Isaiah chapter 09

CHAPTER IX.

A Great Light in Galilee.

SOME seven centuries after Isaiah foretold the “ driving into darkness,” there arose in the despised parts of Galilee “ a great light,” as Matthew tells us, in fulfilment of Isa. ix. 2.

“ When Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee ; and leaving Nazareth he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zebulon and Naphtalim : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zebulon and the land of Naphtalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles ; the people which sat in darkness saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up ” (Matt. iv. 12-16). Thus, as Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, testified, through the tender mercy of Israel’s God, “ the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace ” (Lu. i. 79). This was indeed a new experience for these benighted districts and the mixed multitudes of “ Gentiles ” who were the descendants of the transplanted Assyrians and Babylonians that were sent over to occupy the land “ instead of the children of Israel,” and whose darkness was even greater than that of the wicked generation they dispossessed (2 Kings xvii.).

“ Whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” The word and works of Jesus in Galilee made manifest the divine purpose with grace and power. It was the reassertion of the rejected law and testimony in new and glorious form. It was “ a sign and wonder in Israel ” in earnest of the greater that are coming. After more than seven hundred years, Immanuel was at length among them, 

“ the Word made flesh,” “ anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power,” “ of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.”

His words and works in Galilee had direct relation to that multiplication of the nation and increase of joy of which Isaiah goes on to speak. As Jesus walked round the shores of the sea, preaching the kingdom of heaven, he chose Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who were fishermen, saying, “ Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Later on he instructed them and the other disciples that it was the Father’s good pleasure to give them the kingdom. They were made to understand at length that it was to be “ in the regeneration,” when Jesus should, after long absence from the earth, return in glory to re-establish the kingdom of Israel under a new and immortal constitution. And in this hope they testified the same gospel during their day of toil, and then fell asleep in the dust of the earth till the day of realisation should come. Many generations have come and gone since then, but the purpose of God is unchanged Immanuel has been “ a long time ” absent, but the signs of his coming are plain in the political aerial, and the accomplishment of the full measure of his glorious mission in the near future is assured by the fulfilments of the past.

Speaking in the language of accomplished fact according to the Scripture usage, because of the certainty of fulfilment, the Word of God by Isaiah continues (ch. ix. 3) : “ Thou hast multiplied the nation, thou hast increased their joy : they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every battle of the warrior Is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. FOR unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given : and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.”

Some of the beautiful words above quoted re-echo round the world from year to year wherever the name of Christ has come. Set to majestic music they stir sentiments of veneration and rejoicing which unhappily are unaccompanied by any adequate idea of what the performance of the promise by the zeal of the Lord of Hosts really involves. Thus, as an apostle says, the word preached (or sung) does not profit, not being mixed with faith in them that hear. The gospel of the kingdom of God must first be well understood and affectionately received and obeyed, before any just appreciation of the connections of the prophetic word in its testifying of the shining of the “ great light ” in Galilee, and its relation to the multiplication of the nation in the joy of harvest is possible. The truth shining into a man’s heart opens his eyes and causes him to behold wondrous things. Instead of the barren ritualism of a religious system that he cannot satisfactorily apply to the needs and hopes of his vain and brief life, there arises the glorious “ hope of Israel ” in which he beholds with astonishment and gratitude all human affairs in the hands of Israel’s God, con­trolled and subservient to the working out of His gracious purpose of manifesting “ everlasting salvation ” in the House of Israel. He beholds for the first time the Lord Jesus, as King of the Jews, and “ heir of all things, and the coming multiplying of the nation as a glorious feature of his future works of power.

Never has nation been the subject of such a development as is at present just before the nation of Israel. Never indeed has any nation had such experiences in the past as have fallen to the lot of Israel. Moses rallied them on this point:—“ Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live ? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes ? ” (Deut. iv. 33). No, there had been nothing like it before, and there has been nothing like it since. It remains true to this day that “ He hath not dealt so with any nation : and as for His judgments, they have not known them ” (Psa. cxlvii. 20).

But great and glorious as have been the works of God in Israel in the past, “ greater works ” are in store. The multiplication of the nation by the Son of David and Son of God “ given ” by the Father to Israel is not a matter of increase on any natural principle, but a revelation of divine power in what an apostle calls “ the manifesta­tion of the sons of God.” Christendom has lost sight of the fact that “ salvation is of the Jews,” and only to be revealed in connec­tion with the latter day destiny of the nation. It requires to be reminded that God constituted Abraham the father of the faithful, saying, “ I have made thee a father of many nations ” ; and that as many as have been baptised into Christ upon belief of the gospel of the kingdom, in so putting on Christ become “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to promise.” In Christ, the obedient, both of the circumcision and the uncircumcision, becoming “ Jews inwardly,” belong to Israel and to the glory that is to be revealed.

The cream of the nation, with the exception of the Lord Jesus its head, and the one or two who were favoured with the extra­ordinary honour of exemption from death is “ asleep in the dust of the earth,” and hence the first thing necessary in the divine multiplication that is coming is the resurrection of the dead. This is the especial function of the Lord Jesus, who declared “ I am the resurrection and the life,” emphasising the truth of his claims by visibly exercising resurrection power in Israel, by reason of which many believed on him. His connection with the multiplying of the nation by resurrection and life power was frequently spoken of beforehand by the prophets. Thus Isaiah (ch. Ixvi. 6) says : “A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies. Before she travailed she brought forth ; before her pain she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing ? Who hath seen such things ? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day ? or shall a nation be born at once ? for as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children.”

Zion’s man child is the Lord Jesus, brought forth before the time of travail spoken of, in that God raised him from the dead 

“ having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” “As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the son to have life in himself; ” and through the exercise of this power, Zion’s other “ children of the resurrection ” will be brought forth and “ a nation born at once.” An earnest of this was given at his own resurrection, for “ the graves were opened ; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many ” (Matt, xxvii. 52).

But the multiplying of the nation and increase of joy has also the natural as well as the spiritual element in it ; that is to say, the resurrection to eternal life of the faithful of all past ages is to be accompanied by a great national resurrection to political life of Israel according to the flesh. This element is included in Ezekiel’s vision of the resurrection of the dry bones of “ the whole house of Israel,” which in despair said, as they do in effect to this day : “ Our bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are clean cut off.” The prophet was commanded to tell them that there was still hope in Israel’s end, and now in our day, after nearly twenty-five centuries, the “ noise ” and “ shaking ” among the dry bones of Israel, and murmurings of “ A Jewish State,” testify to the gladsome truth that the advent of the Deliverer is near. He will re-unite Judah and Ephraim. The ancient enmity that Isaiah witnessed to his distress will pass away for ever for, “ Thus saith the Lord : Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel ; and one king shall be king to them all : and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any­more at all ” (Ezek. xxxvii. 21-22).

“ Joy in Harvest.”

What1 could be more beautiful than the figure of “ Joy' in harvest ” ? It appeals to all who have any experience of the pleasant reward of toil in the ingathering of the fruitful sheaves that the bounty of God gives even to the unthankful and the evil. The artificial conditions of crowded life in town and city no doubt have obscured the matter for multitudes, who scarcely ever see anything of the works of God in nature. But this would not be so in Israel. It was not merely that in Isaiah’s distant times the people were more “ on the land ” ; but that there was a divinely appointed exercise in connection with harvest which connected the joy with the Giver of all good—“ God my chiefest joy,” as David calls Him. " Thou shalt keep the feast of harvest, the first fruits of thy labours which thou hast sown in the field ” (Ex. xxiii. 16). “ When ye be come into the land which I give you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priest : And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you ” (Lev. xxiii. 10). Fifty days afterwards the two wave loaves of the first fruits were offered. This was called “ the Feast of Weeks ” because of the numbering of the seven weeks from the beginning of the harvest.

The offerer of the first fruits of the harvest had a certain form of words divinely appointed in which to memorialise God as the source of all joy. He was to go with his basket to the priest and say:—

“ I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us.”

Then the priest was to take the basket and set it down before the altar, while the man continued :—

“A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour and our oppression. And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs and with wonders. And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And now behold I have brought the first fruits of the land which thou, O Lord, hast given me.”

And Moses continues : “ Thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou and the Levite and the stranger that is among you ” (Deut. xxvi.).

Thus the “ joy in harvest ” in Israel was a rejoicing in God for the abundance of a fruitful inheritance, out of which the enemy had been cast by divine judgment, and which had only been come to after generations of affliction, labour, and oppression.

We hear of “ harvest thanksgivings ” ; but where is the like of this ? Suppose we take our seat in one of the churches in the golden season of the year, amidst the odours of twining garlands and festoons of ears of wheat, will our thoughts be taken back to that “ Syrian ready to perish,” and the mighty works by which God planted the nation of Israel in the land of Promise ? Shall we be led to look forward to the coming rejoicings in the same land in the “ time of the restitution of all things ” ? No, we must come to “ the place of the Lord thy God ” to see these things. The churches belong to the “ outer court ” (Rev. xi.) : they are ignorant of God’s truth and consequently faithless concerning His promises. “ The place of the Lord,” or “ the temple of God,” of apocalyptic symbolism is the “ one body ” “ in Christ ” by faith and obedience. Here the joy of harvest is rightly comprehended, and, in its full antitypical manifestation, patiently awaited.

The beautiful institution of harvest rejoicing under the law of Moses had not only the object of keeping God always before the mind of the nation as the “ Source and Giver of all good ” in whom they lived and moved and had their being ; but it was " a shadow of the good things to come,” when God shall ultimately fulfil His promises to the fathers, that in Abraham and in his seed all nations of the earth should be blessed. “ Thy seed, which is Christ.” Christ speaks of the harvest and its joy. He is himself the antitypical " sheaf of the first-fruits, waved before the Lord the morrow after the Sabbath.” Speaking of his resurrection and the consequent making alive through him of all his people, Paul says : “ Every man in his own order, Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ’s, at his coming ” (1 Cor. xv.). Christ’s people at his coming then will constitute the anti-typical wave loaves, which, as God’s Melchizedek High-Priest, he will present in Jerusalem as an offering before the Lord.

