THE JEWISH RABBI AND HIS SCHOLAR.
By J. Cox
While musing on the subject of “the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” and endeavoring to compare spiritual things with spiritual; thought traveled back to ages past, and the following scene presented itself to the eye of the mind. We realized, while viewing it, some of the wonders of “the sufferings of Christ and of the glory that shall follow,” and were deeply impressed with the fact that God’s words of prophecy have hitherto been literally fulfilled. Toward the close of the Jewish dispensation, in the days when Herod was on the throne of Judea, a Jewish rabbi, in the prime of life, and one of his favorite scholars, were slowly walking over the green slope of Olivet, and gazing with proud delight on the stately city and its noble temple. In the courts of the sanctuary many worshipers were assembled, and among them moved several of the sons of Aaron, clad in priestly vestments; while from the altar of burnt offering the smoke of the evening sacrifices rose slowly toward heaven. “Beloved master,” said the young Jew, “what mean those words of our great prophet Isaiah, ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, God with us,’ and again, ‘He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth’? What is the import of that plaintive song of our royal bard, ‘They pierced my hands and my feet;’ ‘In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink;’ ‘They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, they look and stare upon me’? Of whom does our sublime prophet Zechariah speak, when he bids the daughter of Jerusalem rejoice, because ‘her King cometh, meek and lowly, having salvation, yet riding on an ass’s colt’? These, and many like holy texts, are mixed up with other words which we all believe refer to our long-expected King? But our glorious Messiah will not be a poor, afflicted, and despised man, from whom all hide their faces, and whom none esteem, like him of whom Isaiah speaks. Surely, these prophecies do not describe him!” “They do not,” replied the Rabbi; “our Messiah will be a glorious, conquering Prince, whom God will make very high; who will tread down our foes, and exalt Israel to the highest pitch of worldly greatness. The words of Holy Writ you have cited contain bold figures of speech, and must in nowise be interpreted literally.” “So I have thought, honored master, and yet it seemeth to me singular that we should take one part literally, and another part figuratively; but thus, doubtless, it must be, for the teachings of all our learned rabbis agree in this view.” Two years after this conversation, beams of divine glory illumined the fields where David once fed his father’s flock; an angel’s voice proclaimed that the long-promised Messiah was actually arrived, and a multitude of celestial voices sang the noble anthem, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will toward men.” “Let us go to Bethlehem,” say the listening, awe-struck shepherds, “and see this thing which is come to pass.” Let us go likewise. All Isaiah foretold is true to the letter; a virgin has conceived and borne a son. This is God’s sign in the height and in the depth, and henceforth we should never call anything improbable or impossible which God engages to do. Here is the “new thing in the earth,” and in due time he will “make all things new.” Humanity and deity are united in one wondrous person—and that person is before us as an apparently weak and helpless infant. God has done that which is most contrary to nature, most above reason, most beyond all hope and thought of man, and here is a “sign,” or a pledge, that all his other words of prophecy connected with the incarnate One shall be as literally and minutely fulfilled as this is. Thirty-three years more roll away, and a loud sound of rejoicing is heard on the very spot where the rabbi and his scholar had walked thirty-five years before. A mighty procession is moving over Olivet toward Jerusalem, and in the midst of this great host there is one of majestic mien and benign countenance, seated on an ass. The whole city is moved, saying, “Who is this?” This is Jesus of Nazareth, whom prophets foretold, whom angels worshiped, whom God has anointed. He is come to prove that the Holy Spirit intended that what Zechariah foretold should be understood literally. A few days after this event, another multitude are gathered together in Jerusalem, and again a loud shout is heard. But how different the behavior and words of this vast assemblage. We are bewildered with their number, their murderous rage, and clamor. There seems no end to the procession. “Still onward rolls the living flood,
The heavens are rent with shouts of blood!
And in the murderers’ furious van,
Who totters on? A weary man!
A cross upon his shoulders bound;
His brow, his frame, one gushing wound.”
