequently His 
 dominion is God's dominion on earth." ^ 
 '^'^ "Old TesUment Prophecy," p. 277, 
 
 A 
 
T 
 
 MESS I A H AS THE CHILD OF P ROMISE. 1 3 3 
 
 The method adopted by those who have denied 
 that this is a prophecy of the Christ, is to tone down 
 the meaning of these lofty words, and to make it 
 appear that these, or terms of similar import, have 
 been applied to human beings. The greatest of the 
 Jewish prophets was not a flatterer, who would 
 apply such extravagant titles to an earthly prince. 
 The significance of these names, their various trans- 
 lations, and effective replies to those who have 
 sought to explain away their high significance, will 
 be found in such writers as Delitzsch, Hengstenberg 
 and Orclli. The latter forcibly says : " Every 
 Judaizing and rationalizing attempt to adapt the 
 insignia conferred on the Messiah here, to a man of 
 our nature, degrades them, and with them the 
 Spirit who framed them. One alone could claim 
 them as His, and for Him they were already de- 
 signed." ^^^ 
 
 It would be superfluous to {{uote other authori- 
 ties, to show that this ninth of Isaiah has been 
 interpreted by the greatest Biblical scholars of the 
 age as a direct prophecy of Christ's birth and char- 
 acter. Even Dr. Priestly, the Socinian, is quoted by 
 Dr. Pye Smith as saying, that this is ''evidently a 
 reference to the Messiah." 
 
 37 "Old Testament Prophecy," p. 277. 
 
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 INSTITUTE 
 
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vir.r-' T 
 
 134 
 
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 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 The Branch of Jesse. 
 
 (Isaiah xi. 1-10.) 
 "And there shall come forth a shoot out of the 
 stock of Jesse, and a Branch out of His roots shall 
 hear fruit : and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest 
 upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, 
 the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of know- 
 ledge and of the fear of the Lord ; and His delight 
 shall he in the fear of the Lora : and He shall not 
 judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove 
 after tJte hearing of His ears : hut with rigJiteousness 
 shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for 
 the meek of the earth : and He shall smite the earth 
 with the rod of His mouth, and with the hreath of 
 His lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness 
 shall he the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the 
 girdle of His reins. And the wolf shall dwell with 
 the la:nh, and the leopard shall lie doivn with the 
 kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the falling 
 together; and a little child shall lead them. And 
 the cow and the hear shall feed; their young ones 
 shall lie dovm together : and the lion shall eat straw 
 like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on 
 the hole of the asp, and the iveaned child shall put 
 his hand on the hasilisk's den. They shall not hurt 
 
THE BRANCH OF JESSE. 
 
 135 
 
 nor destroy in all My holy mountain : for the earth 
 shall he full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the 
 ivaters cover the sea. And it shall come to j^f^ss in 
 that day, that the root of Jesse, tuhich standeth for 
 an ensign of the people, unto Him shall the nations 
 seek ; and His resting place shall he glorious." 
 
 The idea here is that from the house of David, 
 represented by the stump of a tree that had been cut 
 down, the Messiah shall come like a shoot. This is 
 an intimation that when Judah is low and the house 
 of David no longer flourishing, Christ shall arise and 
 rule in righteousness. The language is highly figur- 
 ative, and cannot be interpreted literally ; but unless 
 the existence of Messianic prophecy be wholly 
 denied, this prophecy must point to the coming 
 Redeemer. To object that it is not Messianic, be- 
 cause there are some things which are deemed not 
 strictly applicable to Christ, is to forget the highly 
 symbolic and typical character of the prophecy. 
 The blending of the earthly and spiritual in the 
 same vision is an oft-recurring characteristic of 
 these prophecies. What may be occult or mys- 
 terious does not disprove what is clear and compre- 
 hensible. As Prof. W. H. Greene, of Princeton, says^ 
 "That the prophet cannot emancipate himself en- 
 tirely from the shackles of the dispensation under 
 
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 JESIJS THE MESSIAIt. 
 
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 which he lived, and cannot in all cases distiniyuish 
 the figurative from the literal in his own predic- 
 tions is, no doubt, true ; also that he blends together 
 in one view events widelj^ separated in time, 
 which are successive realizations of the same prin- 
 ciple in the divine dispensations. But this only 
 shows that the Holy Spirit intended more by the 
 prophecy than was in all cases understood by the 
 prophet himself." It may be safely said, that while 
 the different features of this prophecy fitly desig- 
 nate the Messiah, they are inapplicable to any other 
 being, either real or ideal. Nearly all Chr -''an 
 writers interpret this chapter as referring to Mes- 
 siah's reign. Canon Cheyne says : " This prophecy 
 supplements the vague predictions in chapters ix. 
 and vii. It t^Us us that Messiah was to belongr to 
 the family of David ; this is all which Isaiah appears 
 to have known " (as to the family). Oehler says : 
 " In the Messianic passage, Isaiah xi., the divine 
 element in the Messiah appears only as the fulness 
 of the Spirit of the Lord resting upon Him, and 
 endowing Plim for His righteous and happy rule." "'^ 
 " Dr. Pye Smith says : " The Targum of Jonathan 
 and others of the best Jewish and Christian inter- 
 preters regard it as a prediction of the Messiah." 
 
 »« " Old Testament Theology," p. 524. 
 
THE SUPl^EEiyta SERVANT OF JEHOVAH. 137 
 
 The Targum of Jonathan says : " From the children 
 of Jesse a king shall proceed, and from his children's 
 posterity the Messiah shall arise to greatness." Dr. 
 Smith says, " Not only RosenmuUer, but even Eich- 
 horn, De Wette and Gesenius maintain that the 
 description can belong only to Messiah." ""' Delitzsch 
 says, speaking of this passage : " The trilogy of the 
 prophetic figures of the Messiah — as about to be 
 born, as born, and as ruling — is now complete." 
 Prof. Terry refers to this passage as " the Messianic 
 prophecy and song, which occupy Isaiah xi. and xii." 
 Driver, Briggs and Orelli all hold that this pro- 
 phecy points to the coming Christ. 
 
 The Suffering Servant of Jehovah. 
 
 Isaiah Hi. 13-15, and liii. 
 
 The description of the suffering Servant of Jeho- 
 vah, beginning at the thirteenth verse of the fifty- 
 second of Isaiah and ending with the twelfth 
 verse of the fifty-third chapter, is the most striking 
 and important of all the Messianic prophecies of 
 the Old Testament. It has probably been more 
 fully and frequently criticised and discussed by 
 Jews and Christians than any other prophecy. The 
 
 2-' "Scripture Testimony," p. 259. 
 
 I 
 
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 •138 
 
 JESUS THE ^^ESSTATL 
 
 reason of this is obvious. The prophetic descrip- 
 tions here are more full and minute than are found 
 in any other place. The New Testament refer- 
 ences to what is said here are more numerous and 
 explicit than to any other prophecy. 
 
 It is extraordinary that in this chapter, which 
 through all the Christian ages has inspired and 
 strengthened faith in Jesus as the Christ of God, our 
 Methodist Professor can find nothing but that, 
 " though Messianic in its application, (it) contains 
 passages which are not strictly Messianic, and which 
 cannot be appropriately applied to Christ " — and 
 that one verse is not applied to Christ by the evan- 
 gelists. This, with an unwarranted sneer at the 
 learned Hengstenberg, for his Messianic interpre- 
 tation, is all our lecturer on " Messianic prophecy " 
 finds for us in Isaiah liii. Surely one is justified in 
 saying that, because of his Rationalist negations, his 
 '* eyes were holden that he should not know Him." 
 Having accepted the theory that there is no such 
 predictive reference to Christ in the Old Testament 
 as would imply a miraculously revealed knowledge 
 of the future, even the fifty-third of Isaiah cannot be 
 excepted from being dissolved in this Rationalist 
 crucible. 
 
 Because the vivid portraiture of this chapter has 
 
THE S UFFERINa SEti VA KT OF JETIO VA H. 139 
 
 been more frequently appealed to by Christians, in 
 proof that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, than 
 any other prophecy, this has led modern Jews, 
 Rationalists, and Infidels to labor sedulously, by 
 special translations and expositions, to counteract 
 or neutralize the force of the ordinary Christian 
 interpretation. As has been already stated in a 
 quotation from Dr. Pusey, comparatively nothing 
 has been gained for a non-Messianic interpretation 
 by special translations, though they have been 
 numerous. Nearly every commentator has made his 
 own translation, but the differences have not been 
 material. The chief anti- Messianic interpretations 
 are : (1) That the title Servant of Jehovah refers to 
 the prophets as the messengers of God to the people ; 
 
 (2) That it denotes the Jewish people collectively; 
 
 (3) That the title represents the pious portion of the 
 exiles ; (4) That the term is applied to the true ideal 
 Israel ; (5) That it means some person, such as Isaiah, 
 Hezekiah, or Jeremiah. 
 
 Probably the most plausible of these non- Messi- 
 anic interpretations is that of the Jewish writers, 
 which regard the servant of Jehovah as a personifi- 
 cation of Israel. But, as Prof. Briggs shows, where 
 the suffering or death of the nation is spoken of, it 
 is always in judicial punishment for their own sins ; 
 but He who is spoken of here is one who suffers 
 
 I ( 
 
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 ■ /^ i 
 
 II'-, 
 
140 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I 
 
 unjustly, not for His own sins, but for the sins of 
 others. Besides, in other parts of the prophecy the 
 Servant of Jehovah is contrasted with, and dis- 
 tinguished from, the people of Israel. For example, 
 in Isaiah xlix. 6, it is said, " Yea, he saith, It is too 
 light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to 
 raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the pre- 
 ser ^ed of Israel : I will also give Thee for a light to 
 thf Gentiles, that Thou may est be my salvation 
 unto the ends of the earth." Simeon, to whom it 
 was revealed by the Holy Ghost that he should not 
 see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ ; and 
 of whom it is said, " the Holy Ghost was upon him," 
 applied the words, " a light to lighten the Gentiles," 
 to the infant Jesus. (Luke ii. 32.) The supposition 
 that it was Jeremiah who was here spoken of, and 
 the theory of two Messiahs, a suffering son of 
 Joseph and a triumphant son of David, require no 
 special refutation. 
 
 In his book on this chapter, there is a disser- 
 tation on " The signification of Ehed Yaveh," by 
 the Rev. W. Urwick, M.A., tutor in Hebrew, New 
 College, London. He is known as an able theologian, 
 as well as a thorough Hebrew scholar. As he has 
 examined this subject critically and exhaustively, at 
 the risk of some overlapping, I shall give a brief 
 summary of the results of his examination. 
 
T 
 
 THE SUFFERlNd SER VANT OF JEIIO VA IL 1 4 1 
 
 i'i! 
 
 The main argument for the suffering Servant in 
 Isaiah 11 ii. l)eing Israel, is that Jacob or Israel is 
 repeatedly addressed as " my servant " in the pro- 
 phecies of Isaiah, and, therefore, that it must also 
 mean Israel in the Rfty-third chapter. 
 
 It is clearly shown by Mr. Urwick, (1) That the 
 title " Servant of Jehovah," is not used in the same 
 sense, but with various meaninors throughout the 
 prophecy ; (2) That from chapter liii. to the end of 
 the book, it is used only in the plural, and applied 
 to those who embrace the offers of salvation ; (3) 
 That it sometimes refers to the prophet himself, or to 
 the prophets as distinct from the people ; (4) That it 
 is often expressly given to Jacob or Israel; (5) That in 
 three passages it cannot have any of these meanings. 
 These passages are : First, Isaiah xlix. 6, which has 
 been already quoted ; secondly, Isaiah xlii. 1-5, 
 " Behold my Servant, whom I behold ; my chosen, in 
 whom my soul delighteth ; I have put my spirit 
 upon Him ; He shall bring forth judgment to the 
 Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His 
 voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall 
 He not break, and the smoking flax will He not 
 quench : He shall bring forth judgment in truth. He 
 shall not fail nor be discouraged, till He have set 
 judgment in the earth ; and the isles shall wait for 
 
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 ii'-. 
 
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 142 
 
 JKSL/S THE MKSSfAir. 
 
 His law." It is forcibly maintained that here the 
 Servant is presented with a marked individuality of 
 character and office, which requires something more 
 than an application to a real or an ideal Israel. 
 This passarje is also quoted as applicable to Jesus 
 and fulHlled in Him. (Matt. xii. 17-21.) The third 
 passage, in which this title cannot be used in any of 
 the senses previously referred to, is this prophecy 
 about the suffering Servant of Jehovah, embracing 
 from the thirteenth verse of chapter Hi. to the end of 
 chapter liii. The reasons given in this latter case 
 are : (1) That the prophet here expressly speaks 
 neither of a class, nor an ideal, but of an individual 
 distinct from himself or his people ; (2) That in no 
 individual, or actual, or ideal community had this 
 prophecy an adequate fulfilment, except in our Lord 
 Jesus Christ ; (3) That Christ and His apostles 
 repeatedly refer to this prophecy as being fulfilled 
 in Jesus. These reasons of Mr. Urwick are certainly 
 forcible arguments against the most popular of the 
 anti-Messianic theories. 
 
 The great question which claims an answer, and 
 which cannot be evaded, is that addressed to Philip 
 by the Ethiopian eunuch, " Of ivhom speaketh the 
 prophet this ? of hiviself or of some other ? " An 
 individual is certainly here spoken of, who can be 
 
 ill 
 
THE SUFFEIUXa SKItVAXT OF J El 10 VAN. 
 
 143 
 
 none other but the Messiah ; for every other theory 
 fails to correspond with the main points in the pro- 
 phetic description. Prophecy is one half of a sphere, 
 of which the other half is fulfilment, ^'his, as we 
 shall see, is one of those prophecies whose complex 
 Messianic character is clearly seen in the light of 
 fulfilment, but which never could have been fully 
 seen without that light. In the words of Archbi.shop 
 Whately, it is " like a complicated lock with many 
 wards which but one key will fit." 
 
 Dr. Edersheim, who was himself a convert from 
 Judaism, rejo. js in the fact that " there is no funda- 
 mental divergence between Jew and Christian as 
 regards the translation of this chapter. He says : 
 " All admit that the subject of this prophecy is por- 
 trayed as holy in His beginnings ; suffering sorrow, 
 contempt and death ; that He would be accounted a 
 transgressor, yet that His sufferings were vicarious, 
 those of the just for the unjust, and this by God's 
 appointment ; that in meek silence and willing sub- 
 missiveness He would accept His doom ; that His 
 soul was an offering for sin which God accepted ; 
 that He made many righteous ; that He intercedes 
 for transgressors ; that He is highly exalted in pro- 
 portion to His humiliation ; and that kings would 
 submit to Him and His reign abide. To use, once 
 
 
 '■.ii'' 
 
 111 
 
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 I' : 
 
II 
 
 Nilft 
 
 
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 J 
 
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 lit 
 
 JI'JUUS Till': MKSSIAII. 
 
 nioro, the lanj^uaf^e of Dr. Puscy : ' The (iue.stion is 
 not, What is the picture ? in this all are af^reed ; but, 
 Whos(^ iinaf;e or likeness does it bear ? ' " "' 
 
 Leaving the answer to the incjuiry here propounded 
 for a future chapter, we will quote a few out of many 
 testinioni s to show that, notwithstandinf^ Dr. 
 Workman's confident assertions, many competent 
 witnesses declare that the person here so vividly 
 portrayed by the prophet is the Christ who was to 
 come — the Redeemer and Saviour of the world. 
 
 Though it is impossible to discuss all opposite 
 theories, it should be remembered that the Biblical 
 scholars from whom we (juote have, in all these 
 cases, thoroughly examined the diff'erent translations 
 and expositions, and the strongest things which 
 have been advanced in favor of the anti-Messianic 
 views ; and they have rejected these interpretations 
 because they d' -^^^led them not sustained by proper 
 evidence. 
 
 Thougl modern Jews deny the Messianic 
 
 character of this great prophecy, many of the 
 t'.ncient Rabbis acknowledged that it was a prophecy 
 of the Messiah. The Targum of Jonathan thus 
 paraphrases Isaiah lii. 13: "Behold my Servant, the 
 Messiah, shall prosper : He shall be exalted and 
 
 40 "Prophecy and History," p. 107, 
 
THE SUFFi:i!IX(l SKli VAXT OF J El 10 VA 11. 1 ir> 
 
 ««PiPf 
 
 increased and strenixtlicned exceedin-dv." Rabbi 
 Abarbanel, who lived in the tif'teentb century, says: 
 " Christian scholars explain this prophecy as re- 
 ferring to that man who was executed toward the 
 end of the second temple, and who, acconlini:^ to 
 their view, was the Son of God, who became incar- 
 nate in the womb of the virf^in. But Jonathan 
 Ben Uzziel applies it to Messiah who is still to be 
 expected ; and such is also the view of the ancients, 
 in many of their cominentaries." " Hence," says 
 Delitzsch, who quotes this passage, " even the Syna- 
 gogue itself cannot help acknowledging that the 
 course of the Messiah through glory to death is pre- 
 dicted here."" 
 
 The Jews, as we know, had the expectation that 
 the Messiah would be a triumphant king, and they 
 could not accept the idea of a lowly and suffering 
 Christ ; yet this was not true of all Jews, at all 
 times. In the appendix to his '' Scriptural Doct 'ine 
 of Sacrifice," Principal Cave, of London, quoies 
 extracts from the work of Dr. Wunsch, a learned 
 German writer, who clearly proves that the idea of 
 a suffering Messiah to make atonement was taught 
 in the ancient synagogue. In one part of his work 
 Dr. Wunsch "treats of the Biblical sacrifices as a 
 
 « "The Prophecies of Isaiah," p. 279. 
 10 
 
 H 
 
 1 1 
 
 •.! A 
 
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 ■Il'v! 
 
146 
 
 JESUSl THE MESSIAH. 
 
 H '^ 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 ti I ^ 
 
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 .■M 
 
 1 ; 
 
 i 'i^i 
 
 symbolic and typical prophecy of a suffering and 
 dyinj^ Messiah, and in the other part he treats of 
 the Old Testament verbal prophecies of a suffering 
 and atoning Messiah." Dr. Wunsch says : " A very 
 ancient witness which refers the Isaianic prophecy 
 to the Messiah, is the -.lidrash Tanchuma, which 
 says: ' It is the King Messiah who thrives, advances, 
 and is very exalted ; He thrives more than Abra- 
 ham, is more exalted than Moses, and more exalted 
 than the ministerinof anijels.' " 
 
 Rabbi Alshech, who lived in the middle of the 
 sixteenth century, though disposed to apply Isaiah 
 liii. to Moses or Israel, says : " On the testimony of 
 tradition our old Rabbis have unanimously admitted 
 that King Messiah is here (in Isa. Hi. 13-15) spoken 
 of. Therefore, we also, in agreement with them, 
 conclude that the subject of prophecy is David, that 
 is the Messiah, as is evident, and is confirmed by 
 the Scripture, for the prophet Ezekiel, in the name 
 of God, says : " And David my servant shall be 
 king over them.' " Dr. Wunsch also quotes from 
 Rabbi Alshech, to show that he applies Isaiah liii. 1, 
 to King Messiah. He says : " There remains one 
 witness which refers the fifty- third of Isaiah to the 
 Messiah. It is a prayer of the synagogue which is 
 offered every year by pious Jews at the Passover," 
 
^"Tl^^ r 
 
 "^ 
 
 rr 
 
 THE S UFFERINO SER VA XT OF JKIIO \ W If. U 7 
 
 ^er. 
 
 From their prayer ho quotes these words, " He will 
 be prosperous and high and very exalted, although 
 He is now despised ; He will do wisely, and punish 
 and sprinkle many." " In this prayer," says Dr. 
 Wunsch, "there are three verses of our prophecy 
 recognizable at a glance, viz., Isaiah liii. 13, Hi. 3, and 
 Hi. 13.'- 
 
 The denial by modern Jews and Rationalists that 
 this chapter refers to the Messiah, seems like an 
 unintentional testimony that, if this was conceded, 
 they could scarcely deny that it directly pointed to 
 Jesus Christ the suffering Redeemer. Even Gesenius, 
 in spite of his Rationalism, says : " It was only the 
 later Jews who advanced this interpretation, no 
 doubt, in consequence of their controversies with 
 the Christians." '' 
 
 Prof. Delitzsch, commenti?;g on the Servant of 
 Jehovah, in a note in his revised commentary on 
 Isaiah, says : " I am delighted to find myself in 
 agreement with my friends, the Oxford scholars, 
 investigators in the field of Old Testament criticism, 
 T. K. Cheyne and S. R. Driver, in holding that the 
 symbolical prophecy of the great Sufferer is meant 
 to refer to One, and this in the actual fulfilment of 
 
 ^'^ Cave's "Scriptural Doctrine of Sacrifice," p. 494. 
 <3 Quoted by HengHtenberg Vol, II., p. 311. 
 