Looking with compassion on the faint and shepherdless multitudes, he said to his disciples : “ The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few ; pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” He did this himself in sending forth the twelve (Luke vi. 12-13). They came upon the harvest field that had been ploughed and sown by others (Jno. iv. 35, 38). But they in turn became “ labourers ” in God’s field, and the Lord said to them : “He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal : that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.”

The time of this “ rejoicing together ” is introduced to us in Christ’s interpretation to the disciples of his parable of the tares among the wheat. He said : “ The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this age. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire ; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father ” (Matt. xiii. 39). This will bring Isaiah and all the prophets upon the scene again, and clear the field of the children of the devil of every type. Then “ they that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” For “ he that goeth forth weeping bear­ing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him ” (Psa. cxxvi. 5-6). The Lord Jesus is the kernel of it all, and he was the “ great light ” which, in fulfilment of the prophecy, made manifest this glorious consummation in Galilee nearly nineteen hundred years ago.

But the prophet said also of the nation in his vision of coming glory : “ They joy as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.” The rejoicing of the feast of harvest memorialised deliverance from Egyptian tyranny, and inheritance of the country of the enemies of

God : for “ He gave them the lands of the heathen and they inherited the labour of the people.” This was a great reversal of fortune for the oppressed and down-trodden people. The inheritance came only after long and severe discipline in the wilderness, in which the carcases of a vast multitude of unbelievers fell. After the weeding out, during forty years, of the unfaithful, the remnant went into the land, prominent in which were Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who “ wholly followed the Lord ” in peril of their lives. Joshua was elevated to leadership of the nation, and had the satis­faction of rejoicing with Caleb when they came into the land. Caleb was then an old man of eighty-five, but as strong as he was at forty, and very confident in God of his ability to clear the Anakim out of his inheritance, which he afterwards did, and inherited their cities. Hebron, one of the best remembered sites in Palestine, is the testimony of it to this day.

These things are the shadow of what is coming on a larger scale. Jesus is the antitypical Joshua who is to give the nation rest. He will come upon the kings of the earth as Joshua came upon the Canaanites, and particularly in the same country, and appropriate the spoil. Caleb and Joshua will then be made strong for ever with all who like them have “ wholly followed the Lord ” in the wilderness state, and will doubtless view with everlasting satisfaction the scenes of their old encounters in the long past days of their mortal life.

“ THE DAY OF MIDIAN.”

The reason of the rejoicing is further stated in verse 4. “ For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.” The visitation that is coming upon the latter-day enemies of Israel is to eclipse all previous experiences. So terrible will it be that men’s hearts are failing them for fear in the contemplation of the possibilities involved. They know not the purpose of God, but they know there are terrible times ahead. The “ scourge ” of the latter-day Assyrian is likened unto the “ slaughter of Midian at the rock of Oreb ” (Isa. x. 26).

The “ day of Midian,” in which 'Oreb, Zeeb, Zeba, and Zalmunna fell before Gideon, is described in the book of Judges, chapters vi. to viii. It is worth while looking back upon it carefully because of the similitude divinely said to exist between the breaking of the yoke of Midian in Gideon’s days, and that greater deliverance of the nation that is coming by Immanuel. We are told that Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and that he sold them into the hand of Midian seven years. When they cried unto God by reason of the affliction, He replied by a prophet that He had delivered Israel from Egypt with a mighty hand, and that they were now only suffering the results of their apostasy.

But, having pity upon Israel, He sent an angel to Gideon with the message, “ The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." Gideon, not at first recognising the angel, replied : Why, then, this trouble ? Where are the Lord’s miracles ? He has given Israel into Midian’s hand. Being commissioned to deliver Israel, he pleaded his poverty and incompetence ; but was assured of divine help, and as a sign, the bread and flesh of his offering were consumed by fire from a touch of the angel’s staff. On the angel’s departure he feared exceedingly, because he had " seen an angel of the Lord face to face.” “ And the Lord said unto him, Peace be unto thee ; fear not : thou shalt not die.” Upon this Gideon built there an altar, and called it “ Yalncch Shalom (Yahweh [saith] Peace) : a memorial of God’s purpose angelically declared, and a type of that Sar-Shalom—Prince of Peace, of whom Isaiah speaks, and through whom the final deliverance is to come.

Then God commanded him to destroy the altar of Baal and the grove, which he did by night. In the morning, when Baal's worshippers threatened his life, Joash, his father, saved him by the pertinent plea that they might let Baal avenge himself. When Moses cried to God against Korah and his company, God avenged Himself speedily. But so could not Baal. Then the Spirit came upon Gideon, and he gathered a host out of Zebulon and Naphtali and the adjacent countries where afterwards Christ ministered. ()n his craving yet another sign of the divine blessing, God granted him his request in the matter of the fleece, wet through one night while the ground was dry, and quite dry next night while the ground was wet. But the host which Gideon had gathered was far too great for God’s purpose, the explanation divinely given being, “ Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying mine own hand hath saved me.”

They were thinned down by peculiar processes : 22,000 “ fear­ful and afraid ” being first weeded out. Afterwards they were tried at the water. “ Three hundred men ” out of 10,000, in drinking put their hands to their mouths ; and “ by these,” said God, “ will I save you.” As a final encouragement to face a huge host with his three hundred, God caused him to hear the rehearsal of a dream by a Midianite, and the interpretation of it by another who listened to it, as God’s delivery of Midian into the hand of " Gideon, the son of Joash.” Thus strengthened, he worshipped, and arranged his three hundred in three companies round the host of Midian, with pitchers and lamps in them, and trumpets in their hands. In the night, at a given signal, there was a crashing of pitchers, and flashing of lights, and pealing of trumpets, and the terrible shout : “ The sword of the Lord and of Gideon ! ” A great panic from God took possession of Midian, and they slew each other in their madness; and the remnant fled. Israel guarded the fords of Jordan, and Oreb and Zeeb were slain by them, and afterwards Zeba and Zalmunna by Gideon and his “ faint yet pursuing ” three hundred. A great spoil was taken and Israel delivered.

Such was “ the day of Midian,” that was a picture on a small scale of what is coming under Christ. Attentive readers of the prophets will recognise in their foretellings the same salient features as pertain to the past deliverance. There is the spectacle of Israel in affliction because of apostasy—the angelic ministration to a mighty man of Israel of poor and humble extraction, whose offering was openly accepted by sign from heaven—the revival of the worship of Yahweh and the uprooting of idolatry—the delivery of Israel by a small and very select company, and apart from all human prowess, that the glory of God be not obscured—the panic from the Lord—and the slaughter of the kings, and the taking of the spoil. The prayer of Asaph (Psa. lxxxiii.) introduces this day of Midian (verse 11), and entreats that God will not keep silence, but confound the confederated enemies of the Lord, “ that men may know that thou, whose name is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth.”

This prayer will be answered when Christ is manifested upon earth in the character of a “ Man of war ” ; for “ when thy judg­ments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” Apart from divine judgments, men will never practically “ know ” that God is the “ most high over all the earth.” Christendom has most completely lost sight of the fact that it is as much a work of Christ to make war upon and prevail against the enemies of God, as to lay down his life in sacrifice— that he is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah just as really as he is the Lamb of God. Throughout the Scriptures this phase of the work of Christ is before us. The earliest intimation is that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head (Gen. iii.), a process that involves more disaster than befel the seed of the woman when bruised in the heel.

When Moses, on the further shore of the Red Sea, sang in his song of triumph : “ Yahweh is a Man of War,” he not only cele­brated the triumph over Pharaoh, but prophesied of the ultimate triumph of Christ over all his enemies (compare Rev. xv.). David, in his last words, spoke of Christ’s being pierced with a spear in Jerusalem, and afterwards destroying his enemies there (2 Sam. xxiii.). And in Psa. xlv., apostrophising the King, he says: “ Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O Mighty One, with thy glory and thy majesty ” ; which accords with the vision of the “ King of Kings,” in his war against the powers, given in Rev. xix. From end to end the Scriptures find place for this indispensable phase of the work of Christ; and it is only pious unbelief that excludes it, and prays (inconsistently enough, considering the “ determina­tion ” of God) :

“ God the all-merciful 1 Earth hath forsaken Thy ways of blessedness, slighted thy word :

Bid not thy wrath in its terrors awaken :

Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.”

God will give peace, truly, for which we may be thankful, but not before “ the terrors of His wrath ” have not only awakened, but wrought “ desolations " in the earth because of its wickedness, which is so explicitly admitted and defined in the verse above quoted.

The breaking of the yoke of Israel will be thorough ; and the “ battle of the warrior ” (“ the war of the great day of God Almighty ”) will be sore ;

“ For unto us a Child is Born.”

How few connect the ideas as they stand written in Isaiah by the spirit of God ! And yet nothing is more plainly revealed than that it is Christ’s especial work to deliver Israel, and that the participation by the Gentiles in their holy things is in the nature of an extension of the divine invitation to outsiders who “ were not a people.” There is much need in the days of Gentile complacency in Christendom, and the continuation of the scattering of Israel, to emphasise the “ unto us.” The matter belongs to Judah. “ Salvation is of the Jews,” as Christ said to the Samaritan woman, and Gentiles who participate must become Jews, ‘‘Abraham’s seed,” “ in Christ,” receiving the “ spirit of adoption ” in the belief and obedience of the truth in baptism, in which they partake of the “ circumcision made without hands,” and become “ heirs according to the promise,” and able by “ patient continuance in well doing ” to “ wait for the consolation of Israel ” which it is the province of Christ to bring.

Both the Jews and Christendom are away from the truth con­cerning the child of promise spoken of in this prophecy ; and the titles given him are misconstrued by Christendom in the endeavour to accommodate them to Trinitarian theology. When the Jews, in answer to the question of Jesus, responded that Messiah was the Son of David, he propounded to them the further question : “ How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord (Jehovah) saith unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool ? If David then called him Lord, how is he his son ? ” (Matt. xxi. 43). They could not answer this, because they did not perceive that the son of David was to be also the Son of God; and indignantly rejected the claims of Jesus, though attested by his miracles, by John the Baptist and the voice from 

heaven itself. They knew his proximate origin as they supposed, and could not look beyond or above the flesh.

