Revised notes of an address to young believers on 1 Peter 1:10-12; Luke 24:25-27 and 44
The Old Testament writers prophesied mainly about two things—the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. We learn from 1 Peter 1:10-12 that the prophets did not understand what they wrote about, and they actually examined their own writings to understand what they wrote. Yet they penned the most wonderful prophecies the world has ever known, many of them already fulfilled. This is a great proof of inspiration.
There are many prophecies in the Old Testament, some of which have been fulfilled absolutely, and the prophecy closed. But the main prophecy of the Bible is concerning Christ. It is presented in three ways: first in the prophecy of type; second in that of illustration; and third in that of foretelling. Prophecy does not always mean foretelling. It either means forth-telling or foretelling; but I am speaking now of the prophecies in the Old Testament, which spoke of things that were then future.
The prophecy of type is deeply instructive and helpful. To an unconverted person nothing seems more dreary and uninteresting than the types of the Pentateuch—and yet when we hold the key—Christ—the study of these books is most delightful and helpful.
We might liken the full shining of the truth in Christ to pure light, and the types to the breaking up of light into its prismatic colours. We get the truths of the person and death of Christ presented in one aspect from one type, and in another aspect from another type, until at length, as all these thoughts are brought together in our souls, we get some idea of the greatness of Christ, and His work.
Another thing. In the verses we read in Luke’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus is seen “expounding in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself,” and He speaks about the three sections into which the Old Testament is divided: the law, the prophets, and the psalms, saying, in John 5:39, “They are they which testify of Me.”
Then there is the prophecy of illustration or history. In this I am not guessing at things that are not absolutely revealed to us. There are certain things in this connection that Scripture puts beyond the limit of doubt at all. For instance, take Adam—Romans 5:14 tells us he was “the figure of Him that was to come,” a figure of Christ. Take Eve—Ephesians 5 shows us that the marriage relationship, begun in Adam and Eve, is a figure of Christ and the church. Take the great scene of the passover—We are left in no doubt as to what it typifies, for the Apostle Paul testifies that “Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us.”
On the other hand, there are many types; take, for instance, the history of Joseph, where our spiritual judgment must be brought into exercise as to what did or did not typify our Lord, and a large part of Scripture is so presented. The Bible is a book of principles. The use of it is not to convince the infidel, for the simple reason that the infidel has not got the capacity to understand spiritual arguments, or anything that is spiritual (1 Cor. 2:14). Nevertheless, the Word is that by which his darkness may be enlightened and his soul reached, but that is altogether a different matter to convincing his intellect.
Then there is the prophecy of foretelling. Christ, I say reverently, is the great outstanding Miracle of the Bible, and I want to gather up a few of the great thoughts in the Old Testament to Christ, and you will see them fulfilled in the New as to His person, and as to His sufferings, and if so much has been fulfilled, it is, for the believer, positive proof that that which still remains to be fulfilled, that is to say, His coming to rule over this earth and His glory—“the glory that should follow”—will surely come to pass.
Somebody has put it like this. There are over three hundred prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Christ, His Godhead, His manhood, His birth, His life, His death, the object of His death, the consequences of His death, and, by and by, His manifestation in glory when He reigns. These three hundred and more prophecies are like rays of light, and these rays of light are not all of the same length. Some are longer than others. Some come from as far back as Moses. Others come from a shorter distance, like Micah. Others come from Isaiah; and these rays of light, shot along the centuries, concentrate upon the Babe in Bethlehem’s manger. And then, as His wonderful life unfolds, these rays shine upon the path that He treads. He was the perfect answer to those prophecies, they spoke of Him, and He illuminated them, for they could not be rightly understood until He came. The brightest rays of all foretold the cross of Calvary. All those rays of light focus there. Christ is the Antitype of those types. The Antitype is before the types, as the types are formed upon the Antitype. The Antitype is after the types, as the fulfilment of them. The Antitype is before the types—He is the Alpha; and after the types—He is the Omega. May we have in our souls an adoring sense of who the Son of God is.
Now before we read two verses in the Old Testament, let us consider a very important sentence in Scripture. “All things are delivered to Me of My Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27). It is stated that the Son reveals the Father, but it is also stated positively that no one knows the Son but the Father. What does that mean? Does it mean that we do not know Christ as our Saviour and Lord (I am speaking to believers)? Certainly not. But we do well to accept absolutely the limitation that we shall never know the mystery of His person. To neglect this is to court disaster. To remember it will make us most careful not to go a hair’s breadth beyond the statements of Scripture in regard to this profound and holy subject of the person of Christ. Scripture testifies to us that He is God. Scripture testifies to us that He is man. Very God and very man in one Person, but as for understanding the mystery of it, we never shall, and I adore God that there are these mysteries beyond my finite grasp, for it proves that I have to do with the infinite. A quondam infidel, speaking of these things, said, “They are darkness to my intellect; but they are sunshine to my heart.” That is a very great thing.
Now I will turn you to two verses in Isaiah. I may say that the prophecy of Isaiah presents the subject we have before us very fully. He is sometimes called the “evangelical prophet,” because what he gives to us is so full in connection with Christ that it is good news indeed. He is sometimes called the “royal prophet,” because he presents this truth in such a marvellous and majestic manner.