 .1: 
 
 
 I ■ !( Ih 
 
 ! \ 
 
 \i \ 
 
 ;< 1 I 
 • 11 
 
 it . 
 
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 V\ 
 
148 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 iIm 
 
 I* j 
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 ii 
 
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 history is Jesus the Christ." Still more emphatically 
 he says : " Every word here is, as it were, written 
 under the cross, on Golgotha; and this remark 
 applies to what has just been stated (" He made 
 intercession for the transgressors "), which has been 
 fulfilled in the words of the crucified One, * Father, 
 forgive them, for they know not what they do.' "^^ 
 
 Prof. Driver, though he clings to the idea that 
 there is here a tj'pical miniature of Israel, admits 
 that the miniature " is a prefigurement of the human 
 personality of Christ." He says : " It cannot be 
 doubted that, as Christendom from the beginning 
 has seen, the character thus delineated by the pro- 
 phet with such genius and power was realized by 
 Jesus of Nazareth." ^^ 
 
 After fully considering various theories. Prof, von 
 Orelli answers the question, Who is meant by the 
 Servant of Jehovah ? by saying, " Without doubt, 
 it is the true Redeemer, the Saviour of His people, 
 whom the prophet meant to depict under this 
 humble yet honorable name." He says : " There can 
 be no doubt that among the testimonies which our 
 Lord found in Scripture to the necessity of His 
 
 44Delitzsch, "Isaiah," Vol. II., p. 312. 
 *s •' Driver's Isaiah," p. 40. 
 
 '■%, 
 
T 
 
 THE SUFFERIXa SER VA XT OF JEHO VA II. 1 49 
 
 I I 
 
 suffering and death, this prophecy of the second part 
 of Isaiah stood in the foremost line."*'' 
 
 Principal Cave, of Hackney College, in his able 
 and scholarly work, " The Scriptural Doctrine of 
 Sacrifice," says of this chapter : " To the previous 
 feature of the regal and divine Messiah, Isaiah now 
 adds another, of the Messiah who suffers vicariously 
 for human sin" Cp. 211). 
 
 Prof. C. A. Briggs, commenting on this chapter, 
 says : *' This prophecy of the servant who dies and 
 rises from the grave, finds its onlv fulfilment in the 
 death of Jesus Christ, and in His resurrection and 
 exaltation to His heavenly throne." ^^ 
 
 Prof. Cheyne, advanced critic though he is, refer- 
 ring to this chapter, speaks of " the extraordinary 
 resemblance of the description to the person of 
 Jesus Christ." He thinks " we may hold that the 
 Divine Spirit overruled in such a way the mental 
 process of the prophet, that he chose expressions 
 which, while completely conveying his own mean- 
 ing, also corresponded to a future fact in the life of 
 Jesus Christ." " And so," he says, " we come round 
 to the judgment of the plain reader, that the hand 
 of God is in this extraordinary correspondence ; and 
 
 *« "Old Testanient Prophecy," p. 404. 
 47 "Messianic Proi)hecy," p. 36.3. 
 
 
 
 ';i 
 
f'i"r 
 
 150 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 '; \ 
 
 r :t; 
 
 mV,: 
 
 ;* "4 
 
 < ! 
 
 as we read the chapter afresh, we are conscious of 
 something of the impression which it produced upon 
 the Earl of Rochester, whose vivid language is 
 traceable in his biographer's report. ' He said to 
 me,' says Bishop Burnet, ' that as he heard it read 
 he felt an inward force upon him which did so 
 enlighten his mind and convince him, that he could 
 resist it no longer ; for the word had an authority 
 which did shoot like rays or beams in his mind ; so 
 that he was convinced, not only by the reasonings 
 he had about it, which satisfied his understanding, 
 but by a power that did so effectually constrain him 
 that he did ever after as firmly believe in his 
 Saviour, as if he had seen Him in the clouds.' "^** 
 
 The Rev. George Adam Smith, of Scotland, has 
 already been quoted. There is scarcely any Biblical 
 scholar in the ministry of any Protestant Church 
 who has gone further on the line of the "higher 
 criticism " of Germany than he. Yet even he is 
 far more definite with regard to the Messianic 
 character of this wonderful chapter than Prof. 
 Workman. He maintains " that the Old Testament 
 knows nothing of a bearing by Israel of the sin of 
 the Gentiles." Mr. Smith holds, indeed, that the 
 resemblance of Christ to the sufi'ering Servant is not 
 
 *« " Prophecies of Isaiah," Vol. II. p. 208. 
 
THE S UFFERINO SER VA NT OF JEHO VAIL 151 
 
 perfect in all its details ; and he speaks as if Israel 
 had learned by their own experience the doctrine of 
 vicarious sufFerin^y set forth in this chapter. But he 
 says : " There are very strong reasons, both in the 
 text itself and in the analogy of other pro-^h..^', to 
 suppose that an individual portrait it . .ended." 
 Mr. Smith does not exclude the light which fulfil- 
 ment sheds on the meaning. He says : " All this 
 parallel between Jesus of Nazareth and the Servant 
 of the Lord is unmistakable enough, even in this 
 mere outline ; but the details of the Gospel narrative 
 and the language of the Evangelists still more em- 
 phasize it." He asks explicitly respecting the 
 mysterious sufferer : " Who was He then ? What 
 was His name among men ? Where shall we find 
 Himself ? Has He come, or do you still look for 
 Him ?" These questions are not answered in the 
 prophecy. Here is Mr. Smith s answer : " But about 
 five hundred and fifty years after this prophecy was 
 written, a man came forward among the sons of 
 men — among this very nation from whom the pro- 
 phecy had arisen ; and in every essential of 
 consciousness and of experience He was the counter- 
 part, embodiment and fulfilment of this suffering 
 servant and his service. Jesus Christ answers the 
 questions which the prophecy raises and leaves un- 
 
 I!. 
 
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 )) 
 
 r 
 
 .1 ' 
 
 1; ■ If'^i' 
 
 i' i P 
 
FTJT 
 
 152 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 ■■" 1 
 
 answered. In the prophecy we see one who is 
 only a spectre, a dream, a conscience without 
 a voice, without a name, without a place in 
 history. But in Jesus Christ of Nazareth the 
 dream becomes a reality ; He whom we have 
 seen in this chapter only as the purpose of 
 God, only through the eyes and conscience of a gen- 
 eration yet unborn, He comes forward in Hesh and 
 blood ; He speaks, He explains Himself, He accom- 
 plishes, almost to the last detail, the work, the 
 patience, and the death that are here described as 
 ideal and representative. The correspondence of 
 details between Christ's life and this prophecy, pub- 
 lished 550 years before He came, is striking ; if we 
 encountered it for the first time, it would be more 
 than strikino:, it would be sta^fjerinof."^'' 
 
 Dr. A. McCaul, for many years Professor of 
 Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis in King's Col- 
 lege, London, forcibly says : " The prophetic picture 
 of the sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth is so life-like, 
 that when it has been for the first time brought 
 before Jews ignorant of the passage, they have 
 affirmed that the chapter has been inserted in the 
 Christian editions of the Hebrew Bible ; whilst 
 
 *'->"The Book of Isaiah," by George Adam Smith, M.A., Vol. II. p. 
 licE I .•.•.»»•■ nTY • 307,1890. 
 
 SCAEBOiio MSDEAuICS 
 
 INSTITUTE. 
 
THE PLACE OF cmnsTs ntuTir. 
 
 153 
 
 others, not a few, have been brought by it to faith 
 in Clirist. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at 
 that for more than seventeen centuries the Christian 
 Church received the prophecy as genuine ; and that 
 the Fathers, the mediiDval writers, the Reformers, 
 Protestants and Romanists after the Reformation, 
 with the one exception of Grotius, interpreted it of 
 our Lord, until Deistic infidelity found its way into 
 the hearts and minds of so-called Christian divines, 
 and the necessities of the new theology imperatively 
 demanded a new interpretation."*^"' 
 
 I I 
 
 The Place of the Messiah's Birth. 
 
 MiCAH V. 2. 
 
 "But thou, Bethlehem Bphrahtah, tvhich art little 
 to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee 
 shall one come forth unto me that is to he ruler in 
 Israel ; luhose goings forth are from of old, from 
 everlasting.'' 
 
 Dr. J. Pye Smith observes: "This remarkable pas- 
 sage possesses the common character with many 
 others in the prophecies ; that it makes the sufferings 
 and deliverances of the Jews from their Assyrian 
 and other enemies, occasions of rising to animated 
 
 •'"' " Essay on I^rophecy," p. 147. 
 
 ;;''l 
 
154 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 descriptions of the Messiah and the spiritual happi- 
 ness of His reign; the objects of repeated promise 
 and anxious hope." Dr. Smith also quotes a very 
 expressive testimony on this text from the 
 learned J. D. Michaelis, who says: "I cannot possi- 
 bly understand this verse otherwise than as declaring 
 that a great kino; would be born to the nation of 
 Israel in Bethlehem : and if not a word occurred in 
 Matthew ii. 5, 6, on the explication of this text, I 
 could not but believe that its subject is Christ, the 
 Christ who was born under the reign of Herod." 
 Another learned author says : " This prophecy of 
 Micah is, perhaps, the most important single prophecy 
 in the Old Testament, and the most comprehensive, 
 respecting the personal character of the Messiah and 
 His successive manifestations in the world. It 
 crowns the whole chain of prophecies descriptive of 
 the several limitations of the blessed seed of the 
 woman, to the line of Shem, to the family of Abra- 
 ham, Isaac and Jacob, to the tribe of Judah, and to 
 the royal house of David, here terminating in his 
 birth at the City of David. It carefully distinguishes 
 his human nativity from his eternal generation ; 
 foretells the rejection of the Israelites and Jews for 
 a season; their final restoration, and the universal 
 
 'liMli 
 
' 'i 
 
 n 
 
 THE PLACE OF CHlilSTS BIRTH. 
 
 155 
 
 peace destined to prevail throughout the world in 
 " the reereneration 
 
 » r>\ 
 
 The Targum of Jonathan thus paraphrases it : 
 " And thou Bethlehem of Ephrata, little art thou to 
 be reckoned among the clans of the house of Judah ; 
 out of thee shall p' Dceed in my presence the Messiah 
 to exercise sovereignty over Israel ; whose name has 
 been called from eternity, from the days of the ever- 
 lasting period." The Rabbis Kimchi, Jarchi and 
 Abarbanel, who reject other prophecies, apply this to 
 the birth of the Messiah. It is evident from the 
 answer of the Sanhedrim to Herod's question (Matt. 
 ii. 6), that it was the prevalent opinion among 
 the learned Jews of that day that this prophecy 
 meant that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem. 
 The same thing is expressed in John vii. 42. When 
 it was intimated that Jesus was the Christ, some 
 who thought he had been born in Galilee said : 
 " Hath not the Scripture said that Christ cometh of 
 the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethle- 
 hem, where David was ? " The attempt of some 
 Jews and Rationalists to apply this prophecy to 
 Zerubbabel scarcely demands any reply. He was 
 not born in Bethlehem, but in Babylon ; and his life 
 does not at all correspond with the prophecy. Even 
 
 51 Hale's " Analysis of Chronology," Vol. II., p. 4G3. 
 
 i!i 
 
 |:. 'i. , 
 
 ;' ! li: . 
 
 .:;'!! 
 
 ii 
 
 !■ , I !; 
 
rr- 
 
 15G 
 
 JESVfl THE MEflfllAII. 
 
 !l: 11 fl 
 
 *i| 
 
 Dr. Addler, the chief Rabbi of the Enorlish Jews, 
 says : " The prophet here speaking of the Redeemer, 
 whose advent we await, apostrophizes the little 
 village of Bethlehem, the birth-place of David, 
 from whom the Messiah was to spring."''- Hengsten- 
 berg says : " That, in the prophecy under considera- 
 tion, Bethlehem is marked out as the birth-place of 
 the Messiah, was held as an undoubted truth by 
 the ancient Jews." 
 
 The way in which most modern Jews deny this to 
 be a prophecy that Christ is to be born in Bethle- 
 hem, is an involuntary testimony to the evidential 
 force of the fulfilment of this prophecy by our 
 Redeemer. There is another reason why modern 
 Jews have been disposed to give up this connnon 
 interpretation. After the Jews had been expelled 
 from Bethlehem by an edict of the emperor Hadrian, 
 those who still looked for the Messiah could not well 
 admit that Bethlehem was to be His birth-place. 
 Against such persons there was great force in the 
 objection of Tertullian. In his "Answer to the 
 Jews," chapter xiii. he says : " How, therefore, will a 
 ' leader ' be born from Judea, and how far will he 
 * proceed from Bethlehem,' as the divine volumes of 
 the prophets do plainly announce, since none at all 
 
 62 '• Course of Sermons," p. 148. 
 
i I' 
 
 THE PLACE OF CI I HIST s liinrii. 
 
 157 
 
 is left there to this day of (the house of) Israel, of 
 whose stock Christ could be born ? " Their baseless 
 fiction that the Messiah was born at Bethlehem on 
 the day of the destruction of the temple, but that on 
 account of the sins of tlie people he was carried 
 away in a storm and kept concealed, only shows the 
 desperate straits to which a rejection of the truth 
 can reduce even acute people. 
 
 The striking correspondence between some of the 
 prophecies of Micah and those of Isaiah, the refer- 
 ence to the blessings of the Messianic reign, and the 
 rich Gospel truths presented in his prophetic 
 teaching, make a fitting setting for this direct pre- 
 diction respecting the place of Messiah's birth, and 
 confirm the Christian interpretation of this prophecy. 
 Delitzsch and other eminent commentators hold that 
 verse 8 here refers to the same birth foretold in 
 Isaiah vii. and ix. Of this verse Hengstenberg says : 
 " With respect to the words ' until the time that she 
 who travaileth hath brought forth,' there is an 
 essential difference as to the decision of the main 
 point. One class of interpreters — comprehending 
 Eusebius and Cyril, and by far the greatest number 
 of the ancient Christian expositors ; and among more 
 recent, Rosenmuller, Ewald, Hitzig, Maurer and 
 Caspari — understand by 'her who travaileth,' the 
 
 ^ i 
 
 I'-, I' 
 
158 
 
 JESUS THE Ml':SSIAn. 
 
 'I < II 
 
 ';*flk 
 
 m 
 
 
 \ • 
 
 
 mother of the Messiah. Another class understand 
 the congregation of Israel."''* 
 
 As the passage is one of great interest and signifi- 
 cance, we make a few further quotations from lead- 
 ing Old Testament scholars and commentators. It 
 will be seen that they strongly maintain that the pro- 
 phecy foretells the place of the birth of the Messiah. 
 
 Hoffman, who has no undue leaning to orthodox 
 interpretations, says : *' The ruler who at last will 
 come forth from Bethlehem proceeds and is in course 
 of cominj; from times of inconceivable lenfjth. For 
 since it is He who is the goal of the history of 
 humanity, of Israel, of the Davidic house, all 
 advances in that history are but beginnings of His 
 coming, goings forth of the second son of Jesse." 
 Orelli agrees with this, and says : " The prophet sees 
 the glorious Prince of Peace issuing not out of 
 David's stronghold on Zion, but out of the obscure 
 shepherd town from which the first David was called 
 to the throne."-'' 
 
 Oehler says : "According to verse 2 the Messiah is 
 indeed to proceed from Bethlehem, the small and 
 insignificant town of David ; but * His goings forth ' 
 are * from of old, from the days of eternity.' " ^ 
 
 53 "Christology," Vol. I., p. 513. 
 
 54 «<oid Testament Prophecy," p. 308. 
 
 55 "Old Testament Theology," p. 526. 
 
\ . I 
 
 77//; PLACE OF cifh'isrs liiirni. 
 
 159 
 
 :!•' 
 
 Riehin says : " Besides this, we may refer, for 
 example, to the prediction that the Messiah would 
 go forth from Bethlehem ; by which it would be 
 conveyed to the prophet that the kingdom of the 
 house of David, after it had sunk to the lowest con- 
 dition through the judgments of God, would, by the 
 Messianic King, as another David, 1)6 raised to the 
 highest glory, and thus a second time a deliverer 
 should go forth from the little insignificant Bethle- 
 hem ; a prediction which, through the birth of Christ 
 there, if the record is admitted to be historical, 
 secures fulfilment, not only according to its ideal 
 contents, but according to its literal reading also." ''" 
 
 This is an explicit testimony to the directness of 
 the prediction, as well as to its specific fulfilment by 
 Jesus Christ, from this progressive and independent 
 scholar and theologian. And yet, all that Prof. 
 Workman has to say about this passage is to point 
 to it as an illustration of passages that, though 
 "applied to Christ in the New Testament, refer 
 originally either to an ideal person who was 
 expected in the future, or to a real person who was 
 living at or near the time of its delivery." Thus he 
 tells us, when Christ said words in Isaiah liii. 12, 
 must be fulfilled in Him, "he merely meant that 
 what is said of the ideal person in Isaiah must also 
 be accomplished in Him." 
 
 J5<5Riehm's "Messianic Prophecy," p. 224. 
 
 • • 
 
 'I I' It 
 
I j 
 
 IGO 
 
 JESUS Till': MESSIAH. 
 
 i 
 
 ilf 
 
 II 
 
 Messiah the Righteous Branch. 
 
 Jeremiah xxiii. 5, o. 
 " Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will 
 raise unto David a rijhteons Branch, and He shall 
 reign as King and deal wisely, and shall execute 
 judgment and justice in the land. In His days 
 Judah shall he saved, and Israel shall divell safely : 
 and this is His name whereby He shall he ccdled, 
 The Lord our Righteousness." 
 
 This figure of a branch is used both by Isaiah and 
 Zechariah to designate the coming Redeemer. It 
 became, therefore, a prophetic proper name of the 
 Messiah. 
 
 Prof. Orelli, in his commentary on Jeremiah, says : 
 " In this utterance respecting the shoot to spring up 
 again to David, Jeremiah unmistakably resumes 
 the Messianic oracles of an Isaiah, Micah and other 
 prophets. But he adds to the Messianic hope a 
 richer, deeper meaning by the name attributed to the 
 Messiah " — The Lord Our Righteousness. 
 
 The Targum of Jonathan reads : " Behold ! the 
 days are coming, saith the Lord, when I will raise up 
 to David the righteous Messiah, and He shall reign 
 sovereign and be prosperous, and He shall execute 
 
"T^ 
 
 '^■•T'" f 
 
 77/7:; li'I(7IITWUS liliAXCH. 
 
 101 
 
 ^-l^jll 
 
 the 
 
 the 
 up 
 
 the jutlgment of truth and righteousness in the 
 land." 
 
 Dr. Pye Smith quotes from the Rabbinical work, 
 " Sepher Ikkarim," thus : " The Scripture calls 
 the Messiah the Lord our liighfeoitsness." He also 
 quotes Theodore John, a converted Jew, who wrote 
 in the latter part of the seventeenth century, who 
 declares that the Talmud and other Rabbins apply 
 the prophecy and the name to the Messiah. 
 
 Delitzsch says : " The Messiah is called thus as the 
 personal, and Jerusalem as the local, revelation of 
 the God who transforms the unrighteous desiring: 
 righteousness into the righteous." '''' 
 
 Riehm says : " The title of the Messias in Jeremiah 
 xxii. 6 (Yaveli tfiidhkenit), imports undoubtedly 
 that Jehovah Himself will, through the Messias, as 
 His organ, put His people into a condition of per- 
 fected legal qualitication, and will by that means 
 grant them the privilege of an actual justification, con- 
 sisting of deliverance, salvation and security " ("p. 285). 
 
 Referring to this passage, and the parallel passage 
 in chapter xxxiii. 14-22, Prof. C. A. Briggs says : 
 " In these passages Jeremiah takes up the prediction 
 of Isaiah, with reference . the Messianic King, and 
 clothes it with new ideas " (p. 246). 
 