Christendom has gone to the opposite extreme and transformed Jesus into the second person of the Trinity, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father who begat him ; regardless of the impossibility of co-eternity in a “ son,” and Jesus’ own express disavowal of co-equality. So regarding him, Christendom is forced into the most extravagant “ incomprehensibilities,” as when a hymn speaks of him as

“ Strong Creator, Saviour Mild,

Humbled to a mortal child,

Captive, beaten, bound, reviled.”

It regards him not as Immanuel (the manifestation of God in Israel) but as the manifestation of an eternally pre-existent Son, and points to some of his sayings, and to some of the prophecies concerning him, in support of the idea. But the fundamental teaching of Jesus concerning God, which is in harmony with Moses and the prophets, must be disregarded to sustain such an idea ; and the titles given in this prophecy lend no countenance to it :

“ The government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Take these seriatim :

“ Wonderful.”

Had we lived in the days of Isaiah, we could have had but a faint conception of how wonderful the Son of God and of David would prove to be. Standing as we do some two thousand six hundred years further on, when his name has been engraven on the earth for nearly nineteen hundred years, we are better enabled to comprehend the marvel of it ; though for the full appreciation of all that it portends, this mortal will have to be swallowed up of life.

Jesus was wonderful in origin, in relation to God and man, and in words and works that are yet only the earnest of greater wonders to come. In the following Scriptures the original word for wonderful ” is the same as that in Isaiah ix. 6, and they direct our attention to wonders that find illustration in Jesus. In Gen. xviii., the birth of Isaac was announced by the angel to Sarah, when

she was ninety years old, a matter so much out of the ordinary course of nature (v. 11, with Heb. xi. 11-12), that she could not help laughing. But God said by the angel, “ Is anything too hard (:wonderful) for the Lord ? ” And in course of time Isaac was born according to promise.

Accepting this record of the altogether miraculous origin of the nation, Israel ought not to find it impossible to receive the testimony concerning Jesus, for it was no harder for God to raise up a Son of God and Son of David by the operation of His spirit on a virgin of the house of David than it was to raise up Isaac to Abraham when he was “ as good as dead ” and his wife “ past age.” The personal “ Son of God ” has an origin as wonderful as that of the national, of whom God spoke to Pharaoh saying : “ Israel is my son—my firstborn : Let my son go.”

When Manoah was visited by an angel who told him of the approaching birth of Samson, being in ignorance of the nature of the “ man of God ” who instructed him, he said : “ What is thy name ? ” But the angel answered : “ Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is wonderful ? ” But the name of Jesus is above every name. Originally made ‘ ‘ a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, he has “ become so much better than the angels as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they ” (Heb. i.). He “ is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God ; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him ” (1 Pet. iii. 22). The excellence of his majesty is the theme of the opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the basis upon which rests the claim to “ earnest heed ” on the part of all those to whom the word of God comes by him.

His works were wonderful. A Psalm of Asaph (Psa. lxxv.) says : “ Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare.” This received superabundant illustration in Jesus, and he appeals to his works as proof that he was indeed Immanuel: God manifested in the midst of Israel. He says : “ If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father ” (Jno. xv. 24). One of his wonderful works was the blinding of disobedient Israel (Isa.

xxix. 14, with John ix. 39), a work inconsistent with the artificial views that are current concerning him. The coming enlightenment of the nation will be wonderful, and will be preceded by the “ marvel ” of the resurrection of the dead and the bestowal upon his friends of eternal life by the power and authority given him by the Father (Jno. v. 20-30). His name is well called “ Wonderful.” 1

“ Counsellor.”

This is the next on the list of titles, bestowed beforehand by the Spirit of God in the prophet upon the Son promised to the house of David. The root idea of the verb whence the term is derived is counsel, advice, instruction, direction. How necessary a thing is this in all human affairs. What is action without counsel, but a mere drift to chaos and death. " Every purpose is established by counsel, and with good advice make war ” (Prov. xx. 18). And whence but from God can counsel come ? “ O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself : it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” So Jeremiah confessed (ch. x. 23), and so will everyone who attains to anything like a due appreciation of man’s estate. The generations of the race come upon the scene in help­lessness and ignorance. From the cradle to the grave they stand in need of counsel. They get a little of a low type, by means of which they get through the days of their vanity with more or less discomfort. But with regard to the “ counsel of God ” they are for the most part hopelessly ignorant, and therefore depart in sorrow to the oblivion of the grave. This is not a more pessimistic presentation of affairs than that of the Apostle John (1 Jno. ii. 16-17).

Trace back the history of those fleeting generations. Whence came counsel at the first ? “ It is not in man.” It never was “ in man ” innately. Yet it has come. The Bible says from God ; and there is no other explanation that will stand for a moment. It is not the place to discuss objections. With the prophets in their ministry this was an axiom never to be disturbed, and our concern is only to exhibit the fact, and the developments in the divine purpose in Christ to our own day, and with regard to the perfect day beyond. It is not without reason that the Psalmist, praying for the promised 

intervention of God in judgment, says : “ Understand, ye brutish among the people, and ye fools, when will ye be wise ? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? he that formed the eye, shall he not see ? he that chasteneth the heathen, shall not he correct ? he that teacheth man knowledge, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity ” (Psa. xciv.). “ With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding ” (Job xii. 13). He affirms it of Himself in protest against Israel’s apostasy from Him :—

“ Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance ? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him ? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding ? ” (Isa. xl. 12-14). His vast and glorious designs in creation are before us and He has given Israel many proofs that He is indeed “ the Creator and Possessor of heaven and earth.” If we reject His testimony we cut ourselves off from “ counsel ” and life, and are left without any adequate explanation of things as they exist. But let not that be our attitude, but rather that of Paul, who, lost in admiration of the work of God in Israel, and making quotation of this passage in Rom. xi., concludes, “ For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory for ever, Amen.”

God at the first then “ taught man knowledge,” instructing him concerning the creation of which he was the crowning feature on earth, and concerning the way in which he was to walk before his Maker. Our first parents were to dress and keep the garden of Eden, and to observe the commandment (suited to their circum­stances), that forbade the eating of a certain tree. This was the “ whole counsel of God ” with respect to man at that stage. The entrance of sin altered all things. It came through the rejection of the counsel of God, and the imputation to Him of ignorance and falsity, which originating with the serpent, was practically adopted by Eve, and be Adam after her, with such disastrous effects. In the eyes of the wise of this world, this of course seems a mere childish legend of a benighted antiquity. But to make it appear so, they really have to argue that Christ was an ignorant enthusiast, which no sane man would do. His title “ Counsellor ” is directly related to God’s purpose to put away the death that entered the world by the sin of Adam and Eve ; and all his references to the subject of the beginnings of sin and death are in absolute harmony with the Mosaic record which he so unreservedly acknowledged as divine, and a part of the Scriptures which he says “ cannot he broken.”

Having sinned, Adam and Eve took counsel between themselves and covered their nakedness with a device of fig-leaves. But God rejected this, and substituted “ coats of skins,” which, necessitating the slaying of animals for their provision, brought a representation of death before them as the wages of sin, and the necessarv portion of the “ Counsellor,” who, as the “ seed of the woman,” should after­wards bruise the serpent’s head, and take away sin and death from the earth. Thenceforward the counsel of God in its direction of human affairs towards the goal of His purpose, as the first of its first principles kept this fact to the front : that “ the wages of sin is death,” and that according to divine appointment “ without shedding of blood there is no remission,” no effectual covering for sin apart from the recognition of God’s insulted majestv, and the humblest submission to His merciful provisions for reinstatement.

In harmony with these reflections is the history of the accepted offering of Abel (“ the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof ”); and the rejected offering of Cain (“ the fruit of the ground ”). The comment of Paul in Heb. xi. is that Abel’s was “ by faith . .                                                                                .

a more excellent sacrifice ” than that of Cain, whose faith did not take hold of God’s promise and instruction. Later on, all flesh corrupted God’s way on earth, and He destroyed the world by the flood, reserving only a remnant in which to preserve His purpose for the future. In the lives of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the purpose concerning Christ becomes more clearly defined, and they all looked for “ the seed ” who should be “ seed of the woman,” “ seed of Abraham,” son of God, offered in sacrifice as Isaac was in figure, raised from the dead likewise as he was sym­bolically, and who should “ possess the gate of his enemies,” and with Abraham inherit the land for ever. “ Your father Abraham,” said God’s “ Counsellor ” to Israel, “ rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” He perceived that the eternal inherit­ance pertained to the then far distant future, and accepted his position as a stranger and a pilgrim, looking for “a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

Under the Mosaic economy, the divinely-appointed ritual con­tained a central and crowning place for the representation of God’s purpose in the “ Counsellor ” of His promise and providing. God at the first proclaimed His covenant with Israel in the terrible trumpet voice that sounded the " ten commandments ” from Mount Sinai trembling and cloud-enveloped, amid the thunder and lightning that accompanied the divine presence. But “ he added no more,” and Moses alone was bidden to draw near, that God might commune with him “ face to face.” In this, Moses, the mediator of the Old Covenant, was a type of Jesus, the mediator of the New ; God’s “ counsellor,” who, having “ engaged his heart to approach,” has been caused to “ draw near ” unto God as the “ Governor ” of Israel, presently to return (Jer. xxx. 21). But there was to be a special place and method about the approaches to God even of Moses ; for God directed him to make the tabernacle in the wilderness and made provision for the mercy-seat with the over-shadowing “ Cherubim of Glory ” on the lid of the ark of covenant, as a place of counsel from the Most High to Israel. The specification in Ex. xxv. concludes with these words : “ There will I meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim, which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which 1 will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.”