“He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” “He was a Lamb without spot;” yet, see, “he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,” even as the holy Isaiah predicted. This was no figure, but a fact—the fact, infinite in its nature, and glorious in its results—the principle of literal interpretation is established on Calvary, “Come and see.” There is now silence for a while; the yells are suspended; the innocent Victim has reached Calvary, and all are hushed to see whether He who so often saved others will save himself. No, he will not; he will drink the cup, bitter as it is, to its very dregs. He will travel unfalteringly through “that hour,” full of suffering, desertion, and agony, as he knows it to be. Amid that awful stillness, we hear the dull sounds of a mallet, accompanied with pleading tones of tenderness, “Father, forgive them!” His hands and his feet are pierced; mockers are around him also. Hark! they use the very words which David, a thousand years before, said they would use: “He trusted in God, let him deliver him.” Six weary, wondrous hours pass away—hours fraught with eternal results, teeming with boundless blessings, and then a voice, whose tremulous tones tell of intense agony, is heard, saying, “I thirst.” Vinegar is at hand, and they present it to his parched lips; he receives it, just as the prophet said he would; and now he cries with a loud voice, “It is finished,” bows his head, and gives up the ghost. “It is finished.” Oh, our wondrous, loving, faithful Saviour! Let Heaven and earth take up the glorious words, and tell how completely, how gloriously, how literally, thou hast finished all! Thou hast “obtained eternal redemption for us!” Come hither, thou old rabbi, and you, his scholar (if indeed ye be found among that crowd at Calvary); come hither with your holy book; come and study it under the cross. Say, are not the prophecies concerning an incarnate, lowly, dying Saviour true to the very letter? and will not even ye now say with the centurion, “Truly, this was the Son of God”? Come hither, also, ye Christian rabbis, who in these latter days teach the people that “Israel” means “the Church;” that “the Lord’s coming” means “providential interferences,” or “death,” or “the destruction of Jerusalem;” come hither, and learn, among the other great lessons of the cross, how literally God fulfills prophecy. Be ye sure, however you may interpret Scripture, that God will do as he hath said as regards unfulfilled prophecy. How unlikely did it appear to a proud, reasoning Jew, that the words of David, Isaiah, and Zechariah, would be literally fulfilled; there were plenty of human impossibilities in the way according to man’s opinion, but there were none with God. Do we well, then, with these facts to instruct us, and with the fearful example of the reasoning Jews to warn us—do we well to stagger at those “true sayings of God” which relate to the coming glory of Messiah, because of their apparent improbability? If God has said it, he will see to it. He is a God doing wonders as well as speaking them. But we must not suppose that all who lived before the first advent of Christ allegorized the prediction, relating to his birth, character, and sufferings. These wondrous words, though but partially understood, were studied, no doubt, with deep interest by some; and we may conclude that salvation through the vicarious sacrifice of Him whom all types prefigured, was a fact present to the faith of many “who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” There were difficulties around this fact which they could not clearly see through; the events foretold they could not group in their true order; and objections might be raised by any captious mind which the wisest believers were unable to meet; but still believed, searched, waited, and at length He came, whose birth, life, death, and resurrection, threw a flood of light upon these then obscure prophecies, and we now see how very literal they all were. We take the key of the evangelist, and to our great joy find that it exactly fits the most complicated wards of the prophetic lock; we turn that key, enter the temple of truth, and find “Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write.” Thus it will be in the future. When the Lord shall come again in his glory, many prophecies which now appear to us confused, and of which we only see (and that dimly) a general outline, and which many Christian teachers assert must be interpreted figuratively, will all appear as plain, and prove to be as literal, as those which were fulfilled at Bethlehem and Calvary. If we, then, as did the ancient Christians, “continue to wait for the Son of God from Heaven,” we shall not be ashamed. In the New Testament, the second coming of Christ is mentioned about sixty times, and the day of the Lord about forty times. A good man recently observed at a public meeting, that he had calculated that for fifty-seven times the atonement was mentioned, the second advent was named sixty-seven times, and then asked, “Did the second advent receive the same place in our thoughts which it had in the New Testament?” How can this be, if Christians believe what some so positively assert, that it is a very far-off event—more than 1000, or as some say, 365,000 years distant? Before any Christian adopts the opinion of fallible men on this most important subject, we entreat him to search God’s word for himself, and that with earnest