 ''7 "Mi^Hsianic ]*ro|)liecy," p. IH'J, 
 
 '. I 
 
 1 
 
 :.:.| 
 
 \\\: 
 
 U 
 
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 i-il 
 
 162 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 ikii 
 
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 % 
 
 1 
 
 
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 tt 
 
 i 
 
 In 
 
 
 Dr. Oehler regards this as a distinct prophecy of 
 the Messiah. He says : " The same expression 
 appears (xxx. 15), nay, 'Branch' becomes even a 
 proper name of Messiah. (Zech. iii. 8, vi. 12.) When 
 now it is said (Jer. xxiii. 6) of Messiah, that the name 
 wherewith He shall be called is ' the Lord our 
 Righteousness,' the old theologians were certainly 
 mistaken in regarding this as a proof of the first 
 order for the divinitj^ of the Messiah ; for it is not 
 said that the Messiah is Jehovah our Righteousness, 
 but that He is called Jehovah our Righteousness, 
 because in Him and throrijh Him Jehovah is said to 
 constitute His people's righteousness.'*'^ 
 
 It may be broadly said that all who believe that 
 there are prophecies of a coming Messiah in the Old 
 Testament, hold that He is referred to under this 
 name by Jeremiah. 
 
 The Time of Messiah's Coming Foretold. 
 
 Daniel ix. 24-26. 
 
 " Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy peo^ile, and 
 upon thy holy city, to finish transgression and 
 to make an end of sins, and to make reconcilia- 
 tion for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting 
 
 68 »'Oia Tt'Htaiuent Theology,"' p. 527. 
 
! 1 l: , f 
 
 THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL. 
 
 163 
 
 • lil 
 
 righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, 
 and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and 
 discern, that from the going forth of the command- 
 ment to restore and to build Jerusidem uvto the 
 anointed one, the prince, shall he seven weeks: and 
 threescore and two iveeks it shall he built again, 
 with street and moat even in troithlous times. 
 And after threescore and tivo weeks shall the 
 anointed One (Messiah) he cut of, and shall hare 
 nothing: and the people of the prince that shall 
 come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; 
 and his end shall he ivlth a flood, and even unto 
 the end shall he luar ; desolations are determined'' 
 
 IV ' 
 
 ,1,! 
 
 uhis 
 
 and 
 and 
 Ha- 
 ding 
 
 I 
 
 The book of Daniel has called forth more 
 numerous and diverse interpretations than any other 
 prophecy; and this passage i«;bout the Seventy 
 Weeks has been the Malakoff* around which the 
 battle of criticism has raged most fiercely. It is not 
 difficult to find the cause that accounts for this. 
 Other prophecies might be explained as types, ethical 
 teaching, or ideal pictures ; but this book is largely 
 made up of predictions and visions foretelling 
 future events. It is also frequently referred to by 
 our Lord and the evangelists. If it be accepted as 
 genuine and divine, the opponents of the miraculous 
 
 ; t 
 
164 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 H! 
 
 i . 
 
 and predictive would have no standing-ground. So 
 the authorship and the date have been attacked by 
 numerous speculations — all denying that it was 
 written by Daniel at the time of the exile. 
 
 It would be impracticable to give even an outline 
 of the theories and counter- theories which have been 
 advocated, with a view to overthrow the authority 
 of the book and all interpretations which contended 
 for a fulhlment of this passage, referring to " Mes- 
 siah, the Prince," in the coming of Jesus Christ, as 
 recorded in the New Testament. There can be no 
 question that the miracles and predictions of the 
 book of Daniel have made it the special object of 
 destructive criticism. It has been truly said: "These 
 Messianic predictions which Rationalist criticism 
 can explain with plausibility as expressing hopes of 
 earthly grandeur and prosperity, and incompatible 
 with the teaching of Christ, it pronounces genuine. 
 The prophecies which represent the Son of Man as 
 a heavenly judge, coming in the clouds of heaven 
 (Dan. vii.) ; Sion's King as meek and lowly, riding 
 upon an ass (Zech. ix.) ; the good Shepherd, sold for 
 thirty pieces of silver (Zech. xi.); pierced by the 
 inhabitants of Jerusalem (Zech. xii.) ; despised and 
 rejected of men, cut off out of the land of the living, 
 one upon whom the Lord hath laid the iniquities of 
 

 TJIE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL 
 
 165 
 
 ■ ]*! 
 
 J ins 
 for 
 the 
 and 
 
 us all (Isa. liii.) — are the predictions which it proves 
 (or declares) to be ungenuine."^' 
 
 Porphyry was probably the earliest negative critic 
 of the book of Daniel ; and his objections have been 
 repeated by most modern assailants. The distinct- 
 ness and vividness of Daniel's predictions have made 
 them objectionable to all Rationalist critics. As Dr. 
 Pusey says: "There was no choice left, except to 
 acknowledge prophecy, or to deny the genuineness 
 of the book." The most popular theory of the 
 Naturalistic school of critics is that this book was 
 written in the time of the Maccabees, by some pat- 
 riotic Jew, to encourage his countrymen against their 
 enemies. It lies outside of our plan and purpose to 
 present even a summary of the replies to this class 
 of writers. We must refer our readers to such 
 authors as Pusey, Keil, Hengstenberg, Gloag and 
 others, for this information. There are, however, two 
 objections to this popular modern theory which may 
 be briefly stated. (1) There is scarcely any expres- 
 sion of Messianic faith in the Apocryphal books, or 
 in any literature of the time of the Maccabees ; 
 which makes it unlikely that these glowing pictures 
 of the Messiah and His kingdom should be the pro- 
 duct of that time. (2) It is shown in a statement 
 
 c» " Prophecy," by Prof. A. McCaul, i). 144. 
 
 •I 
 
166 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 Mi 
 
 by Dr. Mendenhall, in the Methodist Review for 
 March, 1891, that Prof. Margoliouth, Professor of 
 Arabic in Oxford University, England, has made an 
 important linguistic discovery bearing on this ques- 
 tion. A critical examination of several of the books 
 of the Apocrypha and other literature of the Macca- 
 bean period, in which it has been assumed by 
 Rationalists the book of Daniel was written, shows 
 that the books referred to were written in the Rab- 
 binical Hebrew, which was in use among the Jews 
 from about 200 B.C., till the Christian era. But 
 the book of Daniel, like the book of Ezra, is 
 not written in this later Rabbinical Hebrew, 
 with Greek idioms, but in the Hebrew of 
 an earlier period — the period of old Hebrew 
 corrupted by Chaldeanisms. This is conclusive 
 evidence that the book of Daniel was not written 
 at the time the Rationalists have alleged. It 
 is philologically analogous to the book of Ezra, and 
 must be a production of the same period. The 
 internal evidence is also strongly for a real Daniel. 
 The evident unity of the book — the simple grandeur 
 and consistency of Daniel's character — the profound 
 and reverent consciousness of God's presence which 
 pervades the book — the solemn explicitness with 
 which it is declared divine revelations were made to 
 
THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL. 
 
 167 
 
 Daniel — all make it impossible for us to believe that 
 this wonderful book is merely the production of 
 some later writer, who describes imaginary visions, 
 and utters unauthorized prophecies. It seems sin- 
 gular that writers who impugn the genuineness of 
 the prophecies should spend so much time and 
 thought on their interpretation. 
 
 Prof. C. F. Keil says : " If the book of Daniel were 
 thus the production of a Maccabean Jew who would 
 bring 'certain wholesome truths,' which he thought 
 he possessed, before his contemporaries as prophecies 
 of a divinely enlightened seer of the time of the 
 exile, then it contains neither prophecy given by 
 God, nor in general wholesome divine truth, but 
 mere human invention, which because it was clothed 
 in falsehood could not have its origin in truth. 
 Such a production Christ, the eternal personal truth, 
 never could have regarded as the prophecy of Daniel 
 the prophet, and commended to the observation of 
 His disciples, as He has done." (Matt. xxiv. 15 ; Mark 
 xiii. 14.)*' 
 
 An able and liberal writer, in the London Quar- 
 terly Review for April, who accepts the double 
 authorship of Isaiah, says: "If Rationalistic specula- 
 tions concerning Daniel can be proved, then, so far 
 
 *' Keil's "Commentary on Daniel," p. 57. 
 
 
r'^TT 
 
 168 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 as that book is concerned, and so far as it represents 
 the canon of which it forms a part, all its authority 
 as a sacred guide is irretrievably gone." 
 
 Before directing our attention to the time indi- 
 cated by tlie Seventy Weeks, it will aid us to 
 consider the evidence that this passage is strictly 
 Messianic. (1) The fact that Daniel wrote with a 
 full knowledge of what Jeremiah, Isaiah and the 
 earlier prophets had written on this subject, and that 
 he was aware of the hopes their prophecies had 
 inspired, contributes a good deal towards fixing the 
 meaning of this prophecy. (2) Messianic utterances 
 in previous chapters show this to be a continuance 
 and development of the same idea. In chapter ii. 44, 
 we read : " In those days shall the God of heaven set 
 up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor 
 shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another 
 people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all 
 these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." In 
 chapter vii. 13, 14, it is said : " I saw in the night 
 visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of 
 heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came 
 even unto the ancient of days, and they brought 
 him near before Him. And there was given Him 
 dominion, und glory, and a kingdom, that all the 
 peoples, nations and languages should serve Him : 
 
1 1' 
 
 ^'HE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL. 
 
 169 
 
 His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall 
 not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall 
 not be destroyed." 
 
 It has been generally held by both Jews and 
 Christians that this prophecy refers to the Messiah. 
 Its significant terms preclude its application to any 
 other. There is an evident application of this 
 passage to Himself by our Lord when He says : 
 " Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on 
 the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of 
 heaven." (Matt. xxvi. 04.) 
 
 Fred. Rosenmuller is quoted by Dr. Pye Smith as 
 saying : " The Jewish interpreters are unanimous in 
 the opinion that the Son of Man, the person in 
 human form, borne upon the clouds of heaven, is the 
 Messiah." Abarbanel says: "The interpreters explain 
 the words as a son of man of the King Messiah." 
 As even many of the avowed Rationalist commen- 
 tators admit that this vision refers to the Messiah, 
 I need not quote other authorities to prove that it 
 has been so understood by most writers. (3) The 
 blessings here mentioned, " to finish transgression 
 and to make an end of sins and to make reconcilia- 
 tion for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting 
 righteousness," are the blessings which Isaiah and 
 the other prophets ascribe to the Messiah's reign. 
 
 ! ■ " i 
 
170 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 m 
 
 The name " Messiah," by which He is designated, 
 points to the same conclusion. The phrase, "cut off," 
 here applied to the Messiah, is identical with the 
 language of Isaiah liii. 8, " cut off out of the land of 
 the living." Daniel refers to the same person and 
 the same event, only with greater dehniteness in 
 regard to time. Two things stand out clearly, in 
 spite of all differences and disputations. This is a 
 direct prophecy of the Messiah ; and it refers to the 
 time of His coming and death. Neither the 
 obscurity of some things in the prophecy, nor the 
 difficulty of reaching positive conclusions can obscure 
 or disprove what the language, the repeated refer- 
 ences, and the whole analogy of Messianic prophecy 
 clearly indicate. 
 
 The Prediction of the Seventy Weeks. 
 
 Dr. Gloag says : " This passage has given rise to 
 more discussion than any other Messianic predic- 
 tion." The differences have been mainly caused by 
 obscurity in the meaning of the language, which has 
 caused various translations, and from the want of 
 reliable historical data. The main questions that 
 have divided commentators are : What is the nature 
 of the weeks ? What does their division into three 
 parts signify ? Are the seven weeks an independent 
 
mm 
 
 DANIEVS SEVENTY WEEKS. 
 
 171 
 
 period apart from the sixty-two ? What is the 
 commandment " to restore and build Jerusalem " 
 from which the time is to be calculated ? Are there 
 two Messiahs mentioned ? Who is the prince that 
 shall come to destroy Jerusalem ? If interpreters 
 who have given this passage a distinct Messianic 
 meaning have differed about some things, the differ- 
 ences among their opponents have been still greater, 
 and more irreconcilable with the data of the pro- 
 phecy, and with each other. In tliese we have a 
 good many of what Dr. Pusey calls " unnatural 
 explanations to get rid of prophecy." Dr. Pusey 
 recounts twelve interpretations of the anti- Messianic 
 school, to which he adds that of Bohmer. Principal 
 Cave places the chief interpretations roughly in four 
 classes — first those which find the seventieth week, 
 not in the life of Christ but in the reign of Anti- 
 ochus Epiphanes ; secondly, those who find the 
 seventieth week in the years of the public ministry 
 of Christ ; thirdly, those who find it in the second 
 advent of Christ ; and, fourthly, those who combine 
 the first and third, and see an historical reference to 
 Antiochus and a typical reference to the second 
 advent. The first of these views is generally main- 
 tained by the Rationalists, and the second by the 
 evangelical school of interpreters. 
 
 !!!• 
 
riTT" 
 
 urn 
 
 172 
 
 JESUS ml!: MESSIAH. 
 
 The masons for reirardinc: the 
 
 " weeks " 
 
 or, more 
 
 
 strictly speaking, periods of seven, as weeks of years, 
 are so concUisive that we need not discuss them 
 here. Any other theory gives no proper sense to 
 the prophecy. This gives us, 49 -|- 4134 + 7 = 490 
 years. What do the words spoken by Gabriel to 
 Daniel tell us? (1) Seventy weeks (490 years) are 
 to intervene before the spiritual blessings mentioned 
 shall be revealed ; (2) that from the going forth of 
 the commandment to build, to the Messiah the 
 Prince, shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks 
 (488 years) ; (8) that the cit' shall be built again 
 with street and moat in troublous times ; (4) that 
 after sixty-two weeks more (434 years) Messiah 
 shall be cut off; (5) that the people of the prince 
 that shall come shall destroy the city and the 
 sanctuary ; (G) He shall confirm the covenant for one 
 week, and in the midst of the week he shall cause 
 the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. These are 
 the chief points predicted. Here is first named 
 seventy weeks. Then there is mentioned seven 
 weeks, sixty-two weeks, and one week, which 
 evidently make up the same seventy weeks. Some- 
 thing of importance takes place at the end of each 
 period. The coming in of the Messianic kingdom 
 takes place in seventy weeks of years ; the appear- 
 
I>A XIl'JL'S Sl<: I 'KXT Y WEEKS. 
 
 173 
 
 ance of Mcs.siah after sixty-nine weeks of years; 
 sixty-two weeks after the building of the city the 
 euttinf; off of Messiah; in the njidst of the last week, 
 the ceasing of the Sv-criHce. Great diiHculty has 
 been experienced in determining the date of the 
 order to build Jerusalem; and it is still more difhcult 
 to fix the time of the completion of the restoration, 
 which is assumed to occupy the seven weeks 
 mentioned. This is not, however, equally important. 
 Four different decrees are mentioned in Ezra and 
 Nehemiah. Passing over that of Cyrus and that of 
 Darius, the edict given to Ezra in the seventh year 
 of Artaxerxes seems the most formal and important; 
 but it does not refer specially to the building of 
 Jerusalem. The royal authority given to Nehemiah 
 in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes referred 
 expressly to the building of the walls of Jerusalem. 
 Dr. Pusey counts the seventy weeks from the 
 decree to Ezra. Hengstenberg counts from that 
 given to Nehemiah. Either will point very jlosely 
 to the time of Christ's ministry. Hengstenberg 
 makes this remarkable statement: "It must strike 
 the most prejudiced mind as a very remarkable 
 fact that, of all the curreiit chronological calcula- 
 tion^ in relation to this period of time, there is 
 not a single one tvhose results differ more than 
 
 I' 
 
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 I'F , 
 
 "■"iiwm 
 
 ES' 
 
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 li 
 
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 ■''^HM 
 
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174 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
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 w 
 
 
 ■ii; 
 
 !|}i*!i 
 
 ^eti T/ears //'O/?!- the stutcinents of the frcphecyy*'^ 
 It is a stron<; point in favor of taking the decree 
 given to Neliemiah as the starting point, not only 
 that it is the only decree to rebuild the city, but 
 Neliemiah is represented as saying to Artaxerxes : 
 *' The city, tlie place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth 
 waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with 
 
 fire Send me unto Judah, unto the city 
 
 of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it" 
 (Neh. ii. 8, 5). 
 
 Taking the twentieth year of Artaxerxes as the 
 year 454 B.C., as Hengstenberg, after exhaustive 
 research, fixes it, we get by adding the thirty years 
 of our Lord's life before He began His ministry, 484, 
 or within one year of the 483 years of the sixty-nine 
 prophetical weeks. In the midst of the seventieth 
 week the one great sacrifice for sin was offered. 
 Those who count from the decree given to Ezra in 
 the seventh year of Artaxerxes, place the date at 
 457 B.C., which makes the sixty-nine weeks termi- 
 nate A.D. 26. " It was," says Dr. Cave, " in the 
 following year, according to the prophecy, that the 
 Messiah should confirm the covenant with many, the 
 work of confirmation continuing for one week — 
 that is to say, till A.l). 83 ; whilst in the middle 
 01 "Christology," Vol. III., p. 197. 
 
mmw 
 
 DANIEL'S SEVENTY WEEKS. 
 
 I/O 
 
 of the week, namely, during A.D. 30, the Messiah 
 should be cut off, and sacrifice of the Old Testament 
 form forever cease."*- 
 
 Whatever slight disagreements differences in 
 chronology may produce, there is a striking corre- 
 spondence between the main features of the prophecy 
 and the work and character of the historic Christ, 
 which is wholly wanting in the anti- Messianic 
 theories and interpretations. The definite reference 
 to time, which has been made a ground for objection 
 to the Messianic interpretation in this place, is in 
 complete harmon}' with the specific character of 
 Daniel's other prophecies. That the destruction of 
 Jerusalem comes in the same picture, though an 
 event which occurred nearly forty years later, is a 
 serious difiiculty ; but we must remember that there 
 are many other cases in which the prophetic vision 
 embraces events that are separated in time. Great 
 weight mu^ . be attached to the prevailing views 
 which were held respecting the character of Daniel 
 and his prophecies in the time of Christ. Josepbns 
 speaks of him as " one of the greatest of 
 the prophets." He also said that from reading 
 his books, "we believe that Daniel conversed with 
 God, for he did not oi>iy prophesy of future events, 
 
 C"! "Scriptural Doctrine of Sacritico," p. 211), 
 
 I,' 
 
176 
 
 JKHUS THE AfKSSIAff. 
 
 f 
 
 as did the other prophats, but he also determined the 
 time of their accomplishment." '''' 
 
 There is good reason for believing that the sense 
 in which Daniel's prophecies were understood by his 
 learned countrymen was one of the chief causes of 
 the general expectation of the Messiah at the time of 
 Christ's cominsf. 
 
 Dr. Gloag says : " In the Talmud we are informed, 
 * in Daniel is delivered to us the end of the Messiah ; 
 that is, as Rabbi Jarchi explains it, the time of His 
 appearance.* There is also in the Talmud the 
 statement that about the time of Titus the Messiah 
 was considered as having already come, although 
 concealed until the Jews were rendered more worthy 
 of His appearance. And Rabbi Nehumias, said to 
 have lived about fifty years before our Lord, is cited 
 by Grotius as affirming that the time fixed by Daniel 
 for the Messiah could not go beyond fifty years." "* 
 
 Delitzsch says : " But in Daniel ix. 25, the Messiah 
 appears from the Messianic people as priestly King. 
 And if this is found disputable, yet it remained 
 indisputable that even the description of th" future 
 salvation makes the book of Daniel worthy to have 
 the last word in the Old Testament canon."'^'^ 
 
 '■•3 "Antiquities," Book X., ch. 11 
 '•^liloag's "Messianic Prophecy," p. 22(5. 
 65 "Messii^nic Prophecies," p. 231, 
 
 
CJiniST KXTKinXa JKUrsAIJ'LM. 
 
 All 
 
 The Messianic character of this threat prophecy of 
 the Seventy Weeks is maintained by Prideaux, 
 Pusey, Wordsworth, Havernick, liengstenber<(, Orelli, 
 Terry, Briggs, Auberlein, Fairbairn, and many other 
 eminent Biblical scholars. 
 
 (i4 
 
 isiah 
 :ing. 
 ined 
 ture 
 lave 
 
 Christ's Entering Jerusalem Foretold. 
 
 Zechariah IX. 0. 
 
 " Rejoice (jrexxtly, daughter of Zion ; shout, 
 daughter of Jerusalem : behold, fJnj Kivg coniefh 
 unto thee: lie is Just, and having salvidion ; loivlg 
 and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal 
 of an ass." 
 
 Here, as we have seen in other prophecies, the 
 prophetic vision passes from pictures of temporal 
 deliverance to the coming of Messiah, and the 
 influence and extent of His dominion. The direct 
 reference to a particular event in the life of Messiah, 
 the prophecy of peace to the nations, and the rela- 
 tion of this passage to other prophecies in this book, 
 all evince its Messianic character. Like manv other 
 prophecies, the Messianic interpretation alone gives 
 it any significant meaning. It cannot be applied to 
 any Judean prince or king. 
 