The “ communing ” was not to be of the kind that passes between man and man, as the discussion of possibly opposing judgments on a matter, one or both of which may be wrong, or more or less open to question. It was the speaking of the word of “ command ” to Israel. All the “ counsel ” of God is of this character and cannot be rejected without death as a consequence. Because sentence against evil works is deferred (the purpose of God requiring the free play of human will for the manifestation of that pleasing and precious thing, an unconstrained obedience arising out of faith that worketh by love)—because of this, human discernments are dull in this direction, and as has been well said, if men do not often go to the length of saying “ there is no God ” ; they for the most part act as if there were none. If they knew the Scriptures and the power of God, they would be saved from so fatal a mistake.

Apostolic exposition by the Spirit of God connects Christ with the Mercy-seat-throne of God in Israel as the substance of the shadow there outlined. Paul speaks of Jesus “ whom God hath sent forth to be a propitiation, literally “ mercy-seat,” through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God .        .           . that he (God) might be just, and the justifier of him

which believeth in Jesus ” (Rom. iii. 26). In Christ then, as from “ above the mercy-seat,” and as through the antitypical High Priest of Israel, God communicates His counsel or command­ments concerning “ the children of Israel ” who axe not only taken from among the Jews, but also from among the Gentiles by “ faith in his blood.”

“ Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety ” (Prov. xi. 14). The last half of this proverb is commonly quoted alone, and the idea is thus obscured, it it be not lost altogether. It is often put as though the safety lay in the “ multitude ” and not so much in the fact that they are “ counsellors.” One “ counsellor ” is worth a multitude who cannot be thus defined, and God’s standard in Christ being taken, the “ multitude ” of such has in any age of the world’s history been small indeed. The glory of the age to come will be Christ as “ counsellor ” for God over all the earth and a multitude like him subordinate to him, freed from the weaknesses and inefficiencies of the flesh, and made gloriously competent with him to advise, instruct and direct the world’s affairs to the glory of God the Father. In the guidance of such there will indeed be “ safety,” as it is written : “ The Lord is exalted; for he dwelleth on high : He hath filled Zion with judgment and righteousness. And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of 

salvation : the fear of the Lord is his treasure ” (Isa. xxxiii. 6). In the hope of this the Psalmist exulted, notwithstanding the prosperity of the ungodly meanwhile. “ Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterwards receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth ; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever ” (Psa. lxxiii. 24).

From the preservation to our day of the divinely given and preserved records of the life and work of Christ, we are enabled to see for ourselves what was meant when it was said by Isaiah that his name should be the “ Counsellor.” Begotten by the spirit of God of a virgin of the house of David, he was filled therewith in harmony with the prophecy which said : “ The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord ; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord”

He was introduced to Israel at his baptism with the direct approval from heaven of the Father Himself. “ This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” On the Mount of Transfiguration he was similarly divinely accredited to Peter, James and John by the voice from the overshadowing cloud : “ This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him.” And the Father bore witness to him in “works that none other man did; ” while the word of his “ counsel ’’ overawed even the officials whom an offended and jealous priesthood sent to apprehend him. “ Never man spake like this man,” said they, and having his words preserved, we cannot but perceive the truth of their remark. The greatness of the difference between his style of counsel and that of his contemporaries in Israel appears well in the record that tells us that at the end of the “ Sermon on the Mount ” the people were astonished, “for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the Scribes.” This was in harmony with the Mosaic type in the divine voice from the mercy-seat which communicated through the High Priest “ the commandment of the Lord ” for Israel.

The Sermon on the Mount contains many illustrations of this “ authority.” “ Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time ” (thus and so), “ but I say unto you,” is a form of speech more than once repeated, and making more searching application of the commandments (verses 21, 28, 33) than had hitherto been made in Israel; in harmony with his declaration : “I am not come to destroy (the law or the prophets), but to fulfil.” “ The Word was made flesh,” says John, “ and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” This grace and truth finds expression in all the records of his life and work, whether it be the assertion of his divine authority, the turning of the situation upon his enemies in controversy with a word, the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom, the healing of the sick, the forgiveness of sins, or the comforting of his disciples as he went forward steadfastly to death upon the cross.

Take for examples of his counsel some of his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. He proclaimed blessedness upon the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the hungerers and thirsters after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. He exhorted men to be perfect, as the Father in heaven is perfect ; to seek first the kingdom of God ; to enter in at the strait gate that leadeth to life ; to beware of false prophets ; not only to hear but to do his sayings, that they might stand in the day' of judgment. He counselled them to forgive to the uttermost ; to submit to any form of self-denial rather than lose life eternal. His counsel was rejected by the bulk of the nation, but a few chosen ones gave heed ; and he thanked the Father that His purpose was hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. He said : "All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father ; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy' laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto vour souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light ” (Matt", xi. 27).

The practical application of this merciful counsel of God is found in the ministrations of the men of Christ’s appointment according to his express commandment. He chose his apostles and equipped them, as counsellors under him, saying : “I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.” And again : “ When they deliver you up (to governors and kings), take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak ; but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” And so they went forth preaching Christ crucified, and that men might come ujito him for salvation in belief of the gospel of the Kingdom, and baptism thereupon into his name, and the taking of his yoke upon them in the obedience of his commandments, which, though it would bring them present persecution, was “easy ” by- comparison with the bondage of sin which ended in death.

The Apostolic allusions to Christ illustrate Isaiah’s prophecy of the “ Counsellor.” Paul says that “ of God he is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption ” (1 Cor. i. 30) ; and that " in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ” (Col. ii. 3). If it is not yet obvious to all the world, it is because the purpose of God requires the toleration of a time of evil for the development of His people.

In the book of Revelation, Christ presents himself as the “ Counsellor,” according to whose penetrating discernment the whole course of human affairs is being directed from behind the veil. The introduction represents him as “ the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead.” With regard to the affairs of his own people in the world, the seven epistles to the seven churches of Asia are eloquent. " I know thy works,” saith he to each of them, and he rebukes shortcomings and sins, commends steadfast faithfulness, and exhorts to repentance where necessary. Even to the Laodiceans he says: “ I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich ; and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed ; and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear ; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayest see.” The faith of Christ, the righteousness of obedience to him, clearness of mental vision through the application of the word of Christ, are the precious things signified. To this community he tontinues : “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten : be zealous therefore and repent.

Behold I stand at the door and knock : if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” The last clause (appended likewise to all the other epistles), brings the counsel down to our own time, though the Lord is absent.

But not only, or chiefly, in the days of his flesh and during the time of his absence from the earth is he the “ Counsellor.” The crowning manifestation is to come, as the prophets testify. “ I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning , afterwards thou shalt be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city ” (Isa. i. 26); “ Behold the man whose name is the Branch ; he shall grow up out of his place and he shall build the temple of the Lord Even 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, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both ’’ (Zech. vi. 12). God has given the earth into the hands of Jesus as His “ Counsellor.” Just as surely as he suffered in Jeru­salem, so will he reign there, surrounded by the “ counsellors ” of his own choice and development. The wisdom and glory of Solo­mon’s peaceful reign was but a shadow of what is coming under Christ when, as God’s Melchizedek High Priest, he rules the world with righteousness. Meanwhile a faithless world groans and travails in vain endeavours for peace, while rejecting the instruction of the “ Counsellor ” and pronouncing his rules of action impossible and impracticable. But, as Paul said of the Jews : “ Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect. ' By no means. “ What though all the world resist Him, God will realise His plan.”

“ The Mighty God.”

“ The Mighty God ” was to be one of the titles borne by the virgin’s son who, centuries after Isaiah’s day, was to be the mani­festation of God in Israel—Immanuel, God with us.

In the ocean of controversy and strife that rolls round his

Name, according to his express prophecy, we are safe only in holding fast by his own exposition of the things of God. The root of it all is his doctrine of the Unity and Supremacy of the Father : “ The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart ” (Mar. xii. 29). Mosaic, prophetic and Messianic teaching all agree in this first principle of all things ; and the Scriptures can never be successfully accommodated to a Trinitarian exegesis that utterly rejects it.

The words of Jesus, above quoted, are from Moses : “ Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord ” (Deut. vi. 4). Speaking prophetically of Jesus, the “ mighty God ” of Isa. ix. 6, Moses said : “ The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee like unto me.” And, quoting the word of the Eternal concerning that prophet : "I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I command him. And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him ” (Deut. xviii. 15). Here then “ the Lord thy God ” raises up, inspires, and commands “ the mighty God ” of subsequent prophetic allusion. This is in harmony with the teaching of Jesus as we shall see ; but is quite irreconcilable with Trinitarian “ incomprehensibilities ” of co-equality and co-eternity.

The prophets, by whom God spoke by His spirit as He did by Moses, agree with Moses in the proclamation of the unity and unapproachable majesty of God. “ I am Yahweh ; that is my name ; and my glory will I not give to another ” (Isa. xlii. 8). “ I, even I, am Yahweh, and beside me there is no Saviour ” (xliii. 11). “ Is there a God beside me ? Yea, there is no rock (power), I know not any ” (xliv. 8). “I am Yahweh, and there is none else, there is no God beside me ” (xlv. 5). These are some examples of the way in which the unity and supremacy of the Eternal Father were enforced on Israel by the prophets, in protest against their apostasy and idolatry. Many others could be given. The apostles, after Jesus, taught the same things concerning the Father and the Son. “ There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ

Jesus ” (I Tim. ii. 5). “ The Blessed and only Potentate ” (1 Tim. vi. 16). “ To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him : and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him ” (1 Cor. viii. 6). Our interpretation of the names and titles of Christ must harmonise with these clear and unmistakeable exhibitions of the truth con­cerning God.

