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The Christ of the Prophets

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 8, 1906

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 83, No. 45.

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The Christ of the Prophets

GENUINE Christianity is a personality. Men may devise systems of morals, more or less feeble imitations of the Biblical code, but there has been only one incarnation. Paganism may have its priests, but there is only one priest who has been made “after the power of an endless life.” Many creations of the human mind may be venerated as deities, and there may be a plenty of so-called mediators, but Christianity knows only one true God, and his Son as the only mediator. “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth; as there are gods many, and lords many; yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” “There is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus.”
As there is the one God and the one way of salvation in contrast with the many, so there is the true Christ in contrast with false Christs. Jesus himself said, “Many shall come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and, ‘There shall arise false Christs.’”How, then, shall we distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit, the true and the false?
An assuring and satisfying answer to this question may be found by considering it in the light of some experiences at the time of the first advent of our Lord. There was nothing in the mere outward form or appearance of Jesus of Nazareth which would indicate to the unspiritual observer that he was the incarnate Son of God. His neighbors therefore said, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him.” Again we read: “The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, I am the bread which came down out of heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how doth he now say, I am come down out of heaven?” To what was the appeal made in order to satisfy the people of that time and of all time that this Jesus of Nazareth was God manifest in the flesh? It was to the fulfilment of prophecy. The true Christ must be the Christ of the prophets. The Word made flesh must be the embodiment of the written Word. “He who understands not the election of Abram, the exodus of Israel, the Angel of Jehovah, the types of the tabernacle, the high priest, and the sacrifices, the meaning of the shepherd-king, the son of Jesse, and of the sure mercies of David, must find insuperable difficulties in the life of Christ. All attempts to understand Jesus Christ, separate from the Old Testament, are most unphilosophical, and can tend to no satisfactory result. For Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of Moses and the prophets.”
It will be helpful to notice how completely the evidence of the Messiahship of Jesus was based upon the fulfilment of definite prophecies. The time of the advent was announced through the prophet Daniel: “Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks.” And when Jesus began to preach after his baptism, he declared, “The time is fulfilled.”
After setting forth the circumstances of Jesus’ birth the gospel writer says: “Now all this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God with us.” Thus were the specifications of Isaiah’s prophecy fully met.
The place of the birth of the true Christ was foretold by a prophet. When, therefore, Herod inquired of the chief priests and scribes “where the Christ should be born,” they replied: “In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written through the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, land of Judah, art in no wise least among the princes of Judah: for out of thee shall come forth a governor, who shall be shepherd of my people Israel.” And even the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, that terrible effort to cut off the dreaded king of the Jews, was written in prophecy. “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachael weeping for her children; and she would not be comforted, because they are not.” Furthermore, the flight into Egypt and the place of his residence after his return was a part of the biography of Jesus which was recorded by the prophets: “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt did I call my son.” And he “dwelt in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene.”
And so, after his crucifixion and resurrection, when he walked with the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, he did not assert on his own authority that he was the very one “who should redeem Israel,” but he appealed to the prophets as the witnesses to his experience, and said: “O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
From these quotations and others which might be made it is perfectly clear that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ of the prophets. Those who did not fulfil the prophetic declarations were false Messiahs.
We may apply these same principles in seeking a test for the true Christ of the present generation—the Christ who is to come with power and great glory. The prophecies concerning the second advent are to be fulfilled just as completely as were those concerning the first advent. And inasmuch as the prophecies indicate plainly that this is the generation in which the Son of God is to return to this earth to reap the fruit of his sacrifice and his priestly ministration, the true Christ will now be proclaimed as the coming Saviour. The conclusion which follows from this statement is startling, but true: it will soon be a fact that any preaching of Christ which does not emphasize his coming in the clouds of heaven as an impending event will be the proclamation of a false Christ who is not the Christ of the prophets.
During the last quarter of a century the higher critics have made havoc with the Christ of the Scriptures. They have denied the virgin birth; they have repudiated the claim that he was the Son of God in any unique sense; they have rejected the teaching of the apostles concerning his death and resurrection; they discredit the account of his appearances among his disciples after the resurrection and of his ascension; they refuse to believe in the efficacy of the atoning sacrifice; and, with all the rest, they of course do not accept the plain teachings of prophets and apostles concerning our Lord’s second advent. What conclusion must we draw? Is it not clear that those who have set aside the Christ of the prophets, and are proclaiming a Christ who is the product of a merely human philosophy, have betrayed their Lord, and are the heralds of a false Christ? Listen to the teaching of one of these modern interpreters of a new theology, and judge:—
Popular presentations of the remission of sins by faith in the finished work of Jesus are untrue, unethical, and contradicted by the facts of every-day life. In proportion as a selfish man becomes loving, the life of God enters into and possesses his soul. . . . What popular theology says of the person of Jesus is true of the ideal humanity which is ever in the heart of the Father. The uniqueness of Jesus consists in the fact that in him the life of God was manifested for the world to see. That is the life which we are called to live as truly as he was. Faith in him is faith in God, faith in love, faith in the ideal within ourselves, and faith in the great atonement of the race with God.
In plain terms, this means that Jesus was an example for us, but not a power within us, and that we are to attain unto our salvation from sin, which is defined to be “offense against the God within,” through faith in ourselves, rather than through faith in the work of Jesus. Such teaching as this is a travesty on revelation, a complete rejection of the Christ of the prophets, and puts man in the place of God.
The gospel message for to-day should exalt the Christ of the Scriptures as the coming Saviour, and should proclaim righteousness by faith as the only way of salvation. Any other message denies the Christ of the prophets.