 Thoue;h the prophecy points di^.anctly to a par- 
 12 
 
 
178 
 
 JESUS TJIK MESSIAH. 
 
 »l 
 
 '^ 
 
 m 
 
 ■\x 
 
 11 
 
 ticular circumstance in the life of the Messianic 
 King, its main object is to foreshadow the lowly 
 character of the Messiah and the peaceful influence 
 of His reign. From some other prophecies the Jews 
 drew the idea of a victorious conqueror ; but here a 
 different ideal is presented. 
 
 The other Messianic prophecies in Zechariah give 
 a point and significance to this prophecy that it 
 would not possess if it stood alone. In chapter iii. 8, 
 the coming Deliverer is spoken of as " my Servant 
 the Branch." In chapter vi. 12, 18, it is said, "He 
 shall build the temple of the Lord ; and He shall 
 bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His 
 throne, and He shall be a priest upon His throne." 
 In chapter xii. there is the prophecy of the Fountain 
 that shall be opened for sin and uncleanness, and the 
 promise of the outpouring of the Spirit of grace and 
 supplications. There is in some of these an evident 
 reference to prophecies in Isaiah wliich shows tha'> 
 they are parts of a system. It gives an increased 
 assurance of a Messianic meaning, when we know 
 that Zechariah had a knowledge of previous prophe- 
 cies of the coming Messiah. 
 
 That this passage refers to the Messiah has been 
 generally admitted by Christians and by some 
 Jewish writers. "It is impossible," says Rabbi 
 
mm 
 
 n His 
 
 rone. " 
 
 ntain 
 
 d the 
 
 e and 
 
 ident 
 s tba'-i 
 reavsed 
 
 know 
 |rophe- 
 
 is been 
 
 some 
 
 Babbi 
 
 CHIUST ENTEIUNd JERUSALEM. 
 
 179 
 
 Jarchi, " to expound this text of any other than the 
 Messiah.'"" 
 
 " Knowing well," observes Rabbi Addler, " this 
 prophecy of Zechariah, He (Christ) acted in such 
 a waj' as to fulfil it." " 
 
 Prof. Briggs considers that this passage presents 
 the same essential idea as the Messianic prophecy in 
 Micah iv. Both predict universal peace as the 
 characteristic of Messiah's reiijn. It is a suiriiestive 
 fact, that while Aben Ezra and other Jewish writers 
 contend that this passage could not refer to the 
 Messiah, because the lowliness indicated was inap- 
 propriate to Him, yet the Messiah of the New 
 Testament is " meek and lowly of heart." 
 
 Riehm, in spite of his leaning to Naturalism, has 
 no question that this passage is a direct reference to 
 the Christ. He .says : " We meet with the Messianic 
 King for the first time in a later contemporary of 
 Hosea, the author of Zech. ix. 9. He tells us how he 
 entered Jerusalem amidst the exultation of the 
 people, and describes his person and govt rnment."''** 
 
 Orelli, though he thinks the literal coincidence is 
 not the chief thing, yet he regards it as a "divine 
 thought uttered in the prophetic word, and finding 
 
 fifi Quoted by Chandler, p. 87. 
 «7" Sermons," p. 1.51. 
 W'Mesfianic Proi)hocy," p. 124. 
 
 I,? 
 
180 
 
 JJ'JSUS TJIIC MESSIAH. 
 
 ( ' 
 
 
 f 
 
 ..( 
 
 ^l 
 
 W- 
 
 embodiment in the after history." He also says : 
 " In choosing this form of entry, the Lord made 
 Himself known with all possible plainness as Kinpf, 
 and thus received on His way to most shameful 
 suffering, the homage due to Him alone." "'' 
 
 Prof. M. S. Terry takes a similar view. He says : 
 " Thus the entry of our Lord into Jerusalem, meekly 
 riding upon an ass, was truly a fulfilling of the 
 words of Zech. ix. 9, and is so declared by the 
 evangelists. But to find all or the chief part of the 
 import of Zechariah's prophecy fulfdled in that 
 particular event is to miss the great lesson of the 
 prophet's words, and of Christ's symbolic act." "" 
 
 Hengstenberg says: "In verses 9 and 10 the 
 prophet places by the side of these inferior mani- 
 festations of the divine mercy, his greater gifts, the 
 mission of the Messiah, at which he had already cast 
 a passing glance in the seventh verse." '' 
 
 Not only is this prophecy directly cited by the 
 evangelists John and Matthew as a prediction of 
 Christ ; but the Redeemer Himself testifies to His 
 consciousness that He was its subject, by intention- 
 ally making provision to enter Jerusalem in this 
 manner, in order that He might, by doing so, fulfil 
 
 6" "Old Testament Prophecy," p. 248. 
 7n "Biblical Hernieneutics, • 18<)0, p. 337. 
 71 "Christology," Vol. III., p. .330. 
 
77/ A' AXilKL OF TUK CO VEX A XT. 
 
 181 
 
 this very prediction. Ah Riehni expresses it : 
 " Manifestly Clirist had this purpose in view when 
 He arranfj^ed His entry into Jerusalem in such a 
 manner as to correspond with the verbal description 
 of Zech. ix. 9."'-' It is significant also that St. John, 
 while he records the event, confesses that the 
 disciples did not understand its relation to this 
 specific prophecy till after Jesus was glorified. 
 (John xii. IG.) Yet, referring to this passage, our 
 Professor says, as if it was an extraordinary thing, 
 "which Dr. ?]dersheini believes was actually fulfilled 
 by Christ's entry into Jerusalem." Christ our 
 Saviour also believed that it was so ^'ulfilled by 
 Him. 
 
 ) 
 
 the 
 
 )n of 
 
 D His 
 
 ition- 
 
 this 
 
 fulfil 
 
 The Angel of the Covenant and his Fore- 
 
 llUNNEll. 
 Malach III. 1 ; IV. 5. 
 
 " Be hold, I send my messenger, and he shall 
 prepare the way before me : and the Lord, whom ye 
 seek, shall suddenly come to His temple ; and the 
 messemjer (margin, angel) of the covenant, ivhom ye 
 delight in, behold, he cometh, saith the Lord of 
 Hosts." 
 
 " Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet 
 before the great and terrible day of the Lord come." 
 
 '-' " Mt-asiuuic Prophecy," i>. 311. 
 
182 
 
 JESUS TUE MESSIAH. 
 
 V I 
 
 ItH 
 
 Malachi, the last of the ^^reat prophets, was a 
 contemporary of Neheniiah. Most cominentators 
 maintain that he makes direct reference here to 
 Isaiah xl. 8 : " The voice of him that crieth in the 
 wilderness, Prepai-) ye the way of the Lord, make 
 straight in the desert a highway for our God." Dr. 
 Gloag, speaking of chapter iil. 1, says: "The Mes- 
 sianic character of this verse is generally allowed by 
 Jewish and Christian writers, however they may 
 
 attempt to explain it By the Lord Himself, 
 
 or the messenger (angel) of the covenant can only 
 be intended the Messiah, the Anointed King of 
 whose advent Elijah was to be the harbinger." '^ 
 Delitzsch, Orelli, Briggs and all, except those who 
 deny Messianic prediction, take substantially the 
 same view of this prophecy. The prophecy respect- 
 ing Elijah, though understood literally by the Jews, 
 is applied to John the Baptist in the New Testa- 
 ment. Dr. Riehm .says of chapter iv. 5 : *' That, 
 however, this prophecy was fulfilled in John the 
 Baptist is notoriously attested, not only by the 
 evangelists, whose report of the appearance and 
 preaching of John carefully emphasizes his resem- 
 blance to Elias, but also by the Lord Himself in 
 repeated expressions."'^ 
 
 7'' " ^fessijinic Prophecy," j). 123. 
 "^ " Mrssiaiiic Pi'oplK^cy," p. 270. 
 
TirhJ ANdlCL OF THE COVENANT. 
 
 183 
 
 There are a number of other predictions of a 
 personal Messifih which we have not noticed. Those 
 passed in review have been selected, not so much to 
 defend their Messianic interpretation, as to show 
 that eminent Old Testament scholars, who were both 
 liberal and independent, have maintained „the 
 strictly Messianic and predictive character of pro- 
 phecies wliich Prof. Workman has thrust aside in a 
 very oii'-hand manner, as containing no predictive 
 reference to Jesus the Messiah. It is evident, there- 
 fore, that negative and anti- Messianic interpretations 
 result more from the adoption of nationalist views, 
 tlian because they are a legitimate or necessary 
 outcome of superior Hebrew scholarship. 
 
 f 
 
XasK 
 
 . I 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 GENERAL AND TYPICAL MESSIANIC 
 
 PROPHECIES. 
 
 " I ^HE Psalms and prophets contain a ^reat niim- 
 -^ ber of passages that are really Messianic, 
 though they do not directly refer to a personal 
 Messiah. They portray the blessings of the kingdom 
 of righteousness and peace, which the coming Messiah 
 is to establish. These blessings are sometimes fore- 
 shadowed without direct mention of their cause ; 
 but the cause is always implied, even when it is not 
 indicated. Ruskin somewhere says, "The mountains 
 lift the valleys on their sides." So the specific pre- 
 dictions of the coming Anointed One, whose character 
 and work are fully described, give a significance to 
 the general prophecies of future deliverance, that 
 they would not possess apart from their relation to 
 these more personal prophecies. The general senti- 
 ment of patriotism which exists in a country, derives 
 its meaning, as well as its inspiration, from the 
 actual battles fought in the past, the literature that 
 
dhWKh'A L MKSSIAXIC I^HOI'llKdES. 
 
 IS.') 
 
 records the development of national life, and the 
 deeds of the patriotic leaders who live in the 
 memory of the people. In the .same way, the pre- 
 vailing attitude of hopeful expectation and the 
 poetical pictures of future spiritual ])rosperity, 
 derive their significance from the fact that they are 
 to be the outcome of the fultihiient of the divine 
 promise of a Messianic Prophet, Priest and King. 
 
 When it is denied that there are any references to 
 a personal coming Messiah in the Davidic or any 
 earlier period, it is hard to .see how anything worthy 
 of the name of Messianic prophecy can be left ; for 
 the general and impersonal references to a reign of 
 righteousness can only be accounted Messianic by 
 virtue of their being the results of the character and 
 work of the Messiah. Mes.sianic prophecy without a 
 Messiah is a modern Rationalist invention. Just as 
 the testimony of a witness, which may seem to have 
 no relation to the main point to be proved, may be a 
 link in a chain of conclusive evidence, so some of 
 these general prophecies, which standing alone might 
 seem to have no Messianic meaninnr, are invested 
 with special significance because of their relation to 
 other links in the chain of prophecy. 
 
 Dr. Pye Smith quotes a suggestive rule from 
 Doederlein, who himself leaned to Rationalist views. 
 
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 186 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 
 It is this : " If a prophetic description of the great- 
 ness of an illustrious person, and the blessings 
 conferred by him, be more exalted than can belong 
 to any king or prophet, or any circumstances of the 
 Jews ; and if it be clearly foreign to anything in the 
 situation of the prophet, then it is proper, and even 
 necessary, to consider it as belonging to the more 
 noble dispensation of Messiah." ^ The principle of 
 this rule is reasonable, and there are many such 
 passages in the prophecies. 
 
 It was revealed to Abraham, and also to Isaac and 
 Jacob, not only that their seed were to be a great 
 and prosperous people, but that in some mysterious 
 way they were to be a means of blessing to all the 
 nations of the earth. David, in his last words, 
 declared " the Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and 
 His word was on my tongue." He declares that 
 God had made an everlasting covenant with him, 
 " ordered in all things, and sure." It is impossible 
 to see how a mere temporal fulfilment can realize all 
 this. In the seventy-second Psalm, though called " a 
 Psalm for Solomon," it is said : " His name shall 
 endure forever ; His name shall be continued as long 
 as the sun : and men shall be blessed in Him : all 
 nations shall call Him blessed." It is most extrava- 
 
 1 "Scripture Testimony," p. 140. 
 
GENERAL M ESS T A NIC PRO PIT EC FES. 
 
 187 
 
 gant to apply such language to any mortal king. 
 Dr. Gloag quotes Coleridge as saying : " In any other 
 than the Christian sense, it would be a specimen of 
 more than Persian or Mogul hyperbole and bombast, 
 of which there is no other instance in the Scripture." 
 In both the earlier and the later Psalms, these Mes- 
 sianic anticipations break out into songs of triumph, 
 in which we hear the praises of an exalted King, 
 reio-nino- over a kin^fdom of which riorhteousness and 
 peace are the supreme law. The expectation created 
 by these prophecies of a Messianic kingdom gives 
 special point to the announcement of John the 
 Baptist and our S<aviour, " Repent ye, for the 
 kingdom of heaven is at hand " ; and also to such 
 declarations as that Joseph of Arimathoea, " also 
 himself waited for the kingdom of God." 
 
 In the twenty-second Psalm, as in other places, 
 there are pictures of a mysterious sufferer, not in 
 harmony with the popular ideal of the Messiah. 
 Looked at apart from the facts of the New Testa- 
 ment, we might fail to apprehend their application 
 to the Messiah ; but the light cast upon them by the 
 history of Christ's redeeming work makes it almost 
 impossible to deny their prophetic character. In 
 this Psalm, as Bishop Alexander has shown, there is 
 a wonderful accumulation of points, which apply to 
 
 ■,'t- 
 
 • t 
 
 ) 
 
•«■■■«■ 
 
 188 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 the Redeemer in His passion and crucifixion. An 
 individual sufferer speaks throughout. The Psahn 
 opens with His cry of agony on the cross, " My God, 
 my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " The 
 language of the speaker is that of one forsaken of 
 friends and exposed to persecuting enemies. He 
 is abandoned, scorned and abject. His suffering 
 involves fierce thirst. " The strange word," says 
 Bishop Alexander, " translated ' reproach of men,' is 
 applied to Him." The words of the mockers at the 
 cross are found here : " He trusted in the Lord that 
 He would deliver Him." He is surrounded by 
 enemies typified as wild beasts. Among the com- 
 plaints of the sufferer are these suggestive words : 
 " They parted My garments among them, and cast 
 lots upon My vesture," and " they pierced My hands 
 and My feet." Death is the consequence. "Thou 
 hast brought Me into the dust of death." 
 
 The result or outcome of all this agony of suffer- 
 ing and death is not less significant. It strikingly 
 parallels the wo^ds of Isaiah, " He shall see of the 
 travail of His soul and shall be satisfied." It is 
 victory and kingship. "All the ends of the earth 
 shall remember and turn them unto Jehovah, and 
 shall bow down before Thee, all the tribes of the 
 Gentiles." Is not this prophecy wonderfully sugges- 
 tive of the triumphs of the cross ? 
 
GENERAL MESSIANIC PliOPIlECIES. 
 
 189 
 
 It may be admitted that the words translated 
 " they pierced My hands and My feet " might bear a 
 different translation ; but none that makes a good 
 sense. There is not unanimous agreement as to the 
 true text ; but eminent scholars like Ewald and 
 Fuerst, who had no doctrinal prepossession that 
 would warp their judgment, approve of the text 
 which justifies the words of the Authorized Version. 
 
 Of this class of general prophecies — we would not 
 call them "secondary" — the richest and most vivid 
 
 ft/ 
 
 are the glowing poetic pictures of the Messianic 
 kingdom found in the book of Isaiah and the Mes- 
 sianic Psalms. In these the style is generally highly 
 figurative and poetic, furnishing the most striking 
 examples of the sublime in thought and language. 
 Not unfrequently these pictures are strongly tinged 
 with the patriotic feeling of the prophet, which 
 seems to limit the promised blessings to Israel. Or, 
 perhaps, it would be more correct to say, a restored 
 and prosperous Israel sometimes prefigures a 
 redeemed and renovated world, so that the near and 
 remote are sometimes blended in the same vision. 
 The local or historic coloring of many of these pro- 
 phecies shows that they had these treasures in 
 earthen vessels ; but this does not warrant us in 
 limiting their application to the time and place of 
 
 ! > 
 
 1/ 
 
 • I 
 
 1 
 
190 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 1.1 
 
 i '' 
 
 • \ 
 
 Ir 
 
 the prophet. Notwithstanding the tendency to place 
 Israel in the foreground, there is throughout the 
 prophecies an ever-recurring breaking away from 
 the narrow national limits, and an extension of the 
 promised Messianic blessings to " the Gentiles," to 
 " all nations," to " the ends of the earth." The 
 promises may have been " to the Jew first," but they 
 were also " to the Greek." 
 
 There can be no question that David and other 
 Hebrew characters are used in Scripture as types of 
 the Messiah. This has contributed to popularize the 
 theory of a double sense in prophecy, which we 
 cannot accept as true. The types and symbols of 
 the Old Testament presented an inviting field for 
 ingenious imaginary resemblances, and literal and 
 spiritual meanings that are at variance with reason 
 and sound exegesis. There may be the discovery of 
 a deeper meaning than the surface meaning. There 
 may be a development of doctrine, as the result of a 
 more thoroucjh understandinty of the meaninoj of 
 Scripture. But we believe that all Scripture must 
 be interpreted by the ordinary methods of criticism 
 applied in studying the meaning of other literature 
 — the chief of which is, " comparing Scripture with 
 Scripture." It is true, many of these prophecies may 
 have been applied to the times of the prophet ; but 
 
aEXERAL MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 
 
 191 
 
 this does not contradict the fact that they referred 
 to Christ, and had their true fulfihnent in Him. 
 This is analogfous to what we see in the New Testa- 
 ment, where discourses and epistles are addressed to 
 certain persons or churches, as if they were 
 exclusively for them, although they contain great 
 truths designed for all mankind. It is curious that 
 Prof. Workman, and others who express strong 
 opposition to the theory of a double meaning in pro- 
 phecy, really adopt a double meaning in practical 
 interpretation. To say a prophecy actually meant a 
 living person or current event, but that it has been 
 legitimately "applied" to a future event or person 
 which was not its original object, is certainly a 
 worse form of double meaning than to say it was 
 applied to a current event or person, but really 
 meant the Messiah and was fulfilled by Him. 
 
 There is no good ground for denying the Messianic 
 character of all prophecies not referred to by Christ 
 and the apostles and evangelists. There is no reason 
 to believe that all the prophecies referring to Christ 
 are mentioned in the New Testament. 
 
 The ideal and typical in prophecy have been made 
 a pretext for eliminating or ignoring veritable 
 prediction. Some who disparage prediction admit 
 and magnify types, because they are not strictly 
 
 ,h 
 
 ;t 
 
 .1 
 
 ■i' 
 
192 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 predictive, as their typical character in general 
 only became known by their application to the 
 persons or events which fulfilled them. We 
 do not deny or depreciate the significance 
 of the poetic ideals and types of Old Testa- 
 ment prophecy, because we duly recognize the 
 more specific predictions of a personal Messiah, 
 which gave these types and ideal pictures their point 
 and meaning. The existence of these prophetic 
 types does not justify any one in denying that there 
 are direct predictions, and assuming that there is 
 nothing but shadowy types, nebulous ideals, and 
 " underlying principles " to be fulfilled. 
 
 It may be freely admitted that the whole dispen- 
 sation of Moses and the prophets was a prophetic 
 preparation for the coming Messianic kingdom ; but 
 this does not at all supersede or exclude the attested 
 truth, that there are original and direct predictions of 
 the historic Christ in the Old Testament prophecies. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ASSUMPTION THAT ''FULFIL'' IN 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT MEANS ONLY 
 AN A CCOMMODA TED A P PLICA TION 
 TO UNPREDICTED EVENTS. 
 
 ispen- 
 hetic 
 ; but 
 ested 
 )ns of 
 lecies. 
 
 '1 T TE have already seen that Prof. Workman's 
 ' ' way of dealing- with the Scriptures supplies 
 an instructive commentary upon his assertion, that 
 there is no passage in the Old Testament that refers 
 directly and predictively to Jesus Christ. His denial 
 of all actual fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, except 
 in the vague sense of an ethical realization of under- 
 lying principles, as well as his negative exegesis of 
 the prophecies, shows that he meant just what he 
 said, in spite of his taking shelter behind the words 
 "objectively" and "ideal." Having settled to his 
 own satisfaction that there is no predictive reference 
 in the Old Testament to the person and work of 
 Jesus, or to the events of His life and death, Prof. 
 Workman proceeds to the New Testament — not to 
 find in its records the fulfilment of Old Testament 
 13 
 
 ■f 
 
 1 f li 
 
I I 
 
 19i 
 
 JESUS THE MESSLUf. 
 