When the “ prophet like unto Moses ” was raised up by God in Israel, he spoke the words and did the works of the Father, as had been foretold. This often involved him in controversy with his countrymen as to his divine origin and mission, which he defined in terms that were above the comprehension of fleshly animosity ; and proved, not only by works of power, but by unanswerable scriptural argument, which they could only seek to silence in procuring his death. A notable instance was that in which he took occasion of the presence of a blind man to proclaim himself the light of the world, to open the man’s eyes, and convict the Pharisees of wilful blindness and sin. He declared himself to be the door of the sheep- fold, and the good shepherd who would lay down his life for the sheep, according to the “ commandment received of the Father.” His extraordinary words, backed up by the miracle, produced a great effect upon those who were independent of the Pharisees ; and a sharp controversy ensued. It culminated, in Solomon’s porch of the temple, in an attempt on the part of the Jews to stone him because of his doctrine concerning his relations to the Father. But as they stood there, with stones for arguments, he said : “ Many good works have I showed you from the Father ; for which of these works do ye stone me?” They answered, “ For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy ; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” But he answered : “ Is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods ? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God. If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works : that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him ” (Jno. x.).

So then “ being a man ” he could nevertheless be called “ god ” ; especially as the Father was “ in him ” and had “ sanctified and sent him into the world.” The eighty-second Psalm, from which Jesus made this quotation, is very enlightening when considered with reference to the “ mighty God ” of Isa. ix„ his controversy with the unjust judges of Israel, and the ultimate establishment of his kingdom with “ judgment and justice for ever.” It runs as follows :

God standeth in the congregation of the mighty ; he judgeth among the gods. How long will ye judge unjustly (Jno. viii. 15), and accept the persons of the wicked ? (Jno. vii. 48 : v. 43). Defend the poor and fatherless : do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy : rid them out of the hand of the wicked (Matt, xxiii. 14). They know not, neither will they understand ; they walk on in darkness : all the foundations of the earth are out of course (1 Jno.ii. 11 ; Ps.xi.3). I have said ye are gods ; and all of you are children of the most High (Jno. x. 34). But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for Thou shalt inherit all nations (Isa. ix. 5 ; Heb. i. 8 ; Jno. viii. 26 ; Rev. xi. 15).

The interpolated references indicate the application of the psalm to the time when Immanuel rebuked the apostasy of the “ gods,” and declared that they should die in their sins for rejecting him (Jno. viii. 21), and also to the terrible time when they shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of God, and they themselves thrust out (Luke xiii. 28).

But the English reader of the Bible, to whom the term “ God ’ almost of necessity conveys the idea of the Uncreate Father, is at a disadvantage in comprehending the import of the prophecy of Isa. ix. 6. The title under consideration is El Gibbor, Mighty God, and the understanding of it will be greatly helped by the following extract from Dr. Thomas’ valuable exposition entitled Phanerosis, in which the subject of God-manifestation is dealt with in a thorough and exhaustive manner.

“ The names of God which occur in the Bible are not arbitrary- sounds ; and one of the chief imperfections of the English Authorised translation, or rather version, is the slovenly manner in which all the names by which God has been pleased to make Himself known to His people, have been rendered after the fashion of the Septuagint, by the two words Lord and God.

“ These words do not convey the ideas of the Spirit in its use of terms. Lord is of Saxon origin, and signifies monarch, ruler, governor, something supreme or distinguished. The word to which it answers in the Septuagint and New Testament is Kvpiot, Kyrios.” The Doctor then quotes Parkhurst’s comments on this word, which he considered to convey the idea of self-existence, and continues : “ But it this be the radical idea of Kvpwc it fails to represent the meaning of Ail, Eloah, Elohim, Shaddai, Yahweh, for all of which it is often, or rather most frequently and almost generally used. The word Adon is properly enough rendered Lord, or Kupioc in the singular but not the other words, for which it should never be used. Elohim, Shaddai, and Adonai, are plural names of Deity, and require terms of the same number to express them.

“ The common use of God in the English language, is as little justifiable as that of the word Lord. “ God ” in Saxon signifies good ; a meaning which cannot possibly be extracted from any of the names recited above. God is indeed good, exclusively so, as we are taught by Jesus himself while in the mortal state. In this sense he refused to appropriate the word good, saying to one who styled him so, “ Why callest thou me good ? No one is good, except one, that is God ” (Matt. xix. 17). Jesus was free from personal transgression, and therefore in character good; as he did not refer to character, he could only have had reference to nature, or to God as substance. He is good in the sense of being deathless, or incorruptibility itself; which, when Jesus refused the term, did not define the nature the Spirit was tabernacling in, and was encumbered with. “ In me, that is in my flesh,” says Paul, “ dwells no good thing.” God, then, whether in the sense of moral or material goodness, while it is a term expressive of the truth, is not a translation of any of the words before us; and where used in their stead, leaves the mind in the dark concerning the things they were intended to convey.”

“ To Melchizedek and Abram the alone Good One was known as Ail Elyon, Most High Ail, which teaches by implication that there were Ailim of inferior rank, station, and power. Melchize­dek, King of Jerusalem, was the priest of the Highest Ail, whom he understood and proclaimed to be Possessor of the Heavens and

Earth. In Gen. xiv. 22, Abram is made by transcribers to call the Most High Ail by the by name Yahweh ; though we are expressly told, in Ex. vi. 3, that Abraham did not know him by that name. He knew Ail, and he knew Shaddai ; but with any superior or divine being of the name Yahweh, he had no acquaintance. .  .    . The use of the word Yahweh is evidence

that Genesis was compiled at least 430 years after the events of chap, xv.”

“ As often as the word Ail (now generally transliterated El— C.C.W.) passed before Abram’s mind, the idea of Power, might, strength, would stand out in bold relief. ‘ It always,’ says Gesenius, ‘ presented to the Hebrews the idea of strength and power.’ Nebuchadnezzar is styled in Ezek. xxxi. 11, Ail Goyim, the Mighty One of the Nations ; and in Isa. ix. 6, Messiah is termed Ail Gibbor.”

Other illustrations of the use of the term Ail or El are given by Dr. Thomas, but these will be sufficient to show that the Trinitarian doctrine is absolutely unsupported by the phrase “ Mighty God ” of Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Christ. It is part of the misery of “ the times of the Gentiles ” and the prevalence of an apostate Christianity, to have even to appear to belittle the greatness of Christ in preserving the truth concerning him from the distortions of a system that confuses us while thinking to honour him. The marvel is that God should raise up in the House of David a man who could bear such titles, in seeing whom Israel should see the Father, so far as that was possible in flesh and blood. But it is not honouring Christ to attribute to him an underived power and excellence which he himself emphatically repudiates. He is “ the King of Glory ; ” but it is of the Father’s appointment. He is the “ mighty one ” {gibbor), Psa. xlv. who rides prosperously with glory and majesty because of truth and meekness and righteousness ; but it is the Father who anoints him and decrees the everlasting stability of his throne : “ Unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever, a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows ” (Heb. i. 8-9). He is the “ mighty one ” upon whom God “ laid help,” and whom He has made His “ firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth ” (Psa. lxxxix. 19, 27), to whom, though Israel now rejects him, as for ages past they have done, the remnant shall at last return, as Isaiah foretells: “ The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob unto the Mighty God ” (El Gibbor) (Isa. x. 21).

“ The Everlasting Father.”

This rendering in the Authorised Version involves a contradic­tion in terms. If the term “ everlasting ” be understood to convey the idea of time without beginning, it is obvious that it cannot be applied either to “ Father ” or “ Son.” “ Father ” of necessity implies priority and fountain of origin, and therefore a time when fatherhood was not affirmable. “ Son ” likewise always expresses the idea of emanation, of secondary and derived existence. Even Trinitarianism is compelled to describe Christ as the “ Second Person ; ” and if “ second,” how “ the Everlasting Father ? ”

But these words do not convey the true meaning of the title Avi Ad, which is more correctly rendered in the margin of the Revised Version : “ Father of Eternity.” This dropping of the definite article, and substitution of a noun for an adjective, favours the clearing away of Trinitarian fog, and leaves us free to enquire of the Scripture in what sense the Son of David and Son of God is described as “ Father of Eternity.” Scriptural usage alone can satisfy us as to the mind of God in the matter. His ways are higher than ours, and His thoughts than our thoughts, and consequently His modes of speech are proportionately difficult of comprehension by flesh and blood, which is only too prone to lean on its own understanding and thus to become foolish.

Looking through the Scriptures for light on the subject, we discover that Joseph, who was a type of Jesus, in that he was sold by his brethren, and nevertheless in his afflictions went before them to preserve their lives, was made a father to Pharaoh and to Egypt through the divine overruling of those very sufferings. In the dramatic climax in which he made himself known to his brethren he said : “ It was not you that sent me hither, but God : and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt ” (Gen. xlv. 8). By the revelation of God concerning the years of plenty and the subsequent years of famine, and his wise action in storage of grain, he bought all Egypt for Pharaoh, and became a father and saviour to the nation. This is an illustration of possibilities in connection with the future work of Christ, who even in the days of his flesh could multiply bread miraculously. “All that a man hath will he give for his life.” If heaven’s supplies were stopped for a little while, save through Christ, all the earth would fall into his hands at once. Of course it is revealed that he will subdue the earth by conquest, but the foregoing reflection is not out of harmony with the foretold with­holding of rain from any who neglect to come up to Jerusalem to the feast of tabernacles in the age to come (Zech. xiv. 17).

Elijah the prophet was a father in Israel. When he ascended to heaven, Elisha, who saw it, cried out : “ My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” Afterwards Elisha himself was similarly apostrophised on his death bed by Joash, King of Israel. He wept over the dying prophet, saying, “ O my Father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” And Elisha gave him a parting sign of coming deliverance from Syria, and was angry at the dulness of Joash’s perception when he smote on the ground only thrice after shooting “ the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance ” (2 Kings xiii.). Of Elijah and Elisha, Israel and the world will hear again by-and-bye; but, though their works were wonderful, greater than either will be Jesus (Avi Ad, Father of Eternity), to whose decease Elijah looked forward on the Mount of Transfiguration as the one great sacrifice, foretold by Moses and the prophets, which, involving the resurrection to eternal life of the righteous victim, should open the way for the immortal and glorious “regeneration” in which “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets ” shall be seen shining forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father.