prayer for divine teaching; for a subject so largely and frequently dwelt upon in God’s word is evidently not a light matter in God’s estimation. The second coming of the Lord Jesus is the center of unfulfilled prophecy, even as his first coming was the center of all that was then accomplished. We firmly believe that to interpret prophecy without including His personal coming is to derange God’s order, and throw all into confusion. We ask especial attention to the fact that the principle of interpretation adopted by those who expect the Lord to come in person and set up a visible, universal kingdom, is the very same as that which God himself has furnished in his past fulfillment of prophecy. They expect unfulfilled predictions to be accomplished in God’s time, just as literally as those which God has already fulfilled; making the same allowance for figure and symbol in their interpretations, as God hath already done in his fulfillings. What can be more scriptural or reasonable than this principle? Christianity itself is based on the literal fulfillment of prophecy. Luther has well said, “Let the Christian reader first seek to find out the literal meaning of the word of God; for this, and this alone, is the whole foundation of Christian faith and theology.” The figurative mode of interpretation, now so generally applied to the prophecies, may be traced to the “schoolmen” and later “fathers,” among whom Origen stands chief. “Origen” (who held many very dangerous errors) “laid down,” says Professor Porter, of America, “the broad principle that the Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them as they are written.” Surely, this is the very principle which the opponents of Pre-Millennialism now adopt with reference to unfulfilled prophecies. The substance of what they say is, You must in nowise understand the Jewish prophets to mean what they in such plain words affirm in so many places. . . . Reader, look at some specimens of this method of dealing with Scripture, and say, Will such things bear the light of the day that is coming to try every man’s work? The Lord Jesus thus predicts his personal coming: “They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (Matt. 24:30.) This, we are told, is a figurative description of Titus and the Roman armies coming to destroy Jerusalem. His warning words respecting his advent are, “Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” (Matt. 24:13.) These solemn words are commonly applied to death. In describing the overwhelming judgments that are coming on his enemies, the Redeemer says, “Their blood shall be sprinkled on my garments, and I will stain all my raiment, for the day of vengeance is in my heart.” (Isa. 63:1–3.) This passage is generally interpreted as a figurative description of the sufferings of Christ in Gethsemane. God’s own interpretation is found in Rev. 19:19–21. Again, Rev. 20:4–6, ends with these plain words, “This is the first resurrection.” But this divine declaration is unceremoniously pushed aside, and this explanation is asserted to mean that “the principles of the martyrs will be revived.” But how can “principles of the martyrs” be revived in a state of victory and holiness, at a time, too, when persecution and temptation from Satan will not exist? The youngest Christian, one would think, would be able to detect and refute such learned perversions, yet “many such like things learned men do.” To those who are just beginning to study the subject, we would say, Let it be well borne in mind that the main point to be first examined (for it is the great difference between Pre-Millennialists and Post-Millennialists) is, will the personal coming of Christ precede his glorious universal kingdom on earth, or will it be deferred till afterward? Many texts which in plain words declare the former, are found in God’s word; but where are the texts, where is there a single passage, which asserts the latter, or even fairly implies it?186 Believers in the Pre-Millennial doctrine are not to be scared from it by any human reasoning, nor even by the ridicule sometimes heaped upon them in consequence of the hastiness or mistakes of its advocates. Their firm conviction is, that the doctrine of the Lord’s coming in person to set up his universal kingdom pervades God’s word from beginning to end, even as do the deity and atonement of Christ. Therefore, charges of absurdities, improbabilities, and impossibilities, weigh no more with them than the ravings of the skeptic or the reasonings of the neologian weigh with orthodox believers, when the historical parts of God’s word, or the foundations of Christianity, are assailed. Yet it seems very strange to believers in the literal fulfillment of prophecy that their brethren should receive, without hesitation, as facts, what Moses the historian has written in Genesis and Exodus, and then treat the unfulfilled prophecies of Isaiah, Daniel, and John, as figurative. Yet Christians do this whose salvation and hopes grow out of the literal fulfillment of prophecy. The judicious Hooker has well observed, “I hold it for a most infallible rule in the exposition of sacred Scripture, that where a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. There is nothing more dangerous and delusive than that art which changeth the meaning of words, as alchemy doth, or would do, the substance of metals, making of anything what it listeth, and bringing in the end all truth to nothing.”—Rev. J. Cox, England.