 ■■:i 
 
 1 ■ f 
 
 predictions — for his negative interpretation has left 
 no sucli predictions to be fulfilled — but to deny or 
 explain away the force of all New Testament 
 evidence of any actual fulfilment which does not 
 agree with his theory. He admits no fulfilment in 
 the ordinary sense, of the coming to pass of events 
 that had been foretold. Because he finds a few 
 passages in which Old Testament statements appear 
 to be quoted in an accommodated sense, he unwar- 
 rantably concludes that the word " fulfil " is used in 
 no other sense in the New Testament ; and he seems 
 to think that the whole evidence for the fulfilment 
 of Messianic predictions by New Testament events 
 has been overthrown, by denying that " fulfilled " 
 has any other meaning than that of realizing a thing 
 in his sense. 
 
 To show that we are doing Prof. Workman no 
 injustice, let us turn to his lecture again. He 
 says : 
 
 " As none of the numerous Messianic passages in 
 the Old Testament refer directly or originally to the 
 historic Christ, but appear in the New Testament 
 merely as quoted by Him, or as applied to Hivi, it 
 becomes important to consider carefully the applica- 
 tion of Messianic prophecy " (p. 448). 
 
 This evidently means that, as there are no predic- 
 tions to be fulfilled, and as the only connection these 
 
A CCOMMODA TED A r PLICA TIONS. 
 
 195 
 
 , left 
 ly or 
 iiient 
 5 not 
 nt in 
 ivents 
 I few 
 .ppear 
 nwar- 
 sed in 
 seems 
 ilment 
 events 
 filled" 
 thing 
 
 lan no 
 He 
 
 iges in 
 
 to the 
 
 Lament 
 
 \[hn, it 
 
 Ipplica- 
 
 Ipredic- 
 these 
 
 prophecies have with Christ consists in their being 
 "merely quoted hy Him or applied to Him," the con- 
 sideration of the " application " becomes important, 
 because there is nothing but " applications " to 
 consider. 
 
 He names four purposes for which Old Testament 
 quotations are made ; but to show that predictions 
 were actually fulfilled by Christ is not one of them. 
 After commenting on the looseness of these " applica- 
 tions," he says : 
 
 " Having discovered the princiq^le on ivJtich New 
 Testament turiters made their quotations, it now 
 remains, since an intelligent understanding of the 
 Scriptures is the end and aim of exegetical study, to 
 demonstrate that this principle is entirely consistent 
 with the correct interpretation of the Old Testa- 
 ment " (p. 450). 
 
 This is a remarkable deliverance. His discovered 
 " principle " means the sheer assumption that the 
 New Testament writers never mean by "fulfilment" 
 the occurrence of an event that w^as predicted in 
 prophecy, but only an " application " of prophecy to 
 some passing unpredicted events. This is dignified 
 with the name of " the principle " of the New Testa- 
 ment writers, and declared to be consistent with the 
 correct interpretation of the Old Testament. In 
 other words, the incorrect and unjustifiable allega- 
 

 196 
 
 JEkiUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 1 
 
 
 1,1'. 
 ill 1 
 
 tion tliat in the New Testament " fulfil " never 
 means the coming to pass of a predicted ever/, is 
 beautifully consistent with Dr. Workman's inter- 
 pretation, by which he has decided that there is no 
 prediction to be fulfilled. Hence, the conclusion is 
 speedily reached that " the evangelists and apostles, 
 whi'7i their technical terms are understood, eynploy 
 the lamjiUKje of the Old Testament me. iy in an 
 adapted and accommodated sen>^e " (p. 454). That 
 is, when they are accepted as having no meaning but 
 what the Professor ascribes to them. 
 
 Still more broadly and positively he says : 
 
 " The New Testament writers, it may he seen, 
 invariably emj^loy the kmguage of the Old Testa- 
 ment in the ivay of adaptation or accommodation" 
 (p. 453). 
 
 The italics are ours. That is, they quote them 
 " invariably " in this sense, and in no other. It is 
 remarkable how we have in all this a great deal of 
 assertion without proof, or any attempt to answer 
 the weighty objections against his assamptions. 
 These quotations amply justify what has been 
 stated, viz., that his denial of all predictive reference 
 to Christ in the Old Testament compels the lecturer 
 to deny all New Testament fulfilment, in the 
 ordinary sense of the e^^istence of circumstances and 
 
.f- 
 
 A ceo M MO DA TED A P PLICA TIOXS. 
 
 197 
 
 events which had been f'oreiv^ld by the prophets. 
 Those who in this way try to explain away the 
 obvious meaning of the words of Christ our Saviour, 
 in order to remove them out of the way of a 
 negative interpretation of Old Testament prophecies, 
 explain what is simple and clear by their conclusions 
 about what is remote and obscure. We can be more 
 certain that we know what Christ meant, than that 
 we know the sense in which the old prophets under- 
 stood their prophecies. 
 
 In spite of his somewhat confident references to 
 critical methods, I venture to say that this way of 
 treating New Testament statements, respecting the 
 fulfilment of prophc^cy by Christ, is as unscientific as 
 it is irreverent. It is admitted by the most orthodox 
 theologians that in some places the word " fulfil " is 
 used in a free or accommodated sense, and that Old 
 Testament passages are sometimes applied in an 
 illustrative way. The New Testament writers also 
 sometimes convey their teaching in Old Testament 
 language. But this does -^.ot justify any one in 
 assuming, in the lace of facts to the contrary, that 
 all New Testament statements about the fulfilment 
 of prophecy mean nothing more than such accommo- 
 dated application. Yet nothing less than this will 
 meet the necessity of the position assumed by Dr. 
 Workman. 
 
198 
 
 .TEmfi THE MESSTATT. 
 
 \ • 
 
 I ^ 
 
 i S 
 
 It cannot be disproved that "fulfil" is used 
 repeatedly in the NcW Testament in the sense of 
 foretold events cominf,' to pass. Would the Professor 
 have the hardihood to maintain that tlie lledeemer's 
 own declarations, that it behoved Him to suffer, in 
 order to fulfil what the prophets had foretold con- 
 cernini,' Him, were nothing but accommodated 
 " applications ? " It has been forcibly said : " One or 
 two quotations, the suitableness of which is not to us 
 apparent, are not sufficient to counterbalance those 
 many quotations which are at once obvious and 
 applicable. The question under discussion is not, 
 whether all the quotations made by the sacred 
 writers from the Old Testament are suitable or 
 unsuitable, applicable or inapplicable, but whether 
 there is a sufficient number of real Messianic prophe- 
 cies to prove that the Messiah was foretold, and 
 whether there are corresponding particulars in the 
 life and character of Jesus to justify the sacred 
 writers and us in applying these prophecies to 
 Him. " • 
 
 Among the chief passages cited to vindicate the 
 " principle," that " fulfil " in the New Testament 
 never means the coming to pass of an event that 
 fulfils a prediction, are the two quotations in Matt. 
 
 1 '^ 
 
 I?r. Gloag in "Messianic Proi»lu;cy," p. 211. 
 
 ilS, ,tP 
 
>*'\ 
 
 A CrJO.)f.UODA TED A PPLICA TIOXS. 
 
 199 
 
 used 
 
 ise of 
 
 t'cHHor 
 
 emer's 
 
 i'ar, in 
 
 (1 con- 
 
 odated 
 
 One or 
 
 t to UH 
 
 3 those 
 
 us and 
 
 is not, 
 sacred 
 
 ible or 
 
 ^liether 
 rophe- 
 
 \\d, and 
 in the 
 sacred 
 
 tcies to 
 
 tate the 
 
 ^tament 
 
 jnt that 
 
 Matt. 
 
 ii. 15, 1(S. In the former the quotation is from 
 Hosea, " Out of Egypt have 1 called my son." In 
 the latter the quotation is from Jeremiah, referring 
 to Rachel weeping for her children. I shall not 
 here attempt to determine how far and in what 
 sense these passages were typical. But both these 
 passages in llosea and Jeremiah are not predictions 
 at all, but statements of historic facts that were long 
 past at the time they were mentioned by the 
 prophets. The use of the word " fulfil," in applying 
 these events typically or illustratively to incidents 
 in the life of Christ, cannot prove that it is used in 
 the same sense, when it is employed to express the 
 actual fulfilment of a predicticm, by the occurrence 
 of events that had been distinctly foretold by the 
 prophets. The meaning of a word is determined by 
 the sense in which it is used in the place where it 
 occurs — not by adopting a meaning that suits a 
 theory, and insisting that this is its only meaning. 
 Yet, because John Wesley, Dean Alford and Dr. 
 Terry admit this occasional accommodated use of the 
 word " fulfil," the lecturer quotes them, as if they 
 ajrreed with him, and held that the word is never 
 used in the New Testament in any other sense. 
 This is certainly misleading. One cannot open a 
 dictionary without seeing that almost every word 
 
 ■■:i 
 
 ;.(■ 
 

 200 
 
 JESl^S TH^ MESSIAH:. 
 
 
 \\ 
 
 has different shades of meaning. But no one is 
 justified in taking one of these meanings and 
 excluding all others, to help a theory. 
 
 When we are told that a passage is " Messianic in 
 application," there is a misleading appearance of 
 giving us something, in lieu of the prediction of 
 Christ which is denied; but this really gives 
 nothing. If a passage is not Messianic in its object, 
 it is not Messianic at all. The mere application of 
 an Old Testament passage to some current event is 
 a matter of little or no importance. If a prediction 
 did not really mean Christ and refer to Him, it 
 could not truly or rightfully be applied to Him in a 
 way which plainly assumed that it did refer to Him 
 as its object. Prof. Workman accuses others of 
 " torturing " Scripture to get out of it the meaning 
 they want. Surely he " tortures " the plain words of 
 Christ, when he declares that they mean — not what 
 they say — but what his Rationalist negations 
 require. Even W. Robertson Smith, who has done 
 so much in the way of excluding the supernatural 
 from the Bible, cannot go so far as to reduce Christ's 
 words respecting His relation to prophecy to an 
 accommodated application. He concludes : " That it 
 was in no spirit of accommodation to prevailing 
 language that Jesus did not disdain the name (Mes- 
 
A ceo M MO DA TED A P PLICA TIONS. 
 
 i'Ol 
 
 siah) in which all the hopes of the Old Testament 
 are gathered up." '" 
 
 This doctrine, that there is nothing but accom- 
 modated applications of prophecy in the New 
 Testament statements about fulfilment, shuts one 
 who holds it up to one of two alternatives. He must 
 either assume that Christ and His apostles were mis- 
 taken about these fulfilments ; or that they pretended 
 to the people to believe that certain events were 
 fulfilments of prophecy, though they knew these 
 events had not been predicted at all. Our Professor 
 chooses the latter horn of the dilemma, and repre- 
 sents Christ and Peter speaking as if they accepted 
 the popular opinion as true, though he alleges they 
 knew it was not. Referring to the Redeemer's 
 question to the Pharisees, based on the words of 
 David in the 110th Psalm, he declares that it is not 
 addressed to the Messiah, but that it was regarded 
 as Messianic in the Saviour's time. He says : 
 
 " In putting the question of the passage to the 
 Pharisees, therefore, Christ simply proceeds on this 
 popular belief, in order to silence all their captious 
 questions " (p. 455). 
 
 In the same way, the Apostle Peter is represented 
 as knowing that David, in the sixteenth Psalm, did 
 
 2 " Messiah " in Encyclopjedia Britannica, p. aG. 
 
 >! 
 
 ■\^ 
 
 ^\ 
 
TT? 
 
 20'i 
 
 JESVS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 m'' 
 
 not refer to the idea of the resurrection, thouf];h the 
 apostle declares that David, being a prophet, and 
 "seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of 
 Christ." We are told : 
 
 " One must not suppose, of course, that the New 
 Testament writers did not know the primary and 
 original application of a quoted passage, but that 
 knowing its literal and historic meaning, they give 
 it a new and special application " (p. 453). 
 
 But it is forgotten that the New Testament 
 writers plainly apply quotations as predictions which 
 foretold the events to which they apply them. 
 Christian theologians must be hard pressed by the 
 consequences of their unscriptural theories, when 
 they are compelled to take a position which implies 
 that our Divine Redeemer and His holy apostles 
 were not candid and sii cere in their utterances. The 
 tendency of all such interpretations of Scripture is 
 to disparage and undermine the sacred authority of 
 the teaching of Him who is the Way, the Truth, and 
 the Life. In the words of Prof. A. McCaul, we may 
 say : " Placing for a moment the New Testament 
 writers on the lowest level, regarding them merely 
 as included among the ancient Jews, their opinion 
 must be of some value. Theirs were the prophetic 
 bpoks. For their fathers and themselves they were 
 
A aCOMMODA TED A P PLICA TIOXS. 
 
 203 
 
 written. They were Orientals. They inherited the 
 traditional interpretation of their people. Their 
 interpretation has been accepted by the intelligent 
 of other nations." ^ Leavinor out of sight their relation 
 to Christ and their divine inspiration, it is unreason- 
 able to set the interpretation of a modern critic 
 above them, and force upon their words the meaninf]r 
 that suits his theories. 
 
 Why does Dr. Workman pass over the most 
 explicit statements of Christ, in which He shows 
 that He consciously believed and knew Himself 
 to be the Messiah whom the prophets had foretold ? 
 The wonderful facts recorded in the New Testament 
 and the distinct testimony of the Redeemer Himself, 
 utterly contradict and disprove this unscriptural 
 theory, that " fulfil " is merely used as a technical 
 term, meaning an accommodated application of pro- 
 phecy to passing events. We shall now proceed to 
 examine the evidence of the actual fulfilment of 
 Messianic predictions, which is presented in the 
 New Testament. 
 
 3 " Prophecy," p. 131. 
 
 i I 
 
BBa 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT FULFILMENT OF 
 MESSIANIC PROPHECIES. 
 
 /^^vCCASIONAL reference has been made in the 
 ^-^ foregoinjy pages to the testimony borne in the 
 New Testament to the fulfilment of Old Testament 
 predictions of the Messiah. We propose now to show 
 that the events of Christ's life recorded in the New 
 Testament correspond in such a remarkable way 
 with the Messianic predictions we have been con- 
 sidering, as to prove that these prophecies must have 
 been supernaturally revealed to the prophets by the 
 Holy Spirit ; that they pointed to Jesus Christ ; and 
 that they were fulfilled by the events of His life and 
 death recorded in the Gospels. On this point 
 Principal Cave has well said : " For us there is a 
 paramount interest in inquiring whether what are 
 intelligibly called Messianic prophecies of the Old 
 Testament and the several circumstances of the life 
 and work of Jesus of Nazareth, are related to each * 
 othor as prediction and fulfilment. For if they are 
 
NEW TESTAMENT FULFILMENT. 
 
 205 
 
 — if what the Old Testament has to say about a 
 coming deliverer is unquestionably fulfilled in what 
 the New Testament has to say about a Deliverer 
 who has come, then another demonstration will have 
 been given, and that of a very conclusive kind, of 
 the reality of supernatural revelation." ' 
 
 Remarkable Correspondence between Old Tes- 
 tament Predictions and the Events of 
 Christ's Life. 
 
 The correspondences between the predictions and 
 the fulfilments are so numerous that we can only 
 cite a very limited number of them, in the briefest 
 manner, trusting that our previous references, and 
 the familiarity of our readers with the Scriptures 
 referred to, will enable them to appreciate the full 
 force of the way in which the fulfilments vindicate 
 the predictions. We have seen that, as Bishop 
 Foster says, these prophecies '' are concerning a 
 person who was to be born into the world, whose 
 character and mission were to be unique." So 
 unique, indeed, that it is truly marvellous to find a 
 being who in his own person fulfils these varied pre- 
 dictions. 
 
 I '* Inspiration of the 014 Testament," p. 429, 
 
 '*' 
 
 ( 
 
206 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 I 
 
 In Genesis the promise is j^iven, that the seed of 
 the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. In 
 the New Testament we learn that Jesus Christ, 
 " made of a woman under the law," was manifested, 
 " that He might destroy the works of the devil." In 
 the Old Testament we learn that God promised to 
 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that in their seed all 
 nations of the earth should be blessed. Jesus 
 Christ, of the seed of Abraham, " tasted death for 
 every man." He Himself declared, that He suffered 
 and rose from the dead " that repentance and 
 remission of sins should be preached in His name 
 unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." 
 Jacob, blessing Judah, prophesied that " the sceptre 
 should not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from 
 between his feet, until Shiloh (the Messiah) come." 
 This is limiting the Messiah to the tribe of Judah, 
 and indicating by an historic event the time of His 
 coming. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews 
 says : " It is evident that our Lord hath sprung out 
 of Judah." He is called "the Lion that is of the 
 tribe of Judah," and, as we have shown, until the 
 deposition of Archelaus, after the coming of Christ, 
 the Jewish nation had their own royal family, were 
 a recognized people, possessing a degree of indepen- 
 dence, and were governed by their own laws, 
 
XIJW TESTAMENT FULFILMEXT. 
 
 207 
 
 It was foretold that the Messiah should come of 
 the seed of David. He was to be "a shoot out of 
 the stock of Jesse." Jesus Christ is called by St. 
 Matthew ''■ the son of David." Our Lord also applies 
 this distinctive title to Himself. (Matt. xxii. 45.) He 
 is also called " the root of David." (Rev. v. 5.) The 
 angel Gabriel said to Mary : " The Lord God shall 
 give unto Him the throne of His father David." 
 (Luke i. 32.) 
 
 The birthplace of Messiah is distinctly foretold 
 by Micah to be Bethlehem. This was the common 
 Jewish expectation, based on this passage. " Jesus 
 was born in Bethlehem of Jud{T3a, in the days of 
 Herod the king. (Matt. ii. L) Moses prophesied of a 
 prophet who should arise to be a mediator and 
 instructor for the people. Christ and Christ alone, 
 as lawgiver, mediator and divine teacher, fulfilled 
 this divine promise, so that men who saw His works 
 were compelled to testify : " This is of a truth that 
 prophet that should come into the world." (John vi. 
 14.) St. Peter declares that this prophecy of Moses 
 foretold of the days of the Gospel, and was fulfilled 
 by Christ the great Prophet. It was predicted by 
 Zechariah that the Messianic King should appear 
 "lowly and riding rpon an ass." Jesus entered 
 Jerusalem in this very manner, in order that He 
 
 v'v 
 
 •^^ 
 
208 
 
 JEHUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 i^[ 
 
 ii'i 
 
 lii'iWi 
 
 mij]^ht fulfil this prediction of Himself. It was 
 prophesied by Isaiah that the Messiah should be 
 pre-eminently endowed with " the spirit of wisdom 
 and understanding." Jesus tau^dit with such 
 wondrous wisdom that even enemies said : " Never 
 man spake as this man spake ; " and St. Paul says : 
 " In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge." It was predicted of the Messiah, that 
 He should " not judge after the sight of the eyes, 
 neither reprove after the hearing of the ears." Jesus 
 answered and reproved men as knowing their 
 thoughts. 
 
 Prophecies that seemed utterly irreconcilable, 
 because they spoke of the Messiah both as a human 
 king and as the Lord Himself, were fultilled in Him 
 who was " God manifest in the flesh." As we have 
 seen, Daniel's vision of the seventy weeks indicated 
 the time of the Messiah. The time of the coming of 
 Jesus corresponded with the seventy weeks of years. 
 That Daniel was so understood is evidenced, as we 
 have seen, by the general expectation that prevailed 
 at the time, as evinced in the number of false Mes- 
 siahs which arose about that period. Haggai, a 
 little later than Daniel, prophesied of the glory of 
 the latter house, because of the coming of " the 
 desire of all nations j " and that very temple was 
 
Xl'nV TESTAMENT FULFILMENT. 
 
 201) 
 
 was 
 
 d be 
 sdom 
 
 such 
 ^ever 
 says : 
 1 and 
 I, that 
 
 eyes, 
 Jesus 
 
 their 
 
 lilable, 
 luman 
 Him 
 have 
 icated 
 ling of 
 I years. 
 las we 
 ivailed 
 Mes- 
 [gai, a 
 )ry of 
 'the 
 le was 
 
 glorified by the presence and teaching of the Lord 
 Jesus. It was prophesied by Malaehi that Elijah 
 should be sent before the coming of the Messiah. 
 This was fulfilled, not " ethically," but actually, in 
 the person of John the Baptist, of whom the angel 
 Gabriel said to Zacharias : " He shall go before His 
 face in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the 
 hearts of the fathers to the children, and the dis- 
 obedient to walk in the wisdom of the just, to make 
 ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him." 
 (Luke i. 17.) It was of this John that Christ said, 
 "Elijah has come already." The twenty-second 
 Psalm, in which we have presented a mysterious 
 sufferer, receives a striking fulfilment in the suffer- 
 in£f Christ of the New Testament. 
 