Now look at chapter 7:10-14:
“Moreover, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. And he said, Hear ye now, O House of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary man, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”
Now notice that in the first Scripture I read this evening the Holy Spirit is characterized as the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ which was in them [the prophets] … testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” We find the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Christ—if we may so say, burdened with what is going to come forth in due time hundreds of years before it does come forth. For instance, take that matchless Psalm 22. A thousand years before the bitter cry of abandonment was wrung from the lips of Christ upon the cross, David, not understanding the fulness of the words that He wrote, penned these words: ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
Now here again in Isaiah, seven centuries before Christ came, the prophecy of His coming is given. Prophecy is that which utterly shipwrecks a false prophet, and absolutely confirms a true prophet and the more extended the prophecies are the more will that rule hold good. A man might prophesy of one item, and by a lucky chance—a fluke—it might come true, but if he puts two items together, the chances are much more remote that they will come true. If be puts three, four, five, six, or if he puts a dozen together, unless he is inspired in his prophecy, there is not one chance in a million that He will be right. But the Scriptures prophesy not once nor twice, nor a dozen times, but, as we have been saying, over three hundred times, as to the person of Christ, His birth, His life, His death, the results of His work, His glory; and all these things have come true with the exception of the glory to come, which is yet future. How truly they are God’s Word!
Now the Lord said to Ahaz, “Ask a sign of the Lord thy God, ask it either in the depth or in the height above,” and Ahaz would not do it. But the Lord says, I will give you a sign. And the sign is this: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” Now there is the sign in the height and in the depth. We can conceive of no greater height than God. Jesus was “God manifest in the flesh.” We can conceive of no greater depth, in a way, than Immanuel (God with us) for the purposes for which He came into this world—even His shameful death on the tree. God’s throne is in the height; Christ’s cross is in the depth. It was a sign in the height above and in the depth below.
Now in this verse we have got two things. The virgin birth is greatly derided today. If you do not believe in the virgin birth of Christ, you do not believe the Scriptures. If you do not believe in the Scriptures you have no right to call yourself a Christian at all. The virgin birth marks out the Lord as absolutely unique, as to His humanity, though in the wonderful stoop of His grace He became a real man—spirit, soul, and body—sin apart. He stood alone as a man here, conceived of the Virgin by the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost.
You may go to the mighty Himalayan range of mountains, and you may say there is one mountain, Everest, which towers above them all. And men would put the Lord in that place—greater than all others but of the same kind. He is greater undoubtedly, but that is not the whole truth; He does not belong to that range at all, He stands absolutely of another order. He is unique, and the Spirit of God marks Him out as such.
The devil’s aim is to wipe out the distinction that marks Christ off from every other man. He is very subtle. He wants to put Christ in the same class with Buddha and Mahomet and Confucius. He wants you to believe that He is a teacher amongst teachers. He will admit, perhaps, that He is the chief teacher; but, as has been truly said, the Lord Jesus Christ will not take the first place. He will take ALL the place, or none at all, and the Lord Jesus Christ stands absolutely by Himself in this as in many other respects. He was born of a virgin.
Then it says, “His name shall be called Immanuel,” that is, “GOD with us.” Now there are a great many evil religions in the world. They have been called “crank religions” but crank religions is too good a name for them. They are devilish religions, and the energy of Satan is behind them. Some few years ago, it was sufficient to ask, “Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” If the answer was, “Yes,” you knew there was soundness as to the person of Christ. In the Scriptural presentation of the word Son as applied to Christ, it ought to be sufficient, for the Jews always recognized that for Jesus to make Himself the Son of God was to make Himself equal with God; but it is not sufficient nowadays. The Millennial Dawnist, the Seventh Day Adventist, the Theosophist, the Christian Scientist will tell you they believe that Jesus is the Son of God. They use the right words, but the meaning which they attach to them is blasphemy. What they say, in effect, is this, “Yes, Jesus was the Son of God, so was Shakespeare, so is that man that reels drunk out of the public-house.”
The short and sharp question you must ask is this, and require a plain “Yes” or “No”: “Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is GOD, THE SON?” That is a true test.
Let us look at one more verse:
“Unto us a Child is born, to 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 justice henceforth, even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this” (Isa. 9:6-7).
Now it is very interesting to see in Scripture how the name of Christ gradually comes out. You will remember when the man wrestled with Jacob at the brook Jabbok, Jacob said, “Tell me, I pray thee, Thy name. And He said: Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after My name? and He blessed him there.” He would not tell His name. No doubt the mysterious wrestler was Christ—Jehovah—and whilst He would not tell His name, because even in those early days the system of Judaism in its types, let alone Christianity in its fulfilment of types, was not instituted, yet He blessed Jacob. A little later on, you remember, when the angel prophesied the birth of Samson to Manoah and his wife, Manoah said to the angel, “What is Thy name?” The angel replied, “Why asks thou thus after My name, seeing it is secret”; or, as the margin of our Bible reads, “seeing it is wonderful.” The truth comes out more fully than in Genesis. “Wonderful” is just the word for Christ. “No man knows the Son but the Father.”
Further down the stream of time, in Isaiah 9:6, we get a much richer unfolding. “Unto us a Child is born; to us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder.” What strength there is in Him!
Let me turn aside for a moment, and give a word of comfort here. The government of the universe is upon His shoulder, but when it speaks of the good Shepherd finding His sheep, it says when He found the sheep He put it upon His shoulders—BOTH of them. Then why have doubts and fears as to whether you can be kept or not? “The government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father”; and then, with a sweep from the majesty of His Person, by implication it brings before us all His wonderful work upon the cross—“the Prince of Peace.” In the next verse it opens out the coming glory which shall be His when He reigns over the earth.
Time fails to say more. But enough has been shown of Christ in prophecy and Christ in fulfilment to make us say adoringly from the depths of our ransomed souls: “My Lord and My God.”
“’Tis eternal life to know Him,
Oh how He loves.”