It is related of Frederick the Great, the friend of Voltaire, that he once asked his chaplain in one word to defend his Christianity. He replied “The Jews, sire!” The scoffing monarch answered not a word.
A famous infidel confessed the only weak point in his infidelity was the past history and present position of the Jews. That was an enigma past his solving, apart from God’s word, tax his intellect as he might.
The history of the Jews is one of God’s great object-lessons to the world.
Mighty empires have risen and decayed; languages have been born and have died. The present appears not always to have been a continuation of the past. Rather the past is like a different world; its records read like a dream. Yet this nation still exists; its language shows no decay. Scattered all over the world—persecuted, oppressed, deprived of citizen-rights—they still exist as vigorous as ever. Their cradle is never empty; their energy is never damped; their features are always recognised, spite of their wanderings and persecutions. Scattered all over the earth, yet never mingling with the nations, they truly are “the separated nation.” The prophecies of Scripture are fulfilled to the very letter. Their history lies open in the hand of God. Apart from Him it is past imagination.
Were I addressing myself to Jewish readers who had not received Jesus as the promised One, I would say to them, Suffer me to draw your attention to two or three points.
WHAT DO THE TYPES FORESHADOW?
What meant the clothing of Adam and Eve in coats of skin, to obtain which the first sacrifice of life was made? What meant the whole economy of your religion in regard to sin—the ceaseless shedding of blood. The burnt-offerings, the sin-offerings, the trespass-offerings, the peace-offerings? What meant the setting aside of one of your tribes to perform the priestly and Levitical offices? What meant the erection of the temple—the most costly and glorious edifice of its time—in all the greatness of its architecture and minuteness of its detail to be gathering centre of Israel’s tribes, the place of the national feasts and solemnites; in short, the very dwelling-place of Him who inhabitest eternity?
Generations may come and go, yet the divine necessity of the continuance of the types and shadows existed; for their great living Antitype had not appeared to chase away the gloom.
If the shadows and types were so costly, so unceasing, so minute, so various, who must be the great, glorious Antitype, who shall satisfy in His person demands so exacting and many-sided? Who must the great Substance be to fulfil shadows such as these?
Most evidently it lies on the surface, that just as God led His ancient people from under the bitter bondage of a Pharaoh across the Red Sea under the shelter of the blood of the slain lamb, so will He redeem His people, and place them under the rule of a greater than Moses on the ground of redemption. “The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like to me; to Him ye shall hearken,” said Moses.
Throughout the whole warp and woof of the Jewish economy we plainly see the necessity of a great, a divine sin-bearer, who shall in one sacrifice of Himself avail what the countless sacrifices and types could not avail; that is, to satisfy God about the whole question of sin.
“For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? … But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:1-2, 12).
They foretell when the Messiah was to appear, if we rightly interpret the scripture, “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem to the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times” (Dan. 9:25).
This cannot refer to a literal sixty-nine weeks. No one appeared then with the claims of the Messiah. But allow a year to elapse for each day; that is, 483 years from the commandment for the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Forty-nine years (or seven weeks) are allowed by the prophet between the decree to rebuild going forth and the completing of the wall. Troublous times they were in Nehemiah’s day, as prophesied. For this plan of allowing a year for a day we have a precedent in Scripture. (See Numbers 14:34.)
Moreover, in Daniel 9 we are informed the Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself. When the Messiah comes He dies a violent death. Again, read carefully that most beautiful chapter in the Old Testament—Isaiah 53. It is an integral part of the prophecy. Pay attention to its weighty words. Who is the Person who is to bear your griefs and carry your sorrows; whom yet you esteem stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted? Here is a Person who is to be cut off, but not for Himself, as Daniel also foretells. “He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His generation? for He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was He stricken.”
Can we not gather from these two prophecies the time and manner of the Messiah’s appearance?
WHAT GREAT SIN HAS BEEN COMMITTED?