Isaiah, in a later prophecy, represents Messiah as the Father of the Age to come. In the twenty-second chapter, by the decree for the degradation of Shebna, and exaltation of Eliakim, his successor, he foreshows the same everlasting kingdom of Christ 

upon the throne of David as is the matter of assurance in chapter nine. After denouncing Shebna, the word of God con­tinues (Isa. xxii. 20) : “And it shall come to pass in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah : and I will clothe him with thy robe and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand : and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder ; so he shall open and none shall shut, and he shall shut and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place ; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons. In that day, saith the Lord of Hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off, for the Lord hath spoken it.”

For a detailed exposition of this prophecy, the reader is referred to Eureka, vol. 1, page 375 and onwards. For present purposes it will suffice to note that its terms are appropriated by Jesus in Rev. iii., where he present himself as “ he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth ; and shutteth and no man openeth.” And we remember his gracious promise to his disciples concerning the “Father’s house of many mansions” (Jno. xiv.), and his words in prayer concerning the glory bestowed on him by the Father, which he would in turn bestow upon the men the Father had given him (John xvii. 22, 9). A study of this prophecy in the light of the gospel of the Kingdom, in connection with Christ’s past and future relation to Jerusalem, will make very clear the meaning of the phrase Avi Ad of Isaiah ix. 6.

Even under the old constitution the King of Israel was considered as the father of the nation. Even Saul was so addressed by David (2 Sam. xxiv. 11). How much more Immanuel in his day. Even in the days of his flesh he would have been “ a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” but they would not receive him. But in the day of his power they will be willing, as is foretold (Psa. cx.). It was necessary that he should first be “ cut off ” as the prophets testify ; but the condemnation of sin in the flesh having been accomplished in his cutting off, he was raised from the dead for his righteousness sake, and henceforth awaits the satisfaction of seeing his seed, “ the offspring and the issue ” (Isa. liii. 10: xxii. 24), and the “ small and great ” vessels of the “ great house ” of the Father gathered into their destined places (Rev. xi. 18; Isa. xxii. 24 ; Jno. xiv.; 2 Tim. ii. 20).

Contrast as well as comparison helps to the understanding of the coming glory of the Fatherhood of Christ. Christendom is full of “ fathers ” and “ patriarchs ” owning allegiance for the most part to two chief “ fathers ” of this present evil world : the “ Holy Father ” of Rome, as the Pope is blasphemously styled, and the Czar as head and “ father ” of the Russian Greek Church. “ Peter the Great,” we are told, “ in 1721 suppressed the Patriarchate of Moscow and invested himself with the supreme headship of the Russian Greek Church.” The present-day treatment of Jews and dissenters by the Russian Holy Synod, and the Papal enormities of many centuries past are the fruits of the fatherhood of Czars and Popes. The Czar, as a first principle of his creed, rejects the notion of the Papal supremacy, which the Pope of course as strenuously, but now quite impotently, maintains. But at the end, the prophets show us that a kind of Herod and Pilate agreement is arrived at between them in the endeavour to get rid of the yoke of the true World-father of God’s appointment. Imagine them both cut off, and their ignorant and blood-thirsty hierarchies destroyed in all the countries of their occupation, and substituted by the immortal “kings and priests ” of Christ’s appointment, owning rejoicing allegiance to him enthroned in Jerusalem, and we see something of the picture that is before us in the title “ Father of Eternity.”

With regard to the “ Eternity ” spoken of in the phrase Avi Ad, the Gospel of the Kingdom tells us that Messiah’s times have a division marked by the cessation of sin and death from the earth. The Kingdom of God in its primary stage : the admin­istration of immortal rulers over mortal populations, is revealed to endure for a thousand years (Rev. xx.).                                          “ Then cometh the end,” says Paul, when Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father, and God shall be all and in all. This division of the time to come into two ages with these differing characteristics, is expressed in the Old Testament scriptures by the phrase olam-va-ed, the olam and beyond.

Dr. Thomas, in Eureka, i., pp. 122-134, has some excellent remarks in exposition of this subject, under the sectional heading of “ For ever and ever.” The perusal of them in connection with this prophecy will be found very enlightening. Christ is “ Father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” and to the world at large in the Millennium; but his position of supremacy as the “Author of eternal salvation,” does not then pass out of view, though the kingdom be delivered up to the Father ; but continues manifest in the perfect age beyond. “ The noun ad,’’ says a concordance, “ only occurs eight times; it is twice rendered everlasting (Isa.

9. 6 ; Hab. iii. 6) ; once eternity (Isa. lvii. 15) ; once it is used with olam and ad olemai ad is translated ‘ world without end ’ (Isa. xlv. 17).” A consultation of these passages will show that the marginal rendering of the Revised Version is the correct one. and more in harmony with the things revealed concerning the reign of Christ on earth. Moses said in Ex. xv. 18 : “ The Lord shall reign for ever and ever ” (leolam va ed) ; and in Psa. xlv. 6, the Spirit says of Christ : “ Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ” (olamva ed). He is, therefore, Avi Ad, Father of Eternity : Earth’s Possessor and Governor when it shall have passed into the perfect state designed beforehand by the Eternal Creator, “ Possessor of the Heavens and Earth.”

“ Prince of Peace.”

“ Prince of Peace ” is the concluding title of Messiah in Isaiah’s ninth chapter. The nature and scope of the description is, of course, to be sought in the context and in the revealed purpose of God in general, and is not ascertainable in the inter­pretations of a Christianity that has lost sight of so much concerning Christ. It is obvious from even a superficial reading of the context that the peace contemplated by the prophet is connected with the breaking of the yoke of Israel’s bondage, and the overshadowing of all human dominion by the throne and kingdom of David in the divine hands of the bearer of the title. But in view of the prevailing dearth of knowledge concerning this great development, and the imminence of the crisis, as manifest from the movements of the times, it may be well to take a comprehensive survey of the situation with a view of preserving clear ideas concerning the “ work before ” the Lord Jesus at his coming.

“ To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” So says Solomon, and among other things he instances, “ a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up ; ... a time of war and a time of peace.” Failure to recognise this will land us in distress and confusion. There are not wanting those who point to the present warlike and evil condition of the world ; and sneer at Christ’s claims to be “ Prince of Peace.” Folly and shallowness could scarcely go further. They need to be reminded that children and fools should not attempt to judge unfinished work. If this were the end of the chapter, the objectors would have to be reckoned with, but it is not so ; but only that initial stage, in which Christ’s own words of so opposite an import find striking fulfilment. “ Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”

The enemies of Christ take note of this, and ignorantly contrast it with the title “ Prince of Peace.’ The friends of Christ simply respond : “A time for everything ” : “ Judge nothing before the time.” Had there been no “ sword ” and “ variance ” because of Christ, there would have been a lack of harmony between history and his prophecy, though even then a wise man would have said, in view of all the past : “ It will be sure to come, we can wait and see.” But “ sword ” and “ variance ” have never been lacking concerning him since he uttered the words, and he is, therefore, true. But to make this a difficulty concerning a declared time of peace in an age then far future, is a blunder indeed.

Nothing can be clearer than the fact that the Peace of Messiah’s bringing about and maintaining was defined by all the prophets as a matter far remote from their days, and always associated with his latter-day deliverance and resuscitation of the nation of Israel. “ In his days shall the righteous flourish ; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth ” (Psa. Ixxii. 7). “ Lord, thou hast been favour­able unto thy land ; thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob .            .           . His salvation is nigh them that fear him ; that

glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together ; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth ; and righteousness shall look down from heaven ” (Psa. lxxxv. 1, 9-11). “ The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim : afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king ; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days ” (Hosea iii. 4-5). If there were not before our eyes the nation of Israel having abode “ many days ” desolate as foretold, there might be some excuse for doubting the prophets ; but as it is there is none ; and it has simply to be replied to objectors and perverters of the word : “ These are merely the last days of ‘ sword ’ and ‘ variance ’ and headless and exiled Israel. ' His days of peace are coming.’ ”

What would be thought of an arithmetician who should attempt the solution of an involved and abstruse calculation by first ignoring the existence and function of the number one ? He would be accounted mad. The world is in some such case in attempting the solution of so deep rooted, involved, and delicate a matter as its peace-problem without regard to its Creator and Possessor. The will of God is the very first “ factor ” in the case. The written expression of it is with us in the Bible, which exhibits satisfactorily the root and origin of all earth’s woes, and the divinely appointed means of reconciliation and healing. The real reason of the lack of peace on earth is found in Eden. There are those who profess admiration for Christ and smile scornfully at the childish legends of Genesis. But they cannot consistently do this. You cannot have Christ and reject Genesis, for he endorsed Genesis ; naming nearly all the details over which scepticism stumbles, as the flood, Lot’s wife, etc. We look back on Genesis in confidence under Christ's guidance. Why should we not ? What is the world but so many hundred millions of mortals, scarcely one of whom was in existence a hundred years ago ? “ Who art thou that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass ; and forgettest the Lord, thy maker ? ” Let us not be deterred from full confidence in the word of God.

We look back. We see Adam and Eve, our first parents, at perfect peace with God in a a fruitful garden, in unclouded innocence, delighting before God in the dominion He had given them over the creation of His hand. We see sin enter, and all is changed. Fear, shame, suffering and death are introduced, and to this day continue to be the natural portion of the race. But it is peace we are particularly contemplating. God “ put enmity ” in the beginning between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman ; a sentence that finds illustration in the enmity existing between Jesus and the “ generation of vipers ” that withstood him and at last compassed his death. The earliest illustration recorded in Genesis is the murder of Abel by Cain. The acceptance of Abel s offering by God, coupled with the rejection of his own, stirred Cain’s resentment, and he slew him. “ And wherefore slew he him ? asks John, “ Because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous.” Enmity, then, between the righteous and the wicked is the express and unalterable appointment of God: (“ There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked ”), and will never cease from the earth until wickedness and the wicked come to an end. “ Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. .                                                                . .