 When we come to the fifty- third chapter of 
 Isaiah, the correspondence between prediction and 
 fulfilment becomes more wonderful, as it is fuller 
 and more minute. Here are a number of facts and 
 characteristics spoken of the suffering Servant of 
 Jehovah, which never could be rightly understood 
 apart from the flood of light thrown upon them by 
 the life and death of Jesus Christ. Is the Servant 
 " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ? " 
 Jesus " beheld the city and wept over it." He said, 
 *' My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." 
 14 
 
 
 |iii! 
 
210 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 m 
 
 Is it said, " When we shall see Him, there is no 
 beauty that we should desire Him ? " Jesus " came 
 unto His own, and His own received Him not " 
 (John i. 11). Is it said, " He was wounded for our 
 transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities ? " 
 *' So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of 
 many." (Heb. ix. 2<S.) Is it said, " He was oppressed 
 and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth : 
 He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a 
 sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not 
 His mouth ?" Jesus Christ before Pilate fulfils the 
 prophetic description with great fidelity to the 
 graphic picture. One who was an eye-witness says : 
 " Who when He was reviled, reviled not again; when 
 He suffered, threatened not ; but committed Himself 
 to Him that judgeth righteously." (1 Peter ii. 23.) 
 St. Peter also quotes the very words of this chapter, 
 and applies them to Christ, as having been fulfilled 
 by what He did and suffered. Is He "numbered 
 with the transgressors ? " Jesus was crucified 
 between two thieves. Does the prophet show that 
 the result of all this vicarious suffering shall issue in 
 the justification of many, and the satisfaction of 
 ultimate triumph ? " We behold Him who bath 
 been made a little lower than the angels, even 
 Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned 
 
XLIV TESTAMENT FULFILMENT. 
 
 211 
 
 s no 
 
 mme 
 
 not" 
 
 r out 
 
 les f 
 
 ns o£ 
 
 •essed 
 
 outh : 
 
 I as a 
 
 3d not 
 
 Us the 
 
 ,0 the 
 
 ^ says : 
 when 
 imself 
 
 li. 23.) 
 apter, 
 Itilled 
 bered 
 ucificd 
 w that 
 sue in 
 ion of 
 hath 
 , even 
 )wned 
 
 Q 
 
 with {^lory and honor." (Heb. ii. 9.) "For it 
 became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom 
 are all things, in bringing many sons unto glor}-, to 
 make the author of their salvation porf(^ct through 
 sufferings." (Heb. ii. 10.) We need not extend the 
 correspondences of this wonderful chapter, written 
 hundreds of y^ars before Christ was born, yet 
 describing <"he events of His life and death with a 
 truthfulness that nothing but a revelation to the 
 prophet from Him who can " declare the things 
 that are to come hereafter " can account for. 
 
 All these passages which refer to the glory and 
 extension of the Messianic kingdom in the world are 
 being fulfilled by the spread of the Gospel and its 
 influence on the hearts and lives of men, and by 
 nothing else. Take this passage, quoted by the 
 evangelist (Matt. xii. 18): "Behold My servant 
 whom I uphold ; My chosen in whom My soul 
 delighteth ; I have put My Spirit upon Him ; He shall 
 bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." (Isa. xlii. 1.) 
 It is hard to see how any reader can deny that 
 this passage points objectively and directly to the 
 Great Teacher, the Christ of the New Testament, to 
 whom alone it can be applied. This marvellous 
 correspondence of these facts and truths of the New 
 Testament with the predictions of the prophets 
 
 11. 
 
 f' 
 
il 
 
 91 O 
 
 JKHUS TUN MI'^HSIAII. 
 
 mM\v. 
 
 ml 
 
 ifi^,; 
 
 W!iH: 
 
 prove conclusively tliat those predictions had Jesus 
 Christ as their oV>ject and were fulfilled in Him. 
 
 It is iiot tlie correspondence hetween one or two 
 predictions and their fulfilment that makes the proof 
 so stronf(. It is th(i way in which such a vast 
 number of widely different predictions, uttered by 
 different prophets at different times, meet in the 
 character, life, death and mission of Jesus whicli 
 compels the Ixjlief that He was the Clirist foretold in 
 the Old Testament. As Dr. ({loa<,^ says: " In order 
 to receive the full force of tlie ar^^niment, we must 
 take a conjunct view of the whole. Not one, but 
 numerous prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus — pro- 
 phecies all of them uttered hundreds of years before 
 Jesus was i^orn — propliecies varied and complicated 
 — prophecies referring to time and place and to 
 many minute events in history — all of them point to 
 Jesus and receive their fulfilment in Him. He was 
 ■)orn of the same family and in the same place which 
 the prophets foretold of the birth of the Messiah ; 
 He was in the world at the time when the Messiah 
 was to appear ; His character and life bore animate 
 resemblance to the character and life of the Messiah ; 
 He suffered all those indignities which the Messiah 
 was to suffer ; He was wounded, He was pierced, He 
 was killed. He was buried, as it was foretold that 
 
NEIV TESTA MF.XT rUIJ'U.MEXT. 
 
 213 
 
 the Messiali should be wounded, pierced, killed and 
 buried ; and His reli^^ion was received of the (ientiles, 
 as it was foretold of the relif^ion of the Messiali. So 
 many prophecies fulfilled, and not a single one dis- 
 approved, clearly demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth 
 is the Messiah predicted by tlie prophets."""' 
 
 It is surprisin<r, in the face of the number and 
 variety of these predictions, and their corresponding^ 
 events, that any Christian writer would venture to 
 make such statements as the following by Dr. 
 Workman : " From the forci^oing discussion it will 
 be seen that it is only what the Old Testament 
 Scriptures teach and testify in general, or in 
 fundamental truths and principles, that is fulfilled 
 or realized in Jesus Christ (p. 474). " Only " 
 general truths, and, therefore, nothing relating to 
 the person of Jesus and the facts of His life ! 
 Again : " He is the central or focal point in which all 
 lines of Messianic prophecy converge, not in the pre- 
 dictive, but in the ethical sense of the term " (p. 474). 
 " Spiritually, He was the theme or subject to which 
 all the prophets gave witness. In other words, pro- 
 phetic teaching consisted not in personal prediction, 
 but in spiritual testimony of Christ." That is, 
 nothing is admitted to be in the Messianic prophecies 
 
 'I \ 
 
 U 
 
 n: 
 
 tif 
 
 'MoHsianic Prophecy," p. 2.'W. 
 
ifi|(:ii: 
 
 214 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 but ideal hopes, religious teaching or "spiritual 
 testimony," and nothing but the spiritual realization 
 of this teaching is admitted to be in the New Testa- 
 ment fulfilment. ^ man's mind must be seriously 
 warped by a theory to take such an extraordinary 
 position as these statements indicate. 
 
 It has been universally admitted by Christians of 
 all ages that the kingdom and religion of Christ was 
 more grandly spiritual and moral than was 
 anticipated by the Jewish people. ^Vhatever glow- 
 in iij things can be said respecting the spirituality, 
 the righteousness, or the moral power of Christ's 
 religion will be endorsed and re-echoed by all true 
 Christian hearts. But why should this be made a 
 pretext tor repudiating the great Bible facts of pre- 
 diction and fulfilment ? Such teaching, while it 
 claims to honor the spiritual elements in Chris- 
 tianity, unwarrantably ignores and thrusts aside the 
 historic events of the Gospels. The negative theory 
 of Messianic prophecy has no place or use for them. 
 And yet, as Prof. G. P. Fisher says : " All apostolic 
 doctrine is the exposition of the events of the Gospel 
 history — an unveiling of their true import." 
 
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY 
 
 215 
 
 Apostolic Use of the Evidence of Fulfilled 
 Messianic Predictions. 
 
 We have already seen an illustration of the way 
 in which a man can be forced by the emergency of 
 a wrong theory to display an inditi'erence to incon- 
 trovertible facts. This is also seen in the 
 unsuccessful efforts of Prof. Workman to belittle the 
 evidential value of Messianic prediction, and to 
 make the facts bend to fit his negative theory. Not 
 only is the evidence of prophecy and fulfilment 
 thrust out, the extraordinary statement is made that 
 the apostles used prophecy with believers ; and the 
 Fathers are blamed for using it for apologetic pur- 
 poses ! It is beyond all question that the very 
 predictions and fulfilments, which we have passed in 
 review, were the chief arguments used by the 
 apostles to convince the Jews that Jesus was the 
 Messiah that had been foretold by the prophets. ^ 
 
 That Jesus was the Christ was the prominent 
 theme of the apostles' preaching to the Jews. The 
 method by which they sought to prove this was not 
 by teaching an ethical realization, but by presenting 
 the way in which the actual facts respecting Jesus 
 of Nazareth fulfilled the predictions respecting the 
 
 3 See Appendix, Note D. 
 
21G 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 i ' ! 
 
 ■Jm 
 
 Messiah. St. Peter, addressing the multitude after 
 the heab'ng of the lame man, said : " But the things 
 which God foreshowed by the mouth of all the 
 prophets, that His Christ should sufFer, He thus 
 fulfilled." (Acts iii. 18.) And after referring to the 
 death of Jesus, he said : " Yea and all the prophets 
 from Samuel and them that followed after, as many 
 as have spoken, they also told of these days." (Acts 
 iii. 24.) The same apostle, preaching to Cornelius 
 and his household, said : " To Hivi hear all the 
 prophets witness, that through His name every one 
 that believeth on Him shall receive remission of sins." 
 (Acts X. 43.) Stephen appealed to the historic facts 
 of the Old Testament, and declared that those who 
 persecuted the prophets " killed them ivhich showed 
 before of the coming of the Righteous One." (Acts vii. 
 52.) Of ApoUos it is said : " He powerfully confuted 
 the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scrip- 
 tures that Jesus was the Christ." (Acts xviii. 28.) 
 The apostle Paul used the same method. At 
 Thessalonica, he went into the synagogue, " and for 
 three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the 
 Scriptures, opening and alleging, that it behoved the 
 Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead ; 
 and that this Jesus, whom, said he, I proclaim unto 
 you, is the Christ." (Acts xvii. 2.) Before Agrippa and 
 
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 
 
 21' 
 
 bs vii. 
 'uted 
 
 Festus he declared that this was his method. It was, 
 "testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but 
 what the prophets and Moses did say should come ; 
 how that the Christ must suffer, and how that He first, 
 by the resurrection of the dead, should proclaim 
 light both to the people and to the Gentiles." (Acts 
 xxvi. 22, 23.) In his lodging at Rome he expounded 
 the Gospel, "testifying the kingdom of God, and 
 persuading them concerning Jesus, both from the law 
 of Moses and from the prophets, from morning till 
 evening." (Acts xxviii. 23.) The Ethiopian eunuch, 
 as he read the fifty-third of Isaiah, asked Philip, 
 " Of whom speaketh the prophet this ? of himself or 
 of some other ? " There is no room for doubt as to 
 what the reply of the evangelist was. "Philip 
 opened his mouth, and beginning from this scripture, 
 preached unto liim Jesus." This plainly implies that 
 he taught the inquirer that Jesus was the person of 
 whom the prophet spoke. And so convincing was 
 the evidence of the correspondence between the 
 portrait of Isaiah and the history of Christ, that 
 very soon the eunuch was ready to be baptized in 
 His name. 
 
 In all this there was an appeal, not to an ethical 
 realization, but to the things that had been foretold 
 by the prophets, and fulfilled by the events of the 
 
218 
 
 JKSUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 mm 
 
 life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. It is evident 
 that Peter and Paul had strong confidence in the 
 evidential value of fulfilled prediction ; and that 
 they knew nothing of the " ethico-historic " theory, 
 which repudiates the evidence of prediction and 
 fulfilment. Nor was this method unsuccessful with 
 unbelievers. If many believed not, large numbers of 
 bigoted Jews were convinced by the force of the 
 evidence, " and a great company of the priests were 
 obedient to the faith." (Acts vi. 7.) The three 
 thousand who were converted on the day of 
 Pentecost must have been nearly all Jews, except 
 some " strangers," as the apostles had not yet opened 
 their commission to the Gentiles. James and the 
 elders at Jerusalem said to Paul : " Thou seest, 
 brother, how many thousands there are among the 
 Jews of them which have believed." (Acts xxi. 20.) 
 
 It is sometimes said, that those who were looking 
 for a literal fulfilment, rejected Jesus ; but it must 
 not be forgotten, that many, like Anna and Simeon, 
 Nathanael and Joseph of Arimathea, recognized and 
 accepted Him as the Messiah foretold by the prophets. 
 
 Prof. Orelli forcibly says : "Not only did the 
 divine thought made known in that covenant first 
 find their true expression in Christ, and in Him 
 without exception, but the agreement between the 
 
EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY. 
 
 219 
 
 form of prophecy and the appearance of Jesus Christ 
 made an overwhehning impression on contemporaries, 
 so far as they were enlightened by the Spirit of God ; 
 an impression which they strove by their testimony 
 to impart to others." * 
 
 In addition to the evidence of the Messiahship of 
 Christ, presented in His teaching and work, the 
 Jews who accepted Old Testament prophecy as a 
 God-given revelation, believed on Him because His 
 character and life fulfilled what their own prophets 
 had foretold of the Messiah. The Gentiles were 
 convinced of the divine inspiration of the prophecies, 
 as well as that Jesus was the Messiah, by the wonder- 
 ful manner in which He fulfilled what had been 
 foretold by the prophets. It is irrelevant to say 
 that the truths of Christianity and their relation to 
 Old Testament prophecy, are their own vindication, 
 and, therefore, the evidence from fulfilled prophecy 
 may be ignored and cast aside. We give full weight 
 to the internal evidence of the divine authorship of 
 the Bible ; but this does not cause us to disparage or 
 repudiate the evidence of fulfilled predictions. 
 
 It is said that Dr. Delitzsch's Hebrew translation 
 of the New Testament has been the means of the 
 conversion of thousands of Jews. There is no 
 
 ,.'! 
 
 * "Old Testament Prophecy," p. 60. 
 
220 
 
 JE^U^ THE MESSIAH. 
 
 ii ' 
 
 reo,son to doubb that, just as in apostolic times, this 
 result has been accomplished mainly by the evidence 
 of the remarkable correspondence between Christ's 
 life and what was foretold by the prophets of the 
 Messiah ; rather than by any realization of " under- 
 lying principles," which they discovered in 
 Christianity. Indeed, Dr. Delitzsch himself confirms 
 this opinion. Speaking of Isaiah liii., he says : 
 " How many already have had their eyes opened on 
 reading this * golden passional ' of the Old Testa- 
 ment evangelist, as Polycarp Lyser calls it ? In 
 how many Israelites has the crust of the heart been 
 melted ? It is as if it were written under the cross 
 on Golgotha, and illuminated by the bright clearness 
 of the now fulfilled exaltation." '' 
 
 Hengstenberg truly says: "The principal design 
 of the Messianic prophecies was to prepare in such a 
 way for the coming of Christ, that when He should 
 come He might at once be recognized by a com- 
 parison of prophecy with its fulfilment." He 
 mentions the remarkable case of F. A. Angusti, 
 formerly a Jewish Rabbi, whose unbelief gave way 
 when he came to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, in 
 writing a work on Isaiah. He was for fifty-three 
 years afterwards a teacher of Christianity.*^ 
 
 5 «' The Prophecies of Isaiah," p. 280. 
 "Christology," Vol. IV., p. 238. 
 
EVIDENCE OF PliOPIIECY. 
 
 ')01 
 
 Here is a very suggestive fact. In the New 
 Testament, where Prof. Workman discovers no 
 correspondence between the predictions of the 
 prophets and the events of Christ's life, that would 
 justify anything more than a theory of accom- 
 modated " application " to passing unpredicted 
 events, the skeptical David Strauss saw such a 
 striking correspondence, that he could only account 
 for it by the theory that the disciples wrote the 
 Gospels to make them correspond with the predic- 
 tions. No doubt Strauss would have been glad to 
 deny this correspondence, as it stood in the way of 
 his negative theory, just as it stands in the way of 
 Dr. Workman's. But he says : " They (the disciples) 
 endeavored by a more careful study of the prophecies 
 to reconcile their former views of the Messiahship of 
 Jesus with His sufferings and death. Hence they 
 applied to Him the intimations of a suffering Mes- 
 siah ; they transferred to Him the circumstances 
 stated by the prophets; they made history to suit 
 the predictions ; so that the events recorded in the 
 Gospels were not historically real, but were the 
 result of a more or less unconscious application of 
 the Old Testament." This theory was too baseless 
 to be accepted ; but it is a very striking testimony 
 to the way in which the fulfilment ansvvered to Old 
 
222 
 
 Ad aJ W 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 Testament prophecy, in the judgment of one who 
 was certainly not a partial witness. 
 
 w 
 
 w 
 
 The Testimony of Christ to the Fulfilment of 
 Old Testament Predictions of Himself. 
 
 In the foregoing statements respecting the fulfil- 
 ment of Messianic prophecies, by the character and 
 work of Christ, we have simply dealt with the 
 evident correspondence between the prophecies and 
 the events recorded in the New Testament, without 
 citing the testimony borne by our Lord and the 
 evangelists to the fulfilment of prophecies that 
 foretold of Him. It has been wrongly assumed that 
 the whole strength of the case for actual fulfilment 
 by events consists in the New Testament statements 
 regarding fulfilment; and that if these statements 
 could be explained away, the negative theory could 
 be sustained. This is wholly a mistake. As we 
 have seen, the correspondence between the facts and 
 the prophecies is conclusive evidence of fulfilment, 
 in the ordinary Christian sense, apart from the 
 numerous statements about certain prophecies being 
 fulfilled. But the testimony of Christ and the 
 apostles is another invincible body of evidence 
 against the negative theory. It is too unanswerably 
 strong and clear to be successfully contravened, or 
 

 THE TESTIMONY OF CIIlilHT. 
 
 223 
 
 weakened, by any available arguments or methods 
 of exegesis, in favor of regarding fulfilment as a 
 mere realization of the ethical principles of Old 
 Testament prophecy. 
 
 In quoting these New Testament testimonies, we 
 should not fail to consider the character of the 
 speaker, and the circumstances under which ho 
 speaks, in order to gain an insight into his real 
 meaning. The witness whose words we are about to 
 quote is the Messiah Himself. He is "the true 
 Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world." Before Abraham's day He was. He came 
 into the world " to bear witness to the truth." The 
 people among whom He moved and to whom His 
 words were addressed, were familiar with the Mes- 
 sianic prophecies, and many of them were looking 
 eagerly for " the consolation of Israel." The fact 
 that He knew the expectation and belief of the 
 Jewish people, gave special point to His words 
 respecting His relation to the prophecies. On two 
 points the proof is conclusive. (1) He knew that a 
 coming Messiah had been foretold by the prophets, 
 and was expected by the Jews ; (2) He believed and 
 declared Himself to be that predicted Messiah. 
 Listen to His words : " Behold, we go up to 
 Jerusalem, and all the things that are written by 
 
 h 
 
 i i 
 
 ! 1 
 
 I'l. 
 

 JKHUS Tin-: MKssiAir. 
 
 m 
 
 I- (i II 
 
 » 
 
 tlic prophets sJittll he accomplished unto the Son 
 of Man." (Luke xviii. 81.) "For if ye believed 
 Moses, ye would believe Me ; for he ivrote of Me." 
 (John V. 46.) " Ye search the Scriptures, because ye 
 think that in them ye have eternal life, and these 
 are they (vhlch bear ivitness of Me." (John v. 89.) 
 " And beginning from Moses and from all the 
 prophets, He interpreted to them in all the 
 Scriptures, the things concernimj Himself. (Luke 
 xxiv. 27.) " These are My words which I spake 
 unto you, while I was yet with you, how that all 
 things must needs be fulfilled, luhich are written in 
 the law of Moses and, the prophets, and the Psalms 
 concerning Me." (Luke xxiv. 44.) "Again the High 
 Priest asked Him and saith unto Him, Art thou the 
 Christy the Son of the Blessed ? And Jesus said, I 
 am." (Mark xiv. 61, 02.) In the synagogue at 
 Nazareth He read the Messianic prediction from 
 Isaiah Ixi. : " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, 
 because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good 
 tidings unto the meek," etc., and applied it to Himself 
 by saying, " To-day hath this Scripture been fvZ- 
 filled in your ears." (Luke iv. 21.) The Samaritan 
 woman said unto Him, " I know that Messiah 
 cometh (which is called Christ) : when He is come 
 He will declare unto us all things. Jesus saith unto 
 
TUh: TKsriMoxY or cnnrsr. 
 