The God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. Who can fail to be touched with the unceasing, faithful care He took of His people, as recorded in the Jewish Scriptures? Spite of idolatry and infidelity, He is unchanged in His heart. Still the sin receives its due reward in governmental dealing with the nation. Time after time He allowed your nation to pass under the yoke of neighbouring and foreign powers, till at length His face was again sought. Time after time He raised deliverers, and Himself joined in Israel’s battles, and discomfited the foe.
But the saddest lesson of all is that of the seventy years’ captivity in Babylon. The harps were hung upon the willows by the river side. And not till a new generation had sprung up did God again move the hearts of the proudest conquerors of the day to restore His ancient people to their lands, to rebuild the temple, to restore once more the walls of His ancient Jerusalem. These teach us the lessons of God’s ways with His people.
But now, let me ask with tenderness, if your people were thus visited in past days, if for a great sin they passed into captivity for seventy long, weary years, what awful sin can have been committed these well-nigh nineteen hundred years? Your nation has waded through persecutions and sorrows since then. The infidel Turk has reared his mosque where once stood the temple of God. The European nations have shed rivers of blood, and spent millions of money for its possession. Some sin must have been committed to which past ones—great as they may be—sink into insignificance. What is seventy years compared to nineteen centuries? We must, therefore, look back to about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. What event occurred then to account for this punishment? The heart of God is unchanged, He has not forgotten to be gracious.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Let us seek to draw the conclusions from the foregoing rapid remarks. On such a subject as this volumes might be written. It is profoundly interesting. Connected with it are all God’s purposes of blessing to man.
(1) We saw plainly the whole economy of the Jewish worship pointed on to a glorious antitype.
Did not John the Baptist point his disciples to One whom he called the LAMB OF GOD? (2) Does not the time when He did so answer to Daniel’s sixty-nine weeks? (3) And is it not since He was crucified, and Stephen was sent after Him, taking your message, “We will not have this man to reign over us,” that your wanderings and exile began and have continued till now? Time pointed on, and time points back to His death.
Then allow one, who owes all to a Jew, to Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, the Son of God, to beseech you without prejudice to consider whether you have rejected your rightful Messiah.
The Jews will yet be in the vanguard of the world’s nations—the centre of all interest. Their ruler will yet be the rejected Nazarene. He once, according to the prophet Isaiah, shone upon Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. Then He will rule from pole to pole, dispensing millennial blessings and righteousness, His ancient people being His dwelling-place. He yet will be the Sun of righteousness arising with healing in His wings.
But during the time of His rejection the grace of our God has caused the fall of the Jew to be the cause of wondrous, undeserved blessing to the Gentile. The Nazarene sits enthroned in many a heart. He is worshipped as the Son of God, the sinner’s Saviour. “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner” (Ps. 108:22). Jesus is the corner stone of Christianity.
And now, my friends, do you not need the Antitype of the sacrifices for sin of old to wash away your sins, and make you fit for the presence of God? You yearn for your Messiah. Do you not also need in Him a Saviour? And here is One—who fulfils your Scriptures to the letter—born in Bethlehem, of the seed of David, cut off in the midst of His days.
Paul—once Saul of Tarsus—writes of your nation, “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” The day of glory will be by-and-by, the Messiah will reign over His people and the world.
But, oh! now think of Him as the great Fulfiller of God’s counsels. Sin must be put away, the sinner, whether Jew or Gentile, must be cleansed by blood more precious than that of bulls and of goats. Now look to Jesus, trust in Him, and hear Him say, “Look to Me, and be ye saved” (Isa. 45:22). Then, looking in simple faith, you will know God’s salvation. “The blood of Jesus Christ His [God’s] Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). “To Him [Jesus] give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believes in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43). Look up to heaven, and see at God’s right hand Jesus, the exalted Saviour. By-and-by He will descend from heaven, and champion His people’s cause.
But may yours be the joy of being His in the hour of His rejection. Then will the joy of being associated with Him in the day of His glory and pomp and kingdom be yours. He is enough to fill the heart. Precious Jesus—the chaser away of the shadows, the fulfiller of the types and prophecies, the Saviour of His people.