Whence come wars and fightings among you ? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members ? ” So James speaks.

But the world, based, as John says, all of it, upon “ the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” thinks notwithstanding to secure peace apart from the “ wisdom that cometh from above." But in vain ; the purpose of God will stand, and the world will not know peace apart from the primary enforce­ment of purity at the hands of him whom God has appointed " Prince of Peace.” Nearly six thousand years of wars and fightings have elapsed since the days of Adam in Eden, and more terrible times than ever are manifestly before us. “ Perilous times ” have come over the world, as was testified of the last days. The picture Paul gives of the condition of Jew and Gentile is still true : " There is none righteous, no not one : There is none that under- standeth, there is none that seeketh after God. . . . Their feet are swift to shed blood : destruction and misery are in their ways : and the way of peace have they not known : There is no fear of God before their eyes ” (Rom. v. 10, 15, 18). Nevertheless, there is a way of peace ” in Christ, in whose hands " the work of righteous­ness shall be peace ; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever ” (Isa. xxxii. 17).

This great work, contemplated and designed of God from the beginning, has bearings individual and national, as appears from the unfolding of the matter by the prophets, and Christ and the apostles. Many Scriptures of the prophets look forward to Christ as Prince of Peace though he be not so named in them. Nahum, contrasting Judah’s end with that of Nineveh, said : " Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows, for the wicked shall no more pass through thee ; he is utterly cut off” (ch. i. 15). And Isaiah (ch. lii. 7), speaking of the same time uses similar language. But long before the still future proclamation of peace in Judah, in the day of the cutting off of the wicked and the announcement to Zion : “ Thy God reigneth” ; there was a bringing of good tidings and a publishing of peace in Judah by him whose “ beautiful feet,” “ shod with the prepara­tion of the gospel of peace,” traversed its mountains in going about doing good in the midst of the evil generation that finally nailed him to the cross. His ministry was : “ the word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ.” So Peter described it to Cornelius (Acts x. 36), reminding him of what he already knew, but concerning the scope and bearing of which he was about to have his under­standing so greatly enlarged.

When the time for the birth of Christ was come, the angels of heaven rejoiced in prospect of the peace he should bring. The song of the heavenly host over the plains of Bethlehem, in its co-ordina­tion of God and man, is beautiful, and never to be forgotten : " Glory to God in the highest; and on £arth peace, good-will toward men ” (Luke ii. 14). This was the relation of things always maintained by Jesus in his ministry afterwards. He proclaimed peace to those who did the will of the Father, and glorified Him in believing on him whom He had sent. These, though few and obscure in the days of his weakness, will be exalted to honour and glory in his coming kingdom. He comforted them with this assur­ance, and in view of his withdrawal from the scene of their testimony and labours concerning him, he further promised them the comfort of the Holy Spirit, which should teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever he had said to them. He said : “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid ” (Jno. xiv.). When he said this, he was going forward to death, in obedience to the Father’s will; but he had before him the assurance of resurrection to everlasting life, and the overlordship of the Father’s house, abiding places in which he had been promising to his disciples. The peace which he promised them involved reconciliation to God, and brief tribulation in the world preparatory to enthronement in the coming kingdom. Paul, who afterwards attained to that peace, and the accompanying tribulation in the world, assessed the latter as unworthy of mention by comparison with the glory at last to be attained. If the end of a matter is certain to be all that can be desired, much can be endured. The end of a life of faith­fulness to Christ is so certain and so good that life itself can be given up for it. Indeed, Christ gave his life for that which was to come, upon the basis of a revelation of God’s righteousness coupled with the extension of His mercy to sin­ners. It is of this that Isaiah said : “ The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

. . . It pleased the Lord to bruise him ; he hath put him to grief.”

The purpose of God required the declaration of His righteousness in the sacrifice of a sinless representative of the human race, of His own providing; that through him, raised from the dead and glorified, believers, recognising their true estate, and God’s gracious purpose in him, might have access to the divine favour in the forgiveness of sins through his name. In this way “ the chastisement of our peace was upon him,” not that God chastised the innocent instead of the guilty, or bruised him to pass over them. This would not be according to the revelation of the divine character, and would leave no room for the forgiveness of sins. It would induce boasting, and render unnecessary our participation in the sufferings of Christ.

Nothing is clearer than that we are forgiven for his sake, and must die with Christ, be buried with him by baptism into death, be crucified with Christ, suffer with him that we may hereafter reign with him. He comes upon the scene as the second Adam. It is Paul who so strongly draws the comparison in the fifth chapter of Romans : “ As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” Peace departed from the earth in connection with Adam’s offence. It returns in connection with Christ’s obedi­ence. The opening of this chapter (Rom. v.) presents this bearing upon those individually who believe in Jesus : “ Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ : by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Here then is the true basis of peace : the humble and affectionate recognition of the will of God in Jesus Christ, in the obedience thereto according to divine appointment. Apart from this, professors may talk of Christ with ever so much admiration, and applaud his title, “ Prince of Peace,” but his name will profit them nothing, and the way of peace they will not know.

There are several allusions to this phase of the “ peace of God ” in the apostolic writings. Paul says to the Ephesians, speaking of their past alienation as Gentiles, and their hopeless state in being without God, which now was remedied in Christ : “ He is our peace who hath made both (circumcision and uncircuincision) one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make of the twain one new man, so making peace ” (Eph. ii. 14-15 ; compare Col. i. 20). The apostles, in their ministration of the gospel of the Kingdom to Jew and Gentile, were heaven’s ambassadors, with conditions of peace (2 Cor. v. 19-20). They ministered the word “ of reconciliation,” showing men and women how the Divine Majesty had made provision for the return of the rebellious to His favour in the raising up of an Holy One who poured out his soul unto death, and rising victoriously from the grave, “ made intercession for the transgressors.”

This same message of peace is sent abroad wherever the apostolic presentation of the Gospel obtains. They applied to them­selves as in Rom. x. 15, the prophecy of Isa. lii. : “ How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things.” Being “ in Christ,” who said of them, " He that heareth you, heareth me,” there was no presumption in so doing. The Spirit of God directed the usage of the prophetic word in harmony with the facts of the case. Although not “ sent ” like them, those who, being of the same faith, preach the same word, become, though less directly, messengers of peace, directing the attention of fellow-mortals to the true way of reconciliation and life eternal. The acceptors of this message individually make peace with God, which involves them in enmity with the world, of which, like their Master, they have to testify that the deeds thereof are evil. They pass through the appointed and inevitable tribulation, and fall asleep in Jesus until the resurrection morning, when he will arouse them to the life and peace of the Kingdom of God.

But when he comes there will not at first be peace by any means. When Joshua appeared with the hosts of Israel in the land of Canaan, there was no peace till the wicked nations who withstood him were destroyed. Or, to go back, when Moses returned from Midian to Egypt, there was no peace till Egypt was destroyed by plagues, and Pharaoh’s power finally broken in the Red Sea. Jesus is the antitype both of Moses and Joshua, and his dealings with the nations through the instrumentality of Israel are to be “ according to the days of their coming out of the land of Egypt ” (Mic. vii. 15). He is the “ heir of all things ” and “ king over all the earth,” a position that “ the Powers ” will be exceedingly loth to recognise.

It does not rest on inference, but is explicitly testified before­hand ; and is no more extraordinary than the history of the past, in which Pharaoh was hardened to resist the Almighty, and the power of the enemy permitted to prevail to the crucifixion of Christ. The second Psalm gives us the picture of a coalition in the last days to resist the divine enthronement of Messiah on Mount Zion ; and it is worthy of note that this psalm is apostolically applied in Acts iv. 25-28, as having had an incipient fulfilment in the crucifixion. Revelation (ch. xix.) represents Christ making war in righteousness upon “ the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies,” a description which, when rightly understood, explains the true nature and intent of the appalling armaments of modern times. It was never designed by God that the world should for­ever be misgoverned by a race of mortal sinners without regard to His will. Human self-government is a usurpation at the start; but it is allowed of God to run its course subject to His control in the development from out of the passing generations of a people for- Himself, in whose hands, under the Prince of Peace, when the time is ripe, He will bless the world with an immortal administration of righteousness and peace. The world cannot know peace apart from this. God “ makes peace and creates evil ” (Isa. xlv.) ; and evil is the rule while He is dishonoured. “ Enmity ” between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman is the divine appointment, and there is enmity between the various sections of the seed of the serpent itself. The lust of dominion is the motive power among the nations, and is by no means concealed from the view of people enlightened by the law and the testimony by the smooth language of diplomacy in which the great men of the earth endeavour to “ conceal their thoughts.”

A notable phenomenon of modern times in this connection was the Peace Conference convened in Holland at the initiative of the

Czar of Russia. Projected first in August 1898, by the Czar’s Rescript, the matter came to fruition in May 1899, when, as all the world knows, the representatives of the Great Powers, and many others, met at the Hague, for the purpose of discussing disarma­ment, the modification of the rules of war to render it less disastrous in its effects, and the establishment of a Permanent Court of Arbitra­tion to which nations could appeal upon the principle so strongly insisted on by a public writer :                                                    “Always arbitrate before you

fight.” The one thing accomplished by the Conference was the agreement upon the Court of Arbitration, leaving open the very vital question of the enforcement of its awards. Disarmament was out of the question, and the modification of the rules of war were not of a radical character.

The Prime Mover in the matter did not appear in his true character when he posed as “ The Harbinger of Peace ! ” Without concerning ourselves with the character and intentions of the present Czar, we may discern from the Scripture the aims and intentions of the Power of which he is the reigning representa­tive. The policy of the “ King of the North,” as defined before­hand by the prophets, and in these latter days in the tradition embodied in the will of Peter the Great, is that of founding a world-empire which shall overshadow all other dominions, and have for its religious capital, the city Jerusalem, which is now the site of so man}? rival religious interests.