 .)05 
 
 Son 
 
 good 
 
 come 
 unto 
 
 lior, I that Hpc((l' n.nto fhce am lie. (John iv. 25, 26.) 
 St. John, after (luoting from Isaiah predictions of 
 the Messiah and applyin^^ thetn to Christ, says : 
 "These things said Isaiah, because lie stcw HIh (jlory 
 and he 82)ake of Jflm." (John xii. 41.) St. John 
 declares that tlie object of writing his Gospel was to 
 vindicate the Messiahship of Jesus. He says : " These 
 are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the 
 Christ (the Messiah) the Son of God ; and that 
 believing ye may have life in His name." (John xx. 
 31.) 
 
 Here are explicit statements, by our Saviour 
 Himself, that certain prophecies referred predictively 
 to Him, and were fulfilled by His life and death. 
 Their meaning is not obscure. By no right method 
 of interpretation can any one empty these utter- 
 ances of their plain signiMcation to make them 
 harmonize with a preconceived theory. There are 
 no other parts of Scripture plainer, or more authori- 
 tative, than these statements of the Lord Jesus. 
 Any method of exegesis that would reduce the 
 prophecies to ideal hopes, the outgrowth of the 
 national life, and their fulfilment to ethical realiza- 
 tions and accommodated " applications " to current 
 events, could with equal facility dissolve the most 
 explicit promises and precepts in its crucible, until 
 Id 
 
 mi 
 
II : 
 
 226 
 
 JEF^US THE MESS TAIL 
 
 nothinf^ would be left but empty words witbout 
 meaning. In his peculiar study of New Testament 
 "applications," the simple truth does not seem to 
 have occurred to Prof. Workman, viz., that it ivas 
 because Jesus Christ luas He of ii^hom the proiihcts 
 foretold, that fJiese prophecies are applied to Hhii 
 in the New Testament. If this is not ho, the 
 " applications " are misapplications. 
 
 It is a fa'jt of peculiar point and force in this 
 connection, that our Lord did several things, 
 avowedly because He consciously felt that He was 
 the Messiah foretold by the prophets, in order to 
 fulfil, in the sense of bringing events to pass, what 
 He knew had been foretold of Him. His riding on 
 an ass into Jerusalem was done by Him avowedly 
 to fulfil the prophecy of Zechariah. In the same 
 way, after the agony of Gethsemane, contemplating 
 the possibility of deliverance by twelve legions of 
 angels, He said : " How then should the Scriptures 
 be fulfilled that thus it must be ? " (Matt. xxvi. 54.) 
 There is in this explicit statement of the Redeemer 
 no place for the theory of " accommodated reference " 
 or ethical realization. No special stress has been 
 laid upon the meaning of the word " fulfil." There is 
 explicit reference to the death of Christ and other 
 events, as things that had been foretold by the 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST. 
 
 007 
 
 hi 
 
 I or 
 
 of 
 
 len 
 
 IS 
 
 er 
 
 prophets, and consciously fulfilled by Him. There 
 is no possibility of explaining away the indispii table 
 fact of the consciousness of Jesus of His personal 
 relation to Old Testament predictions, as their object 
 and fulfiller. 
 
 The evidence that Christ our Saviour consciously 
 knew that He was the Messiah foretold by the 
 prophets, and that the events of His life and death 
 fulfilled these predictions in an actual sense, is 
 so overwhelming, that critics of opposite schools 
 have accepted this as beyond question. Even Dr. 
 E-iehm, in spite of his strong Naturalistic leanings, 
 does not reduce the words of Christ to accommodated 
 applications. He admits the full import of Christ's 
 statements respecting His relation to what had been 
 foretold. It is very suefgestive that Dr. Workman 
 follows Riehm where he is Eationalistic, but does not 
 follow him where he is orthodox. In the introduc- 
 tion to his " Messianic Prophecy," Riehm says : 
 " Every one remembers the saying of Christ that the 
 writings of the Old Testament testify of Him ; that 
 His sufterings and death. His resurrection and His 
 glorification, are predicted in the law of Moses, and 
 in the prophets, and in the Psalms ; and that what is 
 there written of Him must be fulfilled, and that the 
 Scripture cannot be broken." Then he propounds 
 
228 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 the question as the subject of his treatise, "In what 
 manner and to what extent has Old Testament 
 prophecy anticipated the Gospel of God concerning 
 His Son ? " He affirms the seriousness of this ques- 
 tion ; for it is nothing less than deciding how the 
 consciousness of Christ concerning the relation of 
 His office and work to the earlier revelation, as 
 indicated by His words, is historically sustained. 
 After going over the main points of the subject, he 
 reaches the concbi.^'in that the consciousness of 
 Jesus was prophetically and historically justified. 
 He says : " In this consciousness He regarded all 
 that prophecy had said regarding the mediatorship 
 of salvation, and the bringing in of the perfection of 
 God as applying to Himself." By His distinct con- 
 fessions respecting Himself, " He declared before all 
 that the predictions concerning a coming Messiah 
 were partly fulfilled, and were still being fulfilled in 
 His person and work, as the Chief in the kingdom of 
 heaven." ^ 
 
 The significance of Christ's consciousness of the 
 relation of the events of His life to the Old 
 Testament predictions respecting the Messiah is 
 fully recognized by Prof. Chenej'', in spite of his 
 advanced views. In one of his essays on Isaiah, 
 
 7 " Messianic Prophecy,'" j). 216. 
 
>l 
 
 THE TESTLMOXY OF CJIIilST. 
 
 'i2& 
 
 referring to this subject, he says : " If, again, you 
 believe in the true, though veiled divinity of Jesus 
 Christ, and humbly accept His decrees on all points 
 essentially connected with His Messiahship, you v^rill 
 feel loyally anxious to interpret the Old Testament 
 as He, beyond question, interpreted it. You 
 will believe His words when He says : "^ ' The 
 Scriptures are they which testify of Me.' You will 
 reply to non-Christian critics : ' In spite of modern 
 criticism and exegesis, there must be some sense in 
 which the words of my Lord are true. He cannot 
 have mistaken the meaning of His own Bible — the 
 Book in which, in His early youth and manhood, He 
 nourished His spiritual life.' He who received not 
 the Spirit by measure, cannot have been funda- 
 mentally mistaken." In the face of all this evidence 
 of Christ's own clear and positive statements, and of 
 the events recorded in the Gospels, any writer must 
 be sadly the slave of a false theory, who explains all 
 reference to facts that fulfilled predictions, as the 
 mere " application " of Old Testament prophecies to 
 events that had not been foretold at all. Again, I ask : 
 How can it be right to represent predictions as being 
 fultilled by events to which, according to our Pro- 
 fessor, they did not refer ? There is no possibility of 
 
 **" Messianic Character of Psalms and Prophecies," Vol. II., p. 197. 
 
 'i 
 
mm 
 
 230 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH, 
 
 robbing the words of Christ of their evident mean- 
 ing. We know no truth in the Bi.ble that is 
 sustained by more conclusive and convincing proof 
 than the doctrine of Messianic prediction and fulfil- 
 ment, which Prof. Workman has denied and assailed 
 in his misnamed lecture on Messianic prophecy. 
 
 If, as has been alleged, there are no Old Testament 
 prophecies that predictively refer to Jesus of 
 Nazareth, and were fulfilled by the facts of His life 
 recorded in the Gospels, there is no escape from the 
 conclusion that Christ and His apostles were 
 mistaken, and are therefore no. reliable teachers ; or 
 else that they used language in a misleading way. 
 
 By such interpretations of our Lord's testi- 
 mony respecting Himself, and by unwarrantably 
 assuming that He used words in the sense that this 
 negative theory of prophecy demands, the Professor 
 has allowed his negative theory and partial exegesis 
 to carry him much further than Scripture truth and 
 a right conception of the character of the Redeemer 
 can justify. Had his ears been open to the voice of 
 Truth, he might have heard the rebuke, " Put oft' thy 
 shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE NEGA TIVE THEOR V OF MESSIANIC 
 PROPHECY ESSENTIALL Y RA TIONAL- 
 ISTIC 
 
 |h and 
 
 semer 
 
 lice of 
 
 fthy 
 
 thou 
 
 T T has been alleged that these negative views of 
 -^ prophecy and fulfilment, and the subsidiary 
 teaching by which it is sought to strengthen them, 
 are not vital or essential things, and, therefore, should 
 not be severely condemned. This is a very impor- 
 tant matter, and should be carefully considered with- 
 out prejudice or bias of any kind. Are these views 
 in agreement with those known as Rationalist ? 
 Are they in logical and Scriptural harmony with 
 evangelical religion ? What would be the effect of 
 their general adoption ? We shall briefly give our 
 reasons for regarding this negative teaching as 
 Rationalistic, and out of harmonv with evangelical 
 interpretation. 
 
 This theory of prophecy does not stand alone. It 
 is connected with, and sustained by, subsidiary 
 assumptions which are essentially Rationalistic. In 
 
^32 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 w^ 
 
 the previous chapters we have dealt chiefly with the 
 denial of Old Testament predictions of Jesus the 
 Messiah, and the consequent repudiation of all New 
 Testament fulfilments in the historic Christian sense. 
 There is ample evidence in the lecture, that this dis- 
 paragement of prediction and actual fulfilment is a 
 part of a system which denies other things of im- 
 portance. The distinction between the official and 
 the personal Messiah seems to be made for the pur- 
 pose of eliminating the fact, that the Christ of New 
 Testament history was foretold by the prophets. 
 We cannot accept this distinction. We recognize 
 only the one personal Redeemer, to whom all the 
 prophets and apostles bear witness. 
 
 
 Distinguishing Features of Rationalism. 
 
 The distinguishing characteristic of the Rationalists 
 is their minimizing, or denying supernatural mani- 
 festations of divine power in human affairs, and 
 especially in the Bible. Some positively deny that 
 there have been any such events in the past ; others 
 disparage and ignore the supernatural, leaving it 
 doubtful whether they believe in it or not. Some 
 others do not deny supernatural intervention, yet 
 exalt natural causes in a wav that makes them 
 account for all things, without special divine inter- 
 
Peatures op rationalism. 
 
 233 
 
 position. These are as dangerous as the more 
 avowed opponents of the supernatural. The pro- 
 phecy of future events is essentially miraculous; the 
 whole strength of the extreme Rationalists has been 
 directed to deny the actual fultilment Oj. prediction, 
 by events foretold before they came to pass. 
 
 Dr. Workman, in his guarded and evasive style, 
 says: 
 
 " While, as has been stated, according to certain 
 declarations of Scripture the element of prediction 
 is sometimes found in prophecy, this element must 
 be regarded as comparatively unessential and sub- 
 sidiary." 
 
 The most extreme Rationalists could say as much 
 as this. All admit prediction. It is the fulfilment, 
 in the sense of predicted events coming to pass, that 
 is denied. No such fulfilment is mentioned by Dr. 
 Workman in his lecture. 
 
 The fulfilment by which the hopes and expecta- 
 tions of one age are realized in a succeeding age, 
 Rationalists freely admit ; but they do not admit 
 such a correspondence between predictions and events 
 as prove that nothing but the direct agency of God 
 could have revealed them to the prophets. 
 
 It is to this school Prof. Delitzsch refers in his last 
 book, when he says : " We live in an age in which 
 
234 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH, 
 
 the Christian view of the world, through which the 
 antique heathen view was overcome, threatens on its 
 side to be overcome by the modern view of the 
 world, which recognizes no system of the world 
 except that which is in accordance with natural laws, 
 and no free miraculous interference of God in it." 
 It is of the application of these negative views in the 
 interpretation of Messianic prophecy that the vener- 
 able scholar says : " It is a depressing observation 
 that Judaism has strong support in modern Christian 
 theology, and that its literature is like an arsenal, 
 out of which Judaism can secure weapons for its 
 attack on Christianity." ^ The Christian writer must 
 be ranked with this class who says : " Had there 
 been a definite personal prediction in the Old Testa- 
 ment, why did not His disciples recognize it ? One 
 must reply they did not recognize it, because there 
 was nothing sufficiently definite respecting Jesus 
 Christ in Scripture to convince them absolutely of 
 His Messiahship." * Describing the older German 
 Rationalists, another writer says : " The genuineness 
 and credibility of the books of the Old Testament 
 were not impugned ; but a method of interpretation 
 was adopted which reduced the miraculous to the 
 
 1 "Messianic Prophecies," pp. 4, G. 
 
 2 Dr. Workman, p. 471. 
 
FEATURES OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 235 
 
 ch the 
 } on its 
 of the 
 world 
 il laws, 
 in it. 
 ! in the 
 vener- 
 rvation 
 iristian 
 irsenal, 
 for its 
 pr must 
 I there 
 Testa- 
 One 
 there 
 Jesus 
 ely of 
 erman 
 neness 
 ament 
 tation 
 o the 
 
 
 merely marvellous, and predictions io s^ague anticipa- 
 tions or shrewd forecastings of the future, 
 
 Dr. Kuenen, of Leyden, who leads the advanced 
 Rationalists, boldly denies all supernatural prediction 
 and fulfilment. His work on " The Prophets and 
 Prophecy of Israel " avowedly sets before him the 
 task of disproving the divine character of Bible pre- 
 dictions, by showing that not one of these predictions 
 has been fulfilled. All of his school do not go so 
 far as he does. He complains that " the supporters 
 of the naturalistic hypothesis do not maintain it in a 
 thorou':'h and consistent manner." That is, thev do 
 not wholly break away from the traditional inter- 
 pretation. Indeed, it is quite common to find men 
 who profess to believe in a supernatural revelation, 
 and yet teach a system that does not really require 
 the supernatural. As Dr. Kuenen is the leader of 
 the extreme wing of the Rationalists, being in 
 advance even of Wellhausen and Robertson Smith, it 
 may interest our readers to know the position of 
 the school he represents. We take the following 
 condensed statement from Dr. Gloag's Baird lectures. 
 Of Hoffman, he says: "He puts subordinate stress on 
 the oral announcements of the prophets and dwells 
 chiefly on the typical form of prophetical prediction. 
 . . . The theory is vague and difficult of compre- 
 
p 
 
 236 
 
 j£!SlfS fll£) ML' SSI A It. 
 
 m 
 
 «: 
 
 
 hension; but, so far as we understand it, its tendency 
 is to eliminate the supernatural in the predictive 
 element from prophecy." He summarizes Prof. 
 Kuenen's view as follows : " It consists essentially in 
 the denial of divinely-inspired prediction as an ele- 
 ment in prophecy. According to Kuenen, prophecy 
 is not a supernatural phenomenon, and can be 
 accounted for from ordinary causes ; it is * a human 
 phenomenon proceeding from Israel and directed to 
 Israel.' Kuenen, however, regards himself as a 
 Christian, and, as he himself admits, the recognition 
 of the supernatural origin of prophecy by the writers 
 of the New Testament, and their assertion of its ful- 
 filment in Jesus, come into direct collision with his 
 views ; but he attempts to meet the difficulty by 
 maintaining that the opinions of the New Testament 
 writers are not to be acquiesced in, but to be criti- 
 cally estimated, and if so, it will be found that they 
 do not satisfy the requirements of modern exegesis ; 
 in short, that the New Testament writers were mis- 
 taken in their views of prophecy. According to 
 Kuenen, the real importance of the prophets con- 
 sisted in the inculcation of an ethical monotheism." 
 This view of Kuenen's position is fully justified by 
 his " Prophets and Prophecy of Israel." 
 
 There are many grades of Rationalists, some more 
 
FEA TJh'ES OF liA TIONA fJS.U. 
 
 237 
 
 fesis 
 
 IDIS- 
 
 ig to 
 con- 
 
 [ism. 
 d by 
 
 lore 
 
 advanced, and some still clinging with one hand to 
 the orthodox faith, and grasping the theories of the 
 advanced critics with the other. All the way from 
 orthodoxy to Kuenen " > tilled with those who are 
 drifting towards his position. 
 
 When we remember the extreme position of 
 Kuenen, we deem it an extraordinary thing that Dr. 
 Workman quotes him, with evident sympathy, as an 
 authority to prove the impossibility of Old Testa- 
 ment predictions being fulfilled. On page 4G5, he 
 says : 
 
 " Proceeding on an ancient misconception both of 
 the term prophecy and of the term fulfilment, in 
 modern times, dogmatic theologians have labored 
 earnestly to show that prophecy has been literally 
 fulfilled, while rationalistic theologians have labored 
 just as earnestly to show that prophecy has not been 
 so fulfilled. Kuenen, for instance, the great Dutch 
 critic, in common with other scholars, has shown 
 that many of Ezekiel's prophecies, as well as all those 
 Hebrew prophecies relating especially to Israel's 
 future, are not simply unfulfilled, but impossible of 
 fulfilment. His classification of the prophecies in 
 question is so interesting and significant as to be 
 worthy of the carefuUest consideration. It is as fol- 
 lows : (1) The return of Israel out of captivity ; (2) 
 the reunion of Ephraim and Judah ; (H) the supre- 
 macy of the house of David ; (4) the spiritual and 
 material welfare of the restored Israel ; (5) the rela- 
 tion between Israel and the Gentiles ; (6) Israel's 
 undisturbed continuance in the land of their habita- 
 
238 
 
 JKSm TIII'J MESSIAlf. 
 
 mhw^ 
 
 ,if 
 
 'I' I' 
 
 i: 
 
 tion. Whon ifc is stated, therefore, that prophecy 
 and fulHhnent correspond, as the hud corresponds to 
 the flower, the statement is not strictly correct, inas- 
 much as in a hirge numher of prophecies exact and 
 literal fulfihiient, in the ordinary sense of the term, 
 did not take place." 
 
 He follows this up very significantly with a classi- 
 fication of the prophecies that cannot be fulfilled. 
 
 Many who are not gross Rationalists, whose reli- 
 gious education still hold them to evangelical reli- 
 gion, have adopted principles that logically lead to 
 Rationalism. Educational infiuence may hold some, 
 in spite of the adoption of theories that account for 
 everything without the direct intervention of God, 
 but others will carry out the principles to their 
 natural result, and land in skepticism. 
 
 There is a very suggestive passage on this point in 
 Dr. Pusey's " Introduction to Daniel." Speaking of 
 the influence of Latitudinarian views, in reply to 
 ^ " Stanley, he says : " I will cite a witness whose 
 tialities are not on my side : 'A most learned and 
 amiable man exercised an extraordinary influence 
 over the most advanced college in Oxford. He led 
 his pupils quietly on to the negation of all positive 
 creeds; not because he was an unbeliever in the 
 vulgar sense of the word, but because his peculiar 
 mode of criticism cut the very sinews of belief. The 
 
TEACHINd ON OTHKli POINTS. 
 
 239 
 
 int in 
 
 n of 
 
 ly to 
 
 hose 
 
 and 
 ence 
 led 
 itive 
 
 the 
 luliar 
 
 The 
 
 effect of his peculiar teaching may be traced in many 
 a ripened mind of the present day.' We, ecjually 
 with this writer, accjuittcd the Professor alhided to 
 of seeing the effects of his teaching ; but he has by 
 his mode of teaching been the parent of Oxford 
 Rationalism, as Sender was of German, without his 
 will, yet as the natural fruit of the seed sowed."'' 
 
 Not only those who deny prediction and all mira- 
 cles, but those who disparage and belittle them, and 
 whose systems have no place for them, may fairly 
 be called Rationalists. Any impartial outline of Dr. 
 Workman's lecture on " Messianic Prophecy " will 
 show, that his central negation of prediction and ful- 
 filment is supported by assumptions that are really 
 Rationalistic. In other words, it will be seen that 
 the lecture contains a number of views that are 
 well-known features of Rationalistic theology ; and 
 that his article throughout is an effort to incor- 
 porate them into an evangelical system of doctrine, 
 with which they have no natural or logical affinity. 
 
 Dr. Workman's Teaching on Several Points. 
 
 We shall give here a condensed outline of some of 
 the main points taught and argued in the lecture, 
 for the purpose of showing that its character is 
 
 3 Introduction, p, 64, 
 
240 
 
 JESU:=i THE MESSIAH. 
 
 ().,)■ 
 
 wholly neo^ative and destrucfcive, that its main fea- 
 tures are taken from the teachin^^ of the Rationalists, 
 and that it is not only negative teaching, but that 
 he has left no place for a positive side of the ques- 
 tion, without retracting the views he has explicitly 
 asserter* Dr. Workman begins by intimating that 
 prophecy is a common feature of all great primitive 
 religions, and that it arose out of the natural desire 
 to know the future, as if the demand called out the 
 supply. Though later there is a reference to the 
 inspiring influence of the Spirit, yet in this full 
 statement of the origin of prophecy, there is no inti- 
 mation that God's revelation of His will to men is 
 the real cause. 
 
 In my article in the Canadian Methodist Quar- 
 terly, I gave a brief outline which showed that the 
 common divine orimn of all relifjions is maintained. 
 Comments on the words " prophet," " prophecy," 
 "Messiah," "foretell," and "fulfilment," are given, 
 all of which are designed to empty them, as far as 
 possible, of their predictive meaning. Then follows 
 a lengthy effort to minimize and disparage the 
 predictive element in prophecy. The origin of 
 Messianic prophecy is intimated to be similar to the 
 light that pious and thoughtful persons obtain of 
 divine truth. Then follow thoughts on the natural 
 
TEACIIINa ON OTHER POIXTS. 
 
 •211 
 
 )iiar- 
 .t the 
 lined. 
 
 ^iven, 
 
 'ar as 
 
 illows 
 
 the 
 
 In of 
 
 |o the 
 
 [n of 
 
 tural 
 
 development of Messianic prophecy from "ji^erminal 
 ideas." A strong protest follows against allowing 
 New Testament ideas to influence our conceptions as 
 to the contents of Old Testament prophecy. Having 
 thus cleared the way, and prepared the mind of the 
 reader, he proceeds to examine a namber of Old 
 Testament prophecies, for the purpose of showing 
 that they contain no predictive reference to Jesus 
 Christ. Having accomplished this task to his own 
 satisfaction, he proceeds to the New Testament to 
 examine New Testament fulfilments. He admits no 
 fulfilments in the common historic sense. His 
 object is to examine New Testament " applications " 
 of Old Testament prophecies to events, which he 
 holds had never been predicted at all. 
 
 This is followed by a section on the fulfilment of 
 Messianic prophecy in a merely ethical and spiritual 
 sense. There is a good deal that is rather nebulous 
 and indefinite under this head. The events and facts 
 of the New Testament are not recognized as fulfil- 
 ments of prophecies that foretold them. There 
 are a few more protests against the predictive ele- 
 ment. There is, after this, a classification of pro- 
 phecies, mainly with a view of showing that most 
 kinds of prophecies are incapable of literal fulfil- 
 ment. Here ho is following Kuenen. Then follow 
 16 
 
242 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 some rather complacent reflections on the great 
 advantages of adopting what he calls " the Ethical 
 Theory of Messianic Prophecy," as opposed to the 
 theory of the actual fulfilment of what had been 
 foretold. This suggests a theory of inspiration low 
 enough to fit his interpretation. 
 
 No one can impartially study the plan of the 
 lecture, and the points which the lecturer labors 
 to make out, without being compelled to admit 
 that it is essentially negative and Rationalistic ; 
 its main object being to repudiate Old Testament 
 predictions and New Testament fulfilments, in 
 their historical, Christian sense. Throughout the 
 whole lecture Prof. Workman is seen to be a 
 man who has adopted a certain theory of prophecy, 
 and whoso expositions of both Old and New Testa- 
 ments are for the purpose of removing, or explain- 
 ing away, whatever stands in the way of this 
 negative theory. Two of these subsidiary points 
 require a fuller statement, to show their substantial 
 identity with the distinguishing teaching of the 
 Rationalists, and their relation to the system of that 
 school of thought. 
 
 1. It has been intimated that Dr. Workman's 
 lecture places the origin of heathen prophecy on the 
 same level with Bible prophecy, and ascribes it tq 
 
TEACHING ON OTHER POINTS. 
 
 243 
 
 Imns 
 the 
 It tq 
 
 the same cause. The correctness of this allegation 
 will be seen from the following quotations : 
 
 " Prophecy is a phenomenon peculiar to all great 
 prir)iitive religions." 
 
 *' Uncertain and obscure as is its origin, it appears 
 to have arisen from a universal need in human 
 nature. It seems to have spritvg from a deep desire 
 for knoiuledge in respect to sjnritual realities and 
 temporal contingen ciesJ' 
 
 Since all the ancient nations of the world possessed 
 and exercised this gift in some degree, the '])rocess as 
 ivell as the product of prophesy jing, in every religion, 
 seems at ove time to Jiave been suhstantiall g the same. 
 In other words, certain general features were com- 
 mon to all primitive prophecy" (p. 1). 
 
 '' While not denying a measure of prophetic 
 inspiration to the heathen, one must not fail to 
 acknowledge that the superhuman element common 
 to all prophecy is greater in degree in Hebrew than 
 in pagan prophecy, as Judaism is purer and higher 
 than heathenism " (p. 8). (Italics are ours.) 
 
 There is in this an effacing of the line between 
 what is special and divine, and what is merely 
 natural. To say that the superhuman is common to 
 all prophecy, must either unduly exalt heathen 
 prophecy, or unduly depreciate the " superhuman." 
 The " superhuman " cannot mem anything very 
 high, if it belongs to all heathen prophecy. Other 
 remarks, about the way Hebrew prophecy came up 
 
244 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 Mm\ 
 
 and heathen prophecy sank, do not alter the force 
 of these statements respecting the origin of pro- 
 phecy. It is clearly meant that the Hebrew pro- 
 phecies have been simply in degree better than the 
 heathen ; but they are essentially the outcome of 
 the same kind of inspiration. If such teaching is 
 not Rationalistic, we would like to know by what 
 name it should be called. It seems to us to ignore 
 and deny two great facts, viz.: (1) That Bible pro- 
 phecy originated solely from the revelation of Him- 
 self which God made to the men of primitive times ; 
 and (2) That God made to the prophets of Israel 
 direct special revelations, such as He did not make 
 to the heathen seers and necromancers. 
 
 2. Closely allied to this is his doctrine of natural 
 development applied to religious ideas. Speaking 
 of the development of Messianic prophecy, he 
 says : 
 
 " Hence an inherent idea in human nature, such 
 as the idea of prosperity or improvement (a funda- 
 mental idea of Messianic prophecy), will naturally 
 and constantly unfold, by a gradual expanding pro- 
 cess, from one degree of energy and efficiency to 
 another, until it reaches its complete development " 
 (p. 428). 
 
 " When it is asserted, therefore, that Messianic 
 prophecy was developed from germinal ideas belong- 
 
TE AC HI NO ON OTHEU POIXTS. 
 
 245 
 
 ing to an early period in the relif^ious history of the 
 Hebrew race, it must be understood that the doctrine 
 gradually grew by the continuous expansion or 
 evolution of the suggestive ideas from which it 
 sprang " (p. 430). 
 
 "There is a propb. element, it should be 
 observed, in all sanctified poetry " (p. 475). 
 
 " In certain cases, doubtless, the prediction might 
 have been suggested by the existing circumstances 
 to a person of great natural sagacit3^ Owing to 
 their prophetic ^nsight, the prophets, by their special 
 spiritual training, might readily become skilful 
 readers of the signs of the times, as many reverent 
 writers on the subject have most reasonably sup- 
 posed " (p. 417). 
 
 :ing 
 he 
 
 Rich 
 
 ida- 
 
 lally 
 
 >ro- 
 
 to 
 
 Int" 
 
 inic 
 
 Here, as in the disparagement of prediction, there 
 seems to be a desire to thrust out of sight the super- 
 natural element in prophecy, and to broadly insinu- 
 ate that what has been regarded as the result of 
 special divine revelation has been produced by 
 natural evolution. Is not this the distinguishing 
 characteristic of Rationalism ? 
 
 All through his lecture Dr. Workman draws 
 broader conclusions than the premises at all justify. 
 His premises may be freely admitted, while his 
 conclusions are consistently denied. E.g., There is 
 religious teaching in prophecy ; but this does not 
 supersede or belittle prediction. There are typical 
 
246 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH, 
 
 and ideal prophecies ; but there are also direct pre- 
 dictions of Jesus Christ. Critical and historical 
 study of prophecy is proper ; but it should not 
 exclude the light of New Testament fulfihnent. 
 There are places in the New Testament where 
 " fulfil " is used in an accommodated sense ; but this 
 does not cancel other places where it is used in the 
 sense of the actual fulfilment of prediction. Some 
 may have thouj^ht they found predictions and fulfil- 
 ments where they did not really exist ; but this does 
 not extinguish the numerous real predictions and 
 fulfilments. There is in the New Testament a 
 spiritual realization of the religious hopes of the 
 Old Testament ; but this does not disprove the fact 
 that things foretold of Christ were actually fulfilled 
 bv New Testament events. 
 
 Our objections to this negative teaching are not, 
 therefore, based upon our interpretation of one or 
 two passages, which might have been misunderstood ; 
 but upon a concatenation of negative theories which 
 fit into the Rationalistic conception of the Bible, 
 but which are not in harmony with the historic 
 Christian idea of Revelation. It is hard to see how 
 any Christian reader, who is not under the influence 
 of the low ideas of Revelation that are propagated 
 by some modern critics, can deem it a slight or 
 
TEACHING ON OTHER POINTS. 
 
 24: 
 
 indifferent thing to accept a theory of prophecy 
 that requires the acceptance of so many question- 
 able assumptions to sustain it. Even those who may 
 have been caught by the glamor of theories that 
 were new to them, should hesitate to be led away 
 from the simple faith in prediction and fulfilment. 
 
 It is a notable fact, that the line of criticism and 
 exegesis which Dr. Workman employs to empty Old 
 Testament prophecies of their predictive meaning 
 is, for the most part, the very same adopted by 
 Rationalists, and those modern Jews who reject the 
 Christian interpretation of Messianic prophecies. 
 Hence, not only is the partial and defective theory of 
 New Testament fulfilment, advocated in the lecture, 
 Rationalistic, it is sought to make it seem feasible 
 by other Rationalistic assumptions, which are 
 designed to sustain it. It is hard to see how any 
 intelligent reader can calmly and impartially study 
 the points sought to be made, the methods used, and 
 the evident aim of this lecture, without being com- 
 pelled to conclude that Dr. Workman's theory is not 
 the conception of Messianic prophecy and fulfilment 
 which is taught in the Holy Scriptures. 
 
248 
 
 JKSUS TJIK MESSIAH. 
 
 
 Some Unjustifiable Objections. 
 
 Before closins:^, I may refer to two or three pleas 
 that have been put forward in apology for Prof. 
 Workman's teaching. It is declared by Dr. Work- 
 man that he is misunderstood, and, therefore, misre- 
 presented, as he does not hold some of the viewf 
 ascribed to him. We have dealt solely with his pub- 
 lished views as set forth in a carefully written article. 
 Unless it can be shown that what he has written 
 does not fairly convey the meaning which, so far as 
 we know, all intelligent readers have received from 
 it, his repudiation does not alter the facts. This 
 has not been show^n, and cannot be shown, for his 
 words have been taken in their natural sense. 
 Every man who appeals to the public through the 
 press is responsible for what he actually says. If he 
 fails to apprehend the logical import of his own 
 statements and arguments, or says one thing at one 
 time and a contrary thing at another time, he — not 
 his critics — is responsible for the want of harmony 
 between his statements. 
 
 It is said that Dr. Workman has merely given 
 undue prominence to the negative side of the sub- 
 ject. But when a writer says : " None of the 
 numerous Messianic passages in the Old Testament 
 
VKJUSTIFIABLE OBJECT lOXs. 
 
 240 
 
 refer directly or originally to the historic Christ, 
 but appear in the New Testament merely as quoted 
 by Him or applied to Him," etc., it is hard to see 
 where any place is left for the positive side of Mes- 
 sianic prediction and fulfilment. 
 
 It has also been intimated that those who reject 
 Dr. Workman's views do so because they hold a 
 mechanical theory of verbal inspiration, while he 
 holds the more liberal dynamic view. We cannot 
 admit the correctness of this. It may be quite true 
 that Dr. Workman's views of prophecy are the out- 
 come of a broad theory of the inspiration of Scrip- 
 ture. But the writer of this volume holds no 
 "mechanical" theory of inspiration, and does not 
 base his conclusions on such a theory. All that is 
 assumed for the purpose of this discussion is, that 
 the teaching of the Bible is true and worthy of con- 
 fidence. 
 
 In the face of his questionable teaching on all 
 these points, it is unjustifiable to say that the whole 
 difference between Dr. Workman and those who 
 condemn him is that he believes the prophets had 
 ideal conceptions of the Messiah, but that his critics 
 believe that the prophets saw the literal details 
 relating to Christ's personal life. This does not 
 correctly represent the position of those who reject 
 
250 
 
 JESirS THE MESS I Air. 
 
 Dr. Workman's nebulous theory of fulfilment. We 
 insist on no literal details, except what are stated in 
 the Scriptures. We simply maintain that Jesus 
 Christ, Himself, and not another, was foretold by 
 the prophets ; and that the facts of His life and 
 death fulfilled their predictions. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE "A." 
 BiiiLicAL Issues of To-Day. 
 
 It need scarcely be stated that at the present time 
 the questions connected with the Old Testament 
 occupy the foreground of theological discussion. 
 Whether or not there is in the Old Testament any 
 prophecy in the true and, as we had regarded it, the 
 Scriptural sense; whether there were of old any 
 directly God-sent prophets in Israel, with a message 
 from heaven for the present, as well as for the 
 future ; whether there was any Messianic hope from 
 the beginning, and any conception of a spiritual 
 Messiah ; nay, whether the state of religious belief 
 in Israel was as we had hitherto imagined, or quite 
 different ; whether, indeed, there were any Mosaic 
 institutions at all, or else the greater part of what 
 we call such, if not the whole, dated from much 
 later times— the central and most important portion 
 of them, from after the exile ; whether, in short, 
 our views on all these points have to be com- 
 pletely changed, so that, instead of the law and 
 

 JJCSrs THE MESSIAff. 
 
 PI 
 
 the ]irop]iets, we slioukl have to speak of the 
 prophets and the hiw ; and instead of Moses 
 and the prophets, of the prophets and the 
 priests, and the larger part of Old Testament 
 literature should be ascribed to Exilian and post- 
 Exilian times, or bear the impress of their falsiti- 
 cations — these are some of the (juestions which now 
 engage theological thinkers, and which, on the nega- 
 tive side, is advocated by such learning and skill as 
 to have secured, not only on the continent, but even 
 among ourselves, a large number of zealous adher- 
 ents. In my view, at least, they concern not only 
 critical questions, but the very essence of our faith, 
 " the truth of revealed religion in general, and of the 
 Christian religion in particular." To say that Jesus 
 is the Christ, means that He is the Messiah pro- 
 mised and predicted in the Old Testament; while the 
 views above referred to respecting the history, legis- 
 lation, institutions and prophecies of the Old Testa- 
 ment seem inconipatible alike with Messianic predic- 
 tions in the Christian sense, and even with real 
 belief in the Divine authority of the larger portion 
 of our Bible. And if the Old Testament be thus 
 surrendered, it is difficult to understand how the 
 claims of the New, which is based on it, can be long 
 or seriously sustained. — Prophecy and History in 
 Relation to the Messiah, by Alfred Edersheim, D.D., 
 Ph.D. 
 
MISS/OX OF riii: rnoriiF/rs. 
 
 253 
 
 " We add that any system of Biblical criticism, 
 whether higher or lower, that undertakes, either in 
 whole or in part, to accommodate the Bible to the 
 demands of any form of intidelity that excludes the 
 supernatural from the source and authority of that 
 book, is so far, whatever may be the intent of such 
 criticism, a virtual attack upon the Divine authority 
 of the Bible, as the supreme rule of faith and prac- 
 tice in all the matters embraced therein. The Church 
 of Christ cannot move a single step in this direction 
 without, at the same time, and to the same extent, 
 undermining the foundations of its own faith. Take 
 from the Bible the two fundamental elements — 
 namely, the supernatural in inspiration, and the 
 supernatural in miracles as historic facts and as 
 God's special testimony, and the argument for its 
 Divine authority is dead. The book then at once 
 sinks to the common level of other books. The 'thus 
 saith the Lord ' is gone, and all that remains is ' thus 
 saitli man.' " — N. Y. Independent. 
 
 NOTE "B. 
 
 J) 
 
 Character and Mission of the Hebrew 
 
 Prophets. 
 
 The prophet, then — according to the Old Testa- 
 ment view of his function — interpreted to man reve- 
 lations he personally received from God. Prophecy 
 was not divination, but revelation, Soothsaying 
 
254 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAH. 
 
 rested upon human presentiment ; prophecy followed 
 upon Divine inspiration. The prophet was conscious 
 of beinij an orgran of Divine communications. The 
 words he spake he knew to be Divine words. His 
 messa<^es did not originate in natural facts, but in 
 supernatural gifts. The prophet was a herald who 
 announced the royal will of heaven. In a word, 
 prophecy was revelation, Divine knowledge divinely 
 imparted. At least, such is the conception every- 
 where current in the Old Testament. — The Inspira- 
 tion of the Old Testament Inductively Considered. 
 By Alfred Cave, B.A., D.I). 
 
 NOTE "C. 
 
 )> 
 
 The Evidence of Prophetic Prediction. 
 
 It is undeniable that the prediction of future 
 events is the prerogative of ( )mniscience alone ; and 
 also that in the Scriptures God is represented as 
 making it one great purpose in His commission of 
 the prophets to establish clearly this claim. We 
 may suppose, therefore, that the predictions of 
 Scripture will generally, if not in all individual and 
 isolated cases, have such a character as to be beyond 
 the reach of human calculation. It may safely be 
 granted that in some cases it is impossible to prove 
 the event foreannounced to have been beyond the 
 range of skilful foresight. But it must be remem- 
 bered that the weight of the argument from prophecy 
 
EVIDENCE OF PROrJIECY. 
 
 255 
 
 does not rest upon isolated example : it depends 
 upon certain great and prominent and vast predic- 
 tions such as only the Supreme Mind could have 
 given to men, and the .accomplishment of which is 
 before our eyes. Beginning with these, and fortified 
 by their undeniable strength, we have only after- 
 wards to stand on the defensive with regard to the 
 rest : nothing is necessary beyond establishing that 
 the opposite conclusion cannot be proved. First, 
 then, let this test be applied to that One Great 
 Object of prophecy to whom all the prophets bore 
 witness. During a thousand years a perfect picture 
 is graduallv drawn, bv more than a hundred distinct 
 predictions, of One Person, and of Him as unique in 
 the history of mankind : that distinct picture being 
 the filling up of an outline which had been sketched 
 thousands of years before, in fact from the very 
 beginning of the world. Could the Deliverer of 
 mankind have been foreseen in all the marvellous 
 traits of His character, and in all the minute circum- 
 stances of His appearance and history and life and 
 death and resurrection and reign, by the enthusiasm 
 of national longing ? Could the converging fore- 
 sight of a series of prophets have drawn this most 
 elaborate and most sacred portrait ? The same may 
 be said as to the steadfast predictions of the fates 
 of some of the leading nations of the world. After 
 the PeiovyA of the Messiah, the Israel after the flesh 
 which rejected Him takes the next rank in the 
 historical perspective of prophecy. There is a 
 
256 
 
 JESUS THE MESSIAJI. 
 
 similar wonderful unanimity in the predictions of 
 their entire history whether as ori<:^inally Hebrews, 
 or afterwards Israelites, or, in more modern times, 
 Jews. Their destiny as depicted in the Bible, that 
 is in both Testaments, brings prophecy and fulfil- 
 ment into such plain and undeniable harmony that 
 no room ought to be left for infidelity. — ^1 Compen- 
 dium of Christian 'Theulogij, by William Burt 
 Pope, D.D. 
 
 NOTE "D. 
 
 jj 
 
 I MEANT to refer to Dr. Workman's evasive and 
 ambiguous use of words, but concluded that it was 
 unnecessary. In my article in the Qiiarferl// I said: 
 The way in which Dr. Workman ascribes his own 
 peculiar notions and distinctions to Christ and His 
 apostles, as if they held his peculiar views and used 
 his phrases, is most extraordinary. He says: "When 
 applying Messianic prophecy, we have noticed that 
 Christ does not claim a primary reference to Him- 
 self but only a secondary reference, or fulfilment.'* 
 As if Christ's not using the word " primary " was 
 evidence that He did not mean what He plainly 
 said ! Again: " Christ does not here declare that the 
 original or primary reference of the passage is to 
 Himself, but simply that the statement it contains is 
 applicable to Him " (p. 455). The Saviour never 
 made any such declaration as that " the statement it 
 contained was applicable to Him. " \/ 
 
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