In the language of the prophet, the King of the North is “ a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people ” (Hab. ii. 5). It is a well recognised fact that the trend of Russian diplomacy has been continually towards the increase of her territory and influence, and that the Peace Conference is but the latest illustration of it. What is not recognised is that the gathering of nations under the King of the North is not for Peace, but for “ the war of the great day of God Almighty,” that the assembled hosts may be broken upon the mountains of Israel at the presence of Israel’s God (Ezek. xxxviii.).

It is not incongruous that the title “ Prince of Peace ” should be associated with these terrible developments. The connection is explicitly made in the Scriptures ; for Micah, in a portion of his prophecy (ch. v.) which in part has already received literal fulfil­ment in the experiences of Jesus in the days of his weakness, goes on to say : “He shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they (Israel) shall abide : for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. And this man shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land : and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men.”

From this Scripture, as from Isaiah, it is very evident that Christ is Prince of Peace by reason of his procuration of peace through triumph over the latter-day Assyrian in conjunction with certain mighty ones of his “ raising up.” He is the “ Chief Shepherd,” and his companion “ princes ” are some of those who inherit the kingdom at his return. It is impossible to identify them before the time ; but the divinely honoured names of Israel’s worthies of the past will doubtless be represented among them. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and Samuel, David, Noah, Daniel, and Job, are names singled out for special honourable mention in the Scriptures : the Twelve Apostles also in the New Testament. The day will reveal them, whoever they may prove to be ; the point under contemplation now is that lost sight of in Christendom, though so plainly revealed in the prophets, that peace comes by Christ as the result of his overthrow of the oppressor of Israel, and the execution of “ vengeance, in anger and fury upon the heathen such as they have not heard ” (Mic. v. 15).

In the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem, and not in heaven beyond the skies, is Messiah’s peace to be manifested, and those only will enjoy it as inheritors of the kingdom who have faith in what God has promised. The references to the locality of the blessing are many and quite unmistakable. By Haggai, in the restoration period after the Babylonian captivity, God said : “ The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, saith the Lord of Hosts, and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of Hosts ” (Hag. ii. 9). The time referred to, we learn from the apostolic quotation of the passage in Heb. xii., is at the establishment of the “ kingdom that cannot be moved,” when human dominions are swept away, and “ the desire of all nations shall come.”

An exhortation of Psa. cxxii. says, “ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee.” The world’s speculators concerning peace do not concern themselves with the affairs of the brethren and companions of the King of Israel. But the Psalm reveals them to be a ruling factor in the situation, as appears also from many other portions of the word.

Psa. cx., in its application by Paul in Hebrews, shows the Lord Jesus enthroned in Zion as Melchizedek High Priest: first, King of Righteousness ; and then, King of Salem, which is King of Peace. In view of this, mourners for Zion are exhorted to rejoice : “ Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her : rejoice for joy with her all ye that mourn for her : that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations ; that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith the Lord, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream; then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem ” (Isa. lxvi. 10-13).

A more literal description of the blessedness that underlies this description is obtained from the prophet Ezekiel in the temple vision (chaps, xl.-xlviii.) which introduces “ the Prince,” of whom the other prophets have spoken, and reveals him as the mani­festation of the glory of the God of Israel (Christ personal and multitudinous), then enthroned in glory in the city which once rejected and slew him. There are ordinances for his eating bread before the Lord in the East Gate, to which, before his cruci-

fixion, he referred in promise to his disciples : “ Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me:    that ye may eat and drink at my table in my

kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel ” (Luke xxii. 28-30.) These are some of his “ children whom he makes princes in all the earth ” (Psa. xlv.). They are then en­throned with him as “ kings and priests for God ” (Rev. v.) after the order of Melchizedek. He then has fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah which says : “ 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 ; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both ” (Zech. vi. 13).

Here then is the true hope of peace for the world : the advent, in a time of trouble such as never was, of the “ Prince of Peace ” from heaven. He will raise from the dust of death those of all ages who, through faith in his name, either in prospect or retrospect, have attained unto reconciliation and peace with God. Dismissing the wicked to shame and death, he will beautify these with salva­tion, and they will enter upon a reign of life and peace everlasting. With them he will break the yoke of Israel “ as in the day of Midian,” and establish the throne of David “ with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.” From Zion he will demand the surrender of all the Powers of the world to the throne and sceptre of David. Upon refusal he will subjugate them all by con­quest in the “ war of the great day of God Almighty,” in which the slain of the Lord shall be many from one end of the earth to the other. The remnant, with loftiness bowed down and all haughtiness laid low, will be only too glad to submit to the will of God as expressed in the commands of Jesus, and the “ terribly shaken ” earth will pass into the peace of the Millennium so little believed in, so ardently desired, and so hopeless of attainment apart from the strong arm of him who once was crucified through weakness, but whom God has constituted “ Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace.”

Woe to Ephraim.

Assurance of the everlasting continuance of the throne and kingdom of David having been given, and emphasised by the declaration : “ The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this ” ; the word of God returns to further denunciation of Ephraim and his Syrian confederate. Ephraim had been founded in idolatry, and sustained in wickedness by his kings, notwithstanding the expostu­lations of God by the prophets, and in miracles, signs and wonders, as in the terrible vindication of His name over the prophets of Baal by Elijah on Mount Carmel. The time for the subversion of the kingdom drew near ; but first was to come the fall of Syria.

Verse eleven of this ninth chapter says : “ The Lord shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together.” Bible history shows us the fate of the Gentile prince, who with an Ephraimite conspirator and usurper (2 Kings

15. 25), sought to subvert the Kingdom of David, and by the erection of a new dynasty (Isa. vii. 6) annul the covenant that God had made with David. But there is no counsel against the Lord. He said by His servant Isaiah : “ It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass,” and denounced the overthrow of both the hostile powers. With regard to Rezin, “ the word ” appointed the King of Assyria to despoil his capital (Isa. viii. 4); and so it came to pass, for : “ The King of Assyria (Tiglath- Pileser) went up against Damascus and took it, and carried the people thereof captive to Kir, and slew Rezin ” (2 Kings
16. 9).

This, to Ephraim, was an earnest of the judgment that should as certainly come upon them; but, true to the traditions of their evil history, the warning was utterly disregarded. When their turn came, however, at the hand of Shalmaneser in the ninth year of Hoshea, the word had its ample fulfilment. “ The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria ” (v. 9). God’s comment on these and similar fulfilled threats of judgment is given by a later prophet (Zech. i. 6), “ My words and my statutes which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers ? And they returned and said, Like as the Lord of Hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us.” Throughout the entire Scripture there runs this emphasising of the knowledge of God produced by judgment. The plagues of Egypt made Him “ an everlasting name,” mani­festing for all time that there is none like unto the Lord God of Israel. The dispersion and sufferings of Israel testify to the same great truth. The calm declaration of Christ (pronouncing judgment upon Jerusalem) : “ Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away,” finds fulfilment round the world in scores of millions of Bibles. All the facts of history and of the current situation are such as endorse Christ’s saying that men are foolish not to believe “ all that the prophets have spoken.”

The unappeasable wrath of God is the subject of four-fold emphasis in the section of the prophecy under consideration. The form of words four times repeated runs thus (verses 12, 17, 21, chap. x. 4) : “ For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched forth still.” The history of Israel being preserved for our instruction (1 Cor. x.), it becomes an important matter to note the conditions under which national destruction was inevitable. One of these is exhibited in verse 13, thus : “ The people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts.” As the proverb has it: “ He that being often reproved hardeneth his heart, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”

Very elaborate counsel and warning had been given to Israel by Moses concerning the effects respectively of obedience and dis­obedience. The twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus is an eloquent exhortation to the point, and withal a prophecy of the punishment and preservation of Israel, and of the hope in the latter end. “ If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me. And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they accept of the punishment of their iniquity, then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember ; and I will remember the land ” (v. 40). And the words go on to declare that God will not utterly destroy Israel; of the truth of which we are witnesses.

Nineveh, repenting at the preaching of Jonah, is an illus­tration of God’s mercy where respect is shown to His Word ; and it is Christ who uses the case of Nineveh as an argument against those who refused to hearken to the words of the “ greater than Jonah.” Even Ahab, when he humbled himself before God, was spared the witnessing of the evil that God would bring upon his house.

The principle upon which God acts He has clearly revealed through Jeremiah (xviii. 8), “ At what instant I shall speak con­cerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.”

Israel did evil persistently in God’s sight, and the last warnings of the prophets before the final overthrow were now sounding against them. For us the lesson is that divine chastisement must not be despised or resisted. An apostle says : <• Chastening .       .   . yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteous­

ness to them which are exercised thereby.” “ When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world.” But for them that are not “ exercised thereby,” and that “ turn not to Him that smiteth them,” the case is hopeless.

For the fulfilment and inspired comment on the judgment pronounced in this chapter of Isaiah, 2 Kings xvii. may be read. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, was the first “ leader of the people ” that caused them to err, and was a type of all who came after him ; of nearly all of whom it is said they “ departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” Even Jehu, who was anointed to cut off the house of Ahab, and who did it and declared that it was God’s work; and who, moreover, destroyed the worshippers of Baal, nevertheless in the end took the same evil course. So true was the word by the prophet : “ The leaders of this people cause them to err, and they that are led of them are destroyed.” “ Every one is an hypocrite and an evil doer, and every mouth speaketh folly.” They decreed unrighteousness, perverted judg­ment, and robbed the fatherless and the widow.

It was the same state of things that was afterwards so terribly denounced by Christ in Jerusalem in his encounters with the Scribes and Pharisees. The difference between his and the prophetic threatenings is the more direct authority with which he speaks. The prophets say, “ Thus saith the Lord ” ; but Christ speaks in the first person : “ Verily, verily, I say unto you. It is the word of God in both cases—God spoke in times past by the prophets, and in the last days of the Mosaic economy by a Son (Heb. i.), but the voice of the “heir of all things ” is the higher form of divine approach in invitation, instruction, and judgment. The sentence on Ephraim extends to the fourth verse of chapter x., concluding with the picture of a forsaken nation in the extremity of slaughter and captivity: “ Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain."